by Debra Jess
"But you don’t love me, and I don’t love you. I think I always knew your heart wasn't mine."
He nodded. "I cared, still care, but you're not the driving force in my life. I wanted to share my excitement over my discovery with you, but you never quite understood it. You tried, I know you tried, but I don't think we ever really connected on a deeper level. Love isn't easy, I know that. But you had something I needed—a ship."
"And you had something I needed—idealism, a cause, and the means to the end I sought. You offered me the possibility of finding my father." She breathed in the salty air blowing off the waves. "Do you think we would have lasted if all this had never happened?"
"I don't know," he said with a shake of his head. "We made a good team, and we really fit in some ways, just not the important ones." He leaned over and kissed her gently. This time she allowed it. "I meant it when I said I care for you. If you ever need me, just comm me. I'll be there."
She smiled and reached out to run a finger along his cheek. "Thanks, Rory."
He walked away, leaving her to her musings. Someone started singing in the background, a somewhat bawdy folk song common to several worlds, so the hostesses must have brought the two sides together enough to break through at least one barrier. She knew she should go join them, but she still waited, not ready to be social just yet.
More songs followed, and then someone yelled that food was ready. Tamarja's desire for nonmedical approved food overruled her need to remain alone. She stood on legs still wobbly from recovery and made her way to the table covered in salads, meats, and other delicacies. Jita and Ornit scooped food onto plates.
"Any green goop?" Tamarja teased as she approached her friend.
Jita laughed. Her black eye had completely healed. "Not today, but next time…"
As Tamarja waited in line, she spied Daeven sitting on the stairs leading up the boardwalk. She asked Jita for a second plate and headed in his direction.
He must have seen her coming, because he scooted over to make room for her to join him, but he said nothing as she sat, silently taking the plate she handed him.
"Why are you here all by yourself? Shouldn't you be down there celebrating?" She pointed toward the crowd with her chin.
He shook his head. "There's nothing for me down there. It's a hollow victory."
"Why do you say that? You won this war for them."
"Won a battle, not the war." He sounded so morose.
"I don't understand. You were so kind to me in medical. Then you just disappeared. You promised to come back, but you didn't."
"They threw me out." He nodded toward a group of Shadows who spread across the beach now to play a game of spheres. "And I got fired." He nodded again toward the director, who held court closer to the fire pit where Ianyin Telori roasted more food.
"I don't believe it." Tamarja almost dropped her plate. No one had told her. Did they think she wouldn't find out?
"I can't even say I was really fired by the director, since I never truly worked for her in the first place." Daeven picked at his food. "It was just my cover as a Shadow. AuRaKaz security will still see me as a traitor, no matter that they may be allies with the Shadows now."
"But Joran…"
Daeven shook his head, anticipating her protest. "He has to protect himself. I went beyond my mission parameters, betrayed him to the director. He doesn't trust me either. He told me to get off world by the end of the week."
"But he's your friend."
"Was, inasmuch as he has friends. And even then he's a Shadow first and foremost. He has to think of what's best for them."
Outrageous. "Even though you were right?"
"Even though you were right." Daeven put down his fork and reached over and laid his palm on her cheek. "This alliance could work, but not with me around to remind them that it all started with a traitor to both sides."
Tamarja turned away from Daeven's warmth. The unfairness of it all—it was like dealing with Manitac all over again. Daeven had sacrificed just as much as she had, more so because he'd had to live through the past six years, where she had spent most of that time in cryo, oblivious until Yohzad thawed her out. Daeven had actively worked all that time to drag justice to the doorstep of Manitac, only to have his allies turn on him.
"What will you do? Where will you go?" she demanded, afraid of his answer.
"I don't know. It just can't be here."
She couldn't allow Daeven to abandon her. Not now, not after everything they'd been through. A scrap of an idea tickled her.
"What if you worked for me?" The words tumbled out, but then that was how she operated. Spit it out first, figure it out later.
"Work for you? Doing what?"
Her idea ballooned out of control. "The director owes me a ship. Starcatcher is still mine, but the director wants to keep it for a while." She winced at that thought. "So she's promised me a comparable ship to replace it. My father is still out there somewhere, playing ‘pet to Manitac most likely. I want to find him. That's what brought me here in the first place. He gave me Starcatcher knowing Manitac was going to disappear him. I have to find him, get him back. Let the Shadows wage their war. Let the director play her corporate politics. I want my father back, and I want you to help me."
She held her breath. Daeven looked at her as if she had sprouted two heads.
"You mean go back to where you started, smuggling cargo."
"I wasn't smuggling." Tamarja scooted closer to him, his body sheltering hers from the cool ocean breeze. "I was carrying cargo for paying customers. I just asked fewer questions than most carriers and avoided busy traffic lanes. What's wrong with that?"
Daeven covered his eyes with a free hand, but Tamarja couldn't miss the amused grin on his face. Without warning, he dropped his hand from his eyes and used it to pull her into a kiss. She kissed him back with no hesitation, no questions. He wanted her, and it felt so right, so perfect.
He finally pulled away. "You were a smuggler. Admit it."
She stuck out her tongue. "I admit nothing."
He leaned closer to whisper in her ear. "So it'll be just you and me, on a freighter by ourselves."
"Most of the time." Oh, yes. Just perfect.
He smiled, a little bit of greed crossing his smug face. "I could get used to that."
She jabbed him with her elbow. "You'd better. It's going to be a long, dangerous journey. I don't even know where to begin looking."
He reached over to run his hand through her hair. "It doesn't matter as long as we're searching together."
She had lost so many years already. She wouldn't waste another second. She and Daeven were going to fly toward their future together.
THE END
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Sneak Peek of Mixed In
By: Catherine Haustein
Creating a beer is much like breeding a dog. Dogs have that one tricky gene, number fifteen, that can cause height variation between five inches and seven feet, more than any other land vertebrate. (Imagine humans ranging from two to over thirty feet tall.) Hops are complicated, having intricate aromas, regional differences, and changing chemistry upon brewing.
Sipping the dark and sylvan house ale, I studied the wavy-haired bartender. A pretty man with smooth skin, a dark mustache, and little sideburns, he resembled Nikola Tesla, who despite his love for frequency and vibrations, was said to have died a virgin.
I’d taken refuge in Union Station bar after
the bus blew a tire on a pothole as I rode home from work. I hadn’t been in this neighborhood before, although it was only a few streets and a couple of turns away from Cochton Enterprises where I worked. I’d looked at it through closed bus windows, pretending that I wasn’t gawking at the residents loitering on cracked sidewalks in front of a bar, an abandoned grocery store, and a laundromat with a window boarded with plywood. I’d never planned to set foot here. Other passengers had stood beside the bus on the fragmented sidewalk and called for rides. I’d foolishly bolted into the first place I’d seen, seeking shelter from the cold drizzle and urban neglect. Officials in black bomber jackets and belts covered with devices that hung like pinecones walked past the window. Those belts loaded with technology confirmed my suspicions. I was in a bad neighborhood.
I wasn’t a citizen of this city-state, carved out of Iowa, with a name pronounced “Cock-Ton” like an enormous penis. I was a chemist from Michigan on a work visa and didn’t worry about the officers. I had a permit to be here and, unlike most of the population, to have seeds. This was my first month in the country, and I was struggling to understand my new home and connect with the people here.
I looked up numbers for a cab. Tiffany lampshades diffracted light above the bar. A hundred years had flown by without touching this spot. There was even a huge painting of President Ulysses S. Grant behind the bar above the mirrors. Despite the sidewalk cracks and the officials stepping over them outside the window, Union Station was clean.
“Want another?” asked the bartender, coming over to my booth. He was dressed in black wool pants and a black T-shirt with “Union Station” stamped in gold block letters on the pocket. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Of course, that meant nothing.
“It’s good. What do you call it again?” I wanted to be friendly. I’d met few citizens and made fewer friends in my time here.
“Rainy Day Dark Ale. Perfect for today. I brew a small batch when I can. Most people who come in just want CochLite. You have good taste.”
“This is your brew? I love the aroma. I’ll take one more,” I said.
The bartender brought me an amber glass and read my company nametag pinned to my jacket.
“Dr. Catrina Pandora Van Dingle.”
I snatched off the tag and put it in my pocket. My name had always been embarrassing for me and what kind of person sits in a bar wearing a name tag? I might as well have worn a “Rob me” sign.
“It’s a Dutch name,” I said quickly. “What’s yours?”
“Ulysses.” Now this bar was making sense. Union Station. U.S. Grant. He had to be the owner. Ice balls ticked the street-facing window as the temperature dropped below the freezing point.
“You work for The Company, I see.” His deep voice poured from his chest as easily as beer from a pitcher.
“I do. I study chemicals in plants. I’m analyzing beans grown from seeds found in an old pair of pants.” Too much information. I should have stopped at do. The man leaned towards me so I went on talking.
“The original beans were found in antique corduroy trousers purchased at an estate sale by Bert Cochton.” Bert was a history buff who specialized in buying up old Civil and Revolutionary War clothes abandoned in attics. Part owner of Cochton Enterprises, he had a dream about these beans the moment he got his hands on them—that they would lead to something great. When a Cochton has a dream, no one in Cochtonville stands in his way.
Ulysses said, “I see. Well, better call somebody for a ride if you’re waiting for the bus. Things here don’t get fixed quickly, as you know.”
“I don’t know. I’ve only been in Cochtonville for a month.”
“Oh. Welcome to the city.” I’d saturated him with information. He went back to the bar as I dialed for a ride. Fifteen minutes passed. No luck getting a cab.
The lights of the Pavilion of Agriculture snapped on and most of the bar’s patrons drifted out the door—a three-inch-thick Prohibition-style affair with a rectangular peephole—leaving me alone with the bartender, a couple kissing on the couch in the corner, and a man and woman playing pool. The man wore a newsboy cap and thick plastic glasses. The woman, hair shimmery with henna (2-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone) was in a tight red dress with a little bow under the left breast. In contrast, I wore a cropped jacket over a green polo, with the gold C for “Cochton,” purchased at the company store. Cochton Enterprises liked us to wear insignia clothes. It made us appear professional. I unclipped my hair and let it fall like a sandy flag.
The woman from the pool table glided over to the blue-backlit bar, graceful in her heels. She had twenty-pound breasts and a ten-pound ass, and I was insecure in her presence. She shook her hair at the bartender and let it drape over one eye. “Hey, Ulysses, get me a drink of water.”
Surprisingly, she came to the booth and sat across from me.
“He’s being friendly to you ’cuz he’s in the doghouse,” the woman said. Here was the first person in Cochtonville who’d approached me when it had nothing to do with work or commerce. “Hey, Ulysses, how about some snacks?” she called.
“He’s being friendly?” I said, confused.
“He usually don’t talk to Company people much. I got no prejudices. Nothing much to hide. I’m Maven, by the way.”
“I’m Catrina.”
The weather report was on the television. An “arctic invasion,” the forecaster was saying.
The bartender put a basket of pretzels in front of me and handed Maven her water.
Maven chomped a pretzel. “I’d hate to be on the road with this ice. Lucky all I have to do is walk the streets. Ulysses, give me some of what’s behind the counter.”
“That, my dear, will cost. Cash money this time,” the bartender said, reaching into his pocket and tucking something in her palm.
She snapped her fingers shut to hide it. “Put it on my tab.”
He put a hand on his hip. “Maven, let me know if you’re going to die soon.”
She opened her leather purse and blinked. “What you mean by that?”
“I’ve carried you this long. I might as well be a pallbearer and finish the job.”
She slipped the small item into her purse. It dropped in silently. The bartender went back to the bar and stood behind it. The man in the cap joined Maven and me in the booth.
“Ulysses talks tough, but he’d be nowhere if it weren’t for Bernadette. She’s the real manager of this place,” he said. “They’re both the proprietors, but she’s the one with the business sense.”
“He’s the creative one,” Maven said. “They’re having another tiresome fight. That’s why she’s not here.”
“They’ll get over it,” the man said, bug-eyed behind his glasses. “They’ve got to.”
He went to the pool table and put a cue between his legs.
“Hey, baby, you can lead a horse to water. Who’ll play break the law with me?” He wiggled it at me.
“Go home, Ernie Ray,” Ulysses said from behind the bar. “You’ll get me arrested. This nice woman here probably agrees that all deviants need locking up.”
Ernie Ray put his pool cue on the table. “Hey, man, is this some kind of acid test? I’m not going anywhere.” He sat next to me again. I inched away. I wasn’t quite used to so many locals in one spot displaying their strange attitudes and archaic speech patterns, as if they’d been dropped into a time hole by their separation from the rest of the United States.
“Welcome to the joint.” Ernie Ray huffed his stale popcorn breath in my face, as if all he ate was free bar food and he was eager to share the experience. “You’re cute. Single?” He had a prominent brow and hairy eyebrows. He’d hit on a sore topic. I was single but didn’t want to be single forever. My parents had expressed worry that this place was known to be prudish and I’d never find a man. My granny was concerned I would find a man—an oppressive one. I wasn’t sure I had room in my life for a man at all, and yet, I wanted more than just a life in the lab. I wanted kids, a family, everything good
that a person could experience.
“Aren’t you getting a little too personal?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest. He was the desperate type. He made me uncomfortable. I was sure I’d caught a glimpse of him slumped against the door the last time the bus had zoomed past.
Ulysses came over and leaned on the booth. “Ernie Ray, find that guy who pays you ten to go down on him. I’m trying to keep a decent place here.”
“I wouldn’t be caught dead doing that for only a ten,” Ernie Ray said in all seriousness.
“Walls talk, Ernie.” Ulysses pulled him from the booth. “And accidents will happen, pal.”
“Wait, wait. One poem for her. It’s called ‘Toast to a New Girl.’”
“Poem?” I asked. The media here was twenty-four-hour news. It surprised me that people even knew what a poem was.
“Make it fast,” Ulysses said. “Watch the words.”
Ernie Ray shrugged off Ulysses’s grasp and steadied himself. He recited with a deep croak.
“Let’s drink to getting hard
To holding the line
To cornering the market
To hiding all women in the suburbs
Only wearing Floyd.”
He bowed. I wasn’t sure if I should clap or not. This whole thing had me uncomfortable.
“Did you like it?” he asked eagerly.
“What did it mean? I can’t say I understand poetry. Is it all about emotion? Sincerity?” I couldn’t classify this guy. Maybe he was one of those who came with special-handling instructions.
“Exactly,” he said.
The door opened and a man in a tan uniform came in with a keg on a cart. “Delivery,” he said brightly, shaking precipitation from his short hair.
“In this weather? You’re a juggernaut,” Ulysses said, following him as he wheeled the beer to the cooler behind the counter.
Ulysses unlocked a drawer. He counted out bills and gave them to the man and asked, “Need a tip?”
