by Robin Banks
He leads the visitors towards the town, but not without turning around and blowing Gwen a kiss. Hey ho. All of that will have to wait, if we’re having an assembly tonight.
I’m about to follow him when I find my way blocked by Mattie, who is standing right in the middle of the path with a deadpan expression.
“Three stories. You promised.”
“You won’t need to watch Jojo tonight, kitten, not if we have an assembly. We probably won’t get back before the two of you are asleep. I’ll have to carry you home.”
“Not my problem. We made a deal.”
“Hang on a moment. Did you know this was going to happen?”
She sighs. “First the alarm, then daddy landing all in swirls? Nonny, I love you, but you are silly.”
Gwen cackles. I rush after Asher, trying to get my head back into the business at hand.
3. Luke
Meeting Kolya is so fucking hard. I’ve not seen the guy in three years, nearly four. He’s one of my favorite people. I owe him a ton. If I’m honest about it, he’s one of my heroes, or my models at least. He was the first grown-up man I met I could really look up to. I know he’s not perfect, but he comes so close that it doesn’t matter.
I’ve been missing him something fierce ever since he went his way and I went with Alya. Six months ago, I would have loved to tell him my news. He’s the strongest man I’ve ever met, but when he’s sad or happy he weeps like it’s ok, like there’s no shame in it. Hell, if he does it, then it is ok – the rest of us are just not brave enough to go for it, is all. And if your bravery is based on never letting people know when you feel so much that you can’t hold it in, then it’s not worth a damn.
Six months ago I could have told him everything that was going on. He would have smiled and cried, gotten us both wasted, and then played the violin until his fingers were sore. All our feelings would have flown out of us and filled the cosmos, for a bit. When Kolya plays, time stops to listen. And then, when the music ran out and we got back to ourselves, we would have been together. My happiness would have been a present I could give him, and he would have given it back bigger.
If there’s a bright side to that whole clusterfuck it’s that it all happened too quickly for Kolya to be told. That, or I was too busy with my own shit, too selfish to make time to tell him. Either way, he doesn’t know a thing about it.
I could tell him now. I could tell him everything, but the same would happen, only with hurt instead of happiness. He would stare the facts straight in the face, take it all in, and he’d get cut up. He’d feel every bit of the pain in it. He’d feel it more than me, because I’m weak and he’s strong. However much violin he’d play – and he would play, he’d play the shit out of it, he’d play something so beautiful and mournful that the stars would weep – some of the hurt would stay with him. I can’t do that to the guy.
So I don’t. I smile at him, let him crack my ribs with a bear hug, and try to act like I’m ok. I’m building a barrier between us, I know that, and I feel shitty about it because he’d hate it if he knew. I also feel like I’m cutting my own fingers off to stop myself from clutching at him. I don’t know anymore: it all hurts, it all feels fucked up, and I’ve got to pile that on top of all that other crap and swallow it all, even though I’m already choking, because this mustn’t touch him.
I’m not sure he fully buys into my performance and I don’t know how long I can fool him for, but for now he’s busy crying over Raj and Alya, who’re like family to him, so it’s working out fine. As long as they don’t get hurt, it’s fine.
Our welcome committee sees us at Kolya’s door, but they don’t linger. They must decide that we weren’t making up that we knew him, what with him hugging and kissing the ever-loving shit out of everyone. As soon as they are out of earshot and Kolya has worked the excitement of seeing Alya and Raj out of his system, she starts to grill him about them.
“What’s the deal with those three? And that herd of kids?”
“They are a couple. A good couple.”
“There’s three of them!”
Kolya shrugs. “They are a couple of three people. The big girl and the little boy are theirs. The twins are not, but in the household. Five adults in the household. Not so many, but good workers. And one boy nearly grown up.”
“That kid on the ship? He couldn’t be more than twelve!”
“Something like. He was born from the Troubles. Very good boy. Childhood on Pollux is short, but good. He is very loved.”
“By a household of five people?”
“Yes. And grandparents. Different household, but they help.”
“It all sounds terribly casual.”
Kolya’s eyes widen. “No! Not casual. Householding is important!”
“Alright then. And what is it with the name change?”
“Fed troubles.”
“Ongoing?”
“Not with new names. Why you ask this?”
“I know Ash…er back from the academy, a little bit, and he seemed like a good guy, but for the purpose of our visit it’s hard to know whom to trust. Until we know more, anyway, and we don’t know when that will be.”
“This is not a holiday for you?”
“Unfortunately not.”
She gives him the gist of the story. I guess if there’s an upside to the way things are panning out it’s that she’s getting a lot of practice presenting what information we have in an organized fashion. It still sounds like gibberish to me, but it’s well-presented gibberish.
When she gets to the end, Kolya looks puzzled as hell, but he seems to be on board.
“They call the assembly, yes?”
Alya shrugs. “That’s what Asher said they were doing. Do you think it’ll take long?”
“Maybe they start tonight. Depends if people are free. For a decision, days. This is a big thing.”
“What have they got to decide, though? We’re going regardless.”
“How much help we give you. Who comes with you. Mostly people just like to talk. Makes them feel better. After, we have a big party, then people do what they want. Is good like this.”
“So we have to spend days waiting for a decision that won’t matter?”
“You spend days with me! I don’t see you for years!”
“I know, Kolya, but this is a bit pressing.”
“No! Prophecy says you come here, then you win. If you come see me, you don’t run off. So you must stay. Simple.”
“You’re totally making this up.”
“Yes. But if prophecy is right, it knows I do.” He turns to Raj and me with a giant grin. “After assembly, tonight, we play, yes?”
Raj nods enthusiastically. I want to tell Kolya that no, I don’t play, I’ve not played in months, I can’t play anymore, but he’s looking so happy just talking about it. It suddenly lands on me that this is probably the last chance I’ve got to play with him. When we lived together, years ago, I wasn’t good enough to keep up with him. He’d slow stuff down to help me, but it wasn’t the same as us playing together. Now I can. I could, anyway –I’m probably rusty as fuck.
This is the last chance I’ve got to play with my Uncle Kolya. Yeah, I can do this. I want to, for him and for me. I nod too. Kolya’s smile gets wider.
Shit. I better start doing some warm-ups soon. I bet my fingers are gonna feel like sausages.
It takes a couple of hours for us to hear about the assembly. They’re a nice couple of hours. Within minutes of hanging out with Kolya, Alya goes all soft and lively. It’s like she dropped something heavy she was carrying, or took off a too-tight coat. She’s not been drinking, so that’s not it. I think she misses her life on the circus a lot more than she lets on. I was only there a few months and a lot of that sucked, but I’d go back in a heartbeat. There ain’t nothing quite like it, not that I know of. She was there for years, even though it was damn hard at times, so she must have loved it for sure. Now she can’t go back without hurting Raj. I think the big dea
l is that she can’t go back to the person she was there without hurting Raj’s family. That’s what she thinks, anyway. She’s more like herself now. I like to see that.
Raj is more chilled out, too. He always is around Kolya. There are fewer demands on him, or maybe there are just as many but they’re demands he can meet while being himself, doing what he loves. Maybe Kolya just has some kind of psi-bility that makes people feel better. It sure works for me.
When Asher walks in, Alya actually winces. Then she starts to build herself up into her Anteian persona. It looks like it’s costing her.
Asher drops himself on one of Kolya’s chairs. The guy’s so damn tall that every time he gets on and off furniture it looks like he’s disassembling and reassembling himself. I wonder if I move like that, too. We’re about the same height. He just seems taller with it. He looks tired, too, and sounds it. Still, he smiles.
“Mixed news. We don’t have enough people to have an assembly tonight, but some of them would like to meet regardless, if that’s ok with you. If it isn’t, they’re still going to meet, but they’ll talk about you instead of talking with you.”
Alya frowns. “That doesn’t sound terribly useful.”
“It makes sense. Calling for an assembly is telling them that something’s up. Now they want to know what it is.”
“If we don’t attend the meeting, would you tell them?”
“I’d rather not. It’s all complicated enough as it is. They’d only end up wanting to ask you to confirm it, anyway.”
“Alright, then.”
She looks wilted. No surprises there. We’ve had an eventful day and she did all of the flying.
“We can do it. We can go.” I say it before I think it.
“You what?”
“Raj and I can go. He can do the talking, and I can do the, dunno, the being there while he’s talking. It doesn’t take the three of us to tell a story. You can stay here and badmouth us with Kolya.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I don’t want to be around if you and Kolya get started on us.”
Alya smiles. “Ok, then. We can get dinner ready or something.”
“Let Kolya cook, hey?”
“Of course. I want to eat, too.”
Raj kisses her on his way out. He looks half disbelieving, half thrilled, and a lot more awake than he’s been lately. Maybe he’s more fed up of playing second fiddle to Alya than I realized. Neither of them are suited to taking a back seat, but they do it for each other all the time.
He smiles at Asher as we walk on. “Who are we meeting, exactly? I’m afraid I don’t know much about your political system.”
“Oh. Tonight, whoever turns up. Tomorrow, everybody. Well, everybody who’s on planet who wants to come.”
“What do you mean, everybody?”
“Everybody. We don’t have a representative system. We don’t have much of a system, really, but what we have is one person, one vote. Every decision is reached by referendum. In practice, most issues never get decided on and people do whatever they want, within limits. They have to be considerate of their neighbors whether they like it or not. We need each other too much for people to fuck around.”
“But how do you get anything done?”
“When something needs doing, people just get to it. As systems of government go, it’s terribly inefficient. That’s why we like it.”
“What?”
“This planet nearly got wiped out by the Fed just over ten years ago. We’re not big on centralized power.”
“I appreciate that, but…” Raj trails off.
“I know. It’s not as bad as it sounds. Most of the time we have a very limited selection of options to pick from. We have to do what’s going to work for us, and our resources are scarce. It makes life difficult at times, but it simplifies our decision-making. When that changes, we may need to find a different way of doing things. For now, though, it works.”
“So the assembly is going to include the entire population?”
“Unlikely. People are busy. If someone can’t make it, their householders can vote on their behalf. If they vote wrong they’ll get it in the neck, but we consider that an internal household matter.”
“What’s a household?”
“In theory, a self-sustaining unit. In practice none of us are self-sustaining. That would be terribly inefficient. It makes sense for people to do what they’re good at and trade. I mean, I’m a good pilot and floater but shit at most other things, so I fly. But every household has to contribute to the community, too. Well, they don’t have to, there’s no rule about it, but if they don’t they can get cut off from shared resources. That’s likely to be the main sticking point here. If I bugger off with you, I won’t be pulling my share. That could be a problem. Gwen can take on my job, but the kids would need looking after. Of the other two people in our household one is already as busy as he can be, and the other one is off-world on a long trip.”
“What about Quinn?”
“I’d like her to come with me. We work well together.”
“Her?”
Asher casts him a sidelong glance. “Yup. She has flown with me a bunch of times.” He puts a lot of emphasis on the ‘she’. I guess that given that he’s talking about a tall, buff dude with a beard I’m genuinely jealous of, the emphasis is kinda necessary. I don’t know what the fuck is going on here, but ok. “We talked about it at home. We haven’t reached a solid decision as yet, but if it turns out that if I’m really the chosen one or some suchlike shit, then I’d like Quinn to come with me. We make a good team. That will leave us short-handed at home, though. We’ll have to see how that goes down. My job isn’t something we can just leave undone.”
“Who covers for you when you take a holiday?”
Asher grins. “Oh, man. If my dear old mom had known that one day I would be mistaken for the kind of person who takes holidays, she would have been ever so proud of me.”
I’m sure Asher is just joking around, but Raj looks really upset. He knows that he’s got it better than most people and he kinda feels bad about it. He also doesn’t like insulting people, not even by accident.
Raj doesn’t say another word until we get to the meeting, then he pulls himself together and gives his speech. There are forty or fifty people here, sitting on the ground in a public square, all of them looking pretty tough. It doesn’t look like the sort of crowd who’s going to enjoy fairy tales. I’d shit a brick if I had to try and explain to them what we’re at, but Raj just gets on with it. He does a damn good job, too. I knew he would. He’s really good at talking to people. He actually gives a fuck – not just about what he’s saying, but about people really getting it. That comes through in everything he says, and people like it.
All I’ve got to do is sit my ass down and listen to him. Every now and then his eyes touch base with mine, he perks up a little bit, and he gets back into it. They’re asking a load of questions. We don’t have a lot of answers. He’s being open about that. That goes down well.
It goes on for quite a while. I find myself drifting off a few times and Raj is starting to flag, too. Asher must spot it, because he gets up and walks over to where Raj is standing.
“Ok, people. I don’t know about you, but I want to go and get my dinner. Assembly tomorrow evening, all being well. Thank you.”
He leads Raj off to the side of the square and I follow them. Some people go, some stay chatting to each other. We leave them to it and head back to Kolya’s. I’m feeling tired enough to drop off, but Raj is still buzzing.
“Was that ok?”
“Yeah, man. It was brilliant.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I wish Alya’d seen that.”
Asher nods. “Yeah. Our people are a bit particular about how they’re spoken to. You did very well. What is it that you do on Anteia?”
Raj gets flustered. “Not a lot. I help my family with their business.”
“What is their business?”
“These days, terraforming. Historically, a bit of this, a bit of that.”
“Any particular type of this and that?”
“Piracy, all aspects thereof. Smuggling, thieving, arms trafficking, a minor but effective protection racket... We aimed for a diverse portfolio.”
“That explains the swanky ship.” Asher’s smile is broad but weak.
“That’s part of it.” Raj sighs. “My family is on the Council.”
“Oh. Is that your government?”
“Yes.”
“Elected?”
“No. We’re moving towards that, but it’s happening slowly.”
“So you’re like a prince or something?”
“No. I’m a third son. My eldest brother has that dubious pleasure.”
“Well, shit.”
“I can’t do anything about it.”
Asher looks stricken. “What? No. Of course. Why would you?”
“Because it’s grossly unfair?”
They don’t say anything for a while, then Asher pipes up.
“Hang on a moment. Anteia. You have that festival, what do you call it? The Eisteddfod, right?”
“Yes. Do you watch it?”
“I used to. When I was a kid, back home, we used to try and find a bar that had screens facing the windows. Then we could stand outside and watch until they’d move us on for smudging their glass. We couldn’t hear it very well, but it was still cool. We had a good time.”
“Oh.”
“Are you into it?”
“My family runs it.” He says it like he’s telling Asher that his dog died.
“Oh.”
They both walk along staring at the ground like they’re looking for a hole to swallow them up. I hope to fuck they get over this. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who could help them sort this out, but I’m not one of them. I stare at the ground too, looking for a hole of my own.
