by Selina Rosen
"What are you thinking?" Mickey asked.
"That I'd also like to drop the subject and finish dinner," Jessica said with a smile.
Mickey smiled back and nodded.
Jessica walked along the wall. When she had first done it, it had just been because she had learned it was something RJ had done. Apparently RJ had walked along this wall and looked out at the bareness of the mainland. Now of course there was a thriving city there again, but when RJ had walked this wall . . . nothing but ruins. Ruins that Jessica had created in that previous life.
And now she knew. Now she knew exactly what RJ had felt looking out at what had once been. Why she had come after Jessica with such a vengeance.
It was all about caring. Actually caring more about someone else than you did about yourself. The minute she had become RJ she had learned what it meant to truly care about someone, because for the first time she had felt the very real caring that others had for her. Mickey loved her. So did Diana and a dozen others.
Guilt hung over Jessica like a filthy shroud.
When people truly cared for you, loved you, it was only a matter of time till you loved them back, unless you were dead. Jessica was crazy, but not dead. Of course Mickey and Diana and the others didn't actually love Jessica. They loved RJ. They actually hated Jessica. So this love was stolen. It belonged to RJ, but Jessica had stolen it, just as she had stolen her sister's life.
RJ had paced this wall and looked out at the mainland, thinking about all she had lost. Now Jessica paced this wall and looked out on the mainland, thinking about all that she had lost.
When Dax had been born his mother had held him first, then Mickey had taken him, and then the tiny infant, still covered with slime, had been placed into Jessica's arms—and she had immediately fallen in love. It had been the purest joy she had ever felt. The strongest emotion.
For the first few months of his life Jessica had spent most of her time on the front. Every time she came back it was obvious that Dax didn't remember her, but she didn't care. Just holding him made her feel better about everything.
Then when Dax was six months old he became very ill. The doctor said it was the flu. Dax cried almost constantly, and after two days with no sleep, and having the flu themselves, both Mickey and Diana were exhausted. Of course Jessica didn't actually need much sleep, couldn't get sick, and she had endless amounts of energy. She practically ordered Mickey and Diana to bed and she took over care of the sick baby.
She walked Dax for hours on end. Bathed him, fed him, gave him his medicine, and basically willed him to get well. By the third night he was feeling better, and as she was walking him he lay his head on her shoulder, looked right at her and sighed. Then she felt it. He loved her. He didn't think she was RJ. Hell, he didn't know RJ. He actually loved her.
Having that pure, unconditional love, feeling it, had changed her.
She looked at the city. Her people were over there right now, enjoying themselves, reveling in their victory, drinking to lost comrades. None of them were blaming her. But it was her fault. She had miscalculated the number of men she would need for the assault. She had told them to bear right when they should have borne left. Gerald was right. She couldn't know everything.
Not even RJ knows everything. Alsterase is proof of that. The fact that I'm here in her place now and she's gods-only-know-where is proof of that. But does it really matter? I caused the deaths of my troops, my friends, just as surely as I caused the destruction of Alsterase. Can I ever truly gain redemption when everything I do just brings more death? I was crazy once, I know that now, but am I still just as crazy and I just don't understand it? I was completely insane before, but I didn't think I was. Maybe I'm still crazy and I still don't know it.
"Hey, RJ!" Dax's yell and the sound of his footsteps broke her concentration. He ran up to her out of breath, the ball in his hand. "Sit down," he ordered. He always wanted her to sit down or kneel because otherwise he wasn't sure he had her full attention; she was too tall. "Wait till you see this." He placed his hand on the bottom of the ball and held it there for several seconds; it was actually heat-activated. The dragon came up and he made him bow, and then the man came up and he made him bow, then he made them fight. Then they bowed to each other and he had them shake hands and walk away. "See? One of them doesn't always win. Sometimes it ends in a draw."
"You are very wise," Jessica said.
"Sometimes you can also make the dragon spurt blood from his mouth."
"Or maybe not," Jessica laughed. She sat down on a section of wall. "So . . . are you too big to sit on my lap?"
Dax made a face. "Not too big, but too old. I'm almost twelve you know, RJ."
"Your father used to ride around on my shoulder when he was a full grown man. I think you can sit in my lap. Come on, humor an old woman." She patted her leg. Dax looked around to make sure no one was looking, then he walked over and let her set him in her lap. He lay his head against her shoulder, and sighed, and Jessica knew that he didn't really mind sitting in her lap at all.
He laughed. "You aren't old."
"You know that I am, Dax." She kissed the top of his head and held him tight. "I'm older than your mom, and much older than your dad. Today I actually feel the years."
"Well, you don't look it," he said.
"You know, kid, I'd probably be flattered if I hadn't been built in a bottle and poured onto the Earth."
He laughed.
"You think that's funny, huh?" she asked with a smile, and he nodded.
"Tell me about the battle, RJ. Tell me what happened." It wasn't an unusual request, he always wanted to hear about the battle and she always told him.
And she did tell him, but this time it was different. This time she told him everything, even how her friends had died. This time she didn't glorify it. She told him how Mantel had looked at her and smiled at the moment he knew the blast was going to strike him. How Armonda had screamed out and then fallen dead without even a moment to contemplate her death. She explained the empty feeling in her soul when Justin had died in her arms just moments after the last shot in the battle had been fired. Then she cried, and he comforted her.
Chapter Ten
RJ stepped from the cryogenic chamber and started to scrape the blue-green sludge from her face and body. She had been slowly revitalized so that she wasn't cold, and the apparatus had sucked the cryogenic liquid from her airways and lungs so she wasn't having any trouble breathing. She knew that her vision would clear shortly, that she was going to be all right. But she felt as if she had awakened from one, long, horrible nightmare, one that she couldn't remember but that had left her feeling raw, exposed and filthy. The slime didn't help.
"Come, RJ, I'll lead you to the shower." Poley took her arm and started to guide her through the hallways of the ship, which was good because she still couldn't see. As she started to walk she realized just how incredibly disoriented she was.
She tried to speak and found that she actually had to think about it to make it happen. "The . . . the others?"
"Fine, but I'll need your help to revive them. I thought it best we get you up first."
RJ nodded silently. He was right. If she was having this much trouble it would be much worse for Levits and even Topaz.
Poley helped her into the bathroom and over to one of the showerheads. The water smelled stale, but that was to be expected, it hadn't been used in . . . "How long?" she asked as the warm water started to beat down on her.
"Twelve years, three months, two weeks, three days, fourteen hours, three minutes, and forty two seconds. I'm so happy to have you out walking around." He hugged her, getting wet in the process.
"It's good to be out," RJ said. Her vision was coming back to her, and so were her other senses. The strength was returning to her legs. "Where are we, Poley?"
"A nice small Earth-class planet . . . actually it's a moon, but that's really splitting hairs, isn't it? There are plants and animal life and water and air with the correct m
ixture of oxygen to hydrocarbons . . . All right, there is a little too much oxygen, but nothing you shouldn't be able to adapt to."
He was talking very fast. She thought at first it was some malfunction, but then as he hugged her yet again she realized that the robot was just excited. She smiled and turned the water off. She looked at Poley. He was, as always, clean and well dressed, but there was something different about his face, something she couldn't quite put a finger on because it didn't make any sense. He looked as if he had aged.
He smiled broadly. "I added some wrinkles," he said proudly.
"Why?" RJ asked with a laugh.
"I really like your laugh," Poley said ignoring her question.
"Poley . . . why did you give yourself wrinkles?"
"I felt older. I wanted to look older. I missed you, I was very bored and very lonely, aren't those the sort of things that they say ages people?"
"Well, yes, but . . ."
"I felt aged, so I wanted to look aged." He led her towards a bench in the room. He pointed down at the sleeveless black coveralls and the section of chain. "I put your clothes out for you."
"Thanks, Poley." She slipped into the coveralls and then wrapped her chain around her waist, gently fingering the links. It felt like it had been twelve years. In cryo-sleep you weren't supposed to be aware of anything, much less the passage of time, but she was different from a normal human. Maybe, just maybe, she did feel the passage of time. She felt like she did. "Come on, let's go wake the others."
Poley nodded eagerly and led her into the hall. She stopped flat and just stared. All the walls, every inch of ceiling, every inch of floor, had been etched with photo-perfect life-sized precision with pictures of herself, Levits, Topaz, David, Stewart . . . in fact, most probably anyone Poley had ever had direct contact with.
"My god!" she breathed.
"Do you like them?" Poley asked excitedly.
"Like them, Poley? They are amazing! How much . . ."
"Most of the ship. I filled over seventeen thirty-two gallon plastic garbage bags with the paint chips made from the etchings."
"Twelve years," RJ said in a distant voice. Seeing what Poley had accomplished in that time, all that he had done, brought home the reality of the loss of time. She realized that she really hadn't felt the passage of time at all. Not twelve years worth.
"I told you I was bored," Poley said. "Come on, I want to show Topaz and Levits."
RJ nodded and followed him. Twelve years, and where were they now? What sort of world awaited them outside the ship? What of their own world? What was happening at home, on Beta 4? She might never know. If this planet could sustain life, their life, that didn't mean they would find a suitable fuel supply for their ship. She could be stuck on this planet for the rest of her rather long life.
The Reliance might have taken back all they had won on Earth and on Beta 4. Or perhaps the New Alliance had succeeded in driving the Reliance from Earth. There was no way of knowing.
Twelve years.
Twelve years! It seemed so surreal. All the time that had passed since the moment she had crashed into David Grant in the woods till the moment they'd dodged the Reliance fleet by driving their ship out of hyperspace and into an uncharted galaxy had come to just over eight years. What had happened in the twelve years they'd been asleep?
"RJ?" Poley prompted, and RJ realized only then that she had stopped moving, and was just staring at a picture of Mickey riding on Whitey's shoulder.
She couldn't seem to walk away. She had known Whitey for such a short period of time, yet he had changed her forever. In twelve years what might they have accomplished, what joys might they have shared, and what of Mickey? He had been alive when she left, but there was no guarantee that he still was. Twelve years on a planet that might very well be at war, without her help, without Topaz or Levits or Poley. She had left him alone to face an unknown future and had taken all the people who could help him.
Her plan had completely and utterly failed. She hadn't made it to Deakard. That being the case, what chance did Mickey and the New Alliance have of holding onto New Freedom?
"Do you . . . do you know where we are in relation to real space?" RJ asked, reaching out to trace the lines of Whitey's picture with her finger.
"This is real space, RJ."
"You know what I mean, Tin Pants, have you seen any constellations that look like our space, our galaxy?"
"Yes, but it would take us another five years to reach it and two years after that to reach the nearest jumpgate. We don't have enough fuel."
"Well, ain't that a kick in the pants. Let's keep that knowledge between you and me, all right?"
"Why?" Poley asked.
She sighed, "Because it's better to lose a race by three yards than by two inches."
"I don't understand."
RJ sighed again. "If we find a suitable power source then we'll tell them how close we are. Till then we'll just say we don't know."
"But that's a lie."
RJ laughed. "Yes, it is. But it's a good lie. I'll teach you about that later." She frowned suddenly, let her hand fall away from the picture and just stared at it for a minute.
"Does my picture make you sad, RJ?" Poley asked.
RJ looked at him and smiled. "No Poley, your picture does not make me sad. Missing them makes me sad."
"It's very hard to miss people," he said.
"Yes it is."
Topaz awoke with a start, spit the last of the blue green slime from his mouth and croaked out in an unused voice, "Bitchin'!" After he took a moment to try to find his whole voice he said, "I can't see shit, is that normal?"
His speech centers were actually coming back faster than hers had, which RJ found annoying for some reason she couldn't quite put her finger on. "It usually lasts four to six hours. Mine only lasted about fifteen minutes. I have no idea how long yours will last. Poley will take you down to the showers while I wake Levits up."
"So, Tin Pants, did you miss us?" she heard Topaz ask as they walked away.
"You have no idea," she mumbled as she worked the controls that would bring Levits back from the sleep of death.
That was what it was, too. Like being dead for twelve years and then waking up and . . . Where the hell were they? For a second she debated whether it was kinder to just let Levits sleep, and then she selfishly decided she wanted him to be with her.
The process of reviving took about thirty minutes. Levits was slowly warmed to 98.6 then the gel was sucked out of the tube he was in and then out of his airways. When this was done the electrodes attached to his chest were activated and his body was shocked back to life.
When Levits' heart started beating normally, his blood pressure stabilized and his breathing became normal, RJ opened the tube and carefully removed the tubes that ran down his nose into his lungs. Then she removed the electrodes from his chest. She took a wet towel and wiped the goo from Levits' face, and his eyes opened.
"You're all right, Levits," RJ assured him.
He tried to speak but nothing came out. He tried again.
On his third try he stammered out, "God I hate this shit."
"I know," RJ said gently. She ran her finger over his still slightly blue lips. It was taking a while for circulation to return. It was normal, because unlike her and Topaz, Levits was normal.
He had wanted to stay on Earth. He had wanted her to stay on Earth with him. Now they were . . . wherever the hell they were, because she had wanted to be anywhere but Earth. Twelve years had passed while they slept in blue-green slimy shit, and they were probably never going home.
"I'm sorry," RJ said gently.
"Why . . . sorry?"
"Because if I had done what you wanted to do you'd be safe on Earth enjoying the free country we helped create."
"No, we'd be fighting an army of Beta 4 humanoids trained to kill us. Besides, as mushy and un-me as this is going to sound, I'd rather be anywhere with you than on Earth without you."
"Remember
that when you find out where we aren't and just how long we've been asleep."
Levits' vision had taken six hours to return, and after eight his legs still didn't want to hold him, so RJ helped him to the bridge where Topaz and Poley were waiting.
"I know this is going to sound stupid because we've been asleep for . . . how long again?" Levits asked, as RJ helped him to set in the pilot's chair.
"Twelve years," the other three said at once.
"Anyway, I'm tired. I've been sleeping for twelve years and I feel like I could take a nap."
"Actually, me too, believe it or not," RJ said.