Designation 261 (The Wholeness Project)

by Catherine Miller

  “You have not asked to return to your home,” Cydrin mused, his voice quiet. She closed her eyes, her heart aching for it. Not the place. Not the circumstances. But the people. The familiarity.

  Would it be different now? Now that she had experienced so much beyond the confines of a farming colony? Maybe. But she could not believe that her joy would be any less to see those she loved, even if their dwellings seemed shabbier and the food more plain.

  “I want to,” she admitted, hoping it didn’t hurt him too much to have it confirmed. “But there are things I haven’t told you about it that would make returning...” she took a deep breath, trying to find the words and failing miserably. So she fell back upon old ones, to conversations they’d only half finished. “Returning home would mean sacrifices for me. If I really wanted to stay there.”

  “Sacrifice,” Cydrin repeated, giving her a quizzical look which amounted to little more than a cant of a head and the miniscule raising for a single brow. “Elaborate.”

  Clairy sighed and rested her head against the back of her seat. “I’m of age,” she answered miserably, remembering the dread she felt with each passing season.

  “Was that in question?” he asked, and she could almost feel his gaze drifting down her figure. Small though it was, perhaps not as plush as others, it was not a child’s.

  “No,” she amended. “Just the start of what went wrong.”

  There was a slight tightening of his mouth. “You are not speaking plainly,” he complained, easing back in his own chair and staring as was his wont when she did not make a great deal of sense to him. As if studying her long enough would uncover what her inadequate words could not.

  “The colony has... rules. About what it means to come of age. Certain responsibilities that come with it.”

  Cydrin gave a slow nod. “And you find these terms disagreeable.”

  Clairy picked off a piece of fuzz from her trouser-leg, ashamed of it. She hadn’t spoken of it with anyone from the Project, even when asked about what life was like in her homeworld and why she would want to leave. She spouted some nonsense about the desire for adventure and they’d laugh and nod as if they understood.

  How to make someone understand who hadn’t lived it? Who didn’t know what it was like to be indentured—a nicer word to skirt the purge of serfdom from their quadrant of the galaxy.

  That was generations ago, but circumstances had changed little.

  Aside from the fact that had she been born earlier, she would not have been able to respond an advertisement for a position off-world as an answer to her troubles, to choices she did not want to have to make.

  But she could. So she did.

  And look what that got her.

  “Not many people would choose to live the way we did. People don’t come and volunteer to work the land, most especially in the conditions of my colony.” She glanced at him, seeing if he understood where she was going with this, but he merely watched, urging her to continue with his silence. “So... it’s easier if children are born into it. So that they don’t know any other sort of life, you see?”

  He did not nod, but he gave acknowledgement. “Practical.”

  Clairy smiled grimly. “Isn’t it just.”

  “And you did not wish to bring children into the colony?” he guessed, and Clairy had no more lint to pluck at, so she made herself look at him.

  “When you come of age, you get married,” she admitted at last. “Most choose a chum they liked well enough from childhood.” A deep breath, admitting her true burden. “Other times, if an overseer expresses interest, the choice isn’t really one at all.”

  Cydrin was very quiet, and she waited, her nerves making her fingers tremble and her heart to pound.

  “This... overseer...” Cydrin began, his lip curling slightly over the word. She did not give a description of their position, but perhaps he was able to infer enough of it from the word alone. “He wished to take you to wife?”

  Clairy cleared her throat, remembering her few interactions with him. He’d frightened her, in his way. Had never touched her, but then, he wouldn’t have to. He’d simply have to wait, make his claim, and she would be his.

  It was the reason her parents had tearfully allowed her to seek employment off-world. Why they’d warned her of all sorts of dangers that might exist in the strangeness of that new world, but known that it could be no more perilous than the one she already faced.

  “Yes,” she answered, trying not to add more than she needed to. “He did. And I did not want him, so I chose to leave.” Clairy owed Cydrin the courtesy of looking at him for the next part, and though it was difficult, she managed it. Barely. “Which is why I took the first employer that was interested in an uneducated farm girl and was grateful for it. And I didn’t want to look too deeply at any of their practices because if I went home, if I didn’t have money to send back to prove that I was a head earner without a spouse to help me, then I would have to marry him anyway.” She raised her chin, partly in defiance of the mere thought, and partly because she was not going to cry about it. Not again. “So Papa said with my death benefits they’d have extra funds to cover me, but I told him not to keep it.” She wouldn’t risk prison for her father. She couldn’t. “Which means if I go home... home to stay, I’ll be right back where I was before.”

  “I question your choice in homes,” Cydrin mused, narrowing his eyes as he considered her. “It seems you have grown up with a set of masters of your own.”

  Her throat tightened. He wasn’t exactly wrong, but she couldn’t allow him to compare their situations. She had a family and he did not. She was loved and he was not.

  “You don’t always get to choose your home, Cydrin,” she explained sadly, even now feeling a pang of longing to be back where she belonged. Or used to. She couldn’t be sure anymore, not when she had gone through so much.

  “And other times, you do.” He leaned forward again, earnest and coaxing, if only in his way. Remy was much better at it, though she did not know why she felt the comparison necessary. “If you urge me to forsake thoughts of the Project, to disallow them from dictating the course of my future, then should you not do the same?”

  It felt like the deepest betrayal to her family to admit that a part of her was tempted. To simply tell him to pick a planet, to allow him to build a new life for them there while she...

  What?

  Pretended?

  Fed her parents a host of drivel that was untrue, all the while determining that she would never return to them?

  “The difference,” Clairy continued with a shake of her head. “Is that you were allowing your hatred of them to determine every bit of your life.” She glanced at the viewscreen, the baby having moved her arms up over her head, though the action seemed to be unconscious. Should Clairy have swaddled her better? “The ties I have with my family are because I love them. And I love them far too much to just disappear and never see them again, even if... even if the place they live is imperfect.”

  Perhaps that was generous. It had faults and a great many at that. But there were good people too, and maybe, with time and a little effort, things could change. For all of them.

  Cydrin nodded, as if he had expected her response. “Then you wish to return,” he summarised.

  “Yes,” she agreed, a lump settling into her throat.

  “You realise that you cannot do so with the infant.”

  She clenched her hands, wanting to argue and finding that she wasn’t able to. He was right, and her displeasure with the truth did nothing to alter it.

  She could keep the baby but in doing so, she would have to abandon her family. With the story she’d concocted—that Cydrin had provided so she could speak with them at all—there was no room for a baby to suddenly appear into the narrative. Her family or a baby that was not hers...

  “I can’t just abandon her,” she told Cydrin, tears coming to her eyes. She felt wretched, although she tried to tell herself that she was not being quite
as selfish as she feared. She was not going to simply leave her somewhere. If Cydrin wanted to take Clairy home as he appeared to be claiming, then he would have to first help her find a suitable placement for the baby.

  “You also cannot return to your homeworld without suitable protection.” She wiped at her eyes and gave him a quizzical look.

  “I believe I have solutions for both problems.”

  A nervous knot formed in her belly, not because she did not trust him—she did—but...

  One never knew with Cydrin.

  “Oh, you do, do you?”

  “Yes,” he confirmed, looking at her as if he was uncertain she was truly listening, as he should not have had to repeat himself.

  A huff of breath, partly annoyed and more than a little amused. “All right, then let’s hear your grand solution.”

  “I will provide parents for the neonate. Ones with knowledge of the Project and her conception so that they will be prepared for any...” his eyes flickered to the viewscreen. “Eccentricities that might accompany her growth.”

  “That simple, is it?”

  Another of his peculiar looks. “It is. You have already met them. I admit, it might be a challenge to find them as I was the one to remove his tracking device, but I am confident in my abilities.” If possible, he managed to appear vaguely smug even with moving so few of his facial muscles.

  “I’ve met them?” she asked, pouring over the couples she might have met that also would be of his acquaintance. The list was shockingly short, and it took her far longer than Cydrin had intended before finally settling on his meaning. “But... no! He was a...”

  Cydrin quirked an eyebrow ever so slightly. “A what?”

  She flushed. “A brute,” she finished, not entirely certain it had been what she meant to say at all. “Why would a brute be a good choice to raise a baby?”

  Cydrin made a small gesture with his hand, as if dismissing her assessment. “He is a formidable specimen that would adequately care for the infant’s protection. And his companion is, I believe, a capable woman who would see to the child’s emotional development.”

  Clairy was not prepared to decide anything in this moment. She would need to think, to consider all of their options before... before she consented to anything at all.

  She had thought Cydrin a big boor of a man at first. And now...

  He could be brash. Ungentle with his words, but careful with his hands. They might not even agree to take the baby, even if they found them at all. She believed in Cydrin’s capabilities, but the galaxy was a large place, and it would take time...

  Time for her to change her mind if she wished to.

  Needed to.

  “And what’s your solution to the other part?” she enquired, certain that would not be nearly as simple as he claimed the first to be.

  Evidently she was mistaken.

  “The danger you face is because you are unwed. Logically, you cannot return in the same state, otherwise you will be coerced into marrying someone I am unconvinced will be a suitable mate to you.”

  She grimaced. That was true enough. “Go on,” she urged, still uncertain where he was going with this.

  “Therefore, it seems only reasonable that I will return with you.”

  Her brow furrowed, wondering if she was simply being dense or if he was being obscure on purpose. “To what? Off the man who wants to marry me?”

  “No,” he corrected, though a glint in his eye suggested that was not beyond the realm of possibilities.

  “To be your husband.”

  19

  Cydrin did not expect Clairy to gape at him quite so long for the suggestion. It was not so very preposterous, was it? She was in need of one if she wished to return home—which was her desire by her own admission.

  “Cydrin,” she managed to get out at last, a forced smile on her face. It did not suit her. He wanted her real offerings or none at all. “Do you even know what that means?”

  He was not stupid. “I have researched the subject,” he informed her stiffly. It was true that the knowledge was fairly new. He’d seen plenty of couples in his travels, some wedded, others not, but she did not need to know that their marital status had meant nothing to him until Clairy herself had been the one to speak of the differences.

  Her brother would be married by now, and Clairy had not been able to stand witness. She had been particularly morose as that day passed, and even permitting her to win at her game on the handheld had not been enough to cheer her.

  “And I know that you are in need of one,” he continued, although something in her eyes suggested he was not explaining himself in a satisfactory manner.

  Another of her deep sighs, one that suggested a weariness and a sadness that his proffered solution could not heal. “I was so envious of Camter and Ishta growing up,” she confessed. “They knew early on that they wanted to be married. Not because they’d be expected to start their own households, but because they wanted to be together.”

  Cydrin’s head cocked to the side. “Which part of my proposal do you object to? That we were not acquainted earlier, or that you do not believe I offer this suggestion based on my desire to remain together?”

  Clairy chewed at her lip, evidence of her nervousness. “I meant that they care about each other,” she clarified, and he found her studying him, as if looking for some measure of something he could not name. “And that’s what I wanted.” A sheepish attempt at another false smile, this one appearing more as a grimace.

  Cydrin grew very still. “So your objection is your lack of care for me.”

  Her eyes widened as if realising the full implication of her words. “No, that’s not... that isn’t...”

  He nodded his head in acceptance. It was obviously a foolish suggestion and one he should rescind before this conversation could disintegrate into a more humiliating display. If such a thing was possible. He would allow her time to think, to decide on her own course before erroneously offering any other propositions of his own.

  “Cydrin,” she stated firmly, though there was hint of pleading to her tone that gave him pause. She had moved to stand in front of him, something about her closeness suggesting it was an attempt to restrain him from leaving, though her efforts would be futile if he truly wished to depart.

  Though where she imagined he could go given the confines of the craft, he could not begin to imagine.

  “Cydrin,” she repeated, and he looked up at her steadily, wondering if she was looking for some kind of response from him given the repetition of his name.

  “Yes?” he prompted, wanting her to simply get on with the explanation of her rejection rather than hold them both hostage in the interim.

  She was fidgeting, obviously uncomfortable with the subject, and he could not say that he was enjoying the topic much either. Clearly it was one better left unattended. It was amazing anyone married at all. “It’s not a matter of me caring about you,” she admitted at last. “It’s that I would like a husband that cares about me.”

  “Clairy,” he began in return, feeling such an incredulity at her apparent obliviousness that he was almost unable to form a response at all. He was about to tell her that she could not possibly be so obtuse, that she must require a diagnostic for blindness if she was unable to ascertain that he cared.

  But she shook her head adamantly as she looked down at him—one of the only opportunities she’d had to do so. “You tell me all the time that you don’t feel anything. That you can’t feel anything. And I like to think differently but I don’t... I don’t think I can tie myself to a man that just pretends to care about me for my sake rather than...” A shrug of her shoulders and a hang of her head, hair escaping from the inadequate braid she had used to contain it. “I just wanted something real,” she continued, too sad and almost broken in its resignation. “But maybe you’re right. Maybe I should settle on marrying you and then I get to go home and won’t have to worry about an overseer’s claim. And I’ll get to see my little nephew
s and nieces be born and go back to tilling the land and harvesting, and that’ll be enough.”

  Another of her plastered smiles and he very nearly reached out to poke a finger at it simply to make it disappear into a scowl, since obviously that’s what her derisive words truly intended.

  “Clairy,” he said again, rising from his seat. She was forced to take a step backward lest their fronts be entirely pressed together, but the console made her retreat a very small one.

  “What?” she asked, strangely breathless as he leaned his head down, an act that might have once been meant in intimidation but now...

  Now was an effort to be close to her. “You speak a great deal of nonsense,” he informed her, his tone as dry as ever.

  She opened her mouth, protest already written in her features, but he was not interested in her assertions, not when they seemed so determinedly founded in misinformation.

  “It is true,” he pressed, quelling her argument with a look. “You speak nonsense and believe foolishly if you presume my suggestion to be based on anything but care.”

  Her brow furrowed and his fingers did move then, seemingly of their own accord, smoothing lightly across the line that formed there, wondering at the texture of her skin, so much more pleasant to experience than he might have previously considered.

  A curious thing, that it should elicit any sort of physiological response in him. It was only flesh, after all.

  Not similar to his own, at least in construct. He had not been blessed like subsequent generations with the ability to morph and change as assignment demanded. He had the subtle dusting of hair like another might, like she did. The pores that would secrete perspiration given the proper conditions. The subtle change where veins grew more pronounced beneath a thinner stretch of skin.

  But somehow, regardless of how ridiculous the claim, it was different.

  Because he was touching Clairy.

  “I made my proposition because it is important to me that you have what you want. That you are not forced to make a choice between your family and myself, for I am well aware that in doing so, I would not be the one selected.”