Except she had suggested it. Had extended it like a gesture of friendship between them, because she found his designation too distasteful for use. It did not matter to him, not in the least, yet he found his thoughts drifting to their future endeavours, when she would assist him in all things, when he was more than he was now.
That man—for maybe he could be by then—would have a name. Something real that indicated that despite the meddling of the masters, he was a person. He’d have to earn it, would prove his autonomy. Through death, through justice, until nothing remained but him.
Cydrin.
“I accept,” he informed her, resuming his usual posture.
She clearly had not expected it, her hunched shoulders and wary glance indicating she was bracing herself for some kind of anger or outburst from her mealtime companion. But she would not receive that from him. She would learn that in time.
“You do?” she questioned dubiously. “You really don’t have to keep that one. It was just a suggestion, and if you like something better then... then you should definitely use that.” Her fingers were massacring another of the brown rolls, and he looked down pointedly at it, and her cheeks infused with colour as he pointed out her wastefulness. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m... I’m very nervous.”
It was an unnecessary confession as her state of being was more than obvious, but it seemed to cost her something to make the admission, so he gave a low nod of understanding. He doubted that he did, not fully at least—she was too emotional a person for him to keep up with her ever shifting moods. But he thought back to his early days before the masters’ intervention, to the difficulty he experienced being trapped in enclosed spaces, with none to guide him through his new reality.
He would be kinder than that, though he was not certain how to properly enact that word. But she would not go hungry, and he would not stress her through days of sleeplessness, simply to see her reaction. She would have access to the ‘fresher and to a lav with a door since it seemed that the alternative was too distressing to her.
And in return, she would give him a name. One intended for family.
He should not dwell too much on that particular point, but it kept returning, voracious and nagging in its lure.
He watched as she took all of the crumbs she had created and brushed them into her bowl before picking up her spoon again and eating the moistened bits along with the broth. “What are you doing?” he asked, not certain her practice was entirely sanitary. He would not have her falling ill. That would prove a distraction, and their course had already been set.
He needed to be more careful to modulate his tone because she flinched, giving him a fearful look before offering an explanation. “I... I didn’t think you liked the mess.”
“That is accurate,” he confirmed. “It did not follow that I expected you to eat it.”
Parts of her hair were beginning to escape the simple plait she had concocted, shielding her expression partly from his view. He did not like it.
Clairy gave a shrug. “They’re good, and they give flavour to the broth.” More colour surged into her cheeks, contrasting with the brown of her freckles, not in an especially pleasing manner.
He tried to follow her thinking, to see what might have caused such mortification, but in her attempt to stave off whatever reaction she imagined from him, she clarified for him. “That’s not to say I don’t like it,” she hurried to explain. “Only I just... I got a little spoiled... before... and there were always so many different things to try, and I...” she glanced at him, looking panicked. “I’m very grateful for you feeding me, and I...”
He was not certain if her before referred to her time in the Project’s facility, or her time at home, but given what sparse details of her history she had provided, he did not imagine that her time in the farming districts had been a particularly luxurious one. He did not think that he was capable of offence, but something coiled, sour and distasteful, and it took a great deal of effort not to sneer. “Eat your meal, Clairy,” he directed, rising from his seat, his back stiff.
“Wait, I...” he did not need more of her words, not at the moment, but refused to give her the reaction she clearly was expecting of him. He took his bowl back to the replicator and pushed the code for it to dissolve. He would go upstairs and watch their course and for any sign they were being followed.
He was partly up the ladder when her voice called out again, and though he did not want to look at her, he found himself doing it anyway. “Cydrin, please...”
It was the use of the name that stopped him, and he realised his mistake in accepting it. There was power in it, foreign though it still felt to him. Not quite his, not quite right, but someday it might be.
And he wanted that.
She had abandoned her place at the table and come closer, looking frantic and uncertain. “I’m so sorry.”
He took a breath. “For what?”
She took another step forward, and he wondered what was bidding her be closer to him, as he had made no such command to her. “I think I insulted you and that’s... that’s really the last thing I want to do.”
Doubtlessly because she still believed he was intent on harming her for the smallest infraction. “You needn’t trouble yourself,” he informed her coldly, taking another step upward.
She released a pained sound from her throat, a word likely stifled by her own uncooperative tongue. “I... I shouldn’t have mentioned anything from before. You’re right. Clearly that... that was unwise and I shouldn’t have done it.”
His hands tightened against the ladder, and he did not know why he was so disgruntled. The answer was a simple one, and easy to fling back at her. “You complimented them.” Something overtook him, something unfamiliar and not at all agreeable, and he found himself back at her level, his feet meeting the metal of the floor with a low clamour.
He turned, going to another of the sealed doors and he could see the terror spark in her. But when the door slid open at his prompt, he revealed his own quarters. “Come here,” he ordered, and she hesitated, but shuffled forward, not willing to disobey him outright.
The room itself was far smaller than even the cells. There were no blankets to soften the hard pallet against the wall, the room as barren as the prisoners he transported. Clairy took it in with a grim expression, and he could see her struggling with her own panic. He could well imagine that she thought he would push her in, lock her away, and leave her in the dark.
She did not pass the threshold, but she was looking, and that was all he really wanted. “Another cell?” she asked, glancing back at him and looking for his approval. “But it has a door so... solitary confinement?”
He shook his head once, a tight jerk of movement. “My quarters,” he corrected.
She blinked, looking back. The only decoration to the room was the far wall, placed there by function rather than indulgence. It was a viewscreen, larger than most, so that he would be able to monitor his transports even when his own biological needs finally overtook him.
He had not made use of them the night before, preferring to remain awake, watching for signs they were being followed, that they’d been seen, as well as plotting their next course.
Fatigue had yet to set in, but he knew it was coming. But if she imagined that he would be lounging in plush accommodations while she suffered, he wanted to know of her mistaken assumption.
Clairy swallowed, tucking her hands close around her body. “Why are you showing me this?” she asked, a slight waver in her voice.
“Because,” he began, his voice holding a low hiss. “While your Project was spoiling you, I wanted you to see how they treated the true members of their employ. Despite my obedience, I was given no advantages. They did not want me to mistake the command of this ship as any kind of privilege. I was to bunk here with the rest of those that had misbehaved, with as few amenities as the others. To know my place.” He stepped forward, using his height over her to his advantage so he might further his
point. “You think they gave us fine fare? That they spoiled us?”
To her credit, her lip did not wobble, despite the fear pouring from her. She shook her head, and he could not tell if it was in denial that her precious Project had been capable of such cruelty, or in admission that he had been treated so abominably. “I’m sorry,” she murmured instead, a catch in her voice. “I’m sorry you had to live like that.” She could not bear to look at him any longer, her eyes going back to his small room. He was certain she meant to say nothing more, and he found a modicum of control return to him. This was not how he had intended to treat her, cornering her and frightening her beyond what was reasonable.
He wanted her to see, yes, and to understand, but he could not push too hard or too quickly or else she would lose what was rational.
He would paint himself the villain, the Project becoming the benevolent caregivers.
And that he would not allow.
He was surprised when she turned back to him, so hesitant, so uncertain, and he knew that he had lost ground with her. He would change that, whenever the tension in his chest subsided. After his diagnostic and repair to whatever system was damaged that was making him react so to what had been a simple reality to her life. The Project did spoil the men and women at the front of their ventures. Kept them well fed and in luxurious quarters so they were more amiable to dismiss the nefarious underbelly of the operation.
Clairy had merely fallen for their lies.
He would disabuse her of such deceit.
“We could... we could fix it,” she told him, her eyes beseeching.
It was his turn to look at her warily. “Fix what?”
She took a breath, glancing down at the floor as if the weight of him was just too much. “Your room. If... if you don’t like it, if it’s that way because of some lesson you don’t want anymore, then we could fix it. Make it nice. Pillows and blankets, something plush on the floor...”
He was certain she was describing what she would like for her own cell, but he found he did not entirely mind her fantasising. “I have much more important tasks than making my sleeping space nice.”
It was clear from her expression that she already knew of his intention, and she closed her eyes, perhaps trying to block him out entirely. “Why can’t you do both?” she countered at last, the effort to open her eyes and look at him clearly a difficult one. “Why do you have to live like they made you while you...” Words clearly failed her, and he wondered if he should supply them rather than allow the silence to breed all sorts of horrors between them.
“The Project cannot continue,” he argued instead, gentling his voice so she would know that whatever tension had brought them here was soothing. “I will see that it is ended.” A softer way to say that he intended to kill them all.
Clairy chewed at her lip, nodding her head, though he doubted it was in any sort of acceptance. If anything, it was merely in acknowledgement that he’d spoken, and he supposed that was enough. For now.
“Are you going to head straight there? Or will we be stopping along the way?”
His eyes narrowed at her. “Do you think you shall run from me? If we land?”
Clairy turned her head and looked pointedly at the weapons closet.
“I do not think things will end well for me if I did that.”
It was a fair enough assessment. He might not fully understand his need to have her with him, but he was certain that he would stop any attempt she might make to be free of him. At least while he was still mulling on her importance.
“That is true,” he cautioned, hoping that was warning enough to fulfil his promise.
The shiver that went through her suggested that it was.
It took her a moment to compose herself—to redirect her thoughts back to the subject they had found themselves in—before she could speak again. “So if we have to make stops, why don’t we see about getting some supplies? Not... not just the needed ones, but things that would make you more comfortable around here? Remind you that you aren’t under their control any longer.”
He did not know why she was saying these things unprompted. It made him suspicious, for her to accept him so quickly, to prioritise his comforts, his autonomy, rather than continue in her begging for the lives of her colleagues. Even the ones that she had not met.
But he could not deny that he liked it. That a part of him that he had never named was soothed at her words, her attention, pathetic as he found that to be.
He didn’t need her. Didn’t need her care, or her insistence that he would do better with soft things in his room, cushioning his rest with frivolities.
Doubtlessly she was thinking of herself. That if she talked to him kindly, he would treat her much the same. If she bade him to stop to supply himself with more human things, then it would follow he would do the same for her.
And despite knowing that, being absolutely certain that it was her own selfishness that prompted her suggestion...
He found himself altering course.
And would not allow himself to regret it.
8
Cydrin was not a communicative man. It left her antsy and uncertain most of the time, but she was learning to cope with it. He made little attempt to hide the navigation system from her, so she knew the system they were going to, the planet highlighted on the map, and took comfort that the next facility was not their current target.
When she would ask for the reason for their stop, he would inform her curtly that they were stopping for supplies. That was all he ever said, and she had stopped pressing him three days into their journey there.
Things had grown... calmer. He had never hurt her, had taken no liberties, as she was certain her mother would immediately ask if ever she was to see her again. She had feared that at first, had waited for him to come down the hatch and situate himself on top of her as she laid on the narrow pallet, waited for harsh words to be hissed into her ear that this was the reason he had brought her with him at all.
But he didn’t.
He came down the hatch, yes, but only to lock himself away in his own quarters, long after she had told him she was going to bed. Sleep was often illusive as the ship made no attempt to mimic the solar cycles of a proper planet. Not like... like at her work.
She had learned not to mention it at all. She could talk of her family safely enough, caught herself rambling about them fairly often if only to fill the unceasing silences. She wondered if he was annoyed with her for all her chatter, but he never banished her from his presence, never snapped at her to still her tongue for a moment and leave him in peace.
Even her mama had done that. She always apologised later, had confided in some private strain or worry that had made her temper short and given a hug, but still, the momentary sting lived on.
On the fourth day, Clairy woke feeling terribly morose. She could not pretend any longer about her family. Surely by now they would have been told about her situation—the one the authorities would believe at least—and the mourning would begin. And despite how desperately she wished it, she could not contact them to tell the truth.
Cydrin was there when she emerged from the ‘fresher, stationed at his usual place before the replicator. Ever since their fight, he had taken to introducing small alterations to their diet. Simple foods, yes, but varying in taste. He had even taken to asking which were of her preference, and she would well imagine he was taking careful mental note of the formulation code for later use.
It was as sweet as it was unsettling.
Guilt gnawed at her with ever increasing frequency that she would find him so. It would have been so much easier if he was the monstrous abuser that she had first assumed, and perhaps he would still prove to be. But when days dragged on and he was quiet and unassuming, it was harder to remember he was the same man that had taken her hostage, had dragged her through the corridors of the Project before...
Before killing everyone.
All of them.
Not a hint of remorse
, not a shadow that perhaps what he had done was as great an evil as what had been inflicted upon him.
For as much as she prattled about her family, he never suggested that she contact them. Never acknowledged the subtle hints she wove into her tale about how missed she would be, of the weekly calls she made back home to the cracked and wholly inadequate viewscreen that they hadn’t been able to afford to replace.
Her elder brother was going to marry soon. She was supposed to fly home to stand witness as he married the girl two farms over.
And instead they were going to a place called Renganosh, a swirling blue orb that meant nothing to her.
“You are unhappy with the meal?” Cydrin enquired, and she hardly noticed that she was sitting beside him, their morning breakfast already put out.
More guilt came, foolish and incongruent with her earlier reminders to herself regarding her captor, and she took a breath, trying to clear her head, to push away the malaise in favour of something more useful.
“Sorry,” she murmured, taking hold of her utensil and taking a bite. It was some sort of porridge, warm and hearty, a swirl of something sweet interspersed into the otherwise bland grain.
“You are acting strangely,” Cydrin pressed. “You are usually very talkative after you have slept.”
Did that mean he liked her prattle? She couldn’t imagine why. Another breath, another mouthful of porridge. It was rather good. “I don’t... I don’t think you want to hear what’s going on in my head today,” she told him truthfully. She couldn’t imagine what good would come of it, not when he was willing to bend, to yield to what was right rather than maintain his own stubborn pursuit of justice.
That somehow included her. Included grieving her poor family.
Tears prickled, and she wiped at her eyes, determined that they would not fall. There was no use for them, as he was completely unmoved by her crying.
Designation 261 (The Wholeness Project) Page 10