Si Vis Pacem

by Robin Banks

  I want to scream and scream, but that would wake everybody up. I also want to hit him, but that would only create more work. I wonder about securing his wrists in his straps so he can’t turn over in his sleep and drown, but I decide I better not: if he gets sick in the night, I don’t want him to choke on his vomit. Well, I kind of do, but it isn’t a wish I want to work towards. In the end, I settle for going to sleep on his floor, wrapped in a blanket, cursing his name. When Dee comes to find me in the morning, he’s not dead yet. I guess that’s something.

  After the third repetition of that performance, I give up on him. I know that Martyn spoke to him about the potential effects of alcohol on his injuries. I know that Rody has had a word with some of his buddies. I also know that I don’t have the time and energy for this. Mostly, I don’t have the stomach. There are plenty of people here I can help, people who are trying to get better. I put McGee out of my mind and focus on them.

  4.

  I am too busy getting shit done to keep track of days. I know exactly when the cycling period for the first lot of Patrolmen is over, though, because that signals the start of the Great Kissing Epidemic.

  It’s relentless. Everywhere I go, whatever I do, I know that at some point I will be interrupted by someone clearing his throat and scuffing his feet on the floor. What follows varies, but only slightly. Sometimes I get a mumbled thank you, followed by a kiss. Sometimes I get a hearty handshake, followed by a kiss. Sometimes I get a bone-crushing hug, followed by a kiss. The kisses themselves vary from single, gentle pecks to sets of loud smacks, but apparently they are an essential part of the process. Sometimes the Patrolmen come at me one at a time, sometimes all in a rush. Some days it happens only once or twice. Other days it happens so often that I can hardly get anything done. But however often the performance is repeated, I can’t get used to it.

  Dee is much better at this: she greets back the departing Patrolmen, has a few teary moments, then shakes herself off and carries on as normal. I can’t do any of that. I freeze up, fuck up the greeting, and end up with a lump in my throat that stays with me for ages. Nate doesn’t get kissed and still gets pretty lumpy-throated, but he gets over it faster than me. Rody finds our discomfort highly entertaining, because he’s an asshole, but I’ve seen him tearing up a few times when he thinks nobody’s looking, so I know he’s not half as tough as he pretends to be.

  Had I been thinking about it, the abrupt spike in the frequency of forced canoodling should have told me that the cycling process is proceeding apace. I have been too frazzled to think, though, so when Martyn stops me on my way to the lunchtime rounds, I nearly shit a brick.

  “I told Nate to tell you to get out of here!”

  “What? I haven’t seen him. Did I do something wrong?”

  He grabs my shoulders and eyeballs me. “No. Gods, no. You did great. I don’t know what we would have done without the two of you. Now we can cope, though. You can go back to your classes.”

  That makes me snort. “The place is still packed. We’re weeks behind. A few more days won’t make any odds.”

  “A few more weeks shouldn’t make any odds, as far as I’m concerned: the work you’ve done here should be enough to graduate you. But it isn’t. You need to go back to your classes. It’s time for you to take care of your future. You’ve just about sorted everyone else’s out. Take the afternoon off, because you probably need it, but from tomorrow morning I want you back to your normal schedule. Don’t argue with me and don’t make me check on you. I don’t have the time for that.”

  I know that he’s serious, so I know that I have to do what he says. It doesn’t make the transition any easier, though.

  Being back in our room without the guys is fucking awful. It’s a reminder of the fact that we’re being useless while they are still flat-out busy. I hate the idea of resting while they’re working. I hate the idea of the Pollux refugees getting less help finding new jobs than the Patrolmen did. More than anything, I hate the idea of going back to swallowing and regurgitating tripe for a living. It was a lot easier for me to put up with that bullshit when I hadn’t seen its effects. The Patrolmen we patched up took these courses. I saw where it got them.

  I manage to sit through a whole lecture before something in my head snaps and I just have to walk away. Dee gets up and follows me. We don’t speak about it; we just go for a long walk all around the bubble. That doesn’t make me feel any better. Nothing out here changed, as if what happened on Pollux didn’t matter. I find that hard to tolerate.

  I find it even harder to tolerate that people at the Academy seem just as unaffected. All I want to do is scream at them, scream about the pain I witnessed, about the lives that have been changed forever while they were busy attending their poxy classes and jumping through the poxy hoops the Fed put under our noses to stop us from thinking. I can’t do that, though, because they’d think I’ve lost it and lock me up, so I just seethe in silence. I drag myself to classes, because I don’t want Martyn to waste time worrying about me, but I can’t do anything useful when I’m there. Containing my fury is taking up all of my energy and attention.

  Most people seem to read that and leave me the fuck alone. There’s always an asshole who won’t take the hint, though. I shouldn’t be surprised when that asshole is Rody.

  He collars me when I’m on my way to my floating class, literally dragging me off the main hallway into a service corridor. I only stop myself lumping him one because he’s Dee’s friend, but I’m in no mood for any shit and that’s all the slack I’m willing to cut him.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  “I need to have a word.”

  “I’m trying to get to class. You’re making me late.”

  “You’re fucking late already. Rogers won’t let you in the tank. You’ve been late for every single one of your classes since you went back.”

  “First of all, how is that your business? And secondly, so fucking what?”

  “So you need to buck the fuck up. You’re fucking up and you know it.”

  “Again, that’s none of your business. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Wrong with me? Nothing. The only thing that’s wrong here is the way you’re carrying on. You’re acting like a pouty child. It’s sickening.”

  “Mind your fucking business. Then you won’t be sickened.”

  “I’d be more than happy to do that if it was just your own life you’re fucking up. It’s not like I give a damn about you. But you’re dragging Dee along with you, and you know it.”

  That feels like a punch in the guts, largely because I know he’s right. I’m not about to let him know that, though. “Get the fuck off my case. We missed two months of classes. We’ve fallen so far behind I can’t even see what I should be catching up with.”

  “Then sort yourself out! You’re so fucking smart when it comes to organizing everyone else’s life. Now’s the time to sort out your own shit. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for Dee. I thought you cared about her.”

  “Of course I do!”

  “Fucking show it, then! Get Dee through her classes. She can’t do it on her own. She’s not like you.”

  “She’s fucking brilliant!”

  “No, she’s not. She’s the best woman who ever lived, but she’s not half as smart as you. Nor half as organized, or half as cold. You need to get her through this or she won’t make it.”

  “She doesn’t even care about graduating anymore. Neither of us do.”

  And that’s when he really flips his lid. He bunches his fists up and I think that this is it, that it’s finally going down, and I’m really looking forward to it because maybe I’ll be able to release some of the sick, black rage that’s been choking me up. Instead he bites his lip, forces his hands to unclench, and speaks slowly through gritted teeth.

  “She’s a third-classer. She needs this. She needs this as badly as any of those Patrolmen you worked so hard to help. You fucking get her back into her
studies or I’ll…” He suddenly sags, all the energy seeping out of him. “This is my fault. I did this to her.”

  “Of course it’s not your fault!”

  “Of course it is. I got her in the med bay. If I hadn’t done that, she would have had a normal year. I fucked her life up, and I can’t fix it. But you can. Don’t make me beg you. Do it because it’s the right thing to do.”

  His eyes are so bright right now that I have to look away from them. If he starts crying then he’ll get me going, and we’ll hate each other forever.

  I try to speak normally, but I can’t, so I growl at him instead. “You’re full of shit. Of course Dee is going to get through her classes. We just took a few days to adjust. We’ll be up to speed by the start of next week.”

  He growls back, “For real?”

  “Do you really think I’m going to let a bunch of dudebros kick our ass? Give us a week, two weeks max, and we’ll have caught up with them. And stop being so fucking melodramatic. This isn’t a fucking threedee.”

  “If I don’t scream, you don’t listen.”

  “That’s because you mostly talk shit.”

  “Alright, then.” For a split second he looks like he’s about to hug me, but he snarls and sails out the door instead. Thank fuck for that. I give myself a couple of minutes to get my eyes back into working order, then I walk back to our room, take out my reader, and get to sorting our lives out.

  I’d rather give up both kidneys than let Dee down. That asshole Rody knows that perfectly well, but he also knows that what he asked me to do isn’t simple. We missed the best part of a term. Our classmates are working on the final lot of coursework, while we have hardly started looking at the course materials. If we don’t catch up with this term, we won’t have a hope to survive the next one, and that’s assuming that we won’t simply get thrown out for failing our finals. I told Rody that I’d work something out and that’s what I intend to do, but we have less than a month to do the work everyone else did in three, and we’re exhausted.

  I can think of a way out, but it is not a way I’d ever thought I’d take. It’s not a way I’d consider taking if it were just my life in the balance, but it isn’t: Dee needs me, and all other considerations can go hang.

  That is why I find myself outside Reggie’s office, waiting like a godsdamned supplicant for the opportunity to talk to him. I nearly bail out about half a dozen times, but I don’t want to act weird in front of his secretary. Most importantly, I don’t want to let Dee down.

  I’ve never been inside the Chancellor’s office, so I can’t tell if the décor is Reggie’s idea. I hope it isn’t. I hope he’s not the kind of asshole who, in the middle of all the shit that has been going down, finds the time to go shopping. I also hope he’s not the kind of asshole who buys this kind of furniture, because the whole place is designed as the set to a grotesque power play. It suits him, though: sitting behind a vast, dark expanse of desk on an oversized chair that could be more accurately described as a throne, he looks positively majestic.

  “Cadet Pax.”

  He puts it out there in an entirely expressionless tone. It’s not an imprecation or a question, and it’s definitely not an invitation. If he is trying to make me feel comfortable, then he needs more practice. I’m not here to make friends, though. I’m here to make an ass of myself.

  “Chancellor. During our time working in the med bay, we have fallen quite a way behind with our studies.”

  “We? I see only one of you.”

  “Cadet Isaaq and I.”

  “You speak on her behalf?”

  “Yes. No. She doesn’t know I am here, but what I have to say goes for both of us.”

  “Indeed.” Another expressionless statement, about as welcoming as a brick to the face.

  “We will not be able to complete this term’s assignments on time.”

  He stares at me blankly and I get this unbearable urge to reel off a list of explanations and excuses, but I stop myself. If he is going to be an asshole about this, I don’t think embarrassing myself would help. The longer he doesn’t react, though, the harder it is to keep quiet. When he finally speaks, my relief is so great that it’s a fucking struggle not to show it.

  “Two points. Firstly, you must think very little of me if you believe that I’m unaware of how much work you have being doing in the med bay, and how little work you have been able to do anywhere else. I might be new to the management of this institution, but I am not entirely clueless. Secondly, you have presented me with facts, but not with the reason for your presence in my office today.”

  Does the asshole want me to beg? “We can catch up, but we will need extensions for our coursework and our exams. We might need extra help with the practical classes, too. As things are, if we take our finals at the scheduled time, we will flunk them. We just need more time.”

  “There you go. Now I know what you require of me. The answer is no.”

  “But Chancellor…”

  He raises a hand up to silence me. “Cadet, everyone here knows what you two have been doing. While the majority of the instructors have not had the privilege of serving, they are not without connections to the Patrol. Did you really think they would hold you to this term’s schedule?”

  “I… Nobody said anything about rescheduling.”

  “Did you discuss the issue with them?”

  “No.”

  “That would be your problem. Pax, I could issue an official edict ordering your Professors to give you an extension, but many people don’t respond terribly well to being told what to do, even when it is something they wanted to do in the first place. You of all people should know this.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “Because you are shaping up to be one of the greatest contrarians who ever lived. Speak to your instructors. Tell them what you need. Let them help you. I predict that, in years to come, many of them will regret not doing more to help the Pollux casualties. Many are regretting it already. Let them feel that they are contributing, even if only in a small, roundabout way. You will be doing them a favor.” He steeples his hands and rests his chin on them. “There is a catch, though.”

  “What kind of catch?”

  “When you talk to them, try to at least pretend that you think of them as people. If you learn to enter an interaction without assuming that it will turn into a fight, and without swinging first, that may be the most important skill you pick up from your time here.”

  I leave the office with a bad taste in my mouth. Every damn thing Reggie said makes sense, but I don’t like any of it. I do what he suggested, though: I approach every instructor individually, explain our situation, and ask for help. With the notable exception of Rogers, who is an asshole, they not only bend over backwards to help us out, but seem genuinely happy to do so. I leave the admin corridor with a set of manageable schedules that takes us halfway through the next term, but also with the thought that maybe I am more of an asshole than I ought to be.

  Maybe these people were people all along, and I didn’t notice that. Maybe the way they were treating me was nothing more than the reflection of the way I was treating them. Maybe it took us doing what we did to turn us into people in their eyes. Maybe they are only being nice to us because they know that Martyn and Reggie would kick up a storm otherwise. Maybe I should stop worrying about this spurious shit and focus on the work at hand. The gods know that there’s enough of it.

  It takes me a couple of days to get us into our new regime, and a few days after that to fully appreciate what we’ve got ourselves into. We’ve just swapped emotional and physical exhaustion for intellectual burnout, and that’s without us really having a chance to get over the former. We can do this, of course we can, but it isn’t going to be fun.

  Sometimes I catch myself thinking that this is a replay of my first term on Alecto, and I could kick myself. I know that things aren’t anywhere near as bad for me now: I am not in constant danger and I am not alone. I have Dee in my life, and that chang
es everything. Dee only has me, though, and my presence can’t make up for everything she needs and she’s not getting. She’s bearing up because she is a trouper, but she isn’t doing great, she’s feeling even worse, and there is fuck-all I can do to fix this.

  The only thing worse than not being able to help is knowing that Rody could. He couldn’t do anything about Dee’s exhaustion or her workload, but he could support her emotionally in a way I just can’t. I can’t ask him, though, because he’s simply too busy. It’s totally not because I can’t admit any of this to him: I just can’t dump something else on his plate right now. That’s why when he walks into our room, unexpected and uninvited, Nate at his heels, I’m happier to see him than I ever thought I could be. They both look worn out, but they are here.

  Dee looks up from her reader. When she sees him, her smile unfolds slowly and inexorably, like a sunrise. His eyes get shiny in response, but he holds himself together.

  “How is my best girl?”

  “I’m great. I’ve missed you.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” He cringes at his own words. “Well, no, I’m not, I’m sorry you’ve missed me, but I’m glad you… Oh, never mind. I’m here now. Martyn gave us the evening off.”

  “Wow. That’s something.”

  “Yeah, well, he’s got everything covered, and…” He stares at the floor and scuffs his feet. “Today it’s my birthday.”

  Dee covers her mouth with her hands and mumbles through them. “Gods. I am so sorry. I forgot.”

  “I’d forgotten too. If Nate hadn’t told Martyn, I would have missed it.”

  He looks over at Nate, who flicks him the sorriest excuse for a smile I have ever seen plague his face.