Worlds Apart (ThreeCon)

by Carmen Webster Buxton

  “Well?” she demanded when Hari came through the door.

  Hari stopped short. “I gave Beecher three days suspension, without pay, and confinement to his room for the same time. Prax got the same thing but for ten days.”

  “Ten days!” Rishi paced a few times. “Oh, Hari, that’s not fair. He’ll suffer so much if he has to stay inside one little room for ten days.”

  “I want him to suffer.” Hari sounded as angry as she had ever heard him. “He came damn close to killing a man. I want him to know what a lockup feels like, so he doesn’t end up in one in the future.”

  She stopped pacing to glare at him. “But he’s not dangerous! He’s not a violent person. Beecher provoked him. You said so.”

  “Yes. Beecher provoked him.” Hari gave her a grim smile. “Beecher insulted him, and he sat there and took it until Beecher started in on you. Then he came across the table and tried to break Beecher’s neck.”

  Rishi bit her lip. “Are you saying it’s my fault?”

  Hari waved a hand and sat down on a chair. “No, of course not. Not unless you mean it’s your fault for bringing him here in the first place.”

  Her concern faded as her annoyance grew. “We’ve had the conversation already, Hari.”

  “We’ll have it again until you see sense, girl.”

  “What about Beecher?” Rishi asked, changing the subject. She started to pace again. “Can we get rid of him?”

  “Well,” Hari reflected, sounding resigned, “technically, this is his first offense. I know very well he’s the one who beat Prax up the other time, but Prax would never say, so there’s no record against Beecher.”

  “So?”

  “So the only way to get rid of him would be to buy out his contract—an expensive proposition. He’s got over a year to go, and he’s paid at a high rate because he’s certified on all our systems.”

  She held up one hand in a dismissive gesture. “I don’t care. Give him the money and make him go away.”

  “All right. It’ll stick in my craw to hand him that much money at one time, but at least it takes care of one problem. When his three days are up, I’ll send Beecher packing.”

  Rishi sighed. “Poor Praxiteles.”

  Hari grinned a tight, sour grin. “Looks like you’ll have to get used to eating alone for a while.”

  PRAX found out that Beecher had gone on the fourth day of his confinement when Tinibu brought him his lunch tray.

  “Hello, Prax,” the big Terran said, as he came into the room and set the tray on the table. “How are you doing?”

  Prax sat up. He had been lying down because he was tired from pacing. He had begun to feel truly confined. His only relief came from staying in motion, so he had paced back and forth within his room. “All right. Thank you.”

  Tinibu crossed his arms over his chest. “We had some news this morning. Beecher left.”

  “What?” Prax said, startled. “He quit?”

  Tinibu shook his head. “No. And unfortunately, the chief didn’t have grounds to fire him. They paid him off, gave him his salary for the rest of his contract, and showed him the door. The bastard looked pretty damned happy about it.”

  “It’s not right!” Prax paced again, falling into the same pattern he had followed most of the day. “He didn’t deserve to live, let alone to be rewarded.”

  Tinibu sat on the edge of the bed. “Yeah, we feel that way, too. Still, we figure it’s just as well. And besides, it says something about how Mistress Trahn feels about you.”

  Prax stopped pacing, incensed. “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t go getting all hot and try to break my neck,” Tinibu said, making dampening motions with his hands. “You couldn’t do it anyway, and you’re in enough trouble as it is.”

  Prax tried to rein in his temper. He knew Tinibu was his friend, but his nerves were so on edge it was difficult to make himself remember it. “Then stop making comments about Mistress Trahn.”

  Tinibu leaned back, sticking his feet out so that Prax had to step over them if he wanted to pace. “All I said was that she cares about you. That’s been pretty obvious for a while. What isn’t obvious is why you haven’t done anything about it.”

  Prax looked away. Tinibu didn’t understand. He hadn’t been there when Prax had offered himself and been politely but firmly refused. “She doesn’t feel that way about me. She’s made that plain.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Tinibu shrugged. “She’s a woman. Sometimes what seems plain to them isn’t plain to us, and the other way around, too. It seems to me that you just need to start thinking of her as a woman instead of as Mistress Trahn.”

  Prax turned his back to the other man.

  Tinibu chuckled. “You are so damn touchy.”

  When Tinibu had gone, Prax ate his dinner. He read for a while, and tried to watch a program on the entertainment console, but it was all about the life of undersea creatures on a planet he had never heard of, and he lost interest. Eventually, he went to bed.

  His confinement continued without change, except that gradually, it got to him more and more. He didn’t finish the food on the trays they brought him. He paced more and read less. On the sixth day, he ate almost nothing, and he paced for a good part of it. By the seventh day, the feeling that the walls were closing in on him was almost overwhelming.

  Prax spent the morning of the eighth day sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, breathing hard. He didn’t open the door when it chimed. In the afternoon, the door chimed, then opened and Hari came in. The security chief stopped short when he saw Prax. He looked him over carefully, but Prax ignored him, concentrating instead on trying to stop his limbs from trembling.

  “Give it up, Prax,” Hari said. “You can get out of here now just by saying you want out of your contract.”

  Prax shut his eyes and leaned his head against the wall. The idea of leaving sounded very tempting, but his will was so concentrated on simply not moving that Hari became no more than a distraction. “Go away.”

  “You still have the rest of today and tomorrow and the next day to go. You’ll never make it.”

  Prax opened his eyes. He watched Hari inspect the untouched tray of food and the half full pitcher of his favorite kind of juice.

  “Mmph,” Hari said. “At least you’re drinking fluids.”

  Prax didn’t answer, and Hari went away. Later that same evening, Prax was still sitting on the floor when Hari came in again.

  Hari bent over to speak to him. “Get up, Prax. Lie down on the bed.”

  Prax looked up. “Go away,” he said in Elliniká. “I don’t need any help.”

  “Get up! Get up off the floor and lie down on the bed.”

  “Why?” Prax made himself speak in Standard.

  “Because I’m going to put you to sleep. You’ll be more comfortable on the bed. Now do it.”

  “No,” Prax said stubbornly. “I can’t go to sleep. If I sleep, the walls move.”

  Hari swore. “Are all the Elliniká this stubborn or did we just luck out with you?”

  “Go away. Leave me alone.”

  “I intend to. But not until I take care of you. If I leave you like this, you’ll be catatonic by the tenth day. If you don’t get up, I’ll have to get Qualhuan and Rurhahn in here to help me.”

  Prax took a moment to digest this. He had no desire to be manhandled. Finally, he started to stand. He got dizzy when he was almost to his feet, and Hari had to grab his arm to steady him.

  Hari didn’t wait for him to act on his own. He pushed Prax onto the bed and held him down with one hand. The Elliniká lay on his side and stared at the tiny alogos that Thulan had given him. He could feel the other man pulling up his sleeve and pressing something against his arm, and then, after a moment, he felt nothing at all.

  WHEN Prax opened his eyes next,
he found that he was staring at the ceiling of his room. He tried to remember what day it was, and he couldn’t. The last thing he could remember was Hari telling him that he would make him go to sleep. Prax frowned. He had been fully dressed, and now he was nearly naked and under the bedclothes. There was also a tiny sore spot on his arm, right above the crease of his elbow.

  Prax got up, washed, dressed, and shaved himself. He was surprised at how much his beard had grown since the last time he had shaved. He was just pulling on his bodi-hide boots when the door chimed and then opened immediately.

  Hari came in. “Good. You’re up and around.” He looked at Prax critically. “You look a hell of a lot better.”

  Prax fastened his boot and straightened up. “What did you do?”

  “I put you under with a drug that made you sleep through the last two and a half days. And I had a doctor come in and check you out. You were a little dehydrated and you were starving yourself, so the doctor fed you intravenously—through a vein in your arm.”

  Prax didn’t completely understand. “What day is it?”

  “The ten days are up. Give me your hand.”

  Stunned, Prax held out his left hand. Hari unlocked the monitor from his wrist.

  “There,” Hari said. “You can leave anytime. It’s late afternoon now. You don’t have to report for work until the day after tomorrow, when you start on day shift.”

  Prax didn’t bother to reply. He headed for the door and then ran down the hall to the security entrance. When the door opened, he burst through at the fastest speed he could muster. When he began to feel dizzy, he slowed down to a jog. He didn’t stop until he was all the way to the top of the hill. He looked out at the view, taking deep breaths of fresh air for several seconds, and then he threw himself down on the grass and stared at the sky.

  He lay there for a long time, feeling the breeze on his face and smelling the pungent odor of the grass under him. Finally, the beginnings of gray dusk touched the mauve sky. The white Subidaran sun had dipped below the horizon when Prax stood up. It occurred to him that he was very hungry. He would be late for dinner if he didn’t go back to the house now.

  Prax walked slowly down the hill towards the house. He came within a dozen meters of the security entrance and then he stopped. He didn’t want to go back into the house. Every instinct told him to stay outside, under the open sky. Prax took a deep breath and made himself walk to the door. He put his hand on the access panel, and the door opened. Prax hesitated just a fraction of a second, and then he walked inside.

  When he went by the common room, he could hear voices, but he kept going. He walked into the kitchen; Thulan turned and saw him.

  “There you are,” she said. “The Mistress is waiting.” She looked him up and down. “You see that you eat a good dinner tonight! I’m not used to seeing trays come back with my food not even touched. I don’t work my fingers to the bone so that people can turn their noses up at my cooking.”

  “I’m sorry. There wasn’t anything wrong with the food. I just couldn’t eat.”

  She sniffed. “Well, you see that you make up for it tonight. Now go on! She’s getting anxious.”

  Rishi did look relieved when he came into the dining room. “Hello, Praxiteles.”

  “Hello, lady.”

  “Are you all right? Hari said you had a rough time the last few days.”

  “I’m fine now, lady.”

  “Good. Sit down and eat, then. Thulan went to a lot of trouble with this dinner.”

  Thulan had fixed everything she knew Prax would like, including fruit compote with brandy for dessert. Prax ate a hearty meal. He had to restrain himself because he knew he could make himself sick if he ate too much.

  “That’s better,” Rishi said, sounding pleased.

  “Yes, lady.”

  She talked for a while about a business deal that Prax had helped with by attending the initial meeting. “It’s a very useful talent you have, Praxiteles. I really should pay you more since it’s not part of a security guard’s job.”

  Prax frowned. “I don’t work here for money, lady.”

  “I know. I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.” She put her hand on his. “It’s just that I don’t want to feel that I’m exploiting you.”

  Prax could feel the warmth of her skin on his own. He didn’t move his hand away. “You’re not exploiting me, lady. I have a will of my own. No one makes me do anything I don’t want to do.”

  She tilted her head to consider this statement. “Hari made you stay in your room for ten days.”

  Prax frowned at her wording. “I decided to comply with his order. He reminded me that I could end the contract any time, but I didn’t choose to do it.”

  “He did?” She moved her hand away and tapped on the table with two fingers. “How considerate of him.”

  Prax was concerned because he could tell she didn’t mean what she said. “Have I made you angry, lady?”

  “No, you haven’t.” She smiled. “Have you been outside already?”

  “Yes, lady. I went outside as soon as I could, and I lay on the grass and watched the sky.”

  “When I was a little girl, I used to love to look at the sky at night. I liked to look at the stars and dream about going to all of them. Did you ever do that?”

  Prax shook his head. “I learned the stars because we use them to tell direction. Here the stars are all different. Nothing looks the same at night.”

  “Celadon has a moon, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, a small one. It’s not golden, like the moons here, but a pale white color.”

  “Prashat has three moons—two small ones and a giant moon that filled the sky at night. You could hardly see the stars around it when it was full.”

  Prax didn’t know what to say. She had never mentioned Prashat by name before.

  Rishi looked straight at him. Her eyes met his. “You know about my world, don’t you?”

  Prax nodded. “I’m sorry about your family, lady. I’m sorry there was no one to save them as you saved my people.”

  Rishi sighed and looked down at her plate. “I’m sorry, too. It was a long time before I could even talk about it.”

  “You must miss them still.”

  “I do. I miss them every day.” She lifted her head abruptly, her eyes suddenly filled with remorse. “I never thought about it in quite that way before, but I’ve made you just as lonely as I am. I saved your family, but I took you away from them.”

  “No, lady,” Prax said firmly. “I miss them sometimes, but it’s not the same. They’re not gone forever, and I know that I can see them again if I wish.”

  Rishi looked away. “It seems very much the same to me. I think maybe Hari has been right all along.”

  “Did anyone give you a choice? Did they ask you if you were willing to lose all your family and your friends and your world?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then it isn’t the same,” Prax said, letting his irritation show in his voice. “Why does no one recognize that I came here of my own will? Why can’t you accept that you didn’t make me do anything?”

  “All right. I can accept it. I just wish I could be sure I haven’t made you unhappy.”

  “Lady, I’m not unhappy. I have friends here. If I miss my family sometimes, that’s only natural. Many people leave their families when they’re grown. More than half your security staff are from somewhere other than Subidar.”

  Rishi smiled. “Thank you,” she said, standing up, “for making me feel better.”

  After saying goodnight to her, Prax went back to the common room. There was a poker game going on when he got there.

  Qualhuan looked up from his hand. “Hello, Prax. Welcome back. Sorry we can’t ask you to join us, but we like to keep the end of the game a surprise.”

  Prax sat down in a c
hair where he could watch the table. He looked around the room. “Who’s on patrol?”

  “Tinibu and Ogilvy,” Chio said. “Wolly and Chen have the early watch.”

  “Shut up and bet,” Nakamura said.

  Qualhuan gave her a surprised glance. “You’re awfully touchy tonight.”

  Chio laughed softly into his cards. “Tinibu’s been on nights for a few days, and she was on nights before that.”

  Nakamura took a swipe at him, but Chio ducked successfully.

  Prax watched the game for a while, and then he went back to his room. After just a few minutes, he could stand it no longer. He took two blankets from the bed and headed outside. One moon was up, so there was plenty of light. He knew the way by now anyway, and he had no trouble even where the path was in shadow.

  He lay down on his usual spot. He hadn’t slept there for some time; before the fight with Beecher, he had gotten more used to sleeping in a bed. Now the sight of the night sky reassured him, and he lay down and slept easily.

  IN the morning, the sun woke him. Prax took his usual run, at a slower pace than normal because he was still feeling the effects of his self-imposed deprivation, and then he collected his things and went back to the house to shower and change. After breakfast he went back outside with a book reader, and read for a good part of the day. He came in for lunch but headed back out again as soon as Rishi rose from the table.

  It was late in the afternoon when Qualhuan came outside and found him.

  “There you are,” the Miloran said. “I had to walk all the way up this damn mountain just to ask you if you want to go into town with us. Tinibu and Nakamura are too busy celebrating being off nights, but Chio and I are heading into Shembor with Ogilvy.”

  Prax shook his head.

  “You’re going to turn back into a wild man if you stay out here too much,” Qualhuan said. “You come to town with us. It won’t hurt you to be in a room with more than six people at a time. None of them bite—except maybe you.”

  Prax had learned enough not to take offense. He hesitated.

  “I already left a message with Merschachh that you’ll be gone for dinner,” the Miloran said.