by P. J. Fox
Kisten didn’t agree for love of his brother, but out of conviction that Keshav was right and Karan was wrong and that the empire needed help. He did what he did for duty. But for Kisten to be of any help to his brother, he had to allay any suspicions that he was in his brother’s pocket. His credibility, as well as his ability to maneuver freely under the radar, depended on the world believing that they’d had a terrible falling out and now hated each other.
That anyone who’d known them as children could believe such a thing struck Kisten as utterly ridiculous; however, another life lesson had come in the form of the realization that people for the most part see only what they want to see and hear only what they want to hear. Dangle a worm on a hook in front of a trout and nine times out of ten the trout will take it—even knowing that it’s a hook. And political plums, like worms, are simply too tempting of a prize. Caution is forgotten, to the extent that caution threatens to stand in the way of claiming success.
Kisten’s attack on Karan hadn’t been part of Keshav’s original plan, but Keshav had nonetheless managed to work it in. As the twins were now known to be on the outs, Keshav hadn’t had a difficult time in convincing the world that he thought his brother a loose cannon. With a death sentence hanging over his head, Kisten had fought a number of bitter—staged—rows with his brother wherein they each hurled all manner of hateful and entirely true accusations at the other.
They needed, Keshav said, to convince Karan that Kisten had lost whatever allies he’d had and thus was no longer a threat. Karan would sentence him to some backwater, never realizing that that was precisely where Kisten intended to go. At least for the time being. But Kisten hadn’t realized how gut-wrenchingly hard it would be.
And then, when the news of his banishment came down, Keshav had told him that the time had come. Per Keshav’s instruction, Kisten had shot him in the stomach. He’d felt the laser like it was tearing apart his own gut and then, without waiting to see what happened, turned and left and boarded the shuttlecraft that would take him to Atropos.
THIRTY-TWO
Kisten put down the tablet and, shutting his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. He was exhausted.
The past week had been a nightmare. He hadn’t been so flat out since the war, or so disgusted by the utter stupidity of his fellow man. Between attending staff meetings, hearing reports, attending to the needs of the colonists and actually running the ship, he’d barely had time left to sleep—even if he could, which he couldn’t. He was fine during the day because his never-ending task list monopolized his thoughts, but those few hours of so-called “rest” had been unbearable. He’d pass out on the couch in his office, almost insensible from exhaustion, and find himself staring at the ceiling and wondering what Aria was doing.
He thought of a line from a speech he’d heard long ago: there is a better thing to be had than wealth, a better thing even indeed than life itself, and that is to have done something before you die for which good men may honor you and God smile upon your work. Life was cheap; personal needs were something to be ashamed of. Lie back and think of the empire.
Which, speaking of, he’d finally gotten around to pensioning off Nisha.
He sat back in his chair and found himself thinking of school again. There had been a curious half-platonic, half-romantic attitude during his tenure, brought about not by lust but by yearning. On some level, they all knew that these attachments would have to be outgrown and relinquished, as all attachments would, because life was about sacrifice. A great many of his instructors at the academy felt that allowing women to join their fathers and husbands in the colonies had been a terrible mistake and one for which the empire was still paying; with women present, a man’s attention would never be wholly on his work. He wasn’t nearly as apt to die gloriously if he had the safety of his family to consider.
What had they been yearning for, back at Ceridou? Love, acceptance? Someone who cherished more about them than their potential value to the empire?
By midnight tonight, Atropos would be in orbit around Tarsonis and the die would be cast. First thing tomorrow morning, he was resigning his commission and leaving for the planet’s surface. He’d put this off long enough, and couldn’t put it off any longer: he had to plead his case and hope that she accepted him. He’d avoided her in part, because the idea of rejection had been so unbearable. And why should she accept him? He was a failure and an embarrassment to his own parents, at least for right now. He wasn’t where he thought he’d be, ten years ago, and he wasn’t the man he thought he’d be—thought he had been.
He considered the problem of Nisha, a prospective colonist who’d shared his bed for most of the trip and about whom he knew nothing except that she had an uncle. She was going to live with him, Kisten supposed; he hadn’t asked. Although perhaps Nisha had told him.
That morning, he’d found himself staring at her while she slept and noticing how the first faint lines of hard living were etching themselves into her face. She was young, now, far younger than she looked but in ten years she’d be a harridan. The truth was in her eyes: hard, even when she smiled. And while she’d been pleasant enough for her purpose, her caresses had done nothing to banish the feel of Aria’s slim, small form in his arms.
Nonetheless, Kisten had seen no reason why Aria’s rejection should render him celibate. He’d never been in the habit of denying himself anything, which was how he’d wound up in his present mess. Keshav had urged caution and, if Kisten had listened, he’d be home right now.
He never would have met Aria.
He’d given Nisha a generous settlement, more than enough to set herself up in the capital if she so chose. Life with her uncle, given her proclivities, might not be all she’d imagined. He stared out the window. What was he doing, mixing himself up with a woman like Aria? She had no idea of what really went on in the world and she needed someone to protect her from it, not indoctrinate her into its vices. He wasn’t gentle, or kind; he wanted molest her, to tie her to the bedpost and whip her until she bled. He wanted to own her. Was he even capable of being a good husband?
If he’d been a better man, he could have offered her a place in his household as a sort of semi-permanent guest. She didn’t realize this, but she couldn’t live in the Alliance without a male protector—unless she wanted to live as a prostitute. But he couldn’t bear the idea of seeing her and not having her. Or, God forbid, watching her fall in love with some other man.
He picked up the tablet again, staring at it without seeing it. The fact was, even if he had wanted to see Aria, he genuinely had been too busy to do so. These few moments, right now, represented the first moments all week when no one had needed him. After pouring himself a drink, he’d read the message he’d gotten from Keshav. And once he digested its contents, he was going to see Aria. He and Keshav, despite having become mortal enemies, had their ways of communicating with each other and he’d asked Keshav for advice.
And Keshav, the superstitious devil worshipper, had phrased things in terms of a religion that had been banned for ages: the old religion, the worship of the many-faced god. One’s soul mate is one’s other half, he’d written, embodied in a separate human being. So-called ‘romance’ is the very search for wholeness that our society’s most prominent relationship experts decry as toxic. Pining for others is wrong; feeling ourselves incomplete without them is also wrong. One is only fit for a relationship when one has learned to fulfill all of one’s own needs—to wit, after one no longer needs a partner, for anything.
Even so, denial does not truth make; soul mates do exist and recognition of one’s soul mate would—I imagine—be instant and dramatic. This is, after all, the missing part of one’s own soul. But even if one were to accept such a bizarre-seeming scenario as fact rather than more logically dismissing it as lust—how can one feel such intense love and longing for a stranger?—a second and more challenging issue remains: when the original soul was divided, each half incarnated and continued to reincarnate separately
. Who can know, for certain, what happened on those journeys? It is entirely possible that, however uncannily alike and attracted to each other two people might be, they have undergone so much hardship and disillusionment in their previous lives that they fail to recognize each other.
Have faith. What is meant to happen, will. And as the poet said, truth cannot be suppressed and is always the ultimate victor.
Keshav had always been something of a philosopher; Kisten couldn’t decide if his advice was useful, or not.
He stood up and walked back to the window. The feel of Aria’s skin against his still lingered. A bewildering pain stabbed him in the heart whenever he admitted this to himself.
Aria was, perhaps, the only woman in the world who might be able to understand him—if only she’d try. And, insofar as his love was worth anything, she had it. That Aiden had had her heart, and her trust, and had abused both galled him. He could only wish that she’d met him first.
THIRTY-THREE
Aria peered through the telescope and watched the lightning flicker.
It turned out that there was, in fact, lightning in space. Some black holes had an extremely strong magnetic field, which in turn generated large amounts of electricity. The lightning bolt that she was watching now was millions of light years away and, up close and personal, the size of a galaxy. She’d also read, in the course of the past week, about rogue black holes, hypervelocity stars, galactic cannibalism and something really upsetting called a vacuum metastability event. She’d read a great deal, because there had been nothing else to do.
Unless, of course, she counted listening to Garja prattle on about which of the luckless men currently serving aboard Atropos she found most attractive. Or, for a real laugh, there was always talking to Hannah. Hannah and her Lieutenant Lusha had gotten married in a small ceremony the night before and spent the entire time grinning at each other like idiots. In the days leading up to it, she’d talked of nothing else—unless one counted Dan’s return to the Nemesis, and where they’d live, and what his parents might think of her as separate subjects. Dan, for his part, seemed confident that his parents would find Hannah just as wonderful as he did and agree with him that her arrival aboard Atropos had been nothing short of divine intervention. They were already planning a trip home for his first leave.
Upon finding out about the engagement, the whole ship mobilized. There wasn’t a great deal of excitement in the colonist’s lives, and a genuine whirlwind romance at least provided something to discuss. With the result that, when Hannah stood next to the almost total stranger she was marrying and said her vows, she did so looking like a real bride. Even Aria had to admit that she’d rarely seen one so radiant—or so well attired.
Hannah’s dress had been loaned to her by one of the colonists; although it had, apparently, belonged to that good woman’s mother, it could have been created expressly for Hannah. Swaths of deep tomato red silk had been embroidered at the neck and hem with bands of forest green. Thousands of tiny glass beads, all tinted a smoky gold, made it sparkle like dew in the morning. The colors, which Aria wouldn’t have thought would look attractive together, set off Hannah’s chestnut brown hair and hazel eyes and made her skin glow.
Shoes, jewelry, and cosmetics had all been found for the colonists’ adopted bride. And although the wedding itself was attended by almost no one, in the days beforehand Hannah had never been left alone. Everyone seemed to want to wish her well, tell her stories about their weddings—especially horror stories—and reminisce about how much they hated their mothers in law. All of which combined to make Hannah, not nervous, but giddy with excitement. And Aria, who had been included in all this, found herself swept up in the excitement of planning along with everyone else.
After the nightmare of her own failed engagement, Aria didn’t much care for the subject of weddings. Strangely, though, as she’d watched Hannah slip on her shoes and giggle at herself in the mirror, she’d found herself thinking not of Aiden but of Kisten and wondering where he was. Things had seemed to be going so well and then he’d just left, without an explanation, and she hadn’t seen him since. Had she done something to upset him?
And why did she care if she had? She didn’t.
The ceremony itself had taken place in the same observation lounge that Aria was in now, the same observation lounge where she’d had her memorable fight with Kisten. Dan had worn his dress uniform, a cutlass at his hip. Aria had never seen a real sword before and hadn’t realized they even still existed. She found something about the idea obscurely horrifying.
Hannah stood on his right, instead of on his left, in order to avoid the blade. She stared up at him as she repeated her promises in a small voice, promises that sounded strange to Aria’s ears. A navy chaplain officiated. He asked first Dan, and then Hannah, whether they accepted the terms of their marriage contract. Both agreed that they did and Aria wondered what terms, exactly, this contract contained. Then Hannah had recited, almost too softly to hear, I, Hannah Elizabeth Long, offer you myself in marriage and in accordance with the instructions given in Holy Scripture and by the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and in accordance with the law of the Alliance. I pledge, in all honesty and sincerity, to be for you an obedient and faithful consort.
Dan’s reply had been much shorter: I pledge, in honesty and sincerity, to be for you a loving and helpful husband.
Even at such a romantic moment—and of course now, looking back on it—Aria couldn’t help but notice that Hannah had promised a great deal more than her husband. He certainly hadn’t promised to be obedient. Or, for that matter, faithful.
Aria’s sour mood hadn’t been helped by the fact that Kisten had attended and refused to so much as acknowledge her existence. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw him, and she’d expected him to at least say something, but she might as well not have been there. She’d thought, when he’d kissed her, that he’d felt something—but evidently not. She’d been both humiliated and furious. How dare he—and then treat her like a discarded boot?
As Dan’s commanding officer, Kisten stood for him in place of a near male relative. And while he’d been scrupulously polite, he’d looked pained. Probably, Aria decided, because he saw no value to the proceedings and wished he were off carousing with some whore.
She’d thought…and she’d been a fool to do so, obviously. If her experience with Aiden had taught her anything, it was that she saw what she wanted to see. Even worse than being trapped aboard a strange ship and forced to assimilate into a culture she didn’t understand was realizing that the man who’d caused it all was just as indifferent to her as she’d feared.
After their odd vows, Dan and Hannah had signed the contract. And then Dan had pulled his new bride into his arms and kissed her and she’d squealed. As weddings went, theirs had been quick. Guests weren’t even part of traditional Bronte custom but Hannah had insisted on her friends being there, as well as the woman who’d loaned her the dress. And so Aria, sitting to the side, had watched as Kisten congratulated Dan and left without a backward glance. Once Kisten had left, everyone became a good deal less formal and Aria had found herself swept into a celebration that, suddenly, she didn’t feel much like celebrating.
She adjusted the telescope. The lightning looked oddly blue.
THIRTY-FOUR
She heard a familiar footstep behind her.
She spoke without turning. “But how could the entire universe be part of a false vacuum in the first place? I mean, how could we prove that, or even theorize it according to rational principles? Isn’t it just imagination, since we can’t possibly study conditions that—for us at least—don’t exist?” What she meant, of course, was that the universe was the limit of their possible knowledge. There was no “universe beyond the universe,” as the very term universe encompassed everything that was known or theorized about space to begin with.
“All science begins as imagination,” Kisten replied.
She adjusted the telescope again. On
e of the ship’s engineers had taught her how to use it.
“To answer your question,” he continued, “because the universe is expanding. In the theoretical physics of the false vacuum, the universe is essentially a large bubble. Its interior appears stable and is stable, at least within certain limits and conditions, but is also capable of being disrupted. In other words, the interior of the bubble has one environment, but the world outside it has another. If the bubble bursts….”
She turned. “Then our universe—what? All the pressure holding us together just evaporates and we immediately dissolve into clouds of dust?”
He smiled slightly. “That’s rather apt.”
She bristled at the condescension in his tone. She might not have been given the opportunity to use her mind overmuch, but she wasn’t stupid. Although she’d wanted to attend college, for various reasons, she hadn’t been able to. And she’d told herself that it was alright, because her job was to support her husband and what would be the point of getting a formal education if she wasn’t going to work? An opinion she couldn’t believe, now, that she’d ever held.
“I’m…pleased that you’re interested,” he said.
“Why?” she challenged. “Because it’s so unlikely that a woman would care about anything other than fashion?”
Kisten seemed taken aback. “Because the subject has always meant a great deal to me.”
“I’m glad something does,” she muttered, gathering up her things to leave.
“What?”
She hadn’t meant to answer him, but she did. She didn’t even know where the words came from, only that they were suddenly on her lips and she was furious. “After how you treated me last night, Your Worship, I hardly think that we have anything more to say to each other.” She met his gaze, which was as cold as ever. “Now, if you please, let me pass.”