Last Song (Heinlein's Finches Book 3)

by Robin Banks

  Last Song

  Robin Banks

  Last Song

  © Copyright 2017 by Robin Banks. All rights reserved.

  Written by Robin Banks.

  Cover Illustration © Copyright 2017 by Robin Banks.

  Cover design by Robin Banks.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of Robin Banks.

  While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and legitimacy of the references, referrals, and links (collectively ‘Links’) presented in this e-book, Robin Banks is not responsible or liable for broken Links or missing or fallacious information at the Links. Any links to a specific product, process, web site, or service do not constitute or imply an endorsement by Robin Banks of same, or its producer or provider. The views and opinions contained at any Links do not necessarily express or reflect those of Robin Banks.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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  Contents

  1. Luke

  2. Quinn

  3. Luke

  4. Quinn

  5. Luke

  6. Quinn

  7. Luke

  8. Quinn

  9. Luke

  10. Quinn

  11. Luke

  12. Quinn

  13. Luke

  14. Quinn

  15. Luke

  16. Quinn

  17. Luke

  18. Quinn

  19. Luke

  20. Quinn

  21. Luke

  22. Quinn

  23. Luke

  24. Quinn

  25. Alya

  Glossary

  Discography

  The Inevitable Postface

  About the author

  All true stories end in death.

  - Matthew Woodring Stover

  Year 2481

  Terran Standard

  1. Luke

  It’s a good plan. Simple, too. All I have to do is get to breakfast before anyone else is up, have a coffee or three, push my food around my plate for a bit, and get the hell out before anyone has a chance to collar me. By anyone, I mean Alya. Everyone else is worried about me, I know that. I’m as sorry about that as I can be, but I can’t blame them. I’d be worried about me too, if I could care. Alya, though, she’s worried and mistrustful. I’d say that she’s bossy, too, except that saying ‘Alya’ and ‘bossy’ in the same sentence seems redundant.

  Even Alya wouldn’t stoop to asking the staff how many mouthfuls of food actually passed my lips, though. That’d just stir up more talk, and that’s the last thing any of us wants right now. So, if I get in and out of there quick enough to miss her, all she’ll know is that I’ve had my breakfast, even if all I actually did was rearrange it. I probably won’t have the chance to get enough caffeine on board to manage what passes for normal functioning on my part, but I could always ask for some to take to work with me. It wouldn’t be that much trouble for the staff to find me a flask. Even if it was a hassle, ever since all that shit went down they bend over backward to avoid being around me. They’d send me off with a meal for four on gilded plates if it got me out of the house faster. So, yeah, it is a good plan. It covers all the bases. It should work.

  It doesn’t.

  I barely have a chance to sit down and start inhaling my coffee when Alya turns up, looking undercooked. Her face has that half-finished look she gets when she’s not had enough sleep. It reminds me of the Good Bad Old Days, when exhaustion was built into our lifestyle. Back then I never realized how bad she looked because I never got a chance to see her looking well. Now that I do, it’s quite a shock.

  I ought to feel bad about that, too. A few months ago, if she woke up this early she would have just turned over and gone back to sleep. Hell, Raj would have found a reason to keep her in bed even if she couldn’t sleep. He worships the ground she stands on, but he prefers it when she’s lying down. Now, though, she’s up and about at this ungodly hour and I know it’s my fault. The woman’s on my ass like a coat of paint.

  I don’t feel bad, though. Partly it’s because I can’t, ‘cause I just don’t have it in me right now, and partly it’s because even half-finished her look is fully ominous. She sits herself across the table from me nursing a coffee of her own. There’s no way she could possibly know what I was plotting, but I know she does: the glint in her eyes tells me so. It also tells me that, however clever I might think I am, she can outscheme me without trying. She’s a pro, I’m a kid, and that’s how it’s going to be forevermore. I’d resent her less if she wasn’t kinda right.

  I sigh in my coffee. I breathe in a reminder that she’s my friend and I love her, even when I can’t feel it. I breathe out any hope for a smooth start to the day. I ponder all the while, and not for the first time, what the scores on her psi-tests were, because this kind of thing is happening too often to be a fucking coincidence. I brace for another uncomfortable conversation. Then I catch Alya staring at my plate and smirking.

  Fuck. I picked my breakfast based on how easy it would be to smear it around the plate and make it look at least half-eaten. Now I’m faced with a plateful of slops. Posh slops, obviously, the finest slops credit can buy and much better than someone like me has a right to expect, but slops nonetheless.

  That’ll teach me to think I’m smart. As if I didn’t have enough evidence to the contrary.

  I load up a forkful of whatever the hell the yellow stuff is. I’m just about to shove it in my mouth when Alya sighs.

  “There’s bacon out there, you know. And if you asked them, they’d make you a waffle. Or pancakes. Something that doesn’t look recycled, anyway.”

  “Nah. This is fine. I have to get to work soon, anyway.”

  “No, you don’t.” She puts her cup down and stares at it as if it had personally insulted her. “I bumped into Lara yesterday – or rather, she bumped into me. She wanted to talk to me because she’s worried about you. She’s worried about the hours you’re putting in when there are no urgent projects, among other things. A whole host of other things. And before you get tetchy, she only talked to me because she tried talking to you already and it did no good.”

  I nearly feel that blow. Dress it any way you like, Lara went behind my back to Alya. I know we’re not equals – Lara is my boss, after all – but I thought she respected me. Fuck it, that’s not true: I thought we were friends. I need to cut that shit out.

  One less person I can count on. Yeah, I can feel this blow alright.

  I look at the forkful of food hovering in mid-air in front of my face. Just thinking about swallowing it makes me feel sick.

  “Luke?” She says it in a tone that begs me to look at her. No good can come of that, though, so I don’t.

  “Alya?”

  She taps the rim of her cup. I’m braced for another one of her talks, but she just lets off a long sigh.

  She doesn’t say anything for a while. I manage to eat a few mouthfuls of the yellow slops – eggs, or their nearest approximation, as it turns out – without gagging. My chest is starting to tighten up again. I know it’s all in my head, but
it’s making it difficult for me to get any air in, let alone swallow. I gotta do it, though. It’s enough that I’ve got Alya out of bed this early, enough that I’ve got Lara on my case.

  “Your coffee. You’re drinking black coffee.”

  I was so focused on trying to breathe around the pain in my chest that her voice startled me into looking at her. I really wish I hadn’t, because now I can’t look away.

  “Yeah,” I nod.

  “I’ve never seen you drink black coffee.”

  “You’re seeing me now.”

  “Got any sugar in it?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why?”

  I can’t think of a single good answer to that, so I tell her the truth.

  “I couldn’t be bothered with it, is all. It’s not a big deal.”

  “You’re up hours before you need to be so you can get to work before your time starts to do stuff that doesn’t need doing for ages. You’re eating the gods only know what, when there’s some of your favorites out there; and I know this because I’m the one who asked for them to be there. You couldn’t be bothered with the effort of lifting a jug of creamer and dropping a few lumps of sugar into your own cup. And it’s not a big deal. Ok. I guess if we can’t manage three impossible things before breakfast, we can at least aim for three improbable ones at breakfast.”

  I try to smile at her. “Sorry. I missed that reference.”

  “I miss you. That’s all. I’m scared, and I miss you.”

  There’s an edge of desperation to her voice. Hearing that ramps up the pain in my chest.

  “Alya, it’s alright. I’m just… I’m up early because I couldn’t sleep. So I’m tired, I’m not really in the mood for food, and I couldn’t be asked messing around with my coffee. It really isn’t a big deal. I’ll go to bed early tonight and I’ll be ok tomorrow.” If I get back from work late and go to bed early I’ll be able to avoid the family altogether, but I don’t have to tell her that.

  “You’re not sleeping?”

  “I’m sleeping ok.” When I do, which is at most two or three hours a night, but never mind. “I just had a bad dream and it woke me up.”

  “You’re having nightmares?”

  “Nah. Just a really vivid dream, is all.” The dream comes back to me as I mention it. “I dreamt about your friend Dee.”

  “You what?” She says that as if it was a big deal. I don’t get that, but it suits me fine. Maybe it will distract her from everything else.

  “I dreamt about Dee. She was trying to talk to you, you wouldn’t talk to her, and she was getting kinda worked up. Then I woke up. Barely a bad dream, really. It wasn’t scary or anything.”

  She shakes her head and gets up. “That wasn’t a dream at all. That was a summoning. You better pack your bags, kid. We’re going on a trip. I want us in orbit before lunch.”

  “Where the hell are we going?”

  “To pick up my mail.”

  She gives me the low-down as we charge towards our quarters, breakfast forgotten. I’d be relieved about that, if I wasn’t struggling to keep up with her. My chest is still hurting and walking this quickly is making me dizzy. I can’t ask her to slow down, though. She seems really wound up.

  “Dee and I were in school together, kinda.”

  “Kinda?”

  “She was at the Academy with me, though she never joined the Patrol. Before that, we were at a Fed Youth Sorting Centre for a while.”

  “Alya, that’s not a school: that’s a floating kiddy prison. Why didn’t you ever say anything about it?”

  “Because it’s such a fun period of my life that I like to keep it all to myself. I’m selfish like that.”

  “You do remember I was in juvie for the best part of four years, right?”

  “Vividly. And I’m sure it would be ever so pleasant for us to sit around and exchange our fond memories of those joyful periods, but every time I get drunk enough I find myself too busy spewing, and now’s not the time. Anyway, Dee and I go back a long way. Back then, her psi-gifts were pretty damn handy for the both of us. She’s never had any training, though, so we worked out what she could do by trial and error.”

  “How the hell did she end up without training? I thought the Fed were all over psi-gifted kids.”

  “They are. That’s rather the problem. Dee didn’t fancy being the subject of a Fed experiment. She passed her year eleven psi-test so she could leave home, then cheated on her entrance assessment so they rejected her for the psi program. It was pretty easy, thanks to one of her gifts.”

  “What is it?”

  “Precognition. It not precise, it doesn’t kick in very often, and it hardly ever works on demand, but sometimes she can get snippets of the future.”

  “Hang on a moment. Seeing the future can’t be any help at all. If she can see the future then she can’t change it, right?”

  “Yes and no. We have no idea. We think that she can see one of multiple possible futures, perhaps the most likely, and the steps that lead to it. That could be wishful thinking on our parts, though. Neither of us is terribly fond of predeterminism. It doesn’t really matter, because most of the times what she sees is so godsdamned vague that it’s no help at all. Maybe she could have learnt to use her gift more effectively if she’d had any help with it, but she never wanted to. She’s scared of knowing the future. I can’t blame her. Anyway, she flunked her tests, her gifts were never studied, and we just muddled along. One of the things we discovered is that her telepathy is not limited in range.”

  “She’s telepathic too?”

  “Yup. Kinda. There’s a bit of empathy in the mix so we could never be sure of what was what. We found some things out, though. For instance, her projection is not space-limited. As far as we know, she can project to wherever she wants, regardless of distance, and the message arrives instantly. However, my reception is space-limited. I can only read her loud and clear when she’s close up. The further she goes, the less I can read her. That limitation seems to apply only to me; other people can’t read her at all and some people can read her regardless. It helps if they are in a meditative state, or asleep. I don’t know whether busy people can’t read her or just end up ignoring her, but it amounts to the same. Oh, and she can only project to people she knows. She has to be able to think of the person she’s projecting to with a level of detail.”

  “What the hell does this have to do with anything?”

  “It could be that you’ve just had an odd dream about Dee wanting to talk to me, but I’m willing to bet that you haven’t. She’s using you as a receiver to tell me to get in touch, because she knows I won’t get her message myself. And if that’s the case, something’s really out of kilter. Otherwise she’d just get me over the com.”

  “So what the hell are we doing now?”

  “I told you. We’re picking up my mail. I’ve got relays set up to a free com band. It’s traceable, but it’s unlikely to get traced. There are simply too many of them around for the Fed to be able to check them all. Even if they get into it, it’s encrypted, and even if that fails, at the very least it won’t drag Raj and his lot into whatever this is. If we get there and there are no messages, then we’ll have to either find Dee, or at least get to free com range with her.”

  “I never could understand any of that.”

  “If the signal goes through a Fed relay, they can read it. They also charge you for it, but that’s not a problem for us.”

  “Because Raj is loaded?”

  “Yup. And the Anteians have their own relays, which helps a bunch. But that’s not an option now. If Dee could just send us a com, she wouldn’t have relied on you remembering to tell me about your dream. Oh!” She slows down a bit to look at me. “Was it the first time you dreamed about her?”

  “I think so. I’m not sure. I don’t always remember my dreams.” The ones I do remember, the ones that wake me up at night and make me never want to go back to sleep, aren’t about Dee.

  “Alright. Well, u
ntil we know otherwise, I’m going to assume that this is serious and urgent. How quickly can you get packed?”

  “What am I packing for? Why am I even coming?”

  “Dee may want to get in touch again and you’re our best receiver. She doesn’t know anyone else here. We could be gone for a couple of days or a couple of weeks. I have no idea where she is at the moment.”

  “Alya, I can’t just drop everything and go. I’ve got work to do.”

  “I’ll clear it with Lara.”

  “I don’t want you to do that. If anyone’s got to clear it with Lara, it should be me, and I don’t want to. I want to stay and do my work.”

  “Luke…” she trails off with an expression on her face I know all too well. She’s terrible at giving bad news, even though she’s had plenty of practice.

  “Out with it. Please.”

  “Lara wants you to take some time off. That’s why she wanted to talk to me. She wants you to take a break.”

  I stop dead. I have to: I don’t think I have the energy to carry on walking, and I don’t want to fall over.

  “Have I lost my job?”

  “What? No. She just wants you to have a rest. Until you get better.”

  “And if I don’t get better, what then?”

  “You will. Don’t worry about it. Let’s just get this done, ok? It’s a twofer, really. We can go off, find out what this is all about, have a break, see the sights, and then come back and start afresh.”

  “Yeah. Nothing like a trip to a mailbox to turn your life around.”

  I wish I’d kept my trap shut. Now she looks distraught and it’s my fault.

  “Come on, kid. Let’s give it a try, ok? It can’t hurt.”

  She pushes me gently and I set off walking again. I know it will hurt. Hours on end with Alya, having to pretend that I’m ok. Hours with nothing to fill them, nothing to distract me. Hours to myself. Just thinking about that scares the shit out of me. The only reason I’ve been keeping it together, relatively speaking, is that I’ve been keeping too busy to think.