Magnet Omnibus I (Lacuna)

by David Adams

  That’s when it all became clear to me.

  There was no reason.

  Sometimes things happened for no reason.

  Cutting off all my hair felt right for me, just as it had for Gutterball. I had subconsciously wanted to do something inexplicable and for no reason. Not because of the mystery of it, or because I delighted in confusing my subordinates, but for reasons that were so much deeper and more personal. Cutting off my hair was an act of defiance against the universe. If nothing made sense in this life, and there were injustices despite doing everything right and doing what you were supposed to do, then I had best embrace the chaos. I should grab this nonsense ball with both hands and kick it as far as I could. Regain some kind of control over my life, even if it was just how much hair I had.

  As they put the gas mask over my face, pumping in the chemicals that would send to sleep so that the medics could stitch up my wounds and help me recover, I was overwhelmed by the significance of this. Perhaps it was the drugs, the stress, or some combination of factors that I didn’t understand at the time, but right at that moment everything in the world came into focus.

  My life was my own.

  Six days later

  Nudging the stick, the Falcon—an unarmed transport and supply variant of the Broadsword—set down near RAAF Base Tindal, landing with both landing skids touching the ground at the same time. Shaba had arranged for me to borrow the ship—insisted upon it really—and I had no idea how she had convinced Fleet Command to give me unrestricted access to one of their rare, if small, spacecraft. The factories were churning out Broadswords as fast as they could be made, but going into space was far from trivial.

  I was as I always seemed to be. Bandaged. Injured. Limping home after an adventure in space, with new scars to join the old, mental and physical. Movement was stiff, slow, but it wasn’t as bad as when I’d been shot down. My leg hurt. My head hurt. My arms both hurt.

  The moment I engaged the loading ramp and the scorching hot Australian desert heat rolled into the loading bay, it was like opening an oven; a wave of dry heat spilt inside, so different from the cool, artificial air of a spaceship. With it came the smells. Heat. Speargrass. Vegetation. Bush flowers. Real plants growing wild. It was moisture and soil and life and it was glorious. After a year in the black I’d almost forgotten what Earth smelt like, but there was a definite feeling as I put my first foot on the ground in so long.

  This was home.

  My arrival had drawn a crowd, but of all the smiling, waving faces, there was one waiting outside the base—in the Katherine River Lodge Motel, a cheap area in nearby Katherine that we used because it was especially accessible to the blind—that was waiting just for me. The others wanted to see the ship. The uniform. The technology.

  Not her, though.

  Work came first. I did what I had to do. I met with the base commander, presented my report and leave pass and officially requested permission to have my craft hangared. He was more than happy to comply. With the Falcon towed and stored, a handful of personal effects were dropped off in my locker. Just stuff. I barely remember what it was. Junk. But I did it anyway. Every action was deliberate, and deliberately drawn out; a stall for time, taking minutes where seconds would suffice, finding any excuse to avoid moving on.

  The excuses, as all bad ones do, ran out quickly. The ship was safe. My locker was full. The cab was waiting.

  The taxi ride to the hotel had been, in the past, excruciating. Weeks and months of pent-up desire to hold Penny, to see her, to gush and tell her about everything that had happened. Tindal was so close to Katherine on the map but it always seemed so very far away to me.

  This time, however, was the longest time. I should have been psyched up, excited beyond words, and yet all I wanted to do was turn the automatic car around and have the computer drive me back to the RAAF base, retrieve my stuff, tow the ship back out to the runway and blast into space forever, never to return.

  I fought that urge the whole way there. Before I was ready—although I knew I would never really be totally ready—the car’s tyres stopped rolling and the computer inside chirped as my credit card was billed. Then it chirped again, prompting me to leave.

  “Thank you for riding,” the machine’s recorded voice intoned. “Please vacate the vehicle.”

  Since the robot said please, I took my rucksack, and then I was outside the River Lodge Motel. I pushed open the door and made my way to reception.

  “Morning Mike,” said the manager, Rose. She was a heavy Aboriginal woman with an irrepressible smile. “How’re you doing, love?”

  “Not dead yet.” I put my rucksack in front of the counter. “Is Penny here?”

  “Of course,” Rose said, to my dismay. “She’s waiting for you. Suite 112. I’ll buzz her to let her know you’ve arrived, if you want?”

  No. I didn’t want Penny to get lost, although she knew this place like the proverbial back of her hand. “Nah, it’s okay. I’ll just surprise her.”

  She handed the key out to me, smiling as though she were being paid by the millimetre, and I finally took it.

  “You okay, love?”

  I rested my hand over my rucksack, gently squeezing the fabric. “Sure. It’s okay if I leave this here?”

  “Of course.” She tilted her head. “You heading back out again?”

  “Yeah. Might be.”

  As though she sensed things might not be right, Rose let me go without another word. I trudged up the stairs, taking each one at a time, my head down. I wished they would go on forever; each little step taking me closer to breaking Penny’s heart.

  Suite 112. There it was. I hovered my hand over the thick wooden door, varnished to a shine, perfect for couples. Quiet. Private. Luxurious.

  And my hand continued to hover.

  I couldn’t. I couldn’t face her. I stood there like a jackarse, knuckles millimetres away from the wood, but I couldn’t bring myself to let her know I was here. I tried; I tried and I tried, but each time some unseen force would pull me back, preventing my knuckles from touching the wood. My brain fought itself, struggling, my need to be with her shouted down by my guilt.

  So I left. I walked down the corridor and turned to the stairs, only to hear the door open.

  “Rose?”

  Here was my chance. All I had to do was say nothing, walk to the stairs, and leave. I could never come back if I wanted. I was free—free in every way I could be free. The Falcon could break atmosphere, and the Rubens would take me anywhere in the galaxy I wanted. I could visit stars on the other side of the Milky Way if I wanted to, and if we could locate the jump coordinates. I could be as far away from Penny was I wanted to be.

  She’d be better for it, too. She’d be upset but she’d move on. She’d find someone else. Penny was irrepressible like that; nothing could keep her down. If I explained it just right, she might not even be that hurt.

  The choice was mine. My life was my own.

  “No,” I said, putting those thoughts aside. “It’s me.”

  Laughing, squealing with joy, Penny’s long brown hair bounced as she ran up to me, her left hand on the wall, her right held out before her. That hand wrapped around my chest, grabbing me and crushing the air out of my lungs, rocking us both from side to side.

  I’d been gone for almost a year and she looked, smelled, felt exactly as she had a year ago. Leaving was like yesterday; despite myself, the sight of her unchanged validated my decision. Bought some normality to the madness.

  “Mike! Mike, baby, honey. Oh, wow. Wow. I’ve missed you so much. So much.” She ran her hands over my face, smiling as her fingers traced their ways across my scars. She felt the indentations in my skin, the roughness of the scar tissue.

  “Sorry,” I said, more self-conscious than I usually was.

  Her face fell. She looked as though I’d hit her in the gut. Normally she didn’t like me apologising for them—she said my scars made for an interesting face, and touching someone’s face was how she sai
d hello—but this was different. Her reaction was immediate and pronounced. “It’s okay,” Penny said, but her hands returned to her sides, her whole body becoming stiff. She looked very far from okay.

  Someone had told her. Time to face the music. “Hey, um. I’ve… done something terrible.”

  Penny’s lip trembled and her blind eyes kept searching, instinctively following my voice, but I got the distinct impression she suddenly didn’t want to see me at all. “It’s okay,” she said again. “I already know.”

  Shaba must have phoned ahead about Scarecrow. What would she think of me? I’d killed human beings. People just like me. Christianity was pretty clear about that. Thou shalt not kill. Pretty clear, cut and dried. Penny believed in all that stuff. “Shaba.”

  “Yeah. Her.” Silence, so thick and awful I could have choked on it. Penny spoke again. “I’m so glad you’re back, though. I—but we need to talk about it, but I… it’s okay. I just want you to know it’s okay, and I forgive you.”

  She meant it. Her tone was one part pain, one part absolute and total sincerity. Penny genuinely disliked what I had done, but she was equally happy to put it behind her, to let the past fall away to oblivion. I didn’t know what to say, but words tumbled out anyway. “Thank you. Thank you. It’s been tearing me up inside. This whole thing… I just can’t believe it. I didn’t mean for it to happen. It was just an accident. Just a terrible, stupid accident.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said, a noticeable crack in her voice. “I can believe it. It’s okay. It really isn’t your fault—it’s just a thing that happens. You serve on a ship like that, in such cramped confines out in space like that, for so long, I can understand. These kinds of things happen. Mike, you’re only Human. I don’t care. I love you and I don’t care.”

  She hugged me again, with far less joy this time, but now I hugged her back, squeezing her around the middle. I buried my face in her shoulder. “I’m really sorry. I’ve felt so guilty. Like stones were on my chest. I almost couldn’t come, but I knew I had to face you eventually.”

  Penny made little hushing noises. “Don’t worry about it. We can both move beyond this, together.” She took in a breath, kissing my neck through my collar. “Just promise me you’ll have Lieutenant Kollek transferred off the ship, okay? This can’t happen again.”

  I blinked. Twice. “Shaba? What does she have to do with Scarecrow?”

  “What’s Scarecrow?”

  I scrunched up my face. Maybe I had a mild case of the bends, transitioning from the compressed air of the Falcon to the thin air of atmosphere. “Scarecrow’s the ship. The one that got blown up.”

  “What ship?”

  Nothing made sense. “Penny, what exactly are you talking about?”

  She hesitated, pulling back from me. “I’m talking about you sleeping with Lieutenant Kollek.”

  Confusion. I almost swallowed my tongue. “Um. That’s news to me, honey.”

  Penny seemed equally confused. “But—… but you’re always talking about her, and… and you’re out there in space all alone—and, and she’s so pretty, and she can see and fight and fly just like you, you have so much in common, and I just assumed…”

  “You assumed I’d cheated on you?”

  “I don’t know, I—… you didn’t?”

  She didn’t know. My relief was total, immediate, and complete. “Penny, I have never had sex with Lieutenant Kollek. Shaba. That woman.”

  “That’s what Bill Clinton said.” But the smile returned to her lips. “You promise?”

  “Penny, I swear to God, I didn’t sleep with Kollek. I did see her naked in the shower once. But that was an accident.” I found her hand with mine, squeezing. “Besides. She’s not that pretty.”

  Penny squeezed back. “It’s not about her being pretty. It’s about her being available.” She chewed on her lower lip. “It’s about her being able to look you in the eye. See things with you. Share their beauty.”

  I didn’t care about any of that at all. “I’ve served with women my whole life. I’ve never been tempted. Some fighter jocks love to sleep around, but me… I’d never mix business and pleasure. That gets people killed.”

  She laughed—a mixture of relief and awkwardness—and all at once, the tension evaporated. “Thank God.”

  I kissed her forehead, holding her close. “You really had me going for a bit.”

  “I can imagine.” Her relief was replaced by curiosity. “So… what happened? What did you think I was talking about?”

  No answer I could think of would satisfy that question, and there was absolutely no way to spin what had happened. I told her exactly what had happened; every single detail, from the beginning, and I studied her reaction. Apprehension as I described the attack on the Toralii freighter. Curiosity as I told her about my first flight in so long. Apprehension as Scarecrow entered the picture. The ship that had been blown up.

  Sadness and vague disappointment as I told her what I’d done, and of Scarecrow’s final fate.

  “Did anyone survive?” she asked. We’d been standing in the corridor for almost half an hour. This was the first question she’d asked the whole time.

  “No. The ship went in at hypersonic speeds. The ice is kilometres thick and as hard as stone. The ship blew into pieces.”

  “How many?”

  “Probably the standard crew of seven. There’s room enough for a good two dozen marines, maybe more if you cram them in nice and tight, but we found only enough remains for a regular crew.” Awkward silence. “They weren’t supposed to be there. We were so far away from Human space that anything out there, especially something fast moving and trying to avoid us, is just assumed to be enemy. Of course, we were trying to hide too, so we weren’t broadcasting any IFF. Just bad luck.”

  “Just bad luck,” she echoed. The genuineness in her voice remained. “You were doing your job.”

  Bitterness crept into my words. “My job isn’t to kill Humans.”

  “It is if Fleet Command says it is.” Penny’s voice was perfectly serious. “Before the Toralii arrived, the Air Force’s job was to engage and destroy the aircraft of other nations. Some of those might be drones, but the majority of them will be piloted by flesh and blood human beings. That was your job description then and it’s still your job now. The Scarecrow wasn’t where it was supposed to be, it wasn’t identifying yourself, and you couldn’t risk your ship or your crew on the highly likely chance that whatever target that was would jump away and alert the Toralii fleet as to your position. You made the only decision that you could have made. To do anything else would be crazy.”

  She was right. Her conclusion was drawn from what I had told her, so I felt like I couldn’t be an unbiased source, but I was forced to concede that she was right. “If it had been anyone else, and they hadn’t fired, I’d have had them off the ship so fast their heads would spin.”

  “So why are you so hard on yourself about this? Why is this the crushing defeat of Magnet, instead of just a mistake that wasn’t his fault? Why are you holding yourself to a different standard than your crew?”

  I couldn’t answer right away. Lots of ideas played in my mind. Perhaps it was lingering resentment about leaving the Sydney. Maybe I just hadn’t seen Penny for so long I was making mistakes. Maybe I wasn’t as hot a pilot as I thought I was.

  For every idea I had, though, I dismissed them. The real answer was hovering in my mind, clear as day, I just didn’t want to acknowledge it. “I think it’s because Gutterball was killed.”

  “Jane Rubens, right?” Penny nodded understandingly. “You named your ship after her. She obviously meant something to you.”

  “She did. Not in the way you were probably thinking, but yeah. She did. We were good friends… maybe a bit more than that. She was younger than me, but Jane was kind of the team Mum. The Piggyback crew haven’t been the same since she died.”

  “They’re the Rubens crew now.” Penny touched my arm. “You have to get used to that.”
>
  I still hadn’t. In some way it didn’t feel like my ship—just a temporary command, although I’d been the CO for so many months now. I felt as though some day I’d go back to the Sydney and everything would be just like it was; Gutterball and the gang playing poker in the Ready Room, passing another day while we waited for the Toralii to do nothing.

  But time moves forward. I knew those days were long gone.

  “Yeah. I will.”

  “Good.”

  Almost as an afterthought, as we stood in the corridor of a sleepy corridor of a cheap motel, I reached into my pocket and withdrew the ring that I’d been keeping for over a year, since before I was flying on the Sydney. The ruby centrepiece glinted in the florescent lights of the motel. It was far from the most expensive engagement ring every made, but I had bought it for the texture, rather than the look. Penny had hands for eyes. The colours would be lost on her.

  I’d rehearsed the words over and over, but they seemed to get caught in my mouth, all that preparation flying out the window. Everything I wanted to say just left and my mind was an empty cupboard, bereft of suggestions. After everything that had just happened, after Penny thinking I had been spending my time in space with another woman and the blood of the Scarecrow crew on my hands, I felt as though this was, quite possibly, the most hilariously poor time for this kind of thing, but I just didn’t care.

  I pressed the ring into her palm.

  “Hey, you wanna get married?”

  Medical bay

  TFR Rubens

  “Congratulations,” said Doctor Saeed, his smile a mile wide. Just like Rose’s had been. “She’s a beautiful wife. I’m glad things worked out for you.”