Burndive

by Karin Lowachee

  But that was too public so here they were.

  Away from Mom.

  His father didn’t answer the question. He drank his water instead.

  Ryan wondered how long it would take to eat his dinner one rice grain at a time. He played a game with himself while his father sat in silence, probably watching him, but Ryan wasn’t sure because he didn’t look up, he just concentrated on picking up his rice one grain at a time. Eating, listening to the low murmur all around him, voices he couldn’t quite understand. He didn’t know what to say to his father and maybe his father didn’t know what to say to him past all the regular questions that they’d covered over comms. What do you like in school. Who are your friends. What vids have you seen lately. What are you reading.

  They didn’t have much of a conversation for the rest of the dinner. The waiter came by and the captain said, Do you want dessert, Ryan? So Ryan nodded because he was here and he might as well get what he could from it, so he ordered the creamiest thing on the menu, which was some sort of pudding. He looked all around at the greenery and artifacts set in low-lit cubbyholes in the walls, things from Earth or replicas of things from Earth, from Asia he assumed. He knew where Asia was, they’d had tests on it in his Earth Origins class in school.

  Is there somewhere you wanted to go after this? his father asked.

  Ryan looked at his watch. Sid’s going to take me to the decacourts at seven.

  Ah. His father glanced down at his lap and picked up his napkin and folded it, then set it on the table in a neat pile by his empty dessert bowl.

  I told him to meet me here, Ryan said. I didn’t know how long we’d take.

  Of course, his father said. That’s fine.

  Ryan knew his father was looking at him now, with those dark eyes and that serious face, and he really wanted to know why his parents didn’t get along. But he didn’t get answers, just the pudding, and after that his father ran the cred through in the table and they got up and went by the other tables to the exit, and people stared. They weren’t meedees and his father ignored them all anyway, but Ryan turned to one woman and stuck his tongue out, fast, just as if nothing had happened. The woman’s eyes widened and her back straightened before he breezed on by with his father out of the restaurant

  Sid was waiting. He always showed up early to things. He said, Captain. Ryan’s father said, Corporal. Ryan smiled at Sid because Sid was going to show him how to do a double rebound with the powerball and he wanted to get it down so he could show up Tyler Coe in gym class tomorrow, because Tyler was older and thought he was better. Sid messed up his hair by habit, then smoothed it out, the way he liked to greet Ryan, and the captain said, I want to take a picture before you go.

  The captain fished out a cam-orb from his jacket pocket and set its height and distance and let it go, and the orb whirred in the air and positioned itself in front of them. Sid stepped out of frame even though Ryan would’ve liked him in the shot They stood in front of the one-way glass of the restaurant with all the neon lettering behind and the holo-prog menu and the captain draped an arm around Ryan’s neck and hugged him to his side.

  Smile, Ryan, Sid said, grinning at him off-cam.

  So he smiled and the cam flashed, then announced it had taken the shot, but the captain didn’t let go for a few seconds. Instead he put his other arm around Ryan and patted his back and his hair, and it was strange to feel those arms around him. It wasn’t playful like the way Sid hugged him sometimes, or brief, the way his mother did. The captain held on as if Ryan was going to fight him, but Ryan didn’t, you didn’t make scenes like that in public. So he stood still and kind of slapped his arms around the captain’s back, then the captain let him go.

  Have fun, his father said, smiling even though his eyes were somber.

  I will, Ryan said. Thanks, Captain.

  Sid said, Thank you, Captain, all formal like an adult, then nudged Ryan’s shoulder as they headed down the concourse.

  Ryan didn’t look back. He didn’t think of it. His mind was already on the powerball game.

  Sid must’ve had orders from the captain to keep Ryan informed of The Situation, because every goldshift Sid woke him up with a report. Get up, Ryan, I’ve talked to Otter today.

  Otter was the symp’s underdeck contact, the symp that was aboard Macedon that the captain seemed to trust but refused to talk about. The Send speculated. Some apparent eyewitnesses claimed it was a teenager, or a scary beast with a white assassin face, or something altogether more fierce and inhuman, although why a symp would have it in for Falcone enough to murder him was anybody’s guess (as if anyone needed an outstanding good reason to want a pirate dead).

  The timeline of events, like any aspect of time in deep space, was spurious to the general populace of Hubcentral. Had the captain really captured Falcone before proposing this treaty with the strits, or was it vice versa? Did one have much to do with the other? Was that the significance of this assassin symp? And had that symp been under orders of the biggest symp of all, the Warboy? Weren’t the strits and sympathizers working with the pirates?

  Because, you know, all baddies had to be in cahoots, didn’t they?

  While all of that raged on the Send, this tunnel kid Otter ran intel on the drama at the Dojo. Through what resources Ryan didn’t know, but if Otter was a friend of the symps, then possibly the lines went deep indeed—to the sympathizer network across the Hub, which nobody liked to talk about but everybody knew existed.

  All of this before Ryan even had breakfast.

  He was a powerball hauled from bed every goldshift. He bounced to the bathroom to shit and shower, bounced to his wardrobe to dress, then careened to the kitchen for food. Nobody left him alone. If it wasn’t Admiral Grandpa on the comm somewhere in transit from Hubcentral to Chaos Station, it was the president of EarthHub on the Send (finally), condemning the actions of those who would attempt to assassinate an innocent young man. (No word on if he condemned the innocent young man’s father, but that wouldn’t be politic anyway.) At any rate, no amount of threats would discourage the peace talks. The government refused to be bullied by assassins.

  That was all fine for the government, but he still couldn’t leave his apartment.

  On the unofficial links, on the secured comms between Earth and Austro and Macedon and Austro, his family and Sid talked about those old-body Centralist factions, with First Minister and presidential candidate Judy Damiani their vocal advocate. Colonies and stations from the edges of the Rim toward the Dragons were behind the cease-fire, but every corner had fringes and flames that were fanned by groups like the Family of Humanity. And they were louder than the silencing of guns.

  Not that the guns were completely silenced. One ship in the Hub fleet and one or two ships in the Warboy’s fleet didn’t control the entire fleets on both sides of the Demilitarized Zone, especially in the distances of space. While word trickled down that you weren’t supposed to engage “the enemy,” the Send still reported “misunderstandings” and “nervous captains” all across the Dragons and the Rim. Those ships were soundly reprimanded by their superiors, in public, but for two weeks the ripples still rolled.

  Pirates raided ships whose routes ran as far as the inner Spokes, as if in retaliation for an affront too severe to let go.

  Captain Azarcon went ahead anyway, with the official blessings of EarthHub Command, no matter who grumbled in the shadows. Admiral Grandpa and a platoon of governmental strits that included the Minister of Alien Affairs were on a transport to meet with the captain and the Warboy (the Send still called him the Warboy, not Captain S’tlian, because it drew more hits). They had orders from the president and the Hub Council on Deep-Space Affairs, although what exactly those orders were beside the political “do your best” was the Send’s guess. Damiani was not at all happy with those chosen (Annexationist) negotiators, and she bitched about it

  “Fair representation of all EarthHub citizens… are the Annexationists going to ignore protesters on their ow
n doorstep?”

  Captain Azarcon didn’t respond, the Send said. He was still on his way to Austro. Because his son had been shot at. It played well on the Send, Mom Lau said. A captain who would drop even unprecedented negotiations with an enemy war leader so he could be with his son played very well to the public. The man had a heart after all, it wasn’t all cold fusion making him run.

  Ryan was so happy to be useful. He was so happy that nearly getting his head blown off and watching a girl die in his arms benefited somebody.

  Which was why Admiral Grandpa was going to Chaos, at least that was the official word. To cover the talks while Macedon went insystem. Even though Grandpa had already launched from Earth before the assassination attempt. Sid said the admiral was really going to Chaos because Hubcentral wanted a non-deep spacer to oversee the captain. Admiral Ashrafi was the natural choice (despite Damiani’s bleating), as a representative of the EarthHub Joint Chiefs and the one in charge of the Hub’s deep-space military affairs. He was also the only one who seemed able to control the captain. Because who knew what funkiness the captain would create with the Warboy, since the captain was half rogue himself.

  The hyperbole. No matter where the captain went he seemed to attract debris, and its comet tail picked up his family in the process.

  It made Ryan’s head hurt. He retreated to his bedroom and locked the door, played his guitar until his fingers ached and thought about the Silver he no longer had. He fell asleep sideways, in his clothes more often than not, until twelve full shifts after the Dojo when Sid came in and shook him awake. He said, Get up, Ryan, Otter’s traced that tunnel kid. He wasn’t Ops or a terrorist, he was paid by the pirates. And a body turned up underdeck. DNA analysis said it belongs to one of Austro’s tunnel maintenance engineers. A single guy with no family on station.

  So somebody had used the man’s ID.

  Sid said the pollies were still looking for the second sniper. They thought now there were only two.

  Only.

  The sniper had gone to the trouble of murdering a man to gain access codes to the restricted, laser-tripped parts of the tunnels by the den district. But he hadn’t followed through with the assassination.

  Easy to miss in that environment, Sid said.

  Be grateful, Mom Lau said. We don’t need to know why the sniper missed.

  At least, she implied, Ryan didn’t need to know. It was too disturbing. She was already worried about him and how much time he spent sleeping. Sid was worried. Sid dragged him around the residence, to keep him “informed” so Ryan didn’t have time to just zone out or hide himself for too long in his room.

  Like he had after Hong Kong. In London. Claiming fatigue so Sid left him alone in the hotel room, with access to room service and a couple guards outside his door.

  Except he didn’t really sleep, not then and not now. In the late blueshift when his mother finally went to bed and Sid padded around the rooms on security checks before joining her, Ryan lay awake listening to the activity die.

  He thought about the alcohol in his mother’s cold drawer. Thought for a while, and to make sure Sid wasn’t going to get up again he climbed out of bed and slipped down the hall until he stood just outside the closed partition that separated his mother’s room from the rest of the apartment. Behind the screen he heard soft, impatient crying, and Sid murmuring, “It’s going to be all right.”

  “It’s not a large thing to ask, but for some reason he can never do it. It’s his damn pride.”

  “He’s uncompromising. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about you or Ryan. Let’s not go over this again, Song.”

  “You’re so good to Ryan. You’re so good to me, Tim, even when I complain about—”

  “I’m not all that good,” Ryan heard his bodyguard say.

  And then he felt ashamed to be standing there, even though he wasn’t breaking anybody’s trust, and moved on toward the kitchen.

  He remembered that first conversation over comm with the captain after he’d discovered his mother and Sid were having an affair. He was fourteen and the captain treated him like an adult, even long distance. The captain talked to him about the war if he asked, or girls if he wanted to know (since talking to Sid about sex, and Sid and his mother were doing it, was just too—weird), or anything that didn’t infringe on the captain’s own line of privacy.

  And Ryan wondered how his father could know so much about nearly everything, but have no clue about his own wife.

  How’s your mother, the captain would ask.

  Fine. Busy.

  And how’s Sid?

  Fine. Busy.

  And he thought with his one-tone answer, only two shifts after seeing those wineglasses in the sink and his mother and his bodyguard at breakfast, all smiles, that the captain would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to know what was going on. Just by looking at his son.

  Maybe the captain knew, but maybe the captain didn’t care. Not enough to do something about it. And Ryan never understood that.

  This is our family, he’d thought.

  But maybe that was a word that didn’t apply to them, not when one parent lived on a ship in deep space and the other lived in front of cams most of the time.

  Not when his mother slept with another man and her husband looked the other way. And nothing was ever talked about.

  Everything else was more important than their son’s concept of family. Perhaps even more important than the son.

  So he hadn’t told his father then, or ever, and it was tiring to be mad at them all the time.

  It was too exhausting to love someone so much you let them hurt you, in silence.

  Two weeks after the Dojo hit, the authorities on Austro had to let ships go or they were going to get railed by the Merchants Protection Commission and half a dozen agencies that had business interests elsewhere. Mom Lau didn’t want ships moving if the sniper who’d shot at her son could get away, but she had to cave under practicalities. Anyway, Ryan wasn’t going anywhere, locked in his room. And the customs officials took extra care with who embarked and disembarked. People bitched. Things were too slow. Mom Lau had to put a reasonable face on that too.

  His father’s ship got delayed a leap from Austro, out by the Persian Gate point. Something about military regulations, a backlash of pirate activity and a traffic jam of battleships and convoys and who-knew-what-else that took a while for even the captain of Macedon to untangle.

  So instead of his father arriving on schedule to interrupt Ryan’s routine, he got a comm from Earth. Two comms. One from Dr. Grandma Ramcharan, expressing concern, wanting a reply, which he sent out on a delay because he wasn’t in the mood to talk live.

  The other comm was from Shiri.

  He’d avoided his comp with its personal link, he didn’t quite know why, until now. The last thing he wanted to hear were pseudo-friends concerned for his well-being, or worse yet, people who were genuinely concerned. But eventually he checked, or Sid would, so he slipped on his mobile, blinked to connect to the full display, and there flashed a series of happy face icons with tail markers that ultimately ended with Hubcentral, Earth. He eye-flicked to the latest message and it spiraled open on Shiri’s face.

  She was still pretty. Her eyes looked doubly dark and large in the slight distortion of the mobile interface. She’d cut her hair to just above her shoulders, a straight fall of highlighted brown. Her skin was tanned, her voice that low timbre he remembered. Wake up, Ryan, she’d say, a morning whisper in his ear as the sunlight warmed the pillow near his nose.

  Now she said in a worried flurry, “Ryan, I really hope you get this, I’m going crazy after seeing the Send. Just tell me you’re okay, it doesn’t have to be anything huge or long, I’ll understand, I just need to hear your voice and know you’re okay.” Then she paused. “I still think about you.”

  The message died in a dispersal of image dust and a query for a reply window.

  He sat on his bed staring at a blank corner of the display whil
e the query nudged him vocally every fifteen seconds. One eye movement would connect him to the message window that would connect him to her. She’d sent a comm every day since the news had hit the Send, asking if he was all right.

  He voiced for the reply and verbally input: I’m okay.

  He didn’t know what else to say, and that sounded so cheap compared to her dozen messages. She’d been a semester ahead of him, so he asked: Did you graduate yet? And that still sounded impersonal, but he didn’t want to admit that it would feel so good if she were here. That sometimes he thought about those first winter months when all the dirtsiders complained, but she had joined him in the parks so he could run around in the snow, because stations didn’t have weather and she wanted to see him experience it.

  Those words would accomplish nothing because they were separated by a large expanse of stars. Mutually.

  Anyway, it was the trauma. He hadn’t intended to ever talk to her again before all of this happened. So getting shot at shouldn’t have changed a thing.

  So he sent the message as-is. Blinked out and pulled off the mobile. And thought about what a coldhearted bastard he could be, like father like son.

  “I want you to make a statement,” his mother said, sitting on the side of his bed in a way she hadn’t done since he was eight years old.

  He had a headache. It had grown over the last couple days, since Shiri’s comm, and now it was a near-blinding pain behind his left eye. Worse yet, it seemed every time he took a shower more of his hair fell out from stress, although Sid said he looked the same. Maybe his mother saw something else. Weren’t mothers supposed to notice?

  She came into his neat blue room, perched on his bed so the sheets hardly wrinkled, and told him he had to go in front of the meedees completely stone-cold sober and say something coherent.

  And why?

  “Because the station and the Hub need to see you’re a victim in this, we’re not the enemy, your father isn’t the enemy, and it wasn’t your fault those people were shot in the Dojo.”