by Lindsay Peet
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The rest of the day was used for aiding the wounded, putting beasts out of their misery, and burying the dead. Our little speeder was retrieved and the Chugtallians claimed they’d have it like new in a couple of days, especially since they’d learned that there were more wrecked speeders up where we’d had our skirmish in the woods days earlier.
Late afternoon the rain came and reduced the torn earth into slop and bog. Everybody came inside, and the drinking and tale-telling began, and Wanliet and I were even more popular than when we’d first come into town. Everybody now knew we’d been frauds, and nobody cared, as we were now authentic heroes.
Our foremost booster was the mayor. “Brilliant move, Jaf my son, crashing through their vanguard like that, you smashed their attack! If not for you God only knows how things might have gone! God bless you, my son!” The ‘my son’ stuff unnerved me – sure, a couple days ago I’d been all moony about his daughter, but back then I didn’t think I had any options. Now? Well, now it was a different situation. And he’d know we were running before, so for whose benefit was all this talk of strategy?
Then there was the other mayor. “Ya know, I took you for a fast-talkin’ smoothy, but you’re a quick-thinker, too. Teach me, you weren’t half as worthless as I figured you!” she bellowed over a beer, meaning it as a compliment, I think.
Lordano, the Gurjoo, was busy comforting the wounded and the relatives of the dead. He wandered in, smiled meaningfully, grasped my hand and my arm, then hugged me, all without a word. Thank God for that.
So we drank, and roared, and told stories, and acted out dramas, and roared and drank some more, but I left not long after midnight, unable to share in the jubilation. Jaf Daskal was everybody’s friend, and I hated what my friends had done, and what had been done to them. I knew it had been necessary, but still it tore me up. Outside Sirah found me; she seemed affected the same way I was. Fondness, respect, and love welled from my heart for this young woman, who’d shown me more, I dunno, gumption and grit maybe, in one month than anybody else had in the rest of my life, since my adopted mother Rabbara had died. I wasn’t falling in love with a girl, I was coming to love the woman. And I knew she wouldn’t leave with me, and also knew I couldn’t stay on Caliuga with her.
Gently, she held my face and kissed me. My hands took her hips, rose to her waist, pulled her close, and then I wrapped my arms about her. We sobbed and shuddered and held close until the tears stopped, a long time later.
