In the Company of Others

by Julie E. Czerneda

  “What other possibilities?” Aaron snapped, the strain in his face reflected in his voice. “These people—Grant’s people—you know they exist to find alien intelligence, to protect what they find from human ‘aggression.’ Think they’ll sit by and let you develop a weapon to destroy the Quill? To get our worlds back?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “To get my world back?”

  “They’ll study the Quill until everyone’s grown old and died back home,” Malley chimed in, like angry thunder. “Then it won’t matter, will it?”

  Gail smacked her hand down. “How dare you think you’re the only ones who care about those people!” she said fiercely, glaring at them both. “Of course, it’s unacceptable to leave the stations as they are—no one here wants that.” Her vision shimmered suddenly, and she wiped her eyes furiously before tears betrayed more than she was prepared to show. “I said there are other possibilities and I meant it. You are going to have to trust me.” She made that low and intense. They had to believe.

  Aaron’s throat worked as he swallowed, his face suddenly defenseless. Malley looked at his friend, then back to her. “Aaron already trusts you too much,” he told her, voice pure threat. Before she could avoid his hand, he took her chin between finger and thumb, bringing his face so close to hers Gail inhaled warmed air from his mouth. “So I won’t. Keeps things nicely balanced, don’t you think?”

  Before Gail could reply, the unthinkable happened. Aaron lunged forward, the hand that reached for Malley’s arm stopping just short. “Let her go!” the ’sider demanded, something quite desperate in his eyes. “Don’t you ever touch her!”

  “It’s all right, Aaron,” Gail said quickly as Malley released her, the stationer staring at his friend with almost comical shock. Almost. “Malley and I understand each other.”

  “Do we have a problem here?”

  There was an understatement, Gail thought, turning to face the pair of FDs standing a careful few paces back from her and Malley. They both had their hands on the weapons at their sides—presumably warned by Philips to avoid challenging the big stationer otherwise.

  “Not in the least,” Gail said, her mouth so dry the words came out sounding calm and composed. “Don’t you have something better to do than interrupt my work?” When they didn’t budge, she snapped: “Or do you want to explain to your commander why his suit wasn’t checked before he risks his life in it?”

  They exchanged looks, then glanced dubiously up at Malley. Gail could understand their concern; the stationer didn’t look particularly stable at the moment. In fact, he looked as though he wanted to break something, most likely her.

  “Aaron,” Gail said without looking at the ’sider. She couldn’t. “Please find Aisha and ask her to hook you up for testing. She’s probably finished connecting Specialist Dafoe by now. Gentlemen? I suggest you do something more useful than jumping every time Mr. Malley sneezes. For one thing, you can make sure there are enough escorts to keep things moving to the hangar. And, Malley?

  “You come with me.”

  Chapter 73

  MALLEY followed the Earther up the ramp to the second floor of the lab, feeling the metal shake slightly underfoot. The opposite walls were still creeping away from the rest, constantly changing perspectives.

  He followed her small figure without saying a word, without argument, without another look at Aaron.

  Don’t ever touch her.

  It was worse than he’d imagined. Poor Aaron had fallen completely—no judgment, no self-restraint left. It was her fault. Don’t touch her?

  He’d love to pitch Dr. Gail Smith over the railing.

  Unfortunately, she led the way to a back corner, dismissing the lab-coated individuals from their work without apology. They were, for the moment, essentially alone. Sitting on one stool, she motioned him to take the other.

  Malley remained standing.

  No sign of dimples in the face turned up to look at him—in fact, he thought uncharitably, this was likely the face she’d find staring back from a mirror in another twenty years or so: lines traced the corners of her eyes, there were deeper creases where her lips compressed. “Satisfied?” she asked abruptly. “Did you get the reaction you wanted?”

  “I wanted?” he felt his eyebrows lift.

  Those blue eyes could become glacial, “Don’t lie to me, Malley,” she warned him. “You deliberately provoked him.”

  The stationer grabbed the other stool, placing it so when he sat, he boxed her into the corner. “You think I wanted to hurt Aaron?” he ground out. “That’s something, coming from you. You’re the one pulling his strings, not me.”

  “You wanted to see what he’d do.”

  Why not admit it? Malley threw up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay. Say I did. So maybe now Aaron will remember who he is and who his real friends are. Maybe he’ll realize—” Suddenly, he couldn’t say it.

  Gail’s voice was harsh and unforgiving: “What, Malley? That you—his friend—can touch me and he can’t? You think he doesn’t know?”

  “Knowing and believing? Two different things,” he pronounced, almost convinced himself. “Anyway. He’ll get over it. Aaron’s been mad at me before. This was for his own good.”

  “His good.” Her expression changed all at once, as if she’d had a revelation. Her skin went from pale to flushed. “You’really believe—?”

  “Believe? What I know, Dr. Smith, is that you’ve taken everything that mattered to him—everything, from his ship to his humanity. Wasn’t that enough? Did you have to own him as well, to control him like some lab animal?”

  “Control,” she repeated, as though the word had extra meaning, looking down at her hands. “I’ve always been in control, Malley. Until now.” She lifted her eyes to his again—they weren’t cold anymore. They shone with unshed tears.

  “Oh, you’re good,” he told her. “I’ll give you that. But I won’t let you twist Aaron around—”

  “I know,” Gail interrupted impatiently. “I know,” she repeated more gently. “Any minute someone’s going to check on us, Malley, and I have to convince you—” She broke off and stared at him, a hopeless look on her face. “I can’t imagine how. They’re just words, aren’t they? And you won’t believe them.”

  “What are just words?” He laughed, making it harsh and merciless. “Let me guess. You’re going to tell me you’re madly in love with Aaron—that he’s the most important thing in the universe to you—your ’sider Prince Charming, who, although he’s not quite human, does come complete with a space suit older than he is. Oh, yes. And I should trust you to do what’s best for him, so you can live happily ever after on old Mother Earth, together always.”

  A queen might look like this, small and straight-backed, all dignity and pride. “I can understand your thinking so little of me,” Gail said quietly. “But not your thinking so little of him.”

  Before Malley could do more than open his mouth, she stood and walked away.

  Chapter 74

  “OTHER than some stress markers, there have been no discernible changes.”

  “That’s for both?”

  Aisha nodded, her keen look at Gail filled with questions she knew better than to ask while they were surrounded by this combination of obvious and less than obvious observers. Gossip or straight feed to the bridge. Either would be disastrous.

  As had been her attempt to reason with Malley. Oh, she’d handled that like a pro, Gail railed at herself, not for the first time. She should have left well enough alone—or hit him over the head. Preferably the latter.

  Still, he’d been right that Aaron didn’t seem to stay angry for long. Probably from a lifetime of experience with the stationer’s well-intentioned, if less-than-delicate approach. The two were at the other end of this workstation, grabbing a bite to eat together from one of the omnipresent trays of sandwiches. She avoided looking their way, leery of giving Malley any further excuse to interfere.

  Gail had already sent a note to Tobo, suggesting c
ommendations for the stewards as well as other staff. She didn’t want to forget anything.

  It was almost time.

  The tests had been negative—no surprise. No apparent change in Aaron’s physiology, although she was reasonably certain something had happened to him down there. Something he’d yet to tell her. Since they weren’t quite talking at the moment, that would have to wait.

  Gail glanced at the wall chrono. Grant should be on his way to get Aaron at any minute. They’d already docked, in sequence, with the strikingly cooperative Earth Patrol ships, Dart Pursuit Class, and one, hitherto unnoticed, FD cruiser, the Payette. Tobo must be having fits, but Gail was grateful Grant had put the Captain back on his bridge to oversee the tricky maneuvering.

  The volunteers, boxes, and suits had been safely offloaded, and the small fleet dispersed translight. No one outwardly disputed the urgency of settling what they were dealing with—first contact or fluke. The cruiser, being fastest over distance, would travel to the most distant of the four terraformed worlds. The starships, and their Quill, should be back within two and a half days, all going well.

  Titan University’s representatives on the patrol ships had relinquished—or more precisely postponed—their verbal and legal battle for the only human who could safely handle the Quill the moment they realized the FD ship would be leaving, too. After all, they had Gail and Reinsez on the Seeker. Grant had been very careful to imply she was still in charge of the scientific aspects of the mission, including Aaron. It hadn’t hurt credibility, Gail knew, that each ship received a pair of anti-Quill suits complete with volunteers.

  “Gail.” She looked up, startled by Aaron’s voice. He was standing in front of her, ramrod straight, his gloved hands behind his back—oddly formal, in a room crammed with people shouting and rushing from place to place.

  “Yes?”

  “Grant’s coming, isn’t he? I don’t want to leave you like this ...” His too-quiet voice disappeared beneath a sudden increase in volume—a group of three techs calling for room to move a trolley. Aaron leaned forward. “We have to say goodbye, Gail.”

  The words locked around her heart, like icy, clutching fingers. “No, we don’t,” she tried to reassure him, or herself. “This isn’t our last chance—”

  “What if it is?” He spoke so softly, she might have been reading his lips.

  What if it is? Gail repeated to herself. She hated contemplating failure, as if acknowledging the possibility guaranteed defeat. There wasn’t time for this, Gail told herself desperately.

  What if it is ...?

  She pushed her notepad into someone’s hands, saying something, she wasn’t sure what.

  “It will be quieter in the storeroom,” she told Aaron.

  The storeroom, usually a well-organized set of aisles and shelving, had become a tangle of boxes and leaning metalwork due to the changing configuration of the lab itself, as well as raids by techs in a hurry for supplies.

  Gail didn’t bother turning on the overhead lighting; the standby lights were enough to see their path to the back. She did make sure the door was closed. Aaron’s footsteps matched hers. He didn’t say a word.

  She couldn’t.

  It only took a few steps to reach the farthest part of the room from the doorway. Gail stopped, putting her hand out to touch the wall. No way out, she thought, then turned and put her back against it. “I don’t believe in good-byes, Aaron Pardell,” she began bravely enough. “Even if you end up going with—anyone else—it’s going to be temporary, I promise. I have contacts on Earth—wealth if it takes bribes. I won’t let—”

  “Shssh.”

  At first, Gail thought the ’sider had heard someone else entering the room, and she froze, holding her breath. Nothing. She looked her question at Aaron.

  “Whatever happens, Gail,” he said gently, his eyes warm as they explored her face. “Wherever I go after this, it doesn’t matter now, does it? We have a little time. Let’s use it for us, not the future.”

  Gail leaned against the wall. “A very little time, Aaron,” she sighed, “Someone could come in any time—a tech, or someone looking for either of us—”

  “We’d hear,” he said. For all its quiet, his voice seemed deeper, more resonant. Gail opened her mouth to speak. “Shssh,” he repeated, gently.

  Without another sound, Aaron stepped closer. Gail looked into his eyes and couldn’t look away. There was something almost pleading in them, as though he tried to say everything with a look, as though words couldn’t be of use.

  He means it. This is good-bye, she realized. In all her schemes, she hadn’t planned for this. She should have. Because schemes and plans were only hopes—and this moment might be all they would have to remember if they failed.

  Aaron took off his gloves, then reached his hands to her face, Gail stood still, in perfect trust.

  With two fingers, he collected a lock of her hair, running it across the back of his other hand, then, to his lips. As he held it there, his eyes sparkled, as though filling with tears. Gail lifted her hand, pressing two fingers against her parted lips in echo.

  “You are so incredibly beautiful,” he whispered unsteadily, putting his hands alongside her face; she felt the warmth from his palms on her cheeks. She stayed as still as her quickening breathing allowed. Slowly, carefully, Aaron moved his hands as if to cup her jaw, her throat. He brushed his fingertips along the upstanding collar of her lab coat, his eyes traveling downward.

  Suddenly, he pressed both hands flat against the wall on either side of her head and bent his face into his own arm so she could no longer see his expression.

  “Aaron,” Gail whispered. “Look at me.”

  “I can’t—”

  “I can,” she said with sudden understanding. “Look at me.”

  He straightened, keeping one hand on the wall over her shoulder as if needing its support. His face was pale and unhappy. “You don’t—” he faltered. “I want—”

  “I know,” Gail reassured him. The same need burned deep in her own body. Without hesitation, she reached up to the fastening of her coat and began undoing the buttons, one at a time. She couldn’t smile when his breath caught—it was too powerful a feeling for that.

  The coat fell to the floor.

  Gail gazed into her love’s eyes and what she saw there made her fingers tremble even as they slipped open the fastening of her blouse. Aaron’s free hand captured some of the loose fabric, pulling it gently off her shoulder. His eyes wandered caressingly over her face, her neck, lower still, and she watched the blood rising over his cheekbones. She felt the cold air on her breasts, gooseflesh tightening, then a sudden heat. Surprised, she glanced down and saw his golden hands were hovering over her skin, learning her shape from a distance, loving her as only he could.

  Nothing had prepared her for the sheer sensuousness of it. Gail moaned deep in her throat and only the wall kept her standing—the wall and a rapidly diminishing sense of danger. His eyes leaped to hers, as though the sound had startled him and he had to be sure it was of pleasure. She had to fight the instinct to arch her back and press herself against him—

  The distant rattle of metal against metal was shocking, like the scream of air out a ruptured hull.

  Aaron reacted first, turning so his body blocked hers from view as he stared into the darkness. The noise had come from the next aisle.

  Gail took a steadying breath and stood away from the wall. “Someone’s working in here. That’s all,” she said, fighting to firm her voice. “We have to go. You have to go. First, or Malley will think I’ve locked you away somewhere.”

  He swung around, a look of sheer desperation on his face, his hands rising as though to gather her in, then dropping to his sides. “But—”

  “Go,” she urged and found a smile. “No matter what anyone says—whatever happens—this wasn’t good-bye, my love. I promise.” She wasn’t sure if Aaron believed her or wanted her to believe it, but he nodded slowly.

  “I’ll h
old you to that, Earther,” he told her. “Are you sure you don’t want me to wait?”

  Somehow, Gail grinned at him. “You’re too distracting,” she accused and had the joy of seeing him blush. “Now go! I need to pull myself together.”

  She waited, frozen in place, until Aaron disappeared at the opposite end of the storeroom and a brief, distant brightness marked where he’d opened and closed the door to the lab.

  A tall figure formed itself from the shadows. Gail didn’t look at Grant. She pulled up her blouse and began fastening it—her hands shaking, this time with fury. Tears tracked the fabric. “You couldn’t give us even a moment alone?” she asked, hearing her voice as though it belonged to someone else. “Not even that much?”

  She didn’t think he’d dare answer her, but he did, with impeccable, despicable calm: “My duty is still to protect you, Dr, Smith.”

  “What did you think was going to happen?” Gail cried, throwing up her head. Whatever else she might have said was silenced by the depth of compassion in his eyes, the grim downturn of his mouth. Instead, she looked for her lab coat, cold to her bones, abruptly too cold to move.

  Grant bent and retrieved it, holding it open for her to insert her arms, then did up the buttons, as though she was a child. Gail shivered, then found herself held tightly.

  He didn’t speak or move as the first anguished sobs tore themselves from her throat.

  Only years of practice let Gail walk out of the dark storeroom and back into the people-filled lab, her head high and her face, if not smiling, then at least normal enough so no one seem to notice.

  It wasn’t good-bye. But it could be. She wasn’t a blind optimist. Grant couldn’t hold off much longer—he’d probably come very close to rousing the suspicions of his listeners as it was. Malley, and likely others, would willingly fight to keep Aaron here, but the ’sider would never permit it.