There’s one of me and Kris and him that is so untouched I see a fine layer of dust. A newer one of me and Evan and Aki, in some sim game drama I can’t remember, in the jet lounge. There’s one of Iratxe in battle gear.
I sink into Dorr’s pillow. It smells like him, like guns and candy. His presence is more comfort than obstruction.
Even the sounds of him packing away his weapons do not grab me from the fingers of sleep.
It’s a long, hard unconsciousness.
* * *
XXVIII.
The captain comes to see me. It’s been a shift, maybe. He’s cleaned up, in spotless fatigues, like I am. He leans against Dorr’s desk, holding the edge.
“I’m not going to kill you,” he says, “or turn you over to the Hub.”
I don’t know how I look, but something makes his voice gentle.
“Why?” is all I can think to ask.
“You killed him,” he says.
“That’s not worth anything,” I say. “You could’ve killed him. Why didn’t you kill him?”
If Falcone were dead before Macedon docked at Chaos, Caliban never would have attacked.
“I thought I could,” he says. He doesn’t look away from me. But I see how difficult the words are for him. Yet he’s here, as if he owes me something. “I planned it for years, maybe for too long. When it came down to it I looked at the man—saw nothing but a pathetic old manipulator. Death was too quick for all the years he’s made people suffer and I didn’t have enough—immediate hatred to do it, anyway. I couldn’t do what you did, when it came down to it. Do you understand?”
“Because you were afraid?”
He shakes his head. “No. Because I wasn’t. But that doesn’t mean I’m not glad he’s dead. I think it’s right that you did it. I think you needed to do it more than me, or anybody.”
In his own way, he is thanking me.
The captain of Macedon is thanking me. For something we have both wanted to do since we were children.
* * *
XXIX.
They give me jet BDUs, so crisp and black that Erret says I look like burnt toast. Sprig, he jokes. We stand at the airlock waiting for the captain. It’s three shifts later and Niko awaits us. I haven’t talked to him. Erret’s been my shadow through funerals and long walks, where some of the crew scowled, others looked away, and yet others didn’t seem to see a difference. Maybe because Macedon is the second chance and maybe we’re all on that number. Or maybe just because Erret shadows me.
EarthHub still wants me, but they aren’t willing to argue with Niko over it. In a strange way they’re less willing to confront Captain Azarcon about it. Maybe because they know who rules deep space and who really controls their borders. Maybe Admiral Ashrafi has a hand in it. Dorr laughs about the fact I have so much brass on my side.
But they aren’t really on my side. Only Azarcon and Ashrafi, who have a use for me. Like Dorr does for me, whatever it is. Or like Evan. Maybe it’s just in the way people need each other. I don’t know. But the rest of EarthHub and the rest of Macedon aren’t that forgiving. Or practical.
Word went ahead on coded communications that Captain Azarcon is going to begin peace talks. EarthHub either has to support it or fall on their faces in shame when stations and merchants who are tired of the war wonder why the govies aren’t online with the deep spacers. The Hub could wrangle it out, Cap said, with his father the admiral. He’s just going to have some caff with a sympathizer.
He said, “I already gave one a gun, so why not share a drink.”
The humor of this crew.
“Your Warboy ain’t all that hot up close,” Erret says, lighting a cigret as we wait.
“You haven’t gotten close enough.”
“I was plenty close. I could smell the strit on him.” He grins.
I don’t. Some things will take more than a signed agreement to change.
Cap strides up in dress uniform, frowning. Erret and I are decked as jets. I have no clothes but what they give me and they don’t seem to mind I am in a uniform that no longer applies. Erret hasn’t even mentioned the tattoo on my wrist. Lieutenant Hartman follows the captain. We are the only escort. Erret’s appointed himself my guard for the duration so we’re a comfortable striviirc-na number of four. Like the principal forms of na. Niko agreed to the same.
“Put that out,” Cap absently orders Dorr.
“Sorry, sir,” Erret says, not really meaning it. He squashes his cig on the deckplates, which makes Cap frown more.
The captain tugs at his collar and heads down the ramp. We fall in behind him.
Niko walks across the short distance between airlocks, perfectly timed. Turundrlar is moored beside Macedon, doubtless to the extreme nervousness of both crews. But you can’t see it in the faces of their captains.
They greet each other with nods. Marines and jets line the dockside, straight out the doors and to the upper level conference room where it will all take place. It’s more parade than a show of force, but it’s both. Three striviirc-na dreadnoughts hang off stationside, in space. There is an admiral on his way to the deep from Hubcentral. Nobody is fooled that this is absolute friendship.
Captain Azarcon looks Niko in the eyes. Even if the stare isn’t habit for him, I told him what strivs and sympathizers expect.
“I have one of your spies,” he says, gesturing to me. “I figure we might as well put him to use for both of us, just to make sure there are no misunderstandings. Especially in anything we may write down.”
A treaty, he means. It’s in his deadpan face, his dark humor.
“You are looking to write something down?” Niko asks, accented words and without a hint of humor. Of course that’s just his way.
I glance at Azarcon. He might not understand.
But Azarcon says, “One or two things. Maybe. We’ll see how it goes.”
Niko looks once at me, but he isn’t talking to me. “Do you trust him?”
The captain says, “He saved my life.”
I remember that I did. But I couldn’t save Kris. Or Iratxe. Or my parents and Mukudori.
Maybe they see it in my face. They both look. Niko gestures for me to walk ahead of him. He doesn’t know the inner parts of this station, but I can show him.
There will be opportunity in the future, I suppose, for sometime going to a balcony, on a world, with a paper ship in hand to watch it soar and burn.
But it’s not now and that’s not my place. This is my place. This is where I’m standing, on a station between worlds.
About The Author
Karin Lowachee was born in Guyana, South America, and grew up in Ontario, Canada. She holds a creative writing and English degree from York University in Toronto and taught adult education for nine months in Canada’s tundra community of Rankin Inlet, Nunavut.
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