Upstairs-Downstairs Services Inc. Official meeting record 3/3

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Litze:

When I was sixteen, my father took me up to the Sleeper Car. He had to go through weeks of red tape to get the clearance for it, but he knew I was interested and would probably join Upstairs/Downstairs after school. &quot;We're going up in the boxes today, son&quot; he says. &quot;Gonna take a look inside.&quot; Just like that.

We climb twenty or thirty decks, rung by rung up the maintenance ladders, until the bottom of the ladder was lost in the vapor haze. All I see are those long blue rows of cubes, lights all blinking in synch.

He takes my hand and walks me down the row, and stops in front of one cube. It had &quot;F-11FDF&quot; printed out on one of those little laminated tags we used to have. He pops the clamshell top and turns on the light, and I'm looking at a little girl, maybe eight years old. I see her chest moving in and out, real slow. She had a gold necklace on that probably cost more than I made that whole year.

He turns to me and says, &quot;There's people inside these boxes. You remember that. When you do my job, you're going to start thinking of them as just boxes. Keep the boxes plugged in. Make sure the boxes have air, make sure the nutrient tubes are clean. Take care of those boxes, make sure they're not jostled. But it's the people inside them that matter.&quot;

He squeezes my shoulder, and says, &quot;When I started, when the ship first launched, they all had names. Somewhere along the line, we started giving them numbers. We didn't plan it, it just kind of happened over time. Someday, people will get it in their heads to take away the numbers, too. Give them all barcodes or something. Maybe they'll start thinking about whether we really need to keep all these boxes plugged in. There's a lot of old folks in here, and it takes twice as much effort to keep old folks stable. All those resources spent. Maybe we just put those older ones waaay far in the back, and forget about them. They're just boxes, right? A lot can happen in a few hundred years, and who could blame us?&quot;

My old man points at the little girl in the box, and says: &quot;I want you to take a good look, and when you have sons and daughters I want you to bring them up here and show them. We've got eighty years left on this trip and that's a long time. People are going to forget about our fellow travelers here. They're going to start wondering why we go to all the trouble.&quot;

He reaches out and taps that tag with the &quot;F-11FDF&quot; on it, and says: &quot;Her name's Pasha. I looked it up.&quot; Then we turn around and walk back down.

(long silence)

Litze: We have three hundred thousand human beings in our care, and we will treat them with the same level of respect as any other passenger on this ship. Is that clear?

(murmured assent from many voices in the room)

Litze: Good. Everyone else is dismissed. I want Manny, Polokov, and Goran to stay in the room. Keep the recording going.

(loud scraping of chairs and conversations starting as people file out of the room)

Litze: Manny, Goran, you're both placed on administrative leave for two weeks. Once I find replacements I intend to fire you both.

Goran: What?? I didn't even…

Litze: Stop talking. Polokov, you'll cover A and D sections. Go tell the rest of the staff.

Manny: This is ridiculous. I haven't done anything.

Litze: I don't care.

Manny: Right. Whatever. You know what Litze? I hope your grandchildren enjoy Aft deck. When those sleepers you love so much finally wake up, they're still going to be rich and we're still going to be poor.

Litze (laughing): Manny, when we get to where we're going, those sleepers are going to be pale, confused, and unprepared. Half of them are going to have no idea how to function on a ship, let alone terraform a planet. They'll have outdated currency and too much luggage. My grandchildren are going to be strong. They're going to be well-trained and as hard as the ship they grew up in. And they'll still have their humanity. I promised I'd get these poor sleepers where we're going, but that's all I promised. Once we actually make it there, and all bets are off, who do you think is going to be rich?

(cursing and footsteps leaving the room, followed by thirty seconds of silence)

Rada: Boss, you still there?

Litze: Yeah. What, Rada.

Rada: Just thought you might want to know: I did a quick diagnostic check on F-11FDF.

Litze: On Pasha.

Rada: Yeah. On Pasha. All her stats are normal. Brain scan shows she's in a dream cycle right now, actually.

Litze: Ok. Thanks Rada.

<font class="DocumentFontConversation4">Rada: Thanks.

(several beeps, then recording ends)