by S E Zbasnik
He stopped. Turning, his hands dropped to grab up a set of handles on a white bag tied up and tossed to the side. Perhaps she gifted him his own new life, a final funeral present as it were. As he picked up the bag, the smell of rotting meat and overdosed sanitizer assaulted him; it was his shoes.
Marek didn't turn to look at his ex-wife, he felt the smirk through his skin. He got partway through the door when he paused and mumbled behind him, "No offense, but I pray to any god listening above the stars that I never ever see you again."
Finally, he walked out of her life, slinging the shoes over his back as if he could somehow rescue them. Variel shook her head while pushing on the close button. As she caught the final glimpses of his silvery hide vanishing down the airlock corridor she whispered, "Me too."
A faint glow crested amongst the white sheets piled up against the narrow walkway of the observation deck. It was little more than a narrow closet carved into the attic of the ship with a picture window thrown up top so the travelers could pretend they were "up on deck." After yanking the ship out of storage, all of the sheets covering very important panels were piled up here and the door was left unlocked. Almost no one ever visited the narrow top deck. If they wanted to see the stars there was a perfectly good simulacrum on a passing ether site, or they could risk a few minutes with Orn on the bridge.
But Taliesin found it a necessary stop over as he switched from the engineering shaft over to the system controls/exhaust fan for the secret bathroom. One time on his relaxation stretches he almost bumped face first into Ferra as she glared up through a section of ship she was rigging. She asked him if he ever used the proper hallway like a normal person.
That would be cheating, he thought as he returned to his narrow crawls. A stop at the observation deck meant he only had another five decks to scale down before he could call it a day. But now he paused, feeling like a shadow on the wall as a tinny sound broke through the dead deck.
"Thank you," a quiet voice, solemn as the grave, spoke from the light source. It was unfamiliar, but it had the timbre-less sound of a PALM recording. "Today we gather not to bury Terrwyn Yates, but to praise her. One need only glance upon the rows of accomplishments sitting beside me to know that in her short time she affected so many in the galaxy, but it is here, the people gathered today, that she touched the most."
The voice skipped and blurred together as someone wound the speaker through the boring bits. "She was a devoted daughter..." skip skip skip, "ashes to ashes...I spent a week getting to know her close family, her devoted husband."
A laugh covered what the eulogizer had to say about her devoted husband and the voices froze as she closed her hand. "Taliesin, is that you?" she called to the darkness.
He knew he could vanish back the way he came and leave her guessing if he was ever there. She hadn't reprimanded him for breaking her order to remain behind, and then punching the snot out of her husband, but she hadn't said a note of praise for it either.
"I am," he said, inching into the light. Around the plastic boxes, Variel sat reclining against a wads of deck sized foam. A violet nebula shimmered in the distance as the ship floated by, neither in a particular hurry to get anywhere. Her hand lay across her wound, the bandages not quite as thick they were a day before. She was healing at least.
"Sit with me," she said, inching over, the stars falling upon her face as she did.
Taliesin collapsed his legs beside her, folding them up as he sat upright. She gazed out at space -- all the parts in between where everything interesting happened. Watching her fingers prod at her wound, he spoke, "I was unaware anyone visited here."
"It's like being born in a snowstorm. You can't see the beauty of the snow when you're too busy worrying about surviving the blizzard. But sometimes," she smiled lightly, "sometimes it's nice to let a flake or two fall on your tongue."
Taliesin nodded as if he had any idea what being in a snowstorm was like. Cangen had an endless supply of every version of rain available, but the closest it came to snow was a very wet hail. He'd seen it once from high above the clouds on another world. It looked as if the giants were salting a world before eating it.
"I was listening to my funeral," Variel said, shifting in her seat, "her funeral. It all got dug up so easily. Can our ghosts ever stay dead?"
Taliesin didn't answer. Despite his age his ghosts amounted to a few school pranks and, well, her. She opened her hand and looked at the frozen screen -- a blurry image of a dark human stood at a podium.
"I was going to delete it. Just wipe the file, the last hold over, a clean break, but..." Her fingers danced around the play button as if the treacherous video started on its own. The stars reflected in her dark eyes as water rose behind them, "People always say that they wish they could live to see their own funerals. That it would be some perk to drop in on everyone talking about how great you are. But to watch all your friends, all your family, everyone who ever touched your life miserable and crying because of something you did, something that's your fault...I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy."
"What about Marek?"
Variel smiled, a bit of water breaking from her wobbling eyes, "Well, maybe him."
"I am sorry," Taliesin confessed, "for disobeying your orders and assaulting your -- her -- husband."
She patted his thigh, her hand cold from the time spent in the heatless deck. "It wasn't really an order, more a suggestion." As Taliesin's eyebrows knit she continued, "If I really didn't want you over on that ship do you think Gene would have let you go? Besides, the djinn had fun. He doesn't get out as often as he should."
Taliesin chuckled at the idea of Variel stretching her djinn's legs by letting him smash through a few dozen henchmen. It was a wonder why she didn't rely upon her nearly indestructible companion more, but when it came to Gene he was the greatest secret even Variel didn't know. And she never intended to ask.
"To admit my heart," Taliesin began, "I did not expect you to react so forgivingly."
Variel shrugged, "If you want the full truth, had you done that to Terrwyn you'd have been off the ship with Marek, no questions asked." She shook her head as she remembered one particular lover who thought bursting through a quarantine to give her a rose was romantic. "She was a bit of a hardass. And now she's dead...again."
"Are you concerned that Terrwyn Yates had gathered the attention of such a high level of security?"
"Nah," Variel waved her hand, "happens all the damn time. Someone forgets to carry the 1 and we can't gain access to our own mission logs. I once had to get an admiral to grant access so I could download a popular coffee cake recipe."
Taliesin accepted her words but felt the nibble of concern at the back of his neck. He had few contacts within the human systems, but perhaps a well placed dwarf would know a thing or two about what was happening. Of course, she certainly might shove him out an airlock if he pushed that overbearing schtick any harder. "Is there any concern that her husband might resurface?"
"Marek ever shows his face again I'll leave him to Ferra. After the shit his lockdown caused, he'll be lucky to make it out alive."
The elf didn't smile at her joke, something else eating up his stomach as he remained straight as a rod. Perfect posture was one of the easiest ways to spot a dulcen -- they were a race born with a stick up their butt and right through the spine.
"Okay, what is it?" Variel asked. His yellow eyes turned on her and she shrugged, "I could take a few guesses, beat around a bush or two, but it seems easier to ask straight away."
"You delete your old persona, your previous life so easily."
"It wasn't that easy," Variel said gesturing to her weeping wound. Monde had her on pudding and protein supplement mess for a week.
Taliesin nodded his head to acquiesce her point. "But how can you let her go?"
She watched the file dancing on her hand, the image of her Mum about to give a eulogy Variel never made it through. It would take nothing more than a couple taps of her finger and it'd
be gone. Oh sure, the video would still exist in some databases, but they were so obscure and buried as to be rendered unreachable by her. "I used to think I could. That my rebirth...huh, I never thought of it that way. The creation of Variel would delete and scrape away every aspect of Terrwyn. New parents, new birth planet, even a new god. Technically I owe my soul to one of the lesser ones. I think he's in charge of home appliances. Making Variel non-religious was easier. But she's always been there. Without Terrwyn there'd be no Variel." She paused in her revere and blinked, shaking her head, "Gods, I have to get off these mood inhibitors. I sound like a sign in a shop that sells exotic teas and draws all over your hands."
Taliesin dropped his hand and Variel touched it, her fingers sparking from the excessive warmth of the elf. "Go ahead," she whispered to him, "ask me about her, about the one that lies dead in a grave of stone and garden decorations."
The elf raised his eyes off his hand as he turned to her, "I hardly know where to begin."
Variel smiled. She lifted Taliesin's hand up as she leaned her head against his warm chest, the triple beats of an alien heart soothing. The elf gave in to the human's pressure and he settled back against the foam pillows, his eyes closing as she began to speak.
"I was born to a mum who always wanted children and a mother who didn't care. When they found out my Mum couldn't get pregnant the answer seemed easy enough. Is it any wonder the divorce was so bitter lemons called up for advice?"
"You were raised by the mother who did not wish to have children?"
"Yeah, because she resented the hell out of Mum for ruining what she believed was her one chance at the sword. What better way to get back at her ex than taking the one thing she wanted? And the courts were more than falling over themselves to reward custody to the one that provided all that mitochondrial DNA and swore service to her Lord."
"I'm sorry."
Variel sighed, "It wasn't all so bad. People'd say we were clones, and I did look up to her." It felt good to admit that. After everything she had done, everything she'd been and seen, there could be no denying that if the universe gave it all another go she'd probably wind up right back in the same spot. Some things were just unchangeable. "We fought like ogres on half meat day though. Oh gods, there was one time..."
Her PALM beeped, announcing to the world that it was rather miffed at being left alone and was switching off to sleep mode. Variel glanced down at the darkened hand computer and closed her palm. Without pausing, she continued to tell Taliesin as much of Terrwyn's life story she could remember. She could deal with the funeral later, for now there was a life worth living.
THE END
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