Renall asked, “what is going on here?’
Jeval said, “These two want to return to Old Earth. So I’m sending them back.”
Talon stepped forward. “All the ships are gone until next week.”
“Then jail them.” His voice sent shivers up and down Margie’s spine.
Marik, the gentlest of that tribe, said, “We can’t jail them for—…”
Jeval cut in. “We can jail them for refusing to work but still taking food. For instigating rancor and dissatisfaction. For nearly causing yet another fight.”
More citizens began to gather. Whispers ran through the crowd, which was uneasy now, and even more tense than ever.
The woman stuttered out “Wait! You can’t jail me! I am the widow of a Federation official, and yes, I have spoken up about the conditions which you expect me to live with! It is not fair nor right that someone of my birth…”
She staggered back, her hands clawing at her face. Margie gasped. Renall snapped, “Stop it Jeval! You draw weapons on a woman?”
Jeval tucked the stunner back into a pocket of his coat. “I do, and I will stun any person who thinks that they are somehow above living as we all live. Take her to the quarters she has been assigned. She can recover there. But unless she wants to work, she won’t eat. That goes for any and all. If you are unhappy, if you feel like you deserve more than what you have been given, you are more than welcome to leave on the first ship that can fly you back to your wretched, war-torn planet. We have been generous enough to give you a chance at a life. No, it is not the life you had before, but you won’t find that life on your own planet either. But you also won’t cause unhappiness and arguments here with your…your bullshit!”
Margie bit back a grin that was not only involuntary, but dangerous, all things considered. She’d taught him that phrase by shouting it at him quite a few times during her rescue and the subsequent events that had come about when he and his brothers had decided to wreck a slaver ship she and several other women had been on.
The woman and the man who had been complaining both stood there stricken. Their expressions were filled with worry and consternation. Margie felt a ripple of pity, but it didn’t last; they had brought it on themselves, and Jeval was correct in saying that it was them and people like them who were causing tension and arguments in the small and growing city.
They were a threat to the planet, whether Jeval’s family wanted to admit it or not, and she knew that they didn’t. It would be far easier to pretend that everything was fine and that all of the citizens were getting along well. They weren’t though. Margie knew that part of the blame was on her own shoulders.
She still felt the sting of having lived Below on Old Earth. And she wasn’t the only one. It was easy to take things personally or as an insult when one had had to live under the circumstances and in the horrible conditions that were their former home. It was easy to feel anger at a system and the people who’d kept those who had lived Below living like prisoners indebted to those who lived Above.
Marik said, “We should hold a special council. I refuse to simply jail someone for voicing their opinion. That’s a dictatorship, not a democracy. We all agreed that this would be a democracy here.”
A few voices lifted an agreement. Margie’s was not among them. No amount of council speak would make those who were dissatisfied and unhappy with their newfound lot feel any better. They wanted total dominion. They wanted everything they had had back on Old Earth. What they wanted was to be waited on hand and foot. They wanted better housing and the right to have things that were simply for them, things that left those who were either not human or those humans who had lived Below. They wanted to see those they thought not their peers to be enlisted as their new servants.
They wanted privilege. They wanted elitism. Everything in her rebelled against that. She hadn’t fought alongside Jeval and his family for as long as she had to be relegated back to the status of a mere servant, a lesser–than person.
Her chin tilted. Her voice rang out loud and clear. “This is reprehensible, this behavior! It rankles and irritates all of those who would stand against their elitism! They would subjugate us, and their greatest grievance is that so far they have not been able to discover a way to make you bend to their will and allow them to do so!”
Shouts, loud and angry, and most of them bent toward agreement, rose into the air. Jeval’s face tightened, and he sent a sharp glare in her direction, but she ignored it. She was only speaking the truth. He knew it, she knew it, and most of the people gathered there knew it as well.
The man who was at the center of the ruckus stepped forward, his hands held up in a pleading gesture. “Now wait a minute! We do have the right to be dissatisfied with what we have now in comparison to what we had then! We are not demanding that we be given back what we had then! But do we feel that we are entitled to have better than what we have? But of course! Look at what you have gotten from us! We are the highest ranking, the highest born, and yet we are—as she said—living in mere huts and being forced to work like common servants!”
Jeval’s voice was silky and deadly. “As you were told before you ever boarded the ship, if you do not work here, then you do not eat here. We do not have the resources—time, credits, or materials—to create massive homes for those of you who feel you deserve them. Even if we did, we would never do that. We did not bring you here to re-institute a hierarchical system that didn’t work. The rebellion happened because you sought to keep people down, to celebrate yourselves and lift yourselves up. Look around you. The faces of those who used to live Below are ringing around you at this moment. Instead of complaining about how well you had it, why do you not simply ask some of them how badly they had it?”
Margie stepped forward. Her entire body throbbed with anger. Her words held a powerful ring that echoed across the clear air. “I can tell you how badly I had it. My family starved. That pitiful excuse for food that you allowed those who lived Below was never enough. Many died. I knew many women who had children and had to watch those children suffer from starvation and malnutrition. I watched them die of dehydration and sickness. And the whole entire time you were Above, above us, drinking clean water and eating good food.”
The woman tapped a foot into the earth. Her expression did not change. If anything, she only looked more irritated. “All those who lived Below were given the opportunity to better themselves! All you had to do was work in a position Above and do well at that position if you truly wanted to spend time out of the Below.”
A man, stooped and with the gray pallor that came from living a lifetime out of the sunlight, came forward. His voice was quiet but intense. “We did work for you in the Above. You gave us so little credits that we couldn’t feed our families. Many of us had to pawn those we’ve loved, knowing that we would never see them again. We had to watch our children go hungry no matter how much we worked or how well. How dare you blame us for the unfair system that you instituted. How dare you demand to have it back. I can understand that you don’t want to work. I can understand that it makes you feel as if you’ve lost something important to yourself. You have. You’ve lost that idleness.”
Neither of the two who had caused the fray looked the least bit ashamed or like they were considering the positions of the people that they had once subjugated. In fact, they both just looked impatient and angry.
Jeval said, “This is your chance. You can agree to go back to work and shut up, or I can have you taken to your home and kept there. You will be given Nutro–loaf and water but nothing else. When a ship comes, we will place you upon it, and you will be returned to your former home.”
The man physically recoiled. His face showed disgust. “You would give us nothing but that… that… garbage?”
More voices lifted. All of them were saying the same things. “It was what we had.”
“It is what you fed us for centuries!”
“Hold them prisoner! Feed them as they fed us and refuse to allow them sunlight!”
