By Josh Wilson
The small woman had a downturned mouth and the kind of lines around her eyes that don’t come from laughter. She picked at her cuticles and tugged at her black shawl. Not a hair out of place.
Beyond the window of the small receiving office the line shifted and snaked through the broad promenade. There were several thousand applicants, but less that half, only the most desperately in need, would be admitted. The rest were bound for Mars, whether they liked it or not. Maybe someday they could immigrate, depending on the war …
“Please understand that this conversation is being recorded, and that anything you say will be considered legally binding in a court of law, including any proceedings related to your refugee status and emigration. We otherwise guarantee your confidentiality. Do you wish to continue?”
A pause. They always pause like that.
“Yes.”
“Your name, please?”
“Jeanine Sue Krebs.”
“Occupation.”
“I’m a housewife.”
“Do you have children?”
“I’m barren,” the woman said, her voice flat, blank.
“Skills?”
“I can cook, clean.”
“Can you read?”
She looked down. “No.”
“Why would you like to come to Alexandria?”
“My husband beats me and rapes me.”
She stopped then and stared, surprised at what she just blurted. Jamie checked a series of boxes on the form, had the woman stand in front of the white screen, the camera flashed and a moment later a new, glossy ident chip ka-chunked out of the data terminal.
“Do you have any personal effects you’d like to bring with you?”
“Just my bag,” she said, and looked over at the threadbare duffle leaning against the wall.
“You’ll have to get that screened, and there’s also a series of decontamination and inoculation sessions. We’re conducting all that over on the Exodus. There’s a shuttle leaving every half-hour, just follow the blue tape on the floor, there by the back door. That’s right. Just walk on through and follow the blue tape.”
The woman had risen and was gazing at the tape perplexedly.
“So I get to go?” she finally said, looking up.
“Just through that sliding door behind me,” Jamie repeated. “Follow the blue tape.”
“I can’t go to Mars?”
“Maybe someday, depending on the war. But right now, no. Besides, is it even safe for you to go back?”
Jeanine Sue Krebs pondered the question. “I guess not.”
“You’re leaving all that behind, Jeanine. You’re going to a new world where you don’t have to be afraid, where you can learn to read, and take your hat off in public.”
“What’s it like there?” the woman asked. “Are there birds? Is there a sky?”
“There are birds. And trees. At night there are stars into infinity, and during the day the roof of the world is a tawny blue veil shot through with all the jewels of heaven.”
“I can’t imagine,” she said, gnawing her thumbnail. “It’s in the middle of space!”
“It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen,” Jamie said, scrolling through her list of talking points. “The 3Ds are amazing, sure, but I say they barely capture the scale. It’s a planetoid fragment, a bit more than a 270 kloms on a side, built out with hypertensile alloy, enveloped in multiple atmosphere generators” — it was actually a single, multi-sourced atmospheric normalization field, but that was getting a little technical — “there’s gravity technology that the Jurists won’t have for decades. It’s a floating mountain, a continent we’ve barely begun to inhabit. Old Earth is lost to us, Jeanine. Poisoned.”
Another pause. The woman was slight but then moved with a jagged, lunging certainty, shouldered her duffel and stepped towards the door, which slid open.
Even bands of colored tape ran along the floor, about two inches wide, out into the maze of services corridors and packing modules, splitting off on separate twisting vectors.
“Just follow the blue tape, and the intake officer will get you started.”
The pale little refugee smiled at last, albeit weakly, and set off through the portal. The doors closed. Jamie sighed, turned back to the datapalatte, ran a background check on the next applicant, summoned the man in.
He was older, hawk-faced, with an anxious shift to his gaze. A lock of limp gray hair drooped across his eyes; he brushed it away reflexively.
“Please understand that this conversation is being recorded, and that anything you say will be considered legally binding in a court of law, including any proceedings related to your refugee status and emigration. We otherwise guarantee your confidentiality. Do you wish to continue?”
A breath, and, “Sure.”
“Your name, please?”
“Hill, James Dalton.”
“Occupation.”
“Electrician.”
“Were you in a union?”
“No ma’am.”
“Can you read?”
“Manuals, mostly.”
“It’s a start. Family?”
“Divorced, two kids.”
“Where are they?”
“They’re on the Revelation, with their mother. They told me I should come here.”
“For what reason?”
James Dalton Hill chewed on his lip, and gazed for a long time at the small reflective-dome in the ceiling, imagining the 3V camera it housed.
What if it was a scam? His life would be over. Off to the camps. He started, looked at Jamie, and took another breath.
“I think I’m gay,” he began.
Next: The Separation — Chapter Twelve