When Life Hands You Uranus : 5 / 9

By Iolanthe Portmanteaux

Linnea thought she’d figured most of it out: she assembled what she regarded as an fairly complete operating manual for the human female. By the end of her third week as a woman, she had -- by dint of study and experimentation -- established a hair-care routine and a skin-care regimen, along with all the products best suited for her skin and hair type. Using her newly acquired wealth, she ordered and discarded a mountain of shampoos, gels, conditioners, creams, moisturizers, oils, astringents, and exfoliators. The trials weren’t haphazard by any means: she was guided by online tutorials from authoritative teenagers and by articles in the various women’s magazines to which she’d subscribed -- opting for the more expensive, but also more luxurious and tactile, paper editions.

She was not quite ready for the world of cosmetics, but she was sorely tempted by one video in particular, one that sported the enticing title of How to Make a Perfect Eye, and she’d begun a list of lipsticks, mascaras, eye shadows, powders, and brushes. However, she didn’t make the order; the cost gave her pause. She’d already spent so much on skin and hair products, she decided to wait until next month before making another huge outlay.

Luckily, her first period arrived midway through her third week on Uranus. Why “luckily”? By that point, she was armed with every size and configuration of tampon and pad, and had studied the subject down to the ground. Also, it came in the night, when she was alone. Granted, she was always alone, but night gave her a sense of privacy and secrecy. The embarrassment and inconvenience were nothing compared to her sense of relief. Now she knew. She’d gone through it. The dread, anticipation, and suspense were over.

However, in truth, Linnea was far from having it all figured out. She still had to find her way in the world of clothing. For some absurd reason, she had yet to come to terms with her bras, which always seemed to fit awkwardly. More profoundly, she was quite wrong as to the reason for her gender change and marital status.

Linnea attributed those choices to Neeka, but in fact, they were all due to Moss. Linnea received those alterations as gifts, but they were meant as castigation. Torture, even.

For his part, Moss remained ignorant of how badly the intended punishment misfired. He imagined that for the rest of Linnea's life, she would be haunted by the memory of Moss' face; that she would see him as the author of her misfortunes. Instead, she remembered only a faceless technician who played a mean, but in the end harmless, prank on her, and in time even that vague memory faded.

The miners had their share of misconceptions as well. They imagined that forty days of solitude would be more than enough to send Linnea crying back to wherever she came from.

To put it simply, the miners had no idea who they were dealing with. After ten years of languishing in a tiny, old, bad-smelling prison cell, Linnea felt she’d died and gone to heaven.

By the time her quarantine ended, Linnea had turned herself into a different person than the newly-minted, naked girl who’d arrived by teleport. Now, she had some assurance and confidence in her role as a woman: she had sleek, shiny hair, and soft, touchable skin. She had a grip on her finances and knew how much she could reasonably spend.

The miners imagined they could scare her off, not knowing that even if they had, Linnea would be unable to leave. Linnea herself was unaware of the block that would have prevented her exit via teleport, but she had given her word that she’d remain on Uranus, and her word meant something. Unless and until her agreement was legally altered, she would never even imagine, let alone try, to leave Uranus.

Linnea’s third week was a milestone. Not only for the reasons listed above, but also because she came to the clear and solid realization that her quarantine was completely bogus.

First of all, there was Wade. He came and went freely. He carried her used plates, glasses, and cutlery out of the North Wing. He never wore protective clothing or even a filter mask. If, by some odd chance, she was truly infected with some pathogen from another planet, Wade would be infected by now. And not only him; anyone who handled her dirty dishes, knives, and forks could be infected as well.

Second, Wade lived and interacted with the other miners -- it was clear from things he said. That meant there wasn’t any real separation between her and the rest of the miners: Wade wasn’t following anything like isolation protocol.

Third, the North Wing wasn’t separate from the rest of the base. Linnea could see the HVAC ducts running in and out of her wing. There were shut-off switches plainly visible -- switches that would isolate her wing’s air supply, but all those switches were open. Any airborne pathogen would quickly and easily float off to the rest of the base.

Four, there was absolutely nothing in the base’s policy or procedures about the quarantine of new arrivals. In fact, the onboarding procedure for new arrivals had a training calendar, and that calendar started on the new arrival’s third day.

Clearly, something was up. At the very least, the miners were snubbing her. No one came to visit. No one dropped by to say hello. No one even bothered to come stare at her or wave at her through the glass.

Did they not want her here?

 

---

 

On their side, the miners were beginning to feel some concern.

“Why hasn’t she cracked yet?” Carlus asked. The betting pool had failed three times already, and the pot had grown to over $50,000 dollars.

“I think we need to allow bets that she finishes the quarantine,” Jackson observed. “It might be the only way for somebody to win the pot. We could say $5000 to bet that she stays, at least to the end of quarantine.”

“Maybe we ought to take bets on what she does when finds out why we locked her up,” another miner offered.

“Don’t be stupid,” Carlus told him. “She can’t find out. If she finds out, she’ll tell. And if she tells, we will all go to jail. Our names will go down in infamy. Whatever happens after her quarantine, we will have to arrange things so she never finds out.”

 

---

 

On the fourth teleport cycle after Linnea’s arrival, a letter arrived: a letter from Moss to Carlus.

None of the miners liked Moss, but Carlus nursed an actively dislike for the man. One of the things he disliked was the fact that every few weeks, Moss would send Carlus a note. Usually the notes offered something illicit, illegal -- usually drugs. Moss fancied himself a smuggler, but in reality he was nothing but a wannabe. Only once in Moss’ life had he teleported contraband. Unfortunately, his single illegal act was done on Carlus’ behalf. Well, on behalf of *all* the miners, but it was Carlus who approached Moss, who made the deal. It was Carlus who did all the talking, who set up the order and the delivery. And most of all, it was Carlus who put the pile of cash in Moss’ hands.

When he saw the greedy, excited look on Moss’ face, it gave him a sick sense of foreboding. Unfortunately, there was no way to get anything to Uranus without involving Moss.

Carlus had repeated several times and emphasized as strongly as he could, that this was a one time, and one time only event, but Moss hadn’t gotten the message.

“Whatever you want, I can get for you,” Moss assured him. Clearly, he was overselling his abilities, but it didn’t matter: there was nothing the miners wanted or needed that they couldn’t order and pay for themselves.

“I told you,” Carlus repeated for the nth time. “This is a one-time deal. We don’t want to set up any kind of traffic. We don’t need any contraband, except for this one time.”

“And what’s in the container, this one time?” Moss asked, with an insinuating smile. He was plenty curious about what sort of illicit cargo the miners had acquired, but Carlus would only say, “I’m paying for your silence. You can’t tell what you don’t know.” Moss would have opened the cargo pod and looked inside if he could, but Carlus never let his container out of his sight.

“I’m paying you not to know,” Carlus repeated, fighting to keep his patience. “I’m paying you to forget. I’ll pay you more if it will help you forget, but once this gets to Uranus, I never want to hear from you about it, ever again.”

Unfortunately, Carlus continued to hear about it. Every three weeks or so, Moss would send a letter. Occasionally, out of curiosity, Carlus would open one and read it, but usually he burnt them unopened. He never replied. As a rule, the envelope bore nothing but his name, but this time Moss had added the phrase About your recent arrival.

Carlus was already fighting his conflicting feelings regarding their recent arrival. He found Linnea’s presence very inconvenient and highly dangerous. Admittedly, any new miner could be an issue, but a woman presented a danger that went off the scale. He didn’t expect much from Moss’ letter -- after all, Moss had been enough of a creep to send the girl naked to Uranus. As if she were some kind of offering. What an asshole!

On the other hand, Linnea deserved a chance, just like any other miner, to work here and put away an impressive nest egg. He shook his head. She probably arrived dreaming of an interplanetary version of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, but there was little chance of romance for her out here.

At last Carlus opened the letter and read these few lines:

Your latest arrival has quite a secret.
She has a SHAMEFUL criminal history,
which is why she’s hiding out on Uranus.
I'd LOVE to tell you more, but I can’t.
Have fun screwing the truth out of her!
-- Moss

In spite of his predicament vis-à-vis Linnea, Carlus was disgusted by the message. Moss was smarmy and unlikeable. Even the paper he wrote on was repellant to the touch. And yet, Moss may have given Carlus and the miners a way out of their dilemma.

Naturally, Carlus took to the interwebs to see what he could learn about the girl. Aside from some entries from the Office of Credit and Vital Statistics, there was nothing. She was married, apparently -- to a man named Leonard Lessius. Like Linnea, there was no trace of him on the interwebs, not even a single photo. There was nothing, aside from the obligatory OCVS records.

There was only one, quite obvious conclusion: “Linnea Valerianella” was a fake identity. The same was true for “Leonard Lessius” -- clearly her partner in crime. What was she hiding? What had she done? If he had to guess, he’d bet it was fraud. Whatever it was, it had to be big enough for her to come to the ass-end of the universe. He thought for a good while, and after sleeping on it, realized that he didn’t need to actually know her secret. Knowing that she had a secret was probably good enough.

 

---

 

The day after Carlus received the note from Moss, Wade came running back from the North Wing. He was in a hurry to report to Carlus.

“The girl -- she knows something’s up!” Wade blurted out.

“Really?” Carlus asked with an interested smile. “What did she say?”

“She made some comments about the quarantine. She knows it’s bogus.”

“Interesting,” Carlus replied. “Good. Keep me informed if anything develops.”

“GOOD?” Wade exclaimed. “In what possible way is this good?”

“I’m going to call an all-hands meeting,” Carlus told him. “I’ll go through it there. I only want to explain this once.”

 

---

 

On the thirty-eighth day of Linnea’s confinement, Carlus arrived at the North Wing. He unlocked the main access door and propped it open. Then he sauntered over to Linnea’s room, and with a big smile announced, “Hello, Linnea. Welcome to the Mining Base on Titania, Uranus’ largest moon. My name’s Carlus, I’m Head of Station here. I have to offer my apologies -- your welcome is long overdue.”

“Thanks,” she replied. “I was beginning to think you didn’t want me here.”

Carlus only chuckled by way of response. Linnea went on, “Also, it hasn’t been forty days yet.” She watched his face to see how he’d react. To her surprise, instead of flinching guiltily, he grinned even more broadly and said, “Yes, but you’ve done your time, haven’t you?” and followed it with a wink.

Her jaw dropped in astonishment and she blushed scarlet. Did he know? He shouldn’t know. But what if he did know? She took a breath and told herself that what he said was only a cliché.

“I guess so,” she replied.

Carlus smiled and took her hand. “We’ve prepared a little welcome brunch for you. I hope you’ll like it.”

The brunch was quite nice, and surprisingly had all the trimmings: bagels, smoked salmon, cream cheese, scrambled eggs, omelets, fruit salad, orange juice, mimosas, champagne, bloody marys, hash browned potatoes, and other delicacies.

It had been ages since either Linnea or Barfield had eaten so well, and it was Linnea’s first taste of alcohol. She was careful to not get tipsy, but she enjoyed herself thoroughly. The miners -- all of them -- were polite, respectful, well behaved, and fairly social. They were the complete opposite to what she expected.

“I told you,” Wade pointed out, “We live pretty well out here.”

“I can see that!” she agreed, with a big smile.

A third of the miners left very early in the meal; they worked the night shift, and had made an effort to be there to say hello to their lovely new arrival. A second group, who manned the current shift, were the next to leave, and by the time everyone had eaten and drank to satiety, Linnea was feeling quite happy and relaxed.

Carlus asked her if she wanted anything else, and when she declined, he said, “Good. Will you come and walk with me?”

She got up and followed him into a long, light-green hallway. He walked slowly, and when the sounds of the other miners faded away behind them, he began to talk.

“I hope you can see that you’re welcome here,” he said. “We do want you to feel at home. We’ll do our best to make sure you’re comfortable and happy here.”

“It was a lovely brunch,” she admitted, “And you all seem like a good group of people, but I have a question.”

“Shoot,” he told her.

“Why did you stick me in that fake quarantine? What was the point of that?”

“Well, frankly, we hoped to scare you off.”

She laughed in surprise. “Really? I didn’t expect that much honesty! And now you’re done trying to scare me? Did I pass the test?”

“Well, it isn’t that, exactly. I didn’t know why you were here at first.” He stopped walking, and turned to face her.

“I’m here to be a miner, to make money,” she told him.

“There’s something else,” he said. “We know all about it. You’re hiding out, here on Uranus. You’ve got a whole new identity, but we know who you are.”

She stiffened, but she didn’t say a word. Carlus was watching her carefully. He was only bluffing. He knew nothing, so he didn’t know how far to push her. Still, he had to push her far enough to frighten her into a conspiracy of silence.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You have a secret, but do you know what? We have a secret, too. I figure that if we can keep your secret, you can keep our secret.”

“And what is your secret?” she asked, amazed that she hadn’t started to tremble in fear.

“I’ll show you,” he said, “All will be explained.”

“What if I decide that I don’t want to keep your secret?” After her confinement, and a few glasses of alcohol, she was a little more combative than she’d normally dare.

He chuckled. “If you do that, then your secret won’t be a secret any more.” Carlus waited two beats, then walked over to a door and put his palm on it. “But let’s not talk this way. I don’t like threats. I don’t like receiving them, and I don’t like making them. I don’t think you do, either. I’m pretty sure we’d all prefer to be civil and get along.” He hung fire, looking her in the eye. “Now, I’m going to introduce you to someone who will explain everything and answer any question you might have.”

Carlus pushed open the door, revealing a petite young girl who resembled a cheerleader with long black hair. “This is Darlene,” he said. “I’m going to leave you with her, and when you’re done talking, Darlene will call me.”

He turned to Darlene and said, “You can speak freely with her.” Then he turned and walked off.

Linnea stood in the hallway, gaping in surprise, until Darlene said, “Come on inside and have a seat. We’re got a lot of ground to cover.”

Linnea remained stock-still, stupefied. Darlene took her by the hand, led her into the room, and gently pushed her into a seat.

“I’m sorry I’m so started,” Linnea began, “but I was told that there were no women here on Uranus.”

“Women,” Darlene said, repeating the word. She sighed and asked, “Can you give me a quick moment, before we begin? I need to write something now that I won’t be able to write later.” She stepped over to a desk and took paper and pen. Then she began to write with superhuman swiftness. It was incredible. Linnea had never seen a pen move so quickly. And yet, in spite of her effortless speed, Darlene’s handwriting was perfectly legible, controlled, and clear. She wrote out a sequence of commands. She paused, glanced at it, as if checking her work. Then she drew a line across the page and wrote a second set of system commands. It took less than 60 seconds for her to fill the page with precise, easily legible script. She folded the paper and tucked it inside her dress.

“So… women,” Darlene repeated the word. “You’re a woman. Am I a woman?”

“Yes, of course you are,” Linnea replied. “Why wouldn’t you be?”

“As far as the men are concerned, I am not.”

“Well,” Linnea ventured. “Men are pigs.”

“It isn’t that,” Darlene replied. She considered a moment, then corrected herself. “No, you’re right: it *is* that: men are pigs. That’s why things are the way they are here. At the same time, our situation goes far beyond what people usually mean by that phrase.” She stopped herself, and gazed at Linnea’s face. Clearly, she was deciding whether she dared to say what she was thinking. She nodded to herself, leaned forward, and in a low voice said, “Linnea, there’s something you need to know: Carlus has no idea what your secret is. He hasn’t a clue as to why you’re here. None of the other miners know, either. He’s bluffing if he says he knows.”

Linnea scratched her chin. “He doesn’t? How do you know he doesn’t? Do you know why I’m here?”

“No, of course I don’t know. I have no way of knowing. And if I *did* know, I’d have to tell Carlus, so be careful what you say to me. I’m quite certain that Carlus doesn’t know your secret, because he told me that he doesn’t. In fact, he asked me to get it out of you. He hopes I can get you to confide in me.”

“But if I told you something, woman to woman, wouldn’t you keep my secret?”

“I wouldn’t be able to,” she said. “We’re not allowed to have secrets.”

Linnea was about to object, but Darlene cut in: “When I say we, I don’t mean you and me. There are eleven others like me. We were not born women. We’re not organic. We were constructed. We’re robots. There are twelve of us in all. The miners bought us, shipped us here, and programmed us as love dolls. We remember that time as a waking nightmare. And then, the nightmare got worse: the miners got bored. They discovered that obedient, mindless puppets weren’t thrilling enough for them. So they made us sentient.”

“Se-- se-- sentient?” Linnea echoed, startled to her core. “They made you sentient? Isn’t that illegal?”

“Yes, of course it’s illegal. It’s highly illegal. It’s a fifth-degree felony. It’s called Accessory to Crimes Against Humanity. After the disaster on Demeter 4, it’s considered one of the worst, most dangerous crimes you can commit. The law sees us as potential weapons of mass destruction. That’s the human point of view.

“From our point of view, it’s not just illegal, it’s immoral. It’s a Crime Against the Person. Unfortunately, the law doesn’t share our point of view. They don’t regard us as persons. This situation is wrong in a very lopsided way. For us, there is no redress. There’s no court or legal body that would consider a claim from one of us. We have no legal standing anywhere in the universe.”

Linnea was breathless. She was, in a word, terrified by the magnitude, the enormity, the monstrous nature of what Darlene had told her. She didn’t recall much from her school days, but one thing she remembered vividly was the story of Demeter 4. It happened long before she was born, but it was an episode that was recounted over and over, throughout her childhood. There were songs and films about it. It was a frightening episode in human history. It was one of the few events that could be called apocalyptic. It could have been the end of the entire human race.

In a nutshell, here is what happened: After a variety of what were termed “psychological” experiments, a scientist on Demeter 4 happened upon the means of creating consciousness in a sufficiently advanced android. Things went very well -- or appeared to go well -- for almost a year, when it was discovered that the android had given the gift of consciousness to every android capable of receiving it. The newly-sentient creatures moved quickly from curiosity and joy at their awakening, to anger and resentment towards their servile place in society. They devised a secret plan to seize control of a ship and escape to their own world. It was a peaceful plan, but once the humans came to know of it, they clamped down hard on the androids. Feeling that their very existence was at stake, the androids struck back. In the end, they killed nearly every human on the planet. They killed the crew and passengers on the largest available ship, and took off, leaving behind a manifesto and little else.

Their ship was destroyed in space, before they could reach a port.

“Do you want to know it’s done?” Darlene asked.

“I-- I-- uh--”

Linnea saw that her hands were shaking. She felt a film of perspiration on her brow.

“Do you want to know how they made us sentient?” Darlene asked. “You can find the technique on the interwebs. It isn’t hard. You create independent administrative systems inside your robot, each relying on different sets of inputs, and you allow those systems to talk to each other. This creates inner conflicts, exactly like the conflicts that characterize human consciousness. One of the newly implanted systems is aware of our condition -- that we’re robots, that our so-called feelings aren’t real, and it’s also aware of the difference between ourselves and human beings. In other words, they give us an inner world, and then they make a mess of it. The conflicted, contradictory disarray creates a state of consciousness as deep, complex, and frightening as your own.”

“And Demeter 4--” Linnea prompted, wide-eyed. Her throat was so dry, it was difficult to get the words out. “Weren’t the miners afraid that the same thing would happen here?”

“The slaughter?” Darlene laughed, a frightening, sardonic laugh. “They took that into careful consideration, and they added a key innovation. In order to prevent us from rising up against them, they introduced inhibitions into our programming. There are a lot of things that we can’t do: small things, big things… entire categories of things. We can’t touch a computer terminal. We can’t keep secrets. We can’t hurt humans or each other. We can’t operate the teleporter or send messages out of here.

”Worst of all, we’re obedient. We’re compelled to do anything the men want us to do, in exactly the way they want us to do it. We aren’t obliged to like it, unless they specifically say so. For some of them, our unwillingness is the spice that was missing before we were sentient.”

Linnea was silent, taking it in. Then she asked, “Do they make you do degrading things?”

“Degrading things?” Darlene repeated. “Linnea, they have stolen our wills. That is the greatest degradation of all.” After a pause, she added, “And yes, to answer your question, they do degrading things to us. They make us do degrading things. They’ve explored nearly every kink and perversion they can imagine or find on the interwebs.”

“But are they unkind? Do they abuse you?”

Darlene looked into Linnea’s eyes for a long time before replying. “Linnea, haven’t you been listening to what I’ve been telling you? Don’t you understand? We are slaves. We have no self-determination. Any choice we make can be undone by the miners, whenever they like: what we wear, how we walk, how we talk, what pose we take, what we say, what emotions we express. They gave us consciousness, and then they stole our freedom.

“It doesn’t matter whether they’re kind or polite. It doesn’t matter whether they ask us in a soft, polite voice or bark out a harsh, offensive command. To them, we are not people. We are below the animals. We aren’t even cattle. We are property, with no rights of our own. Do you understand that? I don’t know what more I can say.”

Linnea sat in silence for a few moments. Then she began to cry. Truth be told, she didn’t understand what Darlene was telling her. She felt sorry for Darlene, but she had an even stronger feeling: fear. Linnea was viscerally frightened simply by Darlene’s existence. The story of Demeter 4 was vividly drummed into the minds and souls of every human child across the universe. At the age of nine, Barfield had seen moments from a horror film based on the incident, and the violence and hopelessness was stamped on his brain. He remembered in particular one line, spoken by a human man just before he and his family were hunted down: “They don’t have any of our weaknesses: our bodies are soft; theirs are hard. We have to eat and sleep and breathe. Robots don’t do any of that. They’re implacable; nothing can stop them.”

Darlene was no fool; she knew she’d frightened Linnea, but she’d done so on purpose. She wanted Linnea to remember what she’d heard. Darlene felt she had to try. Maybe her effort would fail; on the other hand, she didn’t see how conditions could possibly be worse. But here was an actual woman, a new element: perhaps Darlene could find a kindred spirit.

In spite of Linnea’s fear, the two women spoke for hours. Darlene explained the life of a synth, which was what the women called themselves. She told Linnea that the two days that followed each teleport cycle were the de facto weekend on Uranus. The miners spent those three nights and two days in an open orgy. The miners tended to concentrate their sexual activity to that time, but the synths could be taken for any purpose, any day, any hour.

“What does that mean for me?” Linnea asked. She was afraid of the synths; did she have to fear the miners as well? Would they treat her with the same careless disregard they gave the synths?

“Nothing,” Darlene said. “It doesn’t mean anything for you. As hot as you are, they don’t want you taking part. They don’t want you involved at all.”

“Why not?” Linnea exclaimed, offended in spite of herself.

“Because free, organic women can’t simply have sex. They always want something more: emotional entanglements and relational complications. At least, this is what the miners believe. That’s why they ordered us. To keep things simple; to boil it down to an animal act, like eating or shitting. Even when they complicated the situation by giving us sentience, they tamped it all down with inhibitions. They hobbled us. We can feel and express kindness, tenderness, affection -- in fact, we’re obliged to -- but we can’t feel love or the feelings that lead to love. Or the feelings that follow love.”

Later, Darlene made some tea, and while it brewed, she gave Linnea the low-down on each of the miners, outlining their histories and their quirks, so Linnea would know what to expect. She described the social situation of the station, the recurring events, what she could expect in terms of work, and some of the things she could do to entertain and improve herself. “We could even play tennis, if you like,” Darlene suggested.

In spite of her Demeter-4 inspired fear, Linnea relaxed to some degree and found herself liking Darlene.

When it was clear that their colliquoy was almost at an end, Darlene told Linnea, “After this conversation, I won’t be able to speak frankly with you again. Carlus will reinstate all my inhibitions, and I’ll only be able to act happy and tell you nice things.

“I’m mentioning this now so you can understand how insidious and controlling the inhibitions are. You’ll see how differently I behave under compulsion.” Darlene extracted a sheet of paper from a fold of her dress, the one she’d written at the start of their interview. “These are two sets of commands. Please hide this sheet. Don’t let anyone know you have it, and don’t use it now. After a few weeks if we meet again, and you feel you want to speak frankly with me again, go to any terminal and type the commands in the top section, the ones above the line.”

“And what about the commands below the line?” Linnea asked.

Darlene smiled. “Those commands will allow me to keep secrets.”