Poem: "The Space Traders"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This poem came out of the August 6, 2013 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from chordatesrock and LJ user Kelkyag. It has been sponsored by librarygeek. This poem belongs to the series An Army of One.


"The Space Traders"


The Lacuna has cut itself free
from the Carinan and Orion armies,
cutting off its supply lines in the process.

What remains are the freelancers,
space traders near enough to pirates,
the ones who count the whole galaxy home
so long as they have a ship to sail
through the endless night.

There is Short John
who deals primarily in drugs,
some with legitimate medicinal uses,
and related supplies for keeping people alive.

He is self-conscious about his stature,
always yearning toward normal
even though it recedes like a mirage
the more he chases it;
he doesn't fit in any better here
than he did planetside,
but that doesn't stop him from trading.

There is Anne Goede,
a smuggler given to luxuries,
who is happy enough to traffic
food and seeds and garden supplies
once she stops laughing over the request.

She is tall and graceful and dangerous,
and she never gave a damn about fitting in,
except now she suddenly does.
She just wants to expand her shipping potential
and the secessionists are glad to help with that
if she can get them the things they need.

The Lacuna has its share of wanderers too,
people who liked the military because it took them places,
only now there is no military and a shortage
of going anywhere at all.

A few of them ship out with the merchants,
and that's all right with everyone,
because there are immigrants
filtering in slowly from outside
and new traders already sniffing around the edges.

These paths, too,
are made by traveling them.

Comments

Laughing

[dialecticdreamer]

The laughing over the requests for food, seed and tools strikes me as ODD. I'm not sure why she's laughing, and it makes me wonder what she's like beyond "indulging in luxuries."

That's the image which sticks in my mind the clearest, and one of the questions it left behidn.

Re: Laughing

[ysabetwordsmith]

It's a spacer thing. People who've spent most of their time in space -- or even more so, if they were born there -- think that dirt is gross and food is something that should come out of a carton. The idea of growing food is just weird. Most of it is ported either from planetside or farmstations.

The Lacuna can't afford to import everything. They need to become self-sustaining. That means creating a renewable food source. But it is going to make spacers look at them funny, and even a lot of people in the Lacuna had to do some serious thinking about supply lines before they realized that this was important and not just a joke to razz somebody about his weird hobby.

Re: Laughing

[dialecticdreamer]

See, THIS makes the whole universe more interesting!

I have GOT to get some of my work done today so I can treat myself to reading more in this 'verse!

Thanks for fleshing out the details, too!

Re: Laughing

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yay! I'm glad this helped.

*chuckle* The Gardener is lucky that they're starting out almost entirely with hydroponics. You can convince a spacer, with a little fast-talking, that food grown in a chemical bath is "clean" even if it hasn't been processed and packaged. Grown in dirt? Hours of argument later, most of them still won't touch it.

I have an ulterior advantage here with my farmemory. One of the most disgusting things I ever saw was a batch of microgreens. I thought they'd been grown on hydroponic mats, which is a terrific way to grow microgreens. Turns out they were growing in dirt and served by simply hacking them off above the soil line. It completely turned my stomach, because in that moment, I was thinking as a spacer. I never have managed to get that particular red light to go out; microgreens growing in dirt are always nauseating to me.

The really ironic thing? I grew up eating stuff out of the garden, by wiping it on my shorts or running it under the pump. The memory connection for that was completely different, reaching back in timestream rather than forward. Same with foraging for berries or edible shoots, very hand-to-mouth. I still do that, picking black raspberries every summer.

My brain is a strange, strange place.

Re: Laughing

[dialecticdreamer]

I generally don't mess with microcreens; I find them a waste of resources because they're NOT thinnings from a natural garden, but bulk-grown for a pricier market. Yeah, they taste differently, yeah, they're "special" and for those of us who can't really grow radishes, for example, beyond our typical culinary experience.

It's rather like my opinion of lamb: /you/ raised it and hired a butcher you trust (or rarer, now, did the slaughtering yourself?) Pass the mint sauce. If it's mass produced for a certain market, I won't touch it. (Nor veal, for the same reasons.)

Re: Laughing

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> they're NOT thinnings from a natural garden <<

Oddly enough, those I would eat, when I was in garden mode.

>> It's rather like my opinion of lamb: /you/ raised it and hired a butcher you trust (or rarer, now, did the slaughtering yourself?) Pass the mint sauce. If it's mass produced for a certain market, I won't touch it. (Nor veal, for the same reasons.) <<

I love lamb. When it's feasible, we get it at the farmer's market or a store that buys from local farms. Other times, we take what we can get at other places. We don't have the money or flexibility to shop according to our morals.

I won't eat veal, basically for the reasons you name. I'd be perfectly happy to eat someone's spare bullcalves at calving -- or buckling sheep or goat -- but you can't get it, modern people don't do that. They raise the baby animals for slaughter and that's a totally different product. Why the hell you'd put that much extra work into what ought to be a cheap seasonal product is beyond me.

Re: Laughing

[dialecticdreamer]

EXACTLY!

Frankly, the way I shop according to my morals is to throw a BUNCH of meat into the freezer when it's on sale, and simply do without when it climbs above a certain price.

Re: Laughing

[zeeth_kyrah]

Some church-going hunters will offer a deer (or part of one) to their pastor's family each season as part of their church experience, whether as a form of tithing or as "the pastor's family is church-family too"; my parents have been able to put a lot of meat on the table from that sort of thing over the years thanks to the various rural and semi-rural churches my father led.

Re: Laughing

[ysabetwordsmith]

That's awesome!

Re: Laughing

[dialecticdreamer]

That's so wonderful- it goes back to when a pastor's wages were /really/ low, though, now it's more a friendly gesture. It makes me wonder what my stepdad would've done with the first family to do something similar for him!

Re: Laughing

[stardreamer]

I can see feeling that way about root vegetables. But what about tree-fruits, which -- although the tree's roots are in the ground -- never touch the dirt if they're properly processed? Corn on the cob? Tree nuts (especially if pre-shelled)?

ObSF: Isaac Asimov wrote a story based around that particular spacer's prejudice, which he titled "Good Taste".

Re: Laughing

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I can see feeling that way about root vegetables. But what about tree-fruits, which -- although the tree's roots are in the ground -- never touch the dirt if they're properly processed? <<

Fruit isn't as much of an issue, same with nuts, because they're meant to be picked off the plant. Roots are worst. Leaves and stems are less icky the farther they are from the dirt. But still, dirt in proximity to food is an option of last resort for spacers.

>> Corn on the cob? <<

Not really feasible to grow in space.

>> Tree nuts (especially if pre-shelled)? <<

Probably okay.

>> ObSF: Isaac Asimov wrote a story based around that particular spacer's prejudice, which he titled "Good Taste". <<

Huh, doesn't ring a bell. I'm not much of an Asimov fan though.

Re: Laughing

[dialecticdreamer]

I think they'd either have worked out a way to grow rhizomes like strawberries hydroponically, NO dirt at all, and love,love, love them, OR avoid those in particular.

But I speculate that they actually rely on engineered crops, seaweed- or algae-based, to create a "flour" with a very specific nutritional profile, which would also affect their view of "eat five a day" or "eat a variety of fruits and vegetables" as wildly -inefficient-.

There's simply not enough cubic volume of space to waste on something just because it tastes good. Unless, of course, you're rich enough to indulge the luxury.

Re: Laughing

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I think they'd either have worked out a way to grow rhizomes like strawberries hydroponically, NO dirt at all, and love,love, love them, OR avoid those in particular. <<

Yes, strawberries are easy to grow hydroponically and the results are spectacular. If you look at the poems, there's one that talks about what is and isn't feasible.

One of my favorite scenes in Firefly is Shepherd Book's spectacular bribe. Oh hell yes welcome aboard sir! Because while spacers born are often leery of dirtfood, people who go back and forth, like sailors of old, often develop a deep craving for the fresh foods they so rarely get. Some people in the Lacuna may be like that too.

>> But I speculate that they actually rely on engineered crops, seaweed- or algae-based, to create a "flour" with a very specific nutritional profile, which would also affect their view of "eat five a day" or "eat a variety of fruits and vegetables" as wildly -inefficient-. <<

There are various types of growth tank for creating raw materials with seaweed, algae, yeast, etc. They probably have vat-grown meat too. But those are usually kept either in factory stations, or stations big enough to need some minimal production of their own. It's not the kind of equipment that would be in the Lacuna, because their population is so spread out.

Probably soon, Astin or some other trader will find a yeast-beast or an algae-whiz and offer it for trade. The sensible thing to do would be put this stuff on Sargasso Base since Supply Base Bounty 3D3N is already designated to become their gardenspot.

As for consumption, some of the base ingredients go into recipes, but there are also specific snacks. Seaweed and algae make sort of cracker or chip like things. Algae makes green slurry shakes, just like people use here. Yeast goes into protein shakes and foodbars. I think it's also used to make the plain protein cubes or slabs that are not based on flesh, they're more like tofu.

>> There's simply not enough cubic volume of space to waste on something just because it tastes good. Unless, of course, you're rich enough to indulge the luxury. <<

That's complicated. They actually have a lot of space compared to the population, not enough for spacehogs like corn, but plenty for anything concise like strawberries or lettuce. You have to consider the nutritive and psychological bang-for-buck. Many fresh fruits and vegetables have a very high EROEI. The catch is that you have to be able to keep all that space in life support. That's easier for a large thriving society than a very small and marginal one. But the value of self-sustaining food sources makes it a good gamble.

Re: Laughing

[zeeth_kyrah]

Other common protein sources are mushrooms, which need only minimal lighting, and insects (careful what you let crawl around in your station, though! Creatures have a tendency to get loose). Since some plants need pollination before they'll produce, it would be common for workers to pollinate them directly instead of letting insects or the wind do it like they would dirtside; that's a tedious job good for someone who likes work that is routine, delicate, and repetitive.

[rhodielady-47.livejournal.com]

I like this one!
It shows your ability to tackle a wide variety of genres. You keep coming up with new and different situations to put your characters in--makes it a pleasure to read your work.
Best of all--your work is distinctive. It's not the cookie-cutter adventure stuff that has been standard fare for the past 70-80 years now.
:^}

Thank you!

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>> I like this one! <<

I'm happy to hear that.

>> It shows your ability to tackle a wide variety of genres. You keep coming up with new and different situations to put your characters in--makes it a pleasure to read your work. <<

I can write darn near anything. What becomes a series, or a long and popular one, depends on my readers. You-all buy a LOT of fantasy, occasional science fiction and mundane lit, and seem to have minimal interest in horror. Dark fantasy, no problem; dark SF, only a little, but the creepier it gets the less popular it is with my current audience. So I'm pleased to see a science fiction series developing a following, because the diversity helps me reach more readers.

As for situations, well, my characters are very good at getting themselves into trouble without any help from me! So of course the trouble they get into is based on their different personalities and opportunities.

>> Best of all--your work is distinctive. It's not the cookie-cutter adventure stuff that has been standard fare for the past 70-80 years now.
:^} <<

Yay! A key reason why I write is because so much of the mainstream frankly bores me. I like a far wider range of challenges in literature than are typically offered. Part of the credit goes to my audience, though -- you folks ask me for some things I would never have thought of. For characters that aren't a direct match for my personal experience in this like, like the neurovariant ones in this series, I can rely on research (the results of which were only so-so early on) or fan input (the results of which have been spectacular).