by Lyn Gala
Luke had moved in with her family after his mother died, and she remembered that same lost expression when the hospital had called to say it was too late, that his mother had passed in the night.
Maybe something had happened to one of the younger siblings, but that wouldn’t result in any money. Given that the government had scattered them to different foster homes when their mother died, Dana wasn’t sure they’d even get notified if something happened to one of them. Siblings had a legal right to know each other’s contact information, but that didn’t mean that any foster families would bother using that to notify Luke.
Luke cleared his throat. “Yeah, they didn’t say anything. The military—who would have guessed they were incompetent, huh?” he asked. He was trying for a joke, but his voice shook. “Thanks.” Luke reached up and paused the vid before pulling the headset off.
Dana took it and put it on the desk since she was closest. “What is it?”
“My brother. My older brother.”
Dana sucked in a breath. Liam. If there was one topic that was off-limits in Luke’s world, Liam was it. To hear Luke tell the story, Liam had abandoned the family. He’d fought with his mother over a boyfriend and when that relationship hadn’t worked out, he’d jumped a military ship for the front and never looked back. Dana’s older brother had known Liam, and he’d said one or two things that made Dana question that version of the truth, but Luke saw the world through the eyes of a wounded and abandoned little brother.
“Did he die?” Dana would have thought that would’ve shown up on the news feeds. After all, Liam Munson was the darling of the military—the linguist who had single-handedly delivered the most important ally in the war against the rebelling worlds. He had discovered that the turtle people had the resources Earth needed and more technology than anyone had understood.
Luke leaned back, bracing his arms behind him. “He is giving me part of his paycheck.”
For a second, Dana couldn’t process the words. “He what?”
Luke leapt to his feet, but there was nowhere for him to go because the apartment had one narrow path around the bed, and Dana had her chair parked in the middle of it. “He’s assigned ten percent of his paycheck to me. That extra money came from him.”
“Oh.” Dana had no idea what to say. She wanted to point out that they could use the money. Two hundred and twelve credits would take a lot of pressure off them financially. That was one third of their rent. If they stayed put, they could put every penny aside and next semester pay the rental fees on Luke’s books up front, which would save them a shitload of interest and fees. However, Luke’s expression suggested he would rather burn the credits.
Dana rolled the chair back, and Luke power-walked the three steps to the bathroom and then stopped. “Why the hell is he stirring all this shit up again? It’s not like he gives a damn. He didn’t show up when Mom was sick. He didn’t even send a card to the funeral.”
Liam’s name hadn’t been on the news back then, but Dana suspected he had been doing something linguistic and important. The military probably hadn’t told him about their mother. That was the sort of shitty thing the government might do if they thought a death in the family might distract someone. The only people less ethical than the government were the assholes who had set up their own private kingdoms on planets Earth had paid to terraform.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Luke demanded.
She studied the obstinate set of Luke’s jaw. “Do you honestly want to hear what I have to say?”
Luke crossed his arms over his chest. “So you think I’m being unreasonable?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You practically flashed the words in sign language.” He signed a few choice curse words.
Dana stood. “Hey, I’m not defending your brother.” And she wouldn’t. Not aloud. Not to Luke.
“We don’t need his money.” Luke spat the words out without trying to disguise the lie.
“‘Need’? No,” Dana said. “We can keep limping through each month hoping that you finish your degree and get a position before an injury or a draft notice shows up. That’s what we’ve done up to this point, and we can keep right on with our five-year plan. But a little extra money would help.”
“It’s his money.” Luke made “his” sound like the worst profanity in the universe. “And they say the government isn’t going to have another round of drafts. The rebels have lost Landing. It’s all mopping up now. Earth has won, so we don’t need Liam’s money.”
Dana didn’t know about politics or war strategy or how close Earth was to reclaiming Ribelo. She didn’t know any of that, but she knew their budget. She knew how Luke would come home exhausted after working eight hours and then he would study for eight more. She knew her feet hurt. “I don’t care if you inherited it from Hitler or Myronov or that weird religious guy with the poison drink he gave to kids. Money is money. If someone evil leaves you money, there’s no psychic stain on the credits.”
“Are you calling my brother evil?” Now Luke sounded angry that Dana had insulted Liam.
Dana threw her hands up. “I’m the one who has said more than once that you can’t condemn him without hearing his side of the story. What he did was horrible, but I’m guessing he has an explanation for why he did it.”
Luke slapped his hand against the bathroom door. “He left. He doesn’t get to have a side. Actions speak louder than words, and his actions are shitty.”
“Yeah, well you have done one or two shitty things in your life,” she said wearily. “I try not to judge you on them.” Dana crossed her own arms in imitation of his stance.
“I didn’t walk out on my family.”
Dana sighed. “Once he was stupid enough to volunteer for the military, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t walking out as much as the military sending him wherever they wanted to. You know that.”
“And not writing?”
Luke had a point there. Maybe Liam had had good intentions when he’d left, but it was pretty clear that any desire to help the family had vanished when someone had dangled an officer position in front of him. He had probably worked his fingers to the bone, but saying that Luke’s big brother cared about being an officer more than being a brother would gut Luke. So instead she said, “What should he have written? What’s he supposed to say? Hey, sorry I blew you off. I’m at the front now? You were young when he left the planet. You didn’t need to hear stories about the front.”
“He could have written us or asked how we were!” Some of the energy drained out of him. “He could have written Mom.”
“You’re right. He should have,” Dana said gently. “And that’s on him, but it sure seems like he’s trying to make amends.”
Luke wrapped his hand around the bathroom knob and squeezed it so tightly that his knuckles turned white. “We found out he was on Earth from watching the news. He didn’t even visit. Part of me is happy Mom is gone because this would have killed her,” he whispered, his voice full of misery.
“If he came here, that mutant turtle would have followed. Did you want to have a family fight in front of that thing? And you saw that vid where the reporter got close to the big alien. I can see you yelling at Liam and that alien backhanding you into the middle of next week. There are all sorts of practical and even kind reasons why Liam would have stayed away. I mean, if he came here, reporters would have descended on us. What would happen if we lost one of our jobs or if we even lost a week of work because the reporters were interfering too much? Don’t assume he doesn’t care.”
“He didn’t even call. He didn’t leave one word for me.” Luke’s voice broke, and then he fell silent.
Dana said softly, “He gave you the money. He’s still thinking about you.”
“Or he feels guilty.”
“If he didn’t care about you, he wouldn’t feel guilty.”
Luke rubbed his hand over his face. “I hate it when you’re logical.”
“You worship logic
,” Dana said. “And given that those turtles measure success through trade and profit, Liam’s willingness to give you part of his salary says a lot about how he feels.”
Luke stared at the wall over Dana’s shoulder. He stood silent for a long time before he threw out one last pathetic excuse. “Or he has more than he needs and doesn’t care about it.”
“Oh please. Who gives money away because they have enough? That’s not what people do.”
“I need to...” Luke was unable to finish his thought. He stood framed by the bathroom door, one hand fluttering like a broken scarecrow in the wind. Then he gathered his resolve, and he headed for the door. “I’ll be back.” He fled.
Dana was left alone in the tiny apartment. She sighed. So much fucking drama. If she ever pinned Liam down, she would give him several pieces of her mind, because Luke deserved better than he’d gotten from his family. And Liam might have been avoiding them because he knew that lecture was coming.
The vid-set still lay on the desk, the yellow pause button flashing. She picked it up and slipped it over her head. It was Luke’s set and the eyepiece was too low for her smaller head, but she could still see a distorted version of the documents the bank had forwarded. The first showed the automatic transfer. Damn. That money was every two weeks. Between the specialist pay and the officer pay, Liam was making a killing. For that much money, Dana might consider enlisting.
She flipped past a few more pages of legalese describing who the pay would go to if Luke refused it. Dana had grown up around the Munsons, but she didn’t know most of the names in the paperwork. She only recognized the other Munson siblings on one of the last pages. When the younger siblings reached their majority, Luke would share his percentage with them.
As guilt money went, it wasn’t bad. And as far as Dana was concerned, Liam owed his brother something for walking away without a word. Luke had suffered deeply. She hadn’t been close to Luke back then, but her brother had been friends with Liam.
She remembered Luke coming over every day. He would ask if Chak had gotten a vid or a letter from Liam. Luke had been so sure his big brother would send some sort of word home, to his best friend if not his family. Liam and Chak had been close once, but something had happened. Chak never explained what, but Chak had taken over where Liam had left off. He’d been the best brother he could be to Luke, but he couldn’t invent letters or vids that never came. Liam had cut everyone off.
Dana had asked Chak about it once. Her brother had suggested that things were harder for Liam than anyone knew. And Dana got it. Being poor and brilliant and stuck in a shitty school with all the responsibility for helping with little brothers and sisters—it was a lot. And Liam had been young, but no younger than Luke was now, and Luke never would have put himself ahead of his family. Sure, Luke was trying to claw his way to the top like everyone else, but he wanted to stay on Earth to make sure he could help his siblings when they aged out of the foster system. Hell, he’d have taken them now if the state allowed it.
Dana had gotten the better Munson brother. Maybe Liam’s slightly mercenary bent worked better when it came to making treaties with those aliens of his, but she would much rather have Luke, even with his occasionally overdeveloped sense of honor. There were more important things in the world than money, and Liam had missed out on that.
One day he might live to regret it.
Lost Words: The Unauthorized Biography of Liam Munson
Luke fingered his pad and considered pulling up the message and reading it again, but he knew he had the address right. He’d checked it often enough. But this meeting... talking to someone about Lieutenant Liam Munson the “War Hero” felt like betraying his family. He didn’t want to let go of his anger, no matter what Dana said or his mother would have said. His mother had always seen Liam as some sort of fucking saint. All the way to the end, she would never hear a word against her precious golden boy. Sometimes Luke wondered if that wasn’t because she had loved his father more than her next two husbands. He tried to avoid that sort of thinking because it would drive him insane. Then she’d died, all the kids had been scattered to the wind since their mother had lost all three husbands to Earth’s idiotic war.
Dana’s folks had taken him in, but they hadn’t had the money to support the younger children, so Luke had watched social workers come and pack one small sack with a few clothes and one toy per child and then cart off the rest of the Munson children. Where had the sainted Liam Munson been then? Where had he been when Luke had cried himself to sleep at their mother’s hospital bed? Where had he been at the funeral?
He’d been off the planet by then, but he’d been gone long before that. Luke had been really young—six or seven—when Liam had started spending weeks at a time away from the house. He’d pick Luke up after school and walk him home, only to vanish after. Or he’d be home for a few days before he vanished again.
Luke remembered a few fights and nights when their mother tried to hide her tears after Liam left—abandoned them again.
But Dana was right. Money was money, and if Luke wanted to finish school quickly and get on his financial feet well enough to take care of his younger brother and sisters when they timed out of state care, he needed every dime he could make. Now that he had an actual hope of keeping them all out of the draft, he had to take it.
He wouldn’t count on this latest peace holding, not when the Ribelians were insane zealots with a bad habit of bombing civilians.
“Luke Munson?” someone called.
Luke’s stomach dropped. The speaker was a middle-aged man in a uniform standing in the open door to the café. After all these years, the thought of talking to someone about Liam still made Luke feel unbalanced. He plastered on his best smile and stepped closer. “Lieutenant Spooner?”
The man held out his hand. “Thank you for meeting me.”
“You’re paying.” Luke’s discomfort grew as they walked into the social café together. Dozens of links waited for customers to plug in a computer and jump on the socnet, and on another day, Luke would’ve loved some free access. Today? Today, not so much. The café was largely empty, Luke felt exposed sitting next to this military man with his starched uniform. He chose a seat at a large table. That would ensure a little distance from Spooner. “You wanted to talk about my brother?”
“I do. Would you like a drink?”
Luke ignored the peace offering. His headset had already beeped to announce a credit deposit, so Spooner had paid for Luke’s time. This wasn’t a social visit. “You said you served with Liam.” Luke was proud of how calm he sounded.
“For years,” Lieutenant Spooner took a seat across the table. “Tap in your order. My treat.”
Luke hesitated. If this guy wanted to pay, Luke could get coffee. Real coffee. There was no way he could justify that cost, but he didn’t mind taking advantage of someone who had the gall to drag up his memories of Liam. The lieutenant tapped his card on Luke’s display without a word about the cost, and that was enough to push Luke off the fence. He ordered the damn coffee with real sweeteners and organic cream. Officers had the easy life. Luke resented the hell out of the military for sucking up so many of Earth’s resources. He resented the damn colonies even more for assuming they could take and take and never repay one cent. They were all assholes.
“Are you asking about Liam for the military?” Luke figured the higher-ups had to be worried about whether Liam would abandon the service and give human secrets to the Rownt. But Luke didn’t know anything about Liam’s loyalties. He didn’t know his brother at all.
“No. I’m on leave. I’m about to get a promotion to captain, and I’m taking a couple of months off before my new posting. I haven’t had a break in several years.”
“Then why do you want to talk?” The top of the table flashed and then the recessed area opened to allow two drinks to rise. Luke took his and savored the smell.
“I’m writing a biography.”
Weird, and not where Luke thought this co
nversation would lead. “Of Liam?”
Spooner nodded. “People deserve to know the real Liam Munson, and what I’m seeing on the vids... that’s not the Liam I know.”
“No joke,” Luke said with a snort. “He abandons us, leaves Mom to die, and the vids all make him out to be some hero who saved the military supply lines with his powers of negotiation.” It disgusted Luke.
A frown darted across Spooner’s face. “So, you didn’t have a good relationship with your brother growing up?”
“I didn’t have a relationship at all. He was a lot older.” There were six and a half years between them. Betty had only been two years younger than Liam and shared a father with him, but she had died before Luke had been born.
“You were eleven or twelve when he left Earth, right? You must have had some sort of relationship. I was the little brother in my family, and I’m sure my older brothers could tell all sorts of stories about what a pest I was, following them around.” Spooner smiled and shook his head fondly.
Luke cupped his hands around his coffee and studied this officer. “Yeah, well Liam never liked me hanging around.” Luke didn’t want to be an asshole and take Spooner’s money without offering anything of value in return, so he added, “You should talk to Chak Maylti. He was Liam’s best friend.”
“I have,” Spooner said. “He was one of my first sources. Do you know Mortimer Telfer?”
Luke shook his head. “Never heard of him.”
“So, he never came around the house? You never saw Liam talking to him?”
Luke had assumed Mortimer was a school friend, but then Spooner pushed a vidpad across the table. The mugshot showed a man in his mid-fifties. His hair was streaked with gray and he had a long scar on his face, but he still had a sort of roguish charm, at least until Luke read the scrolling charges. Extortion, assault, attempted murder, domestic battery, conspiracy to engage in prostitution, running a gambling institution without a license, facilitating gladiator fights, kidnapping... the guy was a piece of shit.