I'm fine. [They're far enough away from the flowers that she can say that!] I got out, I'm free now, and I'm not going to let the past hold me back. Tradelines don't want damaged goods.
[No, it's not that simple, but she's trying to make it true. Tradeline mental health provision is limited to a nice contract-ending payout and the best of luck with whatever career you choose to pursue planetside. One aspect of Ari's sector that isn't better than elsewhere.]
I was adopted too. My genemother was a Company daughter who didn't want the child of a spacer she'd just had one overnight with. She probably thought it was very unfortunate, instead of just being carelessness. [More honesty. Ari, whose career would be ruined by pregnancy, knows it's easy to prevent! But then she's not sorry she exists, so... more conflicted feelings. Isn't family difficult?] Someone in poverty having ten children sounds very inadvisable. Not optimal. [See how polite she's being!] It must have been very difficult for you.
I never went to school. My father used to say that mass education was very inefficient. Apprentice spacers don't get terribly high wages, but then we're not paying for the training, so it works out. It's nothing like slavery. Unlike anyone else on the Tradelines, apprentices can leave at any stop they want to. No long contractual obligations. We recognise it's not the career for everyone, and you might not know that until you've spent time living shipside.
I think Earthers are far too much like old Tirva. So much oppression. Women. Apprentices. People from different colonies. There's no respect for essential rights at all. Individuals like you seem to be in the minority. It's probably for the best my people have never discovered Earth. There would either be a quarantine zone or a war.
[But she doesn't want to sound too critical.] Still, I appreciate you telling me about Napoleon. It doesn't sound like there was any side of virtue there. Just authoritarianism. Tyranny on all sides. The people of Tirva - oh, Tirvans were the oppressors my people had to fight for our freedom, at Breakaway - some of them loved their leaders. Many of them. Possibly because of what happened to the dissenters. Trying to take someone else's territory is wrong no matter who does it, but sometimes there are tyrants with good intentions.
[Then she smiles.] I did make one mistake - of course your grey-haired captains needn't be retired! For me, hearing that they were planetside led to the assumption. But they aren't spacers! I wouldn't be so hard on them. Surviving battles does tend to mean you know what you're doing, although if anything I'd expect the opposite in wartime. Younger officers having to step up and take more responsibility, early promotion, because their elders hadn't survived. Breakaway had some young captains. I'm not the very youngest to pass for lieutenant! [Not far off it, Tayrey.] I heard of someone doing it at fifteen standard years, but their parents were both Tradeline, and we suspect they started their training under the minimum age because of it. I was just... I learn quickly. Genetic advantages. And my section lieutenant wasn't going to hold me back, she pushed me for excellence.
Did it really take months to get across an ocean? Plenty of spacer customs came about because of time and distance. The decentralisation of the Tradelines, for one thing. There's code, regulations we all have to follow in order to be Tradeliners, but beyond that every captain is completely independent. No central command. It has to be that way, when we're out in the black months at a time. Used to be years, because of time dilation.
I heard mention of that before, your East India Trading Company. I'm not sure if that would be more like the Tradelines, or like our biggest Companies - interstellar megacorporations. That'll take some explaining...
[She grins at him again.] Not tired yet, are you? I do have to finish my patrol. But I can arrange it so that we finish it right outside the tavern, how's that? So we can talk about women's voting rights and Company Towers and whatever other interesting questions we have for each other, yes?
no subject
[No, it's not that simple, but she's trying to make it true. Tradeline mental health provision is limited to a nice contract-ending payout and the best of luck with whatever career you choose to pursue planetside. One aspect of Ari's sector that isn't better than elsewhere.]
I was adopted too. My genemother was a Company daughter who didn't want the child of a spacer she'd just had one overnight with. She probably thought it was very unfortunate, instead of just being carelessness. [More honesty. Ari, whose career would be ruined by pregnancy, knows it's easy to prevent! But then she's not sorry she exists, so... more conflicted feelings. Isn't family difficult?] Someone in poverty having ten children sounds very inadvisable. Not optimal. [See how polite she's being!] It must have been very difficult for you.
I never went to school. My father used to say that mass education was very inefficient. Apprentice spacers don't get terribly high wages, but then we're not paying for the training, so it works out. It's nothing like slavery. Unlike anyone else on the Tradelines, apprentices can leave at any stop they want to. No long contractual obligations. We recognise it's not the career for everyone, and you might not know that until you've spent time living shipside.
I think Earthers are far too much like old Tirva. So much oppression. Women. Apprentices. People from different colonies. There's no respect for essential rights at all. Individuals like you seem to be in the minority. It's probably for the best my people have never discovered Earth. There would either be a quarantine zone or a war.
[But she doesn't want to sound too critical.] Still, I appreciate you telling me about Napoleon. It doesn't sound like there was any side of virtue there. Just authoritarianism. Tyranny on all sides. The people of Tirva - oh, Tirvans were the oppressors my people had to fight for our freedom, at Breakaway - some of them loved their leaders. Many of them. Possibly because of what happened to the dissenters. Trying to take someone else's territory is wrong no matter who does it, but sometimes there are tyrants with good intentions.
[Then she smiles.] I did make one mistake - of course your grey-haired captains needn't be retired! For me, hearing that they were planetside led to the assumption. But they aren't spacers! I wouldn't be so hard on them. Surviving battles does tend to mean you know what you're doing, although if anything I'd expect the opposite in wartime. Younger officers having to step up and take more responsibility, early promotion, because their elders hadn't survived. Breakaway had some young captains. I'm not the very youngest to pass for lieutenant! [Not far off it, Tayrey.] I heard of someone doing it at fifteen standard years, but their parents were both Tradeline, and we suspect they started their training under the minimum age because of it. I was just... I learn quickly. Genetic advantages. And my section lieutenant wasn't going to hold me back, she pushed me for excellence.
Did it really take months to get across an ocean? Plenty of spacer customs came about because of time and distance. The decentralisation of the Tradelines, for one thing. There's code, regulations we all have to follow in order to be Tradeliners, but beyond that every captain is completely independent. No central command. It has to be that way, when we're out in the black months at a time. Used to be years, because of time dilation.
I heard mention of that before, your East India Trading Company. I'm not sure if that would be more like the Tradelines, or like our biggest Companies - interstellar megacorporations. That'll take some explaining...
[She grins at him again.] Not tired yet, are you? I do have to finish my patrol. But I can arrange it so that we finish it right outside the tavern, how's that? So we can talk about women's voting rights and Company Towers and whatever other interesting questions we have for each other, yes?