by Rachel Ford
“If…if you wanted to take off early, I wouldn’t mind,” she said. “In this storm, I don’t think we’ve got anything to worry about: no one’s going to be out tonight.”
“Oh. Okay. Well, I can do that too.”
“Thanks.” She flashed him a smile that was one part relief, one part embarrassment. “Thank you, Tal. I mean it – I wouldn’t have bothered you, but…”
He nodded. “Of course. I’m on it.”
This settled, she practically ran from his office. Tal stared into the empty space she’d occupied a moment earlier, then let out a low whistle. “Well shit,” he muttered. “What the hell happened there?”
He left a note for the night shift lead, Ki Rigar, noting that he’d had to bug out a little early. Then, he left. The storm was every bit as miserable as it looked, and he was grateful for the shuttle’s autopilot capability. He was a good driver, but he’d never driven in conditions like these. He didn’t want to start learning now.
Not with his mind as preoccupied as it was. Despite spending the trip contemplating the matter, he was no closer to understanding what might have passed than before. Nees had done something wrong, it seemed. But he had a hard time imagining what would have caused Tig to sour on her, much less that quickly.
Tig was – had been – crazy about her. A blind man could have seen that. So what in the hell happened?
He didn’t know, and, ducking into the rain for the dash to Tig’s door, was almost hesitant to find out what – and how it had impacted his friend. Sucking in a long breath of cold, damp air, Tal knocked.
There were no lights on inside the small house, and he could hear no sounds either – nothing but the screaming winds and driving rain all around him. He knocked again, louder this time, and called, “Tig? It’s me, Tal.”
The door remained closed, the house darkened.
Now, at last, Tal began to truly worry. “Hey, Tig: open up.”
Icy splatters of rain, angling in under the roof’s overhang, pelted him. He felt them soak into his clothes, felt them trace icy paths through his hair and down his neck. “Dammit, Tig, it’s freezing out here. Open the door.”
He was, though, talking to himself. The door didn’t budge. He considered his next move. There wasn’t much to consider, though. If Tig was out in this weather, he needed help. And the only way he’d know is if he checked the house first.
So, Tal turned the handle and stepped inside. Sweeping his hand for the light switch, he blinked as the room was flooded with illumination.
He wasn’t the only one blinking into the light, though. Tig Orson stared at him from the far side of the room, squinting to make him out. Part of him wanted to breathe a sigh of relief at seeing his friend safe. Another part wanted to knock him upside the head for leaving him out in the rain.
In the end, that part won the day. And though he didn’t hit Tig, he did demand, “Dammit, what the hell? Why didn’t you get the door?”
Tal was silenced, though, by his expression. The grinning, confident man he’d seen earlier walking on air around Nees’ house was long gone. In his place sat a haggard man, his face drawn, his eyes sunk deep into their sockets. “Holy hell, Tig. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He stood now, plastering a half-hearted smile onto his face. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be working, aren’t you?”
“What happened earlier? With you and Nees, I mean?” Tal crossed the distance between them, ignoring the way his friend cringed at the questions. “Well?”
“Nothing,” the other man replied weakly. “Nothing.”
“Nothing, eh? She didn’t think it was nothing. She said she ‘got things wrong.’ And you look like you saw a ghost. She was worried you were still out in the storm.” He fixed him with a piercing gaze. “So what in the hell is going on? Did something…happen? Something I should know about? I work with her. For her. If there’s something I need to know about…”
“Gods, Tal, it’s nothing like that…she didn’t…she didn’t do anything.”
He held his friend’s gaze, trying to understand. He could read the same mix of emotions in his face that he’d seen in the governor’s earlier: embarrassment, hurt, concern. But there was something else too. “Tig,” he said, his tone more patient, less on edge, “are you okay?”
He expected another tepid reassurance. But, to his surprise, Tig sank back into his seat, burying his head in his hands, and wept.
Chapter Twenty
It had taken a few minutes, but Tig had, at last, made eye contact again. He’d apologized for his tears. He’d tried to deflect from the whole incident with a joke. But Tal persisted, and finally Tig answered his questions.
“It wasn’t Ari, Tal. It was…it was me. It was Zeta.”
“What do you mean?”
Tig’s face went very gray. “You know what I mean, Tal. We were – well, kissing and stuff. She…she whispered something in my ear, and-and touched me. And I…”
Tal felt the blood drain from his own cheeks. Good gods. How could he have not put it together before this? “Efron Engel,” he said, his own voice quiet.
Tig nodded. “When he…well, he would…”
“Whisper,” Tal finished. He could still hear the man’s words in his own ears, feel his rank breath against his neck. His skin crawled at the memory. His soul still felt stained from it. Engel was a rapist, sent to Zeta for his crimes on Central. He’d only continued to perpetrate them on that frozen planet, against men like himself and Tig.
Tal had escaped, if only just. His friend had not been so lucky. “Gods, Tig.”
The other man flushed, shaking his head. “It just…came back. You know?”
“I know.”
He pawed at his cheeks, wiping brusquely at the tears that reappeared. “I panicked, I guess. I know…I know Ari must think I’m insane. I’m sorry. I hope she’s not too hurt.” His voice cracked, and he shook his head again, as if aggravated by his weakness. “I’m sorry.”
“Gods, Tig,” he repeated. “Don’t be sorry. Ari – she loves you. She’ll understand.”
Now, the other man glanced up sharply. “No. No, Tal. You didn’t tell her, did you?”
“Of course not. I…I didn’t realize, until now. But I didn’t say a thing. Not a word.”
“Good. Don’t.”
“You should tell her.”
“No.” He shook his head adamantly. “No, never.”
“What are you going to say then, Tig? How are you going to explain just leaving like that?”
His friend stared past him for a moment, lost to his own thoughts. Then he said, and his tone was very sad, “I won’t. I…I think I’m going to catch a ship, off of here. To some other world. Start over.”
“Leave Trapper’s?”
“It’ll be best, for everyone.”
“Like hell it will. You love her, Tig. Don’t bother to deny it: I’m not blind. And she loves you, too. She was worried sick earlier, thinking you’d been caught in the storm.”
“She…she doesn’t know, Tal. She’d never…she could never…”
“Oh bullshit. What happened: it sucks, Tig. It’s awful. Gods, I wish I could kill Engel all over again.
“But that woman? She’s crazy about you. You think that’s going to make a difference to her?”
“Of course it will. You know it does. Shit, Tal, you’re my best friend. And you only let me go with you because you felt sorry for me. Because I’m so fucking weak I couldn’t look out for myself. Because…”
He shook his head, and his voice cracked with emotion. “I’m not a man. Engel showed me that, didn’t he?”
“Fuck, Tig,” Tal said. He loosed a long breath. He wanted to shake his friend by the shoulders. He wanted to hug him tight. He wanted to scream into the void, and curse himself for not pulling the trigger on Engel the first time he’d ever met him. He’d been the arresting officer. He could have ended it all, then and there. No more raping, no more hurting people. Just one bullet.
He’d have given his right arm to go back to that moment, and make a different choice: to do the expedient thing, rather than the lawful one.
But he couldn’t. So he took a seat beside Tig, and for a moment said nothing. Then, he spoke. “What about me? Am I not a man?”
“What?”
“Because of Engel.”
“You said-he didn’t…”
“He didn’t. But not because I could fight him off. Not because I could protect myself. Tig, the only reason I escaped? Because the guards locked the place down, and took him back to his own block. If not for that…” He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have escaped either.”
“But you did.”
“Not because of anything I did. And if the lockdown had happened a few minutes later…would you say that about me?”
“It’s different.”
“How?”
“You were a protector. I was just a thief.”
“It doesn’t change anything with Engel.”
“No. But you made something of yourself. A life you could be proud of. A life a-a wife could be proud of.”
“I wound up on Zeta, the same as you.”
“For doing the right thing. Not for stealing.”
“You stole to survive. I made a bad call. I put my faith in the wrong people.”
“You know it’s not the same.”
“My point is, I’ve made no more of myself than you. And Nees doesn’t hold the conviction against you. So why the hell do you?”
For a long moment, Tig was quiet. When he spoke, his voice was very low. “A man’s supposed to be able to protect his family, Tal. I couldn’t even protect myself.”
He sighed, and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Maybe, Tig. But something tells me, Ari’s not the kind of woman looking for a man to keep her safe.” He shrugged. “Something tells me, that woman could kick both of our asses at once, if she had a mind to do it.
“Look, I know – what you’re going through? It’s hell. I worked that case. I know what Engel did to people, and how it stayed with them. I saw people shattered.
“But I saw people living afterwards, too. And I know it’s not easy. It can’t be easy. But…you love Ari. She loves you. Engel’s dead.
“Don’t let him take this from you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Brek glanced between the three of them, the brothers Niil and Niyol on one side, and Raylor on the other, more than holding her own against them.
“Like hell,” she was saying. “Mercer may have been out of line, but he’s dealing with a pack of morons if I ever saw one. And I spent my whole career working with Consortium bigwigs. I know a thing or two about morons.”
“It’s time suits like Mercer figured out they work for us,” Niil said.
Or was it Niyol? No, that’s Niil. He’s the taller of the two.
“The Mercers of the world are too used to calling the shots and doing Velk’s dirty work. They’re used to parliament doing their bidding, not the other way around.”
Raylor rolled her eyes. “Rhetoric. That’s all that is, and you know it. Parliament has no less blood on its hands than the military. Probably more, since they called the shots.”
“But men like Mercer took them.”
“Didn’t take them, actually,” she observed. “Which is why we’re still alive to sit around bitching about them.”
Brek smiled to himself. To an outsider, this may have sounded like a quarrel brewing, like bad blood in the making. But in his short time with them, he’d grown accustomed to their back and forth. The Deltan thought her Krian colleagues were stuffed shirts, and had no problem telling them so. They thought she – and, Brek suspected, he – were something of barbarians, and were only just a little more tactful in sharing the opinion.
Still, they didn’t let that get in the way of their getting along, any more than they let disagreements like this one.
“What about you, Trigan?” Niyol asked. “I suppose you’re with Raylor on this one?”
“I’m keeping an open mind,” he declared. “I haven’t decided yet.”
They, all three, scoffed at him now. “You’re turning into a proper politician, alright,” she sighed.
“We’re at war, Trigan. The time for indecision is past.”
“Along with the era of kissing the military’s backside,” Niil added with a pointed shrug.
Brek only half-heard Raylor’s response, though. The sound of footsteps – light but weary – rang down the hall, and he smiled with recognition. “Well, let’s ask Minister Idan.”
They stared at him, confused, but he hobbled to his open door. Sure enough, it was Idan, heading for her own office. “Nikia?”
She glanced up. “Brek.” Then, she threw a gaze around the darkened hall and the empty offices around them. “I guess you’re burning the midnight oil, too?”
He laughed. “Less working and more arguing, actually. We’re talking about Captain Mercer. We wondered what you thought.”
“Oh.” She seemed surprised by the question, but smiled. Nikia was familiar with their makeshift debate crew. “Raylor and the Biks, I suppose?”
“That’s right. Do you have time to join us?”
She glanced back at her office, then shrugged. “Sure.”
Brek was glad of that. Of his new acquaintances – he wasn’t sure he would go so far as to call any of them friends, yet, though he was leaning in that direction – she was the most reasonable, and the least reactionary. She was also the least likely, in his opinion, to come to blows with someone over a difference of opinion. That worked in her favor too.
The two brothers bowed a greeting, and Raylor Elkar nodded briskly at the sight of her. “That’s a damned good ear, Trigan.”
Nikia seemed confused by the comment, and Brek didn’t explain. “So, you can probably guess which sides they’ve picked,” he said instead, gesturing to an open seat.
“And you can guess that he’s taken none,” Niyol added.
“I prefer to think before speaking,” Brek returned.
Nikia smiled. “Am I supposed to guess, then, where you all stand?” The group nodded their assent, her presence lightening the more serious mood of the room. “Well…” She considered for a moment. “I’m thinking Niyol and Niil are going to agree.”
“Oh, that’s too easy,” Raylor snorted. “They’re practically clones: of course they’re going to agree.”
“It’s not that we’re clones. It’s more a matter of great minds thinking alike.”
Brek groaned, and Raylor rolled her eyes. “And Niyol was staring daggers at Mercer’s holograph earlier.” She smiled. “So I’m going to say the Biks didn’t approve of Captain Mercer’s suggestions. And, therefore, Minister Elkar did.”
A smattering of faux applause, and a hearty round of laughter, met her words. “Dammit if you’re not a mind reader, Minister,” Raylor declared.
“Oh no,” she demurred with a grin. “You’re all predictable.”
Brek laughed again. “And what about you, Nik? You with Niil and Niyol? Or Raylor?”
She considered for a long moment. “I guess I have to side with Minister Elkar.” A groan sounded from the brothers, and she expounded, “He might have been a little hotheaded, but he was right, wasn’t he?”
“Exactly,” Raylor declared emphatically. “Nothing wrong with blunt. Better blunt and right than weaselly and wrong.”
“Of course you’re with her,” Niil shook his head. “Women always flock together. Like klatars.”
Klatars were a type of predatory waterfowl native to Red Kri, and the comment elicited a chuckle from Nikia. “It’s not our fault that you’re wrong, gentlemen.”
“Come on, Brek,” Niyol said. “You can’t seriously be neutral. Not after everything Mercer said.”
He sighed, spreading his hands. “I mean, maybe he could have been more diplomatic. But…” He shrugged. “He wasn’t wrong.”
The two men groaned in unison. “
Neutral my backside. You’re on the side of the jackboots now.”
“All I’m saying is, if Elgin hadn’t survived, we’d have no idea Lenksha’s fleet was on its way. Telari and the others, they’d still have the ships running errands.”
“Like bringing food to Theta,” Niil pointed out.
“But we don’t need military ships to do that.”
“Exactly,” Nik nodded. “There’s tons of commercial and civilian vessels we can commandeer.”
“Nothing’s as efficient as the military.”
“No, but nothing’s as effective as stopping invaders, either.”
Niil shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t like it. The whole problem gets back to the military, doesn’t it? It’s the military that’s invading. And we need the military to save us. From the military.”
“They make the problem,” Niyol agreed, “and we’re supposed to let them call the shots to solve the problem.”
“Come on guys,” Nik said, “you know it’s not like that. They’re not a monolith, any more than we are. You think Elgin, and all the men he lost today, are the same as Lenksha, and the people he sent to kill us?”
“Aren’t they?”
Brek frowned. “Of course not. No more than you’re the same as Presider Retulan.”
“That’s different. The people chose us. No one chose Mercer. None of us, anyway. He’s one of Lenksha’s men.”
“He’s military. They’re not elected,” he shrugged. “Of course we didn’t choose him.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” Niil observed. “Maybe it’s time the people started having a say in who rises in the ranks. Maybe it’s time they start answering to the will of the people.”
“Good gods. It’s not a popularity contest,” Raylor said. “You don’t want the most popular captain, you want the one who knows how to command her damned ship.”
“The military doesn’t represent,” Nikia pointed out. “They serve. We represent. The people choose us, and entrust us to make the right calls. The military carries out our orders.”
“Which is following the will of the people,” Brek concluded.
