Last Song (Heinlein's Finches Book 3)

by Robin Banks

  “He was as bad as me!”

  “He shouted, same as you did, and he was rather more vehement than politeness allows for, but he was doing so to defend his friends from an unjust accusation. You started it, he finished it, and all the way through you were in the wrong. Gorgeous, don’t cry. Nothing’s broken.”

  I throw my arms around him and he catches me. It still takes me a while to be able to talk coherently, though based on my recent performance that’s not much of an achievement.

  “I don’t know what it is. Everything about this trip is rotten.”

  He pushes the hair off my face. “You’re far away from home, away from Gwenny and the kids, with people you don’t much like…”

  “I like them well enough!”

  “No, you don’t. You’re trying really hard to like them because you think that’s the right thing to do, but you find Alya too shrill, Raj too privileged, and Luke… I don’t even know where to start with him. You don’t want to be here, you particularly don’t want to be here with them, and the way this station is run offends you to the core. It would offend you just as deeply if you were not personally affected by it, but you are, because I am.”

  I look at him and see pain lines around his mouth. “Are your legs ok?”

  “Yes. No. They hurt, but I’ll be fine. It’s only two damn days and I wasn’t planning to take up jogging. I’ll cope and so will you. Raj got us here to help with our mission and is doing his best to get us out of here as quickly as he can. He doesn’t like this any better than we do and he feels guilty about it, which we don’t have to, even though we’re hardly fighting to overthrow the system.”

  “We don’t support it, though.”

  “We have in the past, all of us and me most of all. Now we have the luxury of being able to ignore it most of the time. Raj doesn’t, not if he wants to keep pushing and pulling it in the right direction.”

  “Fighting the system from the inside is a bit convenient.”

  “So is not fighting it at all. Quinn, he doesn’t owe us anything. None of them do. If anyone is being entitled here, it’s you. I’m sorry. I love you.”

  He holds me tight while I have another little moment. When I’ve stopped sniffling I step back from him.

  “So what do I do now?”

  “Next time you see Luke, you apologize. You’ll most likely see him before Raj and Alya come back. You’ll be able to sort this all out with very little harm done.”

  “What if he doesn’t accept my apologies?”

  “Then you’ll have to live with that, but I think he will. He’s no stranger to speaking out of turn.” He says that with a smile. “You’ll be ok. You’ve had your big fight, and now you can get on with being best enemies.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense!”

  “Maybe. But as long as it works, I don’t care.”

  “It’s going to suck.”

  “Yes. And then it’ll be over. If you want to make sure that he doesn’t flip out, you can try and catch him in a public place. It’s not as if he’s hard to track. Just walk as far as you can as fast as you can down the main drag until you run out of puff and look around. I’m willing to bet you’ll find him at the nearest coffee place.”

  “You’re not joking, are you?”

  “Not in the least. Or you can wait until he comes back to the ship. I can make myself scarce.”

  “I’ll try and catch him. I could do with a walk anyway.”

  “You watch out, ok? It might be rough out there. Do you want me to come with you?”

  “I think I’ll manage.”

  “Do you have your wrist darts on?”

  “Of course. And I can shout for help as well as the next person. I’ll be ok. Where are you off to?”

  Asher beams me a smile. “Not far. I’m going to head straight down to the nearest bar. There’s bound to be some godsforsaken dive around the corner somewhere, otherwise fliers would be at risk of taking their earnings home. There’ll be pilots telling tall tales, and mine have the distinctive advantage of being totally true, apart from the made-up bits. It’ll be fun. In the olden days, before you lot made an honest man out of me, I would have gotten roaringly drunk. Now I can’t, so I won’t. I shall nurse a drink and enjoy the scenery instead. Care to join me after you’ve done with Luke?”

  “I might need half of your drink, if I manage to find him. If I don’t I’ll just have a walk around. I can go and stare at things we can’t afford.”

  I’m trying to make a joke, but I guess it doesn’t come out sounding that funny because Asher’s smile fades.

  “Is this what this whole thing was about?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. Not all of it, maybe, but it was part of it. It’s bad enough being treated like a lesser life form without being poor. I want to see things in shops, see something you, Gwen, or the kids may like, and be able to buy it. I want you to have fun, and not to have to worry about it. I want you to get so thoroughly wasted that I’d have to spend the night watching you vomit.”

  “I didn’t think that was much of a spectator sport.”

  “It isn’t. But watching you have fun is. Asher, we are nobodies and we don’t have jack shit.”

  “It’s never bothered you before.”

  “It doesn’t bother me at home. Nobody’s got jack shit there. I’m jealous. I resent Raj and Alya because they can have anything they want and even more because they’d share with us if we asked them. But of course we can’t ask them, because that’d be humiliating. They could pay for us to have a lovely time here and not even notice. It all makes me so damn angry. We work our asses off, we do our best, we haven’t got shit, and it’s mortifying to admit it. It’s not fair.”

  “Come here, pet.” He wraps his arms around me and leans his head on mine. “I’m sorry. This isn’t much fun for you, is it?”

  “It would be if I wasn’t being peevish and immature. We’re off exploring. I should be enjoying myself.”

  “I don’t think you’re being unreasonable. I’m sorry things are how they are. I wish I could promise you that they will change, but I can’t. I’m failing you all.”

  “Not this again.” I pull away from him so I can look at him. “You’re not the only adult in the household. Don’t get all Terran at me. Gwen might put up with it, but I won’t. You’ve been bringing most of the credit home since Jojo was born.”

  “Yes. And in the meanwhile all you’ve been doing is keeping my wife and kids alive. You’re such a godsdamned slacker.”

  “Our wife and kids. I’m serious: if you carry on like this you’re going to make me very angry.”

  “I wouldn’t dare. I don’t think I could survive it.” He sighs and a good half of his grin comes back. “Hey, I have an idea. We ought to get you a kissing booth.”

  “A what?”

  “Kissing booth. A credit for a kiss. You’d make a fortune. I could get wasted in no time.”

  “Don’t be horrid. You’d never suggest such a thing to Gwen.”

  “Hell no, I wouldn’t: she’d gut me. But with you I can get away with it. You’d like it, anyway. You’d actively enjoy kissing the people you find attractive, and you’d kiss the unattractive ones to make them happy and enjoy yourself that way. I could get blissfully plastered and the most you’d suffer would be sore lips.”

  “Cut it out!”

  “If I have to. I guess I’m going to have to kiss you myself, then.”

  He does. The man is absolutely impossible.

  “It’s very hard to stay angry at my life when you do that, you know?”

  “Because you like it?”

  “Because it cuts down the blood flow to my brain. Get away with you! Go find somewhere suitably awful where you’ll fit right in. I may catch up with you later. I think a stroll will do me good. I need to reorganize my head. Not being stuck in the royal family’s gilded carriage may help.”

  He smirks and gives me another kiss. He doesn’t rush it, either. When he lets go of me I watch
him make his way down the ramp, as bouncy as humanly possible in this g-force. He looks happy enough, but I can nearly see his ass through his trousers, they’re worn that thin. I feel another surge of anger towards some indefinite higher power. If anyone deserves a good life, it’s Asher. No part of this is fair.

  I start walking down the spaceport. I let my frustration set my pace and it doesn’t take me very long to run out of puff, if not out of anger. I know that Asher was only half serious when he suggested this as a Luke-hunting strategy, but that doesn’t mean that he was wrong, so I give it a shot. There is a plethora of bars around here at various levels of terminally rough. I peer through the windows of a few of them, wondering whether it’s a healthy behavior for me to engage in, before I spot him. He’s sitting nursing a steaming cup, looking as blank as usual. I’m never going to hear the end of this when I tell Asher how right he was.

  I barge into the bar without giving myself a chance to think about it, because I know that if I let myself I’ll find a reason not to do this. I walk right up to Luke and lean over his table. He looks up at me with barely a sign that he’s recognized me, let alone that he’s surprised at my being there. It’s like talking to a statue. It doesn’t make it any easier to say what I need to say.

  “Everything I said about Raj and Alya was uncalled for. I’m angry about a bunch of stuff and I took it out on them. It was despicable on my part.”

  He nods curtly. “Ok.”

  “What do you mean, ok?”

  “I hear you. It’s cool.”

  “What, that’s it?”

  He blinks rapidly. “What else should there be?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought it’d be more complicated.”

  “I can’t manage complicated right now. Do you want a coffee?”

  “What?”

  “Coffee. Hot beverage. Other options are also available. The barman is eyeballing you. When people come to bars, then normally have a drink.”

  “Oh.” I feel a blush coming on. I know he won’t be able to see it but I still wish I could stop it. I don’t want to tell him the truth, but I don’t want to insult him, either, so the truth will have to do. I owe him as much. “I can’t afford one. We don’t have any credit.”

  His face freezes for a moment. “Shit. You told Raj about that?”

  “No. I’d appreciate you not telling him either.”

  A corner of his mouth lifts up. “Now that you asked me not to, I can’t. Can I buy you a drink?”

  “I don’t think…”

  He cuts me off. “Quinn, sit down or get out. This isn’t doing anyone any good. I really, really need not to draw attention to myself right now, ok?”

  I slide on the bench across from him. “What? Why?”

  “Go and get your drink first, then I’ll show you, if I have to. But you have to promise not to freak out.”

  “But…”

  He closes his eyes. “Drink. Get me one too. Coffee, black. It’s been a long day.” He drops some credit on the table. “Please?”

  I get the drinks and come back as quickly as I can. “What is it?”

  “If you freak out, you could get me in the shit.”

  “I won’t!”

  “Ok, then.”

  He opens his hands up around his coffee cup. In one of them sits a small plastic vial with a needle at the end of it.

  “What the hell is that?”

  “It’s the proof that reality is weirder than fiction. A free sample. Two enterprising young men collared me just outside the port. Apparently they thought I’d make a good customer, or at least a good contact. This is what being rich is like? People give you free drugs?”

  “What the hell?”

  “I know, right? Where I come from, you’ve gotta work hard to get this shit.” He’s keeping perfectly still, but his voice is getting shaky.

  “Is that dust?”

  “Nah. Maybe I don’t fit the profile for that. At least we know I fit a profile, though. Isn’t that just splendid?”

  His eyes flash upwards and meet mine for a moment, and I realize how agitated he is: they are showing more white than blue.

  “Chuck it out.”

  “What? It’s worth something.”

  “So what? It’s not as if you’re going to sell it on or give it away to someone in need. Chuck it out!”

  “You don’t even know what it is, do you?”

  “No, and I don’t want to.”

  I’ve had enough of this. I snatch the vial out of his hand, crush it under my cup, and push the bits off the table. I’m sure they’ll blend in beautifully with the rest of the filth in this place. I hardly make any noise and the only sign that anything untoward happened is yet another smudgy ring on the table, but I seem to really startle him. I take a close look at him and I really lose my shit. Being unable to raise my voice here makes it even harder for me to manage my anger.

  “You were not going to take that, were you?”

  “No. I couldn’t do that to Alya.”

  “But you could do that to yourself?”

  He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even acknowledge that I asked him a question. He just sits there sipping his coffee like nothing at all is the matter, even though his eyes are all over the place. I wish I could punch him. I’m so lost visualizing my fist impacting against his face that when he speaks he catches me by surprise.

  “That thing you did. How do you do it?”

  “What thing?”

  “In your shed. When you projected at us.”

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “Too complicated for someone slow like me?”

  “It’s not that! The terminology to explain it just isn’t there. My psi-bility doesn’t quite compare to other senses. In essence, I overlay a feeling over yours, like you could with a noise or a smell. If the feeling I project is strong enough, it can mask yours completely. In the short term it’s enough to faze most people. It didn’t seem to faze you, though.”

  “Yeah, well, it caught up with me later. Is it hard to do?”

  “Not really. It depends. It can be hard to do well. I have to be able to focus. That’s partly why I meditate.”

  “Could you do it again?”

  “What? Why?”

  His face goes blank. “Because I’m asking you nicely?”

  “That doesn’t seem enough of a reason, particularly after you specifically asked me to keep my psi-bility away from you.”

  “Do you have to read me to project?”

  “No, but I can’t be shielding either. I can’t project and read at the same time, though: the projecting takes most of my attention. And if I want to send something only to you, we have to be touching. Otherwise I’d be zapping everyone near us. I’m not going to do that.”

  “Shit. That’s a deal-breaker, then. We wouldn’t want to, like, touch or anything. You could catch something.”

  He says it totally tonelessly, which ramps my anger up another notch. I grab his hand and project at him before I realize that he’s using reverse psychology that should have stopped working on me when I was a toddler. I’m so irate that I have to force myself to be gentle with my projection. I’m still nowhere near as gentle as I normally am, yet he doesn’t seem in any way upset. When I stop projecting he just sags a little.

  “Can you do that again?”

  “If you tell me what the hell you’re doing, maybe.”

  “I’m just trying to figure out how it works, is all.”

  “Alright.” I start projecting again, more gently this time. After a little while his expression changes and I feel something climbing up our contact point. It’s as startling and eerie as grabbing a door handle and feeling it grab you back.

  I wrench my hand away from his, breaking our contact, and shield as tight as I can. He looks at me in hurt and confusion for a moment before putting back on his death mask.

  “What?”

  “You were projecting at me.”

  “The hell you say. I can’t proje
ct.”

  “Well, you were doing something.”

  “I was just trying to do what you were doing.”

  “What? What the hell made you think that was a good idea? Without asking me first?”

  “I didn’t think I could do anything you’d notice,” he hisses. “I didn’t think I could do anything at all. I thought that if I could work out what you did to me, then I could do it to myself.”

  “And why the fuck would you want to do that?”

  A dark form suddenly looms over me and blocks the light coming from the bar. “Lovers’ tiff, is it?”

  I’ve been so focused on Luke that the words come at me out of nowhere. I recognize the tone, though, and my stomach sinks. I’ve been me for long enough to know that some people object not only to my behavior, but to my very existence, and that some of them aren’t shy about letting me feel their displeasure. The ones who struggle to use their words sometimes elect to use their fists to drive that message home.

  I turn around as slowly as I can to look at today’s asshole. I don’t want him to know that he startled me. Unsurprisingly, he’s not alone. There are two more goons behind him, at various levels of burly and bellicose. This is going to suck.

  I’m still trying to think of a way out of this when Luke leans back in his seat and grins.

  “What if it is?”

  “Is she your girlfriend?”

  “Maybe. Why, are you jealous? Lonely?”

  Chief Goon is unimpressed by the witticism.

  “Maybe. Maybe I ought to give her a try.”

  “I don’t think so. I’m not the sharing kind.”

  Luke gets up, steps off from behind the table, and stretches to his full height. He’s one of those tall guys who don’t treat their height as something that should matter, so he doesn’t generally read anywhere near as tall as he is. Right now, though, he’s towering over the three goons and it doesn’t look like he’s doing it by accident. I don’t know what the hell he’s planning, but if he was aiming for de-escalation then his technique really sucks. He’s still got that smug grin on his face, too. They all turn to face him and brace up.