Among The Stars (Heinlein's Finches Book 2)

by Robin Banks

  I had to tell Alya that I couldn’t have Laika for the night. She took it like she takes everything these days, with that emotionless neutrality that spooks the shit out of me. She’s performing all her duties as if nothing was the matter, but there’s nothing of her in anything she does. It’s as if her soul had left the building. Laika was happy to be with her, though. I hope they’ll be good for each other.

  It’s nice to be walking away from the show. I feel as if I’m leaving all my problems behind. It feels even better to be walking towards a proper blowout. I really need this. I’ve been way too responsible for way too long. I wanna go and be a total shithead for at least a few hours. I miss that.

  Tom is super psyched too. We’re charging towards town like we’re back to our normal selves, off to have fun and raise hell – though, around here, what we class as ‘hell’ may hardly get noticed. The way this place seems to work, we’d have to seriously fuck up to get arrested.

  Gods, I hope he doesn’t get himself arrested. He looks in the mood for it. I know I am. Well, not getting arrested as such, but doing something that warrants that. I don’t want us to miss our ship tomorrow, though. Although that’s kinda tempting.

  When we get to the club and line up to get in, I spot the boys lining up a little way ahead of us. I don’t know why I’m so surprised to see them here. They’re people too. They work harder than anyone else on show, so it makes sense they’d want to party hard.

  The line is moving steadily but slowly. We’ve brought some supplies to keep us busy, so we don’t mind. By the time the boys get to the door, I’m already half tanked and having a great time. Then the line stops for an age and a half.

  I look over the crowd to see what the hold-up is. Our boys are still by the door. They’re talking with the doormen and it doesn’t seem to be going well.

  “Luke. Don’t even think about it.” Tom sounds stern. I don’t know why.

  “What? I’m just looking.”

  “Do not get involved.”

  “I’m not doing anything.”

  “I know you. Seriously, don’t. You get involved, you’re on your own.”

  The line finally starts moving again, but our boys didn’t get in. They’re on the other side of the rope barrier now, still talking to the doormen.

  “Luke.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t.”

  “Alright!”

  As we walk past the boys, I can hear them trying to talk to one of the doormen. All they’re doing is asking why they’re not allowed in. I can’t see a single good reason. They’re clean and dressed to meet the code. They’ve got their entry credit. They’re being perfectly polite, though their English isn’t great. It can’t be that they’re armed, because they haven’t been frisked yet. I’m a few people from the door when I see the doorman just turn away from the boys and blank them out. I’m moving towards them before I realize it, but Tom grabs my arm.

  “Luke!”

  “What?”

  “Don’t be an asshole.”

  “I’m only going to find out what the problem is.”

  “They still won’t get in and you won’t get in either. What’s the point?”

  “The point is that this is fucking unfair.”

  “That’s it. I’m going in. You’re on your own.”

  He hands over his credit, walks in, and stands in line to get frisked.

  I know he’s right, but I also know this is wrong.

  I walk up to the doorman. “Sir? What’s the problem?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “They’re friends of mine.”

  “Oh yeah? Maybe you can explain to them that they can’t get in. They don’t seem to understand the lingo.”

  “They do. I think it’s your explanation they can’t understand. Why can’t they get in?”

  “Because I say so.”

  “That’s not much of an answer.”

  “Son, it’s the only answer they’re gonna get.”

  “Why? Their credit is as good as anyone else’s. It’s as good as mine and you’re letting me in.”

  His jaw clenches and unclenches a few times. Shit. I’ve gone and done it now.

  “You’re right, son. That was an oversight on my part. Out you go.” He goes to grab me above the collarbone, but I know where that’s gonna lead and I’m not having any of it, so I side-step out of his reach.

  “You’ve got no call to lay hands on me. I’m not resisting.”

  “Oh yeah? You get going or I’ll make you resist.”

  I walk through the rope barrier and join the boys. I’m really pissed off now, but I’m not sure if it’s at the situation or at myself. Either way, I know I’m not getting in that club, tonight and any night that guy’s on duty. Asshole.

  The boys are looking really confused now. I’m not sure if it’s because they’ve got chucked out, or because I’m getting chucked out with them. I shrug and start walking back towards the show. It’s not as if I’m going to go clubbing on my own. I’m never going to hear the end of this from Tom. I hate it when he’s right.

  The boys start following me down the road. Fucking great. I really need to start thinking ahead, one of these days. I stop to shake them off.

  “I’m just going home. You can try and find another place to go to.”

  “You don’t drink?”

  “Not now. All my friends are in there.”

  “Why you do this?”

  “I just got angry. I didn’t like how that guy was talking to you.”

  The guys look more confused than before, but when I set off walking they don’t follow me. That’s something, I guess.

  By the time I’m back at the show, I could kick myself. I might as well tell Alya that I can have Laika after all.

  Alya’s sitting on her doorstep, which in this heat is no surprise. She frowns when she sees me. “I thought you were hitting the town. Everything ok?”

  “Yeah. Just some bullshit.”

  “Tom?”

  “He didn’t get caught up in it. I’m turning in. You want me to have Laika?”

  “Please. If you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind. She does, though. This is bullshit and you know it.” The words are out of my mouth and I can’t get them back. Fuck. “I’m sorry. I’ve not had a good night. Not your fault. But I don’t understand this.”

  Alya’s jaw has been working like that doorman’s. I’m on a roll tonight.

  “Laika needs me to be there for her. She needs me to love her. I’m the center of her universe; she needs me not to wobble. And right now, I can’t do any of that. I can’t bear to have her near me, needing me. She knows, it hurts her, and I can’t fix it. If I can’t fix it soon, I will have to make some permanent arrangement. I don’t have the right to drag her into this.”

  “Gods.”

  “They don’t seem to be listening. Or they are, and I deserve this.” Her jaw sets. “And now I’m bringing you down, too. Do you see why it’s not right for me to be with Laika?”

  “Maybe being with people isn’t just about sharing good times. But what the fuck do I know? I can’t even do that at the moment.”

  I’m about to fuck off to my bunk and resent my inability to function like a normal person when Kolya wanders up the path towards us. He’s weaving all over the place. I guess it’s just me being unable to find myself a party.

  He stumbles up to me and clamps his hands on the side of my face. For a moment I think he might be about to kiss me, but he stops. Instead, he just bellows in my face.

  “You! You wonderful boy!”

  “What the fuck did I do now?”

  “You fight for the boys!”

  “You were in a fight?” squeals Alya.

  “No, nothing like that. I just asked a doorman a question and got myself kicked out. No fighting.”

  “He goes to help the boys. Nobody else does!”

  “Nobody else got kicked out, either. Can you get off me? Please.” />
  He bear-hugs me, slaps me on the back twice, and finally lets me go. I’ve had all the manhandling I can stand. “Ok. I’m off to bed. What about Laika?”

  “She seems happy enough here,” murmurs Alya. “Luke? That was a very decent thing you did.”

  “Useful, too.”

  “Sometimes that’s not the point.”

  When I get up in the morning, Tom isn’t back yet. I enjoy my last breakfast in the Thalian morning light all alone. That wouldn’t normally bother me, but today it’s a huge cause for annoyance. Laika joins me halfway through, but I think she’s more interested in mugging me for scraps than in my company.

  “My fucking dog no longer listens to me.” Alya’s looking severely pre-caffeinated.

  “Don’t blame me. Coffee?”

  “You’re an angel.”

  I mostly offered because making coffee keeps me busy and stops me having to talk to her, but she doesn’t have to know that.

  We’re having our drinks as the troops file in. They all look like they’ve had a great time. The anger I feel at myself goes up a couple of notches.

  Tom comes charging up to this bunk to change. He punches me on the shoulder on the way up. At least he’s not pissed off at me. I didn’t fancy getting grief off him on top of everything else.

  Alya sighs over her mug. “Kid, I’m sorry you missed out on a good night. I’m not sorry that you’re someone who stands up for his friends, though.”

  “They’re not really my friends. My friends went into that club.”

  “Even more so. I can’t make you feel better about this. That’s part of the beauty of it: that you didn’t do it to feel good about yourself.”

  I really don’t want to hear anything more about last night, but Tom is still buzzing about it. I try to be enthusiastic about the great time he had. Either I’m not doing a good enough job or his hangover is kicking in, because he feels the need to have a go at me.

  “Don’t be miserable at me because you missed a night out. I told you to mind your own business.

  “I’m not. And you did.”

  “Your own fault.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t take it out on me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I ought to be pissed off at you for bailing out on me, if anything.”

  “Tom?”

  “What?”

  “Shut the fuck up about it.”

  And he does. He doesn’t say another word to me that isn’t about work until lunch. He doesn’t talk at all during lunch. We go back to trading grunts at work in the afternoon.

  After the first show, Kolya pulls me aside. “You have a fight?”

  “Nah. It’s ok. Well, yes, kinda, but we’ll be ok.”

  “This is because of last night.”

  “Kolya, I know you’re trying to help, but you can’t and I’m not in the mood to talk.”

  “It is a good thing you do. You should be proud. Your friends too.”

  “It was pointless, and I didn’t do it to help anyone. I did it for myself. I did it because I don’t want to live in a world where some asshole in a uniform can decide that some people are worth less than others. And I lost that fight, naturally, because you can’t fight the system and expect to win, and then I lost out. I wish everyone would just drop it, but I can’t make that happen, either.”

  “Oh. I am sorry.”

  “I’m sorry too.”

  6.

  The pull-down keeps us too busy to worry about anything else. That suits me fine. Tom is really struggling, which doesn’t surprise me in the least as he’s had no sleep, but we get on with it anyway.

  As soon as we’re on the ship, I turn in. I might not be able to get any sleep, but if I’m going to be miserable I might as well be horizontal at the same time. Were I capable of thinking before acting, I might have worked out that Tom may decide to do the same and fed myself into the shit chute instead.

  We strap ourselves in our bunks without saying a word. By the time our course stabilizes, I’ve had about enough of this and I’m willing to fix it any way I can, but Tom’s asleep. He looks exhausted. I don’t want him to have to wake up to do the animals, so I get up to head off Alya and Kolya. Convincing Kolya to let Tom be is just a matter of promising that I’ll make up the work, but talking Alya into it is a whole different story.

  “You’re kidding, right? It’s his own fault for staying out all night.”

  “I know. Please. As a favor to me.”

  “A favor to you? Letting you do twice the work while your chum sleeps off his hangover?”

  “Yes. Please.”

  She crosses her arms. “You’re something else, you know that?”

  “Is that a no?”

  “No. It isn’t. But I’m not happy about this.”

  “Thank you.”

  As soon as the animals are done, I get back to my bunk. I wish I could wake Tom up and tell him that I’m sorry for everything I did wrong, even though I’m not sure what it is, but that would be selfish. I just go to sleep instead.

  When I wake up, he’s still fast asleep. I’ve no idea what the time is but there’s a giant hole in my stomach, so I get up. When I get to the kitchen and I wake up properly, I realize that there’s no way in hell I could eat. Every time Tom and I have a falling out, I feel like I’ve been pushed off a flight of stairs and hit every step on the way down. I manage to make some coffee, though. If I don’t put anything in it, it matches my mood.

  I’m standing there inhaling the bitterness when Tom walks in. He doesn’t look any happier than me. That upsets me even more. I know I’m a part of his hurt and that makes everything so much worse. I can’t fix that.

  I can fix breakfast, though, so I do that.

  He sits himself at the table. I have this sudden flash of us as an old couple, falling out over something or nothing and still carrying on with everyday life, because we’re so fucking intertwined that we can’t do anything else. My insides fill with cold and I wish I could howl.

  “You don’t even know why I got angry, do you?” Tom’s voice is so flat it scares me.

  “Nope. Not a clue.”

  “We’re here. It was your idea. It was a good enough idea. It was also the only idea we had. Apart from, you know, the usual, but two years of that would have been dicey. So I went for it. We both went all in. That’s alright. That was the only way of doing it.

  “We found ourselves shoveling shit. That’s alright, too. We needed a way in and that was it. It’s not as if at our age and with our records we were gonna stroll into any kind of decent job anywhere. So we started at the bottom. The very fucking bottom. I’ve got no problems with that.”

  He pauses. I realize I’m holding my breath, waiting for whatever it is to hit me. Even staring at the floor, I can feel his eyes boring into my face.

  “Luke, I’ve got no problems with where we started. But I’ve got a problem with staying there.”

  I look at him. He’s not angry. Fuck. I’m in so much trouble.

  He carries on talking in that flat, merciless tone. “You’re my brother, you brought me here, and that’s alright. Even if it wasn’t, we’re here now and that’s that. But not you nor anyone else is gonna keep me down. If we’re here to stay, we gotta climb our way up. And even if we’re not, even if this is temporary, I still want to. I don’t want to stay the lowest of the fucking low. That’s not me. Luke, you get more respect and more credit for sucking dick. How fucked up is that?”

  I know I have to give him an answer, and I know that it has to be the right one. I just don’t know what that answer is. I can only think of a thousand wrong ones. I can’t get out of this, though, so I try and inch my way towards the place where we’re in this together.

  “You’re not angry at me for getting us into this.”

  “No.”

  “You need to walk me through this.”

  “I know. What is our only chance of advancing in circus?”

  “Getting in the show.�
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  “And how can we do that?”

  “Either we become an act, somehow, or get picked to join an act.”

  “Do you see us becoming an act, just like that?”

  “No.”

  “So?”

  “So we have to find someone to pick us up.”

  He nods. “And how do we make them want to do that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Ok, think of it the other way round. How do we make people not want to pick us up?”

  “We look like we’d be no good. Or we piss them off.”

  “And what have you been doing?”

  I shake my head. I’m not sure, though I’m starting to see the shape of it.

  “Luke, there’s a system here. A hierarchy. Like in school, in juvie, everywhere. Instead of getting in with the strong people, the people who could help us, you’ve been standing tall and proud alongside the weak and downtrodden. You’re not fighting against the system. You don’t even give it that much consideration. You just act as if the system was something that should be ignored. What do you call someone who does that?”

  “A corpse.”

  “Or a hero.” Alya’s voice startles the fuck out of me. I didn’t see her coming.

  Tom turns to look at her. “Or both. Dead heroes are not uncommon.”

  “I hope you don’t mind me barging in.” Her voice still has that flat tone it’s had since Bella’s party. It matches Tom’s quite well. It’s like listening to two machines argue.

  “Not at all. You’ve been a part of this.”

  “Because of the Ava thing?”

  “That and more. Because he looks up to you. Because you’ve got your own view of the world that doesn’t match anyone else’s, and won’t do him any good.”

  Oh. So they’re arguing over me.

  Alya tilts her head. “Care to expand on that?”

  “Everyone here thinks we’re shit. Everyone. They treat us like shit because they believe that’s what we are. I can’t fault them. I don’t have a problem with that. Way I see it, there’s a clear path for us to rise above this, to improve our lot. It’s up to us to take it. If we don’t, people will carry on treating us like they believe we deserve. That’s how the real world works. Your world doesn’t. You’re all equality and comradeship and being in this together. But your world is four people, and living in your world, for us, means being treated like shit in the world outside. Maybe it would be great if you were right, if the world changed to suit the way you look at it. But it isn’t going to. Not now, not ever. And getting Luke to live as if he could afford to ignore reality is fucked up, and it’s going to fuck him up.”