All the Difference

by Edward McKeown

  “Why are you here?”

  It seemed he wasn’t going to use my name, much less “son.”

  “I’ve come back to apologize to everyone. Face the music. I’m looking people up. I started with you.”

  He shrugged. “What will that do? You ran out. You can’t buy that back. The dead won’t rise.”

  I nodded, trying to keep the pain at a distance. “Maybe it does no good. But I’m going to do it. As for the dead, well, nowadays I have as much or more experience of them than you did during your war. I’ve learned to focus on the living.”

  “So what do you want here?”

  “I came to make peace with you, if I can. I don’t hope for more. I don’t think you and I can undo the damage we did one another. But I’ll settle for peace.”

  “You still talk too much for a man,” he said.

  “And you don’t love enough for a father,” I shot back.

  Anger lit in his eyes, and he stood, taking a step toward me.

  “I’ve killed too many men for you to hit me, Old Man,” I said. Even I was surprised at the ugly menace in my tone, at the hate that ran like virulent poison in my veins.

  “You?” he said. “Hard to credit.” But he stopped coming.

  “You might look up the name Wrik Trigardt sometime.”

  Something flickered in his face then. Trigardt was Mom’s maiden name.

  “Wouldn’t matter to me what you did off-world. I live with who you were here.”

  I didn’t respond, merely stared, trying to get my breathing under control. “I’ve said my piece to you. You can leave me under that stone out there, or recognize that I’m alive, that I’m not that perfect son you wanted to relive your life through; just a man, good and bad, success and failure. If you want to find me—”

  “No need to tell me,” he said. “I didn’t ask.”

  A smile sickled across my face. “You don’t change, Old Man. The only thing I said that impressed you, was that I’d learned to kill. You didn’t ask if I’d learned to love anyone. Killing makes the man for you? That it, Dad?”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  We glared at each other while I wondered what I would do if he did strike me. A woman’s voice called out. “Owen, lunch is ready.” A pleasant-looking woman looked out of the screened porch. She wore a traditional dress: light, but long, gray and simple. “Oh, I didn’t know anyone was here.”

  “It’s no one,” he said, “and he was just leaving.”

  “Owen,” she said in shock. “Sir,” she said to me. “I’m sorry. Can we offer—?”

  “No, thank you,” I said, from a remote, cold place in myself. “He’s right, I was just leaving. You see, I made a wrong turn coming here. Good day.”

  “At least some water,” she began. Her face was red and angry as she looked at my father.

  I shook my head and tried for a friendly smile. “Goodbye.”

  I started away, the screen door banged closed. As I walked over the blue gravel, I heard a raised female voice.

  I walked past my gravestone with only a bare glance at it. In a way, the original me was entombed there. The son of my father’s hopes and dreams lay there as he would until the second coming. Yet I felt a little lighter as I walked away. Maybe I too could leave that former son under that stone. I’d faced my father. I’d offered peace. If he didn’t accept that peace, it was now on him.

  Chapter 5

  We debouch into Retief’s home system, and I immediately set course for Wrik’s homeworld at maximum speed, four days journey from the jump point. Lost Planet has two sets of accounts, the legitimate one for Jaelle’s business, which I will not touch and the far larger one that has accumulated from our lucrative work for Confed Intelligence. With that at hand, I need not concern myself with fuel charges. Still Stardust can only move so fast over the intervening distance, and I am frustrated as we close in on the world ahead. I elect not to contact Wrik in advance of our landing. First, if Candace is right, he may be in danger. My appearance could cause any party stalking him to accelerate a plan to take effect before I arrive. Beyond that, there is the inevitable fight that must occur when we deal with the twin aspects of his embarking on this reckless mission while I was in stasis and my disregarding his instructions not to follow him.

  So I race ahead without regard for fuel efficiency and deal with the normal inquiries from Retief’s Port Central as to our mission and intentions. Fortunately we are now registered as the break-bulk freighter, Lady Sterling, for priority cargo. I had, with Jaelle’s assistance, even arranged suitable cargo as a cover. Dusko will even sell it upon landing.

  But I am not passive. Even at this distance and without my usual direct access, I implant intruder codes far beyond the ability of Confed science to detect or deter. These act as my advance scouts, entering and infecting commercial databases, avoiding the military or high-level corporate ones that, while they could not specifically detect them, might still be able to tell their operators that they were under attack. By the time we enter orbit, I know where my errant partner has been and some of his activities. I cannot however detect any indication of any force shadowing him.

  Finally, we close on the planet after an age of useless time. I arrange for a landing entry at Blomfeldt, the same port Wrik had landed on a week before.

  “Look out, Retief,” Dusko whispers from the second seat on the bridge as we start down. “Here comes Maauro.”

  Here I come indeed, yet I feel curiously impotent to the coming confrontations. Always before, when anyone offered my network harm, I responded with deadly force and without hesitation, save once. When Jaelle’s father betrayed us to the Guild, Wrik forbade me from killing him, stating it would destroy Jaelle. At the time I did not understand, but merely accepted my biological companion’s demand. And though she abandoned and forswore her father not long after, I came to learn that what Wrik said was true.

  Now on my self-appointed mission, I am rushing to Wrik’s defense against his natural family and his old network of friends and squadron mates. He will doubtless forbid me to use violence against these, no matter their treatment of him. I am unhappy at the thought of this limitation. Wrik is precious to me, and no one who knows me dares harm him. But these do not know me.

  Yet.

  I feel my resolve harden. Wrik has come to make amends. Fine. It is fitting and proper for a warrior who has failed, to do this. I have myself done so in the past. Yet I will tolerate no physical harm to my friend. The lives of family members will be off-limits so long as sparing them does not risk Wrik’s life. Beyond that I will not bind myself.

  I look up at star that holds Wrik’s world. Yes, beware. Maauro is here.

  Chapter 6

  I rode south, my mind surprisingly empty of thought or feeling. Perhaps it was because I’d had such low expectations, that it didn’t hurt as much as I feared. I still felt lighter in some way. Now that the worst had happened, I no longer had to give it more thought, or any of that precious commodity— hope.

  But perhaps worse awaited me, Delt Teljard was my childhood friend, in some respects the older brother I wasn’t lucky enough to have been born with. It had been with him that I rode horses, attended school, and learned to shoot. Delt had backed me up in encounters with school bullies. We’d joined the Kaydets together, trained together. It was only in flying that I’d ever bested Delt at anything. But he was the complete package, when the Ncome Commando formed, Delt was selected to lead it and lead he did. Until the day we shattered against the steel roof the Confederacy placed over our world.

  I returned the motorbike and spent the night in the only motel in town. My father could have found me there if he wanted to. The com never sounded, and there were no messages.

  In the morning I hooked up to a terminal to check into the whereabouts of my old friend. It didn’t take long. To my surprise, I found him only thre
e hundred kilometers away, running a machine shop and light aircraft repair business in Idutywa. It gave me pause; I’d expected to find Delt running something big. I found that difficult to reconcile with the thought of him in the outback, repairing agrocasters and the like.

  I hopped back into my rented aircar, and refueled it for the trip to Idutywa, where Delt’s shop awaited me. This time I flew it myself, stretching out my wings and blowing the sadness out of my soul. For at least a few minutes, it was only me and the sky, which had never been taken from me, nor turned its back on me. Maybe I would only be happy in it.

  Too soon Idutywa came into view. It was more like the frontier towns I remembered, though larger than some. The comp said 12,000 people and recommended a hotel called “The Trekker.” I tapped the screen and got the coordinates for the hotel. It was a big rambling structure like a ranch house. I could even see cattle in the distance.

  I brought my flyer down in the big field and taxied under a shelter, then got my bags out. A young woman with a robot-loader walked up and relieved me of my bags. She had a warm smile that would have been welcome on another day, but I had things on my mind. I checked in and unpacked, wanting some place to retreat to after seeing Delt. Though it was already mid-afternoon, I still had no appetite. This time I rented a small ground car, not trusting the expensive suspension of the aircar on local roads, and set out for a rendezvous with my past. Delt’s place was on a small airfield adjacent to the town but I did not want to sweep in with the expensive and flashy aircar. Most long and middle-distance traffic used proper aircraft, as opposed to flitters or expensive aircars which did everything, but nothing well or cheaply.

  The field of hard-packed, yellow earth lay dotted with a few small, older model transports and some agrocasters for spraying and seed dispersal. The buildings were all clean and in decent repair, but everything about the place had a shopworn air. It again struck me as odd to find Delt here. He’d been the up-and-coming son of a planetary counselor, expected to follow his father into politics. True, he had always been a gear-head, but also class valedictorian and the best sportsman in our district. Everyone had loved Delt. Truth was, I was often bitterly jealous, and, at the same time, grateful that our childhood friendship had continued. He’d had many better options than hanging around with me.

  Yet here he was running a small aviation company well out in the hinterland. Many of the old Retief Commandoes had found employment with the reconstituted planetary constabulary, or even in the locally recruited Confed Reserve. It seemed Delt, for all his rank and skills, had not. I wondered why.

  I shook my head to clear it, parked, and stepped onto the concrete path leading to the big shed. A couple of men were working on an agrocaster; they didn’t look up at me. Neither of them was Delt. I scanned the area, and spotted a shock of blond hair on a broad-shouldered man working by himself under the cover of a private VTOL hauler. I took a deep breath and continued over. Now I could see the outline of a face and there was no question. It was him.

  “Hello Delt,” I choked out.

  He pulled his head out of the machine and turned with his usual, big, friendly smile. “Hello. Do I know you…?” The smile faded to be replaced by a puzzled expression, then recognition lit in his eyes. “Piet. Well, Piet Van Zyle, as I live and breathe.” He put the tools in his hands down carefully on the wing of the VTOL and looked at me as he picked up a rag and wiped his hands clean.

  I could barely breathe; this was the man I’d betrayed most grievously. My friend in every kid’s adventure. I could feel my eyes fill, but I would not cry in front of Delt, not even for forgiveness. It wasn’t the way things were done in our world.

  “I came to apologize, Delt. I ran out on you and the squadron when you needed me most. I have no excuse.”

  I didn’t even see him move, the blow knocked me over, my head ringing. I rolled up on my feet and got my hands in front of me.

  Delt stood a few feet away, but his hands were at his side. “You had that coming, you know.”

  I tasted blood from a cut cheek. “Yeah, I did.”

  “You’ve toughened up,” he said, “when you were a kid that would have laid you out.”

  I lowered my hands. “Not a kid any more.”

  “Yeah.”

  He walked over and stuck out his hand. Slowly, I reached out my own and took his. Delt reached his other hand out and placed it on my shoulder and shook me. “Dammit, Piet,” he said, his voice unsteady. “Why’d you run off? I don’t mean the dogfight. Fight… that wasn’t a fight, it was a goddamn slaughter. But you left the planet. That’s why I hit you, dammit. You shouldn’t have left. You ran out on me.”

  Suddenly, and despite my resolve, I couldn’t control myself, tears ran down my face. I tried hard not to sob, to breathe deep, but they wouldn’t stop coming. “I should have died with everyone else.”

  “No dammit,” Delt swore. “All those people killed, for what? For traditions and prejudice, a bunch of shit we didn’t even believe in. There was never even a chance.”

  “I ran,” I managed. “I ran.”

  “I wish you’d all run,” Delt said, his voice breaking. “I was your squadron leader. I led you into a massacre, following stupid fucking orders from sons-of-bitches who were throwing us away. I got you all killed…”

  I’d never seen Delt cry, never seen anything but strength in him before today. I had never wondered how he felt about the deaths of all our friends. Now I wondered why.

  After a few seconds he wiped his face and continued. “They pinned a medal on me, you see, a secret ceremony after the surrender, a medal for murdering my childhood friends. God, how I wish you’d all run.” He thumped me on the shoulder. “I was angry with you at the court-martial, said a bunch of stupid and hateful things. It was too near for me to see.”

  I shook my head. “Don’t forgive so easily, Delt. I was a coward. I ran out on you. I dove out of the fight.”

  He nodded. “Ok, you did. I was blood mad about it at the time. Only seven of us made it down, out of twenty-four. Really only five: Hewat killed himself at the surrender. Regina, well she was burned and despite the synth-flesh, she’s never been right since. Then there was you. I assumed you’d died somewhere out under the stars.”

  “My father didn’t even wait for that,” I said. “I saw him yesterday. He has a gravestone on the farm for me. It’s dated from the battle.”

  Delt mouth drew into a grim line. “That father of yours is a right bastard. I wonder if he was always so heroic in his war, or if his memory is selective. He’s a mean one, your father.”

  “He was always hard.”

  “No, Piet,” Delt said, finally releasing his grip on my shoulder, “he isn’t hard, he’s just damn mean. No one could be what your father wanted out of a son.”

  “You could,” I said. “I always felt that you were more the son he wanted than me. I never measured up compared to you, not as a child and not when it counted most.”

  “Bah,” Delt said. “Your father always loved his reputation more than anything else.”

  I wiped at my face. Delt reached back and grabbed the rag, throwing it to me. I used a clean spot. I felt a fatigue that seemed to lie in my bones themselves.

  “It’s been years,” I added, my voice dull, “yet it seems only minutes in some ways. I finally realized that I had to come back to apologize to everyone I’d let down. To ask for their forgiveness and if not, then to accept what was coming to me. If I’m ever going to stop circling in that sky, ever going to make peace with how things are, I have to do this.”

  “As I said, I was mad then. Not mad now. What I know now is that I have one less squadron mate to light a candle for. You’re alive. And God damn it, you’d better stay alive.”

  “I need to see the others, Delt. Can you arrange that?”

  “Piet, I don’t know if that is such a good idea, especially with Regina a
nd Dewalt.”

  “I didn’t expect that it would be easy, or that they’ll forgive me. It’s my sin to try and redeem, forgiveness is up to them.”

  Delt sighed. “These are old and deep wounds.”

  “Some of them never closed.”

  “Yeah. Come on. Let’s get some ice for your jaw. A beer will wash that blood out of your mouth.”

  I nodded.

  “Kosfan,” Delt called. A Morok emerged out of the back office. He wore business clothes. He did a double-take at my bruised face and bloody lip.

  “I’m taking the afternoon off,” Delt said. “Call Smutts in to finish the agrocaster.”

  “That asshole will do nothing but complain,” Kosfan replied.

  “Not at time and a half,” Delt said. The Morok nodded, waved a tablet comp, and walked back into the office.

  “Come on,” Delt said. “I’ll get the beer, and you can tell me why you still look so damn young. I swear you’ve hardly aged at all.”

  Delt and I spent the evening talking on the porch, catching up on the times we had lived through in the years apart. I gave Delt an edited version of my past, what was in the public record, even if that record hadn’t caught up to the world we were on. I omitted the details of my friends and my service in Confed Military Intelligence. Delt surely realized some of this, but between his quickly getting muddled with our celebratory drinking and respecting my wishes, he didn’t probe further. Truth was, I kept turning the conversation back to Retief and the empty years I knew nothing about. Delt hadn’t kept up with my family. He knew my mother had left my father and that my sister had married, but few details. Still, I heard of many of our childhood acquaintances and finally, toward the end of the evening, we talked of our squadron mates, the living and the dead.

  After a while, the stress and strain of the day caught up with me. I stood up. Delt tried to and fell over on the settee and gave me a breezy wave from it.

  “I’ll be back in the morning,” I said. “I’m in at the Trekker.”