"Everyone have a drink?" Maya looked around the small group of humans that had taken over the table in back. Her Hazen girlfriend sat next to her, Kurt was at the far end, and between them were seven others who had responded to the ad they'd bought. The two of them had elected themselves an ad-hoc welcome committee for new arrivals from Earth. It had been an invitation to a bi-weekly dinner and they'd gotten another three new faces since the first one.
Everyone had a fresh drink in front of them, each a different color and consistency and in one alarming case, smoking. The new and semi-new arrivals looked at theirs skeptically but everyone nodded or said something affirmative.
"First of all, any food you order here is going to be safe. The waitstaff's tabs can check your body chemistry and make sure you don't get anything that'll harm you, ok? But..." everyone nodded, then froze at the last word. "But," she continued, "there's no guarantee it'll taste good. As most of you are probably figuring out, there's not really any Earth food here, not yet, but part of living on Feiden is figuring out what you can eat so that's why we try new things all the time and write down," he tapped the back of his tab, "any we really like. It's the same with drinks, so let's get started. Sip don't chug, and we'll pass these around so you'll get a chance to try everything, ok? Ok. So, sips only, here's a toast: to Breidek City and making some real credits!"
"To Feiden!" "To Breidek Ciy!" they replied variously and everyone took a sip. Remarkably, only two spit theirs out and Kurt nodded. This was off to a good start. The mood was good and everyone seemed adventurous enough to try new things, something the pair of them had learned helped a lot out in galactic Society.
"Oh my god," the woman next to Kurt gasped, wiping her mouth against her sleeve and recoiling, "it tastes like... leathery burnt bacon." She firmly slid her drink over to him while he reluctantly passed his to the person on his other side as the whole table followed suit. After seeing how their neighbors had responded, a few looked skeptically at the variously fizzing and angrily motionless drinks in front of them, but everyone seemed to still be game.
"So before the next toast, let's open this up a little," the Enbee a few seats down said while staring doubtfully at their own drink. "I was just telling one of our hosts," they nodded to Kurt who nodded back, "about the changes in Rotterdam. The shipping companies have begun welding tankers and freighters shut and equipping them with drive units." They shook their head. "Watching these big ships lift out of the water is like watching a movie, but knowing that they're selling products off-world instead of on-planet is distressing." The group mostly nodded with a few exceptions while they continued. "It's good that they're bringing some Society credits to Earth, but we're seeing prices skyrocket for basics."
"My last week on Earth, I spent more than half of my paycheck on food! Not restaurants, just groceries!" Another person interjected, frustrated. "Between cheap off-world tech and exports, everything's falling apart. It's turning into planet Somalia!" He froze, turned to the black man who'd just picked up one of the egg-looking hors d'oeuvres spread out on the table. "Sorry," they added lamely.
"I'm from Detroit, but, uh, thanks... I guess?" he answered, then popped it into his mouth. He took a bite, froze, then smiled and finished chewing and swallowed. "Hey, that's wild, that one tastes like a cheeseburger. No shit, a cheeseburger egg." He gave the person who'd apologized to him an eyebrow. "Seriously, no sweat. Man, I'm so upside down right now with all the shit going down back home. We can throw hands later if you really want, ok?" He smiled and held out a clenched hand and after hesitating, the first guy did the same and they both practiced the standard Society handshake equivalent, the fist bump.
"Yeah, I could see the writing on the wall," Kurt spoke up, "but I had no idea they were opening up trade like that, with Earth ships. That's gotta be good in the long term, right? Bringing credits in and stuff?" He reached out and snagged the last stalk of a fried vegetable that had gotten high marks from the group.
"In the long run, sure, but we live in the now and the now is kinda messy," answered one of the others. Everyone nodded. Each of them had some variation on the same story, they'd all left Earth after First Contact had happened. When all of the Society-mandated privacy shields that had masked a galaxy full of civilizations had turned off, it started a free-for-all. It had been just a few years earlier that the heavens had come alive with radio chatter followed a few weeks later by Earth's first faster-than-light expedition returning with an explanation. Having encountered the alien equivalent of a Buc-ee's at Alpha Centauri, the first contact had automatically shut off the systems that existed to shield primitive civilizations from external influence as long as possible. Right on the heels of the returning ship had come the first wave of traders and Earth's economy had been in upheaval ever since. Why invest in giant capital construction or research if you might be able to buy a child's toy that could do the same thing? That and a million other decisions had triggered waves of inflation and industry collapses back home, even if the actual scale of the imports was relatively small to start with.
"Fucking economics," growled a woman next to the enbee.
"To fucking economics!" called out someone else and everyone startled, then laughed and raised their drinks. They all sipped, and again, the reactions were... mixed. Kurt twisted his mouth. He'd hope the woman next to him had been exaggerating, but if anything she'd understated the flavor of the drink. He raised his tab to the glass and asked it to add the drink to his Never Never Never list. It beeped agreeably.
"So," he said, taking a bite of the other half of the veggie stalk he'd grabbed earlier in hopes it would clear his taste buds.
It did not.
"How's everyone holding up?" he continued. "I recognize a few folks from last week, looks like some new faces." The conversation shifted to the familiar. Stories of folks liquidating what they had for a handful of Society credits and begging or bartering flights off planet. Most of the international airports and a handful of regionals too were serving cheap off-planet flights.
Kurt and Maya had compared notes and were guessing at least half of the flights must have been from bored aliens looking to make a quick buck giving humans rides to some of the regional hubs, some had some sketchy sounding work contracts but thankfully, Society seemed to have done something to keep the more predatory business models they would have expected to see here away. As far as Kurt could tell, the social safety nets that kept poor immigrant humans alive and sheltered when they ran low on credits must have other protections that weren't obvious too because nobody they'd talked to seemed worried about the different kinds of trafficking, smuggling, or involuntary indentured servitude that plagued society back home whenever there was a big wealth mismatch between cultures.
"Must be a human thing," more than one skeptical alien had suggested, giving Kurt or Maya suspicious side eye (or eyes) when they'd asked.
"I've gotten a cleaning job. It's nothing glamorous, but basically I hit a handful of places each week and spend a few hours doing cleaning." The man speaking shrugged. "I don't know why they don't just have a robot or something doing this, but I'll take the income." He takes an extra sip of his drink, curls his lip again, embarrassed. "I was a surgeon on Earth. This whole thing is wild."
"Administrator," another person at the table said, raising their hand. "I've been doing agricultural work." They looked around. "Uh, picking fruit."
"IT guy," some else added. "I'm burning through credits and using the sleep pods and free food vending to stretch things, but..." He shrugged. "Still trying to figure out what I can do out here."
It was almost a tradition anytime more than a few humans got together offworld, as far as Maya could tell, listing off what they'd done back on Earth and comparing it to the unskilled labor that seemed to mostly be what humans were qualified for out in the collective Society made up of tens of thousands of species.
Sperholt nudged her and she looked over to see the Hazen woman offering her something that looked like an extra long Cheetoh. She accepted it and took a cautious bite. It definitely wasn't a Cheetoh, but it wasn't bad. She nodded. "Hey, that's alright." She held it over her pad for a second and it beeped because she'd set it up to log the good stuff easily. After all these months in Breidak City, she'd built up a pretty good collection of 'known good' foods. That gave her an idea.
