Shoshone Station: The Galactic Consortium season 2

Episode 8: The Sting #5

Shannon Otterdance seemed as eager to speak to Haughland as the representative was to speak to her and agreed to meet the next day. Fox didn't relish being in the middle of those two, but agreed to attend for Lannister's sake.

Lannister, Fox, and Walsh sat together at the head of Lannister's conference room. Jack and Zeta arrived to represent their respective governments and sat on the far side, opposite of them.

Haughland had Sarah and another aide with her. They sat to Fox's right in the middle. Haughland gave Fox a cold look, as though he were the one defying her. Sarah came over and talked to him while they waited. "We only want what's best for the women," she said. "You know that, right?"

He nodded. "I get that. That's all I want. All the captain wants. It's not us you have to convince."

Shannon arrived with two others as well. One was an older man and one of the collective's council. The second was the owner of the proposed brothel. She was tall with long, dark hair and a beautiful face. The woman was a prostitute herself, Shannon announced, and ran three brothels, two on Shin and one on Angorak One. Her name was Leela.

It didn't take long for the sparks to fly.

"We provide a range of services for women wanting to escape prostitution," Sarah said to the crowd as she explained what the Phoenix Operation was. "Healthcare, treatment for sexually transmitted infections, housing, employment, and psychological support."

"My women have healthcare, employment that pays well enough for whatever housing they prefer, and psychological support," Leela snapped. "And we don't have these infections of which you speak."

Sarah held her hands up in a defensive position. "We only want to help the women who want out."

"If they want out, there are plenty of other jobs," Leela said.

"Not on the surface," Jack said.

"This is not the surface," Shannon jumped in. "We understand what it's like there. I've lived most of my life there. But this is a different world."

"I find it hard to believe anyone would choose this sort of life," Haughland said.

"Why not?" Leela replied. "I like fucking. I'm good at it. Why shouldn't I get paid for it?"

"I'm not trying to say how you should live your life," Haughland scoffed.

"As a matter of fact, you are. This is how I make my living. And you would deny me that right."

"You can do as you like . . . elsewhere. And I can't control that. We are talking about this station."

"An easy excuse. You don't have control elsewhere, thank the Mother. But you would deny me the right to live as I please and then claim otherwise because you don't control this place or that."

"The Consortium has rules about this," Fox put in, trying to play the peacemaker. "Rules about who can provide these services—"

"You must be licensed, yes."

Fox continued. "And America has rules about this too. More restrictive rules. We are just trying to determine whose rules we should follow in this situation."

The old man at Shannon's side spoke for the first time. "Indeed, we are. Why should American laws be applied to areas of the station belonging to the Shoshone Collective without our say-so?"

"But over this?" Haughland demanded.

"We've listened with an open mind," Shannon replied. "We suggest you do the same."

"I am not entirely unaware of what happens on your planet," Leela said. "You forbid sex work. What happens? Criminals provide a black market. It's terrible, what they do to the women. I agree. But then you compound the problem by blaming the women. It's all about the women's problems," she spat out. "Why don't you go after the men? They are the problem. And the economy."

"The economy?" Sarah asked, a puzzled look on her face.

"Yes, the economy. You have no planned economy. People slip between the cracks. They have no choice. Selling sex, selling drugs . . . they do it as a last resort. It's economic violence on a grand scale. You say you offer the women employment opportunities? I don't doubt it, but you seem to be about the only one. Your society tells the poor to get a job, but you won't give them a job. You tell people they have the freedom to do as they wish, just not around you."

They talked, or rather argued, back and forth for most of the afternoon. Neither Sarah or Haughland could get past their view that all sex workers must have been forced into it somehow. Leela vehemently insisted that, if women were forced into sex work by poverty, then that was an economic injustice—to be fought with economic reforms, not by banning the sex work. She said, "If this is their only choice, it's a shame they must make it. But pulling the final crumb from a starving woman's mouth isn't helping her."

Meanwhile, Haughland and Shannon kept sniping at each other over whether the collective was bound by American laws or customs.

"What are we going to do?" Lannister moaned over the lunchbreak. Fox, Lannister, and Walsh chose to eat alone, to regroup and try to decide how to save this disaster of a meeting. They selected a quiet place on the edge of bottom court.

"Get Leela and Sarah alone together," Fox said, following a hunch. Lannister gave him a despairing look. "Look, Haughland and Shannon aren't going to get along."

"I don't get it," Walsh put in. "Haughland keeps saying she's an advocate of Native issues. Aren't you on the same side?"

"It's not that simple," Fox said. "Her saying she advocates for us . . . well, she seems just a little too eager to stare down her nose at us and tell us what our problems are and how to solve them."

"She does kind of rub you the wrong the way, doesn't she?" Lannister commented. "I imagine it's the same with the women, isn't it? She's going to help them by telling them how many problems they already have?" He laughed dryly. "I like our solution at the station. We have jobs. We have housing. Plenty of opportunities to escape whatever your situation is. Look around." He gestured around the bottom court. "So many of those who have come here wanted to escape something. Drugs, poverty, you name it. We've given them a chance, and most of them took it. I'm proud of that. It just never occurred to me that someone would want to be a prostitute."

"Look, trust me on this," Fox said. "As far apart as they seem, I think Sarah and Leela are a lot alike. They both have an obvious passion for helping people. And for this issue. If they can talk, share their experience, I think it will help provide some buffer for the others."

"And Shannon and Haughland?" Lannister asked.

Fox shrugged. "That issue goes back hundreds of years. I don't think we're going to solve it here."