by S. J. Madill
"I read about that, sir. The Palani nearly lost."
"Yeah. The fight went on for decades. The Palani lost everything but five little planets. Thousands of worlds, wiped out. Most of them are still devoid of life, but a few have recovered and are inhabitable again."
"So why haven't the Palani resettled all their old worlds?"
"I don't know for sure," said Dillon, staring at his mug. "And the Tassali is reluctant to speak of it. The Palani are skilled geneticists, and they defeated the Horlan using a bioweapon. But despite their knowledge, their population just never seemed to recover."
"Seems a shame, sir, letting all those garden worlds lie empty like graveyards."
"Shame? Well, Tremblay, the 'Earth First' types agree with you. They'd say that humanity needs the living space. But those worlds are still graveyards."
Tremblay was leaning forward. "What about this place we're in now, sir? This second universe, with the extinct Daltanin? I heard that the Horlan invaded here too, and wiped these people out."
Dillon nodded. "Yeah. Something like that." He glanced over at Tremblay, who was watching him. Dillon remained quiet. He figured it was only a matter of time before Tremblay asked the question hanging in the air. Well, thought Dillon, one of the many questions, anyway.
Tremblay had cocked his head slightly to one side. "There's more to it, isn't there, sir?"
"There's always more to it, Sub."
"And it's miles above my pay grade, right sir?"
"Oh, yes. Above mine, too."
"Sir," said Tremblay, choosing his words carefully, "does it have to do with why the Tassali is on board with us, here in Daltanin space? Is it all connected?"
Dillon grabbed his mug and stood up, sending his chair backwards with a final, loud squeak. "Well," he said, "time for some fresh coffee. I drink too much of this stuff. We haven't had decent coffee since Sap left."
Tremblay was quickly on his feet as well. Dillon thought the expression on the young officer's face had changed. "I think I understand, sir. About things being connected, sir. Permission to be dismissed?"
"Good," said Dillon. "You're dismissed. And… Sub?"
The Sub-Lieutenant paused as he was turning to the cabin door. "Sir?"
"Between you and me, Sub? Keep asking questions. Never stop. Just understand, you can't always get answers."
"Aye aye, sir."
* * *
Empty mug in hand and pen in mouth, Dillon walked into the wardroom. Chief Black was stirring her newly-poured cup of coffee. Her hair was dark and close-cut, and her bright green eyes looked up at him as he entered. "Captain, sir."
Dillon reached for the pot of coffee on the counter. He watched her stirring her mug, the metal spoon clinking against the ceramic. "Morning, Chief," he said. "Why do you always stir your coffee? You never put anything in it."
The Chief stopped stirring, staring at the dripping spoon she'd pulled out of the mug. "Huh. Habit, I guess, sir. Used to take cream, then ran out of cream once." She held the spoon out toward him. "Weird."
With a flourish, Dillon added a dollop of whitener to his cup, and took the spoon the Chief offered him. "You know, I think young Tremblay is on to you, Chief."
Black blew across the top of her mug, raising an eyebrow. "Is he, now? Did he give you his list of procedural infractions, sir?"
"Yeah." Dillon stirred in silence for a moment, concentrating on not touching the spoon to the mug. "He's right, of course."
"He is, sir. We've strayed so far from the textbook, I don't even think we know where the book is any more."
Putting the spoon on the counter, Dillon took a preliminary sip of his coffee. It felt strange, almost alien, to have coffee while it was still hot. "We're on deployment, a long way from a classroom."
"Aye, sir."
"Still," said Dillon, "he needs to know that he's being taken seriously. I don't want to discourage his attention to detail. He's very sharp."
"Aye, sir."
"Tell you what," he said, sipping again, "let's tighten up our radio procedures, at least for open channels."
Black nodded, a smile appearing at the corner of her mouth. "Aye aye, sir. I will yell at people accordingly."
"Good, good," said Dillon, turning to lean against the wardroom counter. Chief Black took a cookie from the jar and popped it in her mouth, leaning next to him. She wiped her sugary fingers on her uniform pants.
"Chief—" began the Captain.
"I know, sir. I know," she said, now wiping the sugar off her pants. "Habits."
Dillon shook his head. "Don't let the crew see you doing that."
"All the crew ever sees is my usual perfection, sir." For a few moments, the two stood in silence, nursing their mugs.
"Hey," said Dillon. "You heard from Atwell?"
Her face lit up in a smile. "Aye, sir. I got a message from her yesterday."
"You've got that look again, Chief. Was it a naughty message?"
"Parts of it."
"Good," said Dillon. "How's life in the academy? Is she enjoying her posting?"
"I guess," said Black. "She's still teaching second-year cadets. And since a full-time job somehow isn't enough, she's now taking classes in her spare time. She's started part of the command and staff course."
"So," said Dillon, "she meant what she said. She wants a command of her own someday."
"Yeah. She always means what she says," said Black, turning back to the jar of cookies. "That's one of the things I like about her."
"You two are a cute couple."
Chief Black stopped, in the middle of putting another cookie in her mouth. "Cute, Dillon?" She waved the cookie back and forth for emphasis. "No, no. We're not cute. You and the Tassali, you're cute."
Dillon smirked. "Is the crew saying anything?"
Black shook her head, her mouth full. "Nuh-uh," she mumbled as she chewed. "When anyone says anything, it's only to be amazed that you two can remain celibate for the entire deployment."
"Seriously?"
She just nodded, reaching for a napkin. "Seriously. The crew is fine with it. They think you two are being professional. More than they'd be." She shrugged. "I kinda agree. Hey," she said, "you ever hear from Maureen?"
Dillon blinked, as his mind took a moment to catch up. "Nah," he said. "I never hear from my sisters any more. You?"
"Nope. Last note I got from her was, 'oh wow, my little brother is now my best friend's boss, ha ha'."
"What do you think, Chief?"
Black shrugged. "You get the stripes, you get the job. The Admiralty Board doesn't give a shit if you grew up on the same street as your chief."
"Good," said Dillon. He leaned forward, stepping away from the counter. "So, Tremblay…"
"I've got one more good prank for him, sir. If he doesn't reciprocate, I'll leave him alone after that. His first deployment will be over when we get back."
"Fine with me."
"And if he has questions about the Tassali or her people, I'll tell him to go ask her himself."
"Sounds good. Well," said Dillon, raising his mug. "Back to work."
Chief Black pushed away from the counter, following him to the wardroom door. "Aye aye, Captain."
CHAPTER SEVEN
A scrum of reporters faced the podium, the glare from their camera lights flooding the room. Behind the podium stood the Defence Minister, with his tailored suit and perfect, greying hair. He had a practiced frown: his eyes narrowed, his jaw set; everything calculated and practiced to express a specific level of gravitas and authority.
From the back, the reporter's question was hard to make out above the noise of the room. The minister tilted his head slightly, turning one ear toward the speaker while his face took on an expression of sincere concentration.
"Yes," he said, when the reporter finished. "We're going to be taking a number of prudent steps in response to this Palani aggression." He spread his hands, giving a hint of a shrug as if about to concede a point. "Of course, the colony wasn'
t founded by any particular human government, but rather by a group of people concerned for humanity as a whole, and for humanity's future." He paused, allowing his listeners to take in his words, before adopting an even firmer expression. "In co-operation with our treaty partners — most especially the United States, the United Kingdom, India and the Anzac Federation — we are heightening our level of military preparedness. In Canada's case in particular, twenty 'Colony'-class cruisers now in reserve are going to be refurbished for active duty. In addition, I have asked the Cabinet to approve funds to accelerate the construction of the new 'Town'-class destroyers, the first of which is expected to join the fleet later this year. I understand the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is preparing a response of its own, but you would have to speak to—"
Elan touched a button, and the screen went blank. He sighed, staring at the empty rectangle on the wall. Another flake of snow, he thought, tumbling down the mountainside. Down toward the valley below, end over end, bouncing other tiny flakes as it went. And those tiny flakes would begin to tumble down the mountain as well. No one flake ever considered itself responsible for the devastating avalanche.
In front of him, on the low table — they called it a 'coffee' table — sat his empty bowl. Blaine had made them both lunch. An odd concoction of worm-like, fleshy tubes of starch, covered in a protein-rich yellow sauce. Apparently, it represented the summit of Blaine's capabilities in food preparation. Elan had read the box; it seemed easy enough. Not the complex tastes and textures of Palani ritual dishes, but filling. He hadn't said a word when Blaine had helpfully doused the bowlful in some red sauce from a bottle. It was viscous goo with a revolting, overpowering taste. But now the bowl sat empty, and Elan realised that there was no one to take it away. He'd been observing everything the humans did, trying to mimic their domestic behaviours, but the one thing he kept coming up against was their expectation of autonomy. There were no acolytes here, no servants of any kind. Each of the house-mates took care of their own food and their own personal hygiene, and expected the others to do the same. Even after repeated demonstrations by an increasingly frustrated Heather, it had taken Elan several tries before the bathing facilities would produce water that wasn't unbearably hot on his skin. Washing his own body was a novelty, but one he'd expected when he left the Temple. There were no attendants here to carefully maintain the holy vessel of the Divines. The idea of smearing a foamy goo all over himself with a piece of cloth seemed… primitive.
Rising quietly from the couch, Elan picked up the dirty bowl and took it to the kitchen. He'd seen them put their dirty cookware into a machine, and he tried to do the same. He poked at the beeping machine for several minutes before it relented, opening its door and letting him put the bowl and spoon inside with the others.
Behind him, he heard Blaine's bedroom door open; it sounded different from the rest. More mechanical, and not as smooth. Elan saw Blaine walk into the shared bathroom, his hands holding stylus-like objects. After mere moments in the bathroom, Blaine returned to his own room, only to emerge a moment later to return to the bathroom again. As the curious Elan approached, Blaine repeated his circuit. His face was different somehow. "Hey," he said to Elan.
"Hello. What are you doing?"
"Got an audition shoot today," said Blaine, walking past him. "I'm doing my makeup, but the lighting's better in the bathroom."
"You use ritual face painting?"
Blaine paused in the middle of drawing a careful black line under his left eye. "What? I guess so, yeah." He reached up one hand to tease a few individual strands of hair that had fallen over his face. "People who sell clothes, they like to show their clothes being worn by people with a specific look. I'm trying to get more work doing that."
"A sexually appealing look?" asked Elan.
The reflection in the mirror glanced at him. Blaine's eyes had lines under them and shadows around them, and colour had been added to his cheeks to accentuate his facial structure. "Yeah," said Blaine. "That."
"I have noticed," said Elan, "that a great deal of human culture revolves around sex. Not necessarily for procreation, either; just the act itself, as if it were an act of conquest. As if counting partners were a way of keeping score."
Blaine tugged at the stray hairs more forcefully. "I guess that's true, yeah. It must seem kinda primitive to you."
Elan tried a shrug. "And we must seem very prudish to you."
"Never thought of it," said Blaine. He stood up straight, turning his head left and right as he examined his handiwork.
"So," said Elan, "you must be considered very attractive among human males, to be employed in this way. An example of a desirable man."
Blaine blushed at Elan, his mouth stumbling before he spoke. "I guess so, yeah."
"You have made a remarkable transformation, Blaine. Is it considered a form of art?"
"What? Makeup? Sure, I guess."
"Does it make you more successful at finding partners?"
"Well…" said Blaine, then stopped. He turned off the bathroom light and stepped out into the hallway, pausing in front of Elan. He seemed to be thinking about what to say. Elan wondered if sex was a taboo subject for casual conversation with humans. If so, then their mass media had given him the wrong impression.
Blaine gave a broad smile with shining teeth, and reached up to put his hands on Elan's shoulders. Even through the coldsuit, his touch was very warm. "You know what?" said Blaine. "If you want to see some real art being made, why don't you pop in and see Heather? She's the real artist in this apartment. She said she was going to get some work done today, maybe she'd let you watch?"
* * *
Heather's voice sounded curt, clipped by the speaker of the door console. "What?"
"May I come in?" asked Elan.
He thought he heard her sigh. "Sure, but only for a minute," said Heather. "Door, open."
With the merest whisper of air, the door glided open to one side. Elan stepped into Heather's room.
It was the same size as the other bedrooms, but seemed bigger. There was an unmade bed against one wall, and a clutter-covered desk in the far corner. Rumpled clothes and other items littered the floor or were heaped in piles against the desk. The walls were bare, apart from random drops of paint; most of it concentrated on the right-hand wall where a chaos of spilled and spattered colours hid the off-white wall underneath. In the middle of the riot of colour hung a blank, featureless square of white.
In front of the canvas, Heather knelt on the floor, mixing pots of paint. She wore a loose-fitting shirt and shorts, both covered in untold layers of dried paint. Her hair was tied back behind her head by a stained cloth. She glanced up at him, then back to her paints. "What's up, Elan?"
Elan wondered if he was being intrusive. Palani artists were legendary for their idiosyncratic behaviour, for the 'sanctity' of their creative spaces. He assumed the same would hold true for humans. "Blaine said you would be painting today."
"Yep," she said. It sounded like she was forcing herself to be patient. "Just about to get started. What can I do for you?"
"I was wondering if I could watch."
He saw, from the way she tensed, that her first reaction was to say 'no', to kick him out. A crease appeared on her forehead, and she kept her attention on the pot of blue paint in front of her. She added a few drops of red to it and stirred, the plastic pot rattling as she repeatedly hit the rim. "Huh," she said, as the paint's colour became more vivid. "Too much red. Now it's more like the blue in your hair."
Elan remained quiet, standing a single pace into the room. The faint chemical smell of the paint had begun to reach him.
"Fine," said Heather with a sigh. She motioned toward the far end of the room. "Go sit on the bed. But I don't want to hear you or see you. I want to forget you're here. I need to get into my own head if I'm going to get anything done. Okay?"
"Thank you," said Elan. "I understand."
Elan was about to walk farther into the room when Heather spoke agai
n. She sounded exasperated; he wondered if she had changed her mind.
"Look," she said. "I don't want you asking a thousand questions, so here's the tour." She pointed at the pots on the floor in front of her. "This is called 'paint', but it isn't. It's a synthetic pigment-carrying liquid ceramic, but I call it 'paint'. No, it's not toxic. And yes, it cleans up easily. "
She jerked her thumb towards the wall. "That blank sheet is called a 'canvas', but it's not made of canvas. It's also synthetic." She glanced up at him before continuing. "It's on the wall because I want the paint to dribble downward after it hits the canvas. I like the effect it produces, but it means I need to make the paint more runny."
Heather looked up at the spattered paint around the room. "The room is a mess, and I don't care. Unless I apply a sealant, all that paint will come off with water. I leave it the way it is, because it reminds me that I can be productive." She shrugged. "Some days, it makes it easier for me to get started."
She turned to look at him. "That's it. Any questions?"
"No," said Elan.
"Good. Now go park yourself somewhere. I want you to be a hole in the room."
"I will. Thank you, Heather."
Elan stepped forward, his bare feet on the cool floor, and navigated his way across the room. Each step was carefully placed, to avoid clothes or art supplies or other clutter on the floor. It was an alien environment to him; as alien as any foreign planet could be. In many ways, it was the opposite of every place he'd ever known in his life. Nothing was tidied or put away. A complete lack of order, of propriety. The smell of the paint, the visual chaos of the room, it was all strangely exciting. A glimpse into a world without rules, or duties, or order. There was a tightness in his chest, as part of his mind screamed at him to panic and run, or tidy up, or both. At the same time, part of him wanted to laugh at the absurd freedom of it all.