All the Difference

by Edward McKeown

  In a sandbox, two children played. When I saw them, a sense of disorientation wrapped about me: a boy and a girl were digging, playing with some toy soldiers and vehicles. The boy appeared to be about nine and was dressed in what I realized was an imitation rebel uniform. The girl was younger and wore a traditional blouse over very non-traditional casual pants. Both were intent on their play and didn’t notice us. I felt as if in some bizarre way I was looking into my and Rena’s past. They could have been us on the family farm, playing as we had for so many hours as young children, before my father poisoned our well.

  I put a hand over my eyes and wiped away the ghosts of the past, then shook my head to clear it. I caught my sister looking at me with more understanding of what was going on than I was comfortable with.

  “Cobus, Amelia,” my sister called. The children looked up and stood, Cobus helping his little sister up. “Come here, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

  The children came forward in the hesitant way that children do, looking up at me with their big eyes.

  Rena gestured to me. “You remember I told you long ago, that, before you were born, I had a brother. His name was Piet Wrik Van Zyle, but he uses Wrik Trigardt now, that grandma’s name you know. This is Uncle Wrik, he’s come to visit.”

  “Hello,” I said awkwardly, suddenly conscious of my empty hands. It hadn’t occurred to me to bring presents for the children.

  Amelia gave me a bright smile. Cobus’ expression was more wary.

  “You’re our Uncle?” Cobus said, doubt plain in his voice. Couldn’t say that I blamed him. “Where have you been?”

  A question his mother might well have liked answered too, I thought. “I moved off planet a long time ago, before you were born, or your mother and Dad had even met.”

  “Do you live on one of the moons?” Amelia said, with a delighted smile on her tiny face.

  I laughed, a touch raggedly. “No, much further away than that. I’ve lived in a bunch of places, mostly on shipboard in the last few years. I suppose if I have a home, it would be on Star Central where my business, Lost Planet, is based.”

  “Star Central,” Cobus said with a dark look, “that’s the home to the Confederacy.”

  I was momentarily startled, suddenly taken back through time to when I had held such attitudes. It seemed that, as with my own father, Cobus’ outlook had been colored by his father.

  “That’s enough of that,” Rena said.

  “You said you had a ship,” the boy continued, a touch of sullenness in his manner from his mother’s rebuke.

  It seemed a safe topic. “Yep, an old Comet class courier. We call her the Stardust.”

  Amelia considered. “That’s a pretty name,” she piped.

  “Yes, a friend of mine came up with the name. I was going to call her the SS Misadventure. She thought it would be bad for business.”

  Amelia giggled. “She sounds smart.”

  I felt a touch of sadness. “She is.”

  “Does Stardust have any guns?” Cobus asked.

  “Kind of; we have a communications laser we amped up to military level punch. No tubes though, they took the torps out when she was demobbed and sold for surplus. We’re a commercial scoutship, not a warship.”

  “Don’t be quite so modest,” Rena said. “Uncle Wrik and his ship were on the expedition to Seddon. They found a lost colony of humans and a new alien race.”

  Cobus’ face lightened. “You’re the ones who found Rainhell’s grandson and fought the big mecha!”

  I raised my eyebrows. Shasti was one of the most famous of starship captains and something of a rebel against Confederate authority herself. Apparently, she met with a younger rebel’s approval.

  “Yes, though the robots we had on board did most of the fighting with the Kolzin Destroyer. I was there, too.”

  “Awesome,” the boy replied.

  I remembered the terror of hunting the monstrous mecha through a dead city and Maauro’s desperate battle with it and repressed a shudder.

  “Can you tell us about it?” both children demanded.

  The sound of a car pulling up into the driveway saved me from storytelling.

  “That will be my husband,” Rena said. “Why don’t you stay here with the children? I told Greg there was a possibility that you might come by, but I’d like to let him know you’re here.”

  “A precontact briefing?” I said ruefully.

  Rena’s expression remained remote and centered, but she nodded and headed off. I looked at the children, then settled on the grass next to them, and began to tell them a safely edited and vastly abbreviated version of the Seddon Expedition, minus Maauro’s true nature, our breaking into a Confederate base to steal secrets from the Interior Ministry, or our run-ins with the Voit-Veru. Both children sat mesmerized, but, being children, I wasn’t sure if a tale of Kris Kringle wouldn’t have had the same effect, or, if they understood much, particularly Amelia, who was only six.

  Rena returned, trailed by a tall, handsome man with a neatly-trimmed beard, wearing a bush-jacket and field pants. Even teeth flashed in a smile. The two children ran to their father. Amelia raised her arms to be picked up for her hug. Cobus greeted his father with more reserve. Somehow that sight, so reminiscent of my own childhood, filled me with a deep sadness that I did my best to keep off my face. The children stood to one side as Grieg turned to me, Rena next to him.

  “This is my husband,” she said.

  “I see the prodigal has returned,” he added. “I’m Grieg Nazir.”

  I shook his hand, feeling awkward and out of place. He had a firm grip but his hands didn’t have the hardness to them that his field coat and farmer dress promised. “Rena told you who I am.”

  He nodded. “Of course, and that you prefer the name of Wrik Trigardt.”

  “Yes,” I replied. “It’s a name with less baggage than Piet Van Zyle.” I wondered how many years it had been since I had last said my own full name aloud. It no longer felt like it was mine. Perhaps my father was right and that name belonged to a dead person.

  “There was some harsh judgment dealt out to that name,” he replied, his voice sympathetic.

  “What can I say? You know why.”

  “Seems to me like it wouldn’t have made a difference any which way. Also seems a lot of people who weren’t wearing Commando jackets maybe had too much to say.”

  I felt a hot flush come over my face. I hadn’t expected open sympathy from someone like Grieg, or who I thought Grieg was. He caught my glance at his commando style jacket and made a self-deprecating wave. “Don’t get me wrong. I was with the Commando during the Rising, staff officer with Abelan’s Fourth Night Riders. I have no use for the Confederacy, or what they’re trying to do to our world. How they heap insult on injury. You know every Governor, every military commander they’ve assigned here, has been an alien or a darkskin?”

  “I’ve left those days and those ways behind me,” I said. “My father’s politics aren’t mine.”

  Grieg looked momentarily nonplussed. “Ah, why am I talking about politics on a family occasion? Come on, let’s have a beer. You can tell us more about your wanderings among the stars.”

  I was glad for the switch to a safer topic. “I was telling the children about some of it, the not so horrible parts.”

  With the children noisily accompanying us, we made our way to the stone porch that overlooked the elaborate gardens. A human domestic appeared in the background, placed a tray of drinks and snacks on a table, then disappeared. The children looked to Rena, who nodded, and they took some cookies and a drink.

  Grieg passed me a beer, and he took one for himself. Rena raised a glass of white wine.

  “You were telling us about Seddon,” Cobus reminded me,

  “I would rather hear about Retief,” I said. “My story will be on the news, the part
of it that can be told, anyway.”

  Grieg’s eyebrows raised, and I immediately regretted the remark. This man might play at being affable, but was no fool. Something else struck me, the beard was not the bushy style favored by the rebels, and the field jacket was of a fine fabric that would not stand the rigors of the veldt any more than the pants would. He was the style of a rebel, but there was something artificial and unpersuasive in it.

  “Ah, nothing interesting ever happens around here,” Cobus muttered.

  “Uncle Wrik,” Rena interjected, “has traveled a long way to come home, and he may not want to remember all these dark things.”

  “There may also be people who don’t want him to talk,” Grieg said. “After all, a voyage so long and into the unknown couldn’t be mounted without connections and money.”

  “Lost Planet was created for that purpose,” I countered, feeling more comfortable back in my accustomed, evasive role.

  “But you surely must have Confederate connections,” Grieg said. This drew me a dark and dubious look from Cobus. Amelia used his distraction to steal one of his cookies.

  I shrugged. “No one flies an ex-warship in Confederate Space without some. We find the lost. It takes us into a lot of places where the law doesn’t go.”

  “Well, we deal with the Confederacy, too,” Grieg said.

  “Some do,” Rena said.

  “Know your enemy,” Grieg said airily.

  “Friends come and friends go,” I returned, “but enemies accumulate. We accumulated the Confederacy; look how that worked out.”

  “The Confederacy has accumulated enemies, too,” he said.

  “I thought we weren’t going to discuss politics,” my sister said sharply.

  “Yes, yes,” Grieg said waving a hand. “Well, that would seem to eliminate my career, a good bit of his past and maybe some of the future.”

  A bitter laugh escaped me. “I’d add family history to the list of off-limits subjects.”

  I was surprised when Rena joined me in the laugh. We looked at each other and laughed harder.

  Greg snorted. “What does that leave us?”

  Rena shook her head. “What was it Mom used to say out of those old books of hers: the weather and the conditions of the road?”

  I groaned. “Oh, those Austen books, the most boring books in the history of writing, two whole chapters on going to the post office.”

  “What are you both talking about?” Grieg said.

  Rena waved his comment away. “Just books from my mother’s library; I wonder if she still has them?”

  We talked on of inconsequential things as the sun westered, enjoying the beer, and the children’s questions. I finished my edited tale of Seddon and the rescue of Shasti’s grandson. Cobus was especially taken with our battle with Solari pirates, who had a long and unpleasant history with the settlers of Retief.

  “It must be getting on toward dinner-time,” Grieg finally said. “Will you stay for dinner?”

  Rena looked at me, her face neutral.

  I was confused. I’d not planned on staying this long. Truth be told, I’d had no plan beyond ringing the doorbell. But I knew Maauro and my mother were waiting anxiously and, truth was, I wanted not to overplay the moment. It seemed better to go now while things were good and possibilities were open.

  “Not tonight,” I said. “I planned this visit poorly. Well, actually, I didn’t plan it at all. I didn’t bring presents for the children, or anything for the house—”

  “Wrik,” Rena said, “that’s not necessary—”

  “What sort of presents?” Cobus asked.

  We all laughed, but I drew the sense that Rena at least was relieved I wasn’t staying. Like me, she’d doubtless found today stressful.

  “Perhaps Saturnal night,” Rena said, looking at Grieg, who, after a moment’s hesitation, nodded.

  “Yes,” he replied. “I have business that will take me away for some of this week. But, by the weekend, things may be settled. There may even be opportunities for us to discuss.”

  “Children,” Rena said. “Say goodbye to your uncle.”

  Amelia came over and hugged me. Cobus threw me a salute, which I returned rather than disappoint the boy. Grieg shook hands, but seemed happy to remain in his deck chair, legs stretched out. Rena rose gracefully, putting her wine glass aside. “I’ll see you out.”

  “Remember about the presents,” Cobus called.

  “I will,” I promised.

  “That boy!” my sister fumed.

  “It’s nothing. He’s a kid,” I said.

  We walked in silence to the door. I kept thinking of a hundred things to say, but I could almost feel the barriers between us going up. We reached the door and looked at each.

  “So,” she said finally. “We’ll see you this weekend.”

  I nodded slowly then, almost without volition, it spilled out of me. “I’ll bring a date, if that’s ok?”

  Rena’s eyes widened in surprise. “That’s quick work—”

  I shook my head. “Aurelia Toyoma,” I said, giving Maauro’s cover name, “is very special to me. We’ve been together for years. We were friends even when I was involved with someone else.”

  “Well,” my sister said with genuine smile. “That will be nice. Yes, please bring her. I’d like that.”

  “Good night, Rena.”

  “Good night, Pie….Wrik.” She opened the door, and I slipped out.

  I walked down the path to my car in something of a daze. I’d seen my sister: no blowup, but no resolution either, it was oddly like we’d had no past. I’d wanted to clean out a wound, but Rena acted as if there wasn’t one. I felt, as if, somehow this wasn’t real, like I was wandering in a dream. All of a sudden, I wanted to get back. I wanted to see Maauro, to hold the one person who wouldn’t fail me. My steps picked up, and I opened the door, slid it behind the wheel and started the car. If I moved quickly, I could be looking at her in two hours. I didn’t want to call. I needed to see her. I could make it back before our next check in.

  “Time to go home,” I said to myself.

  Chapter 16

  After Eldra goes to bed, I elect to wait for Wrik by the landing pad where the Magister will be stored. There is no one on the beach and, as is my habit, I adopt a head-to-toe, flat-black camouflage. I am a wraith by the night-time sea, under the slivers of the moons. My sensors are full on, including some spybees I left around the house. I detect Wirriways in flight over me and the Nightriders that prey on them. I see the bioluminescence of sea life in the foaming waves, and the air has its complement of winged life, including a butterfly called a Gemstar that comes out only at night, to wink and blink as it seeks a mate. The sheer mass of the biota around me is a little disorienting, and I find myself resentful of it. In all this world and the worlds beyond, I am the only being of my kind, as different as if the rocks themselves had sat up and wondered about the stars, God, and love.

  I look away from the writhing mass of biology to the cool, clean stars above, though cool only through distance. Wrik once called them my jewel box. I like the concept, for all that I have little interest in gems beyond the emotional connotations of them as gifts. Still, I am a proper female now, and it’s right that I have a jewelry box, even if only a metaphorical one.

  My long range scanner picks the Magister at 3,500 meters at last. I was forced to leave the spybee I sent with Wrik at his sister’s house to monitor that location. I chide myself for the lack of foresight in not sending two. I used Retief’s net when it had a useful sensor to watch him on his return, but there were broad swatches of airspace without coverage. I had anxious moments until the Magister cleared a line of sight to my position. I again scan his ship, which is operating properly.

  The Magister slows and descends prudently. I am briefly glad that Delt was not at those controls. Automatics fro
m the landing system at this little field reach out their own web of sensors and data to the Magister but I override them with my superior systems. I will guide my beloved back to me; no lesser system will be trusted with my treasure.

  The plane lands, and the engines spin down. I suppose if I had been born a human, I would have released a whoosh of relief. Their basic design and manufacture are solid, but would not have passed muster in my Creator’s time. Still, he is home, and that is all that counts.

  As the hatch pops up, I adopt another of the outfits that I bought at the Immaculata: a red jacket over a cream t-shirt and blue jeans. My skin tone returns to its usual paleness.

  As the canopy rises, Wrik, looking weary, stands. He spots me and, as he does so, his face splits into a broad grin. This gives me great satisfaction as he jumps down from the cockpit. We walk toward each other, embrace, kiss, then embrace again.

  He sighs. “Thanks for coming to meet me. I was hoping you would.”

  “Did it not go well?” I ask, stabbed by anxiety.

  “Hard to say,” he replies, reaching up to get his flight bag. “It mostly went oddly. No explosion, no yelling or screaming, just a sort of weird civility. Rena seemed to want to leave the past pretty much in the past. Wouldn’t deal with it.”

  I put my arm in his, and we start back toward Eldra’s again, forgoing the winding road to walk along the beachfront itself. “Is this not an acceptable resolution? It surely is an improvement on your father.”

  “That’s true,” he said, slinging the bag to his other shoulder. “However it kind of doesn’t feel like a resolution at all. But we have agreed to see each other again. And I met my niece, nephew and my brother-in-law. As you would say, my network expands, even if the new members are mostly on probation.”

  “Was it pleasant to meet these new members?”

  “Yes, particularly with the children. My brother-in-law, well, I’m not sure. He wasn’t what I expected, being both more sympathetic and less of a rebel than what I’d been led to expect.”