The crowding led to Olivia and I doubling up. Maauro also gave up her cabin, spending her time on the bridge or in the engine room. She was a good nurse for Maximillian, who exhibited little sign of awareness beyond being able to eat and drink. Nursing him would have been grim and wearying for anyone but Maauro, who talked to him all the time while trying to restore his body with physical therapy.
One night I heard singing. I slowly made my way to the sickbay. Olivia and Maauro were there. Olivia was singing. Not well, but they were old songs, soft and gentle. She was teaching them to Maauro, who wanted to be able to sing lullabies to the shattered boy. I walked away, and wondered how anyone could ever doubt Maauro was a living being.
When we returned to Velstus it was to find the Confederate Battle Cruiser Seydlitz stationed at the exit jump point and not a trace of the ISM. Seydlitz’s captain refueled us and immediately dispatched two automated courier drones, one to Earth and one to Star Central. Then he used his engines and grapples to boost our speed and get us to the next warp point. We were bound for Star Central with Maximillian. The battlecruiser was destined for Earth, bearing the other survivors of the Bexlaw expedition and the Seddonese ambassador.
There was another leave-taking as well
Olivia had packed her gear upon receiving orders from the Seydlitz. She called me to her quarters.
“I didn’t expect it to be like this,” I said.
She smiled, a little sadly, I thought. “It’s the way of the service, isn’t it?”
“And that’s ok with you?”
“This is the life I choose, the one I want. Don’t feel bad, Wrik. You’re not missing anything with me. I told you I have places to go and things to do. Playing house was never in the cards. Didn’t work that well for me the first time and he was a Marine, not a man of shadows and mysteries. Do I even know your real name, yet?”
I looked away.
“Wrik, I have something to say to you. I think it’s a bit of wisdom worth sharing. I hope it is.”
I turned back to her.
“You’re consort to an alien, and you’re something I can’t even name with an android. I don’t doubt the truth or the depth of your feelings for either. But I know you’ll never be able to fully commit to anyone, until you stop running from whatever you’re fleeing. Until you return to your home, reclaim your real name and face down whatever it was that made you leave.”
I could only barely breathe.
Olivia walked up to me and kissed me on the lips. “We’ll see each other again. We’re not done yet.”
“Olivia,” I said. “Stay alive.”
She smiled and slipped past me out the hatch.
I turned off the light and stood in the darkened room for twenty long minutes.
So it was that seventeen galactic standard months after we had left Earth, Stardust returned to the orbit of Star Central. Our trip in from the warp point had been a silent one, save for one micro-squeak transmission to Shasti Rainhell, who we hoped would be waiting for us. It warned her that we were bringing her grandson back, but all was not well.
I did not call Jaelle and asked Dusko and Maauro to hold off communicating with anyone until after we had landed and turned Maximillian over to his grandmother. After more than a year and half of real-time, I didn’t want my first sight of Jaelle and her children to be by a screen. This I needed to be face-to-face for. Both honored my request and neither seemed to see it as unusual.
A reply to our microburst came back as quickly as light could return it. Rainhell was waiting for us. She would meet us in the early morning hours at the landing pad by Lost Planet. She’d handle all security and urged us to remain radio silent until she had her grandson back. Maauro shot back an acknowledgement and we assumed orbit unheralded or acknowledged by any other than the automatic traffic control.
We separated the Sinner II from Stardust to prepare for landing. Dusko said he would land separately later.
“Why?” I asked.
“You can deal with Rainhell and returning the damaged goods,” he replied.
“There will be no trouble,” Maauro said, “only thanks offered.”
He shrugged. “Thanks mean little to me. I will accept having a favor owed to me by a powerful leader. And I’m less sure of her than you are. In any event there are pleasures and people I wish to see and messes,” he glanced sidelong at me, “that will not be improved by my presence.”
I nodded. “Okay, land later in the day. We’ll see you when we see you. Stay out of trouble.”
He grunted and headed for the Sinner. I’m sure he was as tired of our company as I was of his.
The ALS brought us down long after everyone at Lost Planet would have gone home, on a moonless night. We rode down on our impellers, lighting up the area. I could see vehicles waiting for us. I killed the engines with an odd feeling. So much had happened in the seventeen months, yet returning to Star Central made it feel as if we had never left. As if the intervening year and half with our voyage into lost worlds had never happened.
Stardust itself felt strange and empty to me. Olivia and the rescued had gone on to Earth. Dusko’s moody presence banished, the ship held just Maauro, me, and the barely responsive Maximillian. I don’t know what sort of homecoming I’d envisioned but it wasn’t this funereal, silent return.
“Are you all right?” Maauro asked when I didn’t rise from my seat.
I looked up at her. I’d come on this voyage because I couldn’t bear to be parted from her. Even now I could not put a proper name to what she was to me: friend, loved one, all but lover. “I feel,” I said slowly. “Like the ghost at a party. Or maybe more like a man trying to sneak back into his old life.”
“With all its complications.”
“Yes,” I said, surprised. Why should I be, I thought, who do I talk to? Who knows every secret and concern I have but Maauro? And on this voyage she too had learned and changed and grown.
“Out there is Jaelle, who I love but haven’t seen for a year and half. In that time she’ll have had children if she could. I don’t know where their father is or how I will have to deal with him. But the big question is, ‘What does Jaelle feel now?’’ What does she want? It was always a challenge to make this work before. Can we do it now with all that has happened?”
“Those answers,” Maauro said, gazing at the vehicles now moving slowly toward us, “await you out there. They cannot be found on this deck or divined by me.”
I drew a deep and shaky breath. It wouldn’t get easier or clearer sitting here. I stood.
Maauro put her hand on my arm. “Whatever awaits either of us when we leave this deck, know that you and I are permanent in this existence. Know it and always rely on it.”
I raised my hand and stroked her cheek. “I know it. I hope you know the same is true with me. The bond between us may trouble others, maybe us too at times, but it is and will be.” I wanted to say, “I love you.” I’d said it before and easily enough but with Jaelle so near and my emotions so raw and mixed it seemed somehow too much. Maybe she felt it too, so we used words that added up to the same thing, but didn’t carry such a freight of confusion.
“It will be strange for a while,” I added.
She smiled. “When isn’t it strange? We are male and female. I no longer think of my femininity as an affectation. When, sometime, somewhere, I became a living being, I became a female living being. Yet nothing can change the fact that we are on different sides of an abyss. You are biological life of flesh and blood and I am silicon, ceramic and metal. There is no present way across, there may never be. Perhaps there should never be. Love for us may always remain a thing of shared time and experience with little physical expression.”
“Now,” I said. “You waited until now, to start this conversation.”
To my astonishment, Maauro laughed. The first time I’d ever heard her do so
. My God, was she growing and changing before my very eyes; becoming more human by the second?
“See,” she said. “I really am female.”
“I never doubted it,” I returned. Unfortunately, neither had Jaelle, I thought to myself.
“What I meant to say,” I continued carefully, “is that I will be occupied with Jaelle and all the changes in our life, but I don’t want you to think that I’ll forget about you.”
She shook her long, black hair, confined by its yellow silk ribbon. “Such a thought would never occur to me. Besides, I may use the time to find myself a handsome boy robot.”
“He’d be lucky,” I replied ruefully, “and I, no doubt would be both jealous as hell and sure he wasn’t good enough for you.”
“Then all is as it should be,” she said. The smile faded on her face. “Come let us finish our last duty of this voyage.”
We walked down to the cabin where Maximillian lay. Despite our best efforts the boy was still painfully thin.
“I have him lightly sedated,” Maauro said, “for fear of the stress. This is a normal but deep sleep.” We loaded him in a gurney and took him down to the midships hatch. Maauro confirmed the gantry was outside with its elevator. I opened the hatch and enjoyed the scent of fresh air, even at the edge of a spaceport. There was a small park opposite our office, lit only by its outside lights. Beyond lay the city and the spaceport glowing with a million lights. From the park wafted the scent of green and growing things that dispelled the sick room smell in the airlock.
We rolled the gurney on the gantry elevator and it lowered us the few meters to the ground. A cool wind cut through the unwalled elevator. I zipped my jacket and checked the fleece blanket on the silent boy.
As the cage rolled back, we could see several large aircars and something too big to be an ambulance. I suspected Rainhell had a mobile trauma unit with surgeons on standby. Her retinue of guards and staff halted at her upraised hand. She strode toward us, not running, but no normal human could have matched the speed and length of her stride.
She reached us and knelt before the stretcher, her face tight with grief. “Maximillian, baby, it’s grandmother. I’ve come to take you home.”
“He’s deeply asleep,” Maauro said.
Rainhell raised her eyes to me, brilliant with unexpressed rage and tears. “Give me all the worst now.”
“Maximillian was stuck inside an alien war machine, functioning as part of his CPU for over a year as it rampaged across a planet. The thing was out of a nightmare, a humanform robot over thirty meters tall. It didn’t…it didn’t take care of him well. Physically he has lost four fingers and most of his toes. Mentally, well he has been able to follow simple commands but little more. He hasn’t spoken.”
Her mouth became a grim slit in the perfect face.
“There is some reason for hope,” Maauro ventured. “I can find no sign of structural damage to his brain. This silence may be a reflection of emotional trauma. Perhaps in time, with care and rest, he may recover more of his identity.”
“He will have all of that,” she swore, “the best of anything that can be done.” She kissed her grandson on both his closed eyes. “Grandmother is here. Don’t worry. Nothing will touch you now. Mother and Father are coming. I’ve sent a warship for them. You’ll see them soon.”
Did I imagine it, or was the boy’s expression more peaceful, more relaxed?
“You’re the one who saved him,” I blurted out.
“What?” she seemed to focus on me with difficulty.
“We’d failed,” I said. “Physical attacks, cybernetic attacks, nothing could break the Destroyer’s grip on him. It was about to crush Maauro when we summoned up your image in a hologram. You told Maximillian that you loved him and had come to take him home. He woke, cried out, ‘Grandmother, help me.’ That broke the link, and Maauro finished the Destroyer off and got him out.”
Rainhell rose, her face hidden under her long hair. She put a fever-warm hand on my shoulder. I could feel her body trembling, almost shaking as she fought for composure, struggling with rage and grief. Her grip on my shoulder was beyond a strong man’s.
A single strangled sob escaped her. I wanted to put my arms around her, but knew I couldn’t. So I just stood there and endured her grip in mute sympathy.
“Thank you,” she whispered. The grip eased and she patted my shoulder in apology. There would be bruises tomorrow. I couldn’t have cared less.
She wiped a hand across her face. If there had been tears, I hadn’t seen them. She gestured and a team of medics and security raced over, surrounding the boy and bearing his litter off to the waiting trauma vehicle.
Shasti turned back to me. “You have someone waiting for you, young man. She’s at home with her three kits; all four are in good health. They have been watched over nonstop since you left.”
“All four?” I ventured.
“Yes,” she replied. “The father, a diplomat from a respectable family, left for his homeworld three months ago when the contract ended. He has no plans to return.”
Now it was my turn to be silent and grateful. I nodded.
“Bexlaw?” she asked.
“Dead.”
“Good, that saves me doing it. There are others who will pay dearly for this.”
“Another day soon,” I said, “we should talk. There’s a contact. There may be a way around wholesale bloodletting.”
She looked at me, a shadow of something in her eyes. Finally she nodded. “I will listen.”
“I can handle everything from here, Wrik,” Maauro said. “You should go. I will see you when I see you.”
I walked over, took her small face in my hands and kissed her. She held onto me with her careful right arm for a few seconds.
I turned to face Rainhell.
“I will remember you always, Captain Trigardt.”
“As I will you, Captain Rainhell.”
She gestured to a man standing by one of the aircars. He opened the door. I started for the vehicle. I slid into the seat, bound for home and maybe now, finally ready.
I watch Wrik vanish into the aircar with a mix of emotions, not all of which I can put a name to. I turn back to Rainhell with some relief, glad to have something else to focus on.
“From this point,” the tall human growls, “I will have no greater priority than restoring my grandson and undoing the damage to our family. But first I must make a few minutes for you. Take it as a sign of your importance to me and the enormity of the debt I owe you that I do so just now.”
I nod, unsure of what to say.
“Maauro,” Rainhell says, “walk with me a while?”
We head away from the ship. Not toward the waiting cars, but toward the small park across the street. I occasionally go there to contemplate a tiny waterfall in a shaded spot. Shasti heads toward it as if she knows that.
“We are, I think, very similar in many respects,” Shasti says, to my surprise. “We’re both artificial in origin. I was made of biological materials, but those materials were the assemblage of millions of strands of altered DNA. I had no actual parents. Even among the Engineered I’m unique in that.
“In a way we are both the dreams of our Creators, for all that their dreams sometimes wrapped us in nightmares. Do you understand what I mean?”
“I believe so,” I respond. “It’s difficult. For all the eons since my creation, most of them were spent alone on a rock in space, barely aware, with no thoughts worthy of consideration. Only the seven years before my stranding and the six since I awoke in your time have had any meaning. So I am young and inexperienced in some ways.”
“Would you then be guided by me, who has seen much of life and love, Little One?”
I look up at her in surprise. “I will listen to all you say.”
“Wrik does not quite realize this, or wish to admit
it if he does, but his time with Jaelle is coming to an end. They will remain consorts and friends, I judge, but the passion between them is ebbing away.”
“You are certain of this?” I ask, alarmed, unsettled and confused all at once.
“I loved a Nekoan once. I loved her all of her life, but it returned to the friendship it was before we crossed that line together. Nekoans love passionately, but not long: biology, custom, however one explains it. That’s their nature. There is no forever with them.”
“I have feared this break in my network,” I say. “Feared its coming, feared I’m the cause of it.”
“You are, in part,” Shasti returns. “Wrik could not stay behind if you left. He simply could not. Jaelle will not be able to forget that, even if she forgives it. Beyond that, even if Jaelle was a human, this might have happened. They’re at different places in life, wanting different things. The fact that she’s Nekoan and a little older, brought it on sooner. As I said, I don’t see them separating, but she is a practical being. She’ll turn more and more to her kits, her legacy for them in the company she’s building and the matrilineal line of her family. The fact that Wrik is human and can never wholly occupy the place a Nekoan male would for her, will make them orbit farther and farther from each other.”
The wind stirs our long hair, insects chirp in the dimness of the night. Overhead clouds scud across the star-lit sky. It would rain in the morning and keep the temperature down to something Wrik would find pleasant.
“You mean to tell me more than this,” I say, gazing up at the sky.
“Yes. There are powerful feelings between you and Wrik. I sensed this even from the first. Love, I would say. Not the common sort, not even deep friendship, but the sort that is rare to find in this existence.”
I turn to her, staring into her jade-green eyes. If I had a heart it would be hammering. I do not know if I fear more that she will continue, or that she will not.
The Lost (The Maauro Chronicles Book 3) Page 27
