Mindscape

by Tal Valante

  Their patrols now consisted of intensive drills, alternating between tag games and hot-weapon decoy blasting. Mark monitored their performance closely. No point in pushing them too hard in practice, only to have them tired out before a real confrontation. But careful as he was, he allowed no one to cut corners.

  And in that spirit . . .

  “Wolfe.”

  Pilot Jason T. Wolfe looked up and met Mark’s eyes. Mark called him aside with a jerk of his head.

  Wolfe sauntered over. “Sir?”

  Mark waited for the rest of the pilots to clear the ready room. “Your scores are dropping,” he said.

  The spaceman apprentice didn’t look surprised. He didn’t look apologetic, either.

  “Are you feeling ill? Distracted?” Mark tried. “Is there any legit reason for this?”

  Wolfe shrugged. “No, Sir. But it’s just practice.”

  Rainy. Mark pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.

  “Look, Sir, I didn’t sign up as a pilot to blow up damn asteroids. I’m saving my best for the real thing. You can count on me.”

  Mark opened his eyes and nailed the pilot with a harrowing stare. “I am counting on you. So are your wing mates, the lieutenant commander, and everyone else on this ship. So are the people on Earth and in every human colony. They count on you to stay focused and take the Spavy seriously, because your job is to keep them safe. That’s what we’re about.”

  “But practice isn’t—”

  “You’re not above practice. You’ll take it as seriously as you take your family’s freedom and safety, or by God, I’ll have you discharged. Am I clear?”

  Wolfe’s Adam apple bobbed. “Yes, Sir!”

  Mark studied him for another moment, then nodded. “Go on.”

  He watched as Wolfe slouched out of the ready room, and startled at the sight of Shane in the doorway.

  “Sir,” he said.

  Shane lifted an eyebrow. “I thought it’s all about paying the rent?”

  Mark grinned and joined him at the exit. “It’s both,” he said. “Haven’t you heard? It’s called multitasking.”

  That night, Shane can hardly sleep. The metal cage fills his thoughts as if it’s lodged in his own mind instead of Mark’s. They’re going to try it. They’re finally going to try it.

  “I couldn’t save them,” he says out loud in the empty bedroom. “They were dying and I couldn’t save them.”

  His chest contracts with the old horror, but he can still breathe, he can still breathe, he’s on Earth and there’s oxygen in the air, that’s a key fact to remember. He doesn’t lose touch with reality, he doesn’t lose time. He can do this.

  Morning takes forever to arrive, but once his alarm clock gives the final green light, Shane jumps out of bed and dives into the shower. He breaks a record in getting himself wet and toweling off, and then another record in pulling on some clothes that he hopes are clean.

  He’s at Rigsby before they open to visitors, but Nurse Delgado waves him through anyway.

  All his haste is wasted, of course, because Mark is still busy eating his breakfast. It’s a painful process to watch. Mark often forgets there’s a spoon in his hand, or that there’s gruel on the spoon, and the bib he’s wearing is dirty with spillage. Alex is sitting with him, patiently guiding his hands through the motions whenever he lapses. Something prickles in Shane’s eye at the sight of his brilliant tactical officer being taught again and again how to feed himself.

  He catches Alex’s stare during a lull and says, “Today.”

  Alex nods. “Today.”

  Then it’s bath time, and time to get dressed, and finally they’re sitting together in the garden. Alex walks Shane through a relaxation sequence, light spreading through every organ, from feet to head, like liquid warmth in his veins. He feels complete and ready. He hopes Mark is ready too.

  “I’m coming, buddy,” he whispers, and he dives into Mark’s mind.

  The wounded men cry out, but Shane turns from their voices. There’s oxygen in the air, he sings to himself, there’s oxygen in the air. He walks forward into the circle of cages, and plants himself next to the massive metal one at the center. It’s ugly and foreign, an obscene Redoren presence in a place that should have been holy. The cage’s bars are thick and close-spaced, allowing him no view of the inside. He grits his teeth and touches the metal. It’s cold and oily under his palms.

  He grips two of the bars, takes a deep breath, and wrenches them apart.

  Mark screams.

  Shane flinches as if gut-punched and pulls out of Mark’s mind, but the screams go on, physical and terrible—two voices raised in wails of misery. One of the voices is his own, Shane realizes. He clamps his lips tight. Mark’s screams continue.

  Alex is trying to approach Mark as one would approach a wild animal, all calming words and slow, soothing motions. Shane wants to shove him aside and hug Mark, hug him until he stops fighting, hug him until he recognizes the arms and the love that encircle him.

  But Mark recognizes no one, these days.

  Alex finally manages to calm Mark down, and not a moment too soon; Nurse Delgado bustles into the small garden.

  “What have we got here?” she demands.

  Shane lets Alex deal with her and doesn’t protest when the two nurses bundle Mark off to his room. He goes into his car and locks the doors. His hands grip the steering wheel. Slowly he leans his head forward and finally, finally cries.

  Six months later, the Cyclopes turned over patrols of Althea III to the Icarus and returned to Earth for some much-needed planet leave. Mark accompanied Shane to his parents’ house in New Wyoming. Shane, he thought, looked absolutely beautiful under a yellow sun.

  “I’m nervous,” Mark said at the front door, before Shane could knock.

  “Don’t be. They’re great people. I’m sure you’ll like them.”

  “I have no doubt about that.” Mark picked at the collar of his civilian shirt. It itched. “I just hope they like me.”

  Shane’s hand was warm on his back. “I’m sure they will.”

  “Okay. Hey,” he said, interrupting Shane from knocking yet again. “Do they know about you—about me—about us—”

  “That we’re sleeping together?” Shane smiled his quarter smile. “I’m pretty sure they’ve picked up on that from my letters.”

  “Oh.” And then, “Who’s writing letters these days?”

  Shane snorted. “E-voices. You know what I mean.”

  He let Shane knock then, and when the door opened, he shook hands a little awkwardly with Shane’s mother. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Cawley.”

  “Rachel, please,” she said. “It’s a pleasure to finally see you, hon. Come on in, make yourself at home.”

  Mark entered the hallway and took the three steps down to the spacious living room. Pictures and drawings covered all the walls, except for the left-hand one; that wall was mostly a huge aquarium, where all kinds of exotic fish swam.

  “They’re beautiful,” Mark said, leaning back when he felt Shane’s presence behind him.

  Shane wrapped him up in a hug and rested his chin on Mark’s shoulder. “Mmm.”

  “They make quite an impression,” Rachel said from the overlooking kitchen. “What can I get you to drink?”

  “Coffee,” Shane said before Mark could excuse himself. “And tea for me, please.”

  They sat on the overstuffed sofa, facing a huge holoscreen. Shane picked up the remote and clicked it on, then killed the sound. As he put the remote down, a huge, gray-furred feline trotted up to him and butted its head against his calf.

  “Mr. Furrypants!” Mark said. “I feel like I’ve known you for years, I’ve heard so much about you.” It occurred to him belatedly that he should have directed such a sentence at Shane’s mom rather than his cat.

  “Old puss,” Shane said dismissively, but there was true affection in the way he scratched the cat’s head.

  Rachel returned with a laden tray in he
r hands. “There you go,” she said, placing it on the table. She took a seat on the opposing sofa.

  Mark took his cup of coffee and a cookie from a plate. He bit into it, careful not to drop crumbs on the clean floor—or on himself, because wouldn’t that be embarrassing. A mixture of butter, pistachio, and chocolate chips swathed his tongue. “These are really great,” he said as soon he’d swallowed.

  “Why, thank you.” Rachel beamed at him. “I bought them myself.”

  Mark laughed, and beside him Shane huffed and shook his head. A running joke, then.

  “I have a confession to make,” Mark said. “I’ve never been to Earth before.”

  “Really?” Rachel said. “You’ve got so much to see, then. We’ll show you around New Wyoming tomorrow, but really, it’s just the edge of the iceberg.”

  “Tip, Mom,” Shane said around a cookie.

  Mark leaned back into the cushions, happy to absorb the feeling of home and family. Mr. Furrypants brushed against his calves but seemed to know better than to leap on the sofa.

  “So how long have you two known each other?” Rachel asked, nursing her own cup of tea.

  “Eight years,” Shane answered just as Mark said, “Sometimes it seems like forever.”

  Rachel gave him a warm smile. “Eight years is a long time.”

  “It is,” Mark said. He hadn’t even realized it had been so long. Obviously Shane had been keeping track. “Only three years since I graduated from OCS, though.”

  “Oh? Was that a major difference?”

  He could feel Shane blushing next to him, and smiled at Rachel. “I could kiss him, after that. Before, it was inappropriate.”

  Rachel’s cheeks dimpled with her smile as she surveyed her son. “Was he worth waiting for?”

  Mark squeezed Shane’s hand. “Absolutely.”

  “Hello,” a new male voice called from the entrance, followed by a female squeal: “Ohmygod, Shane, you’re home!”

  Shane’s father and sister—Mark presumed—entered the living room. His sister ran around the table and tackle-hugged Shane while his father came up to Mark’s side of the sofa. Mark jumped to his feet and barely contained the urge to salute. He held out his hand instead.

  “Mark Sayre, tactical officer on the Cyclopes, Sir.”

  Shane’s father nodded as if used to being reported to, and no wonder—he’d retired from the Spavy as a captain, if Mark remembered correctly. “Andrew Cawley.” He shook Mark’s hand. “Good to finally meet you.”

  Shane’s sister, Lisa, chortled. “We’ve heard tons about you,” she said from her seat in Shane’s lap. That won her a glower and a mock cuff to the head. She got up and shook hands with Mark. “How’s Daniel?”

  Mark beamed at the mention of his brother. “He’s fine. Working on his bachelor’s at the university.”

  “Oh? Which one?”

  Mark blinked, then chuckled. “Silica is a small mining planet. We only have the one university, and even that’s a new wonder.”

  Lisa smiled and nudged Shane with her leg. “You never said how cute he is.”

  Now it was Mark’s turn to blush. He turned back toward Andrew, hoping for a new line of conversation, but the retired captain was engrossed in the holoscreen. “Shane, turn up the volume,” he said.

  Rachel narrowed her eyes. “Not now, Andrew—”

  “Now, Shane.”

  The urgency in his voice got everyone looking at the holoscreen, even as Shane fumbled with the remote control. Finally he hit the right button, and the newswoman’s voice boomed into the living room:

  “. . . the mining colony on Redoren VII has been wiped out in a surprise attack by Redoren forces. Grand President Forester called an emergency press conference in which he declared war on the Redoren Empire. I repeat, we are now at war with the Redoren Empire.”

  “Booby-trapped,” Alex repeats.

  “It’s like the cage is punishing him for any rescue attempt.” Shane curses and squeezes the phone in his hand. “I should have figured. The Redorens locked him inside his own mind; of course they’d put in safeguards.”

  There’s a long silence on the line. Then, “It makes sense, I suppose. How good are the Redorens with this mind business, anyway?”

  Shane snorts. “They’re a telepathic race. You figure it out.”

  “Great.”

  “We’ll have to move carefully. Not trigger anything.”

  “Maybe slower is the answer,” Alex says.

  “Okay. Try again tomorrow?”

  “Shane . . .”

  He sits up on the sofa. “I don’t need time off.”

  A sigh. “Maybe Mark does.”

  That gives Shane pause. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll wait.”

  They hang up, and Shane lies down again on his half of the sofa, one hand on Mr. Furrypants’s head, his body curled around the space where Mark should be.

  Mark planted himself in his post and surveyed the console. His pilots were ready; the fighter wing was waiting in the launching bays to drop. He looked up at Shane and nodded.

  Shane turned to Pauline in Navigation. “Give us critical speed.”

  “Aye, Sir.”

  Acceleration boosted their artificial gravity, and Mark rubbed his hands on his uniform, then stretched his fingers and took position over his console keys.

  “Critical speed,” Pauline reported.

  “Punch!” Shane ordered.

  The air around them stretched thin as bubble gum, then snapped back to place. Mark’s console lit up like a board of digi-Lego. Ahead of them, an Earth ship with ruined engines was trading blows with a heavy Redoren cruiser; the space between them bristled with fighters and debris. The Cyclopes, temporarily disabled by its own Punch maneuver, hovered a safe distance away.

  “Heads up, hotshots!” Mark called into his microphone. “Move, move, move!”

  His pilots launched one after the other and reported their status.

  “Main weapons?” Shane asked from the front of the bridge.

  “Three minutes, twenty-three seconds,” Doug said. The gunnery officer stooped over his console like a preying hawk, waiting for the power to kick back on.

  “Defensive jacket,” Shane said to Mark.

  Mark drew a quick pattern on his touch screen—a flying arrowhead to guard the Cyclopes’s fore. His pilots took positions along the drawn lines.

  “Get me the Nemesis,” Shane ordered.

  The speakers crackled with static, then relayed a woman’s voice. “. . . Nemesis to Earth ship Cyclopes. We could use a hand or two.”

  “This is the Cyclopes,” Shane answered. “We’re here to help.”

  He nodded at Mark, who swiveled back to his console and opened a comm channel. “All fighters, advance toward the enemy.”

  He watched on his screen as his wing accelerated, still holding its arrowhead formation. The main enemy ship was ignoring them, but some of the enemy fighters peeled off from the skirmish to address the new intruders.

  “Ready for contact,” Mitchell reported on the comm.

  “Stand by, Blue Four.” Mark brought his fingertips to his thumb, as if he could close the distance by sympathetic magic. Three more enemy fighters turned to face the new threat, and Mark closed his hand into a fist. “Break and engage!”

  The orderly formation erupted into seeming chaos, but Mark had them covered; he assigned targets left and right on his touch screen, and his fighters started hounding the enemy in groups of twos and threes.

  “Power’s back!” the gunnery officer called. “Weapons back online!”

  “Move us forward,” Shane said. “Engage the main enemy ship with long-distance weapons.”

  “Aye aye, Sir.”

  A thrill went through the Cyclopes as the main weapons system powered up, as if the ship rejoiced in its own power, and a heavy volley swept across the Redoren vessel. All around it, smaller Redoren fighters blew up like fireworks under Mark’s command.

  “Incoming message from Redore
n ship,” Pauline called.

  “Patch it through.”

  “—I repeat, we surrender! Cease fire!”

  Mark waited for Shane’s nod, then called his fighters to stand down, while Doug cut off his heavy shooting. The space around them, so full of life and death and energy weapons, turned eerily still.

  “Good job, everyone,” Shane said. But his sparkling eyes were locked on Mark’s alone.

  “All right,” Alex says. “Nice and easy. No fast moves.”

  Shane nods and slips into Mark’s mind as softly as a ghost. An apt image, what with the bodies strewn all around and the tortured men in their cages. He glides over to the main cage, where Mark is held prisoner. God, how he hates this cage. But hate will get him nowhere, now.

  “I’m there,” he says. His physical voice sounds hollow in his mental ears. He barely hears Alex’s answer.

  “Try touching the cage. Just touching.”

  Shane swallows and lifts a mental arm. He lets his fingertips brush across the oily metal bars, and his lips curl back in disgust. “Anything?” he asks.

  “So far, so good,” Alex says from far away, in the physical realm.

  Shane slips his palm between two bars. He doesn’t need Alex to tell him, “Easy!” He can sense Mark’s rising tension on his own.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he speaks into Mark’s mind. But he has a feeling that his words cannot penetrate the cage.

  He curls one palm around a bar and gently pulls. Mark whimpers. Shane snatches back his hands and bites his lip, physically, so hard that something warm spills onto his chin. Drool maybe, or blood; he doesn’t care. Good thing Alex is at his back in the real world.

  “Try something else,” Alex suggests.

  So Shane crouches on the scorched ground, palms splayed in the rubble. He pushes down softly. Mark doesn’t react. Shane flexes his hands so that his fingertips dig lightly into the ground. Nothing. Slowly, carefully, scared shitless of the symbolic meaning, Shane digs up a handful of soil from Mark’s mind. As he lets it sift between his fingers and thumb, memories of better times cascade through their Resonance link.

  Three months of war. Three months of scrambling to engage battles on the Earth-Redoren space front. Mark’s pilots practically slept in shifts in the standby room. Mark and Shane rarely left the bridge. High alert became a way of life.