by Robin Banks
Aiden smirks. “Den of iniquity. Asshole of nowhere. Perfect.”
“O-kay. Can I have a bit more detail?”
Sasha stammers slightly as she answers. “Well, we are a bit off the beaten path. And after the Fed trashed the place to bits, most of us developed the teensiest bit of resentment towards them. So we went kinda rogue. I’m sure the Fed don’t like it, but after what happened the last time they tried to tell us what to do, they’re leaving us well alone. For now, anyway. So the kids are unregistered and untested, we do our own mining and farming, and there might be a tiny bit of smuggling going on. No thieving, mostly, though we occasionally commandeer goods for the purpose of redistribution of wealth. But as that’s Fed wealth, it doesn’t really count. So if you want to be economically disadvantaged but untroubled by bureaucratic formalities, we may be a good fit.”
Asher leans back in his chair. “That was some finely-spun bullshit. My compliments. So we’re off to be space pirates?”
“Pretty much. We can always use good pilots and techs.” And she blushes even redder.
Gwen squeaks, “Are we going to need new names? And new clothes, and eye patches?”
Sasha smiles at her. “No special equipment required. New names may be an idea.”
Asher sighs. “Well, my surname’s all played out. We can go with yours.”
“Oh hell no. I married you to give that up; I’m not going back to it.”
“And that’s me thinking you married me because you couldn’t live without me.”
“That might have been a factor. But the surname clinched the deal.”
“Good to know. I guess.” He sighs and looks at Sasha. “How do your people feel about penniless cripples and pregnant women?”
“What penniless cripples?”
“Well, me, mostly. These two are penniless but not crippled.”
She smiles. “You’re not penniless. For Pollux, you’re practically capitalist bastards. First against the wall when the revolution comes, and all that.”
“Does owning the clothes on your back count as untold riches there? Because technically these aren’t even mine. I borrowed them and haven’t had a chance to give them back.”
Sasha turns to Gwen. “You didn’t tell him?”
“There wasn’t time”
She turns back to Asher. “She cleared out your accounts on the way out of the tube.”
Gwen shrugs. “It was her idea. She reminded me. I was a tad distracted at the time. And loveling, do you really think it’s wise to use the same code for everything you do? Someone dishonest could take advantage.”
Asher goggles at them. “Ok, so are you telling me that in the middle of whatever was going on you popped into a bank?”
“Of course not.” Sasha rolls her eyes. “The docking bays on the tube have credit points. How else would they get sailors to beggar themselves every time they go on leave?”
Gwen chimes in. “And accessing our accounts meant that we showed up on the tube. Corroborated our story.”
He stares at them, openly amazed. “I will never understand how you can manage to keep it so together. Never. It’s a superpower.” The girls smile in perfect synchrony, if rather smugly. “Given as you’re so organized, you wouldn’t happen to have a med kit somewhere?”
“Are you ok?” Gwen squeaks.
“That’d be a negative. I could feel the insides of my bones grinding all the way up. If I wasn’t so damn happy I’d be stabbing myself in the leg to blunt the pain a bit.”
We all spring into action. Well, Aiden and I try, and we’re reminded that we’re injured, too. So Sasha grabs the med kit and starts doing the rounds while Gwen is readying the bunk room so we can settle down.
They get Asher to lie down in one of the bunks. When Sasha tries to give him some painkillers, he baulks.
“I know those pills. They’ll knock me out. I’m fine, I honestly am!”
“Love, you’re a terrible liar. Anything weaker won’t do a damn thing for you. If you fall asleep, we’ll be here when you wake up.”
“Don’t wanna,” sulks Asher.
Gwen kisses his forehead. “Please. We all need the rest. I need the rest.”
“You’re only saying that because you want me to shut up and go to sleep.”
“That’s about half the reason. The other half is that if I don’t lie down and sleep I will fall over, and I can’t rest while you’re hurting like that.”
“Oh. Ok then.” I know he’s really hurting when he gives up that easily. He lies down holding Gwen’s hand and doesn’t let go until he goes unconscious.
“Do you think he’ll be ok?” I ask as I’m settling myself in the bunk next to his.
Gwen shakes her head. “We can but hope. If he’s not, we can’t really do anything about it here. But hopefully it was just the effect of the high g on the healing fractures. Anyway, you’re next. Get your top off.”
“I’m alright, really. Just bashed my back a bit, but it’s not too bad.”
Gwen crosses her arms. “I’ll be the judge of that. Top off.”
I’m simply too tired to argue with her. When my top comes off, their collective gasps are somewhat concerning.
“Loveling, there’s a perfect print of the tank on your back. And right here,” Gwen traces a line across the small of my back that makes me clench in pain. “I don’t know how you didn’t break. I mean… If you’re not hurting now, you’re going to be hurting tomorrow. And the day after. But I think you’re lying, and you’re hurting.”
“It’s not so bad, I swear.”
“I would try harder to believe you if you were at all believable. Sasha, whatcha got?”
“Gloop and pills, that’s about it.”
The gloop hurts at first and soothes afterwards. The pills make me sleepy almost immediately. Or it could be that I’m just exhausted. Gwen helps me roll over in the small bunk and tucks me in.
“You might as well get in there yourself,” Sasha murmurs. “I think I can handle an ankle.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. You keep an eye on these two. I can manage the rest.”
As Gwen snuggles up with me, setting into my armpit with an excess of caution, I watch Aiden watching Sasha bandage his ankle. I never had him for a religious guy, but I guess I was wrong. He looks torn between wonder and fear, as if she were some kind of divine apparition.
Gwen whispers into my ear “You two never look at me like that.”
I’m not in a mood to argue, particularly given that she’s right, so instead I project a half-dazed image of how I feel about her. I get a huge kick out of seeing her eyes widen and soften. Then I realize what I’m looking at. “Hey, gorgeous. You know you’ve still got your contacts in?”
“Damn! I’d forgotten!” She gets up to take them off, and helps me with my cheek implant and nostril things. “Aiden? You going to get that crap off your face?”
“Oh. Yes. Damn.”
When his normal face resurfaces, after a lot of fumbling and some muttered swearing, he looks at Sasha rather nervously. I’m not sure how much she cares about stuff like that, but I guess it’s a concern. Although she’s momentarily surprised, she’s clearly not displeased. Aiden does not realize how much of a babe he is, bless him. Anyway, I didn’t think it’d be physically possible for him to look at Sasha any more adoringly, but it turns out I was wrong. They go off to keep watch “because you never know,” allegedly. I rather think it’s an excuse, but I’m not judging.
I lie in the dark with my little bundle of love right beside me, Asher within arm’s reach, and as I fall asleep I find it really hard to remember that there are no happy endings.
The morning after finds us all sore and tired – physically, mentally, and emotionally. We haven’t had the time to process anything. Having the chance to get some physical rest is making it harder to ignore the rest of our pain.
Asher has to be told about Nick. We all need to tell him, less for his benefit than for our own.
Being listened to by Asher is so intensely cathartic. It’s selfish of us, because Nick was Asher’s friend, too, and his colleague and protégé and squadron buddy. Asher’s been betrayed harder than any of us, and has suffered the most from that betrayal. But talking with Asher brings so much relief that we’re allowing ourselves to be selfish. He doesn’t seem to mind, but he’s not the sort to shy away from pain.
We all need to be heard by everyone, really. We’re all hurt, we’re all deeply different, and we all need what the others have to offer. So we commence a strange dance, all of us striving to get some one-to-one time with everyone else in a space that’s ill-suited to containing this number of people in the first place.
I feel for Sasha, having the quiet of her ship shattered by four people, three of whom are very much in the way of her getting closer to the fourth, all wrapped up in processing events she’s not even fully aware of. She seems to get it, which raises her even further in my estimation. I guess she’s no stranger to the needs of people in recovery – or, if she minds, she’s doing it quietly.
Three days into this, I bump into her in the kitchen. I’ve been spending a lot of time there, partly because it gives me a chance to get out of people’s way, partly because apparently I'm the only person on this tub who comprehends that food can be more than just fuel.
Sasha leans herself against the doorway and just watches me for a while. She’s a comfortable person to be silent with. It makes her easy to talk to. That doesn’t mean I particularly enjoy having her eyeball me while I’m floundering around trying to turn slop into a meal, though.
I cross my arms and try to give her a stern look, but I fail. She’s eminently likeable. “If you’re here to judge me, you can save yourself a job. It’s going to suck. Hopefully a bit less than yesterday’s and more than tomorrow’s, but I’m not a miracle worker and you’re not giving me much to work with.
She giggles. “Yeah, that’s totally what I’m here for. To judge you. It couldn’t be that I’d actually like to learn to cook.”
“By watching me?” I shake my head sadly. “That’s a sad indictment on the state of your culinary skills. I’ve only had a few days’ practice, and that was with actual food. You know, food made of food. It’s hard to go wrong with that.”
“Yeah, Aiden told me about Martha. When he was still talking to me, I mean. She sounds great.”
“What do you mean, when he was still talking to you?”
She pulls a face. “He’s going through a phase. Well, I hope it’s a phase. I think he’s decided that I can’t possibly deal with whatever is ailing him, so he’s trying to avoid me. Kinda hard while we’re in here, but he’s still trying. I hope he gets through whatever it is before we hit dirt, is all. I kinda like him.”
“He kinda likes you too. I’ve never seen him like this before.”
“What, hiding?”
“Nah, I’ve seen plenty of that. He goes quiet when things are bad. Even quieter, I mean. And he has a lot on his mind, you know? We all do.”
“I don’t see you hiding.”
“Yeah, well, Aiden is nicer than me.”
“And shutting out the people who,” she stammers, “who care about you is nice?”
“Maybe he thinks… Look, I don’t know what he told you. And it’s not my story to tell.”
“He didn’t need to tell me anything. I mean, it’s not as if I don’t know what happened. I heard half of it over the tracker, and I could work out a lot of the rest. But I don’t know the background, and I thought we ought to talk about it, so I mentioned it, and he came out with it. Very briefly but very clearly. And then he stopped talking to me.”
I rub my face. “Yeah, that sounds like Aiden alright. Oh, shit. You told him how you feel about it? I mean, I’m assuming you are ok about that. Are you? Ok about that?”
Her face looks unbearably sad. “I don’t think it’s my place to feel any way about it. The whole damn thing was… What else could he do? I mean, if you can’t trust a guy not to try and kill one of his best friends, you can’t trust him with anything else, can you? I don’t think you could have just left him behind. But I’m also sure that’s not why Aiden did what he did, and I think that’s what’s eating at him.”
“It’s possible. I don’t know. I would have killed him, too, I think. I don’t want to think about that. See, maybe I’m in hiding too.”
“Maybe you are. Gwen is worried about you.”
The sudden turn in the conversation takes me by surprise. “Eh? How do you know that?”
“Because she told me. She’s worried about you, and she doesn’t know what to do about it.”
“She doesn’t need to worry and there’s nothing she can do.”
“I don’t think worrying is a need-based activity. She loves you, you know?”
“Yeah, I know. That’s rather the problem.” I really don’t want to talk about this, but Sasha is looking too sad for my liking, so I brace myself, take a deep breath, and carry on.
“Gwen and Asher love me. They’re forgiving me for what I did, and they want me to forgive myself. I know they love me and they want me to feel better, and that feels good. At the same time, I know that their love makes them biased. They forgive me at least in part because they love me. But if I’m a terrible person, then that love is misplaced, or undeserved. And everything that stems from it is meaningless. Including their forgiveness.”
Sasha squints at me. “I’m confused now. What should they forgive you for?”
I can’t speak for a few moments. When I finally manage to speak, my voice sounds hollow. “You know what I did. Don’t make me say it.”
“I know what you did. I don’t know why you’d need anyone’s forgiveness about that.”
I snap. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“No, I’m not. You did what you had to do. And it was ugly. It was damn ugly.”
“Thank you for that. That makes me feel better.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel better. Do you want me to?”
I have to stop and think about that. “No. In all honesty, no. That’s all the guys are trying to do, and I wish they’d stop. I did an awful thing, and I don’t want to feel better about it. It’s bad enough being someone who could do that. I don’t want to be someone who could do that and treat it like it’s ok.”
“So you want to keep feeling bad about this? Forever?”
“I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what I deserve.”
“I don’t know that either.” She shakes her head. “I don’t think it’s our job to decide that, though. I don’t think it’s up to any of us to forgive you or condemn you. Though I think someone would have to be a damn fool to condemn you.” Her face goes hard. “Look, I don’t think anything that happened on that damn trip was ok. Not remotely ok. It was all damn ugly. It’s hard sometimes to know where the people end and the ugly begins. Bad people will never afford you any courtesies, and more than half of the good ones will be too self-absorbed to even try.”
I think she’s going to carry on talking, she’s going say something good, something to make me feel better. But she just stands and stares.
“That’s all you’ve got for me? Too much ugly, no courtesies?”
“Yeah,” she nods. “Pretty much. Sorry.”
I take a couple of deep breaths. Then I take a couple more. “Gods, I feel like shit.”
“Yeah. I get that.”
“But you ain’t going to try and talk me out of it?”
“Nah. Not my place.”
I sigh. “Thank you. I guess. Oh, fuck it. I’m going to have a word with Aiden. And having a word with him doesn’t work, I’ll have another one. I’m sure I can carry on talking longer than he can carry on listening.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m not doing this for you, I’m doing this for him. Or me. He needs to snap out of it. He shouldn’t fuck up something good now just because of something bad back then.” I shake my head. “Gods, I’m a damn hy
pocrite.”
“Little bit.”
“Is it ever going to stop?”
“I don’t know. But it’s been three days. Give it time before you panic.”
“I’ll do that.”
The fourth day teaches us why space travel is not recommended for pregnant women.
It starts out as a mild cramp. It never develops to more than an ache, according to Gwen, yet the pain it causes is indescribable.
They say you really learn what people are made of when terrible things happen. I don’t like what I’m learning about myself. My grief seems a poor and sorry thing I can barely stand to look at, all ragged edges and weeping sores, tinged with resentment and guilt. I feel guilty at the extent of my grief, which feels insufficient and selfish to the point of being insulting. This was a new dream for me, one I was just getting around to dreaming. I’m grieving for a loss I can’t quite feel, because I hadn’t yet allowed myself to feel the gain. Now that it’s all gone, it doesn’t hurt enough, and I hate myself for that.
Asher’s grief is like a burning coal in his heart, ravaging him with a pain so intense it’s almost physical. Yet he doesn’t try to run or hide from it. He holds that grief religiously, and still prioritizes everyone else’s hurt over his own.
Gwen’s grief is like the sea, incessant and pitiless, sending wave after wave to wash upon her. She hasn’t cried at all; she just shut herself from us and opened herself up to the grief. She sits and she grieves, and she grieves and she sits. I try to be there for her – we all do. Yet we all fail. Even Asher.
I’m so glad for Sasha right now. There’s something she can do for Gwen that we just cannot, even when all she is doing is being there. I don’t know if it’s biology or conditioning, real or imaginary, and I don’t care. I’m just glad she’s here for Gwen now.
I really learn to appreciate Aiden in this. He’s always troubled by his inability to instinctively think of the right thing to do, or the right thing to say. He completely fails to understand what a gift it is to find someone who, when they don’t know what to do for you, asks you what you need and want. Someone who, when they don’t know what to say to you, actually listens. Someone for whom the important part of helping others is the impact of their actions, rather than their role in the process.