by Far Freedom
“Yes, and you still look like her, only darker.”
“How?” She tried to picture herself for comparison but couldn’t manage it.
“Do you remember Harry?”
“Who is Harry?” For a moment she thought he would shed tears.
“I was Harry! You were Ruby Reed! You sang. I played piano for you. The more I remember Harry, the less I believe in who I thought I was, in who I think I am. Harry was a real person. The pieces I’ve seen of him are more real than I am. I’m not who I am, if I was Harry.”
Fidelity tried to imagine it. She tried not to compare her own mental problems with his. How could she handle another impossible coincidence? Pan believed he was Harry, her accompanist. He was a fine musician, so that was compatible with his supposed former talent. She couldn’t imagine herself singing in front of an audience, so that was ridiculous. She did remember Rafael’s praise when she sang a lullaby to Samson. There was already too much to think about! She didn’t want to argue with Pan against this bizarre contention of his. She could accept that he believed it. She would let go of her annoyance. She would let go of Jon Horss. She would try to let go of Samson. She recognized that the notion of her being a singer intrigued her. She wouldn’t let it rise to importance in her thinking. She couldn’t let it push her past her limits to remain in control of herself.
Pan took another step closer to her. They stood less than an arm’s length apart. Fidelity didn’t feel physically threatened by this large man, but she was very far from mentally comfortable. “What do you want?”
“A cell sample from you for the Mnro Clinic to identify.”
She was relieved in one sense but still irritated. Then her heart started racing and she urged her augments to control it. What had happened in the interval of a few seconds to cause this? He might touch her, and her anticipation seemed unreasonably anxious. “What would that accomplish?” She backed away from him half a step. The intensity of the situation was now almost overpowering. She didn’t understand why she was reacting so strongly, nor did she understand what her reaction was. Did he attack her on a biochemical level? She was protected by an array of Navy augments, yet she was very near the point of panic.
“Probably nothing.” Pan allowed the gap between them to widen.
Definitely nothing! Why should she fear his touch or the information in her genes? She forced herself to extend her hand and let him take a cell sample from the skin. When his fingers touched her, the electric charge of anxiety changed polarity to calmness. He, too, seemed less agitated. He smiled and put the sample in a pocket.
“It’s been rather dry in the valley lately.” Fidelity said the strange phrase and she would have denied saying it, except that in the next second Pan made a reply that she wanted to deny hearing.
“Not as dry as it will be.” Pan was bewildered. “What did you say? What
does it mean? Why did I respond?”
She put a hand over her mouth. It was a gesture of disbelief that she would say such a thing. It was a gesture of disbelief that she knew his reply was correct. She could only shake her head and gesture weakly with one hand, to tell him she was as troubled and as mystified as he was. Fidelity knew it validated their relationship, whatever that relationship had been. But it didn’t seem to fit the Harry-and-Ruby concept. She didn’t want to explore it any further. Mystery upon mystery, she thought. Where will it end?
Struggling to recover, Pan regarded her, pointed to the garment she wore. “The yellow dress. You’re wearing the yellow dress.”
Fidelity was so distracted all morning that she didn’t recognize one of the most famous articles of clothing in art history: the yellow dress. She only worried that her bare shoulders were too muscular for such a fine feminine sun dress. She was grateful for her thoughts to be pushed away from the threatening mysteries of a life she may have lost.
Rafael de LaGuardia watched Pan and Fidelity approach through the yard. He thought he could see something in the way they acted that indicated a developing relationship existed between them. Fidelity watched Pan with troubled intensity, even as she appeared comfortable in his presence. Pan treated the admiral with great courtesy while being careful not to touch her. That was apparent, that they would come so close to each other but not touch. A strange tension, a special relationship, an unusual meeting of two unusual people. They greeted Samson and spoke with him at length. Gator put his big paws on Pan’s chest, a bad habit Pan always allowed the dog. Finally they came onto the screened porch. Samson and Gator remained outside, happy to be new friends, playing in the green grass of the yard.
“Sit here, sit right here,” Rafael demanded of Fidelity. He indicated a rattan chair with a tall, fan-shaped back which stood in the corner of the porch. Fidelity stared at the chair, looked down at the yellow dress, gave Rafael a look of surprise with her large dark eyes. He nodded to her, pointed again to the chair.
Pan stood before the easel and looked at the oil painting Rafael had begun. It showed the rattan chair and the rough strokes of the outline of a figure. “Is this your first portrait of the admiral?”
“Damn you, Pan! You knew this young lady would drive me into the art business again.” Rafael squeezed colors onto a palette in a near frenzy, his wrinkled hands shaking with the effort. He made a motion with his palette knife that Pan should look inside the house. He wanted him to see the sketches he made last night. “In there. On the table.” He never in his long life experienced such a moment as when the woman and the boy appeared in his yard in the night. A moment of magic that was obviously artfully planned by Pan.
Pan walked into the house and some moments later came out with the pad of sketches, which he took over to the swing. He sat in the swing and made it creak. As he studied the sketches he stopped swinging. Rafael watched the dark woman who called herself Fidelity. He saw her watch Pan, and Rafael was forced to try to see what she saw. He was startled to realize Pan was somehow different, not the person he’d always known. He couldn’t define the difference, nor did he have time for the task. He had to paint!
He studied his subject. He saw too many things he didn’t understand about her. He knew she was a Navy admiral. He knew she was a mother. He knew she was troubled, even haunted. Sometimes he saw a dead person in her face. When the dead person came alive she made him glad he lived long enough to meet such a person. Despite his concern and compassion for Samson, Fidelity consumed his attention. Even her voice tugged at his analysis of her. It was a familiar voice, but that was impossible. He had to paint her, he had to do at least that before he died. Rafael mixed the darker oils vigorously, keeping an eye on his subject, fascinated with how Fidelity regarded his friend Pan as he looked at the sketches.
Pan looked up at Rafael with pain and wonder in his dark eyes, then turned to Fidelity. “I’m sorry, Admiral! I was terribly insensitive! Seeing these sketches makes me realize how badly I treated you and Samson. I apologize profoundly. These sketches are powerful and heartbreaking to me.”
Fidelity seemed to have no response so Rafael spoke. “You got me started again, Pan! That was your plan, wasn’t it? Now I’m worried I don’t have enough time left!” What was wrong with Pan that he would do such things and act this way? The answer was sitting in his rattan chair. If she could motivate Rafael to do what he never wanted to do again - create art, stop time and capture the meaning of life - then she could also cause Pan to change.
“All because I couldn’t remember Ruby Reed,” Pan said. “Have you seen these, Admiral?” She shook her head. He brought the sketches to her. She opened the loosely-bound stack of penciled images, and began studying them.
“Ruby Reed!” Rafael declared. “Of course! Fidelity has her voice! After she sang the lullaby, it began to gnaw at my memory.” He saw Fidelity’s look of surprise and a further complex reaction. What did it mean?
“She sang?” Pan’s query seemed urgent beyond Rafael’s comprehension.
“Like an angel.” Rafael frowned at the tremend
ous change in his oldest friend, his best friend. Did he regain his passion for his art at the expense of losing Pan? Rafael sat back on his stool with a sigh which sounded impatient but wasn’t - not exactly. The urge to paint was tearing at him but he was not sure what to paint. How could he paint with such doubt? How could he paint Fidelity when she wouldn’t remain who he thought she was? Was she now the singer whose recordings Pan gave him so many years ago? She was a mystery. As he watched Fidelity look at the drawings, Rafael saw many things he wanted to see. He wondered if he would have the power in his old hands to put those feelings and nuances on canvas. It was such a difficult and primitive medium. “She loves him.” Rafael was commenting on the drawings Fidelity studied. “She loves the boy, even while she feels threatened by him.”
“I can see that in your sketches. But she’s a Navy admiral, Rafael. Navy officers can’t afford such weaknesses.”
“I see only the truth!” Rafael declared. “My eyes may be getting weak but I know the truth. You tell him, Fidelity. You love Samson.”
The admiral closed the sketchbook and held it to the yellow dress. She turned her head to look through the porch screen at Samson. The boy stopped playing to stare back at her as he lay on the green grass. Did he hear Rafael’s words? Did he want her to love him? How could she entertain hopeless ideas? She turned her head back slowly and looked up at the dark stranger named Pan.
A door in her mind burst open.
“Babu! Babu, will you stay with me? Please, don’t leave me!”
She sat on the first step of a hundred steps leading up through the green grass to the front door of a stranger’s house. She sat there and refused to go any farther. The old man bent over her and lifted her face to his with a trembling finger under her chin.
“Child, my time with you has come to an end. I’m old and can’t keep you safe in the country. You must now live with your aunt and go to school and become what you will be. Always beware of your father, but I believe his sister will be fair to you.”
“No! I won’t go! I want to be with you, Babu!”
“We’ll be with each other forever in your memories. That’s the only forever anyone can have.”
“No, no, NO! I won’t!”
The old man sighed, hooked his hands under her arms, and picked her up. She clung to him tightly. She smelled his sweat and the dirt of Africa in his clothing. She felt the beat of his heart in his thin body. She felt the trembling of his muscles straining to carry her. She heard the labor of his breathing. Babu took the steps slowly, often pausing to rest. They had walked for days to come to this place in the big city.
She kept her eyes squeezed shut, not wanting to admit the reality of this moment, but when Babu said, “Almost there,” with such a terrible struggle to utter it, she opened her eyes. She saw the great African Space Elevator towering behind the local buildings of this residential neighborhood. She pulled back to look at Babu Muenda’s leathery brown face which glistened with sweat. His eyes were closed and his face was wrinkled with pain. The world started to tilt. The old man’s eyes opened and saw her. He smiled as he made a last feeble effort to turn himself and become a cushion for the fall.
They fell. They fell onto soft green grass. She fell on top of him, the impact knocking the breath from her lungs and flipping her onto the green lawn. She started to cry out because of the shock and pain but the sight of Grandfather silenced her. Babu Muenda lay too still.
The door to the future opened behind her.
“Where did you go?” Pan asked.
“I…” Fidelity was trapped. They knew she saw something inside of her. How long did she sit here with her mouth open and her eyes seeing nothing? They didn’t know how impossible it was. “There was a child. An old man. The African Space Elevator.” She took deep breaths, as if to make up for not breathing for several moments.
“Your child?” Pan asked.
She shook her head. Pan retreated a few steps and waited for her to speak. What explanation did she owe these men? They were only famous. Anyway, the images were already slipping away from her conscious, as though they were forbidden to keep. Rafael resumed painting and gasped when Fidelity started to get up.
“No, please, sit down,” both men said in unison.
Fidelity handed the sketchbook to Pan and sat down, subdued, in some way further changed. Rafael was disturbed, because the change he saw was too great. How could he hope to capture the truth of her on canvas when the truth was unknown to all of them? Quite obviously Fidelity herself didn’t know who she was. This was the case for both of them, Fidelity and Pan. Rafael didn’t have the time to wonder at what deeper meaning this pairing of lives in flux had for them. He didn’t have the inclination to examine his own hypersensitivity to the people suddenly thrust into his hermit’s existence. He would be fortunate to live long enough to finish this impossible portrait!
“You must stay long enough for Rafael to capture your image,” Pan begged the admiral. “You must understand what an honor it is. Rafael is, in my opinion, the greatest living artist, and possibly one of the greatest artists in history.”
That broke Rafael’s concentration just long enough for him to wave his brush negatively at Pan. “You don’t measure it, you just endure it! Totally subjective.”
Fidelity tried to smile at that and almost succeeded. “Perhaps I’ll stay a bit longer. I don’t think I can go back, feeling the way I do.”
“Thank God,” Pan said.
“Amen,” Rafael echoed.
Section 008 Endarkenment at Fudlump’s Bar
“Do you have the image?” Jarwekh inquired.
“What image?” Daidaunkh muttered, a glass of beer still at his mouth.
Jarwekh paused briefly to reconsider his motives. The primary motive sat across the table, slowly getting drunk on beer. Daidaunkh was his commanding officer before the War. He was a superb officer and he still felt loyal to him, even though they were reduced to the status of equals on this vacant home world of their former enemy. “The image I should be wearing at my throat but haven’t for many years,” Jarwekh explained.
“Not since Pan killed you, eh?” Daidaunkh said.
The noble-born Daidaunkh, perhaps without realizing it, reprimanded Jarwekh for a failure in this long evening of their lives. Because he hesitated to follow Daidaunkh’s lead, Pan killed them both. Only later, when they were revived, did Daidaunkh admit he misapplied the Principle of Justice upon Pan. Jarwekh always understood the Rhyan Principle of Justice was simply a Royalist phrase that meant revenge. Jarwekh didn’t need revenge. Still, even if Daidaunkh was misguided, Jarwekh had failed him, if not by defending him physically, then by not arguing him away from his errors of logic. Daidaunkh had failed to realize Pan wanted public safety on Earth more than he wanted to settle a personal argument with him. Jarwekh needed to atone for his failure to help Daidaunkh. He wanted some resolution for the broken life of his former commander.
Daidaunkh pulled a black disk on a gold chain from inside his loose shirt and tossed it into the spilled beer on the table top. Jarwekh flipped the black disk upright and tapped it. A pale hologram flickered to life. He stared at it for a long time, studying the image but also studying the chain of cause and effect that would lead onward from an act of revenge. There was death in that chain, more than one death, one of which would surely be his own. There was further injustice in it, particularly in the form of disloyalty to his most honorable benefactor: Pan. His regard for Pan was higher than for Daidaunkh, but Pan never chose to form a bond of friendship with him, and Daidaunkh was a better friend, now that he accepted their expatriate comradeship as equals.
He studied Daidaunkh through the ghost of the ancient hologram and saw only the dying shell of the warrior he once admired. Revenge would crumble such a ruin of a man but it should provide a joyful glory in its attempt, successful or not. Daidaunkh was mostly dark-skinned, patched here and there with lighter desert skin - a scaly and shiny surface which protected most of the body
of a lower-class desert person like Jarwekh. The nobility possessed traits of both the Desert Folk and the Ocean Folk. Daidaunkh’s flat nose was adapted for ocean diving. His slightly webbed fingers massaged the handle of his beer tankard as a sign of impatience. His eyes, small coal-dark irises mounted in large gray orbs, like all Rhyan eyes, bored into Jarwekh’s, waiting impatiently. He was a mean drunk.
Jarwekh tapped the disk again and the image doubled in size. The head of a dark Earthian female slowly rotated in vaporous translucence. Jarwekh placed another small device on the table a short distance from the hologram. Another image sprang to life, brighter and more solid, lifelike: an image of Admiral Fidelity Demba.
“Compare,” Jarwekh said.
“Very close,” Daidaunkh said with interest. He threw back a swallow of beer. “But we’ve seen close matches before. Images prove nothing.”
“This one is Navy,” Jarwekh said.
“Even better. If she isn’t the one we can still kill her.”
“Kill whom?” She filled the room, as she always did, with her shining hair and brilliant, lying smile. All the feeble light in the dusky saloon rushed to illuminate the paleness of the woman when the door closed, and all the shadows pooled beneath those tragic eyes. The War was fought because of creatures like Denna, beautiful Earthian women who were irresistible to ugly Rhyan males. The slave trade in Earthian women, small though it was, was used to justify the Union’s escalation of its war preparations. How poetic, that an Earthian female - Commodore Keshona - was the instrument that felled the Rhyan Empire.
She sat down and grabbed Daidaunkh’s beer from his hand. “I haven’t killed anybody in at least a week,” Denna complained. She took a gulp, wiped her mouth, put the beer back in Daidaunkh’s hand.
“You’ve never killed anyone,” Jarwekh said.
“Humor,” Daidaunkh explained. “Where did you get this image of the Keshona look-alike?”
