The Vanished Birds

by Simon Jimenez

  He took this in and nodded. Glanced once at Nia’s outstretched hand, and shook it begrudgingly.

  She watched her engineer leave.

  Durat was the second. His hangover was no better when he walked in; his large cheeks sallow, his brown hair a greasy mop that kept falling over his eyes as he brushed the bangs away. “I love flying, Captain,” he said, his foot rabbiting, “and I love the stations. And I love eating in nice restaurants and drinking.” When she told him in jest that this was news to her, he chuckled, but even that was half-hearted. “Did you know I also love sleeping with pretty people? And that I love being the age I am?” The last dregs of forced joviality dropped out of his voice. “And that fifteen years is too long to be away from the things that I love, and that while I love you, it isn’t enough to—” His voice hitched. He laughed as he turned away and rubbed at his eyes. “Sorry. It’s hard to say this shit out loud.”

  “You’re doing good,” she said.

  “I’m a coward,” he muttered.

  “You’re not a coward.”

  “If I was brave, I’d trust you.” He knuckled his eyes. “I’ve served under six different captains. Some were great, one was a real bastard. But you, you are the one who’d make me even consider signing this contract.” He smiled, a tear falling from his reddened eyes, and pointed at her. “When you come back two billion iotas richer, come find my ass and tell me how stupid I was.”

  They bear-hugged. His snot dampened her shoulder. On any other day, she would’ve called him out, told him he was messing up her good shirt, and he would remind her that she had no good shirts. Not today though. Today, she let him melt into her.

  “I’ll miss you, Nia,” he whispered.

  And she watched her pilot leave.

  Sonja didn’t even give a reason when she came by and told Nia that she’d sign on. Just said, “Let me know when we’re leaving,” and walked off, leaving her captain speechless for the second time since they’d landed. This was a welcome reprieve.

  The hardest of the meetings was yet to come.

  * * *

  —

  The three-hour deadline was almost up when Nurse arrived. She didn’t walk through the hatch, not right away. First she leaned against the riveted frame, looking in, still wearing her sanitary gloves from her night shift at the hospital. Hands on her elbows. Distant eyes.

  “There’s not much more to say, is there?” she asked, her voice sober, cold. “We’ve talked, and talked. And fought. And fought some more.” It was then that she walked inside, observing the blank gray walls, the uncarpeted floor, the simple bed adorned with a single pillow. “My opinion of your room has changed over the years. When you first took me on, and we shared our first drink in here—”

  “Marbury Cider,” Nia recalled.

  “That’s the one. A bit too sour for my tastes.” She almost smiled. “Anyway, that night, when I saw how…sparse your decorations were, with that beautiful desk and nothing else, I thought, Wow, this person has absolutely no personality. Or that you were wildly depressed. Or that you had no conception of beauty. But then I got to know you.” Her hand touched the wall, as if in benediction. “You were just single-minded; owned what was necessary; a desk to write on and a bed to sleep in. I even thought it was enlightened, the way wise ones perch on a mountain and consider the changing winds.”

  Nia looked away and said with a lace of bitterness, “Never knew you thought of me with such poetry.”

  “Flowery, trite, but it’s what I thought.” She withdrew her hand from the wall, stood there with her back to Nia. “But I’ve changed my mind. I see how empty you are. And you see it too. That’s why you’re clutching for anything that will fill you up, even if it’s a shadow.”

  “I’ll tell you now, I won’t miss your constant dissection of my psyche.”

  “Yes, you will,” she said. “But as always with you, it will be when it’s too late for you to do anything about it.”

  “And what is it you think I’m doing now?” Nia asked. “The boy was almost taken away from me. I stopped that from happening before it was too late. I made a choice to help him.”

  “You were led by the nose by your childish impulsiveness.”

  Nia stood up. Fire coursed through her veins. If this was the last fight they were to have, she would make it one Nurse would never forget. “On impulse I folded this ship out of Pocket Space in a fringe region and discovered your shit-covered body. On impulse I gave you a place to become yourself again.”

  “And you’ve never let me forget it,” Nurse shouted. “Not for a second. Praise be to Captain Nia Imani for her stalwart instincts. Her benevolence! Let me know how much longer you expect me to play the role of cowed and thankful so I can warn the boy of what he has to look forward to—the many years of kissing your feet on this goddamn ship!”

  “I keep reminding you because you keep undermining me with every decision I make. You say you keep me honest, but it’s never been about my leadership. It’s always been about you. Your pathetic need to make yourself feel important. But I know you. Coward. You hid while your crew cannibalized itself. And you’re doing it again. Abandoning the people who need you when things get tough.”

  “How dare you,” Nurse snarled. “Is that what you want? You want us to throw our tragedies in each other’s faces? You want to talk about abandonment? You want to talk about Deborah? Your sister—”

  “Shut your fucking mouth.”

  “Your sister. Corpse in the street, your sister. That’s your doing. No one but you left her alone in that house full of debt. I never believed you, you know. You moaned that you had no choice but to leave her behind, leave her to pay your father’s debts like they weren’t your responsibility too, but I know you could’ve found another way. If you gave a shit to try. But you loved it. You loved to leave. How free you must’ve felt, shrugging off her love for you. Leaving her to the money wolves. Paint her name on your ship all you want, dedicate your misery to her ghost, but don’t you dare talk to me about abandonment like you’re a guiltless saint. Like you’re doing any of this from the heart. You have no heart. If you did, you wouldn’t have started this disgusting game. But there! I played my round! Is this the dead you want to revive?”

  “No!” Shaking, Nia staggered backward, sat back down. The bed hiccupped under her sudden weight. She pressed the back of her hands against her eyes. “No,” she said, quieter. And then she said the two words she rarely said, proud as she was, stubborn as she was. “I’m sorry.”

  “I loved you,” Nurse cried, “but you chose the boy over us.” She sniffed. “Over me.”

  Nia pressed the tears into her hands, the pressure hot, forcing them back into her eyes. “Meena,” she whispered, but Nurse did not answer. She didn’t have to look up to know when the woman had gone.

  She felt it.

  The void ripped in the air.

  * * *

  —

  The departing crew were silent as they gathered their belongings from their respective rooms. Sonja had retrieved a driftcart from the docks to help them move the heavier boxes. Nia placed a call to the Travillion, and within minutes, four attendants arrived to shepherd the belongings up to the hotel.

  She sat on the ramp of the Debby and watched the departure. The entire experience was surreal. Different members had left her company over the years, for many reasons, but it was always one at a time, always amicable; parties separating with some certainty that all was as it should be. As each box was rolled down the ramp, Nia reconsidered the choice she had made, the reasons for it, wondering if the selfless act she thought she’d made was really that, or just another feint powered by some dark desperation within; if it mattered. When she looked up, she saw Nurse pass by with her last piece of luggage, rolling it down the ramp, the wheels dancing along the grated surface. Her old friend stopped at the bottom but didn’t turn
around, her gloved hand rediscovering its grip on the handle of the suitcase before continuing toward the elevator, where, without another thought, she and her sari were gone. There was no goodbye.

  Durat sat beside her.

  “I’ll stay till you guys leave,” he said.

  “That’s not necessary,” she told him.

  He laughed. “I know,” he said. “But I will.”

  She gripped his hand, and they sat together on the ramp of the Debby, with Sonja standing behind them as they waited for the new crew members to arrive.

  The elevator doors flowered open, and the blond woman from Fumiko’s apartment stepped out. The boy was with her. His large eyes fixed on Nia and her ship, a silly grin on his face. The mere sight of him settled her anxious heart. Behind him were two Yellowjackets and four other people, all of whom Nia assumed were to be her replacement crew members. “They look serious,” Durat whispered before leaping off his perch and pulling the boy into a rough hug.

  The blond woman was wearing a long, billowy yellow dress that shimmered like sun on water. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out with your crew,” she said, sounding like she meant it.

  “It’s fine.” Nia was in no mood to speak of it further. She eyed the two Yellowjackets at the bottom of the ramp. “Should they be here?”

  “Nest Security is a fractured beast,” the woman explained. “These two are loyal to Fumiko. You needn’t worry about them.” Then, with a flick of her finger, the group of four stepped forward. “Allow me to introduce you to your acting crew. This is Pilot Vaila Jenssen, Engineer Em Reese, and Medical Tech Royvan Hollywell. Each of them are exemplars of their respective fields. They can be trusted well.” The trio bowed when the woman called their names, but already Nia was looking beyond them, the wounds of departures still fresh, unable and unwilling to make friends with the scabs just yet. She was more curious about the fourth member of their group, yet to be introduced, his diminutive frame and widow’s peak striking her as very familiar. “And I believe you’ve already met Sartoris Moth.”

  It took a moment for Nia to remember the man from the Canopy Dance. He made a deep bow in his fine black jacket. “We meet again, Captain Imani,” he said in his dilettante way. “It’ll be a pleasure working with you, I’m sure.”

  “It’s nice to see you too.” She was confused as to why a party architect was being added to her crew. “I didn’t realize I needed a fourth.”

  “Sartoris will be acting as Fumiko’s intermediary,” the woman explained. “If there are any issues, he will be able to contact her and send for help.”

  “And tattle should you misbehave,” he added with a wink.

  While the new members boarded Debby and made themselves at home, the last of the goodbyes were said. Durat and Sonja clapped backs. With a smirk, she muttered, “Later, cheater,” and he responded in kind, thanking her for all the money he had won from their card games. And after he pulled the boy in for a last quick embrace, he turned to Nia, and when they hugged, it struck Nia how strange it was, to know this was in all likelihood the last time they would touch; that hours ago, she had not once entertained the notion of his leaving the Debby, but now it seemed inevitable, as though this was and had always been the moment he parted from her world. He blinked.

  “Good luck, Nia,” he said.

  From up in the cockpit she saw him wave as the engines kicked to life and his replacement spoke in codes with the operator on the other end of the comms channel. Nia held up a hand, waved to her old friend. And as he began his walk back to the Travillion, she wished him many drunken and happy nights, and wished she would be there to see them. As delusional as she believed Fumiko to be, she had to concede her theory about the boy was a pretty thought—the idea of him, traveling across the galaxy in mere seconds like an emblem of light. Fumiko had called it something stupid, like “the Jaunt”—the name the mysterious first man had given it—but to Nia, if it was real, and true, the power was more than that. It was no more goodbyes.

  Her new pilot looked up at her. “Everything’s ready, Captain,” she said.

  Nia nodded.

  The boy was waiting for her outside her hatch. He was wearing Kaeda’s one-shouldered robe. It was strange to see him now that Fumiko’s knowledge had been imparted—aware now that behind his devoted gaze was a network of thought; a bank of memory she had no access to. She wondered if he knew the truth about himself—if he knew that one day, years from now, he would be able think of a place, and be there. But these thoughts soon evaporated as he smiled at her approach. He is only a boy, she thought. And he will be safe.

  While the strangers aboard the Debby prepared for the fold, she walked him down to the cargo bay to bother Sonja, who was now the one person they both knew on the ship. There they spent the hours, perturbing the vet with their company until it was time for lunch, and then for dinner, the long day settling to a close, the lights in the ship switching off systematically as Nia tucked him into bed.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she said.

  He looked up at her, the blanket up to his neck. And when the light of the hatch went out with a click and cast them in black, Nia lost him—could only hear the slight rise of his breath, and the rasp of his voice, as he whispered, “Good night.”

  * * *

  —

  “I met a man, many, many years ago, who claimed he had Jaunted from the Nodal Straits of the fringe to Grammaton Station, without boarding a single ship. There was alcohol on his breath when he grabbed my arm and told me this—I could’ve had him shot for that, but I was more interested in watching him humiliate himself. So I listened, and I told him, fine, if you have this power, then show me. Show me how you traveled decades across the stars on just your feet. And then he smirked, and he was gone. The ground where he stood was smoke and ash. The air was humid, waved. I don’t have many regrets, Captain Imani, but to this day I regret not asking for his name, some way to find him once he had gone. I stood two meters from the future, and let him fall through my fingers.

  “My eyes remained open after that. I’ve lived a long time. There is little I do not have access to. I wink, and planetwide demographics, the people’s rumor, their mystery, are at my disposal. I see the mosaic in its entirety. The unaccounted disappearances. The people gone as if by spontaneous combustion. Lone survivors from cratered wreckage. Naked bodies undamaged in the brimstone, who wander amnesiac before disappearing once more, never to be seen again. A pattern revealed if you know where to look. I believe the boy from Umbai-V is one of them—a step in the mutation that binds us further to our galactic destiny.” She paused here with the creep of a sly smile. “And I believe you think I’ve lost my mind.”

  Nia had the face of a woman who just realized she had been conversing with delusion—it was rather attractive, Fumiko thought, how swiftly the captain regained her composure. “It is a lot to take in,” the captain said with care.

  “Yes, it is. And I could very well be wrong,” Fumiko admitted. “But this is not a chance I am willing to take again. Not with the power at stake here.”

  The captain nodded. Her back remained upright, as though the chair she sat on were made of needles. “Why me?” she asked.

  An expected question. Fumiko rolled her shoulders. “For a number of reasons. The first,” she said, with a held finger, “the technology of today isn’t capable of detecting whatever quantity the boy’s power is composed of. It would take time to develop this technology, too much real-time to risk.”

  “Risk?”

  “Umbai. They’ve been looking into my extracurricular projects for some time now, and I’d rather they did not find out about this one. They do not know how to handle good things without breaking them.” She smiled. “I need the boy far from here, from me, until we not only have the tools with which to study him, but we know for certain that he is the one I’ve been looking for. You have a ship. Y
ou have experience traveling the fringe. And from the data available, I know you are calculating and make informed decisions.

  “Which brings me to the second reason”—second finger, a peace sign—“that aside from your credentials, it is obvious the boy is attached to you. Of all the case studies I’ve observed over the decades, the common thread that bound all of the supposed Jaunters is that they never returned. Once they were gone, they were gone. Smoke and ash, as it were. If the boy has the ability, then unless I knocked him into a coma, I couldn’t guarantee his continued presence. Since I would rather not do this to a child until necessary, I would rather he remain with you, who would give him a reason to stay, and reason to return, should he one day disappear.”

  “Disappear,” the captain repeated. There was a slight pain to her expression—the same expression Fumiko herself wore when she had to bear with some poor soul’s incoherent rambling.

  A headache overcame her. The headache would always be there, that dull and persistent throb, a consequence of her long stretches of cold sleep, along with the gaps in her memory, the names long forgotten. It would be so easy to refuse this woman an explanation, but for some reason, she needed her to understand. Maybe because she saw in her files a kindred spirit. “I accept that it is a possibility that what I saw was not real,” she said. “And I accept that the research I have done over the centuries could be nothing but a vain gesture toward confirmation bias. But I will be sure. I must be sure. What you must understand, Captain, is that I have nothing to lose, sending you to the fringe with the boy, and everything to gain if I am right. Whether you believe in me, or my eyes, is irrelevant. Whether you think me psychotic is irrelevant. You are now a participant, and you will help me erase the distance between the stars.”

  Nia stared at her. Fumiko was so startled by what the captain said next that she lost her train of thought—the words out of nowhere, spoken with certainty, as if the fact was something to be observed on the table, beside the small and endless fountain.