Mindscape

by Tal Valante

  “Congratulations, Sayre.”

  “Thank you, Sir.” Mark jabbed his head in the direction of Kamea’s civilian facilities. “Care to celebrate with me?”

  Shane shook his head. “That would not—”

  “—be appropriate. Yeah, I get it.”

  “Sayre . . .”

  Shane was annoyed and tempted and chagrined and curious, all at once, and just when had Mark learned to read him so well? But there it was, that knowledge-like feeling of Shane in his head. He concentrated on the positive aspects: tempted and curious. He could work with those.

  “May I walk with you, then? Wherever it is you need to be going.”

  Shane sighed but nodded and strode away. Mark fell in beside him. Shane’s walk was march-like, his hands clasped behind his back; the perfect officer, even at rest. What was he like without that mask? Mark chewed on his lip. Surely there was some key he could turn for a sneak peek behind the scenes . . .

  With a flash of inspiration, he asked, “What’s your family like?”

  He was rewarded with a genuine smile that almost made him dance on the spot.

  “They’re great, all of them. Earthers. Mom, Dad, my sister, Mr. Furrypants . . .”

  Mark snorted and almost bumped into a streetlamp. “Mr. Furrypants?”

  “My cat,” Shane said. It sounded defensive.

  “Oh. What do your parents do?”

  “Mom’s an accountant. Dad’s a Spavy captain. Was a Spavy captain, now he’s retired.” Another genuine smile. “I can’t think about him any other way. He’s the reason I joined the Spavy, you know.”

  “Really? Rainy.”

  He waited for the inevitable question about his jargon, but the one that came instead was, “What about you? Why did you join?”

  “Oh, you know,” Mark said with a shrug, thinking of his younger brother. “It pays the rent.”

  Shane wakes up with new determination, which grows by leaps and bounds as he drives down to Rigsby. He knows now that he should have done this a long time ago.

  “Hello, Mr. Cawley,” the head nurse greets him.

  “Good morning, Nurse Delgado. How’s your boy doing?”

  “Oh, better. Just a cold after all.”

  “Amazing, how they still haven’t found a cure for that.”

  “You said it, Mr. Cawley. Oh, go see him, I can see you’re in a rush.”

  Shane flashes her a smile and bounds down the hallway.

  The burping man, Mr. Chapman, has been moved somewhere else. Mark is sitting on the edge of his bed. Shane doesn’t bother with the garden, not this morning; he simply falls to his knees in front of Mark.

  “I’m going to get you out of there, buddy.” He puts every ounce of emotion into his voice, takes both of Mark’s hands in his own. “Just hang on.”

  And with that, he grits his teeth and dives in.

  Mark’s mindscape is just as bad as he remembered it. Worse, now that he has the time to notice details. Every scrap of flesh is wounded, every cloth torn, every piece of metal brutally twisted. The very ground is scorched. The POW camp reeks of urine and blood and death.

  It doesn’t matter, none of it does. He heads straight for the metal cage in the center—

  And then he’s in the Rigsby cafeteria, and Alex is sitting beside him, messing with a My Dew can and looking worried. Shane peers around. “Mark?”

  “Thank God,” Alex says, and for a moment Shane hopes that he’s made it, that Mark is free, but then Alex says, “You’re back.”

  “Back where? Where’s Mark?”

  “In his room. I brought you here. You had some sort of an episode.”

  “Flashback.” Shane grimaces. He tries to think back. What happened? He woke up intent on freeing Mark, he drove down to Rigsby, he entered Mark’s mind, and then . . . and then . . .

  “Is Mark okay?” he asks.

  Alex makes a seesawing motion with his hand. “You know, the usual.”

  So he’s failed. Whatever he’s done, it didn’t work.

  Alex is waving his hand in front of his face. “Earth to Spavy officer. You okay in there?”

  “Yeah, sure.” As okay as Mark, in some ways. “How’d you know?”

  Alex messes some more with his can and asks, “How’d I know what?”

  “That I’m a Spavy officer. Was a Spavy officer.”

  “You have that look about you. You know, once a Spavy man . . .”

  “You checked up on me.”

  Alex crumples his can in one big fist and studies the twisted metal. “I was curious. You come here every day.”

  “That doesn’t give you the right—”

  “You and Mark are in Resonance, aren’t you.”

  It’s not a question. It’s an invasion of privacy so deep that Shane jumps to his feet, overturning his plastic chair. “You read my jacket?”

  Alex holds up his hands, looking scared. It’s a strange expression on a man his size. “No, man. I pinged you on the internet, that’s all. I just . . . I can tell. The way you look at him.”

  Slowly, Shane’s breath returns to normal. He rights his chair and sits. Gets up, grabs a cherry My Dew from the fridge, and sits down again. Pops the can with a long, soft hiss. And still he can’t decide whether or not he should trust Alex.

  “I’ve studied Resonance,” Alex says. “It’s a one-in-ten-thousand match, you know. Imagine finding someone like that . . .”

  Shane doesn’t need to imagine. He has Mark.

  “. . . and imagine losing him.”

  No. That Shane cannot, will not imagine. But he suddenly feels for Alex more than he’s thought possible. He tries to think up some kind words, but everything seems to wilt next to such a tragedy.

  “It’s okay,” Alex says, though it’s obviously not. “Old story. But I guess . . . I guess I don’t want to see it happening again, not to you, not to anyone else.”

  Shane wishes he knew how to reciprocate such a strong feeling. He settles on the truth, instead. “I tried to touch Mark’s mind,” he says. “Today.”

  Alex stops sliding his crushed can back and forth on the table and looks up instead. “What happened?”

  “I ended up in the cafeteria with you.”

  Alex snorts. It’s a cute sound, from him.

  “It’s something about—” Shane starts to say, but he can’t finish. It’s something about seeing all those helpless people in Mark’s mind. He can’t stand it. He’s afraid the very words will trigger another flashback.

  “You think you can help him,” Alex says. “Through your Resonance.”

  Shane looks up bleakly. “Not if I can’t stay in his mind.”

  “Then maybe I can help you.”

  Patrol duty along the Leightar skyways was light and boring, but Mark didn’t mind. For every hour he spent in the standby room, ready to deploy, he got an hour’s downtime. Finally he could spend some time working on his B.A. in literature. Spavy perks and all that.

  But there was another, more precious advantage to plenty of downtime.

  “King and five, king and four and one, ten and five, ten and four and one,” Shane said over his played hand. “That’s eight points, and you’re officially skunked.”

  Mark groaned. “This is the stupidest game I’ve ever played. Are you sure you didn’t just invent it?”

  “It’s as old as Earth,” Shane said, shuffling the cards.

  “Really.” Mark shifted in his seat and looked around the rec room, but it was otherwise deserted—his shift mates had gone to sleep. “Fine, I’ll take your word for it. Explain it again?”

  Shane sighed and launched into another convoluted description. Mark hid his smile and watched. He liked the way Shane’s lips moved around words. He had a pleasant voice and clear diction, to which Mark could listen for hours. Unfortunately, listening didn’t necessarily imply processing.

  “Sayre!” Shane snapped.

  Mark jerked. “Yes, Sir?”

  “Did you hear a word I was saying?
”

  Mark nodded. He’d heard them all. He just hadn’t quite registered their meaning. He changed his nod to a negative shake. “No, Sir.”

  Shane huffed and wedged the deck of cards in the table’s clip. “And just what has you so thoroughly distracted?”

  “You, Sir,” Mark answered honestly.

  Shane recoiled. “I beg your pardon!”

  Mark bit his lower lip and released it slowly; Shane’s eyes snapped to that motion like magnets to steel. “Desire,” Mark said. “And curiosity, and . . .” The other emotions he felt from Shane were harder to place. “Annoyance,” he decided. “With a side dish of frustration.”

  “What are you on about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. Your feelings. Now tell me mine.”

  Shane rose to his feet and pushed back, overturning his chair (he tended to do that when nervous, Mark had noticed). “What!”

  “Come on, Shane.” Mark concentrated, trying to radiate as much understanding and gentle coaxing as he could. “I know you can sense them.”

  He could certainly sense Shane’s maelstrom of feelings again: embarrassment, fear, excitement, burning curiosity. The last one swelled until it overwhelmed the others. Shane reached for the chair, set it right, and plunked himself down.

  “Curiosity,” he said slowly. “Desire. Affection?”

  Love, Mark thought, but didn’t say.

  “Amusement,” Shane continued. “And . . . what’s the one that stings like peppermint?”

  “Irritation, I think,” Mark said fondly. “Because one of us—without naming names—is being a stubborn ass about this.”

  Shane snorted. Then his face turned pensive. “Is this . . .?”

  “Resonance.” Mark nodded. “Do you have any idea how rare that is?”

  “One in ten thousand,” Shane said. It sounded automatic.

  They sat in silence for a moment, trying to process this new wonder between them. Shane unclipped the deck of cards and started shuffling with an absent air. Mark watched his nimble fingers at work.

  Finally Mark said, “Are you ever going to kiss me?”

  Shane fumbled the pack of cards. He shook himself and looked up. “No, Sayre. I’m not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m an officer.” Card shuffle. “You’re my subordinate.” Card shuffle. “It would not—”

  “—be appropriate,” Mark finished for him. He bit his lower lip again, this time absently. Strategies and options unfolded like star fields in his mind.

  “Another round?” Shane asked.

  “What if I were an officer, too?”

  Shane’s hands paused mid-slice. He carefully placed the deck on the table. “That would be different,” he said slowly.

  “Even if I was under your command? It would still be against regulations.”

  Shane shrugged. “It would feel different to me. But you’re not an officer. So. Another round?”

  “No, thanks.” Mark got up from the table, smirking. “I’ve just skunked you.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’ve been completely skunked.”

  “We haven’t even played a hand.”

  “Oh, yes, we have,” Mark called back over his shoulder as he marched toward the door. He did a little prance. “Yes, we have.”

  He hurried all the way back to his quarters, where he picked up his personal data pad and logged in to the interstellar network. This close to Leightar, the signal was wobbly. He found the website of the Spavy Officer Cadet School in no time. Another two minutes, and he’d read through the application process.

  Another two months, and he’d landed at their door.

  That night, Shane dreams. He is on the command bridge of his ship, and the rear wall has buckled in from a great explosion, trapping him in his chair. Artificial gravity is shot. Debris and globules of blood float all around him. His breathing is hollow and labored in his oxygen mask, and he can’t tear his eyes away from Doug and Pauline, who are writhing at their consoles, the one choking as the end of his severed oxygen line hovers by his head, the other straining vainly to make some contact in the frictionless space, to reach for the mask that floats just out of reach . . .

  He is in a hospital. His leg is encased in metal rods with tight leather bindings while the nanobots weave, weave, weave his bones and muscles back into existence. Some of the neurological layer has survived, and the pain is so bad he wants to scream, but he’s blown out his voice long ago—

  He is in a cage. A thick-barred, tight metal cage, and he can’t see and he can’t breathe and they are hurting him. He wants out. He wants to curl up on the living room sofa with Mark and Mr. Furrypants and watch silly reruns of Why Dang It. But he is in a cage, and the bars are pressing in—

  He is in the kitchen, holding a cup of coffee. It takes Shane a long, long time to realize he isn’t dreaming anymore. Damn PTSD. His shirt is soaked with sweat and his breaths are heavy, his heart still pounding in his ears. He can’t remember what he’s seen.

  But he’ll fight it.

  He’ll fight his way through these flashbacks until he can enter Mark’s mind and rip apart that atrocious cage. And then he’ll have his lover back, and they can finally schedule that wedding they’ve always been tentatively planning.

  So he vows.

  The Star Point OCS was Mark’s first taste of Earth. Compared to Silica, the mining colony where he’d grown up, it was breathtaking.

  “The trees! You wouldn’t believe them,” he spoke into his data pad. “They’re so green. And tall. And I’m being an idiot, aren’t I? You won’t understand until you see it.” Come to think of it, he turned his data pad over and snapped a picture. “There. See what I mean?”

  “Quit talking to yourself, Sayre, and get back here.”

  Mark startled and turned to his roommate, who was lounging in the shade of a pine tree. “Just a sec, Nate. I’m e-voicing my brother.”

  Nate rolled his eyes and returned to his textbook.

  “Anyway,” Mark said into the data pad, “everything’s rainy as usual. Lots of papers to hand in. Lots of training. I hardly have time to pi— Hmm, to breathe. How are you and Mom doing? Did they raise the rent again? Is the money enough? How’s Bethany? And when’s the wedding?” He paused and thought of more questions, but the e-voice was running long and, combined with the picture, would already cost enough to send on a tight beam to Silica. “I miss you guys,” he finished. “Give Mom my love.”

  He logged in to the interstellar network and hit send, then walked over to Nate and sat cross-legged on the grass nearby.

  “My brother is getting married,” he said.

  “Uh-huh.” Nate turned his data pad around and shoved it at Mark. “Your turn to quiz me.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes, Sayre. Move it.”

  Mark sighed and started reading chapter seventeen of the Defensive Strategy textbook. He tried to imagine a future in which he was busy with tactical scenarios and possible aftermaths. A future in which he would be a true officer.

  A future in which he—as an officer—could kiss Shane how and when he wanted to.

  Shane meets with Alex in a deserted therapy room. The vaulted ceiling has terrible acoustics, and his greeting jumps off the walls and back. Kind of like how he’s feeling at the moment.

  “Relax,” Alex says. “We’re just going to talk.”

  Shane looks at him with narrowed eyes. “Are you a shrink?”

  A guilty look flits over Alex’s face, making Shane’s stomach tighten.

  “I don’t do shrinks,” Shane says.

  Alex barks out a laugh. “That’s okay. Ethics prevent me from sleeping with you anyway.”

  And Shane can’t help but echo him with a laugh of his own.

  Alex eases himself into a chair near the middle of the room. “No, I’ve only studied psychology on my own. I don’t know enough to treat you. But I do have a couple of ideas.”

  “Okay,” Shane says awkwa
rdly, and chooses a chair at a safe distance. Because he lied: he would go as far as seeing a shrink, if it would mean bringing Mark back.

  “Right. I want to know a little more about the two of you. How did you meet?”

  Shane crosses his legs at the ankle, uncrosses them, and crosses his arms over his chest. “He was one of my gunmen on board the Cyclopes. Damn good at it, too. Sharp reflexes.”

  “Was it long after you joined the Spavy?”

  “Eight years for me. Two for him.”

  This earns him Alex’s Gentle Giant smile. “Why did you enlist?”

  “I always meant to.” Shane shrugs. “My father was a Spavy officer.”

  “And why did Mark join?”

  At this, Shane smiles fondly. “He needed to pay the rent.”

  Three years had passed, but the memory of Shane stayed fresh in Mark’s mind. When they gave him a choice of position, he had a ready answer: the Cyclopes. Shane’s ship, literally, since Shane had been promoted to lieutenant commander and given command of it. Ironically enough, Shane’s old position—tactical officer—was now free, and Mark took it with open glee.

  When the shuttle docked with the Cyclopes, Mark was the first at the exit hatch. He fingered the two rectangle pins on his work khakis’ collar. At least this uniform didn’t itch. Finally, with a soft hiss of pressurized air, the airlock opened . . .

  And there stood Shane, handsome as ever in his uniform, looking slightly more worn under the weight of his new rank. But his eyes were as clear and intense as Mark remembered, and his lips twitched up in that familiar quarter smile, and God, Mark had missed him.

  “Are you getting out?” the shuttle pilot asked from behind Mark. “I’ve got cargo to unload.”

  Mark shook himself and pushed out of the shuttle and into the docking bay of the Cyclopes. It felt like coming back home. He straightened up and saluted. “Lieutenant Mark Sayre reporting for duty, Sir!”

  Shane returned the salute. “At ease, Lieutenant.” And in a warmer voice, “Welcome back. Follow me, I’ll walk you to your new quarters.”