Loralynn Kennakris 4: Apollyon's Gambit

by Owen R. O'Neill

“Maralena dear,” Min said, lounging against one of the counters. “No one will know the difference.”

  “They’ll know,” Vasquez said over her shoulder. Min winced at the tone and returned to her drink. They all sipped together.

  “How many are you making?” Kris asked, looking at the oven racks and size of the vat of dough Min had been kneading.

  “A small batch,” Vasquez answered. “Not more than three hundred.”

  “Then you’re expecting a lot of company,” Kris said and felt instantly guilty. She hadn’t wanted to bring that up.

  Vasquez didn’t seem to notice. “Only about forty or fifty. Lev and his family. Some of their friends, some of Min’s and a few of the regiment.” She walked back to the counter, refilled her glass from the bottle next to Min. “We were hoping you would stay.”

  Kris twirled her glass between her fingers. “I—ah . . . I wasn’t really planning . . .”

  Vasquez leaned back into the curve of Min’s arm, which circled around her to come to rest naturally on her outer hip. “You’d be welcome.”

  “You would,” Min repeated. “Another hand for the dough.”

  “I wouldn’t want to be in the way.”

  Vasquez looked up at Min, back at Kris. “You wouldn’t be in the way.”

  Kris looked around at the kitchen, warm and cozy despite its size. The smell of empanadas baking, the soft glow of amontillado in her empty stomach, the play of afternoon light on wood and stone, the two women across from her conversing with the curve of an eyebrow, a quirk of the mouth, a private touch. So this was what home felt like—what the foreign phrase at home meant. Minerva Lewis, in her welcome to Kris, had said perhaps more than she knew.

  Kris drained her glass and set it on the polished countertop, intersecting a beam of sunlight. The crystal splashed bits of rainbow across the kitchen walls. She thought of another sun, scattering light through other windows, painting other walls . . . The light that shone on Huron’s face at breakfast that morning would not touch Iona’s skies for another nine-hundred years. But maybe someday . . . Home.

  “Okay, sure. Thanks. I’d love to.”

  Three: Arizona Sunset

  Northern California Territory

  Western Federal District, Terra, Sol

  The flyer whispered over the western Pacific at twelve thousand meters closing in on dawn and the coast of Northern America. Despite the fact that Kris now possessed two fully functional arms—Dr. VelSilinjes had succeeded in recalling her neurons to their duty—it flew on autopilot, much to her annoyance. Terran traffic control would not allow human-piloted aircraft except in the most exceptional circumstances and not even then for the restricted space she was approaching, and as much as she hated trusting software created by god-knows-who—probably someone who’d never ventured outside their cube—it simply was not worth arguing.

  The flight from the CEF base at Pearl Harbor to the Terran navy command center cosmodrome at Beale was only a 165 minutes, but that was a 165 minutes with nothing to do but think and feel her apprehension mount. Up until she’d arrived at Lunar 1, she felt only anticipation, but on the ride down the full force of what she was contemplating settled upon her, compacted and intensified by years of memories and especially by the past two months.

  Most of those two months had been spent on Iona, officially on medical leave, undergoing therapy at Dr. VelSilinjes’ clinic and sharing the hospitality of Vasquez and Minerva Lewis at Lev Anson’s summer house in the Traumerei Mountains. This stay was Kris’s first exposure to home life since before she hit puberty and even then, growing up on Parson’s Acre had offered nothing like the solid frank well-adjusted domesticity of these two women, who just happened to be two of the most lethal individuals the League’s military owned.

  The memory she most strikingly retained—of Corporal Vasquez arranging wildflowers in an opal vase before breakfast, wearing a short silk robe and being teased about it by Colonel Lewis, wearing nothing at all, until Vasquez whipped off the robe and in that moment of distraction neatly swept the colonel’s legs from under her and pinned her to the kitchen floor; both of them laughing about it for days after—was a vision of domestic harmony that some might find unusual but whose forthright soundness few could question.

  It also bore little resemblance to her relationship with Huron, that little being that Minerva Lewis was a colonial like herself and Vasquez was, like Huron, a privileged Homeworlder from an rich and eminent family. But neither she nor Huron could be remotely described as domesticated, although his essentially unlimited resources meant that his semi-nomadic existence had a character unrecognizable to mere mortals. But the fact of the matter was that although Huron owned residences scattered over some tens of worlds, he did not actually seem to live in any of them—he was a perpetual visitor wherever he went, except aboard ship. Like Kris, ships were the real homes he’d had for all his adult life.

  What role this peripaticity played in waking the longing that had gestated deep within her—and that she feared could only be fully understood by the act of putting it forever out of reach—she couldn’t tell. But the longing and the fear bred strain, and finally grew past bearing until she had to retreat into what she knew best: the highly ordered disciplined rigorous violence of frontline combat that left so little time to prosecute these private inner conflicts that outer peace left her to fight, often in darkness, always alone.

  In these last two months of quiet; of a serenity that she observed and to some extent shared but did nothing to create, they all came back with redoubled force. Even as her arm healed, her heart divided. As soon as Dr. VelSilinjes declared she was happy, Kris had contacted Huron, still in his billet on Weyland Station. He’d responded with a dinner invitation.

  Five days later they were sharing a companionable meal at a happily obscure little restaurant Huron favored. She had expected some amount of awkwardness, perhaps even prickly reserve, but what little there was—and almost all of it on her side—soon evaporated and by dessert Kris was acutely aware of Huron’s presence across the small table. That same old lazy heat was stirring between them and she was taken aback by how much she’d missed it. Furrowing the cream of her ginger-brandy trifle with her fork, she had puzzled over how to reconcile the request she’d planned to make with a different, and she thought contradictory, impulse.

  Huron had looked at her over a spoonful of Antiguan chocolate bombe and made a tactful inquiry. She’d looked down, cross-hatched her trifle, stumbled over a few opening syllables, then blurted: “I was—ah—hoping maybe you could still get me Mariwen’s address.” And he’d taken a card from his pocket and slid it across the table to her.

  “She’s still under protective custody, but that will get you there. Here’s the passcode.” He put a small sealed envelope on top of the card.

  Blushing, she’d been afraid to look up. “How’d you know?” Holding on to this for a year?

  “Figured you’d want it at some point.” His quiet smile, when she did look up, held no judgments. Minutes later, they left the remains of dessert on the table and walked out together on the way to her lodgings.

  It was not until after her transport had cleared into lunar orbit a week later that she broke the envelope’s seal and pulled out the tiny slip of plaspaper. It read: Arizona Sunset.

  The flyer made a mechanically smooth landing in obedience to direction from Beale ATC and she removed the chip from the autopilot, popped the canopy, and climbed out on to the western field’s apron. The sun was just lifting free of the mountains and it put long shadows across the paving. A senior chief petty officer from Logistics was there to meet her, holding a chit.

  “Says here you requested no driver, Commander?”

  “That’s correct, Chief.”

  “And you’ll be wanting to retain the vehicle rather than pinging for a pick up?”

  “If that’s convenient.”

  “Absolutely, Commander.” He handed over the chit. “If you can just sign for me, we’ll ge
t you on your way.” Kris did and as she handed the chit back, a dark gray groundcar pulled up and settled down on its skirts. The driver got out and held the door for her. “You’ll exit by Yeager Gate—that’s north—and take the old Hammonton road east-a-half-north. Don’t be surprised if the grid wants to reconfirm your access codes once you get clear of the base.” Kris nodded. “Good day, ma’am.”

  Kris thanked him, slid into the driver’s seat and swiped the card Huron had given her over the console. The car rose up purring. She engaged the engines, the HUD winked to life and car moved off at a stately pace.

  * * *

  Cruising over a winter landscape different than any she’d seen in Michigan—broad fields of dry pale grass and rolling hills with gnarled naked trees, black in the hazy lemon-colored light of the low winter sun; to the east, steep mountains thick with evergreens, showing the gleam of snow at their peaks; all under the bright blue dome of the sky, innocent of any cloud—Kris’s thoughts continued to turn back on themselves. Why had she launched into this wild flight, crossing half of Charted Space to visit a woman she had not seen in almost five years? A woman she’d known for only a matter of weeks; a woman who’d gone through an unimaginable trauma—unimaginable even to Kris—leaving . . . what?

  Her hand strayed to the thin dog-eared burden in the interior pocket of her uniform jacket: Mariwen’s letter, never answered because there was no answer besides herself and for years she wasn’t ready. Maybe she still wasn’t ready. And what about Mariwen? She’d sent a message from Eltanin Sector HQ just before embarking and hadn’t gotten the response until she arrived in-system. It conveyed nothing but polite acceptance. Now, as the car bore her on with a feeling of approaching a sensed but unseen precipice, her brain would draw out and present to her mind memories of those weeks with Mariwen. Some were the literal stuff of nightmares; others, feelings very young in nature—the first stirrings of a girl left far behind. But overarching and piercing all, a feeling of events amputated; brutally hacked off and held in stasis. It leant a queer, almost pregnant quality to all these memories, as if they bore seeds she would soon make flesh, releasing acts long formed but waiting. For almost five years—waiting.

  The car came to stop before a modest dwelling on the southern exposure of a low ridge serrated with rocky outcrops. The upper slope was planted thick with a variety of trees, some of them certainly fruit trees she guessed; the lower with what she knew to be grape vines (all dormant), and before the house itself was a well-kept garden wherein a giant tree with smooth gray bark spread heavy twisted boughs possessively over and through the now mostly barren plots, some curving low enough to touch the ground.

  The view had a hint of shimmering iridescence from the active security enclosure that gave it an unreal quality, almost fey. A chill settled in Kris’s stomach as she submitted her credentials and entered the passcode. An aperture opened in the barrier, its edges cracking palest violet in the chill air. She nudged the car through and parked on a semicircle of flag stones from which a cobbled path lead through the garden to the entrance.

  She unsealed the doors and stepped out, uncertain what to do next. The security system would have notified the occupants of her arrival so there was no point in announcing herself. Mariwen would invite her in or she wouldn’t. The air was sharp after the warmth of the car and still damp with morning, but very still. Her breath hung in a cloud as she walked to the front door, mentally ticking off the seconds. If it did not open by forty-five, she would . . .

  The door cracked open, then swung wide and there in the doorway was Mariwen—a shockingly unchanged Mariwen—in a dark sober dress.

  “Hi, Kris.” The same lilting liquid accent, but softer now. “Are you going to come in?”

  * * *

  Kris stepped over the threshold into cool light and warm subtly fragrant air: spice more than floral with the hint of a deeper earth-like note in it. A comforting and highly calibrated fragrance, she thought. The décor felt the same: mostly shades of cream, neutral but not sterile, enlivened with a few jewel-tone accents. Spare, elegant furniture reinforced and completed the overall impression: a painstakingly well-constructed space designed to protect an intense fragility.

  Up close, Kris saw the Mariwen was, in fact, not quite unchanged, but apart from the obvious—her hair was few inches shorter, a shade lighter and quite a bit wavier; she also might have lost a little weight—the changes were not what she’d expected, and not anything she could readily describe or name. Under the overlay of Kris’s memory, she still moved with that perfect grace, her face retained that heartrending beauty, the lips still seemed capable of that dazzling smile, and her eyes—which Kris had so feared to find dulled or muted—were not. If the old spark was not really there, it was not absolutely gone either. But on the whole, all was transposed down a tone or two; shifted into a lower and darker key. If she laughed, Kris wondered what it would sound like.

  “Can I get you a drink?” Mariwen asked.

  Kris, acutely conscious of Mariwen returning her appraisal, quelled an urge to fidget. “Sure.”

  “What would you like?”

  “Ah . . . Maybe sherry, if you have it? Thanks.”

  Mariwen nodded and turned towards the high archway that separated the kitchen from the large airy living space, saying, “Make yourself at home.” She gestured down a side hall with one hand. “And the bathroom’s that way.” Stepping into the arch, she paused to look back again. “It’s good to see you.”

  As Mariwen busied herself in the kitchen—Kris heard the clink of bottles and glasses; the rattle of an opener—she tried to calm her pulse and consider what she’d seen. There was reserve, certainly; a reserve hiding things Kris could only guess at, and if it was cool, at least it was not chilly. There was uncertainty, too, and questions and perhaps some anxiety about the answers to those questions, but these did not disturb the polite and practiced calm.

  But what Kris sensed most was stillness; stillness in the sense of interruption: a feeling akin what she’d felt in the car, or maybe of being on another timeline. The carefully constructed dwelling, its isolation, the timeless environment with its vineyards and fruit trees, all added to it. But the vision of Mariwen herself that had been planted in Kris’s brain was not still or silent. What she saw Mariwen as—what the vigilant stillness cocooned and tried to protect—was a crystal heart, impossibly fragile, and in desperate danger of being shattered by the force of its own beating.

  A calling card chimed. Kris heard Mariwen mutter something brief and pointed, then she leaned back through the archway. “Sorry, this won’t take but a minute. Please look around if you like.”

  Kris smiled and accepted the liberty, wandering about and poking her head into the other rooms. It was all much the same and nowhere in the neat, tidy, and carefully arranged house did Kris see any artifacts of Mariwen’s former life until she happened onto a small office space tucked into an alcove off the living area. There, on a utilitarian desk cluttered with books, hardcopy, a couple of unfinished watercolors and some handwritten scrawls, was a framed old-style flat photograph of a much younger Mariwen, nude and striking a frankly erotic pose. The eyes had a sparkle that hadn’t yet matured into the penetrating electric glance that would become a trademark from Sol to Cygnus Mariner, but the famous smile was already there: teasing, provoking, daring the viewer to stare because—the younger Mariwen seemed to say—you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

  And that’s completely true, Kris said to herself, failing to notice Mariwen coming out of the kitchen with their drinks—a Viura sherry for Kris, a Xarello brandy for herself—in two small cut-crystal cordial glasses.

  “That’s a collector’s item,” Mariwen said as Kris jumped and blushed. Mariwen smiled at the deep hot pink in Kris’s cheeks and nodded towards a divan and its matching chair with a low, highly polished satinwood table between them. “It’s okay. Would you like to sit?”

  They did—Mariwen gracefully, Kris stiffly, holding her drink in both ha
nds and willing it not to shake. Mariwen sipped slowly and considered Kris over the rim of her glass. “You know why I keep that old pic on my desk?”

  Kris dropped her eyes and shook her head. Mariwen set the glass down and leaned forward, elbows on knees, and looked towards the alcove’s entrance. “I keep it there to remind myself that it’s easier to spread your legs for a bunch of strangers than it is to open your heart to a friend.”

  Their eyes locked and Kris’s blush deepened as she saw, in that instant, Mariwen truly naked for the first time. But only for an instant. The cool placid seamless reserve took hold again and Kris took a hasty sip to calm the confused emotions jumping in her throat.

  “Don’t worry,” Mariwen said, picking up her brandy again. “I didn’t expect you to understand.”

  “But—” Kris covered a cough, swallowed hard and put her drink down on the corner of the satinwood table. “But I do.”

  Mariwen watched her, eyes hooded, twirling the glass’s narrow stem in her fingers. The facets of the cut crystal caught a stray shaft of sunlight and splintered it all around the room. Watching the glints dance on the walls, memories entwined with yearning wrapped around Kris’s throat. The silence became palpable, like the sharp thin sound of wire stressed to breaking, and when Kris reached inside her jacket the rustle was almost shocking. The white envelope she took out was worn, creased and chafed with handling. But the little gold wafer was intact and she opened it now as she slid it on the table, looking up into Mariwen’s wide startled eyes.

  “I’m sorry . . .” Mariwen’s throat fluttered and she dropped her head but not before Kris saw the flash of panic. “I—I didn’t know sent you that—it was . . . I was . . . I didn’t mean—I’m really sorry . . .” The hand holding the glass trembled as she stared away at a spot on the floor, the vibrating liquid within shattering the beam of sunlight.

  “No, please.” Kris put out her hand, drawing Mariwen’s gaze back to her. “Please don’t be . . . I’m sorry. I never answered—I wanted to . . . but I thought—I didn’t know—so much had happened. And then . . .”