Chains of Redemption

by Selina Rosen

  "If you give away your life in service to them," RJ said, and didn't even try to keep the resentment from her voice.

  "I didn't give away my life in service to them, RJ. They became my life, my reason to live."

  She realized what he was doing. He was saying good-bye. So she didn't tell him that he had wasted his life. Instead she asked in a low tone. "What's your reason for living now?"

  He laughed again and then coughed again. He shook his head. "Could you hand me that glass of water?" She let go of his hand, grabbed the water and held it to his lips, knowing he couldn't actually hold the glass himself anymore. He shook his head, indicating that he'd had enough, and she took the glass away and set it down. "To answer your question, my one true love, I'm afraid of dying. Scared to death of it, actually."

  "Then why are you choosing to make it last?" she asked in a low sad voice.

  "Because I love life, even this life. Every minute of it is precious."

  RJ just didn't see it that way. Perhaps his brain is just so far gone that he can't think clearly.

  "Do you remember the day we first made love? It was in the ship after David had pelted us with shit."

  She nodded silently, thinking it was no wonder he was thinking of that, smell being such a strong trigger for memories. "Of course we did shower first," she clarified with a smile.

  "I'm laying here thinking about that. About that and sticking your heart back in your chest and getting you out of Alsterase, because that was truly my finest hour. I'm thinking about all of the people I've known, Sandra and Whitey, and Mickey and even that idiot David Grant. I'm thinking about all the Abornie children I've played with over the years, and mostly I'm thinking about you. I'm thinking how all those people, everyone I've ever met, how each encounter changed my life, and I'm hoping that when I'm gone people are going to think about me and think about how I changed their lives."

  "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you," RJ said quietly.

  Levits frowned. "Ah, but I don't always get the feeling that you're glad that you're alive."

  RJ laughed. "I'm not always, but I'll always remember you."

  "Yes, but then you don't have much choice, do you?"

  "I'd remember you anyway."

  He was silent, struggling for the moment just to breathe. When he spoke again his voice came in gasps. "So, have you lost the last vestiges of respect you had for me?"

  "No," she lied.

  "But you won't miss me when I'm gone."

  "I already miss you, because the man I knew is already gone. That's why I don't understand, Levits," RJ said sadly. "I've had to watch you die in stages over the years, and I understand that that's just the way it is for normal humans. I understand that just because your eyesight dims doesn't mean you want to die. Just because your legs hurt and don't want to work and you move more slowly . . . But this, I will never understand why anyone would want to hold on in this state. How many times can you play over memories of things you can never do again, people who are gone, places you'll never see again, and . . ."

  "I am tired of it, RJ. Finally. Tired of fighting it," he said quietly. "It won't be long now. I can feel it. Please, RJ, take me out to your garden and let me die in that beautiful place, not in here in all this sterility, with the stink. Let me die looking at you. Listening to you talking about the old days."

  She cradled him in her arms and carried him out to the garden. A group of Abornie tried to stop her at the door, but she easily shoved through them.

  "Stop for a minute," Levits said in gasps. She did, and he said to the oldest Abornie man there, a man who Levits had been close to for years, "My friend, please, I wish to die outside and alone with my love."

  The man nodded and started to cry like a baby. If she'd been the one on her way to die, they'd no doubt have created a dance of joy to do in celebration.

  She set him down on a bench in the garden and sat down beside him. Without waiting, she started talking. "Remember when we first met?"

  "Yes, I was all out of luck then, just like I'm out of time now."

  She held his hand and kept talking to him till he interrupted her asking, "Why?"

  "Huh?"

  "Why did you stay?"

  "Stay where?"

  "I know, RJ. He told me."

  She didn't have to ask which he. Topaz was never very good at keeping secrets. Unless of course they were his.

  "I couldn't leave you here, and I couldn't take you with me," she said simply.

  "Thank you," he said. He slumped against her then, silent. His breath came in three quick, shuddering breaths that moved his whole body, and then all was quiet.

  The Abornie buried their dead as the humans did when there was no crematorium close by. Except that they had a strange habit of stuffing the dead person's mouth with food and taping it shut. No doubt some ritual left over from a long forgotten religion, because none of them seemed to know why it was done, just that it was proper.

  She didn't go to see him put in the ground. She saw no reason to do so. She was walking through her garden one last time. With Levits gone she saw no reason to linger even one more day on the planet's surface. She'd already said good-bye to Alan, the only Abornie she gave one damn about, and as soon as Topaz got back, they would lift off. Poley was even now preparing the ship for takeoff. RJ sighed and leaned against a tree, listening to the small stream she had diverted to run through her garden. She would miss this, but of course she was taking as much of it as she could with her.

  "It's beautiful here," Topaz said, walking up behind her.

  "Yes it is."

  "It was a wonderful service, quite colorful. Many people said very nice things about him."

  "Uh huh," RJ said noncommittally.

  "When I was a kid, way before I found the secret to ultimate rejuvenation and promptly lost it, there was this character called Superman. Ran around in tights and a cape doing good deeds. Saving the innocent from evil with his super powers. He could jump tall buildings with a single bound, he had x-ray vision, and he could fly and shoot laser beams out of his eyes . . ."

  "That's ridiculous . . ."

  "Shut up and listen for a minute. He wasn't real, he was a made-up character," Topaz said impatiently. "He could do all this really cool shit, and when I was a kid it was a big deal to watch him on TV or read the comic book, because no one had superhuman abilities. I, of course, lived to see the creation of people with super powers." He saw the incredulous look on her face, growled and said quickly, "Except for flying and shooting laser beams from their eyes. Anyway, once there were real super humans, once I was one myself, the shows and books lost all appeal to me. I had loved that character because he was so righteous, so perfect. When they created the first GSH's I realized how naïve I had been. Nothing could contain Superman, but the Reliance had easily harnessed the GSH's. I stopped believing in super heroes.

  "Then you came along, and I believed again. You were better than any comic book hero I could have conjured up, because you weren't perfect, and you weren't perfect because you were real."

  She turned around and smiled at him. "Where is this going, old man? It's time to go."

  Topaz took a deep breath and let it out. "I'm not going with you."

  She had felt doubt coming from him for weeks, but couldn't figure out to what it applied. She wished she could have said she'd seen this coming, but she just hadn't. "What the hell!"

  "I want to stay here," he said.

  "What on earth for?"

  "I like it here, RJ. I have friends here, respect, purpose."

  "Screw that. I know you, old man. You just want to continue to play god."

  Topaz shrugged, seeming not to be concerned by her accusation or her anger in the slightest. "So what if I do? I'll make a good and decent god."

  "By doing what? Continuing what you and Levits have started? Teaching them how to make bigger and better machines so that they can clear-cut, slash and burn the land? I know, you can help them get one of the old
power plants working so that they can get in a fight over whose turn it is to drench the reactor core and blow the planet up? Or just make life so simple for them that they breed like flies and kill every other thing on the planet till they ultimately wind up killing even themselves off in a big cluster-fuck of stupidity?"

  "You know, RJ, you have this doom-filled attitude about every civilization. Remember that you had similar qualms about the New Alliance before we left Earth. I know what you're worried about. That we'll start out very well meaning, and before you know it there will be pollution and war and people calling on the phone to sell you aluminum siding and life insurance, and you'll be like, 'No thank you, I'm not interested,' but they just won't ever stop talking, till you feel like your head is going to explode and you just rip the damn thing right out of the wall, and . . ."

  "I have no clue what any of that last part even is or what it means. You are completely nuts, and yet you think you can actually help this planet full of rejects who are hell-bent on destruction. Get a woman to take with you. Get two if you need to, but get your crazy ass on the ship, we're going."

  "No . . . I'm not going . . . Oh, I suppose you could make me go, but if you do I promise to make your life an absolute living tormentuous hell. Besides, Superman would never force someone to do something against his wishes."

  "I'm not freaking Superman! I'm not any sort of man. Why? Why would you do this?" RJ pulled at her hair. "Why would you choose them over me? They're going to die, you know. They aren't like Poley and me. They're going to get old and die."

  "That's what makes them so damned interesting. Just when I get bored with them they'll die and new ones will be born. That's what I learned from being here, don't you see? You are right, of course, because you always are. These people are stupid, and yes, they would destroy this world. I want to see if I can keep them from doing that. I want to see if I can make a difference. It's all about me, don't you see? Me, me, me. I'm not choosing them over you, I could never love anyone or anything the way that I love you, except of course me." He walked over and took her into his arms. She hugged him, and he could feel her tears wet on his shoulder as they soaked through his thin shirt. "I'm choosing to stay here instead of going with you because this world needs me and you don't."

  "Yes I do, Topaz." She cried loudly then; no doubt these were in part tears she hadn't cried for Levits.

  He let go and stepped away to look at her. She dried her eyes and held his gaze, and said again, "I do need you, Topaz, you're the only one who knows me, understands me."

  He laughed then, his own tears spilling onto his checks. "But I'm a nut job, remember? Crazier than a shithouse rat."

  "But you know me."

  "And you know yourself. You have Poley. You have each other. You long for adventure. Gardening was nice and you enjoy it, but it's not enough for you. A simple, quiet life could never be enough for you, because it isn't what you were built for. You're Superman, kid. I've lived my great adventures and enjoyed them all, and now I want to live this adventure here with these people. It's not like it's forever. Eventually we'll meet again. Here or on some faraway world. What's a couple of hundred years to either of us?"

  She hugged him again, this time so hard it was uncomfortable. "I'm going to miss you, old man."

  "I'll miss you too, brat."

  She let him go, turned and marched towards the ship. He watched her back as she walked away, and then ran to catch up. "RJ, wait a minute."

  She stopped and turned, the look on her face saying that she hoped he was changing his mind. Her face clouded again when she felt that he hadn't.

  "I have to tell you something." He looked nervously at his feet, then losing his nerve looked up and blurted out, "I am your father, Luke."

  RJ laughed and hugged him again. She whispered in his ear, "I'll always remember you just like this, old man . . . Crazy."

  He nodded, suddenly very sober. "Super heroes . . . they always wound up alone, RJ. They always wound up alone because in reality the writers realized that people so different would always be on the outside. You and I, we have corporeal lives, we feel and are felt, our actions have consequences, and yet we're never really quite part of it, are we?"

  RJ closed the bay doors as she walked in and headed for the bridge. She took her seat beside Poley silently.

  "Where is Topaz?" Poley asked.

  "He has decided to stay," RJ said.

  Poley's eyebrows arched. "And you let him do that?"

  "I could have made him leave, kicking and screaming the whole way I suppose, but he promised to make our lives a living, tormentuous hell if I did."

  "That would suck," Poley said. "We're ready to lift off on your word."

  RJ thought about it for only a split second. "OK, let's go," she ordered.

  The ship's thrusters fired, and in mere minutes they had lifted off the surface of the moon/planet they'd called home. When they had landed there had been four of them, and now there were only two. It sort of sucked the joy out of the moment for her.

  Being in space again, in flight, almost made her feel like she was already home, though from their calculations they were at least five years away from their own space. Maybe it was all the different emotions going through her head, accompanied by the myriad of noises the ship made on takeoff, but she hadn't heard him come in, and when he spoke she almost came out of her seat, belt or not.

  "Wow, this is great!"

  "What in hell's name are you doing here!" RJ screamed, spinning in her seat to look at the boy where he stood clinging to the doorway for dear life.

  For answer he just smiled and looked lovingly at Poley, and that's when she knew. Alan wasn't a stowaway, he was a passenger. She glared at her metal brother. So this was why he'd been so hot to lift off.

  Poley smiled at her and shrugged. "He wanted to come."

  "And I didn't want him to come. I told you, Poley, I told you all the reasons why."

  "But none of those were really very good reasons, RJ."

  How had this happened? When had Poley started making decisions that went against hers? Was he supposed to be able to do that? She didn't think that he could. It was rather like having a toy that you thought would do one thing, and finding out that it didn't do that at all, but something completely different that wasn't nearly as cool. Still, she had to admit that in a strange way she was glad to see the boy.

  "You better strap yourself in," she said with a sigh.

  "I had strapped him in, in the crew's quarters," Poley said, obviously wanting RJ to know that he hadn't been at all negligent with the lad's safety, "and I've treated him for the space sickness, formulating the medicine for his specific race."

  "Freaking beautiful," RJ said, as she unstrapped herself and went to get the Abornie, who was bouncing all over the bridge trying to make it to a chair. She helped him sit in one, and then strapped him in before returning to her own seat. She glared at her brother. "So, knowing I would disapprove, you stuck him in crew's quarters where I wouldn't hear or feel him till we were off the planet and I wasn't likely to make you take him back."

  "Well, I'm not stupid, am I?" Poley said defensively.

  "No, you aren't stupid," RJ said, thinking of the absolute irony of her being without a mate and the robot bringing his along. It was going to be a long flight. She hadn't planned to go into cryogenic sleep. The fuel core they had taken from the planet meant they had very little fear of ever running low on fuel again. She had decided that years in space would give her time to meditate and reflect. Now she wondered whether that was such a good idea, even for her.

  As soon as they cleared the planet's gravitational pull all turbulence ended and the ship smoothed out. RJ breathed deeply, unbuckled her belt, and got out of her seat. She looked at Alan, then at her brother. "Should we put him in a cryogenic chamber?"

  "Not unless he becomes unstable. He will keep us company," Poley said quickly, his mechanical origin being more apparent in the quality of his voice when he was annoye
d or panicked. He didn't want the man to be put into cryogenic sleep. The robot was attached to him, the way he had always been attached to RJ, maybe even more.

  RJ felt as if the whole universe had abandoned her. She nodded silently and left the bridge. She went to check on her plants. They were fine, nothing spilled or knocked over in takeoff. She was half disappointed—it would have been nice to have something to do. She left the "green house" and started towards her quarters. Suddenly she drew up short, stopping to stare at a picture of Topaz etched onto the wall. Gone, they were all gone now, except Poley.

  RJ wound up walking up and down the hallways and into the different rooms of the ship, just looking at all of Poley's artwork. When she had first come out of cryo-sleep and seen it, she had been overwhelmed by Poley's "hobby." Then, like anything else, as she saw it every day it had just blended into the background, something she took for granted. Now she took time to really look at them again. Her father, Whitey, Sandra, Topaz, David, Mickey . . . Levits, she smiled, always screaming.