Lee Shores

by Rachel Ford

  Fortunately, the Nikyas didn’t notice us from our spot, tucked away by the window. I breathed a sigh of relief. It was too much to hope that they’d miss us entirely, but if we were far enough apart, we might just be able to maintain the pretense that we hadn’t spotted each other. At least until Frank returned, and I could ask what to do in the circumstance. Would greeting them risk a confrontation? Would ignoring them be worse? I had no idea what the established protocol in such a case would be. Hell, I had no idea if there was an established protocol. Surely, this was not a frequent occurrence on Kudar.

  They headed for a table in the center of the café, and Kor seemed to be getting ready to head to the counter when his body posture stiffened. Kia glanced from her brother to the source of his interest. So did I.

  It was Frank, returning from the counter with a carafe of coffee and a big grin.

  “Shit,” Maggie said this time.

  I nodded. He hadn’t spotted the Nikyas yet, but they’d definitely spotted him. And there was absolutely no way to warn him: he was walking straight for them, lost to his own thoughts. Dammit.

  He saw them a moment later, and his expression cycled between recognition, consternation, and indecision. For half a second, he froze in place. They froze too, and for a long moment they stared at each other.

  Then, Frank squared his shoulders and set his steps for their table. Kor stood a little taller, crossing his arms. Kia, who was by now seated, rose.

  Frank bowed, saying something that I couldn’t quite make out. They did not return the salutation. Instead, the young man’s icy tones wafted across the café, short and sharp. Kia said nothing.

  Frank flushed, and I heard him speak, though again, I could make out none of the words. Still, they sounded apologetic, even as Kor’s response came quick and accusatory. They exchanged a few more rounds like this, with Frank increasingly addressing his entreaties to the Nikya heir.

  He seemed to be making progress, too, if only with her, for she nodded now and then. Finally, she bowed, and he bowed too. Kor frowned at the spectacle, but uncrossed his arms. Frank gestured to our table.

  “Looks like we’ve got company,” Maggie observed.

  She was right. After a moment’s hesitation, the Nikyas fell in beside him, heading for us.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  A round of very stiff re-introductions ensued. Kia fixed Maggie with a hard gaze. “Magdalene Landon,” she said.

  Maggie bowed. “Kia arn nikya.”

  She returned the bow with one so shallow it was little more than a nod. “I understand you are not to be a citizen of Kudar after all?”

  Maggie threw a glance at Frank, who nodded. “No,” she said.

  “It was my fault,” Frank interjected, “Not Magdalene’s.”

  “Still, she lied too,” Kor observed.

  “I am sorry about that,” Maggie said slowly.

  “It was nothing personal,” Frank assured. “Please believe me. It was nothing against you or your House, Kia.”

  “So you’ve said already,” Kor offered dryly.

  He nodded rather miserably. “Yes. So I’ve said.”

  Kia nodded too. “Well, it was certainly…unconventional, F’er ark inkaya. But I cannot say I resent it. I was in no more a rush to marry a stranger than you.”

  This established, we all took seats. Kor sat to my side, and Frank and Kia sat together. “The cake will be out shortly. I got a plate of sandwiches too. In the meantime, can I pour you a cup of coffee?”

  We all nodded, and Frank dispensed mugs of the steaming liquid. Kor took his with a stiff nod.

  “It smells great,” I said, more from nerves than anything else. It did smell heavenly, but the awkward silence was getting to me.

  “The coffee here is very good,” Kia observed. “Better than the cake, I think.”

  Frank nodded. “It’s been years since I’ve been here, but I would agree.”

  “Still,” she said, “we were in town, and I could not stop without getting a slice somewhere.”

  “We came to town specifically for cake,” he answered.

  “You should have come in the morning, then,” Kor declared.

  “Yes, but we were occupied.”

  “Ah.”

  A pause returned as Frank resumed his seat. Then, Kia asked, “So, F’er, how long are you staying? Or are you home for good now?”

  He shook his head. “No. I’ll be leaving some time in the next two weeks. That’s when the ship is due to head out.”

  “You enjoy living in space, then, among humans?”

  “You cannot expect him to say otherwise, sister,” Kor observed, “with his captain sitting beside him.”

  Maggie smiled. “Oh, you needn’t worry on that account. Frank has no problem telling me what he thinks.”

  Kor regarded her skeptically, and Kia repeated, “Frank?”

  “It’s a nickname,” he said. “It was easier for my first crew to pronounce, and it’s just kind of stuck ever since.”

  “Easier to pronounce than your own name?” Kor wondered.

  “It sounds very human,” Kia added.

  “It is.”

  She regarded him curiously. “I see.”

  Providentially, the cake arrived with a tray of serving plates, and a platter of sandwiches. Its appearance afforded us a few minutes of relief, as slices were passed out, sandwiches selected, and the flavor and texture thoroughly dissected.

  To my mind, it was every bit as good as the cake I’d had the other week. “The human palate,” Kor countered when I offered my observation, “is not so evolved as the Kudarian one. A Kudarian can taste the difference.”

  I refrained from rolling my eyes. “Well, that may be. But I think it’s delicious.”

  He sighed and shook his head.

  “How is your father holding up?” Frank asked Kia in a moment.

  She blinked at the question, veering so suddenly from the safe, general topics that had occupied our time to the personal. “Father? He’s…uh…doing as well as can be expected, I suppose.”

  “It cannot be easy.”

  She held his gaze for a long moment, then shook her head. “No. Akura keeps reminding him not to display his grief, for mother’s sake. But I think it’s killing him: to lose her, and pretend he’s moved on.”

  “Your mother was a strong woman. I do not doubt she will find her way on her own, when she’s ready.”

  “If there is such a thing as souls,” she said softly, “I cannot think she will leave when he is suffering so much. It will not matter if he is silent or not.”

  “The priests understand these things better than we do,” Kor advised.

  “The priests do not understand father,” Kia countered. “Or how much he loved mother, and she him.”

  Now, the young man nodded. “That is true.”

  “Perhaps,” Frank suggested, “you should speak with him. It might help to discuss it.”

  She considered. “Perhaps it would.”

  “And how are you doing?”

  She seemed even more surprised by this question, and took a long moment to answer. “Well enough, considering.”

  “We try to stay busy,” Kor answered. “It’s what mother would want.”

  “I am learning to manage the estate,” she added. “I never knew how much work she put into it. And we try to get to Kriar, at least once a day.”

  “Stewing in sorrow is not the Nikya way. That, I think, is father’s biggest downfall: he will not leave the house.”

  Kia nodded slowly at her brother’s words. “He has not left it since mother’s funeral.”

  “It’s not healthy. I hope he will see that before long.”

  Despite the detour into such a grim topic, the conversation flowed more easily. It seemed Frank’s solicitude, and the earnestness with which he inquired after their well-being, struck a chord with the Nikyas.

  Frank and Kia fell into discussion of his life aboard the Black Flag, and his time on other shi
ps before that. Kor asked Maggie and me a series of questions about Earth. Then, rather abruptly, he said, “I – forgive me if I am blunt – but I heard that you are…well, in a relationship. With each other.”

  “Uh…yes. We’re engaged.”

  He nodded slowly. “I’ve heard of such things, but I’ve never met – how do you call it? Female homosexuals? Not until now. I wasn’t even sure such a thing was possible.”

  “Quite possible,” Maggie said, a hint of amusement in her tone. “And I’m sure you have met lesbians before, Kor.”

  He shook his head emphatically. “You are the first.”

  “We may be the first who you know to be lesbians,” she smiled.

  He considered her words. “You may be right. I believe your culture is more welcoming on that score than ours. Still, I should congratulate you on your betrothal.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Of course.” He shrugged. “And, between you and me, you make a better couple than you did with F’er.”

  Maggie laughed. “Well, I certainly won’t disagree with that.”

  We talked for a long time, eating our way through the entire plate of sandwiches and way too many slices of cake. A clearing of the air, it seemed, was exactly what Frank and the Nikyas needed. Even Kor, whose reluctance to make peace had been more palpable than Kia’s, was laughing and grinning as our conversations wound down.

  “Well,” the elder Nikya declared, getting to her feet, “we should be on our way. I don’t want to leave father too long.” She smiled at Frank. “But thank you, F’er. I am glad we spoke. I hope we will be friends after all of this.”

  He stood too, and we all followed suit. “Me too, Kia.” He hesitated a moment. “In fact, if it is not presuming too much, would you join my family for dinner some time? We would be honored to receive you, properly this time.”

  Kia’s brow knit. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I…I don’t think I can be in that house, F’er. Not so soon after…well, it was where mother had her last meal.”

  “Oh.” Frank’s face fell. “Of course – I’m sorry, I should have thought of that.”

  “But, if you would like to go somewhere else…”

  “I would.”

  She smiled softly, and nodded. “Alright. Where? And when did you have in mind?”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  They picked a restaurant and settled on a time – the next evening at six. Then, our group parted ways, the Nikyas heading back to their home and we heading for the Inkaya estate.

  “Well imagine that,” I teased on the way back, “Frank and Kia are going on a date after all.”

  “It’s not a date.”

  “Uh huh. Kor sure took it to be a date. Did you see the look he gave you?”

  Frank rolled his eyes. “Kor is an imbecile.”

  “That’s no way to talk about your future brother-in-law.”

  He shook his head. “You’re worse than my father.”

  I laughed. “But come on. You like her.”

  He colored a little, admitting, “Maybe. We’ll see. She was very reasonable, when I explained what happened.”

  “What exactly did you tell her?” I wondered. I’d seen the conversation, but not heard anything. “You must have been awfully persuasive.”

  “No,” he admitted, “I was more tongue-tied than anything. But I told her the truth, that it had nothing to do with her or her family. That it was the fact that I didn’t know her, and nothing about her in particular.”

  “Well,” I said, “it was a good save. She looked pretty excited about tomorrow night.”

  “Your mom will be happy,” Maggie observed. “You, ending up with the girl she picked out for you.”

  Frank groaned. “She’ll never let me live it down. But you both are getting way ahead of yourselves. Her mom just died. She’s still mourning. This is just dinner, not an engagement.”

  I nudged Maggie. “That’s how it started with us too: just a meal.”

  “And now, here we are,” she added, “engaged.”

  “Good gods. You two are ridiculous. And so help me, if you get my father going on this…”

  I laughed again. “Come on, Frank. You know he wouldn’t want to hear about it anyway. ‘You can do much better than a Nikya now.’”

  He frowned at me, but his eyes were twinkling. “I will murder you,” he warned.

  I shrugged. “Some things are worth dying for, Frank. Some things are worth dying for.”

  Later that evening, Sydney checked in. He’d landed, and was waiting our arrival. Now that the Black Flag was back in port, Maggie and I ran our plan past Frank.

  He tried to convince us to stay, but not with as much effort, I thought, as he might have before reconnecting with Kia arn nikya.

  I was glad of it. Frank was one of my best friends, and one of the people I cared about most. I wanted him to be happy, and though I knew on some level that might mean drastic changes, the fact was I’d rather he was happy than anything else. Even if that meant the Black Flag would lose him.

  He’d been the only one of our party alone on South Kudar. He’d borne it well, cracking self-deprecating jokes and giving all three couples space as we needed.

  But though he was rarely alone, now and again, even under all the smiles and pranks, I’d see the hint of loneliness. It was no surprise, I supposed, surrounded as he’d been by couples.

  But, reflecting on it now, I found myself hoping very much that his date went well. It might all come to nothing. It might be nothing but wishful thinking on my part.

  I hoped otherwise. I hoped it would be the start of something great for Frank.

  In the meantime, though, Mags and I had our own planning to do. We gathered our stuff the next day, and made our goodbyes to Frank’s parents. Rather than leave a shuttle, we’d collect him in two week’s time, and say goodbye to his siblings then.

  Frank drove us to the Kriarian port. “Don’t go getting lost in the wilderness and forget about me,” he said.

  “Hey,” I told him, “we’re not shipping out until midday tomorrow. I expect to get the scoop on your date before then.”

  He rolled his eyes. “We’ll see.”

  “‘We’ll see’ my ass, mister. I want every detail.” Then, I grinned. “Well, I guess that depends on how well the night goes: if it’s too much of a success, filter accordingly.”

  He shook his head. “Magdalene, I don’t know how you put up with her. You have my sympathy.” And with that, he left.

  “Well,” she smiled at me, “now that you’re done torturing poor Frank, let’s go see how the ship’s doing.”

  “And say hi to Sydney.”

  “And say hi to Sydney,” she agreed.

  Sydney was waiting for us as we stepped inside the ship – right at the gangplank, no less. I nearly jumped out of my skin as the door slid open, and I found myself face-to-chassis with his enormous frame. “Syd,” I managed to keep the panic out of my voice. “Hey. How are you doing?”

  “My systems are operating at peak functionality, Katherine. How are you?”

  “Also operating at peak capacity,” I grinned.

  “How’s the ship?” Maggie asked.

  “Better than you left her, Captain.”

  “That’s what I like to hear, Mister Sydney. Good job.”

  “Of course. I am at your service.”

  “Let’s go check out her stats,” Maggie suggested.

  “You go, I’ll be right there. I’ll put our bags away.”

  “You sure? Syd can do that, can’t you Syd?”

  “Of course.”

  “I got it,” I said. “Syd, you can come with me. Tell me how the engine’s been holding up since our modifications.” If I was being entirely honest, I’d rather missed the battle bot these last two weeks. I was more interested in hearing what he’d been up to than confirming that the heat shields were in tiptop shape.

  Maggie grinned and nodded. “Well, I’ll see you later then, once you two have had
a chance to catch up.”

  The robot trundled along after me, explaining that the engine was working well within the expected parameters.

  “Excellent,” I said as we wound our way through the Black Flag’s corridors. “And what about you? Anything new? Anything exciting happen while we were gone?”

  “I am incapable of feeling excitement, Katherine,” he informed me. “But I did catalogue the crew’s media library.”

  “Oh.” Our media library was a shared repository of songs, movies and tv shows from all across the galaxy. Much of it was stored digitally, but we had some physical copies too. In the event of systems failure, non-critical drives like the media library would be the first repurposed. And no one wanted to lose their favorite shows.

  “I’ve sorted the system by genre, in alphabetic order. It will be far more efficient than the method previously employed.”

  “Did we have a method?” I wondered. As near as I could remember, we’d relied on the tried-and-true “find an open spot and set it there” method.

  “I believe a random sort function was used.”

  I laughed. I doubted this very much, but, to the robot’s structured mind, the uncontrolled chaos would probably have seemed like a random sort. It was probably the only explanation that made sense to him. “Well, I think your alphabetic ordering will be much more efficient, Syd.”

  “Indeed. By my calculations, it is the most efficient system possible, given the number and variety of items involved. And it maintains a clear lead over other systems with any shift in content, up to a twenty-three percent genre-ratio change. You see, Katherine, I was also planning for the future.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “Thank you. I was very satisfied with it myself. And what of you? I hope you had similarly satisfactory experiences during your stay.”

  I smiled at the understatement. “Well, I got engaged.”

  “Ah. Thus the stone-set band on the ring finger of your right hand?”

  “Yes.”

  “To Magdalene, I presume?”

  I laughed. “Yes. To Magdalene.”