by S. D. Perry
She trailed off, waiting, watching. A low flush crept up his neck, across his face. He took her hand, met her gaze—and abruptly looked away.
“I think ? I love you, Leila, you know that.”
She nodded, studied his profile. Wondered if she should have kept her mouth shut.
“In the past few months, I’ve been thinking. With the symphony, all the time we’ve been apart, you always running off to do something or other for one of the profs—I’ve been feeling like we have less in common all the time. You know?”
She didn’t respond, not sure how. The weight in her stomach was pulling her deeper into her chair.
“And”—Adam squeezed her hand, attempted eye contact again—“I ? I think it would be best—for both of us—if we stopped being ? exclusive.”
He hurried on before she could say anything. “You need someone who shares your interests, Leila. I know you want to get married, have children. I know you want a place of your own, a stationary job—”
“You want those things, too.” She was going to cry, she could feel it coming in spite of the strange numbness that was washing over her. See other people? How could he say that?
“I thought I did.” He squeezed her hand once more. “I’m sorry. But I’m not ready for all that, and it’s not fair to you to keep going on like this. I’m not who you want.”
“Yes, you are,” she said, her eyes filling. She tried to blink the tears back, failed. “If it’s time that you need, I can wait. We could just ? We could take some time. If you need to, to explore yourself with other people—” She hated the sound of it, hated it, but a lot of people did it, she could try. “Maybe we could arrange something—”
The look on his face stopped her. Resentment. Guilt. Exasperation. Shame. They’d been together almost three years, and she’d never seen anything like it.
“Oh,” she said, her voice small. She pulled her hand from his, that numb feeling worse than ever, her heart pounding red and loud, threatening to shake her apart. “I see.”
He looked away once more, all the confirmation she needed.
“Who?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice low and calm. “You don’t know her.”
Her. There it was, he’d made it real. “How long?”
“Not long. A few weeks.”
Anger stirred, but weakly. She felt lost.
“What ? what do you want to do now?” She realized as the words came out that she sounded pathetic. She should shout, throw her wine in his face, demand answers like some player in a hackneyed melodrama. Like that movie character she’d been thinking of only moments before. Strange that it didn’t seem so cliché now.
“I’m sorry,” he said, but he was relieved, she could hear it, see it in him. “I wasn’t looking for this. But we’ve been growing apart for a while now, we both know it. I care very much for you, but you’re so ?” He sighed. “So focused on us. On me. You need to grow up, Lei, start taking care of yourself.”
She stared at him, waiting. This is really happening, she told herself and couldn’t fathom it.
“I can start moving my things out tomorrow,” he said, his voice gentle. He reached for her hand again and Leila stood up, almost panicked at the thought of his touch now, desperate to get away, to stop listening to his horrible reasons and plans.
“Leila,” he called, but not too loudly as she turned and walked away, stumbled against a table, the tears coming faster as she hurried for the door, aware that he wouldn’t be coming after her.
Kent couldn’t decide between the blue suit or the gray. The blue was outdated, but it fit better. The gray was newer, sharper, but he’d lost weight since the move to Mars, and it hung off his shoulders, was too loose around the waist. He didn’t actually care much either way, but he had to try and look his best. The conference was always heavily covered by the media, and he needed to look the part if he meant to be taken seriously. It wouldn’t do to have the leader of Redpeace looking like he’d crawled out from under a rock, the stereotypical aging tree lover going up against the youthful, respectable, well-dressed lawyers that the spoilers would likely send. Aging tree lovers got written off, and the summit could be a crucial turning point for Redpeace’s aims, if they didn’t blow it.
Redpeace. Kent smiled a little, aware that he too had started to think of the IF by the media’s title. It was a play on Earth’s legendary Greenpeace, an environmentalist group from a prior century. Six months of net frenzy and everything changed.
He gazed at the two choices another moment, then gave a mental shrug and put them both in the suit bag. He was tired; he’d decide in Boston. The rest of the packing was done, everything in order. It was still a few days until the summit, but he had contacts to meet with, and he’d be expected to help with Cady’s protest gathering the day before. All that was left now was to meet the team at the office, get on the shuttle, and go.
Kent was glad not to be going alone, though he hoped that the others had paid attention to his entreaties for “improved” appearance, particularly Dupree. The wild-eyed, wild-haired environmentalist was a brilliant biologist and a truly devoted member, but she also looked like she’d been on an extended camping trip. Which, in a way, she had. Before the move, the Immutable Foundation’s last project had been trying to preserve a dwindling stand of old-growth forest on Earth. Dupree had spent a considerable amount of time living in the woods, leading the defense against the developers while Kent and the lawyers had worked the zoning committee. It had been difficult and draining, particularly because the case had been so similar to the one that had meant Jessica’s death ?
Jess. Kent sat on the edge of his bed, searching for her image, finding it in his mind’s eye. She was always in his thoughts, but almost twenty years had blurred everything. Sometimes he had to work at it now, to get past the memories of depression and loss, of anger and rending grief. He wanted to remember her, not himself.
A summer day, both of them in their late teens, an afternoon at the lake. Her dark hair, her tanned skin. Wide, lively smile. The image sharpened, became a real moment—her bare knees and feet muddy from crawling up the embankment after a swim. A smudge of drying dirt on the bridge of her nose. Both of them laughing at something she’d said, sharp and dry and so very much her, as a low sun shimmered across the water and she braided her damp hair, head tilted to one side, her fingers quick and sure. He remembered a huge feeling of love for her, big enough to scare him, thinking that if she didn’t marry him, he wouldn’t know what to do ?
Maybe things would have turned out better if they hadn’t married; she might have moved away, they both might have. Perhaps he would have heard the news through relatives, that their little ecocommunity was being invaded. The outrage, the need to fight might have been softened that way, might have kept both of them from caring so very much.
Pointless trying to rewrite history. The land had never really been theirs, not with the licensing laws back then. The company had been private, a group of scientists paid to find new, cost-effective ways to kill a destructive tree parasite that was eating its way through an even bigger company’s profits. They’d done it, after the last appeal had gone unheeded, the last protester dragged away; their chemical/nanotech process had killed the parasites. And the ground cover. And a species of squirrel, and a half dozen species of fish ? and Jess. The “technology” disease had been new, too. Too new for there to be a treatment.
The hospital, her strengthless fingers in mine ?
He sighed, pushing that part of it away, the good memory going with it. He needed to be thinking of more recent efforts.
It had been hard going on Earth in the past few years. While they’d had some luck with a few wildlife habitats, they’d been unsuccessful protecting the old-growth forest, their pains mostly unnoticed, as was so often the case in these brave days of the Federation and the reckless push for continual progress by its members.
They can’t ignore us anymore, though, can they? Kent s
tood up from the bed, felt his adrenaline give a pump. When the newly elected Martian admin announced plans to license out a healthy chunk of the southern hemisphere less than a year ago—with the Federation’s assent—the IF hadn’t been the only one interested. A number of public and private individuals had spoken out against the material-hungry push, citing everything from concern over the probable destruction of the Red Planet’s natural beauty to anger over the privatization of lands meant for all Federation citizens. With the approval of their core members—and a temporary license from the Federation’s Aid for Protected Speech—Kent had moved IF’s headquarters to Mars. Within days of his arrival, the press had been all over the story, the IF had become Redpeace, and for the first time in any number of years, Kent had felt real hope. With the help of a few local environmental groups, they’d already managed injunctions against two drillers and a mining conglomerate. The people were ready; they looked at Earth and saw what could happen. The timing was right.
A push at the summit—he’d even been invited to a panel this year, a sign that what was happening was a hot topic—some real pressure on the Federation Science Council, and they would publicly condemn the Martian government’s greedy agenda, might even urge sanctions. And once the FSC was on board, everything else would fall into place.
“This time, Jess,” Kent said, his voice soft but certain in the quiet room. Mars could still be saved. Shoulders squared, he picked up his bags and headed out.
Two
Check and mate.”
James Kirk stared at the queen’s level a moment, then grinned, reached up, and toppled his king. The clatter was louder than he’d expected in the subdued rec room, a few people turning to look, but there was no shame in losing to Doc Evans. Doc had actually competed in the Sojkak Nationals last year and placed in the top tenth. No one aboard could beat him.
“Your game’s improving,” Doc said, leaning back from the table.
Kirk started gathering his hard-won pieces, setting them back in place. “Or maybe you’re slipping, Doc. I hear that starts to happen, at your age.”
The doctor, barely forty, laughed. “Careful, Commander. Next time, I might not go so easy on you.”
Commander. Kirk felt a jolt of happiness. Though he didn’t look at it, he could feel that second line of glittering braid on his sleeve, still so new. “Easy? You took me in eleven moves.”
“Could’ve taken you in eight,” Doc said. “Now then—another defeat?”
Kirk glanced up at the timepiece on the wall and shook his head. “Sorry. I’ve got a call to make. Thank you for the game, though.”
Doc nodded, waving dismissively, already casting around for his next opponent. Kirk saw two other crewmen heading for the table before he turned and walked out; there were always takers when Doc was playing.
The halls were dim, the hour late. Kirk headed for quarters, nodding and smiling at the men and women who passed by. He recognized every face, knew every name, and was pleased that most of them smiled back readily enough, a few stopping to congratulate him on his new rank. It felt good. Since his assignment to the U.S.S. Mizuki, he’d gone out of his way to learn the details—who was bucking for a promotion, who was involved romantically with whom, hobbies of interest or import—and he felt it was paying off in respect and acceptance from the crew. A good first officer knew the small stuff, he thought. The Mizuki was Cochrane-class, though, crewed only 120; he wondered what it would be like to be on one of the really big ships ?
? Where you’ll likely have a first officer of your own. Someone else to memorize the details. He grinned at his naked ambition. If and when. Besides, the captains he’d served under, those he’d respected, had made a point of knowing their men—if not the minutiae of their lives, at least the broad strokes. Captain Olin did. And Captain Garrovick always used to say—
Used to say. Kirk’s smile faded as he reached the lift. It had been three years since Tycho IV, but he doubted it would ever lose its sting. If he could be half the captain, half the man that Captain Garrovick had been, he would count himself most fortunate.
The lift door hissed open and he stepped inside, putting on a polite smile for the young woman already on board. Emily Rushe, science division. Pretty. Some obscure subset of radiation physics, if he remembered correctly.
“Commander,” she said at his nod. Her smile was dazzling. From their few personal interactions to date, he knew she wasn’t particularly shy ? and had expressed more than a passing interest in getting to know him better.
“Ms. Rushe.”
She put on a pout, one that made the most of her full lips and arched brows, but said nothing, looking away with a small toss of her dark hair. He was being invited to play, no question.
I know better, he thought, but found himself unable to resist.
“Is something wrong?” He smiled slightly.
“I thought you were going to call me Emily,” she said, turning back to him. Her expression suggested she knew she was straying into unprofessional territory, knew and didn’t care.
Kirk felt a flush of wistfulness, there and gone in a second. She was awfully attractive, and he thoroughly enjoyed the company of lovely young women. But there was a fine line between flirting and looking toward a next step. He was a commander, now. He wouldn’t feel comfortable pursuing an onboard romance, and certainly not with an enlisted.
Carol probably wouldn’t be all that comfortable with it, either, he thought, smiling inwardly at the thought.
“I’m not on duty, Ms. Rushe, but I believe you are,” he said, not unkindly. “At least for another few hours.”
His tone was clear enough, and she got the message. “Yes, sir.” Her shoulders straightened as she faced front. A beat later, the lift stopped and she was gone. She didn’t look back.
Kirk held the control handle, shifted it, wondering if he should have managed it differently, if Emily Rushe was the type to hold a grudge. Probably so. She was young, at least five years his junior, although so was Carol Marcus, and he couldn’t imagine having to “manage” her.
It was funny, the effect that Carol had on him. From the start they’d agreed completely on keeping their options open, on not pursuing a commitment. But even with the freedom to do so, the thought of seeing other women held no real appeal. He hadn’t felt so strongly about anyone since the Academy.
Days of impassioned youth, he thought, less wistful than bemused. There had been a number of women, early on, a few he’d even thought about marrying—Sharon, the lab tech he’d met through Gary Mitchell came to mind—but he’d been too young to consider it seriously, too young and too uncertain of what he wanted. And the two great loves of his final year at the Academy had been so very different. There had been Ruth, easily the most feminine woman he’d ever known, soft and warm and as delicate as a flower. And Janice, brilliant and cool, driven by ambition and intellect. He’d had serious feelings for both women, but in the end, the experiences had proved to be more about learning what he did and didn’t want in a relationship than finding his soul mate.
Carol, though ? He cut the thought short as he arrived at his stop, reminding himself for what seemed the hundredth time that they weren’t destined to be together. No matter that she was feminine and brilliant, athletic and graceful and funny—logistically, they were doomed. She wasn’t Starfleet and didn’t want to be, had no interest in “sailing off to who knows what,” as she put it.
Doomed, he promised himself as he walked quickly to his quarters, a knot of pleasant expectation tightening in his gut. She was expecting his call. And in just a few days, she’d be in his arms, with almost three weeks of nothing but free time in front of them. They could worry about after, after.
The cool, sparse lines of his rooms were broken only by the rumpled bed and the clutter of reference disks next to his computer, topics he meant to look over before the summit. He wanted to be conversant with the big issues. To have reached commander at twenty-eight was no small feat; he didn’t want to c
ome off looking as young as ? Well, as young as he looked.
He sat down in front of the screen, entered the appropriate codes and connectors, straightening his shirt and running a hand through his hair as he waited for the link to be established. The anticipation still got to him, even after all these months. And not for the first time, he found himself wondering if in spite of the absolute impossibility of it, she might not be the one after all. The woman he was meant to marry.
A moment later, Carol’s bright and smiling face blipped on to the screen, and he forgot everything but the color of her eyes, the music of her laugh.
Leila Kalomi was the last to arrive, apologizing softly in her sweet, girlish voice before finding a seat among the other team members. She looked as tired as Carol felt, her pale skin paler than usual. Her eyes seemed bloodshot, as well, and her blond hair, longer than when Carol had last met with the botanist, was tied back in a mussed, limp tail. Carol remembered her as being much more put together ?