Margie stood in a greenery house, her hands lightly touching the silky stalks and leaves of some plant she had never seen before but which those who knew plants swore would be a great food source for humans.

Her eyes went around the large and echoing space surrounding her. Things grew everywhere. In pots hanging from ceilings and walls. In neat little rows inside the boxes filled with rich soil. In standing pots. Bushes shrubs, flowering things—all of it green and growing and beautiful in its own way.

From a nearby spot, she heard a woman say, “It’s pretty horrid. I mean, it is so primitive. I am half-tempted to demand to be returned to Old Earth. After all, The Federation will have to fix it right? The people who’re here from below have quite forgotten their place and I know it’s just as bad back home, but this…I just don’t know how much of this I can stand.”

Contempt rolled through Margie. In the last months since Talon, Jessica, Marik, and Jenny had returned to Revant Two with ships filled with Old Earth refugees, tensions between those from Above who longed for a return to the old system and those who had never known it or who had, and refused to be a part of such an oppressive situation ever again, had been really high.

The refugees had all fled the war and terrible conditions there that had come not just from the rebellion by the ones who lived Below against those who lived Above, but from the Gorlites invasion—and that invasion had been aided by The Federation in some part—but not all of them were happy with their decision to flee.

Revant Two was an isolated planet in a system made up of exactly two planets and a few stars. It was in the far reaches of the known universe, and the sister planet was occupied by the Revants who’d also lost their home in the Warp Wars between The Federation and any system that had a wormhole that The Federation wanted to use for a trade route. These wormholes collapsed and destroyed planets and systems in the subsequent implosion.

The other planet was held by a religious order that didn’t want refugees because their bloodline was still pure Revant, and they were vicious in their dislike of the other species currently populating Revant Two, which meant that it was the planet they were on or nowhere for those who were dissatisfied with where they had ended up. Another voice, that one male, put in, “Back home, I was an official. I had a vast house and servants from Below. I was allowed special privileges, and I had full use of the parks and green spaces and I could go to them knowing I would only meet people there who were my peers. Now the ones we use are all overrun by those who think us their peers, and they should know they are not our peers at all! You would think the people that run this place would cede to Federation rule and allow us to have some sort of structure.”

You asshole, Margie thought. Her body went taut. What the hell did these people know about the real issues that faced those who lived Below on Old Earth?

The woman who’d spoken first said, “My husband was an official as well. His place deserves more than what I have been given as his widow. I have been given a hut! A hut!”

Margie’s temper snapped. She walked out of the row she stood in and faced down the two. The woman had a pinched haughty face, and the man she had been speaking to was tall and thin, his face bearing obvious cosmetic marks that had been meant to make him look younger, and had—back on Old Earth where there were surgeries that could still keep up his youthful appearance.

Her voice was thin with her rage. “You want to go back to Old Earth? I’ll tell the leaders. Give me your names. You can go back there and starve to death, or die from a laser blast. Or be killed by the ones from Below who were left behind while you ran onto a ship to escape the rovers and the bandits and the thugs and the climate changes that are killing so many. I am sure that when you return, the families of those who stayed behind and died so you could go, will be happy to hear you have returned.”

Her jaw was taut with rage. Her whole body shook with it. She hated the ones from Above as a matter of course having been raised Below, but she had found that many of the ones who had fled to the safety of this planet were actually relieved that the old system didn’t exist anymore.

These two ungrateful assholes were not ones who were.

The woman sneered, “Mind your own business.”

“You don’t have the power to order me.” Margie’s words cut through the air. A small crowd began to gather. Muttering started. Those who sided with the two Abovers, who were unhappy, sidled toward them. More of them ranged out behind Margie.

Tension simmered in the air. The things that stood between the two camps had always been a source of tension but the fact that the ones who were from Above and couldn’t stop mourning the loss of the cushy life they had had once lived at the expense of those from Below had tightened that tension to a boiling point.

“Stop now.”

Margie’s shoulders went so tense her neck ached as Jeval strode into the row, his handsome face alight with irritation.

Margie said, “I was just—”

“I know.” His voice, low and deadly, snaked toward her. “Be quiet. You two. You aren’t happy here? We haven’t given you reason to stay? Fine. Come with me. Now.”

The two stiffened. The woman spoke, her words tumbling over each other in her haste to get them out. “I was just saying that here we do not have the things we are entitled to.”

Jeval said, “Then let’s fix that.”

The tension in the room went dark, simmered, and shifted toward violence. Margie felt that shift, and she knew that Jeval must have as well, but his face gave nothing away. He simply said, “Now. Move.”

They all moved. Those who had been watching followed as the two complainers followed Jeval out of the building. Margie brought up the rear.

They stepped out into a blaze of sunlight and sweet air. As always, those things lifted her mood. Before, on Old Earth, she would never have been privy to those things.

Those things were reserved for those who lived Above.

Her mood soured yet again. Jeval stopped at the edge of a field and said, “You two, stand here.”

They gave each other looks.

Margie saw Marik, Renall, and Talon—Jeval’s siblings, co-owners and leaders of the planet—approaching.

Renall asked, “what is going on here?’

Jeval said, “These two want to return to Old Earth. So I’m sending them back.”

Talon stepped forward. “All the ships are gone until next week.”

“Then jail them.” His voice sent shivers up and down Margie’s spine.

Marik, the gentlest of that tribe, said, “We can’t jail them for—…”

Jeval cut in. “We can jail them for refusing to work but still taking food. For instigating rancor and dissatisfaction. For nearly causing yet another fight.”

More citizens began to gather. Whispers ran through the crowd, which was uneasy now, and even more tense than ever.

The woman stuttered out “Wait! You can’t jail me! I am the widow of a Federation official, and yes, I have spoken up about the conditions which you expect me to live with! It is not fair nor right that someone of my birth…”

She staggered back, her hands clawing at her face. Margie gasped. Renall snapped, “Stop it Jeval! You draw weapons on a woman?”

Jeval tucked the stunner back into a pocket of his coat. “I do, and I will stun any person who thinks that they are somehow above living as we all live. Take her to the quarters she has been assigned. She can recover there. But unless she wants to work, she won’t eat. That goes for any and all. If you are unhappy, if you feel like you deserve more than what you have been given, you are more than welcome to leave on the first ship that can fly you back to your wretched, war-torn planet. We have been generous enough to give you a chance at a life. No, it is not the life you had before, but you won’t find that life on your own planet either. But you also won’t cause unhappiness and arguments here with your…your bullshit!”

Margie bit back a grin that was not only involuntary, but dangerous, all things considered. She’d taught him that phrase by shouting it at him quite a few times during her rescue and the subsequent events that had come about when he and his brothers had decided to wreck a slaver ship she and several other women had been on.

The woman and the man who had been complaining both stood there stricken. Their expressions were filled with worry and consternation. Margie felt a ripple of pity, but it didn’t last; they had brought it on themselves, and Jeval was correct in saying that it was them and people like them who were causing tension and arguments in the small and growing city.

They were a threat to the planet, whether Jeval’s family wanted to admit it or not, and she knew that they didn’t. It would be far easier to pretend that everything was fine and that all of the citizens were getting along well. They weren’t though. Margie knew that part of the blame was on her own shoulders.

She still felt the sting of having lived Below on Old Earth. And she wasn’t the only one. It was easy to take things personally or as an insult when one had had to live under the circumstances and in the horrible conditions that were their former home. It was easy to feel anger at a system and the people who’d kept those who had lived Below living like prisoners indebted to those who lived Above.

Marik said, “We should hold a special council. I refuse to simply jail someone for voicing their opinion. That’s a dictatorship, not a democracy. We all agreed that this would be a democracy here.”

A few voices lifted an agreement. Margie’s was not among them. No amount of council speak would make those who were dissatisfied and unhappy with their newfound lot feel any better. They wanted total dominion. They wanted everything they had had back on Old Earth. What they wanted was to be waited on hand and foot. They wanted better housing and the right to have things that were simply for them, things that left those who were either not human or those humans who had lived Below. They wanted to see those they thought not their peers to be enlisted as their new servants.

They wanted privilege. They wanted elitism. Everything in her rebelled against that. She hadn’t fought alongside Jeval and his family for as long as she had to be relegated back to the status of a mere servant, a lesser–than person.

Her chin tilted. Her voice rang out loud and clear. “This is reprehensible, this behavior! It rankles and irritates all of those who would stand against their elitism! They would subjugate us, and their greatest grievance is that so far they have not been able to discover a way to make you bend to their will and allow them to do so!”

Shouts, loud and angry, and most of them bent toward agreement, rose into the air. Jeval’s face tightened, and he sent a sharp glare in her direction, but she ignored it. She was only speaking the truth. He knew it, she knew it, and most of the people gathered there knew it as well.

The man who was at the center of the ruckus stepped forward, his hands held up in a pleading gesture. “Now wait a minute! We do have the right to be dissatisfied with what we have now in comparison to what we had then! We are not demanding that we be given back what we had then! But do we feel that we are entitled to have better than what we have? But of course! Look at what you have gotten from us! We are the highest ranking, the highest born, and yet we are—as she said—living in mere huts and being forced to work like common servants!”

Jeval’s voice was silky and deadly. “As you were told before you ever boarded the ship, if you do not work here, then you do not eat here. We do not have the resources—time, credits, or materials—to create massive homes for those of you who feel you deserve them. Even if we did, we would never do that. We did not bring you here to re-institute a hierarchical system that didn’t work. The rebellion happened because you sought to keep people down, to celebrate yourselves and lift yourselves up. Look around you. The faces of those who used to live Below are ringing around you at this moment. Instead of complaining about how well you had it, why do you not simply ask some of them how badly they had it?”

Margie stepped forward. Her entire body throbbed with anger. Her words held a powerful ring that echoed across the clear air. “I can tell you how badly I had it. My family starved. That pitiful excuse for food that you allowed those who lived Below was never enough. Many died. I knew many women who had children and had to watch those children suffer from starvation and malnutrition. I watched them die of dehydration and sickness. And the whole entire time you were Above, above us, drinking clean water and eating good food.”

The woman tapped a foot into the earth. Her expression did not change. If anything, she only looked more irritated. “All those who lived Below were given the opportunity to better themselves! All you had to do was work in a position Above and do well at that position if you truly wanted to spend time out of the Below.”

A man, stooped and with the gray pallor that came from living a lifetime out of the sunlight, came forward. His voice was quiet but intense. “We did work for you in the Above. You gave us so little credits that we couldn’t feed our families. Many of us had to pawn those we’ve loved, knowing that we would never see them again. We had to watch our children go hungry no matter how much we worked or how well. How dare you blame us for the unfair system that you instituted. How dare you demand to have it back. I can understand that you don’t want to work. I can understand that it makes you feel as if you’ve lost something important to yourself. You have. You’ve lost that idleness.”

Neither of the two who had caused the fray looked the least bit ashamed or like they were considering the positions of the people that they had once subjugated. In fact, they both just looked impatient and angry.

Jeval said, “This is your chance. You can agree to go back to work and shut up, or I can have you taken to your home and kept there. You will be given Nutro–loaf and water but nothing else. When a ship comes, we will place you upon it, and you will be returned to your former home.”

The man physically recoiled. His face showed disgust. “You would give us nothing but that… that… garbage?”

More voices lifted. All of them were saying the same things. “It was what we had.”

“It is what you fed us for centuries!”

“Hold them prisoner! Feed them as they fed us and refuse to allow them sunlight!”

A woman rushed forward, her hands balled into fists and her face scarlet. “She has a daughter. Take her daughter for pawn, put her child on a ship to who-knows-where, and make her wonder every day for the rest of her life if her child is safe or even still alive! Make her have to sign the papers for the pawn if she wants to eat!”

Now at last someone had touched a nerve. The woman from Above who had been complaining, and who had caused the entire situation, staggered backward. Her face went the same color as curdled milk. Her mouth opened and closed weakly, and her hands came up and then dropped back by her sides. “You cannot take my daughter! She’s well-educated and bred! She’s polite and mannered! She was born for her life!”

The woman who had rushed towards her glared at her. “My daughter was beautiful. My daughter was well-educated as well. As well-educated as one can be in the Below. She was smart, and she was beautiful, and she was strong. When her father lost his arm to the machines that ran the air into the Below, machines that you in the Above knew needed to be replaced for years and did nothing about, we had no choice. We had to pawn her. We thought we could pay it off. We truly did. We couldn’t, and now she’s gone from us, taken on a bride ship to some distant planet where we will never see her again.”

Margie’s gut twisted. The Federation had been in cahoots with many of the slavers. They would claim that the women who were being forced into cryo-chambers aboard ships that were supposedly headed to distant planets where women were necessary as brides, but what really happened to those women was a far worse thing.

They were taken to pleasure planets and forced into slavery to the brothels there. And that was if they were lucky. There was many a stern pleasure master eagerly taking shipments of women whose lives would consist of living off the sex traffic on streets and in ramshackle quarters. They were usually force-fed pleasure drugs that stripped them of their beauty and their health. Once they wasted away and were of no use to the pleasure masters anymore, they were either summarily killed or sent off to labor camps where they would live out the rest of their lives bent under the lash of an overseer.

The woman from Above snarled out, “Your family’s inability to handle their credit is none of my concern; as far as I can see, it is only your fault that your daughter had to be taken to the pawnbroker!”

Okay, that was it. Margie stepped forward, intent on kicking that woman’s ass so far up above her shoulders that she would be able to kiss her own back cheeks. Jeval’s hand whipped out and caught her by one upper arm. She glowered at him, but all that she could read on his face was a faint amusement.

Of course, he was enjoying this! The bastard was about as cruel as they came!

Jeval spoke, “This is what we are going to do. You do not seem to be happy, Madame,” he jerked a finger toward the woman from Above. “I, for one, can stand no more of your rancor. Your mouth is like the mouth of a serpent. It only takes one bite to infect a person’s soul. You seem capable of infecting many. For that reason alone, I deem you unworthy to live upon this planet. You shall be immediately taken to your quarters and barred within.”

Marik said, “I feel that is too harsh punishment.”

Talon, who had been standing silently on the sidelines watching the whole thing unfold, said, “I do not. I think he is right, in fact. We cannot allow this poison between those who feel they are due more and those who deserve the exact same thing as everyone else to continue. What we will have is open civil war. I refuse to have that here. I have fought for you. I have bled for your kind. I have given lives from both my crew and blood from my own body to help rescue you and to save that planet of yours. I will have peace, even if it means sending a woman to her quarters until she can be removed from this world.”

Renall sighed and stared at his feet. It was very clear that he did not want to be the deciding vote in the situation. So far it was two against one. If he spoke against barring the woman and then removing her from the planet, they would have to have a Council. If they had a Council then the entire citizenry would be able to speak.

Margie held her breath. If the citizenry had their way about it, everyone who was from Above would be set immediately packing. She knew that. She also knew that many of those who had lived Above were actually trying to help. Some of them were rebels who had worked to topple the old hierarchy. It would be unfair to send them all back.

Renall must’ve considered those things because he spoke as his head lifted and his gaze met the gaze of his brothers. “I agree. She will be barred, and she will be sent back. However, we shall feed her more than just the nutro-loaf and water. Even I am not cruel enough, and Jeval, I cannot believe even you are that cruel, to give her nothing but that. If there was hunger upon the planet, and we had no other choice, I would agree, but for now, I can’t agree with the last part of your decree. Those are my conditions.”

The woman began to cry. Her hands jerked up into the air and tangled into her hair. She yanked at it, obviously agitated. “You cannot send me back to Old Earth! It is a hellhole! I will die there!”

Jeval said, “You should’ve thought about that. You have forced us to make you an example. It is not what we wish to do, but we have no choice. Let it be known here and now that any and all who find themselves unhappy with the system that we have here, the system of democracy, that you too may return to Old Earth and immediately.”

Someone cried out, “And what of her daughter? Should she be sent back as well?”

Jeval said, “Will any of you speak for her?” Torn between an agony of conscience at what her actions had helped to create and rightful indignation, Margie swallowed back a hard lump and stepped forward. “Her daughter is a decent worker. She’s trying anyway. If she complains, I have never heard.”

The woman began to weep and wail, still tearing at her hair as several people grabbed her and hustled her toward her hut.

Jeval said, “Then you’ve spoken for her.”

Margie had not meant to speak for the girl, but she had, and there was no taking that back. She knew that. Her head nodded up and down. “I do.”

Jeval said, “Then she is your responsibility. If she creates havoc here, then not only will she be returning to Old Earth, but so will you.”

Margie glared at him. “That is hardly fair.”

He said, “I no longer care about what is fair when it comes to the situation. I care only about averting a war that you humans seem intent upon bringing to this planet.”

He turned and walked away. His brothers all followed him. Margie stood there looking around at herself. The crowd began to dissipate, everyone heading back to the tasks that they had been given. It took a lot of work to keep so many people fed, clothed, and housed. Everyone had to help. If even one person refused to aid in their survival, they could all very well die.

She sighed as she turned to head back to the greenery house. Just what she needed, to be trapped with the responsibility of some Above woman!

And Jeval…

Oh, how she longed to slap his smug face! The two of them had an uneasy relationship, and always had.