—Your … pad. It’s doing something.
—Oh. Just a vote. I can do it later.
—A vote on what?
—Let me see … It concerns you.
—Me?
—Yes. Yes. Someone suggested we plant more trees on your side of the market, now that someone lives there.
—And you get to vote on that?
—Why wouldn’t I? You don’t need any special skills to decide on a tree! Besides, I vote on all things that concern trees and plants. You don’t think I should?
—I … I didn’t mean … I’m sure you’re really good at … How do you know I live on the other side of the market?
—Everyone knows.
—Why does no one else live there?
—There aren’t enough people to fill those houses.
—That’s what I mean. Why are there houses if there are not enough people?
—You don’t know?
—I don’t know anything!
—This planet, it used to be a yatsak nest. You could barely walk these streets. There were people from many worlds, buying things, selling things. Then, thousands of months ago, there was a war. The emperor had done something very wrong, and the people that were hurt attacked this planet. Many died. Many, many. After the war, they decided that Esat Ekt would never interfere with other worlds again, in any way. Everyone not of this planet was sent away.
—How many?
—Yokokt.
—I don’t understand.
—Show me your hands … Both hands. This is how many people lived here before. Now put one hand down. This is how many people lived here after.
—Half? Where did they go?
—Anywhere but here. Most were born on Esat Ekt, but they were not Ekt. Many went to the planet of their ancestors, but many were not welcome there either. Many refused to go. Many many died.
—But you’re here. All these people are here.
—How do you know I’m not Ekt?
—You’re blue.
—Not blue enough. I couldn’t go to my ancestor’s planet, even if I wanted to. There they’d call me grey. My fifth father was really blue. My fifth mother was Ekt. Those with Ekt blood did not leave.
—They were allowed to stay.
—That depends on your point of view. My fifth mother would say they weren’t allowed to leave. My fifth father was not Ekt. He had to go. But my fifth mother could not go with him. My fourth mother, their daughter, was half-Ekt, so she could not leave either.
—Why?
—She could have babies on another world, babies with Ekt blood. The Ekt can’t have that.
—Interference.
—Yes, yes. It’s a very important word on this planet.
—I’ll try to remember that.
—I’ve seen you with a young girl. Is she your daughter?
—You have? Her name’s Eva.
—Good. She will like it here. There are other kids her age.
—There aren’t elsewhere?
—Not where the Ekt live. Most of their children go to school in the city, or they work.
—They work?
—Someone has to work. The only Ekt children left here are the little red ones.
—Red ones?
—Imperial cadets. They wear red. They train to be soldiers in the Imperial Guard. There’s one over there.
—You don’t seem to like them.
—Yes, yes. They’re still nice at that age. It’s what they’ll grow up to be I don’t like …
—Your pad. Another vote?
—Not for me. The Etyakt Council voted. You’ve been made citizens.
—Us? Why?
—You can’t be on this planet if you’re not.
—So it’s a good thing?
—It depends on whether or not you planned on ever going home.
—You mean we can’t leave?
—Yes, yes.
—What?
—I said yes. You can’t leave Esat Ekt.
—For how long?
—Forever.
FILE NO. 2116 (CONTINUED)
INTERVIEW BETWEEN MAJOR KATHERINE LEBEDEV, RUSSIAN MAIN INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (GRU), AND VINCENT COUTURE
Location: GRU building, Saint Petersburg, Russia
—So you chose to stay there, for nine years …
—They offered to let us stay.
—And you said?
—We said yes. It was a unique opportunity.
—You stayed voluntarily.
—That’s what I just said.
—Willingly?
—Wholeheartedly. We’re gonna run out of synonyms soon.
— …
—What? Is that so difficult to understand? We had the chance to spend some time on a new planet with another species. We jumped on it. Rose and I are scientists, remember? It was a unique— —A unique opportunity. You said that already. Then one day you decided you wanted to come home and they just … sent you back, is that it? You didn’t have to do anything. You just asked: “Can we go home now?” and they said: “Sure! Hop on!” Nothing happened in between, nothing worth mentioning. At all. For nine years.
—I don’t know what to tell you. Everything was interesting. Everything was new.
—What did you do?
—What do you mean?
—I mean what did you do all day, for a decade? Did you have jobs?
—Eva did for a while. She worked in a soup kitchen.
—An alien soup kitchen?
—Well, it wasn’t alien there. But they did serve people from other worlds.
—That’s so nice. Eva feeding people without money. You must have been so proud.
—Was that sarcasm? I can’t tell. And yes, they were poor, but they did have money. In fact, they were the only ones who did. There’s no currency, officially, in any of the regions. Everything essential is more or less free, and you can trade for most other things. You only need money to buy things outside the system.
—Communism!
—Not quite. People own things. Some people own much more than others. If they produce something the government doesn’t regulate. Art, for example. Sculptors, dancers, writers, they all lived better than most if they were any good.
—Sculptors? What about doctors?
—Well, most people work because they want to. No one there would get up every morning to do something they don’t like just so they can get more food or clothing than everyone else.
—How cute. And boring. There must be some crappy work no one wants to do.
—Sure. Farming, mostly. Kids do that, for a few years before they go to … I guess you could call it university.
—Child labor. Lovely.
—They’re more like teenagers. They just look very young.
—What about you and Dr. Franklin? What did you do all day?
—We didn’t have jobs if that’s what you’re asking.
—Why not?
—We were totally unqualified for … everything.
—Poor things. Did people make fun of you?
—They stared, mostly. They did call us hairy. Point is it probably never occurred to them to offer us work. I spent a few hours a day teaching English to Enatast while he taught me Ekt. I’m not sure how much he really wanted to learn. After a while, he might have come just so I’d have something to do. But he kept coming, so I didn’t ask. Rose … Rose spent some time with scientists of theirs, but she really didn’t have any skills they could use. I “hung out” with them for a while, especially at the beginning, so I could translate for Rose, but I stopped when I got good enough at spotting condescension. Except for the knee thing, Rose was much more interesting to them.
—Why is that?
—She knocked one of their robots out, all on her own. They were impressed.
—They weren’t angry?
—No. Not where we lived, anyway. We’re not enemies to them. We’re more like … They think they made us … sick, in some way, by messing with our gene pool. We’re also much less evolved technologically, scientifically, and we’re physically weaker, shorter. There’s nothing remotely menacing about us. I don’t know how to explain it … Have you ever seen a baby squirrel?
—I don’t think I have, but what’s that got— —Kara found one on the sidewalk once. It was right after they founded the EDC. We’d just moved to New York. We didn’t know anyone. Anyway, she saw this baby squirrel. We both didn’t want anything to do with it. We didn’t want it to die, but we also didn’t want to take care of a squirrel because … because it’s a squirrel, and we’d be stuck with it if its mother didn’t take it back. It was about nightfall, so we knew the cats were probably gonna get it, but we were ready to let nature take its course. Only the little bugger crawled onto my foot and curled up into a ball, then it fell asleep.