“Steinitz still hopes he can get control of the situation through logical discussion,” said Brendan Byrne, Keiron’s dad, as he studied his cards.
The family was sitting around the table in their hab. Each held a handful of cards, and there were small piles of cards in the center of the table. They played a lot of games now, killing time that would otherwise have been spent at work or in school.
Keiron’s mother laid her cards down. “That seems optimistic,” she said.
Often, they tired of the whatever game they were playing and left the hand without finishing. That appeared to be happening now, as they discussed the meeting that the base commander had called for the next day.
His dad exhaled slowly, still looking at his cards. “Yes,” he said, laying the cards down and looking at his wife. “I think he knows that. He has asked the new security force to be on hand for crowd control.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” said his mother.
“It’ll be okay,” said his dad.
“It might be okay,” said his mom.
“Caitlin, it’ll be okay,” said his dad, tilting his head slightly toward Keiron.
His mother said nothing.
Keiron hated when his parents did this. Did they really think he couldn’t tell when they were keeping things from him? Well, not today. What was happening in the base was happening to all of them. He didn’t feel like a kid and didn’t want to be treated as one. He laid his own cards down and cleared his throat.
“Dad,” he said, “we know it’s dangerous.” He looked at his mother. “And we know you have to do it.”
His father looked at him. Nodded. “Okay,” he said. “They are issuing batons and CEDs in case there’s trouble. I don’t think there will be trouble, but it doesn’t hurt to be ready.”
His mother looked at him. “Will you be okay here, by yourself?”
Keiron rolled his eyes. She still wasn’t getting it. He wanted to yell, but instead, he reached out and took her hand. “Mom,” he said, “I’m coming. This effects me as much as all of us.”
She stared at him for what felt like a long time. “You’re right,” she said. She picked up her cards and fiddled with them a little. She put them back down and looked at him again. “Of course you should come.”
In the commissary, Keiron saw his dad along one wall. The new members of security were spread around the perimeter of the room, nervously eyeing the forming crowd. They had arm bands to identify themselves, and Keiron could see batons and CEDs on belts at their wastes. CED stood for conducted energy device. Shaped like a gun, they shot two little darts on wires that conducted electrical current to stun their target.
As people entered, Keiron craned his neck. He told himself that he was just sizing up the crowd, but he was really looking for Ro. When she came through the door, pigtail swishing slowly as she walked, his heart felt like it skipped a couple times. She was with the same people as before, and they all sat down at the same table.
The base commander--Steinitz, his dad had called him--thumped the mic and asked everyone to please sit down.
He first presented a slide showing the amount of food the base consumed under normal circumstances and how often supplies were sent from Earth. He then presented a slide that showed the amount of food currently in storage. This slide pointed out the date of the last shipment from Earth and that they could not predict when they might receive another shipment but that it would not be in the foreseeable future.
Somebody in the crowd shouted an expletive that indicated that they did not agree. The base commander pressed on. The next slide was a graph showing how long their current food stores would last without rationing. It was a line that descended steeply, hitting zero in nine days.
Another expletive. Someone else in the crowd shouted for the swearer to keep still. The next slide contained a graph with three lines. Each showed how long the food would last with different levels of rationing. The commander pointed out that the more aggressively they rationed, the longer they could hold out, giving Earth more time to send supplies. On their current half rations, their supplies would last four weeks. Cutting that to one third rations would give them six weeks. On one quarter rations, eight weeks. He pointed out that this was not rocket science.
“Let those that want to ration ration,” shouted the disagreeable man at Ro’s table.
The commander was ready for this one. The next slide showed how long the food would last if half the base ate quarter rations while the rest ate normally. It was just over three weeks. The commander pointed out that, in addition to being unfair, this shortened their time by almost five weeks.
The disagreeable man stood up. “Who here plans to ration?” he said looking out over the crowd.
Someone shouted for him to sit down while a majority of hands went up. “Well, there you go,” he said. “Looks like more people will ration than won’t. That should give us plenty of time.”
The commander was not ready for this. He paused, unsure what to say. “You are suggesting that you get to eat what you want while relying on the rest of us to provide that food by starving ourselves.”
“No,” said the disagreeable man. “I am suggesting that anyone who wants to starve themselves can.”
The base commander stared. His mouth opened to say something, then closed. He did not know what to say to this. Then his face hardened. “No,” he said. “This is not a democracy, and that is not how this will work. I am the commander of this base and I am authorized to take whatever action I see fit for the safety of those within. We will cut to quarter rations for all, effective immediately.”
Without a pause, all the people at Ro’s table stood up. Others in the crowd stood as well. More than had walked out of the previous meeting. The security team pulled their batons and moved toward the crowd, readying themselves for confrontation. Those standing saw this. They glanced at each other, now unsure.
The base commander looked out over the crowd, meeting the eyes of each stander as he did so. They became more unsure. Some began to slowly sit back down. The base commander’s eyes met those of the disagreeable man and stopped there. The two stared at each other until, eventually, the man sat down. The rest of his table followed.
The base commander glanced at the security team and they relaxed, moving back to the walls. Somebody in the crowd began to clap. Several more joined. And soon the whole crowd was clapping. Keiron clapped, and a smile formed on his lips. Maybe the world hadn’t gone completely insane after all.
Ro’s table was not clapping, of course. When Keiron glanced over there, he was surprised to see that she was staring at him. He found the expression on her face peculiar. There was hint of a smile on her lips but not enough to say she was smiling. And her eyes were certainly not smiling. Her stare made him feel like maybe he had a booger on his face or something. He quickly looked away.
Cas,
Since the second meeting, I’ve been thinking a lot about how people behave.
We’re all wired to look out for ourselves. That’s expected. Self-preservation is a baseline drive for all living things. But I think we also have something in us that lets us imagine what others feel. I guess that’s called empathy.
Maybe this is what makes us human: our ability to empathize and, through that, form culture and, through that culture, take care of each other. And maybe that culture feeds back into us by training us to consider others, reinforcing and amplifying that empathy. Some cultures are better at this than others, and some people learn it better than others.
Then something terrible comes along. The cultures people live in are completely disrupted and they are faced with a situation that is completely alien to them. What happens then?
I suppose it depends on the people and the culture they have created. Some feel drawn to others and embrace the collective good. They work with each other to find ways to improve the situation for all. That’s the people willing to ration so that all can live longer. That’s the people volunteering for the security team, like my dad. That’s the people who supported the commander last night.
But some, like the ones that stood up last night to rebel against rationing, revert to that self-preservation wiring, abandoning any thought for others and focusing only on helping themselves. Thankfully, there aren’t as many of those. Maybe that’s due to the culture we have. But it worries me that their number has grown between meetings. And that may be due to our culture as well.
Here’s what really freaks me out about this: while I am certain, beyond any shadow of doubt, that the right thing to do is take care of each other, those others appear just as certain that they are right in caring only for themselves. I don’t know what to do with that.
Did I mention that Ro seems to be one of them? I don’t know what to do with that either.
KeironKeiron,
Are Earth-girls ok?
Cas