Heretics (Stars Edge: Nel Bently Book 4)

by V. S. Holmes

  Wikipedia would have a better written article, Nel supposed, if it knew who they were at all, and if the internet hadn’t been wholly disconnected. Still, the lack of information irked her.

  “Nel?” Lin stood in the doorway, swaying easily with the train’s rhythm.

  She slammed her screen shut and whirled to meet Lin’s eyes. “Hi. Hey. Hello. Sorry.”

  Lin’s smile was brittle, but she seemed distracted, not betrayed.

  God, this is worse than almost getting caught social-media stalking my exes. It wasn’t something Nel did often—even that was a commitment too far for her. But like most people who slept their way through an entire college department as an undergrad, she had been frustrated to find her exploits seemed to travel within social circles. “Doing okay?”

  Lin shook her head. “I’m tired. And I can’t get through to anyone, even our parents. I just don’t get why they aren’t taking it seriously. He’s an asshole, but not irresponsible.”

  Nel didn’t know Dar, and unlike his mysterious sister, she didn’t really care to. But what she did know was that he seemed all about rules. Even at the expense of his sister. “Has he done this before?”

  Lin stared at her. “Are you kidding?”

  “I hardly know the dude. I’m worried for him too, Lin,” she promised, turning her so they could face each other. “I mean it. He’s your brother and I care about you. Not to mention this isn’t a good time to radar drop. What with no radar and all.” She tried a weak smile, but judging by Lin’s pinched expression neither her words nor her expression were comforting. “Let’s keep our ears to the ground. Reach out to anyone who might know anything.”

  “They’re looking into it, there’s nothing we could do,” Lin muttered, raking a hand through her long hair. It was lank, almost greasy looking. Has she showered since we landed?

  “Right, but I’ve got some free time, apparently, even if I’d rather I didn’t. I’ll see what comes up,” Nel offered. “Can’t hurt though, right?”

  “No audio—”

  “I won’t,” Nel promised, holding out her battered pinkie, “pinkie-swear.”

  “Pinkie-swear?”

  “Old school thing, never mind. But I’ll be careful. If nothing else it’ll keep me busy.”

  “Oh,” Lin began, reaching for the computer, “I wanted to see the initial Samsara reports. There was a transmission I was researching.”

  Nel froze, fingers tightening on the hard plastic. Guilt warred with warning. There was no way she could keep Lin from looking without it seeming suspicious.

  “What, looking at nudes?”

  Nel chuckled, rolling her eyes. “No, just, um—”

  Lin extricated the computer from the archaeologist's hand and flicked it open, pressing the transfer pad of her wrist communicator to the device before glancing up at the screen. A frown flickered over her face. “You were looking up my family?”

  “I don’t suppose you’d believe I was trying to figure out when your birthday is?”

  “November fifteenth. And no.”

  Nel’s thoughts raced, but she forced her shrug to look more awkward than guilty. “I was thinking, you read my dissertation, or claimed to. Mind if I read some of your work? The museum on Odyssey was incredible. And it’s another side of my own research I never thought I’d see.”

  “Right.” She closed the search before transferring Nel’s site files from Samsara. “I’ll send it to you tonight. I appreciate the gesture.” Her wrist flashed and she sighed. “Gotta run.”

  “Look, Lin?” The moment was fast slipping from her battered fingers. When she turned, Nel dialed her smile up to eleven. “I was thinking we could try and relax tonight. If you have time.”

  “Relax?” Lin’s smile was faint and did nothing to warm her dark eyes. Still, her shoulders seemed a bit less slumped as she stepped away.

  “Are you busy? I thought we could do dinner together.”

  “I mean, we all share a dining car,” Lin teased.

  “You know what I mean.” Nel stood, reaching across the distance between them to lace her fingers with Lin’s. She had never been good at trust, and every conversation seemed to entail a leap of faith these days. “I want to talk to you. Not in the ‘we need to talk’ way, but more in the…” She trailed off, uncertain.

  “‘You miss me’ way?” Lin asked, the hope a beacon in her otherwise soft tone.

  “Yeah. I’m still out of my element here, with IDH. And with everything going on with Dar. I’d just like to talk.”

  “I’ll ask Dr. Ndebele if they need me.” Lin’s head dropped to rest on Nel’s shoulder for a breath. “I’m sorry. Everything just feels like such a colossal waste of time. And that’s the one thing we don’t seem to have much of—time, I mean. Dinner would be nice.”

  “I’ll see you then,” Nel affirmed, watching her go. Embarrassment and distrust still writhed in her stomach. Either Lin was unusually distracted, or she knew Nel was lying about the search.

  And she let me get away with it.

  *

  Warm evening air buffeted Nel, and she tilted her face to the wind. At first blush she hadn’t thought she’d ever have another occasion to wear her gala finery. Turned out, heavy grained faux silk complemented black jeans just fine. Nel always was a late bloomer, and the same seemed true for her induction into the dapper-gay community.

  “You’re getting broody in your middle years, Bently,” she muttered to herself, though even without cryo, thirty-eight years was hardly middle aged. At least Lin still seemed to like what she saw, and hopefully that wouldn’t change over a single dinner.

  The hatchway to the lower level of the dining car swung open. Lin’s dark head emerged, scanning the few people still gathered on the upper deck with cursory interest.

  Life hammered awake in Nel’s chest. Zachariah was right. This was how they began—a nervously picked outfit and outside air whipping between them. She raised a hand, catching Lin’s attention in her rough palm.

  “This seat taken?” Lin gestured to the empty place beside Nel, broad mouth curled in a faint smile.

  “Saved it for you. Hoped you’d get a free moment, but kind of surprised you did.” Nel felt a pinch of guilt at how much she deserved Lin’s wariness. Lin might have brought a mountain of secrets with her, but Nel brought a hundred broken promises and unanswered questions.

  Lin folded herself into the opposite seat, scanning Nel’s outfit and hair. The appreciation under the confusion told Nel all she needed to know. “Did I miss a memo?”

  “No. Nothing special. You’ve just been busy and deserve a nice time.”

  Lin’s eyes crinkled and she turned to peruse the holographic menu projected onto the train’s gleaming rail. Nel watched the movement, fascinated with the other woman’s grace. If I unfolded your origami, what pattern would the paper have under all the careful contortions? She produced a bottle from the bag at her feet, aborting her nervous attempt at a flourish halfway through. Awkward sincerity would have to do.

  “Nel Bently, that’s stealing,” Lin teased.

  “Didn’t seem fair to let it go to waste. Besides, everything here is on some colossal tab. Just thought I’d spice up the offerings.” Her grin broadened as the tension around Lin’s eyes eased into amusement.

  “You’re bad.”

  “I think an acquitted murder charge is still on my record, so we could argue this is the tamest illegal thing I’ve done.” Before the shadows of their shared trauma lengthened any further, Nel poured them both a few fingers of the scotch and returned the illicitly acquired libation to its place in her field pack.

  “Do you want to talk about your day?”

  “I’d like to ignore it. Or vent.”

  “Both—vent, then we can drink it away,” Nel suggested.

  “I guess I’m just frustrated. The best minds in IDH are looking for my brother and turning up nothing. And no one seems to think there’s reason
for alarm. Not regarding his safety, at least. Plus, I’ve been working my butt off for Dr. Ndebele analyzing the surveillance data from CE7 starting with when I first arrived down there and it’s…” She trailed off, cheeks pinking. “I think she’s still pissed about you crashing the meeting.”

  “That has nothing to do with you, though. I can make shitty choices without your influence. Fuck knows I was an asshole well before I ever met you.”

  Lin’s gaze leveled on her. “Yeah, but I vouched for you. More than once. And I was the one who was almost court martialed for breaking you out. Did that one all on my own.”

  “Worth it?” Nel asked, hoping her joking tone would prevent an honest answer.

  “Consensus pending,” she joked back. “I think I’m struggling with how ready they were to destroy my career.”

  “From my end I was most surprised by the ease with which they didn’t. I’m no stranger to privilege. I just didn’t realize you were so…” She trailed off, softening the observation with a smile.

  “That’s not privilege,” Lin dismissed, bringing up the menu again. “It’s common sense. They saw the data. I think I might try the steak. Never had beef before.”

  Excitement erased their conversation and Nel leaned forward. “Wait, you’re telling me the vindaloo is legit beef? Like not a tank or bugs?”

  Lin nodded. “I don’t care for the practice, but I’m curious. Might as well put my enzyme boost to good use.”

  “Alien,” Nel quipped. “What else looks good to you—I’m not picky, and that way you can try a few things.”

  When their selections were made, Lin leaned forward, elbows propped on the table. She rested her chin on her folded hands. “So. What about your day?”

  Share a small piece of yourself. “Just talked to Zachariah.”

  Lin’s tired face curled into a frown. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. Just trying to get a handle on all this. I’m stubborn.”

  “Truer words have never been spoken.” Her face softened. “I hope it helps.”

  “Me too.” Nel drew a breath. “Never went to therapy before, really. Never saw a need. I wasn’t fucked up enough to be forced to or to really need it. Just fucked up enough to be a bother, really.”

  Lin frowned. “Everyone needs therapy.”

  “Sure. But the U.S. is a bit different. It’s reserved for those who can afford it. My hometown had one shrink—some guy associated with the local church. He was fine, but not someone I’d ever confide in, you know? Those who really needed it in our area mostly just got put in 4 South for a week before getting shipped off upstate.” A thought occurred to her, and she glanced up. “What do you do with criminals?”

  Lin shrugged. “There aren’t many. A lot of different resocializing programs, though.”

  Resocializing. The unyielding certainty that they were right, and the ease with which IDH navigated the various earthly judicial systems told her that, whatever IDH did with their uncooperative members of society, it wasn’t as simple as a resocializing program. Or as gentle.

  Beef vindaloo, samosa, and tandoori chicken interrupted the uncomfortable thought. Once the dishes were settled, Nel captured a bite on her fork and held it precariously over the white tablecloth. “Alright, space-girl: tell me what you think of our earthly pleasures.”

  Two hours later, with dessert plates empty, indigo gnawed at dusk’s fading glimmer. Food and drink weighed Nel’s eyes and she leaned back, not minding the air flitting over the prickle of sweat along her hairline. It was Lin’s third drink. Maybe fourth. Nel had lost count of her own.

  Still, after a moment of thought, she raised her half-filled glass.

  “So, there is a special occasion,” Lin accused playfully, obliging Nel by lifting her own drink.

  “Kind of.” Nel drew a breath. “When I was on the computer earlier I saw the date.”

  “I told you my birthday wasn’t until—”

  “November fifteenth, I remember. But today is July eighteenth. The day I could probably say changed my life more than any other.”

  Lin’s eyes narrowed. “Was that the night on the site?”

  “It was the day we met,” Nel confessed. “I don’t know how you celebrate anniversaries with cercadial time, or if you do at all, even. But we do, and this is as good a time as any. It was one of the worst weeks of my life. And you appeared out of what felt like thin air.”

  “Almost true.”

  “Almost.” Nel’s heart seemed to think she was running for her life. Running. What she was good at. What she always did. “I don’t trust people, Lin. I’m not good at it, and frankly, it hasn’t often served me well. But when you showed up in Jerod’s bar with your big city suit and your briefcase full of probably bogus paperwork, I trusted you.”

  “You threatened to kiss my Jimmy Choos, if I’m not mistaken. You thought I was a total bitch.”

  “I did not.”

  Lin’s smile grew. “You did too.”

  “Fine. But I trusted you.” She forced herself to meet the fathomless reaches of the other woman’s eyes. “I might have hemmed and hawed and kicked every mental tire along each step of this ridiculous adventure. But I’m still here.” She wasn’t going to say the word she knew Lin was now searching for on her face. But this was as close as she had come in a long time.

  “I don’t know what kicking a tire means.” Lin matched her whisper. “But I don’t think I need to. What brought this up?”

  Nel let out a soft chuckle, more to ease the pressure in her chest than for any humor. “The conversation got a bit heated when we were playing cards the other day.”

  “Over cards?”

  “Over the state of the world. The mission. People are tired. Jet lagged.” At Lin’s puzzled frown, Nel explained, “It’s like cryo sick for us normies. Shock of a new time zone. But anyway, I realized I don’t know you. I met you under a tsunami of grief, a storm I’m barely beginning to master. I didn’t think I’d know you long enough to bother to really understand who you are. But here I am six months or two-and-a-half years later, depending on who’s counting. And I’m still following nothing but my gut and you. And that’s kind of scary. So, yeah. I let my fear and gossip get the best of me and tried to search your family. It wasn’t really about your dissertation or Dar—though he’s pretty mysterious too. I knew you had influence. Just not how much.”

  “I think I’ve been pretty transparent about my privilege.”

  “Maybe I didn’t realize what that looked like on an interstellar scale.”

  “It’s something I’ve tried ignoring, honestly,” Lin confessed. “I could have had almost any rank I wanted in any department. Dar always hated that I didn’t use our parents’ influence like he did. But it just felt like an excuse. Like cheating. I know nothing will ever be hard for me like it is for some people, but I tried to make my own way.”

  “Not so easy?”

  “Our name is heavy,” she demurred.

  Nel scanned Lin’s face, gauging her mercurial temper. “Heavy enough to sink Dar?”

  The edge of Lin’s focus sharpened in a flash. It wasn’t incredulity in her voice when she spoke. It was certain. “How do you mean?”

  “Whatever way resonates.” Nel twirled her beer thoughtfully. “I wasn’t lying when I said I want to help. But I need to know more. Be included. If you think of anything I can do to make things easier.”

  “Other than looking us up in the database?” Lin’s eyes glistened under the pressure of her brittle neutrality. “What did you find?”

  “Suspiciously little, honestly.” Nel knew her recoil affirmed Lin’s discomfort. “But mostly, I found that I’d rather hear it all from you.”

  Lin’s shoulders seemed to drop a fraction. “I don’t know if there’s much worth telling—”

  “You were raised in space, Lin, I bet most of it’s gonna be pretty interesting.” Nel fiddled with the base of her glass, twisting it and watching t
he amber liquid swirl. “You don’t have to tell me everything. Or now. Or at all. But I’m here. And I’ll be here.”

  Lin smiled, perhaps her first proper one since Samsara. The bottle warmed on the table between them, neither willing to interrupt the quiet long enough to take a sip. Nel’s fingers traced the lifelines on Lin’s palm.

  “There is one thing you could do.” When Nel looked up, Lin’s lips were a red seal on the invitation of her smile.

  Wordless, Nel tapped the button that indicated they were through with their table, tidied what she could, and led Lin through the hatch. The train’s lights were already dimmed for evening and their passage was lit only with the bead of golden lights along the edges of the corridors.

  The light slid over Lin’s skin where she had opened the neck of her electrosuit. Gold looked good on her. Everything looks good on her. Their door clicked shut behind them, but Nel made no move to raise the lights. Instead, moonlight lanced from the train windows, interrupted each time they wove between outcroppings or passed an oasis.

  Thrumming electric engines drowned in the thunder of Nel’s pulse. She dipped a hand under the collar of Lin’s suit. Warm skin hummed with life under the press of her palm.

  Lin’s breath of laughter broke the quiet. “I still feel a bit underdressed.”

  Nel’s grip tightened on the stiff, charged fabric. “If I were in a three-piece suit and you a set of dirty sweats, you still wouldn’t be underdressed.”

  “I don’t know—I saw how you looked at my dress for the gala.”

  “Like I wished you weren’t wearing it.” The memory of the ice-black satin sparked inspiration. “Can you do me a favor?”

  Lin cocked her head.

  Nel peered into the narrow closet wedged between their bathroom and the door. After a moment she produced the sash from the aforementioned dress. “Do you mind being blindfolded?”