by Amy Thomson
"I thought I was over her, Samad," Florio said. "I knew she had lived a long time, but she never really seemed old before. Seeing her like this, it—" He shook his head and took a deep pull from a bottle of the potent local cider. "How can you stand it?" he asked.
"She's my mother, Florio. Maybe that makes it easier to accept. But it's just as hard as losing Abeha. Worse, in some ways. When Teller goes, it'll be my last link with Abeha. With Thalassa, too, I guess." He looked up at the rising moon and sighed.
"You're still determined to become a pilot?" Florio asked.
"It's been my dream for a long time. I've only waited because of Teller."
Florio took another pull of his cider. "God, I'll miss you, Samad."
"But you have Juana and the kids," Samad reminded him.
"I do indeed. Some days it's all that keeps me anchored to this world," he confessed. "I envy you a bit. You'll get to see so much. Bring some of it back here to share with the rest of us." Florio got up a little unsteadily. "I'm starting to feel that wicked cider of yours. Time for me to turn in. Good night, Samad."
Florio left shortly after breakfast, walking down the long drive. Teller and Samad sat on the porch and watched until he was out of sight.
"Well, that's another thread cut," was all Teller said. But Samad could see the sheen of unshed tears in her eyes.
The late-summer heat was broken by a sudden thunderstorm. The weather turned cool and cloudy, and then the fall rains began in earnest. One of the apprentices came down with a cold after a trip to the village. Despite all their care, Teller caught it as well. It rapidly developed into pneumonia. She refused all treatment except some mild pain medication and a little supplementary oxygen to make her more comfortable.
"I appreciate your concern, but it's time for me to go," she said in response to the doctor's suggestions. "I'm in no pain and that's the important thing. Samad, come sit by me for a while."
He sat in the familiar chair by her bed.
"It won't be long now, Samad," she told him and paused to get her breath back. "Pneumonia's gentle and not too uncomfortable." Another pause for breath. "At least so far." She looked up at him. Her expressive eyes looked tired, her
face seemed haggard. Her lips were tinged with blue. "We've already said it all. Several times."
Samad nodded. "Si, mi madre. But I still love you."
Teller smiled, a radiant, room-lighting smile. "I know. And I love you." She drew another breath. "Don't waste time grieving for me." Breath. "The world—" A pause, searching for words and breath together. "The universe is too beautiful. Life is too short. Even mine."
He nodded, stroking her hand, trying not to cry. She lifted her hand and put her fingers to his cheeks and gently thumbed the tears away.
"You won't forget what you promised? About talking to the pilots?"
Samad shook his head. "Of course not."
"Thank you, mijito. Thank you for everything."
Samad nodded and squeezed her hand. He wanted desperately to say something, anything, but there were no words for how much he was feeling.
Teller looked at him and put her fingers to his lips. "I know," she said. "I know."
They sat together in silence, holding hands for a long while. Eventually Samad realized that she was asleep. He tiptoed out.
Later that day Teller's fever rose. She slipped in and out of consciousness. There was one moment when she awoke, looked at him with deep, knowing lucidity and said, "Tell Abeha to remember me with love. I'm sorry I couldn't wait for him."
"I will," Samad reassured her, hair prickling on the back of his neck. "It's all right, Teller, I'll tell Abeha for you." He smoothed her anxious forehead. "Sleep now, Mamacita. I'll be here if you need me."
"Thank you, mijito," she said and slid into unconsciousness again.
Samad sat beside her all that day and the next as Teller's life slowly ebbed. The apprentices slipped in and out bringing food, water, and whatever comfort they could. By the evening of the second day, she was deep in a coma, her breathing wet and labored. Samad sat beside her bed, keeping vigil. Sometime late in the night he fell asleep. He awoke in a gray, watery dawn, aware that something had changed. He looked at Teller and realized that she had stopped breathing. He put his head to her chest, listening for a heartbeat, felt at her throat for a pulse, and found only cooling stillness.
He sat staring at Teller's bony, worn-out corpse, feeling oddly light and unreal. It was finally here, the moment he had both dreaded and looked forward to. He was finally free. And he was utterly alone.
CHAPTER 14
THE FUNERAL AND THE VERY FEW LOOSE ends that Teller left behind after her death were all taken care of. Samad checked the dark, silent farmhouse one more time to make sure that everything was turned off and safely stowed. Then he hefted his pack onto his back. He closed and locked the door behind him. After hanging the key on a hook by the door, he started down the slope. The Guild would take over and maintain the house as a retreat for storytellers. Thirty years from now, someone would "discover" Teller's archives. By then, Samad supposed he would be long gone. He draped his brightly colored storyteller's cloak over his shoulders to keep off the light autumn drizzle, picked up his staff, and walked down the porch steps.
He walked quickly from the house, shoulders hunched into the load of his pack. He did not look back. He wanted to remember the house as it was when Teller was alive, not as the darkened, desolate place it seemed now. He strode
down the long, half-overgrown track leading away from the house and onto the road that led to Bonifacio's small harbor. From there, he would take a ship to Nueva Ebiza. And then he would deal with his last promise to Teller. But for now his life would consist of one step in front of the other. He felt empty as an old, weathered, burlap sack hanging on a fence line, the sort of thing shepherds hung up during lambing season and then forgot. He smiled. That's what he was, and that's what he wanted to be: forgotten, even by himself.
A small, prim black-and-white nameplate over the doorbell welcomed the visitor to Our Lady of Perpetual Devotion Mission, run by Father Russell. Samad hesitated a moment, his finger wavering over the doorbell. This promise was the last thing that tied him to Teller, and he was oddly reluctant to free himself. He smoothed his hair back nervously, then rang the bell.
A fine-boned woman in her late forties answered the door. "Can I help you?"
"Is Father Russell here?"
"I'm Father Russell," she told him with a wide, distinctly unclerical grin. "How may I help you?"
"It's kind of an odd request, ah, Father."
"We get those from time to time here," she said. "Why don't you come into my office and we'll talk about it over some coffee. We make good coffee. It seems to attract lost souls."
Father Russell ushered him into a comfortably shabby room lined with bookshelves overflowing with well-thumbed books. She motioned him into a battered leather armchair beside a small table set with a chessboard. A wimpled novice in a snow-white habit brought in a small tray with coffee and a plate of ginger cookies. Samad glanced at the novice, and then looked again.
"You look familiar—" Samad began.
"Perhaps it was in my former life," the nun replied in a husky contralto. "I'm Sister Valencia now." There was a note of finality in that statement that invited Samad to rein in his curiosity. But he remembered where he had seen Sister Valencia before. She had been in one of the omophilos cruising grounds near the port, wearing only a leather harness and metal jewelry in improbable places. And Sister Reynolds had been most unquestionably male.
"Thank you, Sister Valencia," Father Russell said, fixing Samad with a quelling look that reminded him painfully of Teller, though this slender, birdlike woman was nothing at all like her.
Sister Valencia left the room, closing the door.
"I'm sorry. I think I met Sister Valencia under rather different circumstances," Samad began. "I hadn't realized how liberal the Catholic Church had
become."
"We're not quite that liberal. But I thought that Sister Valencia should be given a chance to sort out"—she paused, hovering over the pronoun—"his vocation," she finally finished. "It's not like the other sisters' chastity is in any danger, is it?" she confided, pouring coffee. "I've, ah, sent word of my spiritual dilemma to the Mother Church in Rome. Unfortunately, it wound up going by slow freight. Hopefully, Sister Valencia will have worked out her vocation one way or another by the time my letter reaches Rome."
"It should be interesting," Samad remarked dryly.
"What was it you said you wanted, Mr.—?"
"Bernardia. Abd-al Samad Bernardia. Call me Samad," he told her. "The Storytellers' Guild gave me your name."
"Ah yes, the Guild said you might contact me."
"Do you still work with retired Jump pilots?"
"Among other people in need, yes." Father Russell admitted warily. "But Jump pilots are a special case." She
looked distant and very sad for a moment. "They have such physical riches and such empty souls," she murmured. Then, returning to the present: "Why are you interested in retired Jump pilots?"
"I want to become a pilot, but I promised my mother that I'd talk to some retired pilots before I committed myself. She died about a month ago."
"I'm very sorry to hear that Samad."
Samad shrugged, not really wanting to talk about Teller yet.
"You know, not everyone can be a Jump pilot," Russell began carefully.
"I've been tested," Samad assured her. "I'm Talented."
"I see," she began. "And you're sure this is what you want?"
Samad shrugged, then nodded. "All I need to do is talk to a couple of retired pilots to fulfill my promise, and then I can go start my training."
"Well then," she said, activating her comp unit.
Samad waited while she frowned severely at the screen and tapped some keys. "Aha!" she said, at last. "Here we are." She flipped the screen so that he could see it. There was a long list of names. Beside all but three the word deceased blinked in red letters.
"We don't have very many pilots in our active lists at the moment, Samad. Usually we don't release names like this, but the Guild has assured me of your discretion. And who knows? Perhaps you'll distract them from their self-destruction for a bit." She tapped another key, and the printer hummed. She pulled the sheet from the printer. "One of the things I like about Thalassa is that you still use paper. Everyone else prints out on plastic, and I hate the slick feel of it." She looked up at him, her blue eyes serious. "Don't expect too much when you visit these pilots. They're
drunk or drugged most of the time. I'd appreciate it if you could make a point of visiting Eric Kellen. We haven't heard from him for some time, and I'm a bit worried that he's joined the deceased list. We can't do much for the pilots, but we try to keep them alive as long as we can. Where there's life, there's always the possibility of redemption."
"Thank you, Father Russell. It'll be my pleasure to find him for you."
"I doubt it," she said flatly, "but thank you for the trouble you're taking. The Guild said you were extremely trustworthy, or I wouldn't have given you those names. I hope you won't violate that trust by taking advantage of those poor souls."
Eric Kellen was passed out drunk in his apartment. Flies swarmed on the rotting food and dirty dishes in the sink. Samad opened all the windows to air the apartment, then cleaned the unconscious Kellen up with the skill he'd gained from nursing Teller. The mattress was beyond saving, so Samad eased the man onto the couch, its filthiness covered with the only clean sheet Samad could find. Kellen barely stirred as Samad laid him back down.
His patient taken care of, Samad tackled the kitchen. He cleared out the rotting food and washed the dishes. He was finishing up the counters when Kellen awoke.
"Who the hell are you?" Kellen said groggily.
"Father Russell sent me to check up on you. She was worried."
Kellen sat up slowly and looked around the apartment, his face pale and haggard. "Since when do the Jesuits provide maid service?"
Samad shrugged. "It needed doing, so I did it."
"And who was the drunk in your family," he asked cynically.
Samad stared at him for a long moment, too shocked to speak. "My mother. She was a pilot, too. I found her body after she overdosed. I was six years old."
Kellen scrubbed irritably at his face, covered with several days of graying stubble, and looked ruefully up at Samad, standing in the door of the kitchen. "Ah, hell. I'm sorry. I'm just an old drunk shooting off my mouth. You shouldn't pay any attention to me."
Samad shrugged.
"Look, let me buy you breakfast," Kellen offered. '"S the least I can do. Give me a few minutes to get cleaned up and woken up some more."
He staggered into the bathroom. Samad heard retching sounds, then the sound of the shower running for a very long time, and finally a shaver. Then Kellen emerged wrapped in a torn and battered-looking bathrobe, and vanished into the bedroom. He reappeared dressed in wrinkled but serviceable clothes. By then, Samad had made some coffee.
"Thanks, son," Kellen said as he took the steaming cup that Samad held out. "A couple of liters of this stuff, and I'll be nearly human again. C'mon, let's go get some breakfast. There's a cafe at the end of the street that makes really good cinnamon rolls."
"So what was it like, being a pilot?" Samad asked as the waitress poured their coffee.
"Mostly it's a job, like driving a jitney. Go here. Load this. Check that. Make sure life support is running. But then you'd Jump and that—" He shook his head, and his grim, pasty face was suddenly illuminated by a smile as beautiful as it was unexpected. "It was like . . . like . . ." He shook his head. "It was wonderful, more wonderful than you can imagine. But after the Jump, you forgot everything except how wonderful it was, and all you wanted was to Jump
again." He shook his head. "I shaved my leave time, traded ships, bribed people, anything to get back into Jump Space as quickly as possible." His smile vanished as suddenly as it had come, and his face seemed to crumple like wet paper. "But never again. My Talent's gone. Crapped out. I barely made it back alive. I wish to hell I hadn't." He looked at Samad. "That's why I drink. To remember how good it felt to Jump. Or maybe it's to forget how good it was."
"But you're killing yourself," Samad pointed out.
"Hell, kid, we're all dying one day at a time. Besides, what the hell else am I going to do with my life?"
"You could do what other people do with their lives. You could savor good food. Read a book or two. Plant something and watch it grow. Make friends. Fall in love. Raise children."
"Or drink," Kellen said. He signaled the waitress for the check, slapped a bill on the table for at least twice the amount of the tab, and stood. "Don't try saving me, Samad. It's my life, and I don't want to be saved." With that, Kellen turned and left the restaurant.
Samad stared after him, feeling lost. Eric Kellen wasn't at all what he had expected. He had expected moroseness, or drunken maudlin ravings, not this clear, cold self-knowledge. It chilled him. Was this his future? And if it was, did he still want the freedom of the stars so much? Was there anything he could do to help Kellen? Perhaps, if he could find a way to help Kellen and the others, he might find a way to avoid their fate.
"Actually, he's doing better than I expected," Father Russell told him when Samad reported back on Kellen's condition. "Isn't there anything that can be done to help him and the others?" Samad asked. The other pilots had been much worse than Kellen. One had attacked him in a blind rage.
Fortunately, he had been drunk and easy to dodge. The other pilot had been dying of an overdose when Samad found her. She'd cursed at him when she woke up in the hospital, still alive. He shuddered, remembering his birth mother's cold, unresponsive corpse.
Father Russell spread her hands skyward in beseeching helplessness. "If there is, I don't know it. I'm good at my vocation, Samad
. I've helped hundreds of people: drunks, addicts, runaways, the insane, and the just plain lost, but pilots—" She shook her head. "Pilots are different. They've crossed some kind of event horizon, and there's no pulling them back. There's something missing in their heads, and they drink and drug themselves to kill the pain of that. I've tried everything I can think of to save them, but it's as though part of them is already gone and the rest is eager to follow. No one really understands why burned-out pilots have such a strong death wish."
"Isn't anyone doing anything about it?" Samad asked.
Father Russell shrugged. "Many people have tried, but nothing works. People have to want to live before you can help them. And pilots—" She spread her hands again. "It's like they have a hole in their soul, Samad. Something about losing their Talent changes them. I don't know whether it's a physical change or a spiritual one. But it's real, and it's deadly, and as far as I know, every single burned-out pilot has that same desire to die." She held up one pale, delicate forefinger. "Candle. Moth," she said as her other hand fluttered toward her upheld finger, touched the tip, and fell away again to lie limp on her desk. "Every single one."
"Not all of them. I know one who lived a long, full life afterward. She overcame that urge to die." He remembered Teller after Abeha's death. "Most of the time," he added.
"Either she was made of steel, or she stumbled onto something that saved her. If you can figure out what it was,
Samad, and can make it work for the others . . . Go ahead and try, son. Go ahead and try. I think I can trust you not to cause them any further harm."
"Thank you, Father Russell. I'll do my best."
Samad walked along the waterfront, watching the boats and harsels loading and unloading, and turning the problem of the pilots over in his mind. Teller had somehow avoided the other pilots' grim fate. But he could not strand the ex-pilots on deserted planets, and he could not give them Abeha to keep them company.