Shoshone Station: The Galactic Consortium season 2

Episode 9: Asha-Tanga #18

Jack followed the crowd out. Zeta was a few steps ahead of him. She trembled slightly, and he put a hand on her back to steady her. She turned and gave him a look—the smile on her face was weak, but there was a fire in her eyes. Scared but excited.

He nodded encouragingly, but they exchanged no words. They were still at work, still under the public gaze.

A gaggle of reporters swept her off the main path as soon as they left the coliseum proper. They all wanted to know the same thing. "What do you think Princess Sarasvat meant by having you bind the wound?" Holi, the reporter for the base ship news, called out to Zeta.

Jack answered before she could. "I'm a foreigner here, and it's clear even to me. You should listen to her wisdom, surely." Knowing that they loved repurposing Earth idioms (often incorrectly), he added, "As we say back on the surface, she's one smart cookie." There was a ripple of laughter through the crowd.

"Ms. Kulpola?" It was Arneshi, standing to one side. Jack saw a spike of anxiety pass through Zeta's form. Jack could guess her fear—that Arneshi meant to deal with her disciplinary issue here, in public. If he wished to cast a pall over what had just happened, now would be the time. Instead, he merely said, "There is an open courtyard through here. If you wish to give an interview." His tone implied that she should.

She nodded and led the team of reporters through a side arch into a small, empty courtyard where they would have some privacy and not be in the way of the thousands of other guests now exiting the coliseum.

Holi's question was only an opener. Every reporter, with the possible exception of a couple of Earth-based news channels, knew exactly what Sarasvat's stunt was meant to convey, at least the part of the stunt involving Zeta. They were supposed to ask her about her race, about the whole Squid issue. Just as the ancient Atuylan had spoken on behalf of the Hanuman, Zeta would speak for her people.

And she is doing a great job, Jack thought as he listened. Zeta and Jack had been following the debate, listening to voices from within the Consortium on both sides. Zeta had been afraid before, afraid to be seen as being too forceful, too outspoken. But now she repeated some of the most radical ideas—and did so in a way that made sense.

"There is this notion that we cannot engineer a race because a sentient being can't give its consent before it comes into existence," she told the assembled reporters. "This is nonsense." There was a hum in the crowd; they clearly didn't see it as nonsense. But Zeta plowed on. "Which of you consented to be born? Not a one. I didn't agree to the experiment that lead to my birth, but neither did you. So what of it? For some of you, no doubt, your parents had to go the healers, get help with their fertility. Perhaps a few of you had problems and spent some time in biomedical egg. Is this really so different than my own case? So why do we apply such widely different standards to the birth of Squids?"

"Are you saying the protocols should be legalized?" a person asked.

Zeta paused. It was a huge step. "I call on the Medical Bureau to reject new, stricter regulations on medical eggs. I call on the Social Bureau to see us for what we are: a race. Give us that sanction. Let us live our lives in peace. And, yes. I call on the Science Bureau to form a task force to study the process by which my kind came into existence. I know what has happened in the past; none of us will forget. But this experiment did not lead to a disaster. Why not let those who understand the process study it, improve it?"

The last, letting scientist and healers study the process of creating Squid babies, improving it, would be a hard sell for many. Jack could read that in many faces. But he knew Zeta was right—the three had to be pursued together. One would lead to the others.

Once the Social Bureau, which oversaw almost all the bureaus that directly impacted people's lives—economics, health, law enforcement, etc.—declared the Squids a race, then the activists would be right. Denying mixed couples children would end their race and was a form of genocide. Once the bioethics board decided to stop criminalizing possession of medical eggs, it begged the question why healers weren't overseeing the process to make sure it was safe.

As the interview ended and the crowd broke up, Jack couldn't help but think that while the issue was far from being resolved, the debate had shifted.

Arneshi was waiting for Zeta at the entrance to the courtyard. "Good interview."

"Thanks." Zeta blushed and looked away. The reporters had filtered out, and the three of them were alone. "Umm, Androcki said—"

"I am not concerned about that," Arneshi interrupted.

"Then I'm not fired?"

"He only has authority over the local office. If he wishes to fire you . . ." Arneshi shrugged. "It was a distraction, anyway. You will appoint someone in the office to take over for you, to run the office. To answer to Androcki. But you are still my primary diplomat to America. You will stay on Shoshone and focus your attention now on the surface. They will have an election next fall. It will likely effect our diplomatic efforts. We should be prepared."

With that, Arneshi excused himself. Jack thought of his final comments as the man left—they were an understatement. Conservatives were still angered about things the president had done in the first days of first contact, even though attempting to continue hostilities against the Consortium would have been foolish. And an anti-Consortium movement was growing, saying they wouldn't respect their independence or rights. It would be a hard-fought campaign on both sides, and realistically, Jack expected American Consortium relations to get worse before they got better. It made him sad.

"Well, I'm half fired, I guess," Zeta said.

"He's right. Running the local office is a waste of your talent," Jack said. "And you're going to busy with real diplomatic work. And being the new spokesperson for the Squid movement. But right now, we're off work, and I'm dying to give the wise Atuylan a hug."

She laughed and leaned against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her and gently kissed one of the tentacles on the top of her head.