Planet of the Boys Excerpt

Stephen
Oak has actual people living on it. People who were fired, convicted, exiled, people who spoke out against the Powers. And we're not talking about people who said the easy things, like mining can be bad for you; no, a contaminated planet is saved for people who commmit serious religious crimes, or indecent people who kill outside the law.

But up here in the tall buildings we know the real crime, and it's always the naive, nearly educated people who take the freedom thing too seriously. If there was one thing we learned from the Liberty Experiments, it was that humans like to believe they have liberty. And that it's easy to make a life full of consumer products feel like liberty. The danger of the experiment is that so many people fail to see the nod and the wink on the official publications that speak to them about liberty. Everyone can see the uniformed guards, everyone can see the prisons and the weapons we keep stockpiled around our settlements, but somehow they think of liberty as this overarching principle, a thing as essential as their breath, rather than the soft, comforting advertisement for happiness that we always intended it to be. Abstractions have always taken a back seat to economic reality; it's been that way since humanity came into existence; longer really: it's been that way since any beings anywhere engaged in community living. The abstractions are how we flavor things for the lessers, though, so we encourage them where they're useful.

Davey
I am an old guy who talks all the time. The guys tolerate me because I say things that make this place make a little sense, and things that scare them a little bit. But they wouldn't really put up with ol' Davey's crazy theories unless they saw me working. I know I'll be washed up soon enough but I've been lucky enough. The truth is I want to get going but I have to earn a few more bucks out here before I can take off. Sure, I could apply for work on Oak, and be set up with a pretty nice assignment, but if you think the recruitment to Ferro was bullshit? I mean, that place was *liquidated*. You don't liquidate unless you have the kind of violence that could spread to other civilizations (or so they tell us). Even if they could get rid of all the contamination on Oak, no way should anyone accept an assignment there. If I have time I'll tell you my whole Oak theory, but now's not the time. I'm trying to keep my mouth shut for a few days. That's a cycle I do: talk a few days, then lay off and leave people to think about it. Also I take on some bullshit topic that comes straight from the managers, and I work that for a while, so they think I'm helping spread the Powers' word. But I soften it up so much and distort it so well that the guys aren't gettting what they're trying to sell.

It seems like it'd be easy to be a good guy, tell the stories that need telling, and be true to yourself. Are you crazy? That's not easy. It's easier to be a liar, to not give a shit what happens to your fellows, and to take whatever you can steal.

(Originally written 5/2005)