Bright Shards

by Meg Pechenick

“No, I don’t.”

  I felt as if he’d flung a bucket of cold water in my face. The lingering glow of Zey’s company evaporated. “Why haven’t you said anything about this before?”

  “I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. I was sure you’d be reassigned. No one in their right mind would think that the Ascendant is a safe place for you anymore.”

  I said slowly, “Is this about last night?”

  He spread his hands wide. “It’s about everything. The flashbacks, the Flare, the shooting. I don’t have any psychological training, but it’s pretty damn clear to me that you’re working through some serious trauma. And I don’t think the Vardeshi have the first clue how to deal with that. Look at this afternoon. They actually said you were responsible for your own assault.”

  “Partially responsible,” I corrected. “And they’re right.”

  “The hell they are!” he snapped. “This is exactly what I’m talking about. How can you defend their bullshit?”

  “I work for the Fleet. I wear a uniform. I was given an order and I ignored it. Like it or not, I am partially responsible for what happened.”

  He shook his head. “That’s exactly what Kylie said you’d say.”

  I felt chilled. “You talked to Kylie?”

  “She sent me a message. She’s worried about you. And from what I can see, everything she said was pretty much spot on.”

  “What did she say?” I demanded.

  “You’d know if you’d read it. She sent it to both of us. Let me guess, you deleted that one too.” He waited for the words to sink in. “I talked to your hadazi. The Ascendant has a log of every incoming transmission. Including mine.”

  I stared at him, lost for words.

  “Can’t you see it? You’re compromised. You’re not making rational choices. And your crewmates aren’t either. They thought it was a good idea for you to have telepathic contact with the man who assaulted you. And you agreed with them! Do you have any idea how fucked up that is?” He studied my face. “You don’t, do you? Jesus.”

  I stared at the floor, searching for the words that would persuade him that he was mistaken. I couldn’t find any. The silence stretched out. Finally I said, “So what?”

  “What do you mean, so what?”

  “Say you’re right. Say I am compromised. I have to get back to Earth somehow. And I feel safe with my crew. How would it be any better for me to get on a ship full of strangers?”

  He nodded, as if he had been waiting for precisely this question. “Those are two options. There’s a third.”

  “Not that I can see.”

  Fletcher spoke slowly, feeling the words out, as if each one was a step onto uncertain ground. “You could come with me.”

  “To Vardesh Prime? Is that supposed to be funny?”

  “I know Earth doesn’t want you going soilside. But I’m sure they’d let you wait on the Sidereus while I’m on the planet. I know,” he said quickly, seeing that I was about to interrupt, “it’s lame. But it would only be for two weeks. Then we could go home together.”

  “Fletcher, we . . . I mean, we aren’t a couple.”

  “I’m asking you to come with me as a friend. As a fellow human. So that neither of us has to be alone for five months. Or seven.”

  I made a sketchy gesture in the air between us. “And what if . . . whatever this is . . . doesn’t last that long?”

  He shrugged. “Things would be awkward for a while. And then I think they’d be fine. We’re both adults. Each of us knows what it’s worth to have an ally. Someone to look out for you, someone who understands how you think. Isn’t that worth risking a little awkwardness?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I appreciate the offer, I really do. But I can’t do that.”

  “Just think about it. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.” He came around the table toward me, put a hand on my arm, and said gently, “Please change your mind, Avery.” Then he went through the door, leaving me alone with my uncertainty.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  When Fletcher had gone, I sat down on a stool at one end of the long table, put my head in my hands, and tried to think. His suggestion was absurd. Wasn’t it? He was asking me to leave my friends, the Ascendant, the Fleet itself for . . . what, exactly? The chance to sit in orbit above Vardesh Prime while he became the first human to set foot on its surface? The thought was infuriating. Or it should have been. I wanted to be angry. Anger was safe. But Fletcher had done nothing to provoke it. He was trying to be kind. I had no defenses against kindness. And there was something impossibly seductive about the idea of finishing my journey with a human companion. With him at my side, I wouldn’t have to police every word I spoke for unintended insults or inaccuracies. I wouldn’t have to worry that he was extrapolating an entire culture from our briefest interaction. I could just be, fully and unapologetically, myself.

  I walked as if in a dream to the bar where I had agreed to meet the Takheris. They were in high spirits; Zey’s announcement had clearly had its intended effect. On any other day, my mood would have risen instantly to meet theirs, no matter what I was feeling when I walked in the door. It had been weeks since I’d seen Zey and Saresh laughing together. And Hathan’s indulgent smile as he watched his younger brother openly cheating at dice should have been reason enough for elation. The others would be joining us later, but for now, for this one golden hour, I had the three of them all to myself. It was a perfect beginning to what Hathan would have called the final arc of our journey together. I wanted it to be a beginning. But there was a very real chance that it was, in fact, an ending.

  I had drifted too far. Zey nudged me with his elbow. “Eyvri, you haven’t said three words all night. What’s the matter, did you forget all your Vardeshi? That’s what happens when you hang around with humans, you know.”

  “Is something troubling you?” Saresh asked. I looked at him, stricken, knowing there was no truthful answer I could give that didn’t either threaten his happiness or reveal things Fletcher had said to me in confidence. He saw the alarm on my face and said swiftly, “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to intrude on your privacy.”

  “No, you didn’t. And it’s nothing important. Just . . . human stuff.”

  “I’m afraid none of us will be much help there,” said Hathan.

  He was offering me a smooth exit from the subject. I seized on it gratefully. “Probably not. Although Zey is going to be an expert by the time we get to Earth, if he watches half as much TV as he says he will. Who’s up for another round?”

  When I returned with the drinks, I saw that Reyna had arrived. Zey repeated his news. In the ensuing flurry of questions and congratulations, I worked to recapture the appearance, at least, of a good mood. I stayed for a second drink and a couple of dice games, and when Reyna went to refill the carafe of water, I had a glimmer of inspiration. I slid out of my seat and followed her. At the water dispenser, out of earshot of the Takheris, I asked, “Can I meet you for senek tomorrow morning? I need to ask your advice about something.”

  “Of course.” Reyna sounded utterly unfazed by the request. I wondered what it would take to surprise her. If I demanded that she switch clothes with me in the middle of the bar, she’d probably reply with a calm observation about the difference in our sizes. She went on, “Breath of the Forest, on helix nine, around seven o’clock?”

  “Perfect. Thanks.”

  Entering my dark bedroom later that night, I realized afresh how much I missed Fletcher. After only a handful of nights with him, it seemed oddly lonely to go to bed on my own. I wanted to message him, or just go down the hall and knock on his door, but I knew there was no point. There could be no return to the purely physical connection we had shared. Things had been simple between us. He had made them complicated. Here, at last, was a reason to resent him. I drifted off to sleep on a rising tide of irritation.

  * * *

  The next morning my security team delivered me to the senek shop—or a senek shop,
at any rate—promptly at seven. I looked at the sign in surprise. “First Light? I thought Reyna said Breath of the Forest.”

  “She did,” agreed Officer Ekeyn. I’d had to double-check her name on my flexscreen, as she was one of the night-shift guards, whom I rarely saw. “Rathis changed the venue. There were quite a few people at the bar last night when your friend named Breath of the Forest as your rendezvous. One of them is in contact with an anti-alliance activist on our watch list. There’s an anti-Earth demonstration planned to coincide with your arrival at the shop.”

  “A protest? Now?”

  “The timing is logical. Most of Elteni’s day-shift staff will be passing through the marketplace on their way to work.”

  “So what’s going to happen?” I asked. “Will security shut it down?”

  “We don’t forbid peaceful demonstrations, assuming they don’t impede the flow of traffic. But neither you nor Representative Simon will be going anywhere near helix nine until further notice. We’re hoping the demonstrators will lose interest when they see that you’re not coming.”

  I felt a surge of relief at the knowledge that Fletcher was safe, followed by the realization that this was exactly what he had meant when he suggested we travel home together. “What about Reyna? Does she know there’s been a change in plan?”

  “She knows. She should be joining us shortly. She and Rathis are in the marketplace, gauging the response to the demonstration.”

  It was twenty minutes or so before Reyna arrived. “What happened?” I asked anxiously. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. It was peaceful.” Her expression of distaste was so fleeting it was scarcely more than a twitch. “Unpleasant, but peaceful.”

  “Were there a lot of people?”

  “Twenty or so. More than I expected, but still not many.”

  “What does a Vardeshi protest even look like? Were they chanting and waving signs?”

  She didn’t smile, but there was humor in her glance. “No chanting. They were silent. All of them wore black, the color of spiritual purity in several of the ancient religions on Vardesh Prime. They were kneeling in a line beneath a hovering banner like the ones you saw on Arkhati.”

  “What did it say?”

  “‘The light belongs to us,’” she said.

  “As in, you all should go away and leave us in the dark ages where we belong?”

  “Precisely.”

  “What was the response like?”

  “At demonstrations of this type, there’s a bowl of colored chalk placed at the end of the line. If you sympathize with the cause, you take a little of the chalk and write a single line of the tribute glyph on the floor or the wall nearby—somewhere visible. The next person adds another line, and so on until the glyph is complete. I saw two completed glyphs and half of another one. Not very impressive, given how crowded the marketplace is at this time of day.”

  “And that’s it?” I tried to picture the scene. “I think I would have walked right by that without even knowing it was a protest.”

  “You wouldn’t, because I wouldn’t have let you.”

  “Still protecting me, huh?”

  “It’s why I’m here. Well” —she cast a pointed look at the senek counter— “that, and to drink senek. Which I believe you’re buying.”

  “Of course.” I went up to the counter and purchased senek for Reyna and tea for myself. We found a place to stand that was out of earshot of anyone waiting in line, and Reyna sipped her drink and sighed appreciatively. Then, with a decisive movement, she lowered her cup. “So. You need advice.”

  “I don’t know,” I said dubiously. “Suddenly my problem doesn’t seem all that important.”

  “It was important last night.”

  “Yeah.” I sighed. “It still is. Okay. If possible, I’d like to keep this between us.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Fletcher asked me to leave the Ascendant and come back to Earth with him.”

  “On the Sidereus?”

  “Yes.” I gave her a slightly edited description of yesterday’s scene in the galley. “He thinks I’m compromised,” I finished. “I don’t. And I have absolutely no idea how to tell who’s right.”

  Reyna considered the problem, her head a little on one side. I drank my tea. After a little while she said, “Do you think his concern is sincere?”

  “Why else would he be asking me to go with him?”

  “I can think of one obvious reason.” At my blank look she said dryly, “While there are plenty of unattached Vardeshi who find humans attractive, the odds of his meeting one of them on the Sidereus are vanishingly low.”

  “Oh. Right.” I laughed a little self-consciously. “I didn’t know you knew.”

  “That you were sleeping with him? I suspected.”

  “And that doesn’t shock you?”

  “Not at all,” she said calmly. “Most Vardeshi don't become engaged until a few years after they come of age. A certain amount of . . . experimentation is expected in the intervening years. Those connections are, by necessity, brief and primarily physical.”

  Scandalized and delighted, I said, “I didn’t know that!”

  “It’s not something we broadcast.”

  “Do those relationships ever lead to marriage?”

  “Rarely.” I remembered what I’d learned in Hathan’s mind about her broken engagement to a childhood friend. Had that been a euphemism for a different type of youthful attachment? “But,” she prompted, “we were talking about you.”

  “Right. I don’t think Fletcher’s motives are personal.”

  “Then let’s assume that he’s genuinely trying to protect you. He thinks you’ll be safer on the Sidereus than on the Ascendant. He doesn’t trust Hathan. But you do. You made your peace with him in the Listening. Setting aside these . . . cognitive aftershocks of the Flare, like the one you experienced on the observation deck, you’re on better terms with him than you’ve ever been. You feel safe under his command.” I nodded my confirmation. “So Fletcher’s concern is only valid if you accept that his judgment is superior to yours, that your ability to think coherently has been impaired. Do you believe that to be the case?”

  “No.” I swirled the last sip of tea around in my cup. “But I can’t pretend it’s not comforting to have him around. We do understand each other. Perfectly. Effortlessly. I’d almost forgotten what that felt like. I didn’t know how much I missed it.”

  Reyna lifted a hand to signal for more senek. We stood silently until the server had refilled her cup and moved to another table. Then she said, “You could have asked Saresh for advice. Or Sohra. Do you know why you came to me?”

  “Because you see things clearly.”

  “That’s part of it.” She held up her right hand, showing me the gold Vadra sigil. “But so is this. You know that I go after what I want. You’re looking for permission to do the same. So here it is. Do what you want, Avery. Without reference to what Fletcher or Hathan or anyone else thinks you should do. Are you broken? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. There’s no one out here who can fix you. You’re five months from home. You need safe transport to Earth, which either the Ascendant or the Sidereus can provide. There’s no empirically correct choice. There’s only what you want.”

  “And if I don’t know what I want?”

  “I can’t help you there. But at least now you know you’re asking the right question.” She drained the rest of her senek. “You have two days to answer it. You’d better get started.”

  We went our separate ways after that, Reyna going off to meet Hathan for launch preparations while I went in search of a place to think. I had declined the offer of a formal tour of the starhaven in favor of roaming aimlessly with Fletcher, but now I reconsidered. Within moments, it seemed, of asking Officer Rathis if a tour might be arranged, I was joined by a silver-haired Echelon officer who introduced herself as Almai. I wanted to laugh when I saw her. She was Zey’s virtual twin for youth and excitability, and it w
as obvious that she’d never been in the presence of a human before. She chattered endlessly away in impeccable English about Elteni’s long history—the starhaven was over a thousand years old—and its strategic importance as the gateway to Vardesh Prime. I nodded and made interested noises but reserved my real attention for the places she showed me. The oldest section of the starhaven, where we went first, I rejected as too dark and cramped. Next was a botanical garden, perhaps the inspiration for Arkhati’s Arboretum, but smaller and visibly bounded by stark metal walls. “What’s next?” I asked the uniformed sprite at my side.

  “Elteni’s main observation deck is one of the starhaven’s most popular—”

  “I’ve been there,” I said a little abruptly. “I don’t need to go back.”

  She flapped her hands in almost comical distress. “You—please pardon the correction—you’ve already visited the Echelon’s private observation deck. Your welcome reception was held there. The public one is on the opposite side, above the docking levels.”

  “Oh,” I said grudgingly. “That sounds okay.”

  The public observation deck was a ring-shaped gallery whose outer wall was entirely comprised of viewports. Wide and spacious, it was one of the newer areas of the starhaven, and I could see the beginnings of the aesthetic that had informed the design of Arkhati. A scattering of tea and senek stands offered refreshment to visitors. Despite its size, the place was nearly empty. When I expressed surprise, my guide explained that it tended to be busy early in the morning, when the majority of ships launched, and late in the evening, when they docked. We strolled along the wall of viewports. Officer Almai helped me to identify the sleek bronze shape of the Ascendant and the distant gray gleam that was all we could make out of the Sidereus. I thanked her for her help and politely but firmly communicated my lack of interest in continuing the tour.

  She departed. Glancing around, I saw that my security team had apparently cordoned off the entire observation deck. They had stationed themselves at the entrances and near the few open senek stalls, leaving me in near-perfect solitude. Ordinarily I would have objected to the celebrity treatment, but I had to admit that, after the claustrophobic handling I’d received on Elteni thus far, the idea of wandering without a uniformed shadow at my heel was appealing. I purchased another cup of tea and walked up and down some more, looking out through the viewports at the different ships.