Last Song (Heinlein's Finches Book 3)

by Robin Banks

  “Maybe I’ll give you a try instead.”

  Luke’s grin gets even broader and he takes a step back.

  “Are you telling me now so I’ll notice?”

  “What?”

  Luke takes another step back.

  “If you were to try and fuck me and I didn’t notice, that’d be embarrassing for you. Particularly in front of your little friends. Unless they’re part of the whole service. Three for the size of one, kinda thing.”

  The goons step towards him and he takes another step back. This would make sense, maybe, if he wasn’t walking himself into the back of the bar, which doesn’t have an exit. He’s not even managing to keep out of range. This becomes painfully obvious when Chief Goon takes another short step and throws a punch right at his face. Luke doesn’t try to block it; he just seems to go liquid and move with it, like I’ve seen him do at training. It doesn’t stop the punch hitting his face but it does seem to reduce its impact. It doesn’t do anything to stop the other side of his face from hitting the edge of one of the booths, though, hard enough to split the skin. Blood blossoms out of the cut and starts to weep down to his chin.

  By then I’ve managed to shake myself off and get myself together. I’ve also managed to get up, step behind the nearest goon and push my wristband against his neck. It has to be the wristband, that cold, inanimate feeling against his skin, even though the contact isn’t necessary. I’d really prefer not to kill him unless he makes me, and if I only placed my hands on him he’d probably flip out. Instead he freezes and makes a gasping noise.

  “Gentlemen, don’t make me do anything I won’t regret.”

  The other two goons turn around to look at me. I’m not sure whether they’d forgotten me or discounted me, but they sure as hell didn’t expect me to be pointing a deadly, illegal weapon at their friend. They freeze too.

  “Move along, then. Easy does it.” I push my goon down the corridor and the other two back up ahead of us until we’ve reached the ‘fresher door. “In you get. I’d like you to sit and think about how much nicer it is when we all get along. I’m hoping it will take a while. I would really, really hate to see you again and have to take steps. Does that sound reasonable?”

  The two goons who don’t have a dart pointed at their neck nod at me. The one I’m holding doesn’t move at all. Chief Goon opens the ‘fresher door and they both back into it. I throw my goon at them, Luke slams the door shut, and I shoot my dart inside the lock, where it expands and burns as it goes. The smell is awful.

  I grab Luke and make towards the exit. When we reach the bar I stop.

  “Credit?” Luke looks at me in total confusion, so I add, “for the damage.” He grabs a bunch of loose credit from his pocket and hands it to me. I put it in front of the barman. “Sorry about the mess. This should cover it. If you tell those guys which way we went, we’ll come back for you. Have a nice day.”

  We get out of there before he’s had a chance to react.

  I start walking towards the spaceport, going as fast as I can without looking like I’m running. After a couple of blocks Luke stops me and drags me into the doorway of another bar.

  “How long is that lock gonna hold them?”

  “No idea. I don’t even know if burning a lock like that actually seals the door, but I figured that watching me do that would give them pause. Nobody wants a charred hole in their body.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s brilliant or ridiculous.”

  “Could be both. You’re bleeding all over yourself.”

  “What?” He touches his temple and his hand comes up bloody. “It’s nothing.”

  “It isn’t. Your shirt is soaked.”

  He looks down at himself. “It’s still nothing. It doesn’t even hurt.”

  “You can’t get back to the ship bleeding like a stuck pig. We’re going to get stopped.”

  He shakes his head at me. “What the hell do you know about pigs?”

  “We smuggled some once. Ate some, too. Stop trying to change the subject. You need a medic.”

  “I don’t want to go to a med bay. I don’t want stitches.”

  “Why they hell would you get stitches? This isn’t Terra.”

  He blinks. “Oh. Yeah. I forgot I’m posh now. I don’t want a med bay, anyway. Scalp wounds just bleed a lot.”

  “That’s not your scalp. That’s your face. You’re damn lucky it wasn’t your eye.”

  “Same difference. Can you just leave it?”

  “No. I won’t drag you to a med bay if you don’t want to, but we need to stop the bleeding. Ok?”

  He closes his eyes. “Ok. Whatever.”

  “You stay here. I’m going to go and get some stuff.”

  “No.” His eyes spring open again. “You’ve seen what it’s like around here. I don’t want you going around on your own.”

  “You think I’m so obvious that people will assault me on the street?”

  “No. I think that if something was to happen to you while you’re getting supplies so you can fix my face after I went and got myself beaten up trying to protect you when you didn’t need it after I got you in trouble in the first place…” He runs out of breath. “I’d never forgive myself, is all.”

  “Alright. But your face needs medical attention.”

  “Cup of hot water and napkins will do it. It’ll stop bleeding on its own soon enough.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “I am. I’ve done it before.”

  I don’t agree with anything he’s saying, but he looks so worn out and pitiful that I can’t find the nerve to push him around. We walk into the bar, Luke walking beside me and hanging his head down so his hair covers at least some of the mess. He stops a few booths away from the door and sits facing it. I don’t fancy more of the education the locals seem so keen to give me, so I drop my shields, just in case.

  I go and get him a coffee and a tea for me, so I can have an excuse to ask for hot water. The girl at the bar looks puzzled when I ask her to leave the tea out. I find that comical, considering what she already failed to notice. I shove a bunch of napkins in my pocket, earning myself another stare from the barwoman, grab the tray to bring the drinks to our table, turn around, and Luke is gone. I can’t see him anywhere. I wonder momentarily if he could have gone to the ‘fresher, but to do that he’d have to have squeezed past me. The only place he could have gone without me noticing is right back out again, which would be an utterly ridiculous thing for a man in his current state to do, as well as a rather shitty one being as he’s left me here on my own. I guess I’m lucky that he gave me the credit for the drinks before disappearing. I don’t even know why I’m surprised: with him no normal rules of conduct seem to apply.

  Standing in the middle of this damn bar is not my idea of blending in, so I walk towards the door to get a seat. I’d rather be as close to the exit as possible if things get exciting again. As I’m walking down, I hear Luke’s voice. He sounds confused.

  “Quinn?”

  I shield up, look around, and spot him, sitting right where I left him, large as life and twice as pretty. He didn’t just walk in or come up from under the table: he wasn’t there, and then he was. This is weird.

  I drop my shields again. He doesn’t disappear, but I struggle to keep my eyes on him: they want to slide past him and forcing them to stay in place is uncomfortable. Even then, I can’t see him clearly. He is like a picture with poor definition, all fuzzy edges and uncertain details. I don’t know if it’s because I can’t focus on him properly or because my brain insists that I’m looking at nothing. I have to remind myself that he’s there.

  I put my shields back up and there he is. Drop my shields, and he goes. I do it a few times, just to make sure, because this is, without exceptions, the weirdest moment of my life. Every time he reappears he looks more freaked out.

  “Quinn? What the fuck is going on?”

  I realize how weird this must look, so I put my tray down on the table and slide on the bench n
ext to him.

  “You’re really hard to look at.”

  “Thank you? Gods, it’s only a fucking cut.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. It’s hard to see you. Hard to focus on you. You’re doing something.”

  His scowl makes the cut bleed again. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “You are! If I shield up, I can see you loud and clear, but if I unshield I hardly can. I can see you once I know you’re there, but it takes a lot of effort. You’re doing some kind of psi-thing.”

  “I thought it was me who got whacked on the head. Stop talking crap.”

  I wet the napkin to dab at his cut. He shies away from my hand at first, then takes a deep breath, braces, and lets me get on with it.

  “I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know what the hell you’re doing, but you are doing it. I’ve never seen anything like that before. What were your psi-ratings, anyway?”

  “Don’t have any.”

  “What? You come from a Fed place, right? Didn’t you get tested?”

  “No.” I keep staring at him until he sighs and carries on. “At eight I couldn’t handle the written pre-test. I could hardly read back then. There were a lot of kids in my class, and it’s not like I was a prospect for any kind of Fed program, so they didn’t bother putting me through the rest of it. I was taking up too much of their time. And I missed my year eleven tests because I was busy.”

  “Busy? Too busy to take Fed-mandated tests? How busy can an eleven-year-old be?”

  “I didn’t go to school much that year.”

  “Why?”

  “I was busy getting stitches, like a good Old Terran boy.”

  “You what?”

  He takes a deep breath. “You’re not going to drop this, are you?”

  “No chance.”

  “Gods!”

  He pulls the hair up on his temple. There is a scar just above his ear – a red line with rows of parallel dots on either side of it. I really want to touch it but I don’t want him to smack me, so I keep my hands to myself.

  “How the hell did you get that?”

  “I fell over.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I have a genetic predisposition to getting hit in the head. How’s that?”

  “You could tattoo a fish head at one end and a fish tail at the other.”

  “What?”

  “It looks like a fish spine.”

  His face goes through a range of fleeting emotions before settling back down to blankness. “This is what you think about when people show you their scars? How to turn them into skin art?”

  “Not usually.”

  “You’re seriously weird, you know that?”

  “I’ve heard that before. But I’m not the one with unexplored psi-bilities. You should find out about this. Get some testing.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to.”

  “It could be useful.”

  “Maybe I don’t care.”

  “If you have a psi-bility, it’s a part of you. And all parts of you are important.”

  He snorts. “You make it sound like you mean it.”

  “That’s because I do.”

  “Look… Ok. When we get home I’ll tell Alya. She’ll know what to do to get that looked at. How’s that?”

  “Do you mean back to the ship, or home-home?”

  “Home-home. Or even Pollux. As soon as this mission is over, ok? We’ve got enough going on as it is.”

  This is a Mattie style of deal, I know it. I can see it in his face. He’s being perfectly truthful and honest, but he’s somehow screwing me and I have no idea how. It’s a reasonable deal, though, so I have to agree to it.

  “Ok. As soon as the mission is over, you tell Alya.”

  “Not so fast. You get something, I get something. What are we going to tell Alya about this?” He points at his cut.

  “Let me guess. You fell over?”

  “She wouldn’t buy it. And I try not to lie to her unless I have to.”

  “She would buy it if you got drunk, and I’m totally willing to trip you up afterwards if that helps.”

  He looks at me like I’m suggesting something dreadful.

  “That may not be such a good idea. I’ve already had my ass kicked today. I don’t fight any better when I’m wasted.”

  “We can go somewhere a bit more upmarket.”

  He snorts. “Yeah. We could find ourselves a nice upmarket third-class joint on a segregated station. That’s likely. And if we found one I’d fit in so well there, particularly with a bashed face.”

  I don’t know what the hell he’s on about. Even with a bleeding cut and a stained shirt he looks like an elf princeling slumming it to blend in with the natives.

  “I wasn’t suggesting crashing a dinner at the VIP quarters. We can find somewhere in between. And we don’t have to get wasted. It’s not as if Alya is going to run a tox screen on you tomorrow, is it?”

  He sighs. “No. She’ll just flail me. Ok. One drink.”

  “You’re totally in control of that. You’re buying. Again.”

  We walk back towards the spaceport until we find a bar that looks bad enough to serve us in our current state but not enough to kill us, where we have a single, solitary drink. Luke glares at it before drinking it as if he was waiting for it to animate itself and attack him. I’m not surprised, as he picked some kind of local excuse for whiskey that smells more suited to cleaning engine parts than human consumption. He doesn’t offer me a second drink and I don’t ask for one. I don’t feel like drinking anymore anyway. I feel light-headed enough already.

  I guess the day has been eventful, in an odd way. Maybe I’ve stayed at home too long: I forgot about all the ups and downs of adventuring. Maybe I’m just not used to riding the adrenaline rush anymore. All I know is that I’ve not done much and I’ve not achieved anything but I feel wrung out.

  When we get to our ship Asher isn’t back yet. I crack open the first aid kit and start to get the supplies out while Luke glares at me.

  “I can do that myself. I have a mirror.”

  “Absolutely. You can let me have a look at it, or you can forget about me covering up with Alya. Your call.”

  “That’s unfair. We had a deal.”

  He looks disgusted at me, but he sits down and lets me sort him out.

  “It doesn’t look that bad. Hopefully it won’t scar, though a medic…”

  “Quinn. Enough already.”

  He doesn’t say anything else after that and I don’t push him. I patch him up, put everything away, wish him a good night, and go to bed to wait for Asher. If any sense can be made of how I feel right now, he’ll be able to do it.

  13. Luke

  When I get out for breakfast Asher is the only one up. I gave up long ago any hope of having breakfast alone: my insomnia is no match against those dudes’ healthy lifestyle. Seeing just one of them is weird, though. They’re normally joined at the hip unless they’re working.

  I nearly back out of the kitchen, but check myself. I don’t want to act twitchy in front of Asher. I tell myself that I’m being ridiculous, anyway. If Asher wants to have an early breakfast, or Quinn a late one, it has nothing to do with me. As soon as I walk in, though, he looks up at me and I start kicking myself for ignoring my instinct.

  “What up?”

  “Quinn told me about that scrape you got into last night.”

  At least he’s being direct.

  “Out of curiosity, is there anything Quinn doesn’t tell you?”

  “Anything she doesn’t think is my business, and everything that gets prefaced with ‘don’t tell Asher’, though that may result in her telling you that she’d rather not know. I hardly think that yesterday’s adventures qualify for censorship, though.”

  “If you got up early just to tell me that I’m a damned fool, there was no need. I worked that out all by myself.”

  He looks at me like I’ve lost the plot. “No. I woke up at the usual time but told Quinn to sta
y in bed so I could thank you properly without embarrassing you or getting you into trouble with Alya. That’s what people do when someone risks a beating to protect their partner: they say thank you.”

  “It wasn’t like that. She didn’t tell the story right. She saved my ass.”

  “That was after you stood up to three guys who were harassing her.”

  “That was my fault. We were holding hands. I mean, we weren’t, but it looked like it.”

  He looks even more confused. “How can it look like you’re holding hands when you’re not?”

  “We were holding hands, kinda. But not like that. Just, like, you know, our hands were touching.”

  “Ok. So you were holding hands, but you weren’t. I get it. Oddly enough, that didn’t make it into Quinn’s version of the story, but whatever. You did, however, step in front of three ill-intentioned people to protect her, correct?”

  “Kinda. Then it turned out that I didn’t need to. And in the process I got my head bashed in, so she had to patch me up. Not precisely heroic.”

  “I beg to differ, but I shan’t attempt to force my point of view on you. At any rate, I’m thankful. I guess Alya and Raj won’t be privy to any of this.”

  “I’d rather they weren’t.”

  “Because you think they’d think ill of you?”

  “I’d just rather they didn’t know, ok?”

  “Sure. What are you going to tell her about that cut?”

  I shrug. “Quinn and I went drinking. I bashed my head into some bar furniture. They’re both technically true.”

  “But you’re splicing them together deliberately to make a lie. And you’d rather have them believing that than knowing that you stood up to protect a friend. I don’t get you. I don’t get you at all.”

  “If I tell Alya I nearly got into a fight and why, she’ll worry about me and about Quinn. If I tell her I’m a crap drunk, she’ll just think I’m irresponsible and yell at me until I promise her that I’m not going to go out drinking again. And I have no intention to.”