Valhalla Station

by Chris Pourteau

  “You say the sweetest things, Luther.”

  “No time this morning for your reward,” he said into her ear, his breath warm. It smelled of her morning labors. “But tonight, my love, I’ll make sure you get it.”

  A moment’s hesitation. Off script, she admonished herself. Too long.

  “Can’t wait,” Edith said, her smile painted on.

  Chapter 10

  Ruben Qinlao • Lander’s Reach, Mars

  His sleep was restless. Ruben lingered in the semi-aware limb paralysis of waking twilight, half aware of being half awake. Half unaware of time’s passing. He had the semiconscious thought that maybe this was how the dead slept—sensible of their own endless existence. The thought tickled something combative and coarse in his lizard brain. To be truly nonexistent after death—something he’d always feared—seemed not so bad after all.

  Ruben’s morbid thoughts dragged him back to consciousness. Truth be told, he should be sleeping like a baby. The sex had been that good. Then again, when you haven’t had sex for a while, any sex is good.

  No, Ruben thought, objectively speaking, that was really good sex.

  His fingers traced the short distance over the thin silk sheets to the woman sleeping next to him. She was turned away on her side, and he rested his hand on the warm curve of her right hip. He liked feeling her there, having the usually empty side of his bed filled with another breathing human being.

  Lying in the cool, still-drying silk sheets of his bed, Ruben stared up into darkness. A mental image formed of the air processor above him, its constant, mechanical hum the white noise beneath his dreams for as long as he could remember. Ever since Ming had stepped out of the transport that day and renamed Taulke’s Mars Station to Lander’s Reach for an old comrade in arms. Ruben, who’d been a boy then, had spent most of his life on Mars. Remembering Ming stepping off that ship, looking out over Valles Mariners, and claiming the Red Planet as her own seemed more than a lifetime ago. When he thought of her in those days, his memory had a soft veneer of love and awe over it. It was like a dream from someone else’s life, told to him in simple terms of right and wrong and black and white.

  Growing up here with her, Ruben had become so comfortable on Mars that whenever he visited Earth now, it seemed like a luscious, luxurious planet. To Ruben, a Martian, Earth was a world overwhelming and overly lavish in its colors, claustrophobic in its population density. Despite the climate catastrophes of a few decades earlier, Earth was still the rich kid of the solar system, her people blissfully ignorant of their own privilege. Humans had abused her bounty for so long and in so many ways that they’d almost signed the bottom line on their own extinction. Then, SynCorp had stepped in. In the last generation, the Company had accomplished miraculous repairs to a world ravaged by the Weather War.

  Mars, on the other hand—now here was a planet for the prudent. Mars gave you nothing for free. Anything you ate had to be grown, nurtured, and reaped with human hands. There were no trees to wander by and pick fruit from. No wildlife roaming lush, green forests to stand patiently by till you shot, skinned, and cooked them. No oceans teeming with fish easily fooled by rubber worms.

  But Mars was home. He’d visited the outlying colonies on Callisto and Titan. Sampled the loud extravagance of Earth’s Vegas-in-the-Clouds. Even climbed the petrified cliffs of California’s Redwood District on Earth. Anywhere else was a nice place to visit, but living there? No, thanks. Mars was home, and it made Ruben feel stronger knowing that. An easy existence wasn’t something he needed or wanted. Luxury in life was something to be earned. The universe was justice, an equilibrium of give and take that equated to a zero sum.

  That was true of the species, too. Humans, he’d learned long ago, were themselves a balance of contrasts. Deceit and honor could reside in the same person. Ming had taught him that. Hardness and softness, emotional brutality and delicate kindness, intellectual curiosity and kneejerk anger. As much as he liked to think of himself as independent—a true Martian with a need only for the basics of survival—Ruben knew it was both true and false at the same time. Like all humans, he craved companionship. The willing ear of understanding. Someone to surrender to, safely.

  He considered slipping his hand under the silk to touch the skin of her hip, then thought that maybe that was an intimacy he hadn’t yet earned. Despite the fact that thirty minutes earlier they’d been making love, his body inside hers, their eyes sharing souls. Hesitating to slide his skin beneath the sheet seemed almost a silly exercise in schoolboy embarrassment. But she was sleeping, so the idea of touching her seemed to violate a code he hadn’t known existed before this moment. He settled instead for lightly squeezing the rise beneath the sheet.

  Mai Pang didn’t stir. The even rhythm of her breathing spoke of a deep, untroubled slumber on a sea of exhausted endorphins. It had been their second night together. Ruben, usually shy and reticent when it came to trusting others, had surprised himself at how quickly he’d opened up to her. Even knowing she was Tony Taulke’s personal assistant and here on Mars to support Helena, Tony’s agent, hadn’t stopped that. He wondered if that was Mai’s secret superpower—getting unwitting faction heirs to open up to her. The thought unnerved him a little, but his hand continued to cup her hip.

  Mai made a noise in her sleep. The un-word stirred something in him. She reached down, a dream gesture, and took his hand in hers, drawing it around her and holding it against her chest, pulling Ruben closer. They’d been able to shed the self-consciousness of that first night, displacing it with a raw, delightful sharing in the discovery of one another. A human male and a human female, with tens of thousands of years of instinct speaking through their fingertips, guided by a knowledge from inside their bones. Sharing, one with the other, a unique experience that was unreproducible with anyone else at any other time under any other circumstance in time and space.

  Curled against her back, Ruben felt her heart beating through his hand held against her chest. He felt himself growing hard again, not self-consciously, and knew it was a sensual not sexual response to their togetherness. He smiled, wondering if he could fall asleep feeling the warmth of Mai’s back against his chest and stay here for the rest of the night. Or maybe forever.

  His sceye flashed, startling him, making him jerk against her back. Mai groaned, mumble-cursing something unpleasant in a dream. Ruben slowly disengaged from her, pulling away to his side of the bed.

  Tony’s calling?

  Ruben had the sudden, uncomfortable feeling of a father catching him in bed with his daughter. But Tony Taulke wasn’t Mai’s father. As far as Ruben knew…

  He lifted the sheet and pulled on a pair of shorts. The red light on the lens of his eye flashed again. Even Tony’s sceye notifications seemed irritated. Carefully but quickly, Ruben slipped from the bed and pulled the pagoda doors together behind him with a snick.

  “Mr. Taulke,” he said, engaging the call. “What a pleasant surprise.”

  Tony’s angular temple and iron jawline tilted slightly. He hadn’t been trying to sleep. Of course he hadn’t. It should be the middle of the afternoon over Earth.

  “Ruben,” Tony said, seemingly amused. “Don’t blow smoke up my ass. It’s not my thing.”

  “Okay.”

  “My apologies for the lateness of the call. Or earliness, depending on how you look at it.”

  “It’s all right,” Ruben said by reflex. But—Tony Taulke apologizing? That was just plain disconcerting.

  “I’ll keep this short. You’ll need your sleep after we finish talking.”

  Yeah, well—

  “I’m going to call her once I’ve finished talking to you. And here’s the point of it: I want you to take over as chief executive officer of Qinlao Manufacturing.”

  Ruben’s focus blurred for a moment. He thought he might still be half asleep, his mind playing twilight tricks on him.

  “I’m sorry?” he said. Tony’s suggestion felt divorced from a reality Ruben could anchor to. The r
uler of the solar system gave him a moment to adjust. “You want me to … but Ming is … she’s been regent—”

  “As long as her health holds out, Ming will continue to represent the Company and your faction at public events,” Tony said. “But you’ll be making operational decisions on Mars. And for the Qinlao Faction.”

  “A figurehead,” Ruben said, his voice edged with contempt. “You’re turning her into a figurehead?”

  “I’m allowing her an honorable exit.”

  The words sounded to Ruben like the most truthful ones he’d ever heard Tony Taulke utter. And that made them all the more foreign. Tony Taulke helping Ming Qinlao save face?

  “Why?” he found himself asking.

  Tony appeared thoughtful. It was a strange look on him. Ruben thought it made him look weak.

  “Ming and I have had our differences over the years,” Tony began, choosing his words carefully. “But she has been a good steward for the Company. I have no reason to publicly embarrass her.”

  “But privately?” The bitterness had returned. Jumping to Ming’s defense was instinctive. And Tony Taulke never did anything that didn’t benefit Tony Taulke.

  The image jumped. Subspace interference. Tony let it settle before continuing.

  “The other factions have to be aware. We’ll keep it off CorpNet. Like I said, from the public’s perspective, nothing will have changed. You’ll even sign official documents with Ming’s seal.”

  “It’s the Qinlao Faction’s seal. It doesn’t belong to one person.”

  “Precisely.”

  Ruben cocked his head, feeling like he’d just been maneuvered right where Tony wanted him. “What’s this really about, Tony? Are you making a play to take over Mars—”

  “Stop talking,” Tony interrupted. “Listen to me, Ruben. If I wanted Mars, I would never have given it to Ming in the first place. I need the Qinlao Faction there, running resource extraction and product manufacturing. That, in fact, is why I’m doing this.”

  “I don’t understand.” This felt wrong. Tony was sweeping Ming, his old frenemy, aside and elevating Ruben to power in her place. Most of Ruben wanted to curse Tony Taulke for even suggesting such a thing. But a small part—the part that didn’t feel shame at the spark of ambition in his belly—was suddenly eager. To take over operational control. To run the Qinlao Faction in a way that wouldn’t keep him up at night.

  “The attack on the refinery was just a piece of the puzzle. Other cracks are forming across the Company. I need someone I can rely on there. A steady hand. Not an aging, mentally degraded—”

  “Shut your fucking mouth!”

  It exploded from him before Ruben could stop it. An instinctive shield he’d raised in defense of his big sister. The woman who’d saved him on the Moon a lifetime ago. His mentor and teacher. The most venerated person he’d ever known in his life.

  Ruben started to open his mouth.

  “If you apologize for that, I’ll reverse my decision,” Tony said. “I’ll find another Qinlao to take the helm.”

  Ruben remained silent.

  “I know you love her,” Tony said. “I’ve seen it when you intervene on her behalf in meetings.”

  A fist began to clench in Ruben’s chest. A hard knowledge that the day had finally come when Tony Taulke was empathizing with him. He hadn’t known, hadn’t even suspected, that Tony had it in him. What had Ming taught Ruben? How two seemingly incompatible halves—intellectual yet superstitious, forward thinking yet reactionary, loving yet spiteful—existed in every human being?

  Respectful yet ambitious.

  “You’ve protected her,” Tony continued, sounding every bit the elder statesman. “You’ve acted honorably.”

  What the fuck would you know of honor?

  “And now, for the sake of your faction—and Ming’s sake—I need you to step up.”

  The fist in Ruben’s chest changed, oozing like a thick, sticky liquid into his gut. This is what Tony Taulke did. This is how he made the deals he made to keep the Company even keeled. He took an immoral idea and wrapped it in a bow of necessity. He sold snake oil in a bottle labeled miracle cure.

  “Are you in or out?”

  The understanding father figure had left Tony’s voice. The syndicate boss had returned.

  “I have complete control,” Ruben said. “I run the faction.”

  “Nothing changes but who’s in charge,” Tony said. “You have my word.”

  Your word.

  But Tony’s word was what Ruben had. And knowing Tony, if Ruben didn’t agree, he’d make good on his promise and find someone else in the Qinlao clan to put in power. At least this way, Ruben could protect Ming. And direct the way his family faction helped shape the future of SynCorp.

  “All right, then,” Ruben said. “I’m in.”

  Chapter 11

  Kwazi Jabari • SynCorp Headquarters, Low Earth Orbit

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  Those seven words, spoken by Helena Telemachus, had changed his life forever. Seven simple words. Existence became something foreign after hearing them. Like a sorceress had cast a spell pulling Kwazi into an alternate reality. Like his life before had been a dream he hadn’t known he’d been in. More than a dream, a fantasy. Now he was in a real world that could be bent and shaped by seven simple words. It was like he’d been bound to Prometheus’s rock by Helena Telemachus, his memories of Amy eating away at his heart.

  Maybe we could try Polynesian?

  That sounds wonderful.

  And beyond that, on a quantum level at the core of his being, a cavern deeper and broader than any mining shaft on Mars, than all that planet’s mining shafts put together. A growing emptiness, a blackness, red rimmed and raw, where Kwazi’s happiness and hopes for the future used to live.

  Now he was the Hollow Man. A ghost in his own life, haunting this reality with his own memories.

  “Dr. Stuart shared with me your concerns for Amanda Topulos. I’m afraid Ms. Topulos died,” the woman who’d stepped out of the newscast told him. “Your whole crew—with so many others. I’m so sorry, Mr. Jabari.”

  Vacant. Deserted.

  Alone.

  He’d wanted to leap out of his hospital bed, force the words back down her throat. When Telemachus sat beside him on the bed and placed her hand on his arm to console him, it’d felt like a violation. The dry cold of her palm on his skin. He remembered every detail. Helena’s green eyes, unblinking, her mouth somber and sympathetic. The way the hospital air recyclers hummed. The sterile chill of the hospital air. Milani Stuart, lurking behind her in the doorway, as if afraid her patient might explode and kill them all.

  “I’m sorry to break it to you this way,” Telemachus said. He listened with ears flooded with the white noise of his blood rushing in them. “But sometimes ripping off the bandage is best.”

  Yes, best, he’d thought without thinking. That was the back-channel of his mind, the one that monitored the world around him for threats, like atmo pressure in the mine or whether or not the guy staring at him from across the bar looked likely to roll him for cash in the alley. Now his brain’s back-channel noticed Helena’s eyes, her mouth, her we-must-go-on demeanor, and painted them on a protected, incorruptible sector of his memory. The front-channel of his mind began its own part of the process—assigning meaning to her words and recognizing the future that lay before him.

  A future without Amy. Without any of his crew-family. It stretched out in front of him. Decades living alone as the Hollow Man. Decades chained to reality’s rock, the happiness of his own memories eating away at him, bit by bit. Bite by bite.

  The door to the green room opened, waking Kwazi from his stupor. A blast of media and rented enthusiasm for Tony Taulke’s speech invaded the room. Helena stepped through, her face painted with the same look she’d worn for their entire three-day trip to Earth. Patient and pained. Empathetic. Dr. Stuart stepped in behind her, crowding into the doorway. The image gave him a sickening se
nse of déjà vu.

  “How are you doing, Kwazi?” Telemachus asked, the spotlights flashing behind her. “How are you feeling?”

  Vacant. Deserted.

  “Fine. Just fine, thanks.”

  “That’s good,” Helena said, sitting beside him on the divan. “Would you like a drink?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Dr. Stuart stepped inside and the door swished shut. The room felt sealed, like an enlarged coffin. Stuart seemed uneasy, nervous. She took a seat and looked on.

  Without fanfare, without public acknowledgment of any kind, the Company had sequestered him aboard the space station that served as the Syndicate Corporation’s Headquarters. There was something happening. A ceremony of some kind. That’s why Helena was here, to collect him for the ceremony. Kwazi wasn’t quite sure he understood what it was, what it meant, though Helena had explained it to him several times. He wasn’t sure he gave a fuck what it was, or what it meant. The details seemed never to stick in the front-channel of his brain.

  “Here. A glass of Tony’s best bourbon. It’ll help settle you,” Telemachus said.

  When she’d explained it all before, he’d nodded, acquiesced, agreed to it. He’d moved when she told him to move, checked out of Wallace Med and joined her aboard her ship bound for Earth. Milani Stuart had been commandeered as well, his personal doctor to see him through … whatever this was. With the help of Dr. Stuart’s sedatives, he’d slept on board when Helena told him to sleep. The outside world was just a stage he walked across. It was like Kwazi could see the ropes hauling the backdrops up and down around him, the people around him like Helena saying their lines. Facial expressions appeared exaggerated, overly large and caricatured so the people in the back of the theater would know the emotion on the actors’ faces. It all felt distant, something he wasn’t physically a part of.

  “So this is how it will go,” Telemachus said as he downed the dark liquor. When it burned his throat, it felt like penance. “Mr. Taulke is making a speech about the terrible loss on Mars—your friends, and so many others—”