Tarkken

by Annabelle Rex

  “That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” Tarkken said, taking another step forwards. Marta wanted to punch him for being so stupid, and she thought maybe he picked up on that, because his lips twitched, just a tiny little bit. “This is about the Match program. About the fact that your wife signed up to it.”

  “You stole her from me,” Nick spat. “They thought I murdered her. My own wife.”

  “That’s not exactly true, though, is it, Nick?” Tarkken said, voice hardening as he stepped even closer. “We didn’t steal her from you. She came to us, voluntarily. She came to us using someone else’s identity because she was so afraid of you, she thought the only place she could be safe was the other side of the Universe.”

  “Shut up,” Nick said. “Shut up!”

  But Tarkken didn’t, he pushed forwards again, his words firing at Nick like so many bullets, it was hard to remember that Nick was the one with the gun.

  “Did you hit her? Was that what drove her away into the arms of an alien? Or were you just cruel, lazy and repugnant? Because you did something. You did something that made that woman take a chance on our test long before any good news stories of happy ever afters started emerging. She risked being trafficked into slavery across the stars rather than spending another minute with you.”

  A roar of unbalanced, animalistic rage erupted from Nick, and he shoved Marta to one side, raising the gun in front of him. A flash, and a bang so loud it echoed inside Marta’s head, disorienting her, and bodies, bodies crashing to the floor.

  More shouting. More bangs. And Nick was falling backwards, his arms loose, the gun tumbling from his hand, landing inert on the dance floor. Marta pushed herself upright, ready to pounce if he went for it again, but he remained where he fell, his head flopped to the side, the angry light gone from his eyes. Blood soaked into his t-shirt, blooming across the white material, a dark, bitter red.

  Marta turned.

  And scrambled across the floor, hands and knees sliding in the sticky dampness. She thought it was a spilled drink, her mind confusing the noise and chaos for the dancing and drinking of the night before. But when she lifted her hand to Tarkken’s face, she left behind marks of red.

  He was slumped, knocked over at the last minute, toppled by the weight of Piotr’s body crashing in to his.

  “Dad,” Marta said, the word escaping on a breath.

  For Tarkken’s hands were pressing down on a bloody wound on her father’s chest. Her father had taken the bullet meant for him.

  “No,” she said. “No, no, no, no, no.”

  An officer skidded to the floor beside them, clutching the first aid kit that probably lived behind the bar. Just a kit for patching up scratches and bumps, not gunshot wounds. Marta could see the pallor of his face as he grabbed a wad of bandages and took over from Tarkken. Another officer joined him, the two of them working together to try to save her father’s life.

  While Marta sat mute, shock and dread and grief rooting her in place.

  Tarkken crawled to her side.

  Distantly, someone yelled for an ambulance.

  Tarkken wrapped his arms around her, his hands sticky. He held her tight and whispered to her, his voice a constant presence in her ear.

  But all Marta could focus on was the blood.

  The blood.

  The blood.

  Chapter 14

  WHEN THE CAR DREW UP OUTSIDE the crematorium, Tarkken’s first thought was that the coffin wasn’t big enough. He hadn’t known Piotr Kowalczyk long, but the man had been larger than life. Reducing him down to a small box felt like a misrepresentation.

  Marta stood at the front, holding Asha’s hand, the two of them wearing demure black dresses and plain black shoes. Nell stood behind them with Angela, Mikey in her arms.

  The coffin slid out the back of the car onto the waiting trolley. Asha had explained this part of funerals, how traditionally, the male relatives of the deceased carried the coffin into the church. Except more often than not now, they wheeled it on a special trolley, rather than carry it on their shoulders. Marta had written to what relatives of her father she could find addresses for, but none of them had wanted to come.

  “It’s going to be the most awful funeral,” Marta had said while Asha helped her to plan it.

  Tarkken was there in a planning capacity, needing to cover the security arrangements to allow Asha to attend. One of his jobs was to review the guest list for any issues, but of all the messages Marta had sent to people Piotr had known, most had ignored them. A few had replied with condolences but said they would not attend.

  “He was such an outgoing person, so ready to make friends with anyone. All through my childhood I remember him having friends round.”

  “And none of them want to come?” Asha said.

  Marta shrugged. “Most of them gave up on him the first time he got convicted of robbery. The ones who gave him a second chance didn’t give him a third. And now he has no one.”

  “Hey,” Asha said, giving her friend a hug. “He’s got you.”

  “And I’m going to look a right idiot trying to drag the coffin in to the crematorium myself.” She sat back, swiping at the tears on her cheeks. It took everything Tarkken had not to wrap her up in his arms and bundle her away somewhere he could hold her until that pain went away.

  “Surely the crematorium staff don’t expect you to do that alone,” Cael said, his voice gentle.

  “No, they’ll have people who can help,” Marta said. “I just… it’s miserable, isn’t it? That I can’t even scrounge together enough of his friends and acquaintances to be pallbearers.”

  “How many do you need?” Tarkken asked.

  “Six, traditionally,” Marta said, frowning a little. “Why?”

  “Well,” he said, uncomfortable under her scrutiny, unsure now that his suggestion was the right one to make. Her emotions remained as easy for him to read as ever, but there was no variance to them at the moment. Just a constant dull ache of grief. “I know none of us knew your father well, but… we all know you. Couldn’t we do it?”

  Cael counted on his fingers. “Me, you, Randar, Cribishk. That’s four. I’m sure Garrant would do it, too. I know you don’t know him well…”

  “I think I’ve said hello, that’s it,” Marta said. “I can’t ask him to…”

  “Yeah, you can,” Asha said, gripping Marta’s hand. “You’re my sister every bit as much as Nell. That makes Garrant your brother in law. You can ask him, and he’ll say yes.”

  Marta nodded, fresh tears running down her cheeks. “You guys would do that for me?”

  “Of course,” Cael had said, reaching across to touch her shoulder.

  They were lined up now on either side of the trolley. Cribishk and Randar at the back, Cael and Garrant at the front. Tarkken took the middle, along with Marta’s friend from the Forum, Disquord, who in real life was a bookish looking guy in his middle thirties called James. Tarkken couldn’t work out if his feeling of disconcertment was to do with Cribishk at his back, or just being outside in general.

  When the funeral director gestured to them, they began moving the coffin inside. The rest of their party followed in behind them, all of them filtering in to seats as the minister took his place at the front. If he was at all fazed by the random assortment of Humans and Intergalactic Community members in front of him, he hid it well.

  The ceremony was short and sweet. They’d planned it that way, Marta keen to have the service done.

  “I don’t want to linger there,” she had said. “I just want it over with.”

  “Whatever you want to do, we’ll make it happen,” Asha said.

  The two of them had been near inseparable since Asha arrived back from the Olympia. Tarkken was glad that Marta had the support of her friend. For the week between Piotr’s death and Asha’s return, he didn’t think she’d got out of bed. He’d tried going to see her more than once, could feel her presence in her house, but she never answered. Not when he knocked on the door
, not when he called her comm, her phone.

  She might have tried to ignore Asha, too, but Asha had an override code for Marta’s door. Within hours of arriving back from the Olympia, Asha had moved Marta from her home, relocating her on the Station in one of the guest suites, Mouse with her. After a couple of days, Tarkken tried calling on her there, too. But she continued to not answer. And as she started to emerge, started to walk around the station with Asha, started making steps towards planning Piotr’s funeral, it became clear she wasn’t just not answering him - she was outright avoiding him, only remaining wherever he was for as long as was absolutely necessary. The irony that she was treating him how he had once treated her didn’t escape him.

  One time, after another short, painful meeting, Tarkken forgot himself, staring after her as she left with Asha.

  “Are you okay?” Cael asked, pulling him back into the room with a start.

  “Fine, I’m fine,” he said.

  Cael just looked at him until Tarkken crumbled.

  “Okay, I’m very not fine. But there’s not much I can do about it.”

  Cael normally never shut up, but apparently he knew how to weaponise silence. He didn’t speak, just sat there, filling the room with the strength of his compassion, and waited for Tarkken to blurt it all out.

  “I dream about it,” he said. “The gun. Pointing at me. Saying all those things to provoke him so he would point it at me and not her.”

  “It was an incredibly brave thing to do,” Cael said. “And a trauma, Tarkken, it’s only natural that it’s haunting you. Stars, I dreamed about that gun being pointed at Asha for weeks.”

  It hadn’t felt brave at the time. Just necessary. Anything, anything, to get that gun away from Marta’s head. He’d been prepared to die in her place. He just never expected that Piotr would push him out of the way.

  “He died saving me,” Tarkken said. “That bullet was meant for me. He died because of me.”

  “He didn’t die because of you,” Cael said, and Tarkken could feel the strength with which he believed this.

  “I still feel responsible,” Tarkken said, wishing he could believe otherwise even a little.

  “Yes, well, we’re all well aware of your habit of claiming responsibility for things you have no control over. Nick Gillespie is responsible for Piotr’s death. Not you.”

  “She won’t even look at me.”

  The words were out before he had the chance to think them through. He felt a ripple of surprise go through Cael, followed by a quiet understanding.

  “I suppose this has to do with why Marta needed ‘girl talk’ at two o’clock in the morning recently?”

  Tarkken frowned, unsure what he was referring to, before his brain caught up. Marta must have told Asha everything.

  “It’s not what it sounds like,” Tarkken said.

  Cael’s expression was gentle. “Really? Because it sounds to me like you care for her a great deal.”

  Tarkken let his head drop into his hands. “I’m an idiot.”

  “In many ways,” Cael said, affectionate amusement rippling from him. “But I would like to think there are very few circumstances in which caring for someone who isn’t cruel or degenerate in some way makes you an idiot.”

  “When you care for them too much.”

  Cael’s expression and emotions were matching shades of sympathy. “You don’t know that she’s not your Match, Tarkken. There’s cause for hope yet.”

  Tarkken thought about the way she had been avoiding him. “Not much of one, I think.”

  After the ceremony, they headed back to the station. Marta paused to say goodbye to her friend, drawing him in to a hug. Tarkken felt a surge of jealousy and hated himself for it, shutting himself away in one of the cars before he could do anything further to embarrass himself.

  When they arrived back, Tarkken headed straight for his rooms, pacing round them until his room AI suggested he might be better served pacing in the gardens.

  You’re less likely to walk into furniture out there, it said in its deadpan way.

  So he relocated to the park, walking five laps around it before he eventually gave up and sat down right in the middle of it, glaring out at the Earth as if it were somehow responsible for all his problems.

  It wasn’t such a stretch. In many ways, the little ball of green and blue was absolutely responsible.

  Or, at least, the people that lived on it were.

  He was so busy being annoyed, he didn’t notice Marta walking up to him until she sat down next to him.

  “You’re scowling again,” she said, looking up at him with eyes still raw from crying.

  “Sorry. It’s been a long week.”

  He could have kicked himself for saying something so idiotic. But no irritation crossed Marta’s emotional landscape, just quiet sorrow. Grief, but not just the grief for her father. The kind of grief that could only be stirred by something still present. Grief coupled with longing.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I must be making it worse. I just couldn’t stay away any longer.”

  Tarkken’s heart stuttered. “Couldn’t stay away?”

  “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed I’ve been avoiding you.”

  “I had noticed,” he said. “I thought… I thought perhaps I triggered painful memories for you.”

  “And here was me worrying about doing the same to you.”

  “You were worried about me?” He couldn’t make her words make any sense.

  “Of course,” she said. “I’ve been such an endless pit of misery for the last two weeks. I didn’t want to inflict that on you.”

  Tarkken drew her to him, holding her tight. Her arms went round his neck as she buried her face in his shoulder, returning his embrace with fervour.

  “God, I’ve been wanting to do that all week,” she said. “I’m stupid. I should have just made you miserable so I could be happy.”

  But though he felt a surge of happiness from her, creeping in beneath it, the thing he never wanted to sense in her - notes of uncertainty. So when she drew back and turned to kiss him, Tarkken did what he really didn’t want to, but had to do. He let her go.

  “What’s wrong?” she said, little currents of hurt pushing through her.

  He brushed a lock of her hair back out of her face, letting his thumb trace along her cheek. The bruise had mostly faded now, but the last little hints of green and yellow still showed up on her pale skin.

  “Marta, much as I’d love to pick up where we left off, we can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…we’re not Matched.”

  “Didn’t stop us before.”

  “I know, but…”

  He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her lips. He felt her desire, instant and potent, as she kissed him back. But beneath it, swirling round and round, a repeated refrain, were doubt, discontent. Her focus was no longer entirely on him.

  “Oh,” she said, drawing back from him.

  “Exactly,” Tarkken said. “You’re not just talking about a hook up any more. You’re talking about an investment. But only an idiot would make an investment without the readily available guarantee. You’re wondering if there’s someone better out there, waiting for you.”

  “Hmm, your emotional reader must be off. That’s not what I was thinking.”

  “No?” He almost smiled as she shot him a wry little grin.

  “No. I was thinking that some other Human woman could take the test any time now and take you away from me.”

  Tarkken’s heart ached to think that his Match could be anyone other than her. He didn’t want it to be anyone other than her.

  “Is it ever possible to make a go of things without taking the test?” Marta asked.

  Tarkken shook his head. “No. Plenty of people have tried. And sometimes they last a little while. But it never ends well. And I wouldn’t want to do that to you.”

  She smiled, but he could feel all the pain behind it. “But what if
I take it and it isn’t you?”

  He tried to give her a genuine smile. “Then you’ll be extremely happy with your Match. And I’ll do my best to be happy for you.”

  “You’ll be a bit crap at it though,” she said.

  “A lot, I think. At least for the first little while.”

  She sighed. “I suppose we should stop torturing ourselves and just get it over with.”

  “You want to take the test?” He tried not to let too much hope slip into his tone, or his heart. “I thought you weren’t interested in forever yet?”

  She gave him a strange little smile.

  “Did you know my Dad gave you his stamp of approval?” she said. “Before he died, he said you were a good man. I think… I think that’s why he saved you. For me. And I have to believe that it was for something, you know? I have to believe that the test is going to Match me to you, because I don’t think I can take losing both of you.” She looked up at him, eyes shimmering with tears. “I wasn’t interested in forever until I started imagining forever with you. I want to be with you, Tarkken. I want you to hold me tonight and I want to wake up tomorrow in your arms. I’m tired of feeling sad and lonely all the time. I’m tired of missing you.”

  And even though he knew it would be bittersweet, he kissed her, pouring all his love for her into it.

  Love. Because if this wasn’t love, then what was?

  “Okay,” he said, pulling back from her. “But whatever happens, Marta, you have a piece of my heart. And I would gladly give you all of it right now, if I thought it wouldn’t hurt you in the long run.”

  She smiled, a little bit of brightness returning to her emotional landscape. She held out her hand to him. Tarkken took it, pulling her to her feet.

  “Ready?” he said.

  “No,” she replied, linking her fingers through his.

  Epilogue

  ONE YEAR LATER…

  CAEL WATCHED CLOSELY as Sophia Galarza took the stage, her sleek black hair pulled into a high ponytail, wearing a crisp business suit paired with ballet flats. Because only an asshole would expect a woman to walk across a stage and stand to deliver a speech in heels, as Sophia had put it.