Last Song (Heinlein's Finches Book 3)

by Robin Banks

  Alya is breathing hard, but she keeps her voice level. “I understand. I apologize if I came across as underestimating Quinn’s talents.”

  The two of them are still glaring at each other, stiff as queens, when Quinn smiles again.

  “The easiest way of letting you know how my gift works is to demonstrate it for you. But it wouldn’t be pleasant.”

  “You would do that?” asks Alya.

  Quinn shrugs. “It seems only fair. I’m asking you to accept an outlandish notion while providing no proof, and this entire enterprise is already stretching the limits of most people’s tolerance for woo-woo. And if we’re in this together, which we need to be for the purpose of the mission, you should know what I’m bringing to the table.”

  “I would like that, if you’re ok with it.”

  “I wouldn’t have offered otherwise. What about the rest of you?”

  Raj nods. I shrug. I’d really rather not, but I don’t want to be the odd one out, again.

  Quinn gets up. “If we do it here, I’m going to zap everyone. Care to join me in my work room? It’s far enough that if I keep it down nobody else will be affected. We tested it.”

  Alya and Raj get up. Kolya nudges me and I get up too.

  When we get to it, round the back of the house, the room turns out to be hardly a room at all: it’s a lean-to attached to a lean-to attached to a lean-to, and about big enough to house five chickens, provided nobody likes them very much. There’s a mat covering the whole of the floor and a bunch of cushions. I guess that’s all Quinn needs to do her meditation and stuff. I also guess she doesn’t do much work with groups, because we have to cram ourselves to fit in. Alya and Raj sit with their legs crossed like they sometimes do at home. Quinn kneels down in that pose that makes her look totally composed and settled, but has gotta hurt. I end up in an untidy heap in the little space left over. My legs are too damn long and stick out everywhere. I feel like an upturned bug.

  Once we’re all set, Quinn sighs.

  “Are you sure you want to do this? It isn’t going to feel nice.”

  “That’s the point, isn’t it?” asks Alya.

  “Fine. Just remember that I warned you. I’m going to hold it just long enough for you to get an idea.”

  Something in her eyes changes, and next thing I know I can’t feel anything. Everything’s gone. My inside’s completely empty. I don’t feel bad and I don’t feel good and I don’t feel scared: I just don’t feel. Raj and Alya are staring blankly, their faces vacant, their bodies slack. I thought this was supposed to be bad, instead it’s the best I’ve felt – not-felt – for months. I don’t get it.

  Then it all comes back, all of it at once, and my chest explodes. It comes on too quickly for me to hide it. I’m used to my brain going to shit, but this feels physical, like I’ve got hit in the sternum hard enough to wind me. What I think doesn’t matter, though, because I can’t get any air in and I’m drowning in that feeling of impending death that I’ve had every single time I got winded, and even though I know it’s bullshit all I can do is keel over, wrap myself around the pain, gasp, and wait for it to go away.

  That would suck bad enough. It sucks exponentially because Alya sees me and immediately goes into emergency mode.

  “Luke? What the hell?”

  I want to tell her that I’m ok but I fucking can’t ‘cause I can’t fucking breathe so I can’t fucking speak. She turns around and goes off at Quinn.

  “What did you do to him?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Does that look like nothing to you?”

  “You felt what I did! I didn’t do anything else!”

  “Then why is he like this?”

  “I don’t know!”

  Alya’s pissed off enough to scream at Quinn until her voice gives up. I have to do something to stop her, so I do, even though it hurts. I stretch up, tug on her shirt, and manage to croak, “I’m alright.”

  She wheels around to look at me. “The hell you are! What happened?”

  “Dunno. Couldn’t breathe. No big deal.”

  She’s still glowering at Quinn, who’s looking really shaken up. I need this like I need a second asshole.

  “Not helping. Calm down. I’m fine. Need space.”

  I look up at Raj. He nods at me, stands up, and herds Alya and Quinn out of the room. As soon as they’re out the door the argument starts up again, still loud enough for me to hear it. At least now they’re arguing the toss as to what could have happened rather than just yelling at each other.

  After a couple of minutes I manage to roll over, even though my chest still hurts. I’m fed up with all this fucking drama and lying curled up like a baby is making me really angry at myself. I do the grown-up thing instead: I lie on my back, my knees up in the air ‘cause the room is too short for me to lie flat, and stare at the ceiling.

  I can’t hear Alya anymore. I don’t know if she got quieter or they all just walked off. I wasn’t paying attention. I'm trying to not be here, to imagine myself not-here.

  All I needed to do was take it like Alya and Raj. They didn’t keel over. They didn’t start an emergency. Yet a-fucking-gain I can’t fucking function, and my malfunctioning is creating trouble for everyone around me. Everything would be improved by my absence, but I can’t think myself out of existence. I still try, though.

  When there’s a knock at the door I assume it’s Alya. I also assume it will make no difference whether I tell her to come in or not, so I say nothing. Turns out I was only half right.

  “Are you ok?” Quinn’s voice. When I turn over to look, Quinn’s face, wearing Quinn’s worried expression, looking like it may soon lead to Quinn’s tears. I’m willing to bet that Alya doesn’t know she’s here. Maybe the dude isn’t brave or silly: maybe she’s both.

  “I said I was.”

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

  I think about it for a moment. “No.”

  “Oh.” Quinn’s setting chin and narrowing eyes. I didn’t think she had it in her to look that pissy. “That’s exceptionally unhelpful, you know that? I’m coming on this mission because of what my psi-bility can do. It looks like it has the potential to injure you. It may be foolish on my part, but I wish to avoid a repetition of this evening’s events. Without knowing what happened, I can’t circumvent it.”

  “Ah. I appreciate your predicament. However, my health falls outside of your bailiwick. Or is it purview? I always mix them up. Either way, you shouldn’t burden yourself with it.”

  “And if I injure you again in the process?”

  “That would be merely an unfortunate side effect of your endeavors and beyond your purview. Or bailiwick.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  “Then it seems we are at an impasse.”

  She blinks a few times. “You’re making fun of me, aren’t you? I’ve heard you talk. You don’t talk like that.”

  “Maybe I’m just trying to keep up with my intellectual superiors.”

  “What have I ever done to you?” she splutters. “I came here to check that you were ok and to apologize. I genuinely don’t know what the hell went on just then: this has never happened before, with anyone. I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known this could happen to you.”

  “And that’s meant to make me feel better?”

  She stops dead and thinks for a while. “No. It was meant to make me feel better. It was meant to square things up between us, but largely to clear my conscience. I’d not considered how it may make you feel. It appears that I owe you another set of apologies.”

  “Did it hurt much?”

  “Did what hurt?”

  “When they stuck that pole up your ass.”

  She’s so pissed off now that she doesn’t seem to be able to talk. Good. She’s more likely to leave me alone.

  I turn over to stare at the ceiling and speak without looking at her.

  “You know the door you came in from?”

  “What about it?”

>   “It’s the same door you can use to get out.”

  I can hear her suck in a giant breath and for a moment I wonder whether she’s gonna let me have it, but I guess she’s too highbred for that. Instead she gets out and slams the door. A moment later, she unslams it.

  “It’s my room you’re in, asshole.”

  “You’re right.”

  I get up off the floor. It really hurts to do so, because my chest still feels half caved in, but I don’t give a fuck. I want to get out of here. I want life to get back to normal. I start to walk towards the town. I thought Quinn would be glad to see the back of me, but she follows me.

  “Should you be walking?” Again with the worried expression. Can’t she stay pissed off at me for five minutes?

  “Seems the best option. I can’t tap dance for shit.”

  “Shouldn’t you be resting?”

  “Shouldn’t you have gone to the assembly?”

  “Someone had to stay behind.”

  “What for?”

  “To look after you, you asshole.”

  “I don’t need anyone to babysit me.”

  “You looked like you were having a heart attack. Even if Alya and Raj were going to leave you unsupervised, which they weren’t, I wouldn’t have. They all have to attend the assembly, so you’re stuck with me, ok? And I think you should get some rest. You scared the hell out of us all, and you still look like shit.”

  “I’m fine. I’m supposed to help Kolya with the food.”

  “Kolya doesn’t know any of this happened. He thinks you’re having a nap.” She says it like she’s embarrassed by it.

  “What? Why?”

  “Because Raj covers up for you, that’s why. This is not the first time this has happened to you, he knows it, and neither of you has the decency to tell anyone else what the fuck is going on because your sole priority is protecting your image. Coming from you, that doesn’t surprise me in the least. You’ve amply demonstrated that you’re an insufferable prick. I thought better of Raj. Clearly I was wrong.”

  “This has fuck-all to do with him.”

  “Has it now? Alya nearly shat a brick, she was that shocked. You didn’t bat an eyelid even though you were clearly hurting like hell. Raj just whisked us off and told us to keep mum about it. That tells me that this is normal to you, that Raj is aware of it, and that for reasons entirely beyond my comprehension he is going along with whatever you think you’re doing about it. Which, judging by how you’ve been treating yourself since you’ve been here, seems terminally unwise. If any of this is news to you, then you really ought to pay more attention.”

  “I…” I don’t know what to say. I know Raj has my back. I didn’t realize how much, I guess. I didn’t realize he knew what was going on with me. I didn’t know he’d noticed. I didn’t think he’d keep it from Alya if he knew.

  Quinn sighs. “I’m sorry for shouting.”

  “S’alright. I’m sorry for all of it.”

  “But you won’t talk about it.”

  “No.”

  “So what am I supposed to do?”

  “I thought you were going to be shielding around me anyway.” I feel my face starting to burn as I say that. There’s no part of this I’m cool with.

  “I am. But what if I need to use my psi-bility?”

  “You do that. You do what needs to be done. I’m ok, ain’t I?”

  “I guess.”

  “So you’re coming on the mission?”

  “Yeah. You rather made my point for me. Hard to suggest that my gift is useless after something like that.”

  “Alya and Raj were ok, though.”

  “No. They were affected while I was projecting. You got affected afterwards, somehow.” She glares sideways at me. “You did better than them, technically. My projection didn’t seem to bother you in the slightest. You could have taken me out during that.”

  “Yeah, well.” I leave it at that. She sighs again, but she drops it. Time to change the subject. “Have they mapped out a course yet?”

  “Yes and no. They tried it three ways: Asher doing it by the seat of his pants, Aiden doing it mathematically, and Gwen doing it by computer. The parameters being as vague as they are, the computer came up with a bunch of equally likely routes. Aiden came up with a headache and a route that made sense in theory but looked supremely weird on paper. Asher came up with a route that would suit Matilda.”

  “Matilda?”

  “Our ship. Then he remembered that the killer is flying something with better specs, so he produced a route based on that. Then Gwen pointed out to him that he’s probably the only person alive who could fly like that, so he tried to work out a route suitable to the average pilot flying a ship with the right specs. He came up with a bunch of different possible routes, none of which he liked, and a headache of his own.”

  “So what are they going to do?”

  “They’re going to follow your route.”

  “What? I just did a doodle. I hardly thought about it.”

  “Yes. Your route is intuitive and practical. If the killer is flying with the sole goal of hitting each Patrolman as quickly as possible, your route should work. If they have other goals or limitations, then until we’ve worked those out we won’t be able to anticipate their actions.”

  “I don’t want them to follow my damn route!”

  “Why?”

  “If it’s wrong, I’ll lead them the wrong way!”

  “If it’s wrong, it was their decision to follow it. Anyway, Raj altered it slightly. There are sites he would visit if he was not on a mission, so we’re going to hit them too. Our movements would look suspicious otherwise. We don’t want to end up with Raj or the Anteians accidentally embroiled in the murders just because we tracked them so closely.”

  “If we end up tracking them long enough to be trackable ourselves, doesn’t that mean that we fucked up?”

  “Yeah. But it could happen. I suspect this is also a way for Raj to justify the trip. It’s very kind of him to volunteer his time and resources.”

  “This is Kolya’s planet.”

  “And that’s enough to justify his efforts?”

  “Yes. Obviously. Maybe not to his dad, though. I don’t know.”

  “At any rate, Raj is now on a semi-official cruise on behalf of his family. He’s a visiting dignitary and we’re his retinue.”

  “And what do your people think we’re off doing?”

  “Working out what to say was a bit tricky. The official line we gave them is that we have ascertained that the threat is real and serious enough to be on a need-to-know basis only. It’s true, but not terribly satisfactory.”

  “And they bought that?”

  “I don’t know if they’ve voted yet. It wasn’t sounding optimistic, but ultimately they can’t stop us going. They don’t have that right.”

  “So what is the vote for?”

  She scowls at the ground. “If Asher and I both leave the planet, we won’t be able to do our jobs. Aiden can cover for Asher, Gwen can cover for Aiden, and Osh’s grandparents and Kolya can take turns to look after the kids, but that still leaves us with a share unworked.”

  “A share?”

  “We all have to do our bit for the community. I do piddly stuff, mostly running the crèche, but it still counts. If I’m not here, it won’t get done.”

  “But you’ll be risking your godsdamned life for the good of them all!”

  “And if they agree to that, then we’ll be ok. In fact, we’d be a share up. If not, we’ll still go, but there could be difficulties. We’re communitarians both by necessity and by inclination, but we are not communists. We all have to pull our weight. Some households can afford to buy their way out of doing stuff. My household isn’t one of them. Sasha is our only source of credit at the moment and she’s working as hard as she can. Far too hard, if you ask me. She doesn’t see her kids anywhere near enough.”

  She looks at me like she’s expecting some kind of response, and like it’s
important. I have no idea what I’m supposed to be thinking or saying.

  “So what happens if the assembly votes against?”

  “We’ll go and we’ll manage somehow. I don’t quite know how. Individual members of the community may decide to help us out.”

  “Is there anything we can do?”

  “What? No. Aren’t you doing enough already?”

  “We’re doing stuff for Kolya. For Pollux. Because it needs doing. Whatever. We’re not doing shit for you.”

  “Why would you?”

  “Dunno. ‘Cause of the mission. ‘Cause it needs doing. I didn’t know there was a quota on doing shit. I don’t know how anything works, ok?”

  We’re at the town square. I’m fucking glad of that. I can’t talk to Quinn without putting my foot in it, even when I’m just trying to talk about practical stuff. She looks as confused as I feel, and I have no idea where the conversation went off the rails.

  “You don’t have anything to say about the fact that my household can’t manage?”

  “What? Dunno many families that would cope well with losing half the adults in them, even for a short while.”

  “But Alya and Raj can go swanning about at no notice and for no pressing need. And so can you.”

  “Yeah, well, Raj’s family isn’t normal. He can’t help that. Alya married into that. And I lost my fucking job just before I left, and I ain’t got anyone to depend on me, and my life is none of your business.”

  “I wasn’t… Whatever.”

  We take our seats at the back without saying anything else. Alya and Raj are fielding questions. She looks good up there, really confident and fierce. She spots us coming in and smiles at me. I guess she’s gonna let my earlier performance slide. I wonder how many chances I can blow with her before she decides she’s had enough of me, but I guess today’s not that day.

  8. Quinn

  We get there just on time to catch the tail end of the debate. Raj and Alya are still up, taking questions from the crowd. Not all of them are pertinent, but that tends to be how these things go: it is generally those with the least to say who wish to speak the most. As the questions peter out Alya leaves the stage and comes to sit with us. Luke looks at her advancing figure as if she was the goddess of spring coming forth to bring new life into the world. Instead, all she gives him is an elbow to the ribs.