3: Everyone Finally “Arrives”

Freya 2 takes half longer than the Earth to orbit its sun but rotates faster, each day only twenty and a half hours. Its main moon still cycles every thirty-ish days, so we wound up with a weird-ass 22-month calendar. We’d arrived during summer far down in the southern hemisphere, and it was now autumn, which is to say our circadian rhythms had balked a bit originally at the shorter cycle and were now acting up again in expectation of a winter that just refused to come. Which is to say we were pacing restlessly through Habitat 3 for hours the next morning, pretending to read instruction manuals while daydreaming about bouncing boobies and walking off recalcitrant erections, until our intercom crackled with Valeriya’s voice.

“-lo? Am I doing this correct? Does anybody in Habitat 3 hear this?”

We all made a mad dash for the common room computer but were beaten to the punch by our French psychiatrist-cum-assistant-medic.

“Yes Valeriya! This is Pascal. How may we be of service?”

“Your habitats look bigger than ours. We would like to move there for today’s discussions.”

“That sounds good-”

“Need any help with your suits?” One of the guys cut in. Sheila’s voice laughed on the other end.

“Honey, when I wanna get groped, you’ll know it. We can manage. See you soon.”

Ten minutes later the two were popping off their helmets and awkwardly stepping out of their suits inside the airlock, hung them up on the wall then stepped inside, absentmindedly rearranging their hair.

“Rest’ll come along later. Haven’t you guys invented coffee here?” Sheila yawned and slumped into one of our makeshift lounge chairs. Comfort had ceded to economy when it came to our furniture. We had enough cots for sleeping, but our original set of chairs consisted of ten very flimsy stools. With a bit of ingenuity we’d strapped some oddments from our other projects onto the frame as backrests, creaking and threatening to break as soon as anyone actually used them.

“It stunts your growth” Pascal shot back from across the table, handing her a cup of plain water.

“Is this safe to drink though?” She sloshed the cup around a bit critically.

“Boiled, distilled and remineralized from sterilized ground. As healthy as we can make it.”

I added: “Not that we’ve found any true pathogens here yet. Couple of poisons. Nothing in the local microbial flora really recognizes us as a chemical substrate. So far. Fingers crossed.”

“You’ve really never worked with patients, have you?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Errr, no.”

Pascal, wryly:

“Do not call people a chemical substrate when you are trying to reassure them, Adam. This boy is damned good with a microscope, but do not make him explain anything to people.” Sheila (and the rest of the table) grinned at his exaggerated head-shaking. So much for charming my way into this woman’s pants. Nevertheless, she took a swig from the cup. Val slumped next to her and took another cup. Both women yawned. Sheila craned her neck toward the nearest round plastic window.

“Man alive. Half of me wants to run out there and see the brave new world, the other half wants to fall back asleep. They warned us we’d be worn out when we come out of it but I barely feel like I’m coming out of it.”

Val, staring down at the table, nodded, almost nodding off.

“These are the most important days of my life. New planet to see. All I do is” yawn “sleep.”

“It was the same for we all, the first days” said Pascal, and the conversation meandered through various pleasantries from there, both sides warming up to each other gradually. The women alternated asking about the habitats, seeming unimpressed but resigned at our primitive amenities. As dainty as they looked side by side to our male eyes, they knew they’d set out as pioneer women; knew they’d be leaving behind most of their civilized amenities. Sheila kept needling Pascal and me about medical details: how did we handle accidents, why hadn’t we partitioned off a true infirmary, how did we sterilize, how had the other guys died, etc. After a while, Val elbowed her in the arm.

“Leave it. You docs can talk shop later. We should talk about playing doctor instead.”

“Ah.” Sheila swallowed her next phrase.

“Too late to be shy about it now, yes?” The Russian raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, no, no, it’s not that” Sheila raised her palms defensively “I’m not regretting it or having second thoughts or anything ... you just ... took me by surprise, is all.”

“Hard for ... how you Americans say, the elephant in the room to take anybody by surprise, dear. Probably you were thinking about it when they stripped us naked and canned us for shipping, back on Earth. I know I was.”

“Pshyeah! No shit. Getting parachuted down like a giftwrapped present for a dozen horny guys? I kept having this notion the colony would have turned into Lord of the Flies by the time we got here. Nothing but cavemen running around some alien jungle and I’d get yanked by my hair back to their caves.”

“Kinky!” Val exclaimed, earning her a playful backhand from her female comrade and friendly laughter from the rest of us. Sheila shook her head.

“I got it out of one of their techs they were sending more electronics, considering they couldn’t find rare metals here when your first ship landed. But yeah, man, they changed their plans at the last minute. From two dozen pioneer couples and extra women down to five whores in a crate?” She must’ve seen Val wince at the word, because she added: “Oh, now who’s gettin’ prissy, girl? Come tomorrow, you’ll be getting bent over a barrel like the rest of us, and lovin’ every minute of it. Whorin’s as ugly a word as you make it, and I don’t think any of these boys are gonna look down on us for it.”

“Certainly not!” Pascal snorted in that thoroughly French manner of indicating the universe had personally insulted him. “But nevertheless, it is a ... an emotionally charged word, for some. I wish truly that young Sarah had chosen a better way to introduce you all yesterday.” The rest of us shifted in our seats, inconvenienced by growing boners at the memory of bobbing tits, and avoiding the direction of Sheila’s well-stuffed shirt. Val shrugged noncommittally. Sheila stared off into space for a bit running her fingers along her hair, then eyed each of us through a minute or more of painfully awkward silence with a woman’s fine eye toward male intentions. Finally, seeming to come to some monumental decision, she took a deep breath and said:

“No. No, I don’t think so. Look, I’ve done my time in strip clubs and done some wilder parties. Pays well.” She grinned. “Workin’ a room-full’a horny guys all ready to boil over? It comes with the territory. It’s a whatchacallit ... natural aptitude. Like me tossing the word ‘whoring’ into the conversation just now.” She grinned proudly. “A lot of times you gotta take charge of the situation. You learn it as you go, sure, but some girls are better at it than others, just naturally. Sarah, we got to see her in action during those couple of weeks getting to know each other. She’s very good at it.”

“Very” confirmed Valeriya.

“She and Val here had all the space agency men eating out of their palm. Bunch of overworked young technicians who’d normally be scared shitless to talk to girls like them. But Sarah yesterday? Flashing you guys like that? That was genius, man. Broke the ice like nothing else. No, it was totally the right thing to do. Made you all expect more, got you just excited enough to wait for it. Gave us breathing room. Hot shit. Wish I’d thought of it first.”

We mulled it over for a bit. We’d been played, and didn’t particularly mind it. Ah, the female of the species. Such wonder. Before the conversation could resume, the airlock started cycling and the last three women made their way inside. They each peeled off their protective suits in a different way: Min methodically, by the book, Maria caressing its surface and paying attention to how it folded, Sarah by ripping off her helmet breathlessly, having apparently been running around outside, and flapping out of the sleeves and legs like an excited child.

“You lot notice you got two moons out there? Little one and a big one!” She said as soon as the inner door opened, shaking her shoulder-length hair out and flipping it back, planting herself on the nearest chair, her blue eyes sparkling. Even having just heard Sheila tell us how manipulative this girl could be, I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by her.

“Well, yes, we did notice the existence of, you know, the moons.”

“It was in the reading material they gave us about the planet, girl. Didn’t you read it?” Maria sidled up next to her.

“Sure I read it. Only I wasn’t paying attention. And I thought you did plants, not planets, Adam-the-first-man.”

Min slid in beside them. The other half of men from Habitat 2 were crowding into the airlock behind them. Pascal waved his hand reassuringly.

“We all center on some jobs but this is a small community. We must all do jobs as necessary, non? I have done more physical medicine than psychological since our landing, and more commonly I sweep floors.”

“Not it!” Maria raised her palms. “ I done my time pushing around a vacuum cleaner in cheap hotels. From now on I clean my room and that’s it. I’ll take up wood-working, maybe.”

Sheila raised an eyebrow at this. “You see any trees around here? Dog wouldn’t have nothin’ tall enough to piss on.”

This segued into recounting our consternation at being given useless woodcutter axes, and from there to construction materials, and from there to housing, and from there to sleeping arrangements, and from there to a deathly silence as we all avoided the obvious topic until Maria threw up her hands in despair.

“Oh, you gonna make me say it? A’right, we gotta talk fuckin’ now. How’re we doing this? Val wants to make a schedule-”

“Have made a schedule.” Val interrupted, arms crossed smugly. “Thirteen divided by five gives a three-week schedule, with alternating weeks free when, you know, we are each indisposed monthly at various times. It is not completely precise, but it can be organized.”

“‘opeless romantic, this girl!” Sarah stage-whispered loudly at us from behind her hand. Sheila shook her head.

“Besides, you just know before the year is out all our cycles will have synced up.”

“No way!” Sarah exclaimed. “That’s real?”

“Happened to me once before” Maria confirmed “if you work every day with the same group of women. But I’m wondering if the men would rather just write our names on some paper and pull them out of a hat.”

Pascal cleared his throat.

“For the start, yes, we could institute a lottery. Pair every man with every woman for one day or two, keep it fair. In the long run though we’ll have different length work projects. We will travel, now that we have the vehicles. It will not be possible to keep everything evenly distributed, by chance or schedule. Trying would cause more friction than it would solve. Plus if you compose an arbitrary system of rules, inevitably some will try to game that system. Bend the rules. Cheat. Human nature. More friction. Our community, again, it is small. It can self-correct. We have gotten along well so far by not making laws.” Mahmoud and Trefjader both nodded along to this.

“So, what then, you all arm-wrestle for us?” Sheila said, raising her eyebrows.

“Heh, non, a little Frenchman like me would wear my arm in a sling very quickly if that ‘appened.” Scattered chuckles. Pascal stood only slightly taller than Jamal and not quite as wiry. “We make it ladies’ choice. It is the way our species is built anyway. The males strut around and at some point the woman lays her hand on one’s arm and off they go!”

Tense, strained chuckles from the men. It had been discussed, but not every one of us had been on board with this option. Many of us were a bit insecure and had wanted a plan guaranteeing us a sure thing. Myself included, I confess.

“Y’aint afraid we’ll play favorites?”

“We hope you will not. At least not too much. There is no money here. We cannot buy your ... services. But some may still be tempted to pander, to curry favor, as men always have since we were australopithecines.”

“So those really were bananas in your pockets!” exclaimed Sheila in mock shock. Sarah threw her head back laughing and reached over to high-five her. All around the room a few shoulders seemed to relax. Never able to pass up a joke, I chimed in:

“Sorry, we haven’t planted any banana seeds. We’ve got radishes though, so two radishes each. Two big, leafy radishes.” I made a ‘dangling’ motion with two fingers. More laughter, especially from the women. Pascal seemed to appreciate the help in easing things along.

“Aside from all that, some favoritism is natural. Some of us will get along with each other more than others and will spend more time together. We only ask that if any man wants any one of the five of you in particular, you will not deny him, at least not without very strong cause.”

Min, the only one who’d kept silent so far, piped up, causing the room to quiet down to listen to her.

“Ah, but if, you know, one of us, one of women” she fidgeted “if we desih- desire to ... change, maybe, to one of men, in exact, and he, ah, he does not have desire for that exact woman...?” Pascal’s eyes widened in surprise.

“I sincerely doubt that will be a problem ‘ere, lovely Min!”

Incredulous snorts, murmurs and raised eyebrows around the room. Huang leaned in and whispered something to Pascal, who nodded, then in the ensuing burst of scattered chatter, Huang made his way to Min and rifled off a quick burst of Mandarin in a low voice. She glanced at Pascal then nodded as well. Sarah eventually spoke out above our clatter of voices.

“Oi! Can we get started then? I’m itchin’ for a shag.”

“I’ve got a cream for that” taunted Sheila. Sarah rolled with the punch, pointing at us men:

“Yeh, they’ve all got a cream for that too!”

Mahmoud hesitated a bit, turning to Doc Huang.

“As official leader of this colony I am prepared to declare the next two days a holiday, but is there any reason, any medical reason, why we should wait?”

Huang shook his head. “They were all started on birth control before they left. The drugs should still be in their systems and they embarked with a year’s supply. Everyone has already been thoroughly cleared of disease. If anyone does not feel up to the task, you stop. Otherwise...” Maria interrupted him by leaning over and planting a big sloppy kiss on his lips, to a cheer from all assembled.