By K.V. Veggeberg
Sjaelland rubbed his jaw, wishing he had remembered to shave that morning, before he joined the other Jovian engineers in the cramped conference room above Titan.
It was hard enough getting Lyse to kindergarten on his own now, even with the help of the others in their residence association. He hated how they had taken to fussing over his newly widowed status, though it brought some small hope to know that his neighbors cared to take care of his little girl, too.
There were discussions about whether or not to head to Cassini’s Tap before the meeting, as the heads of the union often did before a major meeting. Jovian whiskey was strong, and everyone who had just finished the late shift on the current haul of Titan methane and ice were thirsty and tired.
But they quickly agreed that they needed their wits about them, and made their way through the corridors and elevators of Titan Station. The higher they moved away from the landing pads, the more there were windows for businessmen, sararimen, especially ones visiting from Earth and Mars, to get a good view of Titan, the closest thing they had to a planet.
Earthers–especially sararimen like Dieter James–always made Sjaelland more secure in his choices to join the alliance of hydrogeological miners, especially for those stationed in the mines on Titan.
James was a typical Earth-born executive, well-fed to the point of plump, his peachy skin aggressively smooth. He was also short, even for a gravity-raised Earther, his coffee-and-cream-colored facial hair neatly trimmed against his round, soft cheeks.
As he entered the stuffy meeting room, hours after the meeting was set to begin, James loudly complained about the long trip to the station on his wrist held comms device, decidedly ignoring the many silent Jovian miners and engineers who filled the room, their long bodies looming over him like leafless trees.
While James spoke on his device, it was mentioned that he had come from a place called ‘Houston’. An Earth city, where people walked around without radiation protection and few had ever felt magboots around their toes.
James’s feelings towards the Jovians was obvious, his pert nose wrinkling behind his metal coffee cup as he took in the lanky frames of the miners that sat at the circular table.
Generations of work on the low gravity of Titan and the other moons in the outer planets affected the bodies of the settlers who made their lives on the various stations. Not least of which involved stretching them almost inhumanly long, the shortest miner in the room standing right over two meters in height.
Having seen the equivalent of thirty Earth years, Sjaelland himself easily stood over a foot taller than James, whose hand seemed almost child-like in comparison to the spindly palm of Sjaelland as they shook.
Additionally, like the rest of the Jovians who filled the room cheek-to-jowl, Sjaelland’s raw-boned frame seemed to be almost allergic to fat. Indeed, all of Titan’s lead engineers of the mining corps had the same thin faces, small waists, and stork-like legs hidden underneath their new, union-issued jumpsuits, straight from the newly constructed factories on Europa.
The jumpsuits.
Initially, Sjaelland had rolled his eyes at the excitement his fellow miners on Titan had over their new workwear. The suits–black as the space around Titan, instead of the previous threadbare powder-blue ones of the mining corporation–were all handed out at their most recent union meeting at Cassini’s Tap, the bar that the engineers had been favoring since the brewer’s union on Ganymede forced a strike on Earth liquor.
The jumpsuits were made from recycled materials in the newest factory on Europa, where the majority of goods for the outer solar system were produced.
Europa. Where the first collective union was created, over the gas engineers and shipworkers who manned the defacto capital of the Jovians. A name that always made visiting Earthers hiss and snarl, like spoiled children whose favorite toys had been snatched out of their hands.
Sjaelland now noticed how James stared darkly at the massive, new patches on the miners’ jumpsuits. The patch was the union’s new symbol, recently voted on by the Jovian miners as well. A series of shiny, little moons, working together in a circle, almost touching.
No mention, not even a shadow, of Earth at all on the patch.
Naturally, it infuriated every Earther who made the mistake of looking at it. James was no exception.
The Earth executive scowled and cracked his freckled knuckles. Sjaelland narrowed his eyes to regard James’s clothes further. A soft silk shirt under a fleece vest, bearing the symbol of the Lira-Vaughn corporation, topped off with wool trousers and leather shoes, to say nothing of the extremely new, worryingly expensive comms-watch sitting tightly on his wrist. He noticed, somewhat grimly, that the man wore no wedding ring, or even had a tattoo on his finger to suggest a spouse back on his home planet.
“Let’s get to the point,” snapped James as he sat down, motioning with his thick hands around the table, jolting Sjaelland out of his thoughts, “The company is not giving you people anything.”
“Considering we’ve given you our lives,” another miner snapped as he grabbed the carafe of coffee, the lab-grown chicory scent heavy in the space station air betraying its Ionian origins. Sjaelland recognized him as Bashir, a smart-mouthed engineer whose ability to land their drop ships on Titan’s surface was legendary throughout the station, “To say nadating about the millions of kilos of methane and ethane we harvest for you!”
“And that’s not even mentioning the akwaa we are pulling up on the surface,” noted another miner, whose black hair was in an upcut bun similar to Sjaelland’s, his face with twice as many tattoos, “Especially since we started cleaning it all nice and neat, making it safe for plants, animals, humans.”
The last word was practically spat in James’s direction. Bashir jumped in.
“Now that we got good water, you want it? Why? Don’t you have enough on Earth?”
Both the man’s thick Jovian lilt and lead-traced accusation made James puff out his cheeks in response.
“That leads me to my next issue, listed here on the memo from the corporation,” snapped James, whipping out his data pad, flinging the information up on the screen before them, “In addition to illegally harvesting chemicals without notice from the managers of the Lira-Vaughn corporation, there is the topic of unauthorized bargaining from you lot.”
“Unauthorized bargaining?” asked another miner.
“Since you people ‘unionized’–which is illegal, per the charter agreement from the United Nations of Earth – you have not held up your end of the bargain.”
“Which is?” loudly asked another dark-haired Jovian miner, seeming to almost brazenly snuggle in his new jumpsuit. Sjaelland wondered if it was to make the embroidered patch shine in the garish light of the conference room. It certainly shone in the dimmer parts of the stations, usually in the locker room, right before the miners put on their vacsuits to go down into Titan’s thick, angry atmosphere.
“You need to release the ore, methane, and water that you have harvested and see that it is delivered to our receptacle on the Europa docks as soon as possible.”
The gathered miners stared back at the Earth representative. James waved his plump hands at them. His stubby fingers reminded Sjaelland of a child’s.
“You have employment, food, home–in a company cylinder, no less! What more do you want? To go back to Earth, jobless, homeless?”
The last word rendered the Jovians silent for an especially heavy moment.
“A company cylinder?” finally snorted one of the miners. Sjaelland recognized him as Renato, quatto-madres-Filipino. A brilliant designer and pipe-fitter who loved to read manifestos on his break, and eagerly debate anyone after a few drinks. Like all Jovians, a childhood in lower gravity rendered his body to be over two meters tall, even though his skin was significantly darker then Sjaelland’s.
“Unlike Earthers, we take care of our own,” continued Renato, motioning with his long hands, both scarred from the hydraulic burns and covered in tattoos of the different moons he had worked on, “Homeless? How can one be homeless when we are in a space station? What will you do–through us all out of an airlock? Thought murder was illegal everywhere, que-ah?”
Renato’s words seemed to slap the executive’s face as he continued, now pointing at the images that James had flipped up onto the table screen.
“It will take you months to bring and train new miners–and think of your profits!”
I hate that we are talking like this, Sjaelland ruefully thought, folding his pale hands under his chin, talking about our people like we are products and services.
I did not come here to talk about profits like a sarariman. I came here to make things better. Because of …don’t think about Mari. Don’t think about Liv.
Focus, Sjaelland, focus.
Think of water. Think of what you have done for the Jovian nation.
“Do not act like your stations can’t be unplugged from life support at a moment’s notice,” snarled James back at Renato. He motioned with his own small, thick hand, as if mocking the Jovians’ preferred form of communication, “We provide you air and water, food and materials, from Earth. We give you the suits that allow you to work, to live.”
The words ‘air and water, food and materials’, loosely hung in the air like the scream of a child’s tantrum.
The Jovian miners all looked at each other, and began to chuckle in the typical soft laughter they did. If you laughed too hard in a helmet, it could affect the messaging from others in Titan’s atmosphere. So the laughs were gentle and the words were swift and musical.
“What’s so funny? I don’t think I get your space cadet humor,” snapped James irritably.
“The surface pressure is similar to Earth’s, so there’s no need for a bulky pressure suit—just insulation and an oxygen mask,” explained Bashir, folding his olive-skinned arms over his thin chest. He loudly smirked at the Earther executive.
“And water? Air?” he continued, adjusting his new jumpsuit, “You do realize we can manufacture our own. What do you think you’re breathing now, Earther?”
“What?”
“Think of all the plants we grow on the stations, out here. Where do you think oxygen comes from? Years ago, when they designed these stations out here, they thought we’d be colonizing the planets–but things are working quite well on our cities out here.”
“Why risk injury on Titan or radiation on Ganymede, when we can just harvest and return back to stations where we are safe?” Renato jumped in to add his own opinion, “Send you bahut the helium and water, the ore and other minyinarals you want so much back home.”
James narrowed his eyes and puffed out his cheeks, though Sjaelland noticed that the Earth executive was beginning to tap his pen repeatedly against the table, the lower gravity of Titan Station slowing down the rhythm somewhat.
“It isn’t just about us,” Sjaelland suddenly stated, motioning with his hands, as if he was on a harvesting mission with his crew, “It is about….our people. And those AIs, the Earth scientists.”
James gritted his teeth.
“We provide all services and insurance to your people,” he stated coldly.
Sjaelland pursed his lips.
“Insurance means nothing when there are no doctors available,” Sjaelland spoke, trying to use the words that the AI delivery system had given to him and Mari, right before she had gone into labor, not too long ago.
Now, everyone in the room turned to stare at him.
Sjaelland’s tongue froze in his mouth, as if it was a block of ice just yanked from the surface of Titan. He was suddenly back in the delivery room, weeks ago.
The cold talk of the AI diagnosis, how the machine snapped at them that, due to its scan, there was no internal rupture inside of Sjaelland’s wife, even as her belly seemed to rip as she tried to stay calm for her husband. The numbers of her blood pressure cuff wildly changing before Sjaelland’s horrified eyes. How there was no one to help Mari except an inept, outdated AI who kept snapping that the exhausted, laboring human woman was in ‘adequate condition for delivery.’
The sudden lack of pain Mari experienced as the labor swiftly changed. The terrified look on the inexperienced Earther nurse’s face as she finally made it to Mari’s side, hours later, after running across from the station. The realization that the Jovian woman’s weakened muscles, from years of growing up in lower gravity, included the uterus where she was growing her second child. The sweat that beaded on Mari’s brow and how her fiery hair stuck to her neck and face as she weakly attempted to push out their baby.
The lightening bolt of horror when their unborn daughter’s heart stopped on the monitor. Mari’s desperate gulping for air as she bled out, her hand weakening in her husband’s tight fist. The nurse’s panicked cries as she desperately tried to inject blood clotting medications into her dying patient. The AI’s cold voice, how it calmly announced that both mother and child’s hearts had flatlined, and now funeral preparations should be taken by next of kin.
The screams from their firstborn daughter as she realized her mother was never going to come home, that she would never know her little sister.
The silence at the funeral, Sjaelland insisting that his wife be recycled holding their infant who never drew breath. How Lyse cried, clutching her father’s leg, asking why her baby sister was going with their mother.
Sjaelland remembered looking down at his sobbing daughter, her hair the same blond shade as his own, and wondering when–or if– it would happen to her.
If years of low gravity and chemicals, of living in space stations like the one that floated above Titan, would eventually turn his daughter’s body into the very thing that killed her mother. With stretched organs, thinner arteries, weaker hearts.
If an AI physician would dismiss her body, if it would allow her to die.
If an Earther scientist would lecture her on how to survive in a place they would never visit.
If that water she drank would keep her healthy, safe, alive. If she would taste wax or ammonia as she brushed her teeth or washed her hair.
It isn’t just about water and chemicals, Sjaelland thought, staring at James, he wanted to blurt out, scream at the crowded room, it is so much more.
It is about our people. Our nation. Our space.
We need our own people here.
If we had a surgeon here, in Titan’s orbit, an actual obstetrician, a trained physician who knew how to spot uterine ruptures, thought Sjaelland darkly, then my Mari would be alive. Liv would be in her arms. Lyse would still have a mother.
It isn’t about water, it isn’t about materials. It is about people. It is…it is about us being able to grow ourselves, train ourselves.
If we can train each other, be educated, we are truly free.
No more AIs, no more robots, no more planet-born, gravity-heavy scientists who had a scant few months of experience, then thrown out here to work with bodies that they’ll never understand.
We may live our lives deep above Titan, but we are still human.
We still drink, cry, sweat. All from the water we made.
Sjaelland tried to find the words to explain growing up in low gravity, hovering in places like Titan’s main station. How their bodies stretched. How they seemed human, but weaker, causing ruptures and bleeding where there should not be. How the water on Titan tasted.
We have water. We have better lives because of it.
We can meet like this. Our people are becoming their own nation.
So you will listen. Now.
“We need steroids, a way to produce them,” Sjaelland stated, his voice suddenly soft, “Made from scientists who understand us, understand Jovian lives, our bodies. And other medications. To make sure that the effects of growing up in low-g, of being exposed to potential amounts of radiation, of toxins from Titan, from all that you need from us.”
“If you give us these things, what we need, then we will release the ore and chemicals to your corporation,” added Renato, nodding at Sjaelland.
“It will take weeks to get that shit out to you out here, and by then, what you will need will be no more,” snapped Dieter James, annoyed, putting his thick hands on his hips.
“Exactly,” remarked Sjaelland in response, “We need to produce our own doctors, our own scientists, our own professionals. We need a university, and a medical school, for Jovians.”
James smirked in response. He silently began tapping into his device, nodding to himself, as the miners stared at him.
“A medical school isn’t part of your union contract. I’ve had our attorneys look it over, our AI is reviewing it as I speak. You want to learn, do it yourself.”
“We do everything ourselves,” Sjaelland finally barked back at James, “From the time we are born! Learning by ourselves? We do it every damn day.”
James practically spat the next few words out.
“Doctors, scientists. Really, that’s what you people want? When would they ever pay their dues?”
“We will pay for a start up, for the university, as part of our union dues,” offered Renato, quickly looking at Sjaelland, and then back at the Earth executive, “We can pay for our own people, to get them started. To get a true university started out here.”
Murmurs and nods happened from all of the collected miners, the badges from their jumpsuits shining the dimming light. James’s eyes darted around the room before he spoke, looking pointedly at Sjaelland. He crossed his plump little arms and scowled.
“Fine. Get you resources your own damn doctors. Keep you out here. If that’s going to give us those chemicals going back to Earth, we can do that. Certainly won’t bother us. Heck, you can even get your own dead bodies to practice on, that’s not something the company needs to supply you with. It’s not like it’s too late for any of you in this room.”
The silence was a slap across Sjaelland’s face, but he stared at the man in silence.
Being called a ‘resource’ by an Earther was usually responded with a punch to the face. But Sjaelland knew everyone was watching him.
It is too late, thought Sjaelland as a new message from the company’s AI attorney buzzed through on their comms devices. They had a new union contract, promising higher education for Jovians in exchange for release of the company’s ore, materials, and, perhaps, even water.
Sjaelland gripped his long fingers and nodded, solemnly, as he signed.
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