He took the fourth drink. As it burned its way to join the others, the bitter thought came. Here I am, on my way to becoming a drunk failure. A fitting end for a coward. He picked up the bottle and refilled the tumbler. It wobbled a little in his hand, but none of the liquid spilled onto the bartop.
He was in the middle of another drink when a voice spoke out from beside him. "You going to finish that all by yourself?" asked the baritone voice. The man beside him had a rich voice. Strong. The English accent was certainly New Virginian.
"Probably," Henry said.
"That's a lot for one fellow. You're drinking like a man trying to forget something."
"Forgetting myself would be a start." Henry kept a hand on the glass. His eyes remained fixed on it. "About all I have left, I'd guess."
"Tough year?"
"Tough century." He avoided glancing toward his conversation partner. He'll leave me alone soon enough, he figured.
"Could be worse, I'm certain. Sometimes a man has to count his blessings."
The phrase reminded Henry of a hymn. Yet it was the sentiment he felt most in disagreement with. "Yes, a lot of people say that. 'Be grateful for what you actually have.' As if that can make up for what you've lost."
There was a chuckle beside him. "Yes, I can see what you mean." The tone of the man's voice felt familiar to him in its firm, paternal gentleness. "But I figure God doesn't give us burdens He doesn't think we can carry."
"God has nothing to do with it." Henry clenched a fist and felt that old wound inside of him ache. "God, if He's out there, stopped giving a damn about Humanity a long time ago."
"You think so?"
"I know it." Henry shook his head. "I feel it."
"Maybe it's not that you feel it, Jim. Maybe He's there and you just don't notice."
"The way things are going? That'd be even worse." Henry sipped at his drink, avoiding a full gulp this time. The whiskey left a string of fire down his throat. "I prayed to Him, on the worst night in my life. Asked for help. For a sign, for anything. All I got was silence."
"Yeah. That happens sometime, I figure. God doesn't always answer. Not if it'd get in the way of what He's got planned."
"Well, if He planned that, He ruined my life and ended up letting thousands of people die. Not really worthy of God, if you ask me." The sharp tone of Henry's voice was cutting, echoing the pain inside.
"Sometimes God sees further than we do, Jim. That can't make it easy to leave us hanging, but sometimes it has to be done."
"Does it now?" While he spoke with bitterness, Henry felt a part of his mind demanding he focus, that he pay attention "So what plan involves letting us dangle while the corrupt get to destroy our lives?"
"I wouldn't know for sure. I don't think any of us can."
"So we just have to hope it's all for something. Is that what you're saying?"
"That's what it means to have faith."
Those words brought up bitter feelings. He used to have faith. He used to go to Reverend Gill's services and let the faith fill him up with the belief in a just God who, in the shape of His son, came to Earth as a sacrifice for the sins of all. That faith brought him into service with the CDF, and into the war with the League, saw him through the death and bloodshed he'd found in the war.
Then that night came, in his makeshift prison on the Clemenceau, and it was gone. In the void its departure left was pain from the sense it was all for nothing.
Hearing someone invoke it like that was like prodding that wound with a salt-encrusted blade. His anger stoked and he readied to vent at the man.
But he didn't. A thought blazed through the haze of the whiskey and the pain in his soul.
"How did you know my name?" he asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" A laugh came, a laugh that struck a chord in him at how familiar, how right, it sounded. "Who doesn't know Captain James Henry of the Shadow Wolf, the former CDF officer who stopped the League at Lusitania?"
"That wasn't just me."
"It wasn't? If you hadn't been there, well, the way I hear it, that nice lady Miri Gaon would've ended up in the League's hands. Nobody would've stopped them from making the Coalition look guilty of trying to overthrow the Lusitanian government, and their allies there would've brought probably half of Neutral Space into the war on the League's side."
Henry's neck stiffened. He wanted to turn it, to face the speaker, but he couldn't bring himself to. Couldn't dare imagine what he'd see.
"Then you went off to Monrovia. Brought them the guns they needed to win their freedom from the League."
"I don't deserve credit for that," he said. His mouth went dry. The whiskey appealed to him and he very nearly took a drink. "I got paid. Made them pay a lot. It was just a job."
"Shooting down the League's transports and making them even angrier at you? That was just a job too?" That laugh, rich and pleasant, came again. "Don't be so modest. You weren't paid to help that much. And then there's Erhart. You could've run. You brought your cargo hauler into a fight with warships, after all."
"I wanted to get back at him," Henry said. "That was all."
"No, it wasn't. It wasn't just revenge. It certainly wasn't revenge when you went on a space walk with a fire extinguisher trying to save Linh Khánh. Or going after Tia. Getting her out of there, despite all the risk, that took courage."
"Who are you?" Henry asked, his voice hoarse.
"You know who I am, Jim."
His neck loosened. Now he couldn't dare not to look. His head turned until he faced his companion.
Charles Henry sat beside him.
It wasn't Uncle Charlie as he'd last seen him. He wasn't an emaciated old man wasting away in a hospital bed. This was the Uncle Charlie he knew growing up. Only starting to bald, dark hair with a graying fringe, a mustache and beard to frame a ready smile, brown eyes twinkling with life and love and purpose. The spaceport ship tech's jumpsuit he wore had all the right worn parts and tools.
It was too much. Henry was so startled, he lost his balance on his stool. He fell away from Charlie. The only thing that kept him from hitting the floor was a last second grip on the bar that whirled him about to face the bar itself.
A number of the other drinkers and customers were looking toward him now. He swallowed and rebalanced himself. He forced his head to turn back toward Charlie.
Charlie was gone.
"I think you've had enough," the bartender growled. He took away the bottle of whiskey.
Henry was considering his response when he heard the door open. He glanced toward it in time to see Charlie slip through.
He nearly jumped off the stool in his haste to get to the door.
30
Outside, the sun was drawing low in the early evening sky. People moved along the sidewalk while vehicles, most of them wheeled tire cars, moved along the road slowly. Nobody paid attention to Henry as he cast his gaze about.
He was ready to give up when he spotted Charlie across the road, standing at a street corner. He blinked, but the image in his eyes didn't change. Charlie was still standing there, grinning at him, waiting.
Henry dashed into the road at the first opening. The first half was easy enough, as traffic was already moving slowly. He darted around a delivery truck and a rare aircar before getting to the middle.
Traffic moved faster on this side. He got through the first line just to be forced to stop for a moment as a car sped by. Another was coming up, but he chose not to wait in his dangerous position. He rushed across to the other side as a horn blared angrily to his side. A voice shrieked a curse in Spanish as the vehicle passed just behind him.
Now that he was across the street, Henry turned toward the corner. He made his way through the light crowd, searching for a sign of Charlie, but he couldn't see him. He got to the corner and found his uncle wasn't there.
I'm drunk, he thought. I've got to be seeing things. Regardless of the sentiment, he scanned his surroundings again.
He almost missed Charlie thi
s time. He'd moved a way down the street so that he was standing near a bodega. That same grin was on his face, as if this was a game of hide and seek when Henry was a child. Henry jogged down the street, pressing through and around people. This won him dirty looks but no other complaint.
Just as he came up to the bodega, he noticed Charlie was missing yet again. I must be drunk, he thought. Or drugged. I'm seeing things. He's not really here.
He still looked. Across the street, further down, into the bodega. He moved from there to the alley and looked both ways. When he didn't see anything, he continued on towards the back road on the far side of the alley, his head whipping around urgently. He didn't feel drunk, but that meant nothing. He could still be seeing things. This can't be happening.
"You're awfully desperate to find me, Jim."
The voice prompted him to whirl around. Charlie stood not ten feet away, hands in his jumpsuit pockets, that slight, loving grin on his face. Henry's heart skipped a beat. "You really need someone to talk to, don't you?"
"How… no." Henry shook his head. "I'm not seeing this. I'm not seeing you. We… we buried you."
"You did. And I know it hurt you, Jim. Just as it hurt you that we couldn't say goodbye that final time."
That pain flared back, mingling with his disbelief and wonder. "What… how…?"
"Those are good questions, but not the ones I'm here for." Charlie took a step forward. "Truth is, I'm worried about you, Jim. Worried about where your road is taking you. So much pain can drive a man toward bad ends, just like that Erhart fellow. Of course, that's where this starts for you, doesn't it?"
"Erhart." Henry bit into his lip. "He ruined my life."
"He did, but now the truth's out. Everything he did to you is undone. Almost everything anyway."
Henry didn't need to ask. "He showed me how the world works. We're on our own."
"That's what you've been telling yourself since, Jim. Doesn't mean it's true." Charlie shook his head. "I'm here now, aren't I?"
"I… I must be hallucinating."
"It could be a lot of things. But what's more important is still you. That night Erhart took what you had, it wasn't just respect, rank, dignity. He took something deeper. The same thing he'd lost."
Henry's final exchange with Erhart played in his head. Erhart's tearful confession of what happened to him when his son went MIA, and what it did to him. How it matched what he did to Henry. Aloud, he answered, "He took my faith. He broke it. Broke me. Made me surrender."
"Everyone's told you how you did what you had to do that night," Charlie said. "You were protecting your people. Sparing them. It's never been enough, has it?"
"I still surrendered," Henry said. "I still broke the faith of the CDF. 'Fight the good fight, no matter the odds.'" He could see Lieutenant James Henry looking on in shame across the years, shame at the broken promise to fight that good fight, for family and faith and freedom. "You gave me a life back, but keeping it… I had to do things."
"I know. But I had to save you before the shame destroyed you, even if I knew you'd end up doing those kinds of things." Charlie shook his head. "I always knew, in my heart, you were meant for greater things, and I had to keep you alive, keep you kicking."
"And now, here I am, a drunk old coward."
"No, Jim. No." Now Charlie took the final steps and laid hands on Henry's shoulders. "You've still got the good in you. You can feel it, when you let it. But you let that pain get in the way. Now, you have to face it. Deal with it. Get your faith back."
"In a God who answered me with silence?"
"No, Jim." Charlie shook his head softly. "This isn't about faith in God. It's about your faith in yourself. Have faith in the James Henry you know you can be. The other faith will follow."
"I can't," Henry insisted. "Don't you understand? I surrendered. I gave in."
"I know, and it hurt you. But you've got to move beyond that, Jim. Forgive yourself. Nobody can do it for you. Not me, not your crew, not even God can do it. You have to forgive yourself for that. Forgive yourself and let the wound heal."
"I…" Henry choked on a sob. The tears fogged his eyes. "I tried."
"No, Jim. You haven't." Charles kept his hands on Henry's shoulders. "Face that pain, Jim. Face that shame, and forgive yourself."
The words were so simple, but the act… Henry didn't think he could do it. Whenever he thought of that night, it hurt so much.
"I believe in you, Jim. You can do it."
Those words. It felt so good to hear those words again. To remember that Charlie always believed in what he could do, what he was. Even when everyone else thought, or just wondered, if he was a fallen officer. Charlie believed.
He faced the pain. The night in that stateroom on the CSV Clemenceau. His hand on the stencil, signing the plea deal, surrendering to Erhart's power. The tears in his eyes, matching the tears he shed now.
I forgive you, he thought. You did what you thought was right, and I forgive you for it.
The words seemed hollow again. Hollow, until Henry felt his heart, his soul, fill with those words. The wound ached in memory at contact with the sentiment. He didn't let it go, though. It'll always hurt. I can't undo it. But I can forgive.
It wasn't that the wound simply vanished. Such things don't just go away. It was the change in the feeling there that told him something was different. His acceptance, his forgiveness, was dulling the pain. Just a little, but it only needed to be a little.
The scream pierced his ears and mind. Henry's teary eyes opened. Uncle Charlie was gone while, behind him, another cry filled the alley. He glanced around.
The back road there was the sight of a familiar scene. Three rough men in urban wear, likely gang members, had a man pressed against the wall at the end of the alley. A fourth stood behind them, a hand holding a knife extended toward a screaming woman and crying child. A fist smashed into the cornered man's stomach and made him double over, at which point punches and kicks drove him to the ground. Shrieks in Spanish crossed Henry's ears, pleas for help.
As he expected, none came.
He stood there, transfixed for the moment. There were all sorts of reasons this could be happening. It could be a robbery, or extortion, or just thugs out to hurt people to gratify themselves. It was something that happened even in the nicest cities. That was just the way things were.
It shouldn't be, he thought to himself. But what can I do about it?
Across the decades, Lieutenant James Henry of the CDF answered, "You can stop them."
I'm outnumbered four to one and I've been drinking. I'll probably get killed. That won't change the galaxy.
Those words usually worked before. They gave him the approval to walk away.
Everyone walks away. It's so easy to. "It's not my problem." "It's not my job." "It's not my business." We ignore the pleas and mind our own business, whether it's a gang beating someone up, megacorps exploiting worlds, the League invading someone else. It's always someone else's problem. That's the problem with the galaxy. And it's not even cowardice. It's simple human nature to stand back and ignore it, since it's not happening to you. One person can't fix the world. Even if you stop this wrong, others will happen, and you can't stop them all. You're just one man.
Now the excuse felt hollow. Just one man? He'd seen what just one man, one woman, could do, if he or she were in the right place. He'd seen it in the war. He saw it on the Laffey, when Captain Maria Soto saved the ship and the crew at the cost of her own life. Miri herself once shifted the tide of the war, and just by her escape from the Kensington Star set in motion another defeat of the League's plans. Paulina Ascaro was, by force of will, restoring democratic government to Lusitania after decades of increasing authoritarian rule. Jules Rothbard made lives better just by standing at his pulpit performing service after service.
Not just those examples, though. His own examples stood ready. He'd given Tia a chance to rebuild her life and become the leader she was now revealing herself to be. He'd
changed the lives of his entire crew at some point or another.
More than that, he'd had his own role in defeating the League at Pluto Base and Lusitania. He'd made the right tactical decisions, given the right orders. He'd found a way to turn a hostile Tash'vakal clan into an ally. He'd been there to arm the rebels on Monrovia, and on Exodus Station made the strategic decision that ensured Erhart's defeat.
"That's right, Jim," Charlie's voice said, although he couldn't see him. "We've all got that potential. But you, you've got it in spades. That's why you had to follow the path you did. God needed you in those places, to make everything better."
"Hey, pendejo!" The voice won his attention. It was one of the gang members involved in the beating. His presence in the alley was noticed. "Get out of here, unless you want some of this too!" He gestured toward the groaning man being beaten on.
Charlie's voice spoke again. "You thought God turned His back on us? He can't. He created us. We're a part of Him just as He's a part of us. It's why He does the things He does, even if we don't always understand why. He's trying to make us better without having to destroy what we are."
Henry felt those words fill him, just as his thoughts raced. Not at the challenge of the gang member, but at where all of his thoughts were leading him, and how wrong he'd been.
It wasn't that he couldn't change the galaxy. It just wasn't easy to change the galaxy. It took work, constant work, to make it better.
"Hey! Spacer! You wanna get cut!" the thug called out. He started to stomp toward Henry. "This is Vega business! Go away!"
I can't change what I've done before. My surrender, my apathy. None of it. I can just try to be better.
No, not just try. I will be better. I can't fix the galaxy if I ignore its problems.
"I said get the—"
"Leave them alone," Henry called out.
His voice carried. The beating stopped as the other gangsters turned to face him. One fired a phrase in Spanish at him, the intent behind it clear, given the angry snarl forming on the bearded face.
Breach of Trust: Breach of Faith Book Four Page 24