4. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
A few more drinks in, Tobago explained to me why the crew had laughed when I’d asked about Earth sickness. “It’s a myth.” He waved his hand in the air as if he could scatter the words away. “Earth has been safe to visit, and inhabit, for decades.”
“Fake,” Tobago insisted. “They couldn’t let scientists go back after their expeditions and blab that Earth was safe. Then everyone and their mother would be trying to move back there.”
I shook my head again, still trying to process, and this time the movement made me awfully dizzy. “How do you know?”
Tobago motioned to himself. “I’ve been to Earth dozens of times now. I’ve never sanitized afterward, and I’ve never gotten Earth sickness.”
Hmm. How strange. “Maybe you’re immune?” I suggested.
“No one in my crew has either.”
That fact did seem harder to reason away. “Maybe you’re all infected and don’t realize it. What are the symptoms of Earth sickness, anyway?”
Tobago grimaced. “Chronic diarrhea that ultimately leads to bowel explosion.”
Fair enough. It did seem unlikely they wouldn’t realize they had that.
“And that’s my point exactly.” Tobago pointed at me with vigor.
“We’re all warned about Earth sickness from the time we first take Earth History in school, but so many people have no idea what it’s even supposed to be.
They keep us purposefully in the dark to keep us cowed and contained and manageable.
” He burped a little under his breath on this last word.
“Who’s they?” I wanted to know.
Tobago ignored the question, leaning toward me with a sudden intensity in his eyes. “They want us to be sheep, Mina. That’s why I had to escape. So the wolves wouldn’t get me.” He shook his head at me, straightening again. “But you’re a smart woman. I’m sure you’ve figured that out.”
“Oh, yes,” I agreed quickly. “Of course.”
But the truth was, I had no inkling of what he was talking about.
I’d always followed the rules that were told to me—explicitly, by school or the government, and implicitly, by society.
Yet it seemed for a very long time, I’d been following different guidelines than everyone else.
I’d been assuming the rules were actual rules!
When we were told we should use Pleasure Machines and avoid physical intercourse at all cost, I tried my best!
And yes, I’d had a slipup here or there, but I’d felt guilty afterward.
I’d corrected myself. I’d so wholly suppressed my desires that I hardly knew what to do when they surfaced.
That made me think, of course, of Ursa. My Ursa. His warm kisses and strong hands and firm body. The way he looked at me like I was the sun and everything else dimmed in comparison . . .
But no, I oughtn’t to be thinking about that. My alcohol-addled brain struggled to stay focused. If what Tobago was telling me was true . . . if there really was some kind of conspiracy to trick people into being afraid to visit Earth . . . why? For what possible purpose?
It all sounded a little far-fetched, to be honest, like one of Tobago’s paranoid rabbit holes that he was always tumbling down.
There’d been that patch during school when he’d been convinced that the color orange appeared differently to everyone who saw it.
Then there were the uncomfortable few months when he’d tried going without showering because he believed his natural human instincts were being suppressed by over-cleanliness.
(They were not, for the record.) The year he’d spoken only in Pig Latin .
. . I’m not really sure what the reason behind that was. 2
The man in front of me now, though, was not the same boy who had grown up alongside me.
I could see glimpses of him here and there, but this man showed evidence of a life lived outside the grid, and many hard lessons learned.
He was a captain of a vessel, a tradesman.
He’d been to Earth more times than even Dr. Shangrit.
And he seemed to be of the strong opinion that Earth infection was nonsense.
There was also the fact that, despite what I’d been told about the dire consequences of leaving Earth unsanitized, several hours had passed, and I seemed to be just fine. No exploding bowels, anyhow, for which one must always be grateful.
But if Earth infection was nothing but a hoax, why? I wasn’t sure I entirely bought Tobago’s theory about sheep-people. Then again, perhaps he was merely too drunk to be able to articulate his point clearly.
I decided to press the issue. “What reason would there be, though, for keeping us from returning to a planet that’s habitable?”
Tobago laughed, as if touched by my naivete. It was not a particularly nice sound. I did remember now, after many years mostly spent apart, that he could be this way at times—a little condescending, as though my intellect was puny in comparison to his.
I could have reminded him that I was a mycologist and likely would have been a very well-respected researcher had I not had to flee for my life, but I didn’t want to derail the conversation.
“Money,” Tobago told me, as though it should be obvious.
“People have made their fortunes setting up the colonies while Earth was being rehabilitated. New governments have formed. Do you really think the fat cats are going to give up their power and wealth so the citizens can abandon their made-up hierarchies and let everyone start from scratch on the home planet? Do you really think the non-mods living on the lower levels would stay in the Havens if they knew they could go back to Earth?”
My mind whirled at the picture he was painting.
Could it really be that simple, and that depraved?
The Havens were a lovely place to live, for those who got to live on the upper level and enjoy the perks of filtered sunlight, artificial landscapes, clean cities.
I supposed I’d never really thought too much of what it might be like for those living on the lower levels.
There was only so much space underneath the domes, so those who could not afford such luxuries had to live beneath the planet’s surface.
They could access the upper levels if they worked jobs there or saved up enough to splurge on a vacation, but otherwise, most of their time was spent underground.
It made me ashamed, honestly, that I’d so carelessly accepted the difference in my life and theirs.
Those who got to live on the upper level, who’d established careers and thriving social connections, might not want to leave the Havens to return to Earth, even if it were a possibility.
But for those who’d spent most of their lives in artificial sunlight?
I couldn’t see many wanting to pass up the opportunity.
Although, without the lower-level citizens to maintain the upper levels with their underpaid, menial labor .
. . the Havens wouldn’t be the same. And though other settlements around the galaxy might not operate entirely like the Havens, I had to imagine that a mass migration of mankind back to Earth would create similar disruptions everywhere.
When I looked back to Tobago, aghast, he smiled as if pleased with what he saw in my expression. Putting his hands behind his head, he leaned back in his chair. “Ah. Now you’re getting it.”
“It’s terrible!” I clutched at my chest, as if that could stop the agitated pounding of my heart. “I can’t believe . . . Someone should let people know! They should have the choice.”
Tobago just shrugged. “People have tried. But you’ll find those who do don’t make it very far.”
“But if researchers found out . . . if they published their findings and gave them to the public—”
A snort of laughter escaped Tobago. “You think other researchers don’t know?”
“I didn’t know,” I insisted, no longer caring whether he thought me a naive idiot.
“You weren’t the head of the expedition.” Tobago took another sip of his drink. “I guarantee Rawley knows.”
It was not a huge leap, to believe Rawley capable of lying about a truth that would otherwise enormously benefit mankind.
But it couldn’t be him alone. Dear, kind Dr. Shangrit had led expeditions in the past, he’d told me so himself.
And cheeky Mr. Lowry had been living on Earth for ages.
Surely he’d noticed his bowels hadn’t exploded.
Could those two men really be so greedy, too, that they’d choose their own self-interests instead of letting their fellow humans return home?
And my mother . . . my honorable, intelligent, morally incorruptible mother, who’d died for her objections to post-birth genetic modifications.
She’d been an expedition leader to Earth once, too.
I’d been so cross that she wouldn’t take me with her.
She’d claimed it was because I needed more hours in the lab first, but now I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been intentionally shielding me from something. A horrible truth. Her own shame.
I must have been making quite a face, since Tobago seemed to read me so clearly. “You don’t know the circumstances,” he told me somberly. “Don’t judge people too harshly for what they do when they’re desperate.”
It was a rather radical departure from his earlier rantings about sheep and wolves and whatnot. Something in his gaze told me my old friend knew a thing or two about being backed into a corner. Something that had turned him from a smart, cheeky, rebellious boy into a jaded, angry man.
I didn’t plan on pausing the story there, but when I saw how agitated the Brethren were, my voice trailed off and I looked over their motley faces in confusion.
“It’s all nonsense, though,” said Blacktongue, his eyes almost pleading with me to agree with him.