Shoshone Station: The Galactic Consortium season 2

Episode 2: To Be or Not to Be #11

"Chandra is eager to meet you," Sara told Sophia as work wound down the next day. Drumming had proved to be sparsely attended and not the party Kerry or Tapanga had hoped for. Tamela complained that she was tired. Tapanga ditched them but Sophia, Tamela and Kerry had checked into a medium sized room at Zeera's hotel and talked late into the night about getting an apartment together.

At breakfast they had included Sherry in the plan and she was interested as well. So Sophia had approached Sara to ask how to find a place and what the rents were. She offered to introduce them to a friend of hers who had some real estate.

Chandra was a good head shorter than Sophia. He had bronze skin and dark hair, with cobalt blue streaks dyed through out. He dressed in a long black kirtan and tight fitting white pants. He spoke with a simper and he walked with an exaggerated grace, like he was dancing across the floor.

On the surface, Sophia would have read those behaviors to indicate he was gay, but as she caught him giving Sara a shaded look, Sophia reminded herself that those stereotypes were cultural.

He had a number of "pods" he said and with slow adoption of the station as a whole, he could really use a few renters. The pod proved to be a round room with a sunken den in the middle. Six sliding doors were evenly spaced along the circular walls. Four lead to sleeping rooms, each with a curved bed fitted into the wall, closets and a small viewscreen. One contained a bath room with a sunken bath and the final one a kitchenette.

Chandra had prepared some fragrant rice dish on the stove and the smell was intoxicating. There was a stack of flat bread on the counter next to the dish. It was a clever sales ploy, but Sophia's stomach rumbled and she knew it was working.

Chandra carried the dish to a low table at one edge of the central den. They sat on cushions on the floor. The dish and the seating arrangement was foreign to Sophia but the thought of cooking her own meals was satisfying. She could settle here, save her money and feel like this was home.

Still her dad had always made a big deal about never letting the sales staff know you were interested, you had to bargain from a position of strength, he maintained. So she set her face, tried to appear indifferent.

Tamela and Kerry had, apparently, come from a different school of thought on haggling. "I love it," Kerry roared. "It's so gorgeous."

"It's so unique, not like any apartment I've seen on the surface," Tamela agreed. "And we can cook, save our money..."

"What does rent run on a place like this?" Sherry asked, looking around.

"These places are all in the public sphere, and rents have just been downgraded by the economics office," Chandra said with a dramatic sigh. "I'll be reduced to day labor myself if I can't fill them soon." He named a price. It sounded good to Sophia, but she struggled to do the math. "I can charge you all at once, and you can divvy the bill up according to whatever arrangement, or I can set up individual contracts at a quarter each."

Public sphere, it turned out, meant that the rent was set by the economics office. It was determined by a multitude of factors, one of which was the vacancy rate on the station as a whole. Since so few people had chosen to come up, their protocol dictated that they lower rents and cost of living to attract more people. "And so they did," Chandra finished. "Even though the reason people aren't coming up has nothing to do with cost of living."

Seeing that there was no point in haggling, Sophia let her poker face slide and told him. "It's really lovely. I think I'll like living here. And when new people arrive, I'll be sure and point them your way."

"Oh, by the mother, thank you," Chandra gushed.

By the time they had eaten, they had settled on the place, with rent to be divided evenly. They finished their contracts.

Sara had stayed to eat and left with Chandra. Sophia wondered if there was something between the two of them.

Kerry, predictably, wanted to go party to celebrate their new home. Tamela protested at first but quickly gave in. Sherry demurred and Sophia took it as her cue to decline as well. She and Sherry went to gather what few things they owned from the locker they'd stashed them in at the start of the day.

On the way back they stopped in a couple stores and bought a few toiletries and some food stuff. Rice, flour and other basic food items were even cheaper than the stall food that Sophia and the others had been subsisting on and she felt really good about their apartment after that.

Sherry insisted on stopping at the Chiya-batu place and picking up a bunch of videos. Not wanting to spend the night watching them, Sophia went to her own room when they got home and watched the videoscreen. She tuned it, for the first time since she'd come up here, to earth news. The seasons were changing under her, it seemed. They had seen huge cloud cover beneath them when they had worked the bottom court, and indeed the first big snowstorm of the year was raging down in Denver. Sophia was glad she didn't have to be there for that.

International news was focused on Afghanistan. The Consortium had been helping the Afghan government pacify insurgents throughout the country. They'd insisted on free elections. The results had been mired down in corruption and uncertainty. In a stunning turn of events, Sarasvat had declared the election and the government itself, invalid. "The Afghan president can no longer claim to speak for his people," she said in a short statement.

The contingency plan, according to the diplomats who took over for her after that statement, was to divide the country, much as they had Syria, along ethnic lines. The Consortium would provide demilitarized zones and economic cooperation zones, slowly introducing the various tribes and groups to each other again as the century old feuds faded into memory. It would be a long slow process, they cautioned. But they were committed for the long haul.

Journalist wanted to know about Sharia, the religious law of the Taliban. They had crafted what to Sophia seemed an odd compromise. Membership in cultural collectives was voluntary. They were treating the tribal groups in much the same way. They were treating Sharia in much the same way. If people objected to being tried under old tribal laws and custom, the Consortium would intervene, take them and let them live, in the Consortium. It allowed the groups to retain their traditions, but gave individuals who objected an out, too. How it would work in practice was anyone's guess.

Sophia fell asleep during the broadcast, only to be woken late that night by a Kerry and Tamela returning with a loud boisterous party. She groaned and rolled over, burying her head in the pillow and tried to get back to sleep.

Thanks for reading!