The Coward's Option

by Adam-Troy Castro

  At a certain point, after hours of coming no closer to a means of escape than she had been when she first placed her head on her pillow, the transcription reacted to the hour and decided that she had better get up and start getting ready for dinner.

  She didn’t want to eat. She certainly didn’t want to face other human beings. But she had been ordered to mix, and so, with every ounce of will in her body screaming no, she sat up and went to the room’s shower and washed away the worst of the damage the afternoon’s weeping had had on her face. Then she went to her bag and removed the cosmetics she carried out of habit but rarely used to reduce the puffiness around her eyes, restoring them to their usual penetrating look.

  To her own examination, the figure in the mirror did not look like her. The eyes did: they looked forlorn and lost. But they also looked like they were peering through the holes in an edifice shaped like her, that moved and acted like her, that was otherwise a jail cell with spikes on all the interior walls. She recognized nothing but those eyes.

  She would have lingered at the mirror, and likely begun weeping again, but then against her will her body began to dress.

  The embassy’s communal dining room was a functional space where the night’s offerings were served on buffet tables and claimed by indentures who gathered at various four-sided tables. Apparently there was no set eating time, because there were only a few indentures present, all at tables where every seat was taken. As a small mercy, Pendrake was nowhere to be seen; she either didn’t mix with these lowly representatives of her will, or she preferred to eat at some time other than the schedule followed by these particular people. This didn’t mean that Cort wouldn’t have to eat opposite her, behaving herself, any number of times in the days and years to come: a prospect she found nauseating

  Driven to nod at the few embassy personnel she’d met, who no doubt saw her as a prime mover in the still-ongoing execution of their colleague and had no particular desire to pursue conversation, Cort made her way to the spare buffet and selected a few items that looked edible enough. She didn’t care about the flavor, and in fact doubted that she’d taste any of it. The command was to eat. When she had a sufficient assortment of foods her legs carried her back to an unoccupied table, where once she sat her hands began the mechanical task of feeding her body with nutrition.

  She was about a third of the way into the meal when other hands lowered a tray before the seat opposite hers. “Hello, Counselor. Do you mind?”

  Cort’s preference for dining alone, already violated, did not manifest itself in the transcription’s controlled response. “No, of course not. Sit down.”

  Kearn sat, flashing her a quick smile that turned somber almost as once, as she remembered the reason Cort had come to this planet in the first place. She looked different wearing clothes appropriate for the temperatures inside the embassy, than she had traveling around Caithiriin’s frigid natural air; looser, friendlier. She’d released her wooly hair from its binding and freed it to dangle to her shoulders on both sides of her fresh, heart-shaped face.

  She said, “I still can’t believe he chose the way he did.”

  Cort wanted to say (and surprised herself by actually saying), “I’d prefer not to talk about it.”

  “I understand. No shop talk at dinner.” Kearn stabbed at her meal with a fork. “I heard you’d be staying on for a while. I’m glad.”

  Cort wanted to say (and surprised herself by actually saying), “You are?”

  “Sure. Why not? A place like this, we can all use somebody new, once in a while. I guess you’re the newbie, now. And that’s not bad. You’re not one tenth as awful as you encourage people to think.”

  Cort wanted to scream, Are you blind? This isn’t me! This isn’t even close to being me! This is a meat puppet with me trapped inside it! Look past my face, you stupid cow, and see what’s actually there behind it! Instead, not raising her voice at all, she flashed a warm grin and said, “Don’t tell anybody.”

  “I won’t. What did make you decide to stay, anyway?”

  There had to be something she could say. It couldn’t be anything overt, because the transcription mind would reject anything overt in favor of a response much less revealing…but she had already noticed that it didn’t balk at small rebellions. There had to be an idea she could come up with, that the transcription would also come up with and find innocent enough to pass on.

  She said, “I suppose I’m tired of traveling.”

  “I can understand that,” Kearn said. “But why stop here, of all places? New London’s civilized. Somebody like you could have gotten an administrative job there and spent her off hours enjoying herself.”

  Something. Anything. It doesn’t have to be anything big. It can be small.

  “You’re crying.”

  Tears had indeed spilled, but Cort found herself flashing a reassuring grin, utterly at odds with the screams taking place inside. “It’s nothing. Just tension. The result of a bad day.”

  “The worst,” Kearn agreed, buying the explanation, not following it to where Andrea Cort would have sacrificed one of her arms to lead her. “It’s got to be hard, to lose a life and wish there was something you could have done to save it. One reason I could never imagine doing what you do.”

  No! I don’t want you to sympathize with me! I’m only three feet from you! Make the leap! See what’s in my head!

  Kearn selected a vegetable strip from her plate, dipped it in the white sauce it went with it, and bit into it, swallowing before she went on. “But, again: why leave New London?”

  New London was Cort’s home. She was not comfortable there because she was not comfortable anywhere; but the city was the place she knew best, the place she’d come to consider home base in spirit as well as profession. She found herself saying, “I don’t like it there.”

  Kearn frowned. “You like it here more?”

  No! “Not really.”

  “But you transferred here. To a post where you’ll have next to nothing to do.”

  Not willingly! Dammit, see!

  Cort’s shoulders shrugged, without her consent; her hands made a fluttery so-what gesture, without her consent; her mouth released a non-committal grunt, without her consent. Her vision blurred again, as more tears spilled. “Maybe I’ll find more to do here than you think.”

  The bridge of Marys Kearn’s nose wrinkled, as her brows knit in an expression of extreme dubiousness. “These are very…short answers coming from you, Counselor…and you’re crying again. Is there something I’m not authorized to know?”

  Yes! “Yes.”

  “Does it have to do with the treatment?”

  Yes, dammit! See it! See what’s going on with me! “I can’t say."

  Cort stabbed at her meal with a fork, acquired a bite-sized morsel, and brought it to her mouth, her jaw moving up and down as if without any sense that nutrition was being absorbed. It was not bad food. Whoever handled the job of preparing it had known what to do, to bring out the flavor, to maximize the pleasure that a talented hand could wring from even the simplest ingredients. But the satisfaction of a meal felt a million light years away.

  Cort could focus on nothing but the three little wrinkles that now stabbed upward from the bridge of Marys Kearn’s nose, as the knitting of her brows became persistent.

  “Is there anything you can tell me?” Kearn said, at last.

  Something. Something small. A tiny idea the transcription could have too, that its filters would not see fit to censor.

  And then Cort had it: a word so tiny and yet so blatant a clue that she despaired of hearing it come from her own lips.

  It stunned her by arriving. “Well, let’s just say that I can’t.”

  See it! See what I’m telling you!

  Kearn’s forehead-wrinkles smoothed, as she retreated. “…Okay.”

  The two women spent the next minute dining in companionable silence, Cort screaming inside and Kearn concentrating on her meal, no doubt casting about for some
thing else to say. Cort feared that that she’d blown whatever last chance she’d been given, aware that even as she sat here compelled to pretend that nothing was wrong, her brain matter continued to rewire itself, bringing her closer and closer to the time when there would be no means of escape.

  Then Kearn’s gaze flickered toward her again. “You know,” she said, “you may be tired of it, but I’ve always wanted to see New London, just once. Talking to you might be as close as I’ll ever get. What’s it like?”

  Say it! she begged the transcription. Have the same idea and say it!

  “Well,” Cort said, dragging out the word, “it’s a cylinder world, you know. Central sun along the hub, a planned garden of a colony around the outer rim. The horizons curve upward, everywhere. But there’s green, everywhere you look…and it’s always warm, except for a couple of planned winter days, a few days per calendar year.”

  Kearn ate another veggie stick. “You must like that.”

  “Well,” Cort said, wishing she could give the word more emphasis, and despairing at the degree to which the mind running her body flattened it, “what’s not to like? I love that it’s the middle of everything, the center of the whole human race, or at least as much as one as we allow ourselves to have. I’ve never liked crowds much, but I love just walking from my little apartment to the Corps headquarters, on surface streets; seeing all the different kinds of faces around me, knowing how different people are, wondering how many different cultures they come from. It’s…well, it’s enough to make me overlook all the terrible things we sometimes do to one another.”

  The three little lines at the bridge of Kearn’s nose had reappeared. “But you just said you didn’t like it there.”

  Come on! Do I have to say “well” another two dozen times before you get it?

  “I’m not fond of the company,” Cort said.

  Then either the imperative to conceal her condition or the order to get her work done tonight kicked in. It was impossible to tell which. The transcription had its own reasons, reasons it had no particular reason to share with her. She found herself flashing the most disarming grin possible no and standing up no and picking up her tray and saying, “Anyway, this has been great, but I just remembered I have an assignment to finish before I go to bed tonight,” the nonsense just spilling from her without her input, “I hope we can make more time for this later,” stop it stop it stop it, a few more inconsequential pleasantries spilled before her legs carried her across the room and her arms dumped the remains of her half-eaten, barely-remembered meal into the disposal bin, both without any input from her, no, an abyss of absolute madness opening up before her, her sanity starting to crack at the edges, until she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder and was turned against her will to find a stricken Marys Kearn saying, “If I’m wrong about this, I apologize, but I’m afraid I have to punch you in the face.”

  Cort watched as if from a million miles away as Kearn drew her arm back, telegraphing her blow in the way an inexperienced fighter does, and inside she could think of about a dozen ways she evade or block the attack with ease. Anger flared in her, the way it always did whenever violence was directed her way.

  Instead she watched and did nothing as the fist came right at her, a missile that she should have had no difficulty dodging.

  Instead, it impacted without meeting opposition. Cort hit the floor hard, aware as she rose with blood on her lips that half the indentures in the room had risen to their feet, aghast at the sudden injection of violence into their quiet meal. Marys Kearn stood above her, massaging her closed fist in the manner of a woman unaccustomed to violence who had just discovered, for the first time, how much solid punches can hurt those who hurl them.

  Andrea Cort turned to the others in the room and said what, in this particular circumstance, she might have said anyway. “Don’t worry about it. This is a private matter. It’s not going any further than this.”

  Then she stood, dusted herself off, and faced Kearn, thinking one more thing, say one more thing, give her one more thing to let her know she’s right. Just one more thing.

  Something that obeyed the transcription’s imperative, of defusing violence without further engagement.

  “You’re right,” Cort said. “I deserved that. I apologize.”

  Then she smiled.

  “Well, I’d better head back to my quarters now. I have work to do.”

  * * *

  The next few hours were the longest in a life that had known any number of agonizing waits. Rewriting her dispatch to Artis Bringen took only a few minutes of it. The rest was spent agonizing over what she otherwise had no means of knowing, what must be happening elsewhere over these long and excruciatingly isolated hours. Had Kearn jumped to the wrong conclusion? Did she think that Cort had done this to herself? Would she be stupid enough to bring her suspicions to Pendrake? Would somebody bring Pendrake the news of the incident in the dining room, giving her the warning she needed to protect her crime from the only person in a position to figure it out? If so, was Pendrake already working out some kind of charge she could bring against Kearn, to justify having her fixed in the same way Cort had been fixed?

  Torture. Hours spent screaming inside, while the second mind making Cort’s decisions for her saw to it that she behaved herself and spent a quiet evening, finishing her letter, organizing her thoughts on the matter of the agenda Pendrake wanted her to pursue, listening to some music, and then finally, without any fuss at all, lying down to sleep.

  She did not, of course, actually sleep.

  She just lay in bed, obeying the pattern of behavior she would if she were asleep, her eyes closed against her will, the terror inside her building until she craved the release of death.

  * * *

  The next morning, she rose on schedule, showered, then dressed and went to the dining room for breakfast. Nobody sat with her, though Marys Kearn walked in once, met her gaze, then shuddered and walked away, foregoing the meal. Cort took her time over breakfast and bussed her table in time for her early-morning meeting with the ambassador, actually arriving a few minutes early, which obliged her to stand at the door, patiently waiting.

  As it turned out, Pendrake was a few minutes late getting to her own office that morning, and arrived carrying a coffee cup and a malignant smile of approval. “Glad to see you’re so prompt. I approve of that quality.”

  Cort’s answer was polite and respectful. “Thank you, ambassador.”

  They went inside, where Cort stood with folded hands while Kearn made herself comfortable at her desk and called up the text of the letter Cort had edited on her instructions the previous evening.

  It took Pendrake all of thirty seconds to make her way through it. “Well, this is much better. I see a couple of points that might benefit from tinkering, but nothing really worth complaining about. Together with my letter, this should take care of any further questions your Mr. Bringen might have.”

  “I’m afraid we’re not finished, though.”

  Pendrake frowned. “What’s the problem?”

  “I was not satisfied with this draft and produced another one early this morning.”

  The ambassador rolled her eyes. “You should have shown me that one first, then. I don’t have time to waste reviewing every piddling little step you take between the initiation of a project and its successful completion.”

  “I’m sorry, ambassador.”

  “That doesn’t give me back my wasted time. Where is it?”

  Cort tapped her hytex link. “Here it comes.”

  The holographic text above Pendrake’s desktop flickered as the old version was replaced with the new one. Even before it hung there long enough for a single word to be read, it was visible as a different draft, because it consisted of four paragraphs longer and denser than the ones Cort had completed before going to sleep.

  Pendrake had time to sight-read several words in the first sentence before she looked up, a terrible comprehension dawning in her eyes. She lea
ped up with enough force to send her chair toppling backward to the floor. The fight-or-flight impulse settled on fight and she circled her desk in a frenzy, launching herself at Cort in an attack that she must have thought her superior bulk guaranteed victory.

  What followed was downright embarrassing.

  In her life, Cort had defended herself against murderers of flesh and blood. She had absorbed blows and retaliated with more punishing ones. She’d entered this room expecting no challenge, and now experienced no challenge, taking down a woman whose familiarity with combat was limited to a holographic simulator at a beginner’s setting. She sidestepped the wild lunge with ease, robbed Pendrake of breath with a blow to the throat, robbed her of balance with a heel to the ankle, and robbed her of fight by seizing the hair in the back of her head and driving her forehead into the desktop.

  She might have done a lot more than that, given the opportunity, but that’s when Marys Kearn and the two male colleagues she’d enlisted to the cause came running in, their own fists raised, prepared to intervene if by some chance it had been Pendrake who won the advantage.

  The three of them stared at the scene they found: a dazed Pendrake on her hands and knees, bleeding from a fresh gash in her forehead, a furious and red-faced Andrea Cort towering over her, trembling with hunger for some excuse to hurt her some more.

  “Well,” Kearn said, without thinking. Then she heard what he had just said, and winced. “That was pretty definitive.”

  “The physical confrontation was moot,” Cort said. “It was never going to be a problem.”

  “I can see that,” Kearn said. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

  One of the men behind Kearn said, “Still need us?”

  “Not here,” she said, without looking at him. “Wait in the hallway. Keep anybody else from coming in. You don’t want to get any more involved in this than you already are.”

  Despite everything Kearn’s two friends had been told, and despite what they’d witnessed with their own ears the previous night, she was correct. This was still a mutiny…and it was far safer being at the edge of a mutiny than at the center of it. They left with relief, closing the office door behind them.