by Zen DiPietro
If Cabot was honest with himself, Jim had been his role model when he’d become a shopkeep on Dragonfire. And he could not have asked for a better example to learn from. Not in terms of business practices, but in finding a place to be, and becoming a part of that place.
“I think I’m getting too philosophical in my old age,” Cabot admitted, without sharing the thought process that had gotten him to that revelation.
It was funny, but a decade ago, Cabot would have thought Jim Iwo soft. A product of the PAC. While that was accurate, Cabot now saw those qualities as a plus.
“Age is the great equalizer, isn’t it?” Jim toasted Cabot with his teacup. “We gain wisdom and memories, and when we get old enough, we realize all those answers we thought we once had were just hubris.”
Was that what it was? Cabot had thought that maybe he was losing a little bit of his nose. Because the thing he never admitted to anyone was that there was only so much profit a person needed. Was that him shedding hubris and gaining wisdom?
“I don’t feel wise,” he confided. “I feel like I’m just trying to hold the pieces together. Keep my life the way it is. You know?”
“Oh yeah. I know.”
“Think it’s possible?”
Jim rested his cup on the table. “Not at all. Things are going to be what they are. But what we can do is take care of the people that matter to us.”
Cabot stared into the blue-black tea. A swirl of its natural oil spun slowly, extending itself in a longer, yet ever-thinning line. “I guess so.”
“Life’s short,” Jim said. “Have a cookie.”
Cabot laughed. From anyone else, the advice would be meaningless—an acknowledgement of futility and mortality. But from Jim, it was pragmatic. A person only has so much time. So he should take all the happiness he could get.
The parts of himself that seemed in perpetual disagreement suddenly quieted, allowing a quiet question to rise in his mind.
What would make him happy?
***
Cabot didn’t need an existential crisis on top of everything he was dealing with. But as he left Jim Iwo’s shop and headed to the starport, he gave himself and his future some thought.
He found himself a seat in the gallery of Deck One and stared out of Blackthorn Station’s most famous attribute: its starport. Many a person had spent some time here, pondering the universe or their future or both.
Sitting in his theater-style seat, Cabot reclined and stared out into the abyss of inky space beyond Blackthorn. Five decks of hull had been created from a translucent material to form the massive starport. Looking up, Cabot could see into the deck above and the immensity of space beyond. He always found it a humbling experience. He couldn’t help but feel that whatever his problems were, they were drowned out by the realization of how small and insignificant he was.
Rather than being a disturbing thought, it was comforting.
This section of space had nothing to light it, making the planets and stars beyond stand out like beacons.
A shame Dragonfire hadn’t been built with a starport like this. Its fiery nebula would have made for some good viewing during a soul-search. But it was a smaller station, and not built to impress or entertain important diplomats.
“Still mad at me?”
That voice. It went through him like a bolt of electricity.
He turned to find Nagali sitting behind him, wearing an uncharacteristic sadness. Whether she actually felt any bit of sadness, he did not know. But she wore it.
He faced forward again, speaking loud enough for her to hear. “There’s a big difference between anger and distaste.”
She moved around the seats to sit beside him. He did not consider this an improvement.
“Distaste is what makes you look at me with daggers in your eyes? It’s only distaste that has you avoiding eye contact whenever we work on the rituals? I’m not buying it.”
He stared out into space. “I’m not selling anything.”
In his peripheral vision, he saw her looking at him.
“This is where I make an impassioned speech, insisting I’ve changed, right? And you disdainfully tell me that someone like me never changes.”
He said nothing.
She let out a sharp burst of laughter, though it sounded more of bitterness than amusement. “You’d be right. I haven’t changed. But what you have wrong about me is that I was never as bad as you thought. I admit, my handling of that situation was subpar. I thought the guy was working alone, and didn’t realize he’d have goons to back him up. But by that point, it was too late to change anything.”
“So you thought you’d leave me one-on-one with the guy you’d just ripped off? And I should feel better about it all, now that you’ve told me that? It wasn’t the first time you’d put me in a tight spot, either.”
“Up until that point, as far as I knew, you liked the fact that I was unpredictable. You used to say you enjoyed my keeping things interesting. And then, all of a sudden, a job went wrong and that was the point you began to detest the thing about me you’d always said you liked? It was hard on me too, you know. It came as a shock, to be so hated by my husband. Who immediately became my ex-husband, without so much as a word.”
Her voice had softened in a way he’d seldom heard, causing him to turn his head slightly to look at her.
“You gave me no chance to try to change,” she whispered, all artifice stripped away. He’d only seen her so unguarded a few times over their many years together.
“Trying to change would have made you miserable,” he murmured. “And it wouldn’t have worked. You can’t change your very nature just to please someone else.”
“I’d have tried.”
In that instant, he believed her. “I’m sorry the divorce hurt you. But it was inevitable. Prolonging it would have just hurt us both.”
“You’re probably right,” she agreed. “Still…I always wished I’d had the chance. To try.”
“If I’d come back to see you, I’d have given you a chance, and we both would have suffered for it. You were always a force I could not resist.”
She smiled sadly. “And now we are almost ten years older, and my feelings haven’t changed.”
He had no answer for her that would do either of them any good.
“Are you happy in your life?” she asked when he remained silent. “Living under PAC regulations?”
“Very. So much so that I took on this venture in an attempt to preserve that life.” Maybe he shouldn’t reveal that much to her. Probably shouldn’t.
“How did that happen, anyway? I can’t put together how something this big would trickle down to you.”
“I know people. I was in the right place, with the right skillset. Apparently.”
“The success of this mission is important to you. Not just as a job, or a curiosity to witness, but deep down.” She looked at him, truly seeing him in a way that few people could.
“Yes,” he admitted. “This matters. And the people I’m doing it for matter.”
“Well then.” She sat straighter. “I’ll have to do everything I can to help you get it done.”
They looked at each other. It made him feel raw. And real.
She meant what she said. She’d put all of her energy into getting this job done.
He wasn’t sure he was prepared for Nagali Freeborn’s full force of will.
6
Though Blackthorn’s boardwalk never became quiet, Cabot took advantage of a lull in traffic at an odd hour between lunch and dinner. He commandeered a table right there on the boardwalk rather than one within a restaurant so he could people-watch and enjoy the sights and sounds.
Truth be told, he missed his own boardwalk. He missed seeing Arin on his morning rounds, and Fallon on her afternoon ones. Missed seeing the woman who ran the tea shop and the strangers who came into his shop for the first time. In a blank space within him, memories echoed of the murmur of overlapping voices and the gentle hum of antigrav carts.
The sounds at Blackthorn were similar, but not quite the same as home.
He worked his way through a cosmopolitan meal with slow but steady determination. He had noodles from Zerellus, bread from Earth, and stew from Bennaris. Plus a pot of Rescan tea. He loved that about PAC stations—that they took the best things of all the allied planets within the cooperative and shared them. Actually, that was what he loved about the entire Planetary Alliance Cooperative. All the peoples together, sharing all their best traits to make them strong.
He watched a pair of young lovers flirt and canoodle before disappearing around the concourse. A father tried to feed two young children. Every time he got a spoon of food into the mouth of one, the other one tried to toddle off.
Cabot liked watching the people who came through the docking bays, luggage in hand, or slung over their shoulders. He could tell by the way they looked around which of them were visiting Blackthorn for the first time and who had been there many times.
He ate the last bite of stew with as much gusto as he had his first bite of food, then sat back, satisfied. He was glad for the teapot, which gave him a reason to linger. He savored his time, knowing that soon he would again be confined on a ship for another week. And after that, he had little idea of what to expect. He’d never attempted something like what Fallon had asked of him.
He couldn’t let her down. It would mean letting the PAC down.
Nagali couldn’t understand his affinity for the PAC, but Arlen did. Both of them, along with Omar, were prepared to help him get the job done.
They’d do it. Somehow.
***
He rejoined Omar and Nagali outside Docking Bay Eight. Arlen arrived last, looking tense. He wondered why. He was about to ask when a commotion erupted on the boardwalk. People were being shoved aside and shouts rose. Further down the corridor, Cabot saw security officers coming at a run.
He caught Arlen’s eye. “This looks like the kind of thing you’d get involved in.”
She cast him a long-suffering look, but his words sent her into action. Two men and a woman were at the center of the commotion, fast approaching. Arlen stepped out, prepared. Such a hero complex on that one. She really had missed her calling as a PAC officer.
As the trio rushed forward, Arlen stepped into the path of the one on the far right, snagging his foot as he ran and giving him a mighty sideways shove.
Omar Freeborn enjoyed few things as much as he loved a good brawl. The cause didn’t much matter to him. He forged into the fray with a grin, taking down the larger man in a tangle of arms and legs and punches.
To Cabot’s surprise, Nagali took advantage of the running woman’s distraction. She swooped in and snagged her arm around the woman’s neck yanking her back into a chokehold and forcing her to her knees.
Within seconds the security staff arrived, stingers in hand, pointed at the three. Omar was disappointed to relinquish his punching bag, but he did so, running a hand through his hair and smoothing his shirt.
“I suggest we leave now, before someone in security decides they want to debrief us for their records.” Even Cabot would admit that sometimes, PAC processes could be exhaustingly tedious and inconvenient.
The four of them wasted no time boarding the Outlaw, requesting departure, and getting out of there.
Only once they got a safe distance away did Cabot relax.
He, Nagali, and Omar went to the mess hall while Arlen navigated the ship away from Blackthorn. None of them got any food or drink, but the mess was the only common space on the ship to congregate.
“That was pretty slick,” Cabot said. “Taking down that fugitive.”
Omar gave him a lazy grin. “Thanks. It was fun. Wonder what they did?”
Cabot shook his head, with a slight eye roll. “I didn’t mean you. Your sister.”
Nagali smiled, and it looked remarkably like her brother’s grin a moment before. “Like I told you. I can do good things even when there’s no profit in it.”
“Right.” Cabot didn’t want to go back to that conversation. “So, I’m going to go up and see when Arlen can put us on autopilot. We need to work on the gratitude ritual. And start on the version of the goodbye ritual one uses when excusing oneself to the necessary, or other personal business.”
Omar groaned. “Oh, you’re just making shit up now.”
“I assure you, I’m not. Since we’ll be in close contact for an undetermined amount of time, it’s one you’ll need to know.”
Omar made another sound of distress and defeat. “Is it too late to demand more money?”
“Yes.” Cabot looked from him to Nagali.
“I’m not complaining,” she said quickly. “I’ve already told you that I’m going to prove myself to you. To redeem myself.” She lifted her chin in an uncannily heroic pose.
He suppressed a sigh. “I’ll settle for getting this job done. I’ll be back shortly, then we can get to work.”
***
The next three days involved lessons for his three students all together, lessons for only Omar and Nagali, who would fulfill the attendant role, and lessons just for Arlen. Since Cabot would present her as his equal in these proceedings, she’d need to use the appropriate postures and responses.
“When in doubt, just maintain your posture and defer to me. That will seem normal to them, since I’m your elder,” he told her. Rather than meet in the mess, they’d selected her quarters that morning as a change of pace.
She remained seated, holding her chest and shoulders up, her head tilted forward at just the right angle.
“Good.” He approved of her diligent work.
“Are you sure Nagali isn’t a more natural choice? I know Omar has to serve as your attendant, but Nagali is my elder too. And she’s been quick to pick up the rituals.”
Cabot sat on the bunk next to her. “She’s smart, and she’ll play her part well. But other than her sharp mind, Nagali’s biggest talent is her charm. That won’t work on Briveen. Nagali’s biggest fault is her impetuousness. She makes quick decisions and throws herself into them. That is absolutely not what we need on this mission.”
“She is charming,” Arlen mused. “Sometimes I feel like she’s a kindly aunt, who could be a close confidant.” When Cabot opened his mouth to speak, she added quickly, “Of course I know better. I don’t tell her anything I don’t need to.”
“She’s dangerous like that.” He knew only too well. “She can be almost intoxicating when she turns on the charm.”
“It’s impressive. I wish I had that in my arsenal.”
He cast her a sidelong look. “You have your own qualities. You’re upstanding and forthright. It’s the opposite of her, but also effective. People know where they stand with you.”
“She probably makes more money than I do.”
“Maybe,” he allowed. “But she makes more enemies, too. Her impulsiveness causes her to burn people.”
“Like she did with you.”
“I’m hardly the first person to be sacrificed for a Nagali Freeborn caper. It was foolish of me to think I was immune to it just because we were married.”
She arched her back, stretching, and finally let her Briveen-friendly posture drop. “You were together more than ten years, right? That sounds like a pretty long run, for a capricious person.”
“I feel like you’re making a point, but it eludes me.”
She smiled. “Not really. I was just thinking, if she’s a scorpion, she’s going to sting eventually. But imagine how much effort it took to wait that long to do it.”
“Will it make you happy if I promise to think about it?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘happy.’ I just think it’s worth considering it from that perspective, if you never have.”
He squinted at her. “You’re the last person I’d have expected to stick up for her. Did she talk you into it?”
She shook her head with an exasperated expression. “Of course not. I mean, she probably would have, if she’d tho
ught I was game for it. But I’ve been generally cold and standoffish with her. Seems like a good approach when it comes to her.”
“That is a very strange paradox,” he observed. “You represent her side of things, even though you don’t like her.”
“I didn’t say I don’t like her. I don’t trust her. There’s a difference. And I’m not saying this on her behalf. I’m saying it on yours.”
He thought he knew what she meant, but wanted to be sure. “Why?”
“Because I think you’ve spent all these years stewing over it. And I think you’d be able to put it behind you one way or another if you really put yourself in her place to see it through her eyes.”
“I’ll think about thinking about it.”
She shrugged, as if she didn’t care either way. But if it didn’t matter to her, she wouldn’t have bothered to say anything. The whole thing left him feeling mildly disgruntled, and wanting to needle her just a little in return.
“Omar thinks you’re cute. He’s thinking about asking you out.”
Yep. That did it.
“He’s fifteen years older than me. No way.”
“More than fifteen. But I thought I’d warn you.” He smiled pleasantly.
She gave him a knowing look. “Sure you did.”
“Well, you’re talking about my former love life. I thought yours would be fair game. Since you wanted us to share such things. As friends do.”
Her sour expression made him want to laugh.
She twisted her mouth, looking thoughtful. Then sighed. “You know, you’re right. It isn’t fair that I meddle in your affairs and never say anything about mine. The truth is, I don’t date much. Pretty much never, actually. The kind of people I see on a regular basis are not the sort of people I want to date.”
“Hmm. Men or women, or either?”
“Men.”
He considered the problem. “So you like a kind of man you don’t tend to interact with, in your life as a trader. Upstanding, right? Law-abiding.” He rubbed his chin, thinking what her type would be. “But he’d have to have a sense of adventure and fun.”