by Robin Banks
“What have you got against the guy? You’ve barely seen him.”
He shrugs. “First classer. Don’t like them. Always trouble.”
“You’re as prejudiced as these two!”
“Postjudiced. Whatever you call it. Yeah. I am. I don’t have a problem with that.”
“Well, I think you’ve all been perfectly rotten. You’ve not given the guy a chance. You don’t even know he’s a first classer, anyway.”
Aiden chortles. “Willing to bet whatever you want. My toolkit. My room. My left asscheek. Guy’s first class through and through.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know. It’s obvious. Sorry. If he turns out to be ok, I’ll treat him ok. I’m not an asshole.”
“If he turns out to be ok, I’ll eat your toolkit,” mutters Gwen.
“There you go again. And you’re trying to tell me that you’ll give the guy a chance?”
“I’ll give him precisely as many chances as I give anyone else: three. One, I will ask him nicely to cut his shit out. Two, I will tell him to cut his shit out, or there will be a reckoning. Three, there will be a reckoning.”
“What form exactly is this reckoning going to take? Because you can’t get rid of the guy.”
Asher pushes his tray away. “Quinn’s right. Milady, you’re a formidable person and I love you for it, but I have serious doubts as to anyone’s ability to retrain that guy to operate within acceptable standards. I don’t think it can be done. Not even by you. And that’s saying something.”
Gwen looks stricken. “Shit. I’ve gotten too used to dealing with cadets and reasonable people. This requires a totally different strategy.”
Asher nods. “First of all, we need to determine if he’s being an asshole on purpose or by accident. My credit’s on the former. His jabs have been targeted too well, particularly given that he hardly knows us.”
“So we need to rise above?”
“I guess.”
“This is going to suck. I’m out of practice.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. I’m sure we’ll get plenty.”
I hate to agree with the guys. I’m still convinced that they’re unfairly biased against Marcus and that they’re the cause of the bulk of the friction. Nonetheless, living with him does turn out to be a giant chore. I don’t know what it is about the guy. He doesn’t do or say anything specific I could complain of, yet he’s agonizingly irksome. He’s unfailingly courteous, politely reserved, emotionally neutral, and relatively unobtrusive. He does have a tendency to open his mouth and say things that would be better left unsaid, said more tactfully, but that’s rare.
Most of the time, he doesn’t interact with us at all. He just watches. He attends Gwen’s lectures and watches. He sits in my office for hours on end and watches. He sits outside our room at night. I’m assuming he must sleep, but the few times I’ve walked out I found him lying in his cot with his eyes open, watching me. He doesn’t read or write or knit or do anything at all; he just sits and waits and watches. I wouldn’t be able to stand doing that, hour after hour, day after day. But he never seems to get bored of it; or, if he does, he hides it well. Meanwhile, I’m starting to lose it. I can’t stand watching him watch us anymore.
His expression never changes. He’s always wearing a half-smile that should be friendly, but somehow isn’t. When I mention that to Gwen, she pulls a face. “Watch him carefully next time he smiles in your general direction. His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s as if he’d learnt how to smile from a book. It gives me the creeps.”
“I don’t know that I want to look that closely. I’d probably blush and drop something.”
“Loveling, I don’t know how you can still care enough to let him make you flustered.”
I don’t understand it either, but I do still care, and he does make me flustered. I find it so uncomfortable to have him just silently staring that occasionally I summon the courage to talk to him. That doesn’t work. Every time I try, his only response is a one-liner about my work. He doesn’t want to distract me. He didn’t know I could maintain med-state and talk at the same time. Shouldn’t I be focusing? I understand that he’s dedicated to his work, and so am I, but I cannot maintain med-state every minute of every day. Sometime I need a break. And anyway, I am just trying to be friendly.
Gwen has got an opinion about that, too. “Rebuff. That’s the word you’re looking for. You’re trying to be friendly, and he’s rebuffing you.”
“Well, not really. He’s answering. He’s just answering in a way that doesn’t encourage conversation.”
“Rebuffing doesn’t always mean walloping someone with a frying pan.”
“Doesn’t it? That’s what you do. You haven’t even attempted to be polite to him.”
“Have too.”
“Have not.”
“Have too. I gave him three chances. He either doesn’t want to, or he’s incapable of learning.”
“Learning what?”
“Anything, by the looks of it. He still calls me Professor McGee. It’s been days. I’ve given up asking him.”
“That’s just a term of respect.”
“Ignoring my very clear wishes is respectful?”
“He has standards.”
“Standards that we fail to meet. He’s made that abundantly clear.”
“He’s always polite towards us. He has lovely manners.”
“He does. So do we. He has his set of lovely manners, and we have ours. And ours are just as relevant.”
“But not as proper.”
“There you go. You bought into his bullshit. Fucking first classer.”
“You don’t even know that he’s first class, and even if he is, why does it matter so much to you guys?”
“You honestly don’t get it, do you? You think this is some romantic, archaic Terran notion of class war, or just prejudice.”
“Isn’t it?”
She freezes and runs through a few breath cycles. “Ok. I’m really angry now, but I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at how things are, and I don’t want to take it out on you. So I have to stop talking. You get that?”
“Sure.”
“But please, do me a favor. Next time we’re in the refectory, watch him eat. And watch Asher. See if you can spot the difference.”
“Asher inhales his food.”
“Not that. You just take a good look. Then we can talk about this some more.”
I think Gwen is full of shit, but I can’t argue with her without knowing what her point is. So, when we have our next meal, I take a good look at how Asher eats.
It doesn’t take long. Once he gets down to it, the guy eats so fast you’d think he was afraid someone was going to swipe his tray. I’d noticed that before; kinda hard not to, when he starts after us and finishes before we’re halfway through. Gwen’s already said that’s not it, though, so I keep watching.
Asher tries a bite of everything on his tray. Then he eats each item separately, only moving on to the next thing when the first one is finished. I can’t work out what his system is, but there clearly is one. In no time flat, his tray is perfectly clean.
I glance over at Marcus. I can barely see him at this distance, but he seems to be leisurely picking at his meal. He has a bit of this and a bit of that, and when he eventually finishes some items are left virtually untouched on his tray. That makes me feel awkward. It’s wrong to waste food – I’ve had that drummed into me growing up – but the guy’s looking considerably fitter than me, so maybe he has the right idea.
I don’t know what to make of this. Gwen sees me looking and seems pleased, though, so at least I’ve done my duty.
When we get back to the office, she calls me into her room. She’s looking expectant and I hate to disappoint her, but I can’t do anything else.
“I’m sorry. I tried. I failed. Can’t work it out.”
“You did see how Asher eats, though.”
“Yeah. It’s weird, I guess, but I don�
�t know what he’s doing or why.”
“He works out what he likes the least and the most, and eats in that order. If he really hates something, he eats it even faster.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Makes sense if you’re used to going hungry. You’re going to eat everything, anyway, so you get through the horrible stuff first, and save the best for last. End the meal on a good note.”
“But we’ve got plenty of food here. The Proctors are always going for seconds.”
“Same issue would apply. Asher’s never going to throw food out. It’s too important for him. That’s what he grew up with – having to get what you can, never quite getting enough. That’s what being third class means. It affects every aspect of your life, all the time. And it’s bad enough that Asher’s been out of there for nine years and he’s still not over it. He’ll never get over it, most likely. Do you get it now?”
“No. But I think I understand what I’m not getting.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For listening. You didn’t have to.”
“I actually give a fuck about what you guys think, and how you feel.”
She grabs my hand and squeezes it hard. “I don’t get it either. Not fully. My problems were of my own making. I had plenty of options not to fuck up, but didn’t take them. Asher never got a chance. His birth plotted out the course of his life.”
“The Fed is still a meritocracy.”
“Sure is. Anyone can climb their way up, in theory. But it’s a damn sight easier to get to the top if you’re born halfway up already. If you’re born at the bottom, regardless of your abilities it’s a longer climb. But that’s not even the worst bit. It’s not about how easy it is to get up; it’s how easy it is to fall down. It’s really, really easy for someone like Asher to fail and fall. He wouldn’t even have to do anything wrong. The competition at the bottom is fierce; Asher could have failed just by not being as good as someone else. Someone like Marcus doesn’t have to do anything to stay at his level. He doesn’t have to compete with anyone for his spot. And his spot is good enough; he gets everything he needs, and probably everything he wants, too. Asher was fighting for survival. Why do you think so many third classers want to be grubbers? The survival rates are awful on new colonies. Do you think third classers are practically stabbing each other in the back to leave the tubes because they don’t like the décor?”
“You’re talking as if third classers died on the tubes.”
“They do. All the time. Between industrial accidents and health issues, the life expectancy for third classers is appalling, and that’d not the worst of it. You ever thought about having kids?”
“Eh? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything. So, have you?”
“A bit. I’m not sure about it. I like kids, don’t get me wrong, but I think I would suck as a parent. I’m selfish and impatient and immature and lazy. I’m not sure I’ll ever be grown up enough to be responsible for anyone else. I know the Fed is going to put pressure on me when I turn 21, and that’s not far enough away. They’ll want my genes, you know? If they can’t pair me off with someone eligible, they’ll probably just try to get me to breed with them. I don’t know if I can do that. Either thing.”
“So you’re not sure, yes? But you know you have that option.”
“Yeah.”
“Can you imagine not having that option? If Asher hadn’t joined the Patrol, no way in hell he could have ever had kids. He would have never been able to claw his way enough up the ladder to qualify. Too steep a climb and too many people scrambling for the same rungs. Can you imagine that?”
“Not really. No. I don’t think so. I can think it, but I can’t feel it.”
“That’s a fight for survival, too. The fight to preserve your line, your family.”
“I guess. I never thought about that.”
“You didn’t have to. Your air is paid for.”
“Is not!”
“It is. It was paid for by your family when you were a kid, then by the Fed, and now by the Academy. I know it’s not the same as being born into it. I know you have to work for it. But what you can do makes you so special that you don’t have to compete for your spot. You don’t have to meet a quota. If there wasn’t work for you here tomorrow, they’d ship you back to your lab to study or train or wait for the next assignment. I can’t think of a way you could fuck up so comprehensively that you’d end up in an institution doing drudge work to make up your air. I’m sure it’s possible, but it’d be damn hard. Am I right?”
“Yeah. You are.”
“But for someone like Asher or Skip, that possibility is way too realistic. They were born so close to the bottom, and it’s really easy to fall all the way down. Way too easy. And when you’re on a tube, it’s in your face all the time. You’re all squashed together, constantly forced to witness how different your life is from that of the higher classes, and you can’t do anything about it. Even if you can help yourself, claw your way up, you can’t change the system. All you’re doing by moving up is helping keep others like you down. You’re practically stepping on them to rise up. So it’s really, really easy to hate those above you.”
“Upper classes don’t get to pick where they’re born, either.”
“No. But they’re the ones keeping the system as it is. They could change it, and they don’t. I can only see two options: either they know it’s wrong and they don’t care, or they genuinely think that’s how things should be. Either way, it’s real easy to hate them. And the way they treat us doesn’t help. So yeah, we’re prejudiced. But I swear on all that is holy, the day I meet a first classer who doesn’t treat me as if I were inherently inferior, I will treat them right. I’ll treat them better than I’d treat one of us, in fact, because it must be damn hard for them to shake off their social conditioning. They ought to get some credit for that.”
I have to think for a bit. “I get what you’re saying. And I understand a lot better where Asher is coming from. But I still think that Marcus is treating us as well as he can, and we’re returning the favor by barely tolerating his presence. That doesn’t seem right.”
“Maybe it isn’t. I also think that you might be a bit biased because the guy’s so hot.”
“You’re probably right. I still think he’s the sexiest man alive. Just overly formal and awkward as hell.”
She shakes her head at me. “Loveling, I think I understand where you’re coming from, but I can’t see that. I hope you’re right and I’m wrong because it would make our lives simpler, but I am not terribly optimistic.”
It takes Marcus two weeks of lurking and staring and making me increasingly uncomfortable before he decides that he has enough data. One afternoon, out of the blue, he knocks rather unnecessarily on Gwen’s office door and formally announces: "Professor McGee, I am ready to file my report to the Chancellor."
"Yippie," says Gwen in a totally flat voice. "I can't wait to read that."
"I thought we would have a meeting to discuss my findings and determine how best to move forward."
"I thought the obvious choice would be a spaceship." Marcus looks puzzled. "To move you forward. It's a long walk home, otherwise."
"Indeed. How droll. If you would be so kind as to organize a meeting with the Chancellor at your convenience"
"I will do so forthwith. I wouldn't want to keep you."
She's true to her word. She must have gotten on the com straightaway and been quite forceful with her request, because she’s out of her office and rustling us up almost immediately.
“Onwards and upwards. No time like the present.”
She charges down the hallway and we hurry after her to Asher’s office. Thankfully he’s on his ATR, so we don’t have to go through all the hassle of loading him up.
“Up and away, love. We’re off to see the wizard.”
“Problem?”
“On the contrary. Captain Kendall has co
mpleted his observations.”
“Oh, jolly good. You told Reggie?”
“Yup. He’s waiting for us.”
“Reggie?” enquires Marcus. “I thought we were meeting with the Chancellor.”
“The Chancellor has a name. That name is Reginald. Turns out you can use it as much as you want, and it doesn’t wear out.”
“And the Chancellor is happy with you referring to him in such familiar terms?”
Gwen shrugs. “We have a pact of non-aggression. I don’t tell him what I call him, and he does likewise. It’s one of those things people do when they want to get along with other people. There’s probably a manual about it somewhere. I’ll try and track it down for you.”
“Indeed.”
When we get to Reggie’s office, Captain Kendall gets straight down to it.
“I’ve spent two weeks observing the current security measures around Professor McGee.”
“We’re all well aware of that,” grunts the Chancellor.
Marcus ignores him and carries on. “The reason it took so long is that I was frankly puzzled. I couldn’t understand what those measures were, so I continued observing. It took me this long to realize that the issue wasn’t with my interpretation.
“I’ve been watching and waiting to find out what your secret weapon was, and it turned out that there isn’t one. Your security measures rest solely on the hope that a non-combat-trained civilian with an unquantifiable psi-bility is going to provide enough of a warning that another civilian, combat-trained but never tested, will be able to react on time. This in a situation where assailants have all the tactical advantages. They get to pick the time, place, and manner of the attack. All you get to do is respond.
“The whole thing is laughable. I’m not particularly shocked that civilians would think this situation is acceptable. It would be unreasonable of me to expect them to know any better. But that anyone who has served, however briefly, would go along with this… It smacks of willful disregard for Professor McGee’s continues survival.”
