Zey rested his elbows on the table and sighed deeply. “Vekesh,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“When did you know?”
“That it was him? Not until I saw the gun.”
“But you suspected.”
“I wasn’t sure it was him. I just wasn’t sure that it wasn’t.” I took a bite of macaroni, reveling in food that tasted like something again. “Where the hell did the gun even come from? He was only on Earth for a few hours. What, did someone slip it to him under the interview table?”
“Probably not,” Zey said. “Hathan thinks forensic analysis will show it to be a fake. A Vardeshi imitation of an Earth weapon. We know what they look like. Making one would be easier than stealing one.”
I nodded, recalling Daskar’s surprise at the distance the bullet had traveled. “Was anyone else involved?”
“Such as, just to pick a name totally at random, Vethna? Nope. Vekesh was working alone. While you were unconscious, every single member of the crew voluntarily submitted to a Listening to prove that they weren’t involved.”
“Except you,” I pointed out.
Zey grinned at me. “I’m innocent too. But you’ll just have to take that on faith.”
“So who’s in command now?”
“Hathan, with Ziral as his second. But they’re temporary promotions. The Echelon is going to reevaluate when we reach Arkhati. They might assign a completely new commander. They’ve made it pretty clear that they’re not very happy with anyone on the Pinion right now.” He made a face.
“They’re angry at the crew? Not just at Vekesh?”
“They think the senior officers should have known from the start that Vekesh’s policies were out of line.”
“Do you think they’re right?”
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I think they have to say that. Whether it’s true doesn’t really matter. This whole thing is incredibly embarrassing for us. Would things have been any different on another ship, with another crew? Who knows? Whoever was paying Vekesh picked him for a reason. We don’t question our commanders. It isn’t our way. No matter what the Echelon says after the fact.”
After I’d finished eating, I lingered over a cup of cocoa, luxuriating in the simple comfort of Zey’s innocuous chatter, knowing I would soon be exchanging it for more difficult conversations. Eventually, though, I had to admit to myself that the moment had come. I stood up to clear my dishes and felt a rush of dizziness. I steadied myself on the edge of the table until it passed. The delay on wasn’t lost on Zey, who said, “Do you need to go back to your quarters? I can have Saresh meet you there.”
“Yeah, that might be a good idea.”
When Saresh arrived, I observed that he was favoring his left leg and that he walked with the aid of a slender silver cane. “Very aristocratic,” I commented.
He smiled slightly. “Is it? Maybe I should keep it, then. I won’t need it after Arkhati.”
“Does it hurt?”
“My leg? Yes. What about your arm?”
“It hurts.”
I’d made my bed before sitting on it as a compromise between propriety and comfort. Saresh limped over and sat down on the edge of the bed an arm’s length away from me. The moment was oddly intimate, like encountering a new lover after a few hours’ separation. I considered the analogy and then rejected it. The Listening had been nothing like lovemaking, and what I felt now was nothing like that shy, eager self-consciousness. I felt safe. Known. As I looked into his eyes, the profound calm I had experienced during the Listening enveloped me once again. I wondered if I would always feel that way around Saresh now. I wondered if it was an aftereffect of what we had shared, or simply my awareness, heightened by the sharing, of the astonishing kindness at the heart of who he was.
He said, “I imagine you have questions for me.”
“Lots of them. First of all, what happened at the end of the Listening? And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, because I saw how you looked at me afterward, and I know it isn’t true.”
“I won’t pretend,” he said calmly.
“Then what the hell?” My voice cracked on the last word.
“Occasionally the process of revisiting memories through another person’s eyes can bring . . . new features to light. The experience can be as surprising for the host mind as it is for the visitor, if not more so. I would have warned you about that possibility, but there wasn’t time.”
“Fine.” I sighed. “Have you told him yet?”
“Have I—”
“Hathan,” I said. “Have you told him.” It wasn’t a question.
Saresh looked perplexed. Impatiently I went on, “It doesn’t matter. I know you have to tell him. I get it. He’s your brother. I just need to know what to expect when I talk to him.”
He held up a hand to forestall me. “Are you asking me if I’ve told Hathan about your feelings for him?”
“Yes.”
“No,” he said swiftly.
I sighed. “Good.”
“I haven’t told him,” Saresh said, “and I won’t. Ever.”
It was my turn for confusion. In response to my blank look, he went on, “Avery, that’s what I’m here to tell you. It’s why I insisted that you see me before Hathan, which he was less than pleased about, believe me. The Listening is confidential. Nothing I saw can be shared without your consent.” He paused, then said more emphatically, “Nothing.”
“But . . . you told him I was innocent,” I said.
“You gave me permission to do that. Remember?”
I vaguely recalled something along those lines. My memories of yesterday were shaky, as if someone had been filming them with a handheld camera.
“Zey told you about the Vox code of ethics,” Saresh said. “This is part of it. The Listening isn’t an easy thing to control. We see more than we mean to, always, and this . . . Your heart is full of it. I would have seen it no matter what I went looking for, whether you yourself saw it or not. But you have my sworn word that I’ll never share those feelings. Not unless you want me to. Not with him. Not with anyone. I can’t. It’s as simple as that.”
“I . . . want to believe you,” I said.
“You can.”
“You know it’s not that easy. He’s your brother. Can you really promise me that you’ll never let it slip? Never. Not over too many drinks in some dark bar somewhere. Not when he’s having a bad day, if he ever has those, and needs a laugh. Never.”
“Never,” Saresh repeated. “And you don’t know us at all if you think that he would laugh at this, or that I would. You’re drawn to my brother. How could I laugh at that? Hathan can be . . . difficult to know. Not everyone sees his gifts. You do, somehow. I’m honored to carry that secret for you. And for whatever this is worth, I’m sorry. I know it makes things harder for you, to have someone else know. And one of us, no less.”
I shook my head. “I was never going to tell anyone. Well . . . maybe my best friend, when I got home. But God knows if I were going to tell someone . . .”
“It wouldn’t have been me. I know.” He sighed. “If we’d had more time yesterday, I would have tried to make the Listening more of an exchange. I have no idea if it would have worked, but I would have tried. I wish I could show you the truth of my intentions. I wish I could show you that you really can trust me with this. As it is, all I can do is tell you, and hope that you believe me.”
“I’m going to have to,” I said.
The door chime sounded. Saresh glanced at the closed door. “That’s Hathan telling me not to overstay my time. I should go. We can talk again later. Or, if you’d prefer, we can never talk about any of this ever again. It’s your choice.”
“Thanks,” I said. “For all of it. Yesterday too.”
He said, “It was my privilege.”
It was like Saresh to say that, and to mean it too. I had liked him even before I saw the inside of his mind. I liked him more now. I still wished he didn’t know my
secret.
Just before he left, I remembered something I’d been meaning to ask him. “Wait. Yesterday, when we saw Vekesh in the hallway, I thought I heard your voice in my head. You said you trusted me. It was really faint. Did I imagine it? Or were we still . . . connected somehow?”
“You didn’t imagine it. I wasn’t sure if you heard it. Sometimes two minds will remain joined together beyond the end of the Listening. The connection is weak, and it only lasts for a few minutes, an hour at most, before it dissolves. It’s like a mental echo.”
“So it’s not permanent,” I said.
He smiled. “No. It’s not permanent.”
“Good.” Hastily I clarified, “I wouldn’t want that kind of connection with anyone.”
“Who would?” Saresh asked rhetorically.
He left. I took a breath. I hadn’t been ready for that conversation, and I felt even less ready for the next one. Before I could do more than acknowledge that fact, the door slid open again, and Hathan stepped in. Zey had been right; of the two of them, he did look worse. His uniform was torn at the collar, and he was sporting a bruise on his jaw and another high on one cheek. There was a scratch on his forehead, and a smudge of blood so dark it looked like blue ink. The uniform, together with the indigo shadows beneath his eyes, told me he hadn’t seen his quarters or his bed since the explosion. Yesterday had ended for me when Daskar administered her sedative. His day hadn’t ended yet.
He cleared his throat. “Avery,” he said.
I didn’t know what to call him. I had never used his first name. I didn’t want to start doing so now. Remembering that he was now acting commander of the Pinion, I said, “Khavi.”
On my first day on the ship I had strung battery-powered twinkle lights across one wall of my quarters. I had clipped a dozen or so photographs to the strings. Hathan went over to them. “May I look at these?”
He spoke in English, which was jarring. Language had become such a charged thing over the past weeks: both a battleground and a weapon in itself. Denied access to my native tongue, I had felt rage at my crewmates’ effortless Vardeshi and mortification at my own ineloquence. What did it mean that he had chosen to speak English now? Was it a signal of contrition, or merely an attempt to pacify someone who was clearly on the verge of a breakdown? I toyed with the thought of answering in Vardeshi—a deliberate snub in both our cultures, as I had come to know—and then rejected the cheapness of the idea.
“Go ahead,” I said. As I sat on the bed, watching him study each photo in turn, I was forcibly reminded of the day two weeks ago when I had sat in this exact spot watching him examine my personal belongings. I knew he must be thinking of that same moment. It struck me that he had asked permission to look at the photos in order to draw a clear line of demarcation between that interview and this one.
Without turning around he said, “I can’t imagine what these days have been like for you.”
“Sure you can.” The words came out sharper than I’d meant them to. “Or are you going to tell me intimidation and isolation only work on humans?”
“No. They work on us too.”
I wrapped my sweater more tightly around myself and folded my arms across my chest. “You know, I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, and I still can’t figure out what I did to make you guys hate me so much.”
He turned around. “I’m not sure it really had very much to do with you.”
“Really? That’s funny, because in the last two weeks I’ve been demoted, mocked, imprisoned, and shot. Oh, and I had my head examined. From the inside. So from where I’m sitting, it has kind of a lot to do with me.”
He shook his head slightly. “I’m not expressing myself well. I only meant that Vekesh would have found something about you to use, no matter who you were.”
“He picked me,” I said. “He knew exactly what he was doing.”
“Yes.” Hathan went over to the table in front of my viewport, picked up a stool, carried it to a spot adjacent to the bed but a respectful distance away, and sat down. “Nothing I say can undo the things that have been done. But if you’ll allow me to explain why they were done, it may help you to understand some things a little better.”
I waved my hand in an exaggerated gesture of invitation. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and laced his fingers together. I saw that the knuckles on his right hand were bruised. I knew the Vardeshi were fully ambidextrous, but did they tend to favor one side when fighting? I wasn’t about to ask.
Hathan said slowly, “I met Reyjai Vekesh at the Fleet Institute. He was a year ahead of me. He was a brilliant commander. A gifted strategic mind. I admired him—enormously. I requested a placement on the Pinion because I knew it was his ship. That was over a year ago, before anyone knew we would be sent to Earth. Shortly after I was assigned, the word went out that we would be reopening communication with your people and that, if the exchange proposal was accepted, a number of ships would be needed to host humans. Ours was an obvious choice. A commander who was a rising star in the Fleet, a second whose father had been one of the most outspoken advocates of the alliance since our first contact with Earth.” He paused. “Now, of course, I find myself wondering about that. About how far back the roots of these events can be traced. Was it coincidence that put a Vekesh and a Takheri on the same ship? One of us a clear target for coercion and bribery, the other one a natural fit for the exchange? And did whoever was controlling him know how unquestioningly I would follow him? Was my hero worship a piece in play? Or was it a wild card?”
“Different metaphors,” I observed.
“It’s been a long day.”
“So what? So you idolized him? So when he started doing . . . whatever it was he did to systematically turn everyone against me, you just hopped on board?”
“Yes.” The simplicity of the answer surprised me. Hathan made no attempt to equivocate. “It was subtle, at first,” he went on. “There were things . . . You made mistakes. You offended people. Nothing that can’t be explained away in hindsight by the language barrier, or cultural differences, or a host of other reasons—inexperience, fatigue. But taken together, they gave Vekesh enough material to work with. He convinced me and Ziral that you were acting out of malice. That your interest in our culture was a sham, and that you and your people were inferior and jealous. According to him, you were sent here to make trouble in any way you could—to contaminate a race that was so far beyond your own that the only way you could catch up would be to drag us backward.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said. I had never been so bluntly critical in his presence before. Exhaustion and annoyance seemed to have unlocked my tongue. The carefully curated version of myself I had been so careful to present was nowhere within reach.
“The misdirection didn’t work on everyone. Saresh saw through it. So did Daskar. And Zey and Sohra, although their opinions didn’t carry much weight. Arguments over you split the crew in half. And that made me resent you more. Managing the personal dynamics on a long-haul ship is a constant challenge. You arrived and immediately wrecked six months of work.” When I would have spoken, he held up a hand. “I’m almost done. The worst part, for me, was when Zey came into it. Vekesh was using him against me. I see that now. All those threats about Zey’s career were vitriol and nonsense. But he made me think he was trying to look out for my brother’s best interest. Meanwhile, Zey was adamantly—and vocally—on your side, and the worse things got for you, the louder he shouted. I was caught between the two of them. When you came to ask me for help three days ago . . . I haven’t forgotten the things I said to you. They were unforgivable. I can’t take them back.” He stared down at his hands. “All I can do is assure you that the depth of my shame and regret is beyond anything you could possibly wish on me. I trusted the wrong man. My error almost cost two people their lives. One of them is my brother.” He paused. “And one more thing. If it’s any consolation, you’ve done what you set out to do. In three mo
nths, you’ve seen the full spectrum of what the Vardeshi have to offer. Saresh and Zey are the best of us. Vekesh and I, it turns out, are the worst.”
“I don’t know what I’ve seen,” I said. “I think I know less about your people now than I did when I started. And just so we’re clear, whatever you think you know about me, or about humanity, it’s probably wrong.”
Hathan said, “I know that now.”
My arm was starting to ache again. I fished under the bed for my medkit. As I dug through the meticulously labeled envelopes, I said, “You didn’t have to tell me any of this.”
“Given what you’ve been through at the hands of my people, I think perfect honesty is the least of what we owe you.” He indicated the flexscreen on my bedside shelf. “We’re expecting the first transmissions from Earth and Vardesh Prime in the next few hours. You already have at least one message waiting from the Echelon.”
“It’s going to have to wait a little longer,” I said.
“I’ll leave you alone, then,” he said, and did so.
I turned off the light and lay unmoving on my bed for the few minutes that remained until the ibuprofen took effect. Half-formed thoughts fluttered around me like moths. Maybe the Listening had shattered my mind after all, and this was what it had left behind: isolated glints of memory divorced from their original meanings. They flashed up at me, one after another, like a handful of coins tossed in the sunlight, as I drifted into sleep. Sohra holding out her memory crystal to me. Zey rattling the dice in his palm. Saresh extending his hand to help Hathan up from the practice mats in the fitness center, both of them laughing. The darkness in Vethna’s face as his hand closed on my arm in the corridor. And Vekesh standing in front of my door, a still, waiting figure in the half-light that reduced his form to a shadow and the weapon in his hand to a gleam of liquid silver.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ascending (The Vardeshi Saga Book 1) Page 30