by S A Shaffer
“Forgive me sir,” Ike said. “I did not know you were her father.”
“My name is…”
“I know who you are.” The man said, and then he shook Ike’s hand. “I fought as a gunner in the Protectorate War. You’re the spitting image of your father. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Captain Ike. I’m Alistair.” He looked up and down Ike’s uniform. “You’re a very young captain.” He said when he spotted Ike’s rank insignia. “Your father must be proud.”
“He is, sir.” Ike said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you too.”
The girl looked back and forth between the two men. “You served with his father?” She asked her papa.
“For once, my dear, I think the joke is on you.” Alistair said. “This is the son of the legend. Careful of that dish, lad.” Alistair said, glancing back at Ike before he walked off chuckling. “It’s damned spicy.”
Ike looked at his plate, and then at the girl who looked at him with shocked expression. “I’m not sure if your papa is talking about my meal or you?”
She blushed and looked down, and for the first time that day, Ike felt as though he’d gained the upper hand in the strange game the girl played with rules that appeared and disappeared at her whim. That is, until he took a large bite of the red fish on his plate and felt it’s spices sizzle up his sinuses.
She laughed and laughed as tears rolled down his cheeks, and he gulped down his water. They talked on as he struggled through his meal and whole tankards of water. The conversation ranged from their interests to their future plans. When at last they’d finished their meal and dessert and tea, and it had been some hours since the sun disappeared, Ike stood and helped the young lady out of her chair. She had not put her bouquet down since arriving, something Ike perceived as a good sign. He led her through The Yachtsman, and after saying goodbye to her father, he offered his arm to escort her as every gentleman should. They walked back up the market alley, where she waved at people she knew. It was just as alive in the night as it was in the day, people thronged about in boisterous conversations. Boys played street games, and men played chance games. Though Ike and the intriguing woman walked through the market life, they purchased nothing, and neither one seemed interested in the prospect. He escorted her past the market, and she directed them down one of the residential lanes. Finally, they stopped, and she turned to him.
“I must thank you for the evening. I had a lovely time.” She said. “I think, seeing as my father didn’t shoot you, I may have found something a little more than friendship in you this evening.”
She slipped her arm out of Ike's and climbed a few of the townhome steps, smelling her buttercups as she did. She turned on the third step and hid her smile behind her flowers. “If you should want to call on me again, you can find me here at #3 Whitechurch Lane.” Then, after a small pause and a giggle she continued. “Ask for Marguerite.” With that she turned, glided up the last few stairs, and disappeared inside the home.
Ike felt a brief feeling of triumph that was almost immediately swallowed by a feeling of dread. He rifled through his pockets until he’d found the letter and its address on the back. He thought for sure he’d heard that name before, and after reading the back of the letter, he realized he had.
Miss Marguerite #3 Whitechurch Lane,
Livingston’s Market Sector
It only took Ike a moment of contemplation before he popped the seal on the letter and read the contents beneath a streetlight.
Marguerite,
I know that I did not win your heart, but you certainly captured mine. You left me with enough information that I was able to find you. I would beg that you allow me another chance to show you that I am the man you want to spend the rest of your life with. If you should not desire my affections, I will abandon the quest with but a word. I beg you to grant me an afternoon. I am confident that such time will be all you need to see me for who I am: A man desperately in love.
With all my heart,
Don Hezekiah Johnson
Ike groaned. Fate had dealt him a cruel blow. A choice was never so hard: his greatest friend, or a wondrously beautiful woman. However, the more he thought about it, the more he realized that it really wasn’t his choice at all. It was Marguerite’s. And, if he truly did capture her heart, she would not entertain pursuits from other suitors. He refolded the letter and did his best to reseal it.
Stepping up to the letter slot on #3 Whitechurch Lane, he reached to insert the square of paper, but hesitated at the last second. He felt his fingers pinching the parchment, refusing to let go. If she had already given him her heart, there was no reason to bother her with this trivial matter. She might even thank him for shielding her from a determined stalker, and at the same time he would save Johnson from a stinging rejection. Ike withdrew the letter and tapped it against his pursed lips. He sighed and made up his mind.
RISE
It took David 4 hours in the modified skiff to fly back to the underground’s facility in Braxton’s third. He tapped his foot through every minute of the trip and checked to make sure that he was flying at full throttle twice an hour. All of his previous weariness washed away the moment he heard his mother was speaking. After so many cycles of silence he could talk to her, and she’d actually answer him.
When he finally touched down at the old warehouse where the underground made their base, he leapt from the cockpit before the docking clamps had fully attached. He ran down the halls and startled more than a few guards in his haste, arriving at the hospital wing in a rush and nearly knocking Dr. Abraham to the floor. However, the doctor caught hold of David’s shoulder before he could enter his mother’s room. David looked back at the Dr. Abraham with a wild expression, part excitement and part annoyance at the holdup.
“She’s asleep, lad.” Abraham said. “And the good maker knows she needs it.”
David looked at Abraham for a moment before the words penetrated his excited mind. “But, why?”
“It’s the middle of the night, David.” Abraham replied. “Most people sleep at this time. Considering your mother’s condition, I would expect it and even induce it if she were awake.”
David sighed and rubbed his eyes, but something in the doctor’s tone caught his attention. “Wait, what is her condition? They told me she was talking. Has there been any improvement?”
Abraham put a hand on David’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “She is talking. I was able to restore that much, but I couldn’t repair what cycles of paralysis has wrought. She’s in her last days, David. Tomorrow, the next day, I don’t know when, but soon, very soon. We’ve kept her alive as long as we could and restored her speech so she could talk with you, but when you do finally speak with her, she won’t be entirely herself. Her condition lends to delirium. When she wakes up, make the most of the opportunity. It may be your only chance to speak with her while she’s lucid.
David swallowed hard and nodded at the bittersweet realization. He thanked the doctor and stepped into Mother’s room as softly as he could. In the dim light he saw her degraded state. A dozen tubes ran under her blanket, and multiple machines hissed and warbled. The fact that anyone could sleep at all in that din leant to how tired Mother must have been. She lay in an elevated position with a device attached to the back of her neck and a thick cord running to one of the nearby machines. Someone had shaved most of her hair off, hair that had once been her glory.
The sight of Mother brought him to tears. He’d come all this way just to watch her die. He walked as quietly as he knew how and sat in a chair beside her bed. He saw her pale, thin face, and he wondered if Abraham had really told him the truth. Could she actually speak?
He dozed through the rest of the night, rousing himself each time his head bobbed, forcing himself to stay awake for the moment when she woke and called his name. At dawn, he saw the sun peek through the buildings on the last golden day. Clear blue sky shown above, and its contrasting appearance made the city look more rank than it did in constant rain. Mother’s room la
y three stories up in the old warehouse, and the one-way windows allowed him to see out of the sophisticated surgical center, while anyone looking in would only see a dirty, old building. Mother still slept, her chest rising in falling in time with her breathing. A nurse walked in with a tray of breakfast for David, and she laid it down on a small table beside him before stepping up to some of the machines and reading their displays. David looked at his breakfast without much interest after the nurse left the room, but beside his plate of fried tuber and eggs lay a newspaper. He would have had no interest in the news in that moment, except for the fact that he saw his name on the front page. He scooped up the paper and smoothed out the main article. After reading it once through, he wished he hadn’t.
MAN HUNT
The late aide to Speaker Blythe, one David Ike, is wanted for the murder of three women. Speaker Blythe discovered the truth during the Speaker’s retreat at the Everpine Resort. However, despite authorities best efforts, David Ike escaped and is on the run. “No one is as disappointed in David as myself. I loved David as a son and this betrayal cuts to my heart.” Blythe said. …
David gaped at the paper. Ghostly white faces flashed through his mind. The thought of him committing the heinous murders made him sick. Torturing women to death? Torturing Mercy to death! It was unthinkable. He remembered her awful stab wound. He was so engrossed in the article that he almost missed the small voice that called his name.
“David?”
He looked up and glanced around the room before he realized the voice came from his mother. He looked at her and saw her looking back, tears running down her cheeks and a smile that only curved half of her mouth. David dropped the paper.
“Mother!” He said. In an instant he was at her side clutching her hand. “Mother, it’s been so long!”
“I love you, David.” mother said. It came out slurred, but they were the words he’d dreamt of for cycles. “I’ve wanted to tell you for so long.” She said between sobs. “I wanted you to know.”
“I do know, Mother.” David said as he wiped his face and tried to clear his bleary vision. “I could never forget that, not even if you were silent for a lifetime.”
She sobbed, and he leaned in so she could kiss his forehead. “I’ve been praying for you, David. I’ve been praying for you for 5 cycles. I never stopped.”
David felt a pang of guilt wash over him. In Mother’s turmoil, she had apparently turned to Jeshua for strength. In his turmoil, he’d turned to himself and his own strength, and his strength was failing while hers remained strong.
“I don’t know if he’s listening anymore, Mother.” David said between sobs. “Everything is crashing down around me, and I don’t have the strength to try and hold it up.”
“David.” Mother said as she looked in his eyes, a look he used to loathe, but now desired with all his heart. “He’s always listening. Maybe he’s just trying to get your attention.”
“He had my attention when father died, or when Grandfather died, when you were paralyzed, or when I was crippled. Then he took my only friend, and the doctor says he’s going to take you too, soon.” David fell against Mother’s chest and shook with sobs.
“I know, David.” she said as she kissed the top of his head. “I watched the whole time, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to help, accept pray.”
“The authorities want me for murder, Mother.” David continued with another sniff. “Murder! I’m trying to do what’s right, but every step of the way, it only gets worse. Why mother? Why is he doing this to us!”
Mother rested her chin on his head attempted to rock him as she had done so many cycles earlier, but her body was still partially paralyzed, and only her head could move.
“You can’t blame Jeshua for a Fertile Plains racked with turmoil. We did that on our own.” Mother rested her head back against her pillow and sighed. “We ruined his perfect creation with our pride and lust. It’s not the way he intended it to be. You can see it every once in a while, when the sun rises and sifts over the mountains and all of the intricate creations, you see a glimpse of a time long past. The time before the plains felt the weight of our evils. But when the sun sets and the light fades away, for the briefest moment you can see... a hope for the future. A memory of the past and a hope for the future.”
Mother’s eyes glazed over as she lost herself to memory. “It’s interesting because one can hardly tell the difference between a sunrise and a sunset, when they’re captured in a photograph, but when you’re there, watching it in person, they leave you with completely different feelings. The Fertile Plains may be wracked with pain and suffering, but everyone knows that it wasn’t always like this, nor will it always be like this. There is hope in the life to come. I don’t fear death, David. I know it’s just a new beginning, one where I’ll see my husband again, and my father and mother, an eternity without the pains of this life. That’s why you keep going when everything seems hopeless. Even if everything collapses in this life, follow the path Jeshua has laid out for you, and you’ll find yourself at peace with him in the end.”
“But I’m so tired.” David said. “I’m so tired, and I don’t know where my path is anymore. What will I do once you’re gone? What will I have left?”
“You’ll have your duty.” Mother said looking at him again. “Same as always.”
“But Alönia is ruined.” David said. “What duty’s left?”
“Not that Duty.” Mother looked taken aback. “Every person in the Fertile Plains has the same duty regardless of where they live, the duty to do what is good.”
David looked away and sniffed. “I’m not sure I know what good is anymore.” he said. “This past cycle has been so confusing. The people I thought were good have turned out to be false.”
“David.” Mother said as she looked at him with a longing in her eyes. “After all these cycles, do you not know Jeshua?”
David tried to meet her eyes, but he couldn’t. “I thought I did, but…”
“Knowing him gives you purpose.” Mother said. “Not knowing him means hopelessness, eventually, when all the things you cling to in this realm pass away. Knowing him means knowing good.”
“What good is left for me to do?” David said. “Everything is clouded. I see things that need to be done, but I can’t help but ask why. What good will it do?”
“I know David. I’ve been watching, remember?” She said as she leaned her head back against her pillow, and he looked in her eyes. “But good never changes, no matter what. No matter how bad it gets, you have but to do justice, love kindness, and pursue the humble path. It will not fail you. You just have to know Jeshua and trust him.”
David nodded, knowing the words even before she said them from his earliest childhood lessons. The memory of those simple charges brought warmth, a thought that if all else failed, he could fall back on the three tasks. But even still, he wondered what the point of going on was when there wasn’t the slightest chance of happiness as long as he remained in the physical realm. Justice, kindness, and humility seemed so trite when he was watching his friends die. And now he was being accused of their murder. If the only hope he had lay in the afterlife, perhaps he should ask Johnson for the next suicide mission. But he could not say these things to his mother in her weakened state. Despite the fact that he had longed for the chance to share his troubles with her, now that the chance had finally come, he found himself holding back to save her from further pain.
“Did you know the whole time that Blythe was false?” he asked after a moment, and then he told her all he had discovered up until that point.
“Not to the extent you say.” Mother said after David finished. “We tried to keep politics out of the family, as you know. But towards the end of your father’s career in the armada, we started to wonder if we might be of more use in politics than in the armada. Not many people knew it, but your father had intended to take his PLAEE and run for office as a representative.”
David nodded. He’d guesse
d as much after he found the PLAEE book in his father’s satchel. “Why did he leave the armada? What was it that drove him to politics? He told me his superiors were angry with him, but he never told me why.”
“It was many things, really.” Mother said. “The armada wouldn’t believe that the Berg and Viörn were plotting against us. The last straw came when he returned from the Outlands after defeating their overlord. They just couldn’t understand his plans, and they threw them in his face.”
“Did Father really know Don Hezekiah Johnson?” David asked. “Did he really go on missions with him.”
Mother nodded. “They were very close friends, until something came between them.”
“What came between them?” David asked.
Mother pursed her lips. “I think Mr. Johnson should probably tell you that. But you can trust him. He’s a good man.”
“He’s not the man I expected to be trusting.” David said with a sigh.
“What about that dishy redhead?” Mother asked with the same slanted smile. “She came to see me a little while ago.”
David looked away. The doctor had warned him of her delirium. She apparently didn’t know that it had been four seasons since He’d brought Mercy to visit her. He didn’t have the heart to say she was dead, either for mother’s sake or for his.
“She was pretty, wasn’t she?” David said with a nod.
“Pretty? She was gorgeous!” Mother said. “And don’t you go losing her! A girl like that has to be chased. Your father had to chase me, you know.”
“Yes, but he won your heart in a day.” David smiled at mother.
“True, but it was a very long day of chasing.” She said with a smile of her own. “If you want her, you’re going to have to get off your duff and chase her down.”
“Get off my what?” David asked with a laugh.
“You know very well what I mean.” she said as a blush touched her pale cheeks. Then she looked at him very seriously. “It makes it easier if you have someone to share life’s burdens with. Don’t wander alone, if you don’t have to.”
