"Gavin Beeman! Step up to the front of the crowd and claim what you're hands have earned! Gavin Beeman!"
Construction supervisor Bruce Lynch shouted atop the wagon as he worked a crowbar to open another crate painted with the symbolic eagle of the United Systems. Gavin hesitated to step forward and gazed upon his hands, counting there the calluses and the scars accumulated while he worked with his neighbors to achieve the benchmarks of their construction contract. His hands had been so much smoother when he had first stepped upon Sutherland. He found he could never clean away all of the grime that gathered in hands' wrinkles. His knuckles ached in the morning, and two of his fingernails remained purple and black where an errant hammer had struck them.
Gavin felt proud of those hands. He had used them to dig post holes for fencing. His hands had gathered Sutherland's stones and reshaped them into foundations and walls. His fingers had planted the seeds for the first garden, and they would collect the harvest from his soil. His hands had accomplished more than Gavin thought they ever might that afternoon he stepped upon a rocket to lift him upon a starliner. His hands had earned him a place among his fellow neighbors of Zeb on that distant planet named Sutherland.
And today the United Systems would reward Gavin and his fellow Zeb patriots' toil by handing the governance of the planet over to the hard men and women who had worked to establish another foothold in the stars. The United Systems would deliver the payment that was promised to those who worked to establish another human colony.
"Come on, Gavin!" Bruce shouted over the crowd. "Elbow your way past all the faces before I give your just deserves to someone else!"
Gavin grunted his way to the wagon, and Bruce tossed a black gun into Gavin's hand. "There you are, son. Your first issued gun on behalf of the United Systems in appreciation for your work. No need to be shy any longer, Gavin Beeman. You've earned that gun, and you've earned the right to call old Zeb your teacher."
Gavin retreated back through the crowd to allow those whose names Bruce shouted an easier time working to the front of the wagon. The gun's grip felt solid and heavy, its shape seeming to mold to his hand as Gavin's fingers embraced the weapon. The day had come when Gavin's work earned him his gun. The day arrived when even the United Systems couldn't deny him the right to protect the freedom he had helped to carve out of the stone strewn about Sutherland. The float upon the starliner had been so long, and the work required to complete the United Systems' construction contract proved lonely and hard. But Gavin now owned that gun. He now possessed a firearm so vital to his duty to protect the freedoms Zeb espoused, the very freedoms the United Systems was always working so hard to deny. He had chosen to follow the teachings of Zeb many years ago, and the grip of that gun spoke of his graduation.
Randy Walters, one of the settlement's most proficient of welders, slapped Gavin's back. "Now you're truly ready to take a place in the parade. All our banners and uniforms don't speak as clearly and as loudly as a laser gun holstered on your hip."
"Those guns aren't the only awards the United Systems has given us today for completing our construction contracts." Charles Jennings' haggard beard manifested from the crowd. As the oldest of all the Zeb settlers to have worked for that construction contract on Sutherland, Charles would serve as the parade's honorary marshall. "Emissary Stevens' office just delivered us a shipment of enhancement eye lenses. Told us the crate was a big bonus for completing our construction so well on such a tight schedule."
Randy Walter's plump face frowned. "Well, I suppose enhancement eye lenses are nice party favors, but I doubt they'll be very practical on a landscape as barren and rocky as Sutherland. Besides, Charles, how do you know we can trust Emissary Stevens' office?"
Charles chuckled. "We can trust Emissary Stevens for the same reason why we can trust him to deliver us our guns. The United Systems wouldn't dare short us on our payment for our construction contract. They'll need more of us Zeb folk on the next planet they judge in need of a colony, and they can't afford to break their terms if they want to fill another starliner with Zeb's builders."
"Would you feel as confident if I told you rumor has it an operative floated here to Sutherland aboard the very starliner that carried our crates of guns?"
Bruce Lynch stopped shouting names from the top of his wagon, and heads in the crowd snapped back to stare at Randy Walters for suggesting such a thought. Many gathered gun batteries from their pockets and snapped them into their pistols, whose barrels hummed as power infused the weapons.
"Where did you hear that?" Charles' eyes narrowed.
"My niece works in the spaceport's control tower, helps keep track of the manifests that arrive with all the starliners" Randy responded. "She said that the starliner that came through carrying those guns didn't have any registration numbers. She said the United Systems administrators working the tower guided that starliner into orbit all the same. That they didn't even blink. The United Systems would never let a starliner without registration numbers orbit a planet. Not unless that ship carried an operative."
Charles shrugged. "Even Zeb's ghost would say you're sounding paranoid."
Randy smiled. "I'll take that as a compliment. Do whatever you like with those enhancement lenses. I won't tell any of my neighbors what they should do with them. Not my place to tell them if they should accept those lenses or not. But none of you look to me for help when the United Systems starts burning your eyes out with the little bombs they plant in those lenses. Don't cry to me when you learn that United Systems operatives are using those lenses to track what you're all looking at."
"Your loss," Charles winked before raising his head to shout above the crowd. "Enhancement lenses free for anyone who wants them. Courtesy of Emissary Stevens."
Charles simply directed the men who carried that crate of lenses to set the box down and open the lid before telling the help to vanish back into the crowd. No United Systems bureaucrat would keep notes of who helped him or herself to a pair of lenses. They were free for the taking.
Gavin hesitated to claim a pair of those enhancement lenses for himself. He had always wanted a pair of enhancement lenses while on the home world, had always wanted to see the home world enhanced with the light and color the lenses painted upon the aging world. He had always wanted to know what the few who could afford such lenses saw in the world when such technology modified their sight. Gavin so envied those who possessed enhancement lenses during that long float to Sutherland, envied the visions those lenses delivered to a rare few housed in the starliner's most luxurious apartments while Gavin stared at dull, white walls bathed in artificial lighting, listening to the engines' hum. Such lenses were offered him now, and all he needed to do was step to that crate and grab them. Yet he hesitated. Randy Walter's warning reminded him of one of old Zeb's teachings, that no government, no matter its scope or size, ever deserved to be trusted.
Gavin waited until Bruce Lynch shouted his list's final name. He waited until the crowd dispersed. He waited until everyone else hurried down the street to prepare for the parade to celebrate the completion of their construction contract. Gavin took a pair of lenses when he thought no one was watching him. He took those lenses because he had to know if two versions of reality existed - if there was one world for the wealthy, and if there was one world for everyone else.
The parade would give Gavin a perfect opportunity to find out. All the settlers of Zeb who came to call Sutherland home would flood to the street to celebrate their work, to bask in the thanks the United Systems offered them, to glow in an appreciation that for too long had not been given to them. Tomorrow, they would celebrate that Sutherland would be a planet populated by patriots, and Gavin couldn't think of a better occasion to view through enhancement lenses.