Heinlein's Finches

by Robin Banks

  In the middle of all this shit, I’m really glad that I got to know him better. I’m nowhere near as glad that I got to know myself, though. Yet I tell him how I feel and how I don’t feel enough, and he doesn’t turn away from me. That’s a gift, too.

  We carry on for two days like a ghost ship, going through the motions of daily life because we have to, radiating grief through the universe.

  On the third day, Gwen and Asher are sitting in the passenger seats, Gwen leaning into Asher while he strokes her hair, when he starts singing. He sings a song about love and loss and heartbreak and red roses. He sings quietly, almost absent-mindedly, but with all his heart. When he finishes, Gwen looks up at him imploringly, so he sings another one. He sings about a king and a god and says hallelujah a lot, and I don’t understand any of it but it’s beautiful. I’ve never heard him sing. I didn’t know he could.

  When another voice joins his, I realize that he can’t sing at all. Sasha’s voice is high, clear, and pure, so sorrowful that it gives me the shivers. Asher moves to singing backing vocals, and their two voices combined get stronger and seem to encompass and express all the grief we’re feeling, and then some. At the end of the song, Gwen’s face is covered in tears and the knot in my chest has exploded.

  After that, things start getting a bit easier. The first time I find myself giggling I stop, horrified. It feels like taking a shit in a church. But Gwen half-smiles at me, and I half-smile back at her, and slowly but surely we crawl upwards together.

  That evening I find Asher sitting in the pilot’s seat, head leant back, eyes shut. His arms are relaxed, hands hovering over the controls, as if he was feeling the life of the ship through his palms. I watch him as long as I can, this scrawny, weather-beaten, damaged husk of a man who is the strongest and bravest and truest person I’ve ever met, until he senses me watching him and opens one eye.

  “…yes?”

  “Hey.”

  “What up?” He slowly disconnects himself from whatever reality he was inhabiting and pulls himself back into his seat, into his body. It’s both sad and beautiful to watch.

  “Nothing. Sorry. Didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “You’re not. How you doing?”

  “Eh.”

  “Yeah.”

  He carries on slowly reassembling himself limb by limb, until he’s the Asher I know, the Asher confined by his body.

  “What? You’re looking at me like I’m some kind of spectacle.”

  “You kinda are. You love this, don’t you?”

  “Gods, I can’t begin to… Yes, I do. This feels so good it’s almost sinful. Particularly with… You know. Despite everything that went on, this still feels good. And I haven’t even flown her yet.”

  “Maybe one day you can tell me how it feels.”

  “Maybe one day I can show you. Easier and better.”

  “Does it ever go away? The pain.”

  He locks eyes with me, and he tells me the truth, as always. “No. But it gets small enough that you can live with it. Small enough that you can love and laugh and pray and fuck without having to negotiate around the crushing pain in your heart. And one day you realize that it’s so small that you know for a fact that you will be ok. Eventually.”

  “That’s not a cheery prospect.”

  “It’s not meant to be. Come here?”

  I sit myself at his feet, my back against the chair, his knees under my armpits, and lean my head back. He dims the cabin lights and starts to tell me about the stars whizzing by, and about the space between them; about the joy of becoming a ship, of feeling the terrible pull of gravity and time and denying them both; about the tragedy of falling in love with flying, the tragedy of loving so much something that takes you away from everything else you love, so that you’re never complete, your heart never content, on- or off-ship; about life on a ship, as he’d like it; about a travelling community and the power of love and unity and defiance against the cosmos; about the hope he had for a child born from such a reckless, boundaryless love; about everything he wanted to do and tell and show, his hopes and dreams; about how it wouldn’t have mattered at all if it had all turned out completely different, but not like this, not this iniquity, not on top of everything else; and about how this is what it is, and it’s so, so important to respect it and honor it, and rage against it, too, because fuck this, fuck all of this, because the universe shouldn’t have dared, but it did, and all you can do is refuse to turn away from it all, refuse to let the pain scare you away from love.

  He talks and I listen, and I link into him and let his words and his feelings wash through me. And afterwards we feel just as bad, but we feel bad together, and that counts for something.

  Asher must have had enough of us moping about, because he starts to whip us into shape as soon as we emerge from the bunk room.

  “Aiden. Check these babies out.” He’s got two training knives carved out of some scrap polymer.

  “Oh, pretty. You made them?”

  “Yup. Wanna play?”

  Aiden frowns. “You sure? Legs?”

  “They’re fine. Good enough, anyway. I don’t need crutches. Hardly any g force here. And I'm rusty as hell. Bet I can still kick your ass, though.”

  “Oh yeah?” Aiden crosses his arms over his chest.

  “Yeah. I don’t need working legs to kick your ass. I barely need a pulse.”

  “You think so.”

  “I know so.”

  Aiden cracks his neck. “Ok then. See what you got, old man.”

  They go off into the cargo hold, and we follow.

  I whisper to Gwen, “Are you sure they should be doing this?”

  She shrugs. “They probably shouldn’t. But once he gets like that, there’s no point trying to stop him. And he’s right; he is rusty. We’ll all need to get back into the swing of things, Asher most of all. And I trust Aiden to be sensible.”

  It starts off slowly enough, Asher and Aiden getting the measure of each other and re-learning their own limits. But it builds up, and soon enough they’re grinning, or showing teeth, and so intent on getting a kill that they seem to have forgotten everything else. By the end, they’re both lathered in sweat and having at each other so hard I wonder if someone ought to stop them. The kill is Aiden’s, but he only manages it by throwing a sweeping kick at Asher’s casts – which makes me gasp and Gwen shriek – and catching Asher out while he’s so focused on protecting his legs that he’s badly off-balance.

  Asher stares at him for a few seconds, then bursts into a giant laugh. “You bastard! That was brilliant!” He walks towards us, handing the knives to me and Gwen. “Your turn.” He whacks me on the shoulder. “Good luck. No offense, but my credit’s on the little one.”

  This is a grossly unfair fight. I’m well over a foot taller than Gwen, bulkier and stronger. All I need to do is get close enough to her and I can stomp her flat. Only I can’t. I can’t get anywhere near her. She dances in and out and all around me. She doesn’t even attempt to get to me, which really gets to me. I find myself chasing her all around the room, always a step behind, until I start to falter through sheer exhaustion. Then she comes at me, knife moving through the air in circles and spirals and complex, impossible shapes I can barely follow, until she stumbles and I lunge to finally squash the maddening bug but she steps smartly aside and lands a kill on me. Godsdamn her.

  I look back at the guys, Asher watching us with a glint in his eyes, Aiden watching Sasha watching Gwen with naked awe.

  Asher hugs me, sweat and all. “Not bad. You nearly licked her once or twice.”

  “You shitting me?” I pant.

  “Nah. She must be out of condition. I’ll show you a couple of moves tomorrow. You can totally nail her, until she wises up.” He lowers his voice. “But gods help me, I really wanna nail the both of you tonight.” The hunger in his voice makes me weak at the knees.

  The rest of the day is hard to get through. Sasha hasn’t done any knife or hand-to-hand training, so Aid
en gets to showing her. Gwen starts out trying to help, but Aiden’s style is more suited to Sasha’s size, strength, and speed. I’m impressed at how cool Sasha is with being bad at something in front of someone she likes. She seems completely unfazed by it all. I need to find out how she manages that.

  Sasha and Aiden keep themselves busy, while we watch and occasionally comment. I can’t even look at Asher without twitching. Gwen is clearly torn between contrasting feelings. It could be just the horn I’m feeling, or the fact that I’m way too thick-skinned, but I’m deliriously happy when I finally see the fire rise in her eyes. When Asher sneaks out, we both follow. We don’t come back for a while.

  We spend the rest of the trip finding our new working groove. We no longer have to spend every second of the day holding on to each other, so we can start getting on with things.

  I help Asher screen off a section of the cargo bay to make a bedroom for the three of us. When we get back to the bunk room to grab a couple of mattresses, we find Aiden surreptitiously connecting two bunks together. When he catches us looking at him, he grins and shrugs. “I’m under orders. You’ve been moaning at us to get a room for days. Happy now?”

  “Actually, yes. Bloody ecstatic.”

  “Heh. I can still blow this.”

  “Doubtful. I don’t think Sasha would let you.”

  Sasha is clever, kind, and has the patience of a saint. She shows me and Gwen the basics of flying – Asher tries, but his basics aren’t basic enough for us. Meanwhile, Aiden tinkers with Matilda, endlessly adjusting ‘one last thing’ only to find something else that could do with a tweak. We all train hand-to-hand and knives. Blasters will have to wait until we hit dirt. I cook, Gwen cleans, Sasha and Asher sing. Aiden still looks at her as if she were a miracle, and she blushes every time. It’s beautiful to watch them. We eat and we drink and we make love. As far as I’m concerned, this trip could last forever.

  October

  When we reach Pollux, I’m genuinely sorry. I think the only one of us looking forward to hitting dirtside is Sasha, who’s missing her kid. The rest of us would continue this honeymoon for a few weeks yet, but it’s time to get a start on the rest of our lives. Anyway, we’re nearly out of food, so lingering in space is not an option.

  As the planet comes into view, Sasha catches Asher standing behind the pilot’s seat, looking wistful. She nudges him towards the seat.

  “Do you want to set her down?”

  “Seriously? I’d love to. Just thinking about it makes me feel… I don’t have words for it. I don’t even know if it’s healthy. But she’s your ship. And that’s an excuse, because I'm terrified, too. Last time I flew I also landed on Pollux, if you can call that landing. And everyone I love is on this ship. What if I fuck it up? What if my legs hurt too much, and I drop her? What if I shit the bed? What if this part of my life is gone forever?”

  “What if it isn’t, and you’re running away from it because you’re too scared to find out? I’ve seen you in the pilot’s seat. You looked pretty good in there.”

  It’s Asher’s turn to blush. “That was me thinking about how it feels. I wasn’t doing anything.”

  Her voice is gentle but resolute. “Well, you have two choices, and the second one ain’t pretty. I think you’re too good for that. And if you think I’d let you smash her into the dirt, then you must think very little of me.”

  “No! I mean, yes. I mean no! I mean, you’re right, I'm wrong.”

  So he takes a big breath, smiles a small smile, sits himself in the pilot’s seat with Sasha as co-pilot, and he lands the ship. I’d like to believe that it was some kind of spectacular landing, but I can’t. I don’t know enough about flying, the terrain wasn’t really a challenge, and he seemed hesitant at times, Sasha visibly tensing up in case she had to cover for him. But he landed the damn ship and it’s him doing it and that’s all I need for my heart to swell with joy.

  Just like that, we’re home. With no home to speak of, and a beat-up ship, and not much in the way of credit, and no prospects, and dented bodies, and a lot of heartache to process yet. We carry with us the horror of knowing that everything we went through could all happen all over again, and the certain knowledge that if it does we may not be able to survive it again; it could be the big one, the one that breaks us. But we’re home. And right here, right now, we’re going to love the hell out of that, and out of each other.

  Year 2480 Terran Standard

  January

  I love coming back home. Doesn’t really matter how long I’ve been away for, or how far. Every time I get back here, I still feel the same; joy, serenity, completeness. Sometimes I look forward to going away just so I can come back.

  This time is no exception. I park the ATR a little way from the house – if you can call it a house; everything with us is always a work in progress. As soon as my feet touch the ground, I feel a little more peaceful. Asher is sitting under a tree by the fish pond. Nobody else is in sight, so I walk over to him.

  I’m still a few feet away when he turns to me. “Catch!”

  I narrowly avoid a metallic object hitting me in the gut. “Beer? Terran beer?”

  “You wish. Local imitation pisswater, rather optimistically labeled. But it’s drinkable. Well, relatively. Careful how you open it.”

  He says this just as I open the damn thing, and a stream of gassy liquid erupts all over me.

  “Thank you for that timely advice.”

  “Anytime.”

  “Is it supposed to taste like someone’s already drunk it?”

  “Yup. Authentic imitation pisswater. On the plus side, there’s next to no chance of going blind on it.”

  “Fantastic.”

  I look at Asher’s set up. His home-made rod seems better than the last one I saw, but not much. I can’t see any movement in the water.

  “You do realize this is possibly the most inefficient way ever of getting fish home? You could probably throw rocks in there and have more luck.”

  He crosses his arms and turns to look at me. “Completely missing the point. It’s Sunday. And on a Sunday, the hard-working man of the house sits hisself by the pond and fishes, with a couple of drinks to keep him company. It’s the hard-earned rest he’s entitled to after slaving away all week. Away from the house, too, which is the only way one can get any rest around here.”

  “Hate to break this to you, but you’re literally a minute away from your front door. Hardly a secluded location.”

  “Your pragmatism pains me. This is tradition. It doesn’t have to make sense. Plus that kid of yours is trying to plot something against you, and it’s much easier for her to do so if I’m out of her hair. She’s got this absurd notion that I’d take your side or something.”

  “Huh. And that’s me thinking she was clever. You’d sell me down the river in a heartbeat.”

  “True dat. Watch your back. Incoming.”

  I turn around to see the most splendid kid in the entire universe leap down the house steps and hurtle towards me with all the speed she can muster, which is significant. When she gets near me, she throws herself upwards and I catch her, partly because I love her and partly because I don’t want her to headbutt me in the chin. The ballistic properties of a small child at low g should never be underestimated.

  “Oof. When did you get so big? You nearly pushed me into the pond.”

  She gives me a rather moist and enthusiastic kiss with a hint of dirt, then she frowns. “You were gone a long time.”

  “A week! I came back as soon as I could. I missed you.”

  She smiles again. “Good! Did you bring me anything?”

  “Not this time. But I got some mail for your Uncle Aiden.”

  “Ooh. Anything good?”

  “I don’t know. It’s sealed. But it’s heavy.”

  “Hmm. Will he open it today?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think he expects it.”

  She wriggles, which is my signal to put her down. Next thing I know, Asher�
�s collapsed on the floor, clutching his side.

  “Of all the…”

  Gwen bellows out of the door. “Matilda O’Sullivan! Did you just stab your daddy in the ribs?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you use your blunt knife?”

  “Ye-es.”

  “Did you hold it flat like Uncle Ivan said, to go between the ribs?”

  “Yes, mommy.”

  “Good girl!”

  And Mattie beams at her mom and runs back to the house.

  I look at Asher, still on the floor, finally able to swear liberally.

  “Did I just see you get taken out by a three year old?”

  “She’ll be four soon.”

  “Makes all the difference.”

  “Thought she was planning a hit on you.”

  “So she outsmarted you, too.”

  “Devious, like her sire.”

  “That’s so not my kid.”

  “Is too.”

  “Is not.”

  “Look at her hair!”

  “Look at her skin!” I give him a hand up and we start walking towards the house.

  “She’s a beast.”

  “That’d be the mother.”

  “You picked her.”

  “You picked her first.”

  “You picked her second, when you knew what she was like.”

  “Fair point.”

  Gwen looks down on us from the steps, arms akimbo. “You two arguing again?”

  “I wouldn’t dare. How are you?” I lean over her belly to give her a kiss.

  “Mightily fed up. Either this kid of yours decides to be born soon, or I’m forcibly evicting it.”

  “You said that the last time.”

  “I meant it the last time, too. Oh, Elena and Ivan are coming over later.”

  “Is everything ok?” Elena’s the midwife.