A. Warren Merkey

by Far Freedom

  Iggy looked at Direk thoughtfully. “There is something you are not telling me, Direk.”

  “Yes.” Direk smiled slightly.

  “You did it again. I thought I saw you smile before.”

  Direk looked around the room at the other engineering personnel. There were only a few civilians present but others came and went. “We should have a private talk, Uncle Iggy. I think you will find it interesting.”

  “I think we should! Later then.”

  It was going to be difficult, Direk thought, trying to concentrate on his tasks. His old copy gave him too much to think about, having suffered loneliness for so long. Jamie was a far more intriguing person than she ever was, and that added to his distraction. His Essiin discipline should have come to his aid but it was an acquired trait that he despised. If only he could free himself of his reputation without upsetting so many people. Uncle Iggy, would be happy and shocked at the stories he would tell him. It would be a start.

  “Damn it - sir.”

  “Back again?” Horss admired the way Jamie looked in a Navy captain’s uniform. She was formidable. He was glad that he knew she was not as tough as she looked.

  “If you have a moment.” She took a seat in his conference room.

  “My next meeting is in three minutes, but I’ll fit you in. What’s up?”

  “Direk. He’s interfering in my duties.”

  “I’ll order him to stop it.”

  “I wish it was that simple.”

  “Is he actually harassing you? He’s only been out of the box for a few hours.”

  “I didn’t mean it literally. It’s all in my head.”

  “You know I’m no damned good with personal relationships. I was hoping you could give me help in that area with the crew.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Well, your mother more than compensates for us. Tell me some more. Maybe you’ll figure it out by listening to yourself.”

  “Are you a conduit to my mother?”

  “Not if you make me promise to keep it confidential.”

  “Promises may be hard to keep in the company of two women I know.”

  Jamie outlined her past relationship with Direk and her encounters with his two copies. She and Direk had spent an entire lifetime together. Horss wanted them to try to find happiness together again. He didn’t understand Jamie’s reluctance to engage with Direk. He wanted to help her but he couldn’t see how anything but time would give her peace. Still, he had to try. “I’ll talk to the interested parties. I’ll tell them to leave you alone. That’s about all I can think to do.”

  Jamie stood up, thanked Horss, and went to the door. It opened and Zakiya and Direk entered. She passed by them without saying anything. Zakiya looked after her departing daughter before closing the door. “What?” Zakiya pointed to the door, beyond which her daughter departed.

  “Leave her alone,” Horss said. “All of you.”

  “But - ” Zakiya dropped her complaint, seeing the look on Horss’s face.

  Horss restrained himself from staring at Direk. He still had the nonregulation hair, almost as if he didn’t want anyone to think of him as Aylis’s would-be-android son. He was a lot more interesting than others said he was. Jamie was crazy for avoiding him. “Military crew is my responsibility, right? You took the civilians. Does Direk stay a civilian?”

  “No, he’s Navy. Chief Science Officer. He replaces his copy.”

  “Duly noted and logged. Welcome to our one-ship Navy, Captain Direk. Do you have that report for us?”

  Direk gave the report.

  “The Navy may arrive to find us still embedded in this rock,” Zakiya said. “What then?”

  “We jump,” Direk said.

  “From inside the asteroid? The envelope field density is so high, there must be some release of the nuclear binding force where matter coincides with the field. It’s certainly a safety concern for starlight drive.”

  “There will be matter conversion only if our envelope is less than perfect. It will be perfect.”

  “Is there anything you’re not telling us?” Zakiya asked.

  ” You don’t remember the Rhyan War.”

  “Nothing technical about ship modifications.”

  “It was the first time we tried this. Pan and I devised a plan whose only real purpose was to protect your life. We wanted to give you a significant tactical advantage. You, of course, didn’t want the technology to fall into the hands of the Navy. You decided to use the technology just once, to end the war. You had to put all three crews to sleep so they wouldn’t see the gate. We built it large enough for three ships. Which is the reason the Freedom could be as large as it is. It was a tricky business, you and Pan and I piloting three destroyers into the gate, then waking the crews after the jump. You didn’t seem concerned with the dangers inherent in the technology. Logically, you had no alternative. It was all or nothing. You had me compute a gate address close to Rhyandh, and we went, without knowing if it would work and, if it did, without knowing our destination would be clear of obstacles.”

  “But you knew it would work.”

  “We tested it successfully on a closer destination.”

  “And now we’re in an analogous situation. Live or die. What is our destination for the first jump?”

  “We need to jump where there is minimum probability of hazards and maximum distance from pursuit. It will be outside the galaxy, twelve thousand parsecs from here.”

  “We can do that?”

  “The mathematics allow it.”

  Zakiya said nothing for a time. She looked at Horss. Horss turned away from staring at Direk, despite himself. He gave them both a frown and a grin. “The

  328 Far Freedom

  only people scarier than you and Aylis are your children.”

  Section 020 Explaining Makawee

  He paused to adjust the reed. He took it off the clarinet and put it in his mouth to soak. He wasn’t getting a clean sound. How many centuries had passed in woodwind evolution and engineering without bamboo and saliva being improved upon? Just as he thought about closing the door, to save the ears of passersby from hearing his squeaks and squawks, he heard someone knocking on the door frame. “Okay, okay! I’ll quit.” He turned around from his music stand. There she was. He smiled. She offered a little smile in return. He was thrilled to get that much.

  “Please, don’t let me stop you.” Mai found a place to sit, as though she would become his audience. Horss didn’t want to punish her ears further and started putting the clarinet away.

  “You’ll be doing the neighbors a favor if you do stop me.” Horss spoke with the reed still in his mouth, flipping up and down as he spoke. She didn’t protest in his favor, so he continued taking the clarinet apart.

  “You have a nice place.” Mai looked around while Horss cleaned the instrument and put it in its case. He keeps his place so neatly, she thought, which seemed at odds with his rather messy mind.

  “You’re still living in the hospital?” Horss spit the reed out. He wished she would live with him. He thought she would, after what happened between them. He smiled to himself, thinking about their spontaneous meeting at the end of their stay on Earth. What did it mean to him? More importantly, what did it mean to her? She was subdued after the passion was spent. They parted without any further understanding of its meaning. He was surprised and hopeful when she mysteriously appeared on the Freedom. She would not, however, have anything to do with him - until now.

  “Yes, Aylis and I are still living in the hospital.” And hating it, she thought. Aylis had become a very dear friend, but she was still difficult to live with. Aylis seemed deeply injured mentally and still kept Mai from trying to help her. It was frustrating and even becoming as much a medical concern as a personal one. Mai could easily compare Aylis’s condition to the tragic condition of Denna’s life.

  Mai tried to set her concern for Aylis aside for the moment. She had her own problem. How could she turn this con
versation in the direction she wanted? How would Jon react to her stupidity?

  “Why?” Jon asked about her staying at the hospital.

  She shrugged. “It’s convenient. There’s still much to do. It was the most neglected part of the ship.”

  “What’s up? Why the visit?” He wanted to ask Mai to move in with him but was afraid. Why did he want to live with her? He was still a mystery to himself.

  “Nothing.” She had to hide her face so he wouldn’t see the anger she felt for herself. How many decades had she dealt with people stranger than Jon? She had always been able to be direct and truthful, even when her words were painful. But Jon was not a patient of hers. He was the father of her illegal fetus.

  Jon thought Mai was lying but he took her at her word. Mai was too old to play games. She knew how to deal with characters such as himself. He, on the other hand, seemed to have lost his social skills. “You want something to drink?” It was a lame attempt to lengthen her visit. She shook her head. She sat on the edge of her chair - not on the sofa where he could join her - and she looked ready to bolt through the doorway. He couldn’t guess what was on her mind. Mai once confessed to an attraction to him, and their surprising intimacy after the Mother Earth Opera was proof of it, but that wasn’t sufficient cause for a more permanent relationship. The Mother Earth Opera just made them both a little crazy. She probably regretted it. He thought she would leave the ship before they launched from Headquarters. Perhaps she was trapped aboard by the early launch. Why did she accept Aylis Mnro’s request to help her prepare the ship’s hospital in the first place? Why did she stay aboard at the Five Worlds?

  Mai got up and started a tour of his apartment. She was drawn to his family pictures. “Is that you?” She found what she thought was an adorable image of him as a child.

  “An ugly little Indian wearing a cowboy hat?”

  “Who are all the others?” She didn’t offer an opinion of his looks as a child. Mai was trapped by her training, her rigorous non-involvement with people. How could she comment on his childhood picture? Her ocular camera recorded it. He was so cute!

  “Brothers and sisters. Mom and Dad. Uncles, aunts.”

  “Brothers and sisters? That many?”

  “Most of them dead. How is your family?”

  “Mother is my only close relative. I barely had time to say goodbye to her. I hope she waits for me to return.”

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

  ” She’s tired of living. I don’t know whether my leaving on this mission will give her an excuse to stop living or just the opposite. I hoped a grandchild would renew her spirit.” There, that was a start: she had mentioned her potential child.

  “I see.” He thought Mai wanted a child for the reward of being a mother and a wife. Why couldn’t he ask her to explain? Why was he such a coward? Mai was visiting him for some purpose. There was opportunity for him to propose a change in their relationship. What change? What could he offer her? They had little in common, and he knew she didn’t like all the Twenglish humor he kept throwing at her, as though he enjoyed irritating her.

  She looked at the pictures and lost her concentration on the faces in them while waiting for Jon to say something encouraging to her. If it was so important to her for Jon to know she was pregnant with his child, why couldn’t she tell him? Because it would make her seem so much less perfect in his eyes than she wanted to be? How could she explain becoming pregnant without it appearing either devious or stupid?

  She looked at the pictures and Horss wondered if they really interested her or if she was being polite. Mai looked into the kitchen, the bedroom, the study. She took in the view of the lake beyond his back porch. She turned back toward the front doorway. He wanted to get in front of her, block her path - the path out of his life. He couldn’t move. It was brain damage - that was his excuse. She paused. He hoped.

  “How are you doing?” she inquired politely. “When we finally get the hospital ready we should give you a thorough examination. We have some excellent specialists.”

  “I’m adequate. Barely. Uncle Iggy and Aunt Zakiya have kept me from making any bad mistakes.”

  ” You can’t be as bad as you think you are.”

  “I used to be a hell of an officer. I knew everything and I could do anything, including being modest. Now I have no confidence.”

  “You’re a good captain. I hear no complaints.”

  “I’m a better clarinet player than a captain. It’s not the technical details of the ship. It’s people, crew members. I feel like a fake, and that keeps me from helping them do their jobs and function as a team.”

  “I didn’t realize you were so troubled.”

  “I advised Admiral Demba to promote her daughter into the chain of command. If Jamie Jones is anything like her mother, I’ll be glad of her help. Maybe I can retire and take clarinet lessons.”

  Mai edged toward the doorway. She wanted to leave before she lost the battle with her nerves. She wanted to leave before the disappointment came into her expression. She was not so perfect anymore in her own eyes. She had always confused the status of perfection with the pursuit of it. The pursuit was honest and noble, but she would never be perfect. Marrying Jon was not something she should pursue for the sake of perfection. Maybe her love for him was also imperfect. She couldn’t even blush at her absurdity.

  Mai edged toward the doorway. To Horss she seemed anxious to leave. It wasn’t a smart thing to spill his personal problems onto her. She probably had her own problems - Aylis Mnro, if nothing else. He moved with her toward the doorway. She turned quickly and kissed him, then departed. It probably wasn’t the kind of kiss that meant what he wanted it to mean. It was a bit late to realize what he really wanted.

  “Can’t I have any secrets from you?”

  Mai sniffed the air as she watched Aylis cleaning something by the door to the lavatory. “Vomit?” Mai shouldn’t have sniffed! Her chest heaved, her abdomen squeezed. She pushed past Aylis and got to the toilet just in time.

  Aylis stood looking at her as she rinsed her mouth and wiped her face with a towel. “Let me see you in my clinic, young lady.”

  “I’m not young and I’m not a lady! I’m pregnant!”

  “Good God! Why?”

  Aylis seemed angry with her. Mai was even more angry with herself. She didn’t need any interrogation from Saint Aylis. “I had a mental lapse.”

  “Is that it? I was hoping it was intentional.”

  “Never! Not with him.” It just came out, and it was insincere and stupid. What did she mean - she hoped it was intentional? Aylis liked Jon. Everybody liked Jon. Except Mai. She merely loved him. She hated him for being in the right place at the wrong time. She was confused. And hurt. He was the wrong man. It was the wrong time. It was all wrong!

  “Jon?”

  Mai nodded. Her face was burning. It was spontaneous, an evening alone together, caught up in the excitement and passion following Zakiya’s return to Earth, the night at the Mother Earth Opera, the dramatic appearance of Fred with Sammy. She was old enough to behave better. And she was a physician who should have remembered her own unprotected fertility! How could she have been that distracted?

  “How wonderful!” Aylis sounded sincere.

  “Oh!” Mai omitted the word she would have said next.

  “I mean, how woeful.” Aylis was obviously making fun of her.

  “It is not humorous!” But she did note with hope this small attempt at humor from the always-somber Aylis Mnro.

  ” Yet, you took no precautions after the fact. Why not? If you didn’t want it. If you didn’t want Jon. I can terminate it for you. Shall I?”

  “No! I don’t know! I should…”

  “Poor Mai! You’re as confused as I am. As medically negligent as I am. We can suffer together.”

  “Are you?” Mai sensed the implication, remembering Aylis was the first to vomit.

  “I am pregnant, too. We are a great pair to be running this hospital. If yo
u ask me the same questions I asked you, just remember how you answered, because those are my answers.”

  “But you should abort it! You were raped!” This was part of the reason, Mai thought, why Aylis felt so badly all the time.

  “Almost did. Couldn’t. How about you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know! I ask you the same thing!”

  Aylis shook her head. “My business is life, not death. We can keep them for awhile, then take them out and store them. Does Jon know?”

  “No. I tried to tell him. I couldn’t.”

  “Do you want to marry him?”

  “No!”

  “Emphatic, but unconvincing. I see how you look at him.”

  “I do not look at him that way!”

  “You protest too loudly. Want me to tell him? Want me to propose to him for you?”

  “You’re impossible, Aylis Mnro!”

  “You look happy.” It began: the task of exposing the damage then repairing it. Would it be easier if she was in a good mood? His presence didn’t seem to darken her mood. Maybe she already knew. She had the records, if she wanted to look. The kiss she gave him emboldened him - with some imagination on his part. What did a kiss mean to a woman who was a century and a half old?

  “Children!” Mai looked into his eyes. “Do you like children, Jon?” Mai surprised herself with her statement. Aylis had counseled her, and despite Mai’s stubborn inhibitions and loss of self-confidence, something in her had changed. She had made a serious mistake with Jon Horss, but now she would gamble that it was a seriously good mistake.

  Horss knew the correct answer to that question! His personal history, however, would dispute the answer he wanted to give. Did he really like children? Maybe he could get Sammy to give him a character reference. “I like Sammy.”