by Robin Banks
“You betcha. Be a darling and pick up Quinny along the way.”
“I can’t pick her up. She’s too damn built for my fragile carcass to lift, and on top of that she has a vicious right elbow. But I think if you ask nicely she’ll join us of her own accord.”
I attempt to smile at them. “Too right. Lead the way, and I’ll join you as soon as I’ve checked on the kids.”
Gwen frowns. “Do they need checking on?”
“They don’t. I do.”
“Fair point, well made.” She wraps her arms around Asher’s neck. “Onwards and upwards, then.”
“What am I, your horse?”
“If you’re lucky.”
I’m glad to hear them bantering, but it all feels skin-deep, if that.
When I get out of the house I spot Raj standing by Asher’s fishing spot. I can’t see his face, but his body language is loud and clear. So many people find solace in being stopped from taking difficult actions: it gives them the opportunity to still consider themselves heroes for what they’d be willing to do while keeping their hands safe and clean. He’s clearly not one of those people, and the brakes he’s applying to himself are a burden to him. I wish I knew him well enough to find the words he needs to hear, but I don’t. I don’t even have the right to intrude on his feelings. After I’ve looked at my kids long enough to feel that life is worth living despite all the shit it involves, I head back indoors and send Alya out to find him.
7. Luke
It doesn’t take me long to look at this load of data. There’s not as much of it and I know what I’m looking for. Normally that’s a problem, because looking stops me seeing. I reckon that half the reason I’m good at what I do is that most of the time I have no fucking idea what’s happening or what should be happening, so I have no preconceptions, so I can see what’s actually there. This kind of search is different, though, because I’m looking for something specific. The fact that I don’t find it is frustrating but informative in its own way.
When I come out of my whatever-you-wanna-call-it, I find Mattie minding me and Jojo. I don’t know whether it’s sweet that they’re doing that or fucking annoying that everyone believes that I’m so bad at looking after myself that a kid that young can do a better job. I smile at her, anyway. She’s cool and none of this is her fault.
“Hello.”
“Hi. You didn’t go so far away this time.”
“Nah. Everything I needed was right here.”
“Are you going to tell your mommy now?”
“My mommy? You mean your mommy?”
She rolls her eyes. “No, I mean your mommy. My mommy’s busy. She’s doing uncle Aiden’s work.”
“What is uncle Aiden doing?”
“Making your ship better for my daddy. He says your cloak is rubbish. Raj went with daddy and nonny to talk to boring people. Osh went to his granddad’s with Mitya and Nika. It’s just us and your mommy here.”
I wanna tell her that my mom’s back on Celeano, either whacked out on some meds or asleep ‘cause with her there’s no third option, but that doesn’t seem appropriate.
“Do you mean Alya? She’s not my mom.”
“She thinks she’s a girl, right? And she takes care of you all the time?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“That’s a mommy. If she thought she was a boy, she’d be your daddy. If they’re not a boy or a girl, they’re your nonny. It’s simple.”
“You take care of Jojo and you’re not his mommy.”
“But I get fed up with him and want him to hurry up and grow so I don’t have to. Does Alya hurry you up?”
“I guess not.”
“There you go.” She sighs. “You don’t know very much, do you?”
“Not about mommies, no. Hey, I better go find her. I don’t know how long I can stay up for.”
I manage to get myself to the house under my own steam, but I can feel myself fading fast.
“Alya? News. Some good, some not.”
“You want a coffee?”
“No. I wanna tell you this crap and collapse.”
“That bad?”
“Yeah. I’m going to give you the info and what I can make of it. I have no idea if I’m going to remember half of this when I wake up, so it’s up to you. The arrival logs didn’t show anything people-wise. No convenient traveler arriving at our locations hours or days before the deaths.”
“That’s disappointing.”
“Yes and no. The logs did show the same model ship arriving at the four locations at very convenient times. Well, multiples of each model, but only one model turned up at all four locations within the right time limits. Different log numbers each time, but that doesn’t mean much. Anyone who can get fake papers can get fake ship logs, too. I can’t see them changing ships, though, particularly if they think they’re untraceable. So we know what they’re travelling in, kinda.”
“Is it a common model?”
“Alya, what do I know about ships?”
“Point. So this may not narrow down our search much.”
“Nah. It narrows it down a ton. If we know what they fly, we know how fast and how far they can go. We definitely know the locations they want to hit. We can project their itinerary based on that. If you want to run the actual math you’re going to have to get Asher or Aiden on this, or you can give it a shot yourself. I don’t have those numbers and even if I did my brain’s closed for business. But at the moment it looks like they started at one point, no idea why, and they’re making their way via the most convenient route for their vessel. There are only twenty-two more Patrolmen to…” I realize just in time that Mattie and Jojo are listening to us. “Anyway. Thirty-two in the squad. Four died already – not our four, another four. Ten quit, and Gwen could only find eight of them. Chances are that if she can’t, neither can anyone else. Her info’s good. So, only twenty-two more possible locations, and someone travelling to them in a known vessel. This isn’t data analysis: it’s a game of join-the-dots.”
“So you can work out where they’re going to hit next?”
“I think so. And if I’m right we won’t make it there on time, not for the next one. But we might be able to get them at the one after, and definitely the one after that. They’ve got to stop and do their thing, and we don’t. It’s taking them a few days to do each job. We can catch up with them. We still have to find them once we get there, mind you, but at least we vaguely know what we’re looking for. We can be waiting for them. If I got it right, anyway. You really need to get a pilot to look at the whole thing.”
“Kid, you did good. You really did. Did you plot your projection down?”
“Kinda. I did a doodle. Alya, I have to go to sleep. Like, now.” I’m finding it really hard to keep my head up and my eyesight is getting really weird. Alya’s face keeps dropping in and out of focus and everything around her is fading to red and black.
“Alright. Go to bed!”
“Can’t. I’m going to throw up.”
I cross my arms on the table and rest my head on them to try and stop it from spinning away.
At first I think it’s the clanging of crockery that woke me up, but it’s been going on for a while. I’ve been dreaming about it. Then I notice the smell. My stomach notices it too and rumbles loud enough to hear.
I try to degum my eyes and fail. A cup of coffee lands in front of my nose before I’ve managed to lift my head up. I recognize those knuckles.
“Kolya?”
The hand moves to ruffle my hair. Anyone else and I’d hate them for that, but this is my uncle Kolya and he’s cooking. Gods, I feel good. My head seems way too heavy for my neck to ever hold it up again and the rest of my body feels liquid and weighs a ton, but I feel good. I’m just not going to move in a hurry, is all.
“You work too hard. That girl, she teaches you this. My fault. I let her.”
“Alya’s alright.”
I let my head roll side to side, trying to get the crick out of my neck.
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“This is not alright. All day you sleep, still you look like shit.”
“I got stuff done, though.”
I manage to get my forehead off the table and rest my chin on my arms.
“I hear. No: I hear bullshit. That girl, she don’t tell me anything. Some big secret. I don’t like this, but is ok. She has reasons.” He slides a plate of blinis in front of me. “Eat. You miss lunch. You keep sleeping, you miss vote, you miss party. Nearly one week you are here, we never play.”
“I’ve been busy.” A giant yawn forces me to pick my head up off the table. Another one gets me up on my elbows. My head still feels heavy and I can’t stop yawning, but I’m nearly upright. Progress.
“This I also hear. Alya is very proud. She can’t tell me why, but she is proud, and she is difficult. So I know I am proud too.”
I finally manage to focus on his face. He’s smiling.
Some of the best moments of my life have been in a kitchen with uncle Kolya. Back then we didn’t have much time for ourselves, but we packed a lot of living in what we had. That’s one of the best things about him: whatever he’s doing, he does that deliberately and fully. He never does anything while thinking about doing something else, even when he’s doing nothing. By the looks of it, what he’s doing right now is making enough pelmeni for an army.
“You need a hand? Several hands?”
“First you have coffee, eat, wake up. Then maybe you can help.”
“Is this for the assembly?”
“Yes. First the vote, then we eat, then we play. You must wake up. If not, you don’t play, you don’t dance, and all the girls cry.”
That makes me snort in my coffee.
“I think the girls would be perfectly ok without me.”
He shrugs. “Ok. All the boys cry.”
“They’d be ok, too. Nobody’s going to cry because I missed a party.”
“Me. I will cry. Now eat your food. You are too thin.”
“You’ve been saying that to me since I was sixteen.”
“And still you don’t listen, you don’t eat. So I keep saying.”
I can’t remember the last time I felt this relaxed. I can’t remember the last time I felt this rested, either, even though I’m still yawning like it’s going out of fashion.
“What time it is?”
“After four. Too late. Maybe I don’t finish this, there is no food, no party, no music, no dancing.”
“Can’t have that. All the girls and boys will cry.”
No wonder I feel rested: I’ve slept nearly eight hours straight. I’ve not managed that in months. Thinking about that nearly makes me think about the reason why, and I don’t want to do that. I focus on my Uncle Kolya instead, his huge, knobby hands moving so nimbly, making everything they do look easy.
I take a big breath, let off another yawn, and attack my breakfast. My stomach’s too sleepy to argue back. Another cup of coffee brings me up to half awake: plenty alert enough to fuck about with dough, nowhere near able to think. This is perfect.
I don’t know how long we’re there for, mixing and rolling and folding and twisting and occasionally swearing when things don’t work out. I know even as I’m living it that it’s one of those endless moments that my brain stores in its own special box, a moment I will be able to return to, a permanent landmark for this feeling. The light outside is growing dim, my pelmeni come out every shape bar the one the gods intended, uncle Kolya keeps chuckling at me, and it all feels so good I could cry.
When the door slams open and Alya and Gwen erupt through it, both fuming and both trying to one-up each other on acting calm and rational, it feels less like a change in mood and more like a punch in the face.
Gwen smiles with the bottom third of her face. “With all due respect, it just seems that at this stage in the game raising this kind of objection is counterproductive.”
Alya smiles back, just as insincerely. “Your concerns are duly noted.”
“As are yours.”
“You appear to miscalculate the import of my objections.”
“Would you care to clarify?”
“I am actually capable of deciding who does and doesn’t travel on my vessel. The possessive in that sentence is more than a mere filler.”
“And that’s precisely as it should be, if one believes that ownership makes one a tactical expert.”
They glare at each other, breathing heavily, nostrils flared. Raj and Asher are on their respective sidelines, ready to jump in if things go south. Quinn looks about to jump in the middle, which doesn’t seem like a healthy option. I snatched all the sharps off the table and put them behind us. I have no fucking idea what is going on, but if those two have a go at each other we’re all going to get mauled trying to stop them.
Kolya is a fucking genius, as per always, because he takes an entirely different tack. He claps his hands and smiles like nothing’s happening.
“Tea for everyone! Nice hot drink!”
He doesn’t wait for a response: he just starts bustling about. He puts the tea on, clears some room on the table, sets it up for everyone, and gets the girls to sit down. They both look like they’d rather bludgeon each other with the teapot than have a drink together, but they’re still trying to outpolite each other, so they both go along with it.
After they’ve had a couple of sips, I start to hope that we’re all going to survive this. Kolya doesn’t say anything until he’s poured them a second cup, though.
“So, assembly soon? All ready?”
Gwen’s nostrils flare again. “Yes and no. We appear to have hit a snag.”
Alya puts her cup down. “I just think that maybe we ought to consider more thoroughly our choice of crew. We have reasons to believe that Asher’s participation was foretold, purely because he’s the only one who matches Dee’s description, but she didn’t see anything about Quinn.”
“And you don’t think she should come.”
“And I’m not confident she’s the best choice. Tactically speaking.”
“And the day we’re due to have a public vote on this is the day this tactical realization comes to you?”
“No. I’ve been thinking about it for some time. That’s entirely my fault: I should have spoken up sooner.”
“And it’s a purely tactical call. It doesn’t have anything to do with Luke’s aversion to Quinn’s psi-bility.”
Alya scowls. “No. It bloody well doesn’t. I’ve not discussed this with Luke at all. I just don’t think Quinn should come along, and you’re not saying much to convince me otherwise. Quinn’s psi-bility is immaterial.”
Gwen breathes slowly for a bit. “That’s my point. It’s not. Quinn’s psi-bility is why I want her on your godsdamned ship.”
“That is what you’re failing to explain to me, possibly because you’re too busy telling me that my opinion doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe I can help.” Quinn smiles at them. She’s brave or silly, that one. Alya and Gwen both roast her with their stares, but she carries on. “I can sense emotions, however well they’re disguised. In fact, the greater the contrast between someone’s body language and their emotions, the easier it is for me to spot the discrepancy. I can read what people feel, its intensity, and whether it changes. Sometimes it makes me able to anticipate people’s actions. This has proved useful in combat.”
“You’ve actually applied this in combat?” asks Alya.
Quinn’s jaw sets. “Yes.” She leaves it at that. Her expression doesn’t invite further questions.
“If you’ll permit me the suggestion, your gift as you’ve described it doesn’t seem enough of a reason to take you along.”
“I can also emp-project. I can do so in order to let people know exactly what I feel. I can’t envisage that having any practical applications in this context, but I can do it. What is more useful is that I can project emotions so the receivers are personally affected by them. I don’t have to project the emotions I’m feeling; I can manufacture an emo
tional state and send it across so the receivers feel what I’m projecting as if it was their own emotion. The overall effect depends on how convincing my projection is and how receptive the receivers are. We’re still working it all out. We’ll probably be working it out forever, because my range and effectiveness improve with practice. We don’t yet know what my limits are.”
“And you believe this to have practical applications for our mission?”
“Potentially. We will be trying to stop a threat, after all. The appropriate emotion at a strong enough level can be incapacitating.”
“How can a fake emotional state stop a determined attacker?”
“By interfering with their thought processes, even if temporarily. It might not stop them altogether, but it may cause them to hesitate long enough to give us an edge. I don’t know about you, but on life-or-death matters I want all the edge I can get.”
“I’m still unsure it’s enough to justify taking you.”
Gwen finally snaps. “I don’t understand why we need to justify anything. Asher has to go, and he’s not going without Quinn. That’s all.”
“Oh, really?” Alya folds her arms over her chest. “I should take two people off on my ship, to risk their lives for my mission, which I came to deliver at your door, and ignore the potential consequences?”
“It’s our planet you’re trying to protect.”
“Off to save the world, hey? Isn’t that just grand. Songs and poems will be written about us, no doubt. Problem is, that’s all fiction. I’ve seen your kids, and they’re real. You’re asking me to potentially be responsible for turning them into half-orphans. Two-third-orphans. Whatever. It’s bad enough that I’m taking their father away. You want me to take their… Quinn, too, and not worry about it, as if it wasn’t an issue? Forgive me for giving a damn.”
Gwen’s face twitches. When it settles back down she takes a few slow breaths before speaking. “No. You should forgive me. I had not considered that point of view. I want Asher to go with Quinn because he’s the best pilot we’ve got. If anyone can get you there and back, he will. And I want Quinn to go with Asher because her psi-bility has saved our lives before. They’re the two people I love the most, bar my children, but they’re also the people I trust the most to bring each other home.”
