Final Book

by Peter W Prellwitz

The kitchen was tiny, but served. I put on a kettle of water in the thermal field and looked around for some tea. There wasn't any, but there was hot chocolate, which was fine with me. There was also some coffee, which I knew Aaron enjoyed, though I couldn't remember if he put anything in it. The cooling field had a selection of fruits, so I began preparing some for dinner, along with a block of cheddar. As I made him our first meal, my heart thudded and thudded as I thought about the commitment I had made to him.

  He was my husband. Though he would obey my orders in battle, I would gladly obey him everywhere else. Neither of us knew how long we would be married, except that it was for life. True, our lives were very likely to be cut short within days or weeks. We comprised two-thirds of the front triteam in the newly formed Company A of the 179th. And I had the additional worry of having the cyberleader of NATech - and essentially the world - want me dead, dead, dead. Aaron and I had discussed that shortly after the alpha suppression field had worn off. Would it have been better to wait until after this was over, then marry? Or should we marry now, and run the risk of only one surviving?

  It had proven to be a fairly easy decision. We loved each other deeply. Whether or not we were married would make no difference to the sorrow one would feel if the other was killed. Nor did we want to give Young even the slightest satisfaction by disrupting our happiness. So we married. Children, of course, would have to wait until this war was over and we had emigrated. I had seen Doctor Barrett, and the joy of a honeymoon pregnancy would have to be denied us.

  I carried the board of fruit and cheese to a low table in front of the fireplace and set it down. The room was warming nicely, but nothing beat a fire, so I began laying a fire in the hearth. Everything about the bungalow, down to the bearskin rug in front of the fireplace, seemed like a perfect dream.

  The dream continued when the teapot began whistling and I heard Aaron stir. Having laid the wood, I lazed it and started the fire. Leaning in close, I puffed air into the base of the wood, encouraging it to burn.

  A gentle hand settled on my back, pressing and rubbing and feeling glorious.

  "Mmmmm ..." I moaned, trying to blow on the wood. "Hey, knock it off, husband mine! I'm trying to get this started. Hey!" He pulled on the robe, making me fall back onto him. We tumbled to the rug, laughing and giggling.

  "You better eat a little something first, lover, before you start getting fresh."

  The fire was crackling cheerfully now, providing the only light in the cabin, and setting the mood wonderfully. Aaron arranged the floor pillows while I fetched the hot chocolate and coffee.

  I set it down, then brought over the comforter for us to wrap ourselves into. His strong and earthy smell seemed to be everywhere. I went to my hands and knees and crawled to him, then curled up in his arms and we stared into the fire. He munched a piece of apple, then wrapped a hand around my waist. We were quiet for a few minutes, eating the fruit and cheese and enjoying our closeness. He was the first to speak.

  "Why in the world were you blowing into the fire?"

  I shrugged. "Old habit. I've never used the laze much to start fires; I'm used to matches."

  "Matches?"

  "Uh-huh. A piece of wood with solid flammable chemicals on one end for igniting. We use the microlazes today. A match only gave out limited heat for a very short period, so even if you could light the wood, you sometimes needed to blow on it to help it burn properly. I keep forgetting the laze burns so fierce that blowing isn't needed."

  He settled back and was quiet again. This time, though, his silence felt different.

  "Aaron?"

  "Hmm?"

  "What's bothering you?"

  He was quiet for a long moment. I was about to ask him again when he stirred and pressed me closer to him.

  "Why do you ask?"

  "Because I know something's wrong." I kissed the arm he had wrapped across my chest. "There's something you want to say or ask, isn't there?"

  He remained silent, hugging me tighter. I had a feeling he did have something to ask me, and I had a hunch as to what it was.

  "Please, Aaron?"

  He kept quiet, but finally sighed.

  "I'm sorry, Abby. Yes, there is something. It's silly I know ... but it occurred to me while you were talking about matches. It's so easy to think of you as an incredibly talented woman. Beautiful, mature, with a very scary mean streak ..."

  "Thank you," I murmured.

  "I did intend that as a compliment. You, Sarah and I have fought as teammates for a long time, and that beast inside you has saved our lives more than a few times. It's a strange compliment, but these are strange times.

  "Anyway, I've always known you as Abigail. It's so easy to just stop there. But then you drop an odd phrase, mention an ancient technology, or refer to an extinct culture, and I'm forced to remember that you're not just Abigail. You're Miss DeChant. You're who knows how many computers. You're a booby-trapped pleasure ripe. You're ... you're ..."

  "John Wyeth."

  "Yes," he said flatly. "You're John Wyeth."

  "I see." I knew this would come. Susie had said months ago that Aaron would only see me as Abigail Wyeth, a woman. But that was impossible. Sure, most anyone, even Aaron, could know me well and think of me as who I was now. Aaron had married me. Still, it had to give him pause when thrown in his face.

  "I see," I repeated. "Aaron? Why did you marry me?"

  "Because I love you, Abigail. But ..."

  "And what about this?" I put my hand on his and guided it under my robe and shirt, to the white scar across my ribs. "Do you still love me even though I'm scarred?"

  "What a silly question! Of course I love you!"

  "What if it wasn't a scar? What if I had been blinded? Or what if something had happened when they stole this body from the physiomanufacturing plant, and I had started out blind? Could you still love me then?"

  "Abigail, this is pointless. Yes and yes. It's not your body I love. It's you that I--" he broke off. "I take your point. If I can overlook those disabilities, I should be able to see beyond your past."

  "That's partially it. Now suppose I had grown up completely normally. No scars. No wounds or disabilities. No ripings. Just an ordinary, everyday girl."

  "You'd never be ordinary."

  "That's sweet. Let's just say I was born female and grew up female. Would you have married me if I was only twelve years old? Or eight?"

  "Of course not."

  "How about four?"

  "Abigail!"

  "Okay, okay. I know you're not a pervert. You'd only be intimate with the grown woman you were married to, right?"

  "Right," He agreed. I waited, not saying anything. He was quiet for a few seconds, then started chuckling. "I take the rest of your point, love. You know I'm not a pervert. You want me to realize that I know I'm not a pervert. But what about ..."

  "What about what?" I demanded impatiently. I rolled over on my hands and knees and put my face within centimeters of his.

  "I was riped over and over for hundreds of years. I was used, manipulated, and humiliated, first by Chris Young, later by happenstance. I lived through them all. And unlike any other Shard, I survived my dissolution because of LeClaire's genius, Doctor Barrett's care and expertise, and, quite bluntly, by my guts. I had to accept all my false personas as having been a part of my past. They have not altered my personality any more or less than a significant event in your past has altered your personality.

  "When we were together this afternoon, I knew how to excite you, how to please you, how to enjoy being with you, because of my memories as that pleasure ripe. But it wasn't her you ... you made love to. She never existed! It was always me, Aaron!"

  I sat back on my knees and looked steadily at him.

  "And, yes, I was once John Wyeth. But in much the same way, he isn't me any more than Miss DeChant, the Foundry computer, or the pleasure ripe, aren't me. My body never belonged to him. He never lived in it. He was never a woman." I steadied my voice and took a
breath, continuing to look directly into his eyes.

  "And I was never a man. Never. I have his memories, his mind, his soul. When I was first riped into this body, I thought of them as my memories, my mind, my soul -- like you have the memories, mind, and soul of the small boy you once were. But as I've truly become Abigail, they've become more like an inheritance from favorite grandparent, as though I'd heard stories of his life so often that I can imagine myself being him.

  "As for my past, what is the difference between my life and the hypothetical life I mentioned? Of course you wouldn't have been intimate with me had I been male. Neither would you have been if I had been a normal, eight-year old girl. Yet this afternoon we shared that intimacy.

  "Look at me, Aaron!" I held my arms out, letting him see my feminine silhouette in the firelight. "I'm not Abigail Wyeth, either. My name is Abigail Marks! I'm your devoted and loving wife. I'm as much a woman as you are a man. What's happened to me in the past has shaped me into what I am. But I am a woman!" I was close to tears, I so much wanted to settle this between us. From my knees, I bowed at the waist, my face near the floor, to humbly share my strong feelings for him.

  "Please say you understand, dear husband. It's not the person I was that's important. It's the woman I am. Here. Now." My emotion were too strong, and the tears came. "And I am a woman who is hopelessly, deliriously, passionately in love with you."

  I cried silently, staring down sightlessly at the bearskin rug, wanting everything to be right, hoping I had not ruined it all. What if I was wrong? What if it did matter what was in the past? That what I had been somehow invalidated who I was now? If that was true, was my existence a sham? Was everything I had ...

  "Abigail," I heard him call softly. I looked up through blurry eyes and saw his arms held out to me, his strong, handsome face smiling gently.

  "Come here, my sweet bride. My lovely wife."

  "Oh, Aaron!" I lunged into his arms and wept. He wrapped the blanket around us and let me cry in his chest. He comforted me with his gentle voice and gentle touch. With infinite patience, he waited until I had cried myself through it, then hugged me even tighter. How could I have ever doubted him?

  "I'm so sorry, Aaron. I let ..."

  "That's enough of that!" he admonished. "Apologies are due, but from me. You were right all along, Abby. It's who you are now that's important. I was just too thick-headed to see my doubts and worries as useless white noise. I don't care what you have been, other than with idle curiosity. I don't see how who you were six and half centuries ago has any bearing on today."

  His words pulled my heart up from the ruins it had created and lifted me in a way I had not thought possible. He continued.

  "You did miss out on one thing, though."

  "One thing?" I asked, a small, nameless fear rising.

  "Uh-huh. You talked about your past and your present. But you didn't even mention the kind of person you will be." He smiled.

  "You're right," I said, a smile coming to my lips as well. "Did you have anything in mind?"

  "As a matter of fact, I did. Here's the way I see it." He settled me into his embrace. "First, we take care of this ... this ..."

  "This 'great unpleasantness'?" I offered. "It was a term used by Southern people when talking about the Civil War of the United--"

  "Great unpleasantness is fine," he interrupted. "We'll take care of this great unpleasantness with NATech and Young" .He put his hand on my tummy. "Then we'll see about getting you fat."

  "Fat?" I protested.

  "Uh-huh. Nothing too much at first. We'll do it gradually. Nobody will even notice the first three months." He patted my tummy. "After that, I'd say a steady growth for about ... ohhh ..."

  "Six more months?" I suggested. He smiled.

  "Yes. That sounds right. After that, I predict a sudden loss of weight."

  "Well. I suppose I could live with that. And how many times do you imagine I'll have this kind of weight gain?"

  "Difficult to say. How about ..." he considered me carefully. "Four times?"

  "Four?" I didn't bother hiding my disappointment.

  "Too many? I suppose we could talk about three--"

  "Too few," I interrupted. "I should think at least six. We'll save that for another time. Right now ..." I slid to one side of the pillow and invited my husband to sleep with me. He gratefully lay beside me, pulling the comforter over us. My small body spooned into his, and his tender embrace held me safe in his arms. Together we watched the silent flame shadows scampering around the room, easing us unawares into a blissful slumber.

  Chapter Seven - cont'd

  "One seventy-nine ... 179 ... this is 179 hover six, requesting approach and docking clearance."

  "One seventy-nine hover six, this is 179. Approach and phased docking clearance granted. Please keep variance from docking buoy at less than 100 centimeters. And welcome back, you two!"

  "Variance restriction noted and thank you for the welcome. One seventy-nine hover six out."

  I broke the comlink and patched in the nav computer to base docking pilot. Because of the events of the past three days, of which Aaron and I had only heard about a few hours ago, the 179th was on maximum security and we had to execute somewhat tricky phased docking maneuvers. I left Aaron to do the piloting - I was a fairly good hov pilot, but inexperienced - while I prepared for final approach.

  Aaron pulled back on the controls, decelerating quickly. I pressed the imminent arrival broadcast switch, attached the sonic umbilical cord to the docking buoy, and locked the ERF down. When a section of ground has been phased through enough times over a short period of time, it destabilizes and takes on the qualities of a phase mine. Although not a major danger for non-phased objects - unlike phase mines, there was no explosion - it could be very painful for phased people, such as Aaron and myself. To avoid destabilization of a frequently used hanger, quick entry and exit was required. Since the hanger was only ten meters high, the stop needed to be fairly sudden - hence the ERF.

  The field snapped on, feeling like concrete casing, and we popped up into the hanger. Even with the ERF, it was not a ride I would recommend. The hov floated two meters above the surface while I shut down the field, allowing Aaron to properly land us. The craft settled and we unbuckled. Aaron left the engines running, which was standard operating procedure when the base was on non-evac maximum security status. We grabbed our personal effects and walked hand in hand down the lowered rear hatch ramp.

  Our entire reception committee was Sarah, and while she smiled at us, she also had on her war paint. The last time I'd seen her, three days ago just after the wedding, she had looked elegant, sophisticated, and relaxed. Now, in her combat fatigues, she looked tough, dangerous, and even more relaxed. The stunning smile of three days ago was a big grin now, and again desperately in need of a cigar.

  She pulled me into her arms and gave me a crusher hug, then kissed me on the cheek. She let me go, and while I stood there unsteadily, looking at all the pretty lights popping in my eyes, she mussed Aaron's hair while giving him a kiss full on the mouth. Such was my confidence in Sarah as a friend, Aaron as my husband, and myself as a woman that I took their kiss exactly the way it was meant. You don't charge into battle countless times with the same two comrades without forming a very deep trust between yourselves. I knew Sarah loved Aaron, and he returned that love. I also knew that she loved me and had graciously stepped aside when Aaron and I had progressed in our relationship and had fallen in love romantically.

  "Hi, Abby! Hey, Aaron! Welcome back, now get to work!" She laughed, always the cheerful one. She grabbed my gear and slung it over her shoulder, then led us quickly through a maze of marked yellow paths around the hanger to the main corridor. They were paths around large sections of hanger space, each with a docking buoy. These lines hadn't been here when we left, which I commented on.

  "Yeah. Stay inside 'em or risk having a hov pop phase through your guts. There's been a lot of changes in the past three days. The alert
came down from TAU only hours after you left. The Lieutenant near as a whisker called you two back to duty, then decided against it when it became obvious that NATech thought the explosion hadn't betrayed anything. And if Kiki hadn't been on her toes, it wouldn't have."

  Aaron and I exchanged glances of relief and shy smiles. While we would have come back if we'd been ordered to, our three-day honeymoon in Jerome had been heaven-sent, letting us get to know each other in ways no amount of combat could. Sarah caught our look and laughed.

  "Yeah, that's what I thought, too," she said, as if reading our minds. "I told the Lieutenant that if the three of us were taking her kids into the real thing, I didn't want to have to keep looking over my shoulder to see if my two partners were groping each other up. I need fighters for my anchor and wingman, not lovers."

  We stopped in front of a door that hadn't been there before the wedding. Positioned on the outside wall, it was some distance from either the men's or women's barracks. Sarah dropped my gear.

  "Even with all that's going on, the Lieutenant made sure you got your own quarters. All married couples do. Lucky stiffs. I oughta get a husband. Anyway, the Lieutenant said get settled in, grab a bite, then report. Abby, you go to her. Aaron, you and I have instruction courses with B and C companies." She smiled wickedly at him. "I can't wait to hear all the details!" Laughing, she walked off.

  "Wait a second, Sarah," I said, grabbing her arm. "Why the rush? We'd heard about the explosion, of course, but not much more. What's going on?"

  "The Lieutenant will fill you in completely, but apparently when the thing went off, the shock wave penetrated the entire planet and Kiki got it all. Seems there's a big hole in the bedrock about a hundred and eighty k underneath the Mojave desert, in that place you came from, Abby. No way in, no way out. But plenty of energy readings."

  "And the power source?" Aaron asked quietly, already knowing the answer.

  "What do you think?" she shrugged. "They're great big NATech fission generators. Looks like we found Chris Young's home address."