Stellarnet Rebel (3 page)

“Fascinating. What about
swim
?”

She was about to tell him how to find the thesaurus app on the Asternet, when they were interrupted.

“Oh, my God, Abby, scope the alien!” A woman stopped and pointed at Duin. She was dressed as if she’d scrounged clothes from at least five different recycling bins in five different time periods

“What is that?” asked Abby. “Is it a sim?”

Duin nodded to them in greeting. “My name is Duin.”

“It talks. No. Way.”

“I want those clothes. Those are fresh, aren’t they, Li-Mei?”

“Totally fresh,” said Li-Mei.

“What are they made of?” Abby asked Duin.

“The skin of a
wallump
.”

“Skin? Like
real
skin? Like leather? Are you
rich?
”

“Rich in sorrows,” he said in a way that made Genny feel terrible.

Abby poked her finger at Duin and Genny grabbed the woman by the arm. “He’s a living being, not a simulation.”

“Wh’ever! It’s prolly got cooties.”

“Cooties?” said Duin.

“Disease, sickness, contagion,” Genny said.

“Ew.” Li-Mei took a step back and covered her mouth. “We’re going to catch Kerala Flu.”

“I have medical clearance from Dr. Geber,” Duin said, but the women turned and hurried away.

“Sorry about that,” said Genny.

“I am not offended by your bold declaration of my existence. Thank you.”

“I mean, I’m sorry how people—my people—treat you.”

Duin shrugged and continued walking. “I am a pebble thrown into their pool.” He made a wavy motion with his webbed hand. “I cause ripples. What is Kerala Flu?”

“An outbreak of violent illness a few years ago,” said Genny. “Thousands of people died. It was right after a group of researchers returned from studying Glin, so people went full yeti and started blaming aliens and saying we were doomed. It had nothing to do with your people or your planet, but the fear persists.”

They passed a figure huddled between the wall and a compost chute, and Genny couldn’t help staring. It was a woman, an
old
woman, with a creased face and gray hair like her Nana. Nana never had a regeneration or a gen-mod but still managed to live into her nineties. With one filthy hand, the old woman gripped a sheet of plastic around herself like a cloak.

“She sleeps here,” said Duin. “I’ve offered to let her live in my compartment, but she won’t speak to me, not even to refuse. She is an Elder of the colony, and deserves better than this.”

“Yes.” Genny reached into her bag, pulled out her remaining two bananas and handed them to the woman.

The dark brown eyes that gazed up at Genny were bloodshot and the woman’s voice was weary. “Are you sure? They’re not gone bad, yet.”

“Please take them,” said Genny.

The woman glanced around, cast a suspicious glance at Duin, then snatched them and slipped them under the plastic sheet. Genny added a note to her queue, reminding herself to come back and talk to the woman when Duin wasn’t there.

As they walked on, he said, “Food is very difficult to find here. Why did you share yours with her?”

“She was hungry.”

“There are many hungry individuals here.” Duin moved his hand as if he was conducting a headcount. “Can you feed all of them?”

“I can feed that one,” she said. “That’s sort of why I’m here. Not to feed people, I mean, to report the truth about this place.”

“And what truth will you tell?”

“Rich and powerful individuals, governments and corporations are funding—or forcing—undesirable people to leave Earth. Not that I think they’re undesirable, but if they’re poor or don’t have jobs or gen-mods, some people don’t want them on Earth. It’s like racial cleansing all over again, but with the entire human race. The colony is small, now, but it will get larger. Just like Mars or the mining colonies around the Solar System.”

Duin didn’t reply but gazed at her with a strange expression. Genny had no idea if Glin used the same facial expressions as humans, but so far it seemed that Duin did. He did to the extreme, his face in vigorous articulation of every emotion. So, if she had to guess, she would say he gazed at her with a combination of amazement and admiration, much deeper than perhaps she deserved.

“She also reminded me of my grandmother,” Genny said. “Nana died last year.”

“It is painful to be separated from those we love.”

“Yes.”

After a moment of somber silence, Duin’s mood changed again. “I eat human food.” He smiled.

“Have you tried bananas?”

“Yes. Dr. Geber insists on plying me with every kind of consumable in the colony, and then studying my reaction to it. I don’t mind—though some things taste better than others—because his interest in my biology is one reason I’m allowed to remain here.”

Genny pulled up the directory on her bracer.
DR. SHAFIN GEBER
was not available, but she tagged his name to contact him later.

“And why are you on Asteria?”

“To secure aid for my people. I stand in the center every day, speaking to whomever will listen. And, perhaps, one day, it will be the right whomever.”

She knew, from reading a few of those Stellarnet articles in her queue, that neither Glin nor Tikat had anything like the space shifting technology. The Glin didn’t have machines, at all. Heck, they didn’t even have the wheel. Yet, somehow, Duin was here. “Why aren’t you on Earth?”

“Your United Nations Security Council will not allow it. I can’t blame them. I wish that Glin could have done the same, when the Tikati invited themselves to visit
us
.”

“So, you just stand here talking to the colonists?”

“I have sent 2,163 requests, each to a different head of a different bureau of a different office—” he swirled his hand in circles for emphasis, “—throughout the various levels of your government, and to various organizations on Earth. But nothing has ever come of it. This is as close as I can get to humanity, and only after going through several physical exams, and giving of blood samples, and typing in webforms, and obtaining science clearances and…” He stopped swirling his hands and sighed. “And so from here I must make my case.”

“You should put yourself on the Stellarnet.”

“I don’t know how. I can access the Asternet from my compartment, but I am not very skilled in its use. And I don’t have one of these.” He took her by the hand and pointed at her bracer.

His touch made her heart race. An alien, beside her, speaking to her, with the courage, born of desperation, to stand alone in every way among hostile strangers and beg for aid while his world was violated.

“I’ll get you to Earth, Duin,” she said, placing her hand on his arm. She could feel firm muscle beneath the odd texture of his
wallump
suit. “I’m a blogger for Interstellar News Corps, and together we will tell Earth all about your world.”

Earth is no stranger to oppression, cruelty and ecological disaster, nor to those who engage in the struggle against them. Many nations have been made, and re-made, in the fight for self-governance, or in response to environmental devastation. Or both.

Ireland was one of those nations. More than two centuries ago, the Great Famine killed an estimated one million Irish people and drove a million more to relocate. With the total human population exceeding twenty billion, two million people may not seem like many. It’s the average population of a city.

But the total human population in the mid-1800s was only a fraction of what it is today. Two million was 25% of the entire Irish population at the start of the famine. Think of it this way: It is the same number of people presumed dead when we lost all contact with the Venus Cloud Colonies in 2045.

Following the Reunification of Ireland in 2018, Britain petitioned for membership in the League of Penitent Nations (joining Germany, Vatican City, the United States, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Australia and others), and accepted responsibility for its part in the famine.

But, unlike the United States, which paid reparations to such groups as Japanese-Americans (for unlawful internment during World War II), Muslims (again for unlawful internment during the War on Terrorism), and the descendants of slaves (thanks to the completion in 2032 of the Middle Passage Genome Project), Britain was not in the economic position to make financial restitution.

During the Industrial Era, however, Britain was not contrite. It was the oppression and abuse of the native Irish by the British Empire which contributed to the atrocities of the Great Famine. It was also this oppression and abuse which gave rise to freedom fighters such as the Society of United Irishmen in the late 1700s, the Irish Republican Brotherhood in the 1800s and the Irish Republican Army in the 1900s.

India experienced similar events during the Industrial Era. Drought, famine and the administrative policies of the British Raj converged to bring suffering and death to tens of millions of people. The Indian rebellion of 1857 was only the beginning of a revolutionary struggle which would culminate in Indian independence, but it took almost one hundred years.

In modern times, food and water are under the careful administration of the United Nations Sustainability Project. The Population Crisis and Water Crisis are behind us. Sixth Extinction biodiversity restoration is underway throughout the Solar System, and we have seen the full-scale adoption of the revised Interstellar Declaration of Human Rights. The atrocities in Ireland and India, like so many atrocities in the Human Time Line, are words in a history file. They seem as antiquated, even ridiculous, as fossil fuels, large families or dying of cancer.

But there is a place where oppression, cruelty and ecological disaster still exist, where preventable starvation is rampant, where plant and animal species are dying out by the day, where one race enslaves and subjugates another.

It is Glin. I posted some vids of Duin, envoy of the Freedom Council.

“No, best not write that.” Duin touched her hand to stop her typing on the tabletop. “The Freedom Council is a clandestine organization. We are afforded no political recognition by Tikat, and known members are arrested on sight.”

I posted some vids of Duin, a Glin who has come to Asteria Colony with the sole purpose of informing us of the plight of our celestial neighbors.

Duin read as she typed. “Oh, yes, that’s good. ‘Celestial neighbors.’”

Duin’s people suffer as so many humans suffered in our past. Only, in his world, it is not Glin abusing Glin, it is a separate species from another planet. Tikat has invaded Glin, with a superior military and technological might that the Glin have no way to counter.

The Tikati have taken over the most valuable resource on Glin: water. Water is not only essential to each Glin’s physical survival; it is the central component of their cultural and spiritual practices. In controlling the water, the Tikati have imposed their will upon the indigenous population with a tyrannical intensity which echoes some of the most disturbing injustices of our own past.

“If I compare the situation on Glin with other struggles in human history,” she said, “maybe I will inspire some sympathy and support for your people. It might even motivate my followers to put pressure on the UN to at least meet with you.”

“That would be glorious. Thank you.”

Genny turned on the netcam and a window opened on her compartment wall, showing the two of them at the table. Looking at herself beside Duin, she couldn’t help comparing their similarities and differences. If he had ears and hair, he’d look almost human, save for his eyes. He was handsome, she realized, though it went against everything she understood as defining attractiveness—everything that had been cataloged as a desirable and expensive gen-mod. But, yes, she found him very pleasant to look at. Interesting. Captivating.

After a few moments, she realized that he was watching her in return, with an amused expression on his face.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to stare.”

His expression warmed into a very forgiving smile. “Everyone stares at me. At least you do so without disgust or malice.”

She tapped an icon on the table to begin recording. “I’d like to make a vid of our discussion to go on my blog, ’k?” It wouldn’t run live, she would edit and upload it later, when she finished writing her post.

“Yes, that is very ’k,” said Duin. “I wish there were these devices on Glin, so I could show you what it has become.”

“Maybe I can go with you the next time you return.”

“Return? How would I return?”

“You must have a ship. You said earlier that you brought water to the colony.”

Duin covered the camera with his finger. The window on the wall went dark, but it didn’t stop the mic from recording his voice. In a hushed tone he said, “I’m not supposed to have a ship, and I’m not supposed to be bringing any water. I’m
smuggling.
Isn’t that a nice word? It sounds like someone dropped a large boulder into a lake.”

“Pirating,” Genny said. “Bootlegging. Stealing.”

“It’s not
really
theft, J’ni. The water of Glin belongs to all Glin, and I have the agreement of the Freedom Council to share it with humans. But if the Tikati knew—” he made a nasty face, “—I would be killed. Or worse, incarcerated.”

He removed his hand from the netcam and their images reappeared on the wall.

“I’ll delete that before I post the vid,” she said.

“Thank you.” He took a sip of tea. Nana’s chipped porcelain cups almost hadn’t made it past ESCC inspectors because they weren’t recyclable. But Genny insisted that they were of personal spiritual significance. That made them exempt under Section 8 of the colonization contract. It wasn’t entirely bullshit—they really did mean a lot to her. And she thought tea tasted better in them, for some reason, than it did in glass or plastic.

“When did the Tikati first arrive on your world?” she asked.

“It was more than two and a half rain seasons ago, when—”

“Hang on. Can you explain a rain season?”

“A rain season is a recurring pattern of weather cycles. Equal to 1.582 years on Earth.”

Genny typed the information into her notes window, then used the calculator to do the math.

“So it was four years ago when they attacked?”

“It was four years ago when
one
—” he held up a finger, “—Tikati representative came and asked for water, saying their world was dying and they needed the water to survive.”

“And the Glin sold it to them?”

“We do not
sell
water. It is evil to claim ownership of those things necessary to survival, and to make others subject to you for their use. Water, air, food, medicine or knowledge.”

Genny touched the tabletop and paused the recording. “But, Duin, you sell water to Asteria.”

“I do
not
. I
give
Asteria the water because the humans here are in great need of it. For survival.
I
am in great need of aid for my people, for our survival, but that has hardly been forthcoming.” Disappointment was written on every inch of his face. “So, I don’t see any commerce going on.”

“I didn’t mean to piss—” No, he might not understand that phrase. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“No, no,” he reassured her, covering her hand with his. “I don’t mind being challenged. If I did, I’d certainly be the wrong Glin for this mission.”

His touch did not give her the same odd sensations as it did when they met the day before, but it still affected her. When he removed his hand, it left an emptiness behind.

He gestured to the netcam, prompting her to turn it back on.

“The problem began when the Tikati returned again and again.” He shifted with agitation in his chair. “Ship after ship, coming to every lake, every sea, every river,
swooping
down, collecting the water in great holding tanks and flying away with it.”

Duin swooped his hands over the tabletop, dipping a spoon over and over into his tea, transferring the liquid to hers. Then he pointed to his cup. “Water levels in lakes and rivers dropped. Marshlands began to dry out. Over time, the rain fell less and less. That is one of the reasons for the famine. Before the Tikati came, the water was teeming with plant and animal life, which the Glin used for food, clothing, tools, medicine…everything. When the water is gone, everything in it dies. Then
we
die.”

The Glin inhabited only a fraction of the total planet. It was an area of marshes, lakes and extensive river systems. This she knew from reading the reports of Asteria’s first team of researchers.

“How many Glin have died since this began?” she asked.

“I don’t know. The last planet-wide population estimate was made by your scientists several rain seasons ago. There were about 15 million Glin then, but—”

“Wait, did you say 15
million?
” The human population hadn’t been that small in tens of thousands of years.

“Yes, and more than half of that is children. But I don’t know what the population is now, or how many have died. I’ve seen dry villages of the hungry and the dead, and the Tikati
don’t care.
”

“Were there any attempts to resist them, when they began taking over?”

He threw up his hands. “What could we do? Sling a stone? Throw a rope around them and pull them from the sky?” He mimed the actions he described. “This wasn’t like the uprising, when Glin killed Glin to end the religious hegemony and attempted kingship of the
Tah Ga’lin
. We can’t fight up in the clouds. We knew that there were such things as spacecraft, because your scholars had already come to us—”

“When Asteria was first established as a research outpost.”

“As you say. So, we knew there were other races, and great boats that came from the sky ocean. But we have no such technology of our own. We don’t even have a word for ‘machine.’”

“How did you get a spacecraft?”

Duin reached out and used the tabletop keyboard to turn off the netcam, as he had seen Genny do a few minutes before. He leaned very close to her. “I will tell you, but it must not be shared.” While he spoke, he pattered the fingers of his hand on her arm.

“’K.” The brief acknowledgment didn’t seem to match Duin’s intensity. She added, “Of course, I won’t tell anyone.”

His tone darkened with malevolence. “The ship I use is one which landed near our river. The river that was to me as this colony is to you. It was my home, my thoroughfare, my garden. The first time I saw a Tikati ship, I did not know what was happening across Glin. We do not have—” he made a sweep of his hand to encompass her wall, bracers, tabletop keypad. “A
net
. But I knew that they meant us harm.”

She didn’t want to interrupt, but she had to ask, “How did you know?”

“Their ships descended in a rain of fire.” He drew the words out, his voice rumbling like distant thunder. “I understand now that it was from the engines of their ship, but…
Fire
. It is strange to us, frightening. We do not use fire on Glin. If lightning happened to ignite something, which was very rare, the flames died quickly. But it is so dry now that things
burn
on Glin, J’ni. They
burn
.”

Duin was a kaleidoscope of emotion, but this particular feeling was the first to unnerve her. When he noticed her discomfort, the darkness vanished.

“Is there more tea?”

“Sure.” She got up and poured him another cup.

“What did you call this?”

“Jasmine.” She returned the pot to the warmer on top of the microwave in the kitchen corner.

He sipped. When she sat down, he lowered his cup.

“I began to hear stories from across the watershed. I watched them taking the water away. So, one day, when one of their ships landed, the Glin of
Willup W’Kuay
, we attacked them. We were so proud of ourselves. We captured and hid the ship. Taking it was easy, but
moving
it required every Glin in the river. I was away, meeting with other members of the Freedom Council to decide how best to use it to our advantage when…” His voice wavered, and his eyes grew cloudy. He took a few moments to compose himself before going on. “While I was gone, several more Tikati ships attacked my river. Only a few Glin got away, and everything was destroyed. Not destroyed as after a bad
soom
storm, no.
Destroyed.
Beyond use, beyond imagining.”

But she could imagine it. Every horror he experienced was reflected in his face, his voice, his posture, as if he were a mirror and she was watching it all happen within him.

“The few who weren’t caught—Nish, Imah, little Wem—they told me that the Tikati took my family, their families, all of the Glin of
Willup W’Kuay
, locked them in ships and flew away with them.”