A just people
Another day, another failure.
I sighed and left my post. “Post” might be an exaggeration. It was just the place I spent my days.
Who am I? My name is Kortech, son of Kaltech, former First Lance of the Kenosian people in exile. I know, I know, pompous name but that was what my dad said he was.
But that was before.
I looked up at Dad as we walked home. Dad was a soldier, well an ex-soldier. A warrior who had sworn to protect our homeworld against everything, everyone. But that was gone now, lost forever. I had been born on New Eden, a human world, a human camp.
I never understood Dad’s attitude to the humans. He would bow and obey. He agreed to everything they said. He helped them whenever he could. He never once complained. Not when the storms washed away our camps, not when the human helpers slowly started leaving, not even when he was refused job after job for “lack of qualification.”
He wasn’t alone in this. Most of the Kenosians had become beggars, thieves and worse. It was the lot of those who weren’t humans, forced to live destitute, permanently attached to the dwindling government grants. I grew up watching my dad throw away the last shred of honour he had and go out to beg.
For years, I watched him leave our hovel and go out on the streets to collect what little he could.
I remember the first time it was my turn to go out to beg with him. It had been a week since the last funds from the humans’ NGO had dried up. I don’t remember why but apparently, the Kenosians were forbidden from working on human worlds. Something about humans not needing jobs as everything was automated. But I was old enough to understand. It was just one more way for them to control us.
We walked into town towards the town square where the most people went. That was smart. Dad always said that it was a numbers game. If we parked ourselves in a main artery, sure a lot of people would walk by but it was in town squares where people stopped. They went in and out of shops and malls, carrying boxes filled with things I could only imagine owning. Yes, I knew that the town square was the best place for us to go. As we walked to our spot, I saw other Kenosians. They too were begging. I looked into their faces and saw nothing but gratitude. Those old people sure were weird. The humans walked past them without sparing them a glance, but still the older generation would bow and thank them.
I didn’t understand. Dad and I were settling down in our spot when a pair of humans walked past us and Dad cheerily said, “Good morning to you, Sir, Madam. I hope you have a pleasant day.”
I didn’t understand why. The humans didn’t even seem to notice. Actually, no. The man turned a little red and looked away while the woman turned to us and, for a second, I saw the flash of pity in her eyes. She too blushed and stammered, “Erm, yes. Thank you. Pleasant day to you too.”
I felt nothing but embarrassment. I turned yellow in shame and could feel my ears tingle. Then Dad did the unthinkable, he bowed, fully at the waist, a full ninety degrees, as he said, “Thank you. You are too kind.”
I may have been wrong but that thank you had more weight than usual but being a brat, I only understood what he meant later. I was about to say something when I felt a hand on the back of my head. It was Dad, he was making me bow to the humans. I tried to resist but he put more force and pushed my head down. The humans clearly uncomfortable quickly moved on, they didn’t even acknowledge him. He had debased himself in public and nothing. They ignored him. My father had thrown his warrior pride away for… for nothing. A ‘thank you’. They hadn’t even dropped any credit chips. I felt nothing but shame for my dad. He was a loser, a pushover. The humans had castrated him, and this was what was left. A spineless nothing of a Kenosian. I bit my tongue and said nothing but I could feel that anger bubbling in the very core of my being.
That night, Dad and I had our first real argument. I was thirteen and full of piss. I would take on the world. I couldn’t accept that my dad was a coward. I yelled at him, “Why ?! You’re better than them. You fought for our world. Why?! Why do you just do nothing? They don’t even see you! They probably laugh at you in their luxurious homes while we sit here in our hovels!! We don’t owe the humans anything !! Why? Why do you keep on giving them excuses?!”
Oh, I knew of the Exodus. I knew of the ships that had come in the night and had “saved” our people. When I was a little kid, in the education centres, human-run of course, we learnt the names of every ship that had come to our aid, every organisation. We learnt of the Great Defiance, as Mrs Math’el called it. She was an elderly Kenosian who had been granted a teaching position after the Fall. She had taught us what the humans wanted us to learn, of course. The ships in the dark, the courage of the human people as they formed a bridge of ships between our dying world and the interstellar vessels that had brought us here. She taught us how they had brought us to New Eden, to start over, to avoid the mistakes of the past.
All I remember was having to travel an hour on public transport to get to that education centre. I remember how our homes had been made of 3D printed foam. Temporary of course. Yeah, right. Temporary for thirteen years. I was born in “temporary”. Everything I owned was temporary. Hand-outs from good samaritans, donations from schools. Hell, even the clothes on my back were given to my dad by some Sister woman. Apparently in the early days of the evacuation, there were tens of thousands of people who had come to our aid. If I am to believe the book in the education centres, there were hundreds of thousands of ships that came to our world.
When we had been moved to New Eden, the humans had built a huge medical facility for us but now there were only two dozen doctors who specialised in Kenosian physiology. The humans had sidelined us and we were now clearly second-rate citizens. Hell, we weren’t even citizens, just refugees that had nowhere to go. Over the years, we received less and less help and now the medical facility was only open two days a week. After that, we were on our own. That was true for most of the other programmes. Hell, I think the only facility that was fully funded was the education centre.
When I was born, the humans still helped out but, by the time I was like six, all of that stopped. Their Red Cross and Red Crescent ships were leaving and going home. When I was like six, I remember the holos showing the Martian Relief groups being called back due to a catastrophe with one of the biodomes. All that remained were a few of the religious groups. And we were left to fend for ourselves. And in a world of automation, there was no need for unskilled workers. And surprise, surprise. Guess who the unskilled workers were? That’s right. The Kenosians.
Dad had sighed and said, “You don’t understand, Son. The Humans, they are good people. They…”
He never did finish that sentence.
Then there were the dark years when Dad had to go out to look for work. And of course, there was none. Not for us. During those years, we still sort of hung out with human kids but that quickly ended when the slurs started. Moochers, good-for-nothings, parasites. We stopped hanging out with them after that. What’s the point in going where we’re not wanted? But from what I saw, we weren’t wanted anywhere. That’s how I ended up with Dad, begging on the streets.
I remember the humiliation I felt when I, as a ten-year-old, had to bow to a kid of ten who seemed so engrossed in his game that he didn’t even acknowledge us. I remember the pressure Dad had put on the back of my neck and pushed my head down. I remember him saying, “Good day to you, Madam.”
Over the years, that humiliation turned to resentment, but still, we had to find a way to earn something. I remember having to pool our resources among several Kenosian families. I remember going with my dad to find work, only to be turned away, again and again and again. Guard, sanitation worker, food delivery, nothing was good enough for us Kenosians. Even Kenosian prostitutes were not that popular. Yes, the humans taught us well, we were the lowest of the low.
Dad always tried to hold on to his pride and had shielded me from those darker activities. And so we begged.
I remember the cold and the snow as we sat down in our spot in the streets. I looked around and saw the lights, heard the songs that were being played over the PA system. I knew these songs : Silent Night, O Tannenbaum and Let it snow! Despite all the merriment around us, nothing seemed to fill the void in my soul.
And so started the wait. We would stay here for ten hours at least, bowing our heads every time a human would walk by. They would ignore us. They walked by as if we weren’t there. Most of them gave nothing. I remember days on end where we would go home with nothing. Sometimes there would be the clinking of a few coins falling into our lap without a single word being uttered but most of the time we would come home with nothing but humiliation.
They only seemed to be focused on themselves. This Christmas thing seemed all-encompassing. The lights, the songs, the cheers and merriment - but none of those meant anything for us.
The snow fell upon our shoulders as we sat, hunched, trying to keep warm. My soul was frozen as I looked at human families walking past, arms full of boxes, presents bought by parents for their children. I don’t know why, but my eyes locked on a human man with his daughter. She couldn’t have been more than six or seven. She was holding on to her father’s hand. Her father walked past us without sparing a second glance. My eyes lowered in shame. As I bowed my head, I thought I saw the little girl looking back at us.
A few hours later, we had managed to collect a few coins and credit chits, just enough to buy food for tomorrow. We just had to hope that the others had been successful too.
We were about to pack up and leave when the same little girl came to stand in front of us. I didn’t know if I should look up or not but my head rose. She was standing there, her blonde hair fluttered in the winter breeze, her rosy cheeks barely visible over the scarf that was wrapped around her neck. She stood there in a blue coat, red gloves fishing around in her pockets.
I didn’t know what to say but she blurted out, “Daddy said I shouldn’t give you my money but he also said people should be kind to each other, especially around Christmas.
“So here, take this,” she said, taking a purse from her pocket and emptying it into my lap. "I was going to buy hot cocoa but I figured you could get something nice too. It's Christmas after all."
The few coins that fell into my lap felt like heaven. I felt tears swell in my eyes and, for the first time, my head lowered without any prompting from my father.
And that’s when I realised that humans were truly a just people.