Part 4

But for All Our Travels

Feed source: Reskit Institute of Interstellar Migration (Public News Feed)

Item name: The Modern Exodus – Entry #11

Author: Ghuh’loloan Mok Chutp

Encryption: 0

Translation path: [Hanto:Kliptorigan]

Transcription: 0

Node identifier: 2310-483-38, Isabel Itoh

[System message: The feed you have selected has been translated from written Hanto. As you may be aware, written Hanto includes gestural notations that do not have analogous symbols in any other GC language. Therefore, your scrib’s on-board translation software has not translated the following material directly. The content here is a modified translation, intended to be accessible to the average Kliptorigan reader.]

*

Where would you begin, dear guest, if you wanted to venture out into the galaxy? Would you talk to a friend? A trusted person who had made the journey before? Would you reach for a Linking book, or test the waters with a travel sim? Would you study language and culture? Update your bots? Purchase new gear? Find a ship to carry you?

Every one of these options are on offer at the emigrant resource centre, a relatively new fixture you can find in most homesteader districts. Some are set up at existing schools, others fill unused merchant space. All serve the same purpose: to prepare GC-bound Exodans for life beyond the Fleet.

Scroll through a workshop listing for any centre, and you will find an exhaustive array of topics. Here is a sampling of the current menu at the resource centre my dear host Isabel took me to visit yesterday:

Conversational Klip: What You Didn’t Learn In School

Interspecies Sensitivity Training 101

Weather, Oceans, and Natural Gravity: Overcoming Common Fears

A Guide to Human-Friendly Communities

Trade Licence Advice Forum (ask us anything!)

The Legal Do’s and Dont’s of Engine Upgrades

How to Choose the Right Exosuit

Introduction to the Independent Colonies

Those Aren’t Apples: Common Alien Foods You Need To Avoid

Imubot and Vaccination Clinic (check calendar for your desired region)

Ensk Six Ways: Making Sense of Humans from Elsewhere

Ground Environment Acclimation Training (sim-based)

Ground Environment Acclimation Training (non-virtual discussion)

Tunnel Hopping for Beginners

The list goes on.

I sat in on ‘A Guide to Human-Friendly Communities.’ Neutral market worlds were prominently mentioned, as were Sohep Frie and, I was pleased to note, my own adopted home of Hashkath. Harmagian territories, depressingly but unsurprisingly, were presented as hit-ormiss. Quelin space was vehemently discouraged, to no one’s surprise.

‘People’s biggest fear is getting kicked to the margins,’ said Nuru, the course instructor, who graciously took time to speak with me afterward. ‘Everybody’s got a great-aunt or uncle sitting around the hex, grumbling about how their parents were sidelined when they made market hops in the pre-membership days. Everybody hears horror stories about Human slums or whatever, and they come in here with exciting ambitions but a huge fear of ending up homeless or mistreated. Life outside the Fleet isn’t like that anymore, not if you’re smart about it. Times have changed. There are rough places in the galaxy, yeah, but that’s what my class is for. That’s what this whole centre is for. We want to give people the best start we possibly can.’

I asked Nuru why he spends his days training people for life elsewhere when he himself lives in the Fleet. ‘I lived on Fasho Mal for ten years,’ he said. ‘I loved it, every second. I loved the sky, the open space, the dirt, all of it. But I came home when my mom got sick last standard. Our hex was taking good care of her, but . . . how could I not? So, now I help people get ready for their lives on Fasho Mal, or wherever it is they’re headed. It’s the next best thing to being there myself. At least someone gets to go, right?’

Not everyone agrees with that sentiment. The majority of my time spent in the Fleet has been a delight, but I have, on rare occasion, encountered individuals less approving of my presence. I crossed paths with one of these on my way to the resource centre – not an elderly person, as you might have expected, but a man somewhere in his middle years.

‘We don’t need you,’ he shouted at me as Isabel and I approached the centre. It was clear from the way my skin puckered as he came close that he was intoxicated.

At first, I was not sure if he was addressing me. In hindsight, Isabel knew, as she began to walk more quickly, but in my ignorance, I stopped my cart to make sense of the situation. ‘Are you speaking to me?’ I asked.

The man did not answer my question, but continued on as if that point were obvious. ‘We’re Exodans. We belong here. You get that? You’re not like us. You don’t understand what we need.’

Isabel tried to get me to move away, but I assured her I was fine. ‘I want to hear what he has to say,’ I said. I gestured my willingness to listen to the man, even though he would not understand, even though I believe it only agitated him more. ‘I do not understand why you are angry at me.’

‘Whatever you’re here to teach, take it home,’ he said. ‘Take it home. We don’t need you.’