Chelen City: Interlude: Kieron 2

 Notes: Another brief Kieron POV before we dive into what's probably the final arc of action in the book. It'll be a long one, don't worry! 

Title: Chelen City: Interlude: Kieron 2

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Interlude: Kieron

 

“So! You seem to be settling well into Ganian life.”

Kieron snorted at his therapist’s bubbly assessment of his time on this crazy planet so far. “Yeah, sure.”

Delilah took a small sip from her cup of tea, glittering eyes staring at him over the rim of the mug. “You disagree?” she asked once she set the cup down again.

“No.”

“I can tell when you’re humoring me, Kieron.”

She understood basic body language then. “Good for you.”

“You seem a bit combative today. Is there something particular you’d like to speak about?”

“No.” Not with you.

“Are you sure about that?”

Kieron opened his mouth to tell her off again, then realized that actually, there was something she could help him with. “Talk to me about becoming a Ganian citizen.”

Delilah tilted her head slightly. “It was my understanding that your application process is proceeding rather quickly.”

Kieron huffed a sigh. “I’m not talking about myself. I have no complaints.” None that I’m willing to share with you, at least. “I want to know more about the process from the perspective of someone who didn’t come here with all the advantages I have.”

She suddenly nodded in understanding. “You’re speaking about the refugees from Trakta, I assume.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m happy to tell you some about the process, although I doubt there’s much I can say that you can’t research just as easily on your own.” Delilah paused. “You have friends among these people, right?”

“I do.”

“Mm. Well…” She steepled her fingers together for a moment. “Gania is a Federation planet, which means it abides by Federation rules when it comes to the transport and acceptance of refugees. Gania is a low-immigration planet, in part thanks to its very stringent regulations and class system, but refugees tend to fall into a gray zone that allows them to seep between the cracks.

“I can assure you that your friends, that all these people, are being treated humanely. They’ve got all the basic necessities of life, they live in decent housing, and the children are receiving a Federation-approved education. It’s not as perfect as it could be, but it’s better than a lot of people out there get.” Like you and I, she didn’t have to say, but Kieron knew she was thinking it. “That said…

“Gania is a difficult place to put down roots,” Delilah continued. “The planet was originally populated with people who had a very firm sense of hierarchy, and that hierarchy has continued over centuries now. It’s not the same sort of thing they were escaping on Trakta, exactly—Gania has a meritocracy that supersedes any personal religious beliefs, for example. But it still isn’t easy to make strides here if you weren’t born into the upper echelon of society. Mr. Desfontaines is one of the more meteoric examples of someone stepping out of the level in which they were born for generations.”

“He’s exceptional,” Kieron agreed.

“He is, to an extent that very few people have ever matched. Gania is…insular in ways I hadn’t expected of a Federation planet when I first got here.” Delilah glanced down at her hand, at the smooth band she wore on her left ring finger. “It’s so easy to tell who a native Ganian is and isn’t, after all. While refugees here can live a good life, if they aren’t extremely talented or extremely lucky, they’re always going to be treated as an outsider to some extent. If I hadn’t married a Ganian, I doubt I would be able to practice psychology in a government building, for example. I might not even have made it through the licensing process.”

Kieron felt his hopes sink a bit. “So Xilinn might never be able to work as a teacher here.”

“Xilinn…”

“One of my friends.”

“Ah.” Delilah shrugged a bit helplessly. “I can’t say for sure. She’ll have to be retrained and relicensed before that’s possible, and that means having a local sponsor, because those kinds of expenses are outside the bounds of what the Federation mandates as necessary for the host planet to provide. If she wanted to be a factory worker, that would be easier to manage.”

“It would be such a—” fucking waste. Kieron didn’t know why he’d thought anything else would happen here, though. And being alive with Pol was definitely preferable to a slow, cold death in space, but Xilinn was too bright a person to be happy working on a factory floor. She was an educator, she cared about children, she cared about people in a way not enough people did. She would be a boon to any planet lucky enough to have her.

It went without saying that Elanus was going to sponsor her for retraining in whatever she wanted to learn. But what about the rest of them? Kieron had brought them all here so blithely, sure it was the best—the only—course of action to take, but now…what if he’d been wrong?

“I should mention,” Delilah said after a moment, “that there’s no limit to the number of people a sponsor can take on as long as they can cover the fees. While there’s an expectation that those sponsored will then be expected to offer their patron the right of first refusal when it comes to their work, they aren’t legally binding themselves by accepting their assistance.”

“You’re saying that Elanus could sponsor every one of these refugees if he wanted to.” If I ask him to.

Delilah actually snorted a little laugh. “He could probably afford to sponsor the entire population of Chelen City to become deep-space mining engineers if he wanted to.” There weren’t many jobs out there that required more training or licensing than that.

“I’ll talk to him about it.” It would give Elanus another domestic thing to focus on rather than returning to the question of who was trying to kill him, which could only help Kieron. “Thank you,” he added. “You’ve been really helpful today.”

“I’m so glad! Now, why don’t we return to talking about your impressions of life on Gania and how you’re dealing with a new culture?”

“No.” He paused, then added, “Thank you.”

Delilah sighed. “Well. At least you said thank you.”