Perdigon

by Tom Caldwell

  “You’re not a romantic.”

  “Nope.”

  “Jacob is.”

  “Yeah, he is.” Ezra had never asked Jacob for details about what went on between him and Magnus; Jacob, characteristically, sometimes shared them anyway. Ezra hated that Magnus knew this stuff, wanted to wipe that smug little grin off his face. As if he could. “I like it when he talks about soulmates and fate, whatever, it’s cute. I just don’t agree.”

  “You don’t believe in fate either?”

  Ezra didn’t like this question. “Well…”

  “Come on.”

  “I don’t really like any of the words people use. It’s frustrating to talk about,” said Ezra. He added, “I don’t see the point, anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re not going to listen, so why am I bothering to tell you anything?” Ezra had reached the limits of his patience. “You won’t listen, and you won’t understand. This shit is beyond you, Magnus.”

  That blow landed. Magnus’s lips thinned out. “That so?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Try me.”

  Ezra got up from his cross-legged position, going to the window for the first time. This was an orbital station, not a planet; what he’d taken for a yellow sky was actually a heavyweight UV filter that was struggling to hold back the light of a nearby sun. Even through the filter, the light was oppressive. The headache was still lurking behind his eyeballs, ready to expand to the dimensions of its container.

  “We told stories on Perdigon,” he said. Everything felt different with the implant out of commission. He wasn’t sure if he was weaker or stronger. “No Lumen Originals to binge on. We’re really behind on Losing Julie’s Place. But we made our own fun. I told the kids this story—I remember it from my reader in third grade. I was ahead of the others, so they gave me the Ulster Cycle, like ‘good luck with this, kid.’ The death of Cúchulainn. You know it?”

  “Tell me,” said Magnus.

  “The guy was a great warrior, a king’s champion. Very talented at killing, not too bright. When he’s still just a kid, he’s told never to eat the meat of a dog—I know, yeah. It’s like Samson and his hair, a vow he took that gave him special strength. But Cúchulainn has a team of six druids against him—and they’re out for blood because he killed their dad. Six trained sorcerers against one dimwitted jock. Bad odds, even for a hero. And a prophecy says that’s exactly how Cúchulainn will die.

  “So the king of Ulster tries to keep Cúchulainn from finding out about this vendetta, distracting him with music and partying. Doesn’t work. Cúchulainn’s horse, Lia Macha, shies away from him on the morning of battle. Doesn’t stop him. His mother tries to offer him a cup of wine for good luck, and the wine turns to blood. Doesn’t stop him. He meets the banshees at the river, who straight up say that they’re washing the bloodstains off his armour because he’s destined to die today. My man still doesn’t turn back.”

  “He doesn’t get worried?” asked Magnus. “He doesn’t think something’s wrong?”

  Ezra shrugged. “We don’t know what he feels. The story doesn’t say. But yeah, these aren’t subtle omens. He meets three old women. They’re roasting a dog on a spit over the fire—look, I didn’t make this up,” said Ezra, when Magnus made a face. “Poor people ate dog, it’s a worldbuilding detail, just deal with it. These three old women invite Cúchulainn to sit and eat with them. Now, Cúchulainn may not be too swift, but he’s in an Irish myth and even he knows it’s a bad idea to be rude to three old women at the same time. Like, they’re definitely some kind of goddess. This is a test. Obviously. So he doesn’t want to say no, acting like he’s too good to eat dog meat. He opts to eat the dog.”

  Ezra stopped there, and after a moment Magnus prompted him: “Then what?”

  “Then he dies. He gets to the battlefield and the druids kill his charioteer, they kill his horse, they kill him. In that order. Exactly as the prophecy said.”

  “Why wouldn’t he stop?”

  Ezra snorted. “No kidding, huh? You tell me. But here’s a different question. If he had stopped at any of those omens—if he hadn’t eaten the meat—would it have helped? Or did it go all the way back to the moment he killed the druids’ father? Or earlier? When he was seven years old, and the seers said that his life would be short? When exactly do you intervene, if you want to save this meathead’s stupid life? How, when none of the signs he got made him stop? And who has the right to interfere?”

  “You interfere all the time,” said Magnus. “You must think you deserve to make those decisions for people.”

  “You’re not listening.” Ezra rested his forehead against the glass for a moment; it was warm from the light of the orange sun outside. “Ahriman’s gonna swallow you. Every dollar you have will be in someone else’s pocket. This genetic program will create a new class of labour and you won’t be able to control them.” After a moment, he added, “Nobody’s ever going to fall in love with you, either. You die alone. Massive stroke. I won’t tell you when exactly. But it’s sooner than you think.”

  “Sure. Nice try, Barany,” said Magnus, getting to his feet. “But you’re not gonna freak me out with this act.”

  Ezra didn’t turn back to look at him. He was looking out at a multilevel parking-lot just inside the cavity of a loading dock, crawling with unmanned vehicles. This whole thing was sort of funny, he thought, but he didn’t laugh. “Exactly,” he said.

  Jacob was in a blue room. Institutional grey, mostly, but the floor tiles were blue, streaked with white as if they were supposed to be marble. There was a bluish-white LED overhead and he could see his own veins. He had a medi-port around the left wrist, but no physical restraints.

  Not doing so badly after all, are you, Jacob?

  The door opened, and he leapt to such a level of alertness that the whole incident eluded his memory afterward. That’s what he thought must have happened, anyway—he experienced only a brief lapse of awareness, and then his attention returned to the blue room.

  Magnus was here, in real life, not just as a bad memory or a nightmare. Jacob was on his feet with his heart pounding, breathing hard.

  Had he said anything, in that blank moment of shock? Done anything?

  The medi-port on his wrist released something cold and grey into his bloodstream, and Jacob sank down, folding into a crouch on the floor. “What is this?”

  “Specialty of the house,” said Magnus, helping Jacob sit down on the floor. Being gentle, that game of his. “Bija Pharma launches next year. Don’t tell the press I said so,” he added with a wink. “How’ve you been, Jake?”

  “It’s Jacob now.” He said it in the same tone he would have used on himself, inside his head: firm, not unkind. Cutting himself neatly out of an ugly picture of the past. “I’ve been…trapped on a wrecked colony, mostly.”

  “Ah.”

  “Not good.”

  “I see. I bet you were glad to see that ship,” said Magnus.

  And Jacob thought…could that be true? Had he been glad to see the ship? Had he just let himself get overexcited, as Magnus said he often did? No. Why even wonder that? How many of these floorboards were rotten underfoot? “We were waiting for someone else.”

  “Roshan Tehrani.” Magnus was careless about remembering introductions, and would freely make up nicknames for underlings and discard them just as quickly. Of course I remember you. Jake Ross, right? But he’d bothered to learn Roshan’s name, and he never mistook Ezra’s, either. “Your old buddy. That would’ve been a great news story, huh? Heartwarming stuff. Two great inventors have a falling out, years pass, and then one of them’s in big trouble, and only his old rival can save him. Luckily, Barany has a lot of rivals.”

  “Where’d you take him?” A single drop of sweat was working its way down Jacob’s spine. “Where have you put him—where are the kids?”

  “Easy, easy. Lumen, increase dosage. The kids are on Earth, you can read the news for yourself. Ezra’s just ups
tairs on level nine, no big deal. I have some paperwork for you, Jake, and I also wanted to say, y’know, congratulations on the wedding.”

  “Right,” said Jake, reviving a bit at the mention of paperwork. He got up—silly to be sitting on the floor when a table and chairs were right here. The boss was in the room. There was work to do. “I’m sorry, I’m…goodness, what a lot of fuss. Let’s sit down. Everything’s okay. What paperwork is this, Magnus? I’m so sorry, you shouldn’t have had to come down here yourself.”

  “I said congratulations on the wedding, Jake. Mazel tov. You’re a mazel tov guy, aren’t you, Jake?”

  “Only on both sides, sir. Thank you very much, though. What did you want me to sign, sir?”

  “Yeah, I congratulated Ezra too. It’s funny, he had totally forgotten that I was the one who introduced you two. Remember?” said Magnus, nodding at Jake. “You showed me that little project that Barany was wasting his time on. I called the meeting.”

  “Yes sir, you did…call the meeting,” said Jake. Prey species understood this part: you had to hold still in the grass. “What did you want me to sign, sir?”

  Magnus smiled and slid a thick stapled document across the table to him. “This is just to authorise compensation for the rescue workers who’ve been searching the wreckage.”

  “Mm-hm.” Jake Ross did not sign documents hastily. You didn’t get very far at Bija with a sloppy attitude like that. He began to page through it. “I may need some time to go over this, I’m afraid, sir.”

  “That’s fine. I’ve got some space in my schedule today. Just for you two. We’re very excited to have your husband on board, you know.”

  Jake didn’t raise his head, but looked up at Magnus. “I’m sorry?”

  “Ezra’s already signed. Look.”

  Magnus turned to the last page, but Jake took it out of his hands, turning away to spread the pages out in his lap.

  Did he really know Ezra’s signature beyond doubt? Yes, Jacob did. Ezra’s handwriting was variable from day to day, depending on his health, but it had unchanging elements: the Greek shape of his E, a backwards drag to the letters, and the ponderous acute accents over the two a’s in his name, where he would first forget to mark them, then return to ink them in heavily. He usually left the accents off his name, because they were awkward to type, but he’d add them when signing something by hand: Bárány.

  The accents were missing.

  “You could have faked this,” said Jacob, careful even now to avoid direct accusations. You did fake it, he was thinking.

  “I didn’t have to. That’s ridiculous, Jake. Listen, I just want you to know that my heart goes out to the two of you, okay? It’s rough to lose a company, especially…I mean, that’s never happened to me. Nevertheless. You’ll have a very comfortable accommodation budget, and please, feel free to pick anywhere in Bijaspace to settle down. You know our campus on Earth, obviously, but we’ve also got territory on Nephele, Keto, Phrixus, Concordia, Ararat, Irem—”

  “Ezra would never agree to work for you.”

  “—one new colony on Lacombe, two on Brébeuf, and now, of course, Perdigon. That’s a rough climate out there. Some of that gas got in my mouth, can you believe that? Disgusting. But once we get some compounds built and rebuilt, the outside atmo won’t be a big deal.”

  Jacob interrupted again. “Magnus. Ezra would never agree to this. And I’m not signing a document of, of this length and complexity without—I want a lawyer. I’m not signing without a lawyer. And I want to see my husband.”

  “Fine. Personally, my pick is Ararat. Fantastic spaces, some really great restaurant scenes. But definitely you’ll want to settle on Nephele if you like the beach. You don’t look like you like the beach.”

  “Yeah, I don’t, and I don’t actually care very much what you think about it. You can’t…do what you’re trying to do, Magnus,” Jacob said, gripping the edge of the table. “Do you think I don’t know what Ezra’s like? He didn’t sign this, and if he did—if he did…”

  “What?”

  “He had a good reason. If he did.”

  “Then you should fall in line with whatever he’s planning,” said Magnus. “Shouldn’t you?”

  Jacob let out a sound that he used to make when he worked for Bija—a sigh, no vibration of the vocal cords, explosively delivered but very quiet. Taltos allowed him greater latitude of emotional expression. “Well?” he said finally. “By all means, Magnus, if you persuaded Ezra using nothing more than talk, you can go ahead and make the same pitch to me.”

  “I asked him whether the two of you plan to have kids someday. He said—oh, this’ll be fun. You ever play the Newlywed Game, Jake?”

  Jacob sank lower in his chair. “He probably said I want to adopt.”

  “Bingo.”

  “Just because…well. Obviously.” Men weren’t really supposed to have biological clocks—just something about the planting seasons of forage crops such as oats—but Jacob still felt like he only had so much time. If he could save another kid from a life like his own, it would have been enough. “I’m afraid my genetic material is probably riddled with red flags.”

  “That’s valid. Newlywed Game: does Ezra want kids?”

  “No. Or I don’t…he might have changed his mind,” said Jacob, a little less certain of this answer. “He’s always been…afraid of doing poorly, I think, when he’s around kids. But he got used to them. He might have had a change of heart, so…we could talk about that, later, if he wants to. I suppose.”

  “Interesting. Do you always just…” Magnus shrugged, waved a hand. “Do what he wants?”

  “That’s not at all what I just described, actually.”

  “It’s the bottom line, though.”

  “I say no to him whenever I want,” said Jacob. “And the rest of the time I’m supportive. I’m sorry you find that so hard to believe.”

  “You never did have a backbone. You belonged to me until I got bored of you.” Magnus had not changed tone or expression. “And that injured your vanity, didn’t it? So you went and found some twitchy little lunatic who was never, ever going to stop needing you. You can keep wiping the drool off his cheek for forty years. Great, congrats. But I want you to remember that you wouldn’t even have him if not for me. You’d still be on the street, in your cute little off-the-rack separates, shopping that résumé around, looking for ass to eat.”

  There was a mirror along one wall, obviously hiding cameras. Jacob could see himself in his peripheral vision, slumped in his plastic chair, wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt from a Bija linen service, hollow-eyed, hair a mess. He looked a lot like Jake Ross used to look, back when Magnus had first met him. It was an easy mistake to make.

  “You remembered my name at first,” Jacob said. “Just like now, you used it all the time even in direct conversation. When it wasn’t necessary. Because you thought it was funny.”

  “Not funny, necessarily,” said Magnus, watching him. “It was cute that you wanted to be taken so seriously. When you’re such a naturally ridiculous person. I mean that affectionately, but you are. So earnest. It had to be Jacob. You didn’t like diminutives.”

  Jacob could have argued that point, but he didn’t take the bait. “Do you remember the first time—your executive bathroom?” he said instead, and the shame of saying it aloud was blinding but he pressed through it anyway. “I don’t blame you if you don’t. You wouldn’t be the first powerful man to have a selective memory.”

  “I remember.”

  “While I was riding the elevator…up to your suite. One of the coders was with me as far as the twenty-ninth floor. He only looked at me once, then not at all. And when he got off at his floor he said, ‘bye Jacob,’ just like that. I thought it was strange. I’d never met him. Who was this guy? And how did he know my name? A few days later, you were ignoring me. Pretending not to even remember who I was. And I thought…” Jacob had closed his eyes to remember, summoning that first blurred glimpse of his husband. His me
mory had never been very sharp, which he had always considered a blessing. “I thought ‘that’s so strange,’ and that was it. I was too busy being curious about the mystery. About this stranger from the elevator who did know my name. And I wasn’t…interested in you anymore. At all. You meant to cut me, and I wasn’t cut. Ezra did that for me. Do you understand?”

  “All right,” Magnus said, sliding his chair back from the table and standing up. “This is too embarrassing for you, I can’t stay here.”

  “It’s just the truth, I’m not embarrassed.”

  “Enough. If you want to be obstructive about the paperwork, then I guess I’ll see you in court. If you want to call a lawyer, ask somebody for permission to place a longsat call. If you want to see Ezra, put in a request on level nine. If you want to waste my valuable time again, good fucking luck with that.”

  He left, closing the door behind him, and the automatic lock made a kerchunk sound as it slammed to.

  Alone in the blue room, Jacob folded his arms on the table to make a pillow, and put his head down. Maybe the missing acute accents meant nothing at all. Maybe Ezra did have a plan; maybe Jacob had spoiled it all. Maybe a little bit of strategic submission to Magnus’s whims and hungers would have saved them. He didn’t know.

  Chapter 8

  Le Nez de Cléopatre

  Nobody at Bija would admit that they were holding Jacob in custody. The beefy security guard and officious clerk said the same thing: “Of course you’re free to go at any time, Mr. Roth.”

  But he wasn’t free at all, because where could he go? He had no way off the station. Ships docked and departed all the time, according to the arrivals screen in the central hub, but Jacob couldn’t book one. He had the clothes on his back and nothing more. His phone was dead, his tablet bricked; even the chips in his bank cards were scrambled by the EMP pulse from the crash of the Handsome Lake.