by Ashanti Luke
“You see, they were not the only culture of the ancient world that believed in the spirit of the bear. Various indigenous tribes of the Americas believed the bear bestowed power to the warrior and that spirit sent him headlong and vehement into battle, denying him the luxury of retreat.”
“I see that you are likening me to your behr sarkrs, but I fail to see what’s wrong with that.”
“Every one of those cultures I just mentioned was also obsessed with death. And they experienced it often.”
“So you’re afraid I’m going to do something stupid and jeopardize the safety of the colony?” Cyrus’s voice had raised an octave and his words came out with force. It was more an accusation than a question.
“No, I’m not saying that at all. I don’t think ‘stupid’ is really a part of your repertoire, especially not if it jeopardizes others,” Tanner paused then turned to meet Cyrus’s eyes. “I guess what I’m saying is that one of these days, if death does creep up behind you, I’ll be there somewhere behind him.”
Cyrus nodded and allowed a smile to spread halfway across his face, not knowing what to say. “I can’t help feeling like I should have been born in another time. Like maybe the only way I’d be happy is if I had a war to fight—but a real war, not some houndshit Unification War over commerce and eyewash—something that can either be won or lost. I need a place where the measure of your day is whether or not you are alive at the end of it. It’s like we’ve used all the ingenuity and technology we could muster to just siphon every ounce of urgency from our lives until we’re all worthless—just a festering pile of ill-used lab waste. I’m tired of feeling like lab waste.”
Tanner pushed himself to his feet then extended a hand to Cyrus to help him up, “I think you should be careful what you ask for. In my experience, when life gives you what you ask for, it doesn’t stop when you say ‘When.’”
nine
• • • • •
—Dada, I have a question.
—Yes, Dari?
—Do you love mommy?
—Of course I love your mother. Why do you ask?
—I know it’s none of my business. But I heard you and mommy arguing last night. You said a lot of mean things to each other. Well, some of the things I heard were mean.
—I’m sorry you had to hear that, Dari.
—Why do you guys argue so much?
—I dunno, Dari. I guess sometimes even two people who love each other can get annoyed with each other to the point where they don’t act like it any more.
—Adults are pretty strange, Dada. If I don’t like someone, I tell them. If I love someone, like you and mommy, I remember that you love me too and that makes it better.
—Yeah, I think adults’ lives are a little more complicated though.
—You know, sometimes I think complicated might be the problem. But what do I know? I’m just a kid.
—Dari, just maybe you know more than we complicated adults give you credit for.
—If that’s the case, why don’t they listen more often?
—Maybe sometimes we don’t have the ears to hear.
—Kinda like what you said before, ‘Many will listen. Few will hear.’
—Yeah, it’s exactly like that. Your mom will be the first to tell you even I am guilty of that more times than I would enjoy admitting.
—I wonder, Dada, how do you get people to not just wait until you’re done talking?
—The answer to that is beyond me, but I’m sure one day you will have plenty to say. You just promise me you won’t stop talking until they hear.
—You got a deal, Dada. I promise.
• • • • •
Even before the door had slid completely open, Dr. Torvald was in Cyrus’s room wearing nothing but his underwear and white socks. He had his nunchakus in hand, panting heavily.
“What’s going on?” Cyrus asked, wondering what could possibly have this man armed and in such a huff on a closed ship traveling through virgin space at nigh unto the speed of light.
“Your buddy Tanner has lost his mind! Shut the door, quick!” he gasped. Cyrus couldn’t tell if Torvald was trying to whisper or could not vocalize through his wheezing. Cyrus pressed the button to close the door, and as it slid to the floor, Torvald looked anxiously over his shoulder. “That pod-waste lab monkey jumped out of my closet and tried to keelhaul me with those stupid sticks of his. Luckily, I’ve been keeping my nunchakus under my pillow. I whacked him pretty good in the knee and I ran out of the room.”
“His knee? You could have wrecked him for good.”
“I don’t think so. It sounded awful plastic when I hit him. Besides, I just reacted. If he’s worried about his knees, he shouldn’t jump out of the closet of a jittery, half-trained man with nunchakus under his pillow!” Torvald’s breaths were calmer now, but his voice was still a whisper.
“Why are you whispering?”
“Because when I was on my way here, I think I heard him ransack Milliken.”
“He’s testing us,” Cyrus said calmly, returning to his bed. Torvald looked across the dimly lit room and saw the shock-dampening bed frame against the wall and noticed the mattresses on the floor. Cyrus leaned over the mattresses and pulled his staff from the hidden side of the bed. “Wait a second. Did you say you keep your nunchakus under your pillow?”
Torvald’s eyelids fluttered slightly and his cheeks vibrated almost imperceptibly. “Yeah well, call me superstitious, but I figure if I keep them close to my head, they will be less eager to meet it during training.”
“Fair enough,” Cyrus walked over and turned the light off completely. Torvald stuck his ear next to the sliding door to try to hear what was going on in the hallway. “Won’t work. Soundproof,” Cyrus said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Which means you can stop whispering.”
“How can you be so calm? I’m sure he’s gonna bring his little rampage to your doorstep in due time.”
“And we will be ready for him. When he told us to keep our weapons with us at all times, I was sure he was planning something like this. Just didn’t think it would take this long. I think he was waiting for us to forget.” Even in the dark, Cyrus could see the bewilderment in Torvald’s eyes. “You stay here with your back flush to the wall. I’ll be the bait. When he comes through the door, you put the keelhaul down on him, and I’ll jump up and we’ll take him together.”
Torvald nodded as if he was not quite convinced of the wall’s sound dampening. Cyrus walked over to the bed with his staff in hand, and curled up into a fetal position on the bed. He pulled the sheet over his body and the staff, and then sat for a moment before he kicked twice violently. As Torvald’s pupils widened in adjustment, he saw the sheet, now loosened from the weight of the mattresses, flutter back to the bed over Cyrus.
“Lock the door,” Cyrus said, whispering now himself. “It will help maintain the illusion.” Cyrus could not see Torvald, but he heard him shuffle and he heard the beep the door made as it locked.
They waited like that for a long minute, and then another longer minute, and then yet another one even longer. Torvald’s breathing sounded like someone rustling through a refuse bin.
Although Cyrus was calm, Torvald could swear he heard Cyrus’s heart beating. It was odd considering his own heart felt as if it was rattling inside of his chest rather than pumping blood.
And suddenly the door slid open—no beep, no door chime. Tanner eased over to the bed carrying a thin rattan stick in each hand. From the dimmed light in the hall, Torvald could see Tanner was favoring his right leg even though he was wearing plastic greaves that guarded his shins and knees. When the door opened, Torvald had almost let his bladder slip, but he was composed enough to hold his breath as Tanner sidled past him. Torvald took a step from the wall to get closer, but the rubber of his shoe caught on the floor and let out a squeak. Tanner began to turn, but only managed to turn in time to see the glimmer of nunchakus as they swung toward him. Tanner’s movement looked like a blur in t
he light coming from the hall. One moment Torvald saw Tanner’s back, the next, Tanner was parrying the attack with the stick in his left hand. Torvald lifted his left leg to kick, but Tanner smacked Torvald’s shin with the stick in his right hand.
By then, Cyrus was up, lifting the sheet from the bed with his staff. The sheet went up and floated over Tanner’s head. Tanner turned and kicked Torvald in his chest, sending him back-first to the wall. The light switched on and the door slid shut as Torvald collided with the controls. Tanner faced the bed, but the sheet was coming down and he only caught a glimmer of Cyrus leaping past him. As Cyrus flew by, he jabbed the staff behind him at the back of Tanner’s right knee. Tanner shifted his weight and twisted, blocking the attack with both sticks as the sheet came down over his head and shoulders.
Cyrus landed and grabbed something that Torvald could not see because he was busy lunging toward the shrouded Tanner with a battle cry. Something hard and round caught Torvald in his ribs, knocking the air from his lungs. The end of Torvald’s own nunchakus jabbed into his thigh, but he managed to hold the sheet tightly over Tanner. Torvald tackled Tanner onto the end of Cyrus’s bed. As the second blow dug into a rib on the opposite side of Torvald’s body, Torvald let the air escape on its own, keeping his body firm to absorb the blow.
A muffled, “Okay, enough,” came from under the sheet. Tanner began to twist, but Cyrus’s staff came down across his shoulder, narrowly missing Torvald’s head. Cyrus dropped his staff on Tanner and it rested on him a moment. Torvald knocked the staff away with his elbow and struggled to hold Tanner. The staff made a hollow-sounding report as it bounced off Tanner’s head.
Torvald looked over his shoulder for Cyrus, but he was already next to him, wrapping Tanner’s ankles with a piece of what looked like rope. “What the hell is that?” Torvald asked after dropping an elbow on what he hoped was Tanner’s shoulder beneath the sheet.
“A piece of the rigging for that stupid longhouse tent,” each word came out staccato and rushed as Cyrus pulled against Tanner’s battered shoulder. Torvald shoved and Tanner rolled across the rigging line into the floor with his arms tangled in the metal rope.
Something like, “Hey!” was lost in the sounds of shifting mattress and tangled limbs colliding with the floor.
“What are we…” before Torvald could finish and Cyrus could tighten the line, a kali stick jutted out from the sheet and into the inside of Torvald’s thigh. Torvald stumbled backward and fell. Cyrus watched him fall toward the doorway just as Milliken hobbled in with his wooden broadsword. Without missing a beat, Milliken brought the flat of his sword down across the place where the arm that held the kali stick must have been.
“You scumrakers aren’t safe anywhere!” Tanner bellowed as Torvald gathered himself and helped the others finish tying him.
They turned the cocooned Tanner onto his back. The rigging and sheet were now so tight the shape of Tanner’s head could be seen in the imprint. “I’m gonna get you two!” The sheet sank into his mouth with each word and an oval darkened the area with saliva.
“Not tonight you won’t,” Cyrus retorted. He snatched off his left sock, and just as Tanner uttered the “I…” of his next sentence, the sock was already in the impression his mouth formed in the sheet. Cyrus held it there and pointed at the pillow on the bed. Milliken, as quickly as his bruised hip would let him, grabbed the pillow and tossed it to Cyrus. Cyrus then snatched off the pillowcase and wound it into a twine. The three men tied it around Tanner’s head, securing the gag with military precision.
Torvald leaned over to where Tanner’s ear should have been. “When you were sitting in my closet waiting to spring your sadistic little trap, did you think in about ten minutes, you’d be getting gagged and gaffled by three so called scumrakers? Huh? Did you? Who’s bottom feeding now?”
Cyrus and Milliken looked at Torvald as if he had just opened Pandora’s box, only the gods had forgotten to add Hope in the mix of hell spawn that was filling the hollow ship even as his words echoed off the walls. “What?” Torvald asked, almost convincing them of his obliviousness at their alarm.
“What do we do with him now?” Milliken asked, picking up his broadsword.
Cyrus looked back at the doorway, dim nighttime hall light still streaming into the room, “I have an idea.”
Dr. Villichez, nursing a headache for the last three days, had doubled his intake of water throughout the day per the advice of Dr. Fordham, who was convinced the headache was due to dehydration. This double dosage of water had subsequently tripled his trips to the restroom—especially during the lights-out hours on the ship. The cold and utter silence in his room seemed of little help. Even dispelling the silence with music spheres did nothing. The night before, he had shambled to the lav half-asleep at least four times. And as this was already his third trip, it seemed this night would be no different. A long, lazy yawn struggled to escape his throat as he rubbed his eyes and shuffled to the lav down the path he was learning all too well.
And then his foot collided with something that seemed both hard and pliable at the same time. Villichez heard what he swore was a mumble. As the aftershock of his yawn subsided, he opened his eyes and, even as his pupils adjusted fully, he was not sure his brain had correctly interpreted the signal from his eyes.
One of the inhabitants of the ship lay before him cocooned in a bed sheet, with either a towel or a pillowcase wrapped around where his head should have been. There was something sticking out from the rope that hog-tied the man. The rope itself looked remarkably like the rigging line the Shipmate had reported missing. Dr. Villichez knelt slowly so as not to upset his already complaining bladder and removed the card. Before he could turn it around and bring it into the light he already knew what it said, ‘You have been serviced by the cleaning crew. Have a nice day!’
• • • • •
Cyrus, Torvald, and Milliken sat on the floor of the fitness chamber in quiet anxiety. They had not seen or heard from Sifu Tanner since they had left him gaffled and bound in the hallway the night before. They had all come early to face the music, but not knowing the cadence or the tempo formed gooseflesh on their skin.
“You think he’s gonna be mad?” Torvald inflected his question with a curious but characteristic blend of oddly mellow anxiety and neurosis.
“Well, you sure talked an exemplary amount of bilge last night,” Cyrus said, his own voice quivering.
“Well, you were the one who decided to leave the calling card,” Torvald responded.
Suddenly, the door to the fitness chamber opened and Sifu Tanner was standing there hand over fist. He walked in silently as the three men stood at strict attention. His right eye was blackened and swollen and he seemed to be favoring his left leg. Tanner paced in front of them, taking time to glare at each man in turn as they faced forward, trying not to flinch. Tanner stopped in front of the three men within arms’ reach of all of them. In a sharp, swift gesture, he raised his hand to chest height. Each man wanted to recoil but dared not move. Tanner slowly brought up his other hand into a resonating clap. He dramatically brought his hands together again and again, forming ominous but reverent applause.
Despite their best efforts, looks of wonderment and confusion overwhelmed their statuesque expressions. With the echo of the unexpected plaudit still resonating in the air, Tanner spoke earnestly, “You all did unexpectedly well last night. Even unprepared, you handled yourselves well.” Allowing himself to smile, Tanner extended his hand and shook each of theirs in turn. They all laughed a little, more to expel the tension than to indulge in the humor of the situation.
“I think that was me,” Torvald said, pointing to Tanner’s black eye, “Sorry.”
Tanner walked over to him and met his gaze. What little smile Torvald had left fled as they made eye contact. Consternation eclipsed Tanner’s face as he spoke, pointing to the inflamed flesh around his eye, “This one was free. The next one you pay for.” He let the words hang in the air as he took a step b
ack and levity returned to his face. He clapped a solitary, sharp clap and stood at attention. “It is excellent to see you all here so early, because we have a long day ahead of us.” He greeted again, hand over fist, and as they all snapped to attention, the door slid open.
Dr. Jang stood in the doorway in a jumpsuit. It was the first time Cyrus could remember seeing him out of his lab coat since they had first entered the ship on Eros. Anxiety permeated Jang’s entire body as he stood at the doorway, apparently not sure whether to enter or run.
“Dr. Jang,” Tanner bellowed, “What brings you to this side of physical training?”
He glanced at Cyrus and then quickly back to Tanner, “Dr. Chamberlain threatened, well promised rather, that he would inflict bodily harm on me every chance he got until I came to this class to see what havoc I had wrought by giving you that card key to get into the rooms.”
“You gave him the card key to get into our rooms?” Milliken blurted, but was silenced by a fiery gaze from Tanner. Tanner moved his gaze to Cyrus and then back to Dr. Jang.
“Whatever impetus brought you here, we are glad to have you,” Tanner smiled. “Fall in next to Cyrus.”
As Jang took his place in the line, slightly unsure of what would happen next, Cyrus broke his stance at attention and reached over to Jang. Jang flinched, but then realized the gesture was without malice as Cyrus patted him on the back and smiled. “Good to finally have you here,” he said and then snapped back to attention. Davidson and Toutopolus trickled in at the regular time. They had been spared the night’s onslaught because it had been cut short by Cyrus and his Cleaning Crew. They fell silently into formation and drills as Cyrus explained the dojo protocols to Jang. Jang was beginning to relax until Cyrus explained to him that when the time came today, he too had to pick a weapon and would have to learn to defend himself with it the same way they all did. Jang looked more eager to get to that part of the class than Cyrus had expected.