Last Song (Heinlein's Finches Book 3)

by Robin Banks

  Sometimes I find the situation amusing, or at the very least intriguing. Increasingly, though, it’s wearing on me. I’m not used to getting barked at on a regular basis. It’s not just any old barking, either: Luke is a pathetic excuse for a human being at a number of levels, but he’s clever. As my taunts become more targeted, so do his responses. It’s becoming increasingly hard not to yell back at him, which I really don’t want to do. That would put me firmly in the wrong. Things are getting really heated between us, though, to the point that I’m starting to wonder whether one of us is going to snap and cross the line between a mild breach of etiquette and a social disaster. I’m also starting to wonder whether I can stop this. I don’t enjoy it, not really, but every single godsdamned time I see his perfect face don that perfect wan look I get an urge to shatter it. The fact that I hate the fallout doesn’t seem to be enough to stop me. It’s becoming a compulsion, and an unhealthy one at that.

  Meditating doesn’t help. I sit and try to focus, or to unfocus, and instead all I end up doing is thinking about Luke. Even when I don’t think about him, my psi-bility keeps shoving him at me. Unless I’m actively shielding I can’t stop noticing him, even though I can’t read him. He’s a dull spot in my psi-bility and a sore spot in my life. Wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, whatever I am doing, he’s always intruding on my consciousness.

  I am sure I could snap out of this if only we had some godsdamned space to get away from each other. Even a few minutes of actually not feeling him, instead of non-feeling him, would be a relief. Stuck in a ship as we are, though, that’s simply not an option. I’ve never suffered from cabin fever, on- or off-ship, but I guess there’s a first time for everything. That it should happen at a time where I’m plagued by such an irritant is unfortunate, but there is nothing I can do about it bar trying to manage my behavior.

  I am spending as much time in our room as I can without offending our guests or damaging my health. Asher knows I’m not myself and does his best to cheer me up, but in our circumstance there isn’t much he can do. It would be infinitely easier for me to bring him down, which I really don’t want to do. Every time I stick my nose out the door, though, I end up having a spat with Luke. It’s both frustrating and exhausting.

  I’ve just retreated to our room after receiving a particularly vicious comeback from the princeling. Asher, who should be elevated to sainthood for putting up with me through all of this, is trying to find a threedee that may snap me out of my funk without irritating me further, when there is a knock at the door. When Asher opens it Alya is in the hallway, alone, chewing her bottom lip and scowling.

  “Alya? Is there a problem?”

  “Not quite.”

  “To what do we owe the pleasure, then?”

  “I need to have a word with Quinn, if that’s ok.”

  “Oh.” Asher turns to look at me and I shrug. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

  “I’d rather you stayed. You’ll have to hear about this and I’d rather you heard first-hand.”

  It’s Asher’s turn to shrug at me. “Ok, I guess.”

  He leads her into our cabin and sits down on the bed next to me. There’s nowhere for her to sit, but she looks too wound up to settle down anyway. She seems furious and terrified in equal measure, but she’s trying to talk as if everything were perfectly normal. I’m not in the mood to indulge her right now. I’ve had enough of putting up with that other asshole.

  She takes a deep breath. “I couldn’t help but notice that Luke’s communications with you have been somewhat heated of late.”

  “How very perceptive of you, and what a nice way of putting it. If you’re here to offer apologies on his behalf, you can save yourself the bother. I doubt I’d accept them even if they came directly from him.”

  “I’m not. He’s not like that. He doesn’t know I’m here and that’s how I’d like to keep it. I know his behavior has been less than ideal…”

  I interrupt her. “Less than ideal? Did you hear what he just said to me?”

  “Yes. He’s going through a bit of a phase…”

  “A phase?” I know I’m taking out on her all the frustration I feel towards Luke, and I know it’s not fair, but I’m too angry to care. “My eldest went through a phase of throwing tantrums, but she was two at the time, and we didn’t even consider asking third parties to put up with her.”

  “That’s not why I’m here, either. I know Luke’s being an ass. I know his behavior is unacceptable.”

  “So why are you here? What do you want from me?”

  “Your help. I need help, and maybe you… I don’t know.”

  “Help with what?”

  “Luke keeps snapping at you. It’s completely uncalled for.”

  “Too right!”

  “It’s also the most he’s interacted with anyone in weeks. Both in quantity and, well, intensity.”

  “So what exactly are you saying? That I ought to feel privileged because I happen to unleash his inner asshole?”

  “No. I just… I don’t know. Forget about it.”

  “I don’t think so. You started this; we can bloody well finish it now. Can you please tell me what you came here to tell me?”

  She wraps her arms around herself and sticks her chin up in the air. The combination is as incongruous as the way she’s feeling. “Luke’s talking to you, if you can call it talking. He’s also…” she blinks a few times, “…emoting at you. And with your gift, I thought perhaps you could see what’s going on with him.”

  “Hang on a moment. You want me to use my psi-bility to spy on him?”

  “No! Maybe. I don’t know. I hadn’t thought this far ahead.”

  “I should hope not.”

  “I just don’t know what else to do, ok? He’s fucked up, he’s getting worse, and I don’t know what he needs or how to give it to him. I’m not asking you to invade his privacy…”

  “Yes, you are. You’re asking me to spy on him and squeal on him, too.”

  Her tension dissipates all of a sudden.

  “You’re right. I did. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry. I’d ask you to forget that we’ve had this conversation, but I don’t have a right to do that.”

  As she turns to walk out, it hits me: the godsdamned woman is too proud and too stuffy to do something like this lightly. This cost her a lot. She wouldn’t have even contemplated it unless she had a serious need.

  “Alya, wait. You’re really worried about him.”

  She turns to look at me. “Yeah.”

  “Are you going to tell me why?”

  “His head is in a bad place. I’m not sure he can come back on his own.”

  “Did something happen to him?”

  “Yes. But that’s not my story to tell.”

  That pisses me off all over again. “So you’re ok with asking me to violate his privacy and my ethics, but not with telling me why?”

  “Pretty much. I don’t have the right to tell that story.”

  “You don’t have a right to do any of this.”

  She nods. “Yeah. I just didn’t know what else to do. That doesn’t excuse me or create an obligation on your part.”

  “I should bloody well hope not.”

  I glower at her while she looks at me half desperate and half defiant, until I run out of energy to support my outrage.

  “I can’t see what he is thinking. You know that.”

  “Yeah. But you can see how he feels.”

  “Yes and no. He asked me to shield up around him.”

  “That was only after he knew you’re an empath. And I’m assuming you wouldn't be shielding when you’re out and about.”

  “You realize this is deeply uncool, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re going ahead with it.”

  “Yes. If I can.”

  “I can’t read him. If I did, I might not tell you what I can see anyway, but I can’t. There’s a thing people can do to stop empaths reading them. He seems to be doing tha
t all the time.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I don’t know. He’s been doing it all along, before he knew about my psi-bility.”

  “You were reading him then?”

  “Same as I was seeing, hearing, and smelling him. Same as I do with everyone. I wasn’t prying.”

  “I know. Sorry. Are you sure about him? About that thing?”

  “Yes. Well, no. The other option is that he’s not feeling anything, but that is unlikely. If that were the case, I doubt he’d be able to function. He could be shielding internally, shielding himself from his own feelings, rather than his feelings from the outside world. A friend of mine used to do that a while ago. When his emotions got too intense, he’d just block them off. But that was an on-and-off thing. This is constant, from what I’ve seen. Which isn’t much.”

  We don’t say anything for a while. She just stands in the middle of the room and I can’t tell if she’s thinking really hard or spacing out. When she shakes herself off she seems more concerned than she was when we started talking.

  “Your friend, the one who was shielding himself from himself. Why did he do that?”

  “I can’t tell you the specifics. I don’t have a right to that story. He’d just learnt to do that to deal with his life. Things had been rough for him while he was growing up.”

  “But he’s ok now? He got over it?”

  “It took a while, but yeah. His life changed. He had to change himself to change his life, and the changes in his life made it safe for him to change. And he had help.”

  “What kind of help?”

  “Friends. A woman who loves him. A family. Lots of people loved him enough to take him as he was and to allow him to change, too. He’s a nice guy. He’s easy to love.”

  “Oh.” It’s the saddest sound I’ve ever heard her make.

  “I’m not saying that Luke isn’t.”

  She grimaces. “You don’t have to. Loving Luke at present could be charitably described as unrewarding. Stronger words would also fit.”

  “If something happened to him, I’m sure his family and friends…”

  “That’s me and Raj. There isn’t anyone else, and we’ve been useless. Well, Kolya, too, but he wasn’t around. Kolya might have been able to help him. I should have thought of that. Kolya might have been able to stop things getting this far.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I should have thought about it. I should have tried.”

  “You still can, when we get back to Pollux.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t know. Thank you, anyway. Really. You didn’t have to do this.”

  “I know. I shouldn’t have.”

  “Will you do me a favor?”

  “I thought I just did.”

  She smiles humorlessly. “You did. If you spot any changes, or anything worrisome, will you let me know?”

  “I can’t promise that.”

  “Fair enough. Thank you. Seriously.”

  I can see her wrapping herself up in her public persona. I realize for the first time that she doesn’t like it any better than I do. When she’s finished, she nods ceremoniously at us and makes her way out.

  As soon as the door is shut behind her, I turn to Asher.

  “Well I never!”

  He claps his hands over his face. “Quinny, I think I fucked up.”

  “What?”

  “You know how I had a word with Luke after your little escapade?”

  “Yes. You wanted to say thank you.”

  “I ended up saying a lot more.” He cringes. “I started talking and it all just came out. Maybe I should have kept quiet.”

  “What the hell did you tell him?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  That feels like a slap to the face. “You’re keeping secrets from me now?”

  “It’s not like that.”

  “How is it, then? You’re having conversations with him that you won’t tell me about, but you’re not keeping secrets?”

  “I was talking to him about his fighting, about his motivations. I told him that I thought his priorities were messed up, among other things.”

  “Anyone could have told him that.”

  “I got into the details of it a bit more than the average person might. I didn’t have a right to do that and now I wonder if that’s what has spun him out so much.”

  “He wasn’t precisely a calm and balanced individual prior to that.”

  “Even more so. I should have thought about it. I don’t think I said anything untruthful and I meant well, but maybe it just wasn’t the time for him to hear it.”

  “You don’t know that any of this is your fault.”

  “That’s not the issue. I feel sorry for him. I wish I could help him, but now I don’t know what I could do that wouldn’t make things worse.”

  That feels like another slap to the face. “You’re taking his side.”

  “What? Aren’t we all on the same side?”

  “Tell me that the next time he’s screaming at me.”

  I scoot my butt across the bed, lie down, and roll to face away from him.

  “Quinny…”

  “No. You’re right and I’m wrong and I just don’t care.”

  He scoots over to lie next to me but I slide away from him.

  “Quinny, what’s going on?”

  “Don’t call me that. Save it for when I’m not being a raging asshole. I don’t want you to care about him. I want you to care about the fact that he’s horrible to me and not have any interest in finding out why. I want you to support me even when I’m dead wrong, selfish, peevish, and unreasonable.”

  He puts a hand over my shoulder. For a moment I think about shrugging it off out of spite, but it feels too good. “Do you really want that?”

  “No. Asher, I hate him so much. He brings out the worst in me.”

  He slides next to me. I lean back into him. “He definitely seems to get under your skin. I can’t blame you for that, either. He is hard work.”

  “And now you’re going to spend more time with him.”

  “What?”

  “If you think you hurt him and you want to help him, that means you’ll spend more time with him. That will mean that I’ll either have to put up with him more or be with you less, and neither option is terribly palatable. It won’t make me like him any better. You know that, right?”

  He wraps his arms around my waist and leans his chin over my shoulder.

  “Are you ok with that?”

  “With you being a nicer person than me? No. But right now, if you weren’t I’d be in terrible trouble.”

  “Are you going to tell me before it gets too much? I don’t care enough about him to fuck things up between us.”

  “Yes. Are you going to do the same?”

  “Always.” He kisses my neck.

  “I like it when you do that.”

  “Really? I didn’t think you liked my beard.”

  I snort. “Whatever gave you that impression?”

  “You kiss Gwen all the time and she doesn’t have a beard.”

  “She also doesn’t have a dick. I make all kinds of exceptions for you out of the goodness of my heart, same as you do for me.”

  “Nah. I like you having a beard. That way I can tell you and Gwen apart in the dark.”

  “That’s the only way you have?”

  “Only way I found so far. I’m working on it, though. I have a couple of theories, but I’m not completely sure they’d work reliably.” His hands are straying from my waist, travelling in opposite directions.

  “Now that you mention it, maybe I don’t like your beard. It may be too scratchy. Maybe you should kiss me again so I can check.”

  He does. He lets his lips travel up and down my neck. I open the channel up between us and let him know how that makes me feel.

  “Oh. That’s not too bad, I guess.”

  “Do you think you can do better?”

  “I think I’d like to
try.”

  Asher always lives up to his word. Most of the time, I think it’s great. Sometimes, though, I find myself wishing that wasn’t the case. This is one of the latter occasions.

  He has decided that Luke is in trouble, that he needs help, and that somehow it’s his duty to at least try to provide said help. That’s Asher through and through. He is compassionate in the most uncompromising, pitiless interpretation of the word: he can see what needs doing, and he does it. Watching him take on this particular task irks me beyond reason.

  There are practical explanations for part of my vexation. After all, this pet project of his cuts into our time and forces me to interact with someone I detest and who detests me. I know that’s not the real issue, though, because there is something about this entire thing that annoys me even more: it’s working.

  Luke is getting better. Something about the time he’s spending with Asher seems to be helping him, though I’ll be damned if I can work out the mechanism behind it. From the outside they’re just two dudes doing dudely things together. It hardly seems the recipe for any kind of internal rewiring, yet it’s working. Luke not only behaves better when he’s with Asher, but he is starting to behave better in general. He doesn’t seem any happier, but he is getting more focused and more present. He is also getting more measured in his responses and less reactive. In a dark corner of my heart, I resent that. I wonder how long it will be before our spats come to an end, and what shape our future interactions will take.

  15. Luke

  We’re in the cargo bay doing some hand-to-hand training when the clanging starts. Alya drops her training knife and sprints towards the bridge, Raj close behind her.

  Asher looks at me. “The hell is that?”

  “Com, I think.”

  Quinn and Asher leg it towards the bridge. I leg it after them. By the time we get there, Alya has brought the message up. Gwen’s face fills our screens and she doesn’t look happy. Quinn clutches at Asher’s hand. Alya looks up at them. At Asher’s nod, she plays the recording.

  “Hi guys. I have to be quick. Bad news. There was another death. I’m attaching the coordinates. You’ve been travelling in the wrong direction. You need to adjust your route. Our projection of the best new route is also attached, but you’ll need to check it. We project that you’ll miss another one, most likely two.” A muscle twitches in her jaw. “The next one is Osh’s father. Osh is aware. He wanted to know and Sasha agreed. He is doing ok, all considering. We all are. I have to go now. Asher, Quinny, the kids are fine. We’re all fine. I miss you so much even my hair hurts. Love you.”