Midway: Chapter 12

  Kim Sun Jung sat down with her daughter Bao for lunch in the dining hall to explain shunning to her.   It was important that she understand why it was going to happen and why it was important for her to do her part.   “Bao my dear, do you know what it means to shun somebody?”  Bao shook her head no.  “Well, it’s the most severe sanction we have on this ship against a fellow crewmate.   It’s what we’ve been taught to do when we’ve tried everything else and somebody still won’t respect the most basic rules of the ship.”  The mother took a drink of schmilk and then took a big sigh.  “Bao we’ve never had to do this before and it’ll be hard even though it can sound simple.  It means completely ignoring somebody and pretending they don’t exist, but everybody has to do it… and that includes you.”

  “Who is getting shunned?” Bao asked.

  “Neil Sengupta,” her mother answered.

  “Ohh…” Bao replied.  She had been aware for quite a while that there was some sort of problem with Neil but it was one of those adult concerns she didn’t have much interest in yet.  “Is it really that bad Amma?  I think Neil’s okay… I don’t see him a whole lot, but-“

  “Trust me my dear, it is that bad.  At least it has apparently gotten that bad very recently.   Neil has apparently decided that he is not going to contribute any more body or brain hours because he doesn’t want to… and that cannot be allowed.”

  “Why?” Bao asked; always her favourite question.

  “Because if everybody behaved the same way dear, we would all die in deep space and the whole New Horizons mission would be a failure.  He’s figured out that if only he or just any small group of people don’t contribute that we’d be just fine overall… and you know what? He may be right.   But do you see how unfair that is to the rest of us?”  

  “Yes… I think I do,” Bao offered, unsure of herself.

  “We all have to do our part with our brain and body hours, and we all benefit from each other’s work.  Do you see how every single hour of work Neil refuses to do, just adds to somebody else’s burden of hours on board.  Do you see how him refusing to contribute his share, while still consuming everyone else’s share, is an insult to everyone who does contribute?”  Bao tentatively nodded.

  “You know, if we were still on Earth?  Neil could do whatever he wanted.  He could move from one group to the next, wearing out his welcome and then moving on to the next suckers.  That’s just not possible here.”  Sun Jung sighed; she could tell there was something her daughter still didn’t understand.   “There are very few ways we can sanction someone here Bao.  We don’t believe in punishment here, but if this were another time on Earth we might have imprisoned him or even executed him, but we don’t believe in that kind of thing now.  If he was violent or dangerous we would have to consider quarantine but that’s not what’s going on here… he’s just being belligerent.”

  Bao wasn’t completely sure what belligerent meant, but she knew it wasn’t a good thing.  She tapped at her small wrist scroll which she’d opened and laid down beside her plate on the table, and searched the definition.  It would be several years before she’d be old enough to have a Brainchip implanted.   When she read the definition of ‘belligerent’ she figured her mother must be pretty upset at Neil.  

  “We do believe in sanctions and behavioural correction though Bao, and I’m afraid Neil has had this coming for a long time now,” her mother concluded.  “Do you have any questions?” she asked.

  “Many…” Bao answered, “…always,” she concluded with a charming smile.  “But I think I understand.”

  “Once upon a time Bao, when people lived and died in villages or ancient cities… they typically would have lived their whole lives in the same place, or at least with the same people.  Every experience of their life would have happened with all the same people.  Their community would have been their whole universe.  Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she answered.   This, she had already been thinking about recently.  “Like us here on the ship?” Bao asked.

  “Yes dear exactly, like here on the ship.  In those days banishment was thought to be a far worse sentence than death.   Banishment was sort of like shunning except that it means physically ejecting them from the village or city.   Obviously we can’t do that here though.”

  Bao wrinkled her nose in confusion.  “Why was banishment worse than death?” she asked.

  “Well for one thing death was quick, and you ended your life within the community you’d lived.   With banishment though… death tended to be slow and painful, and worst of all lonely.  Banishment means your community wants to disown you and erase all trace that you were ever associated with them.  A death sentence by comparison meant that all of your rituals around death, things which you’d been taught from birth were really important, would still be observed.  It meant at least being buried with others from your community and having a chance at reconciliation in the afterlife.  With a death sentence you just lost your life, but with banishment… you lost your very identity.”

  “That’s scary…” Bao uttered.  She got a chill down her spine at the idea of losing her identity, of being disowned… at the prospect of becoming a ‘non-person’.

  “Exactly.   That’s why shunning is our last resort, but also why we think it’ll work.   Neil is about to learn a very crucial lesson, Bao.  He is right that we as a community don’t have the stomach to punish him gratuitously, or to let him die by denying him the air, water, and food which he now seems to expect without any reciprocal contribution.  He knows that we couldn’t bring ourselves to do something like that, and he thinks he has outsmarted us by realizing it.  But he’s wrong.

  “Bao my dear, Neil is about to learn that drinking and eating isn’t enough; that it’s not enough just to breathe.  He needs to learn that a human life requires more than that.  He needs to learn that even under perfectly comfortable living conditions; we all need to feel connected to the human community around us in order for our lives to be tolerable.  He needs to learn that the consequences of him refusing to do his part Bao, is losing us.  He complains that he receives no payment for the work he is asked to do.  Well he must learn and come to fully appreciate that his payment, quite simply, is our gratitude and continued acknowledgement of his existence.  He must be taught that we, are the benefit that he gets from working.  He must also understand that it is a benefit which can be withdrawn from him if he doesn’t fulfill his end of the bargain; the same bargain we all have to make.”

  Bao nodded; she understood.  She never really understood how or why somebody would not want to help out on the ship.  She did understand though why it couldn’t be tolerated, why this was the most severe sanction they had against a non-compliant crewmate, and why it had never been used before.  She found the idea of being ignored by everybody, of losing that precious human contact with her family and friends… a truly terrifying prospect.

  “It started this morning so he’ll figure out what’s happening pretty soon if he hasn’t already.   You understand what you have to do though right?  You can’t make eye contact.  You can’t talk or respond to him in any way.   When he is around you have to just pretend that he’s not there at all, like he doesn’t exist,” her mother informed her.

  “I understand,” Bao replied.

  “It’ll be hard Bao.   Remember, he’ll try to break us before he breaks himself.  He’ll try to talk to you and to get you to answer him.  He’ll try desperately to get you to acknowledge him in some way.   It’ll be especially hard for a kind and friendly girl like you,” her mother said with a reassuring smile.

  “It’s okay Amma, I can do that,” Bao stated.

  As though on cue, Neil burst into the dining hall in panicked disbelief.  He yelled aloud, “I know you can see me!!”  He started going table to table, begging people to talk to him, to acknowledge his presence in some way.  He had wild black eyes and black skin with the same build his grandfather Neil Sagan had had; namely, a rather large and muscular build.  He was tall, broad shouldered, and especially scary in the half-crazed state he was in.

  Bao leaned over to her mother and quietly asked, “he can’t really think we can’t see him can he?”

  A quiet but harsh “shhhh” was all she got back from her mother.   Everyone else in the room had gone silent when Neil entered the room and noticing this briefest of exchanges between Bao and her mother, Neil skipped a few tables and headed right for them.

  “Bao, oh Bao, not you too, you’re not going to do this to me too, are you?  You wouldn’t be that cruel would you?”

  Bao looked at the floor.  This was harder than she thought.  Neil got down low and tried to look in her eyes from a position with his head practically on the floor to look up into her eyes.  “Bao…” he quietly and desperately pleaded, “please… please don’t do this…”

  It was the hardest thing Bao had ever had to do.  Her whole life she had never felt this conflicted or at odds with herself.  She understood that she had to be mean to Neil in order to help him in the end, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier.   She had as warm a heart as they came, and it was terrible for her to knowingly hurt somebody like this no matter how well intentioned the effort was.  Ever more as the moment progressed, Bao wasn’t sure if this step was truly necessary or if it would even work.  By the second as he pleaded with her, she became more and more certain that she herself wouldn’t have chosen this action against him.

  As warm as her heart was though, the moment was won by her steadfast sense of duty, her wish to be a good team member, and to do her part.  Every year she more strongly identified with these values and here was Neil, unapologetically violating them.  More important than that though, she was acutely aware that she didn’t want to be the one to sabotage everyone else’s effort.  As much as she wanted to reach out to him, she understood how counter-productive it would ultimately be, and how it would only delay the inevitable, creating more suffering in the process.

  Neil gave up trying to get a reaction out of Sun Jung and Bao and continued moving from table to table, pleading with people to acknowledge his presence.  He apparently hadn’t yet fully gotten the message; he still seemed to think he’d have some allies who would side with him against everyone else.   He did not, and that was the point. 

  He started climbing one of the spiral staircases up to the second level balconies and only then did Bao look up from the ground at her mother who smiled meekly at her, and squeezed her hand while giving her daughter a subtle nod in acknowledgement that she’d done well.  The two listened for several more minutes as Neil searched for allies upstairs, anybody who would say anything to him or acknowledge his presence in any way.

  Neil finally stormed down the stairs, now more angry than panicked.  “FUCK YOU ALL!!!” He roared.   “I don’t need any of you.  You all think your attention is really that important don’t you!?  Well you’re WRONG!!  When the transmission comes there will be years of new media for me to occupy myself with and I’m going to tell the whole fucking Terran Solar System what you miserable bastards are doing to me.”  He was quiet for a few moments after that, as though he were expecting a reaction.  When he finally realized that he was only talking to himself, he left without saying another word.