Maryam

by Tracy St. John

  Emo­tion crashed over his fea­tures. He slapped his hands over his face and bent, rock­ing in the seat. His shoul­ders heaved up and down, though he made no sound.

  His sor­row plunged Maryam into her own. For a few min­utes, tears tracked down her cheeks as she rubbed Pana’s back. To hell with per­sonal space. They both needed con­so­la­tion.

  Af­ter a while, the ten­sion bled from the Imdiko’s trem­bling frame. He sat up and moved his chair so that Maryam’s hand fell away. Anger mixed freely with mis­ery as he con­tin­ued to avoid look­ing at her.

  “Don’t be nice to me. I don’t de­serve it, not when I failed to care enough for my life­mate.”

  “How can you think that? From what Briel said, you were too de­voted.”

  He groaned, as his voice grew raspy with an­guish. “No, no, I didn’t love her. Not even a lit­tle. I re­spected her. I liked her. I had hopes of fall­ing in love with her be­cause what de­cent man wouldn’t? She was in­tel­li­gent, she was funny, she was lovely. I should have loved her.”

  Maryam drew a deep breath. No won­der he was suf­fer­ing. From what she un­der­stood, the Imdiko breed was com­pas­sion per­son­i­fied. Lov­ing sup­pos­edly came eas­ily to the men cat­e­go­rized as such. Yet Pana hadn’t found true pas­sion for Briel, no more than she had for him.

  “Some­thing was miss­ing,” she guessed. “A fun­da­men­tal part that made you right for each other.”

  “I did my best to re­deem my­self by over­whelm­ing her with at­ten­tion. I thought if I pre­tended long enough, it would hap­pen.”

  “Fake it un­til you make it. We say that on Earth.”

  “She de­served an Imdiko who adored her. It’s al­most as if she was taken be­cause I couldn’t.”

  The poor guy. He beat him­self up over an is­sue he had no con­trol over. “The guilt of hav­ing failed…even when you did your best. It’s enough to make you want to jump off a cliff, isn’t it?”

  “You un­der­stand this?” Won­der eased some of his angst.

  “Ev­ery mis­car­riage, I’d pick my­self apart for what I’d done wrong. I shouldn’t have eaten those sweets, or I didn’t get enough rest, or I for­got to take my vi­ta­mins. Worse was won­der­ing if I was such a ter­ri­ble per­son that God had de­cided to pun­ish me by tak­ing the ba­bies I wanted.”

  Pana gazed at her, his ex­pres­sion verg­ing on af­fronted. “That’s ridicu­lous. I can’t imag­ine you think­ing that about your­self. You’re pos­si­bly the most ad­mirable per­son I’ve met.”

  “I doubt that.” Maryam chuck­led at his ef­fu­sive com­pli­ment.

  “Don’t. Af­ter what my clan put you through, you were still will­ing to carry our child. Yes, I know you did it for Briel.”

  “And to win my free­dom.”

  His shad­owed gaze nar­rowed. “Some­how I don’t be­lieve that was the pri­or­ity. So again, I thank you. You’re an amaz­ing per­son.”

  The sin­cer­ity warmed her. Pana was bet­ter than de­cent; he was won­der­ful. In the midst of his own suf­fer­ing and in­se­cu­rity, he’d wasted no time to lift her up.

  “I bet you’re go­ing to be an ter­rific fa­ther. Do you have a name picked out for this wee one?”

  A sweet smile ghosted his lips. He gazed at her stom­ach, openly mar­veling at the prospect of be­ing a fa­ther. Be­fore she could sec­ond guess the im­pulse, Maryam leaned over, grasped his hand, and placed it over where his child lived.

  Pana gasped, de­light suf­fus­ing his fea­tures. He moved to kneel at her feet, his fin­gers spread­ing wide over her belly. His hand was warm, the heat sink­ing from his flesh deep into her, un­til Maryam imag­ined the fe­tus could feel it too. When the baby chose that mo­ment to move, Pana laughed out loud.

  Grin­ning so hard her cheeks ached, Maryam laughed with him.

  * * * *

  Kels frowned as Odak brought up a mas­sive vid at the front of the de­stroyer’s half-cir­cle bridge. He saw the prob­lem be­fore the cap­tain pointed it out.

  “I sent out un­de­tectable mi­crosen­sors to track be­yond the bor­der of the storm. You see how the Earther ships are sur­round­ing the ion cloud.”

  As if any­one could miss it. The ion storm cloud was a dense gray mass on the star-filled pro­jec­tion, but more than a dozen Earther war­ships with their long-range sen­sors did a fine job of sur­round­ing it. If the de­stroyer bolted from the storm, at least half the en­emy’s ves­sels would be on it within min­utes.

  Odak en­larged the screen, bring­ing more dis­tant points of the sur­round­ing space into view. An­other two dozen blips in­di­cated Earther ships on their way.

  Kels didn’t sug­ar­coat his as­sess­ment of the sit­u­a­tion. “My guess is once these other ships join them, they’ll start com­ing in. They’ll squeeze us out into the open where they can fin­ish us off.”

  “That’s what I be­lieve too. We have a few days to con­tinue re­pairs be­fore they get here. We’ll have to make a run for it be­fore they close off all av­enues of es­cape.” Odak glared at Kels. “Now that the Earther Matara car­ries your child, there’s no hope what­so­ever of bar­gain­ing with the Earth­ers. They’ll be more de­ter­mined than ever to de­stroy us. Was your mis­sion worth killing my en­tire crew?”

  A low growl trick­led from Der­gan, who stood be­hind Kels. The Dramok had his own flash of anger. “Maryam is no pawn in a game, Cap­tain. She’s more than a mis­sion.”

  He wished he’d fig­ured that out sooner, so he wouldn’t have al­lowed duty to over­ride his bet­ter judg­ment.

  He wasn’t about to tell Odak that. In­stead, he de­clared, “The im­me­di­ate sit­u­a­tion de­mands we save the blame game for later. We have to find a way to sur­vive.”

  Re­cov­er­ing from his mo­men­tary ag­gres­sion, Der­gan added, “I of­fer my as­sis­tance once again to your weapons com­man­der, since his sec­ond died in the at­tack.”

  “He’ll be glad to have you.” Odak dropped the ag­grieved mood he’d worn since they’d joined him on the bridge. Der­gan sketched a bow and headed to­ward the Nobek stand­ing at the weapons com­mand sta­tion—one of the few com­puter podi­ums that hadn’t taken dam­age. Most were dark, with re­pair crews clus­tered around them, try­ing to get them run­ning once more. The now-dead sub­com­man­der’s sta­tion was a to­tal loss, its stand black­ened and twisted, hav­ing melted from the power surge that had left the bridge smelling of burnt metal. Helm, com, and nav­i­ga­tion were some­what bet­ter off. That was where the en­gi­neers fo­cused their ef­forts.

  Odak’s at­ten­tion switched to Kels, and a hint of his ear­lier surli­ness reap­peared. He jerked his head to­ward his own sta­tion, which had sur­vived in­tact. “Let’s fig­ure out our best hope for es­cape.”

  * * * *

  Hours later, af­ter so­lid­i­fy­ing a plan with the cap­tain, Kels left Der­gan on the bridge. He went straight to Med­i­cal, where he ver­i­fied with Dr. Ihas that Maryam and the un­born con­tin­ued to per­form be­yond ex­pec­ta­tions.

  “Given the lat­est test re­sults, I may re­lease her in a few hours. Matara Maryam will be wear­ing a mon­i­tor de­vice if I do.” Ihas’s plea­sure at the news couldn’t be mis­taken.

  While re­as­sured by the doc­tor’s ob­vi­ous cer­tainty, Kels couldn’t help but worry that Maryam wouldn’t be where im­me­di­ate med­i­cal as­sis­tance was avail­able. How­ever, with the de­stroyer’s up­com­ing exit of the ion storm loom­ing, Med­i­cal would likely need all of its medi-beds—and then some. The in­jured and the dy­ing would stack up un­less the es­cape he and Odak had con­cocted worked.

  Thank­ing Ihas, Kels went on to the pri­vate room Maryam had been as­signed to. The door opened al­most sound­lessly, and the laugh­ing pair within didn’t no­tice his ar­rival.

  When was the last time he’d seen his Imdiko smile so broadly? Pana w
as hand­some in any case, but hap­pi­ness dou­bled his ap­peal. And Maryam—she was no Kalquo­rian, but call­ing her “lovely” would have been a com­pli­ment to the word rather than her. Her nose crin­kled adorably as she beamed at her com­pan­ion. Kels had the odd urge to cup her face in his palms, to frame her alien beauty.

  Could he ever man­age to make her as merry as Pana had? He gazed at them, struck by the vi­sion of his Imdiko and the Earther sit­ting close, smil­ing as they gazed at each other. Like old friends.

  Or lovers. An­ces­tors, they ap­pear so per­fect to­gether.

  Kels couldn’t re­mem­ber Pana ever look­ing at Briel with such warmth. They’d never man­aged to de­velop real ca­ma­raderie. Had he achieved such a level of amity in the short time he’d known Maryam?

  We weren’t the proper clan for Briel. Could it be any plainer?

  Fight­ing off a sear­ing jolt of con­science, Kels stepped into the room, gain­ing the pair’s at­ten­tion. He bowed. “Matara, you look fan­tas­tic. Dr. Ihas’s re­port is glow­ing.”

  “It’s al­most fright­en­ing how well it’s go­ing.” Her de­light dimmed at his ap­proach, be­com­ing po­lite as ten­sion seeped in. The change his pres­ence brought trou­bled Kels.

  Dis­tressed, he couldn’t keep an ef­fu­sive apol­ogy at bay. “If I could go back and change how this has turned out, I would. Not only for the life of my Matara, but to re­lease you from the aw­ful sit­u­a­tion I put you in. My re­gret is mean­ing­less at this point, but I’m truly sorry for ab­duct­ing you.”

  Pana gaped at him, his eyes round­ing in sur­prise.

  Maryam also stared. Af­ter an in­stant of stunned si­lence, her ex­pres­sion eased. Gen­tled. Kels fan­cied he spied a con­cil­ia­tory smile tease her lips.

  “Your apol­ogy isn’t mean­ing­less, Dramok. I ap­pre­ci­ate it.”

  “You can never for­give me, but I hope you’ll find it in your heart to ex­cuse my Nobek’s part in it. I or­dered him to help me kid­nap you. The fault rests with me alone.”

  He bowed his head and wished he could turn back the days, so he could have acted as the man he’d thought he was. The years, so Briel could have found a clan more suited to her—and lived the full life she’d de­served.

  Maryam fought to sort her con­fused feel­ings. An­other man suf­fered be­fore her. Kels’s an­guish was so pal­pa­ble, Maryam could have wept for him. He’d made a mis­take, which some might have char­ac­ter­ized as mon­strous. He’d paid dearly for it, cost­ing him Briel and al­most his son.

  Given the cir­cum­stances, he might still lose the child. If Earth’s forces caught up to them, he’d lose even more. Af­ter talk­ing with Pana and hear­ing sto­ries of the clan’s past, Maryam found it dif­fi­cult to con­tinue to judge Kels harshly, though ves­tiges of anger re­mained.

  Choos­ing her words care­fully, she said, “I can’t ex­cuse the great wrong done to me. How­ever, I un­der­stand the des­per­a­tion driv­ing you and the Kalquo­rian Em­pire to com­mit the crime you have. In all hon­esty, if it were Earth wrestling with the same de­ci­sion, my peo­ple might do some­thing sim­i­lar. We have a ter­ri­ble his­tory of tak­ing what isn’t ours.”

  “I of­fer no ex­cuse. I ask for no for­give­ness for my­self. Your be­ing here, fac­ing the same fate as we do should the Earth ships catch us, is a great wrong.” Agony filled ev­ery word he spoke.

  “It’s where we are, though. I sup­pose we should take what we have and find what good we can do with it.” How of­ten had she told her­self that very thing?

  Kels lifted his gaze to hers. Once more, Maryam was struck at how riv­et­ing he was, even with his fea­tures etched in shame and grief. “Thank you. For giv­ing my son a chance. I didn’t un­der­stand Briel as well as I should have, but it’s ob­vi­ous she had ex­cel­lent taste in friends. I swear on my an­ces­tors that what­ever it takes, I’ll do all in my power to see you to safety.”

  Maryam nod­ded, wish­ing she could give him the par­don he ob­vi­ously needed. Watch­ing him flail in the sea of bad choices he’d made, she couldn’t de­spise Kels. Not even a lit­tle bit.

  Chap­ter Ten

  Though Maryam and the un­born con­tin­ued to thrive fol­low­ing the fe­tal trans­fer, Dr. Ihas sec­ond-guessed him­self and kept the Earther in Med­i­cal overnight. “Just to be sure,” he said, wip­ing his hands on his trousers. “I’m pos­i­tive ev­ery­thing will con­tinue as it should, but…just to be sure.”

  The next morn­ing, he couldn’t deny sur­ro­gate and child were fine by all pa­ram­e­ters. “Su­pe­rior re­cu­per­a­tion to most Kalquo­rian sur­ro­gates,” he ad­mit­ted.

  Maryam held up the mon­i­tor strapped to her wrist. “You’ll know the in­stant if some­thing goes wrong,” she re­minded him.

  “Stop in later this af­ter­noon, all right? At least once a day af­ter that. I re­al­ize it’s in­con­ve­nient—”

  “No prob­lem,” she re­as­sured him. “Each morn­ing af­ter break­fast. How’s that? Af­ter all, I don’t have any press­ing ap­point­ments in the fore­see­able fu­ture.”

  She took a shower be­fore leav­ing with Kels and Pana. Her hair still damp, she wan­dered down the cor­ri­dor, de­light­ing in stretch­ing her legs af­ter be­ing cooped up in Med­i­cal. The star­tled glances from the crewmem­bers they passed amused her, as did the scowls Kels lev­eled in their di­rec­tion if they got less than a me­ter close to her. From her ab­duc­tor to her pro­tec­tor—it was sweet in a weird fash­ion.

  Pana chat­tered as they went, telling her about the new quar­ters he’d set up for her. “I hope it’s not too aw­ful. Our quar­ters and yours were de­stroyed dur­ing the first at­tack, and only one of the sleep­ing mats was use­able—it’s not ex­actly a plea­sure cruiser’s guest cabin—”

  He was still apol­o­giz­ing when they en­tered a mas­sive stor­age bay. Maryam was greeted with the view of rows and rows of cargo bins and hover carts. Their foot­steps echoed, as did Pana’s voice as she and Kels fol­lowed him to the cor­ner of the bay.

  “—but the hull here is re­in­forced be­cause this par­tic­u­lar bay is of­ten used to trans­port haz­ardous ma­te­ri­als—though I was as­sured there isn’t any such cargo now. There’s no sign it suf­fered dam­age dur­ing the at­tack. It’s prob­a­bly the safest spot on the de­stroyer. Well, here we are.”

  Pana stepped be­yond a wall of stacked bins. Maryam joined him and gasped at the cozy nook he’d formed with two such par­ti­tions, which joined with the walls of the bay’s cor­ner, cre­at­ing a square of liv­ing space.

  A sleep­ing mat was tucked in the cor­ner, made up and heaped with pil­lows, on which Maryam’s teddy bear perched like a fuzzy king. She beamed at the Imdiko with undis­guised de­light.

  “This is per­fect, Pana. Thank you for go­ing back for my bear. For set­ting this up.”

  He’d also fur­nished the space with a small ta­ble and cush­ions to sit on, which took up an­other cor­ner. A cool­ing unit had been brought in, along with some free­stand­ing shelves that held Maryam’s few be­long­ings.

  “What­ever you need, let me know. If I can’t find it, I’ll make it for you.” Pana fairly danced in place, ex­cited by her ap­proval but ner­vous, as if fear­ing she’d find some­thing wrong with what he’d done.

  She noted the af­fec­tion­ate gaze Kels gave him. “You did a won­der­ful job, my Imdiko.” He looked to her, and his de­meanor be­came as anx­ious as Pana’s. “As for sup­ply­ing your needs, the same goes for me. What­ever I can do, though it won’t be enough.”

  More and more, Maryam pitied Kels for the overt shame he dis­played. “I’m show­ered and well fed. I have a place to sleep. All the bases are cov­ered.”

  “What about some en­ter­tain­ment? I can call up a few vids for you on the com­puter. Mu­sic, dra­mas?” Pana took a de­vice from one of the shelves and placed it on the
ta­ble.

  “I’ve had enough drama for a while. Do you have any Noythy come­dies?”

  “You en­joy Noythy? Re­ally? I can’t be­lieve I fi­nally have some­one to watch those shows with.”

  Maryam and Pana sat on the seat­ing cush­ions, set­tling in for a morn­ing of slap­stick en­ter­tain­ment. As Pana fussed with the com­puter, Kels stood apart, watch­ing them. He looked so alone and lost that Maryam al­most called him over to join them. She de­cided against it, not want­ing to hear him say no.

  As Maryam and Pana snick­ered over the vid they’d se­lected, Kels left the sleep­ing nook to com Se­bist in pri­vacy. He walked to the mid­dle of the bay and ac­ti­vated the fre­quency, us­ing au­dio only.

  When Se­bist an­swered, Kels quickly ap­prised him of the at­tack on the de­stroyer and the dan­ger they faced.

  When he was done ex­claim­ing in hor­ror and of­fer­ing his con­do­lences, Se­bist vowed, “You have my word I’ll do all in my power to send help. For­tu­nately, it doesn’t mat­ter how lit­tle Cap­tain Odak likes you. You’re held in high es­teem with the fleet, so I don’t have to undo any dam­age on that front.”

  They man­aged strained chuck­les for his weak joke. Se­bist’s prom­ise re­minded Kels of his own. Swal­low­ing hard, he told his friend, “I have more to tell you. My child is alive.”

  “But you said Briel—I as­sumed with her dead—”

  “Maryam car­ries the fe­tus.”

  A beat of thun­der­struck si­lence reigned, then Se­bist’s joy­ous shout rang through the com. “Thank the Mother of All! That’s amaz­ing, Kels! I’m so glad. For you to be able to re­trieve some ves­tige of hope from this hor­ror—I couldn’t be hap­pier for you.”

  “I agreed to a deal with Maryam.” Heart­ened by Se­bist’s un­re­strained ela­tion that the un­born had been saved, Kels ex­plained the death sen­tence hang­ing over Maryam’s head and her bar­gain for free­dom from Earth and Kalquor in ex­change for car­ry­ing the baby as close to term as pos­si­ble.