Conversations in Caille: Thirty Three

There’s a little more security that might be expected, for a nursing home. Discreet, but there: the full-body scanner set into the front door, the well-muscled and alert ‘nurses’ at reception.

He barely notices, after two years. Making sure his pockets are empty of anything that might be considered ‘a weapon’ has become second nature, and the security staff are familiar faces, seen once a week.

He knows why they’re there, after all.

He’s glad of it.

Up to the second floor, third corridor, fifth door on the left, more ‘nurses’. He smiles at them, like always. They don’t smile back, like always.  Not unfriendly. Just on duty. 

He still smiles. Still brings the traditional gifts at the new year. They’d die to protect him: the least he can do is smiles and marzipan. 

Through the door, the man waits. Although waits might not be the right word – there’s nothing in the empty stare, the slack face, to indicate enough cognitive function to understand the difference between present and future.  Still, the man is there, and not doing anything else, so waits is close enough.

It’s a pleasant enough room, the medical necessities subtly concealed, a view of the gardens.  He takes a chair that lets him see out the window, lets the silence lengthen. Always, there’s the possibility that this time, he won’t be the first to speak.

And always, eventually, he is. 

“You’re looking well,” he says. It’s not entirely untrue. The medical care here is excellent. The residents have every chance of living a long, long time, and this resident is still in early middle age. “She’s looking well, too. I talked to her yesterday.” 

Not a flicker of response. Still, maybe, just maybe, there’s the possibility of a firing neuron somewhere deep behind those vacant eyes. Maybe, just maybe, what he says is heard and understood.

So he persists. “Just bought a new ship, she said. Some sort of rare … something, I can never work out what she means when she starts talking about that stuff, but I gather it was incredibly expensive. But then, she’s incredibly rich. I mean, even by capsuleer standards. And so happy, still so much in love, and her family … everything’s going perfectly for her.”  Is that a flare of a nostril or a trick of the light? “And for me, too. I’ve been chosen for the exhibition. They say I have real talent. And Cami is in an advanced computer sciences course – she’s a genius, you know, although mostly at skills that don’t have many legal applications.  She’s going to be able to do anything she wants with her life. Anything at all.”

Nothing. He studies the man for a while, noting the sagging flesh of his cheeks where the muscles are atrophying from lack of use, the unmarked, manicured hands. Nothing.

Always nothing. But he can’t quite believe it, despite what the doctors say, can’t believe that this man is, for all intents and purposes, gone: personality, will, mind all erased by creeping dementia. And until he can believe it, he will keep coming, week after week, bringing his stories of the world outside the walls and the worlds beyond the stars. 

Look how well we’re doing. Look how successful we are. 

Look how happy we are.

And there’s nothing you can do about it. 

The garden outside the window is darkening into dusk. The weekly visit is over.

Luc Roth stands, and leans down to brush a kiss on his father’s immobile face. “Goodbye, Papa. I’ll be here next week.”

And so will you.

With a smile for the unsmiling guards, Jorian Roth’s youngest son walks out the door and into the world outside his father’s walls.

Conversations On The Utopian Ideal: Thirty

Sergeant Helmi Alpassi submitted to the security scan at the entrance to Captain Night’s hangar stoically.

It’d be pretty fucking hypocritical of me to complain about getting checked for chips and jacks, after all.

She was less resigned to leaving her sidearm in the security locker there, but that was procedure they insisted on back at Pilot Roth’s hangars too and she had no reasonable justification to refuse.

And it wasn’t as if she was appreciably less deadly without her weapon as with it.

Still, options are nice things to have.

Pilot Roth, of course, had no weapon to turn over. She passed through the checkpoint with a polite, if slightly absent-minded, smile for the marines, accepted back the small parcel she had brought with her, and headed for the docking umbilical. An ensign was waiting at the top to escort them through the Utopian Ideal’s corridors, and not, this time, to the officer’s mess or the office of either Captain Night or Commander Invelen, but into an unfamiliar part of the ship where the occasional open door revealed scientific equipment and terminals that looked as if they’d be at home in the most up-to-date research facilities in the Cluster.

The ensign stopped. “Dr Toin’s lab is just along here, sir,” he said.

“Thank you very much,” Pilot said warmly. “Helmi, why don’t you wait here while I – ”

“No,” Helmi said.

“I’m quite sure,” Pilot said, in the dry tone she used when she thought she was being a woman of the world, “that I’m not in any danger from one research scientist, Helmi.”

One research scientist with spirits’ know what going on in her head after two years collared like a dog in a kennel. Helmi considered giving Pilot a brief explanation of what a person could do in the mindless panic of post-traumatic anxiety, illustrated with a couple of colorful examples from her own personal barracks-room experience, then looked at Pilot’s soft blue eyes and settled for: “No.”

Pilot sighed. “Fine. Just don’t scare her, Helmi. I don’t think she’s had a very good time of it.”

Helmi nodded. I won’t scare her.

If she doesn’t scare me.

That seemed, to Helmi, to be about fair.

She expected the door to lead to another sterile grey laboratory with banks of monitors and machines, but her first impression of the room beyond it was color. Reds and pinks, golden tones shading into orange, spilling around the room in shapes that seemed vaguely familiar from long-ago classes, strings of numbers and symbols that swooped and spun and had Helmi’s heart-rate ticking up a little in the half-second before she identified holoprojection and cut in the optical filters that damped it down to a pastel blur.

At the center of that blur was the object of Pilot’s visit, clear and sharp now in contrast to the haze in her dark blue insignia-less uniform. ID confirmation spooled across Helmi’s retinas as her internal neocom made a facial recognition match, Dr Nolikka Toin, Corporation: Ishukone, Rank: Restricted, Posting: Restricted, Age: 37, Hair: Brown, Eyes: N/A, Height: 178 cm, Weight: 50 kg.

That last Helmi assessed as being out of date, as Nolikka turned at the sound of footfalls and the holoprojection stilled. Incarceration will do that to a person.

Do other things, too.

Still, the woman didn’t seem about to fly off the handle, tense though she was, and so Helmi moved aside and let Pilot through the door after her.

“Hello,” Pilot said, her soft Gallente accent softer than usual. “Dr Toin? My name’s Cia, Cia Roth. I’m, well. Ami’s sister, among other things. I brought you – I brought you some things.”

“Ms Roth. Sir,” Nolikka said, her voice clear but without any weight to it, a voice, Helmi thought, neither used to giving orders nor having to raise itself to be heard. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to ‘sir’, me,” Pilot said. “I’m not – in your chain of command, is that the term?”

“Yes, Ms Roth.” The scientist didn’t relax from her at ease posture, not as straight-backed as Helmi would have liked to see from anyone under her command but not bad. For a techie.

Pilot set the bag down on the nearest bench. “I’ll put them – I’ll just put them here, shall I? It’s just some – some things I’d want, if I were …” She paused. “Um. Just some things.”

Nolikka looked a little baffled, as well, Helmi thought, she might. Perhaps it was the done thing in the Federation to give scented soaps and handcream to people recently escaped from slave labor factories. I’m sorry about your illegal imprisonment and abuse. Have some lavender water!

Helmi wouldn’t know.

“And this is, um. My friend Helmi,” Pilot said.

“Hello,” Helmi said neutrally.

“Sir,” Nolikka said.

“Do you have everything you need?” Pilot asked.

“Yes, Ms Roth. Thank you.”

“Do you mind if I … ” Pilot pulled a stool out from under the nearest bench, and perched herself upon it, even as she went on, “Do you mind if I sit down? It’s a long walk from the lock to back here.”

“No, Ms Roth, I don’t mind.”

Which was, Helmi judged, a lie. A good one, told with a straight face, and no betraying flicker to the voice, but a lie nonetheless, polite courtesy from a woman who wanted nothing more than for them to leave her in peace.

But Pilot hears what she wants to hear.

“How are you holding up?” Pilot asked.

“I’m well, thank you, Ms Roth.” Nolikka’s voice was inflexionless.

Pilot toyed a little with the bag on the bench. “I remember, for me … it was such a relief that it was over. I couldn’t feel anything else through the relief for a while. And when I did, it seemed so … inappropriate.” She smiled, as if Nolikka could see her. “It was over, it was past, I’d been fine. So why … ?”

There was a small silence, and then the scientist asked softly, “For you?”

Pilot shrugged. “It was different, for me. Not so long. Not for … the same reasons. I’m not pretending to know how you feel. But …” She toyed with the bag again. “After, the first thing I wanted, well, after I slept for about twenty hours, was to be clean. A bath with bubbles, and nice soap, and all the things that … just weren’t part of what had happened. I thought you might …”

“Thank you,” Nolikka said, and this time Helmi thought she meant it.

“But not,” Pilot said with a little wry twist to her lips, “Not what you were wanting?”

“I don’t want for anything, here,” Nolikka said. “But thank you.”

Pilot looked around. “Silver said you’ve been doing some exceptional research.” Nolikka looked slightly baffled, and Pilot went on, “Captain Night. He said your work is extraordinary.”

A faint hint of color in the scientist’s cheeks, then. “He’s too generous. I am quite out of the loop on latest developments.”

“I’m sure you’ll catch up,” Pilot said, studying her. “Have you thought about what you’ll do? When this is over?”

“When this is over,” Nolikka said blankly.

“Will you go back to Ishukone? Do you have family there?”

“I have a sister,” Nolikka said, and paused. “Go back to Ishukone? Of course.”

“Of course,” Pilot said gently. “Besides your sister?” At the other woman’s expression of incomprehension, she prompted, “Someone special? You’d like to see again?”

The answer came with the speed of pre-prepared fiction. “No. No-one like that.”

“I see,” Pilot said softly.

From the expression on that pretty Gallente face, Helmi thought that Pilot did see, even if what she saw was not what she'd been looking for.

And for once, heard what she didn’t want to hear, too.

Conversations on the Utopian Ideal: Twenty Eight.

((co-written with Silver Night))

Captain Silver Night waited at the foot of the docking umbilical, watching the small woman - the word came to mind unbidden - waddle towards him. Ciarente should, of course, have taken a passenger transport platform rather than walk the length of the hangar, and he knew his crew would have offered her one at the security checkpoint. Knew, too, exactly what she would have said, the same response she gave when he offered to take her place in the labs at HQ or overseeing a production line. Relax, Silver. I'm pregnant, not crippled.

Reaching him, a little breathless, she smiled. "Hello, Silver. How are you?"

"I'm well, Cia. How are you?" He started towards the ship. "Shall we?"

Tired, he thought an honest answer to his question would have been, judging from the blue shadows beneath her eyes and the pinched look to her face that the warm smile couldn't quite hide. But -

"Fat," Ciarente said instead, with a laugh, and then nearly overbalanced as the umbilical sloped upwards. Silver offered his arm, and Ciarente tucked her hand through the crook of his elbow, leaning on him lightly. "Ooops. Fat and with a centre of gravity that changes daily. I find it hard to believe that there's still more pregnant for me to get, but they assure me it'll happen."

"Well, you're most of the way there, from what I understand." They crossed the airlock threshold and Silver hesitated, considering the distance to his office. " I think ... " Security station, no, medical staging, no, non-com break-room .... "I think this should be suitable.

Ciarente, of course, had an apologetic smile for the non-commissioned officers who accurately read their Captain's expression as a suggestion that elsewhere would be a better place for them to be at the moment. And if she walked the length of the ship and went into premature labour she would no doubt apologise to medical for the inconvenience.

Sinking awkwardly into a chair, Ciarente smiled and said as if she could read his mind, "I'm not going to suddenly have the babies on B deck just from walking to your office, Silver."

"Shall we not take the risk, nevertheless?" he said.

Ciarente laughed. " All right. It's your ship, after all." She folded her hands over the swell of her stomach. "And I admit, although I'll deny it in public, my ankles are starting to complain a bit at the extra weight."

"Not so very much longer," Silver said. "And there's nothing wrong with taking it easy, when you can. Tea?"

"Yes," Ciarente said. "Yes, tea, thank you. And yes, time's been passing. It's ... getting to be time for me to think about names, perhaps."

"Oh?" Silver poured for both of them.

Ciarente picked up her cup and spoke to it, rather than to him. "Verin told me it's traditional, Caldari tradition, to chose an ancestor's name. It's not so different, where I come from. A grandparent, a great-grandparent. Someone you want to remember, maybe."

"I suppose it is somewhat common in many places," Silver said.

"Camille," Ciarente said with fond exasperation, "Camille thinks I should name my daughter Camieta. But I ... I've been thinking more about boy's names."

Silver sipped his tea. "Oh? Like what?"

"People it's important to remember. Important to family." Ciarente picked up her cup again, and put it back down, tapping the rim gently with one finger. "I haven't talked to Ami about it yet, Silver. I don't want to ... blunder in, I suppose."

"Blunder in?" Silver asked. "I'm afraid you're going to have to tell me a little more than that, Cia."

Ciarente looked down at her stomach and told it in a whisper, "I thought, perhaps, well, I wouldn't, of course, I know reminders can be painful, but I got the idea, and it seemed like the right thing, and I ..."

"Cia?" Silver prompted gently when she stopped.

"I was thinking about Jan," Ciarente said quietly, and then hastened to add, "But of course, not if, I haven't even mentioned it to Ami, it's a stupid idea, isn't it, I - "

"Cia," Silver said. "I don't think it's a stupid idea at all. Yes, reminders can hurt, but it's also good to remember."

"You think?" she asked hopefully.

"I think he would have been honoured, Cia," Silver said. "It would have made him very happy, I think. Having a niece and nephew."

"All right," Ciarente said, and smiled. "I'll talk to Ami."

Silver nodded, and sipped his tea. "Speaking of Ami. She and I discussed things, yesterday."

"Oh," Ciarente said, and went quite still. "Silver, are we - how secure are we, here?"

"Secure," he assured her.

"All right," Ciarente said quietly.

"I think Amieta is right," Silver told her. "A great deal has changed."

"Yes," Ciarente said. "That's what she said to me, and I suppose she is right, it has. I ... I just need to know that you're sure, I guess. That it's the right decision, for you. Not because of me, or what Ami said, or ... but that it's what you want."

"I'm sure, Cia."

"I don't want to put you in a position where ... I don't want it to be just because I'm ... a mess, about things."

Silver realized with alarm that Ciarente's eyes were filling with tears. Hastily, he offered her a handkerchief. "That isn't it at all, Cia. I would like ... to be able to have holos on my desk and spend holidays together without worrying about being seen."

Ciarente gave him a watery smile. "Like normal people? I know. I've felt that way, too, sometimes. But ... we're not, Silver. Are we?"

"Maybe a little at a time."

"Yes." She rested her hands on her stomach again. "It would be nice. Not to have to wait until my children are old enough to be able to keep secrets, to tell them who you - oh!"

"Cia?" Silver rose to his feet, making the comm connection to Medical with a thought. "Are you all right? Cia?"

"Give me your hand," Ciarente said urgently. "Quickly!"

"Do you need medical?" Silver asked, leaning over to offer her his hand.

Ciarente shook her head, taking his hand in hers and pressing it firmly against her stomach. "No. Wait. Just wait - there!"

Silver felt a vibration against the palm of his hand, faint but unmistakable.

"Did you feel that?" Ciarente asked softly.

"Yes," Silver said as softly, and felt the movement again, as if in response to his voice.

Ciarente's fingers tightened over his. "That's my daughter, on the top there," she said. "They can hear us, you know. I guess we sound like - when you're swimming underwater and people are talking by the pool, I suppose. But they can hear us." She smiled at him, tears sparkling on her eyelashes. "Say something to her."

"What ... " Silver cleared his throat. "What should I say?"

"Tell her hello," Ciarente said gently, and when he hesitated: "It's all right. Go on. Tell your - "

He saw her lips start to shape the word and forestalled her. "Don't - " say that. An automatic, reflex response. Never say it, not aloud, no matter where, no matter when. Never say it.

"Of course," Ciarente said, the ghost of a sigh. "I'm sorry."

Her smile was apologetic, but Silver thought he could see sadness there as well. He looked at his hand, both of Ciarente's now folded over it, felt the quiver in her skin that told of a new life moving, growing, listening to his voice. All three of them, he thought. Right here beneath my hand.

He would bury who he was and who he cared about behind an alias, behind a million secrets and a thousand locked doors, if that was what was best for them.

Or shout it from the hangar gantries, if that was.

Or say -

"Hello," Silver said hesitantly. "Camieta. Jan. Or whoever you're going to be. I'm - " He paused, and Ciarente squeezed his fingers. Silver took a deep breath. "I'm your uncle. Most people call me Silver. Most people do. But my name ... my name is Val."

Conversations on the Fortune's Firefly: Twenty Six

The instruments were laid out on the tray.

The needles and the knives.

Cia tried not look at them, but they were there, glinting in the corner of her eye.

"Are you ready, Captain Roth?" Dr Sanik asked.

No. No. Never, not ever.

"Yes," Cia said. She looked away from the tray and sat down on the examination table. "I'm ready. I think."

Metal clinked against metal. "This will only take a few moments."

"Thank you, doctor," Cia said politely. Something cold touched the skin behind her ear and she was -

falling away as fast as she can from

                                                               needles and

                  knives

and -

"Captain Roth."

Dr Sanik was on the other side of the room.

No, Cia realized. I'm on the other side of the room. Crouched in the corner, back pressed to the wall.

"Captain Night said you wanted this procedure," Dr Sanik said.

Want. Wrong word.

"I have to have it," Cia told her knees. "I have to."

Metal clinked on metal again. Cia stole a glance at Dr Sanik and saw her hands empty, the needles and the knives on the tray. "Did he explain to you that it is nothing like - the surgery you had before?"

"Yes. He said - " Cia closed her eyes and tried to make Silver's voice real, tried to make it sound as if he were there and not the other side of the cluster. A fairly minor operation, Cia. Very safe. "He said it was safe."

"It is safe," Dr Sanik said.

Cia nodded, and told her knees "I know."

"We can give you something to make it easier. A mild sedative, if you want."

"I want - " Not to have to do this. "To have -" Silver here, really here, not just a memory of a voice. "I could, if -" Ami were here, holding my hand.

"Captain Roth," Dr Sanik said. "I understand that you may feel some anxiety. I did, after all, perform the reconstructive surgery, after the ... incident."

"I know," Cia said. "I am sorry about that. I mean, I'm sorry about the - the fuss I made. I know, I knew, you weren't ... I did know. It was just the -"

              Needles

                                                                 and the

                           knives

                                                                                   and the dark.

"I understand from Captain Night there are some time constraints," Dr Sanik said.

"Yes." Cia took a deep breath, and forced herself to get up. The room spun, and then steadied. "Yes, there are. I can't afford to - I'll need to be sharp, later. I don't think, a sedative, I don't think it's a good idea."

"Then if you'll take a seat?" Dr Sanik indicated the examination table again. "We can begin."

It was a long way across the room to the table. Cia took a step, then another, keeping her gaze away from the tray, from what it held.

The last time Dr Sanik had held a scalpel and touched its blade to her scalp, Cia had held tight to Ami's cool metal hand, held on even in the dark, through the needles and the knives, until it was over.

Cia opened her mouth to say Wait, wait until Ami gets here, I'll be all right when Ami gets here.

Closed it again. If Ami was here, it wouldn't be necessary.

She heard metal scratch against metal, felt the cool touch of it on her skin. Someone was whimpering. Cia was too frightened to open her eyes to see who it was. Please, no, she thought, please, stop. Please.

The words stayed unspoken in her throat.

For family, you do anything.

Go anywhere.

Even into the dark.

Conversations In Debreth: Twenty Five

Mathilde Leclerke ran the cloth over the already-spotless kitchen bench one more time and folded it into precise quarters. Easy to keep house when the house has no-one in it, she thought with a glance at the couches never-sat-on by the fireplace-never-lit. Change the flowers, dust ... open and close windows.

Not that it should be anything to complain about, not for a woman of her age. A nice quiet life with no crying babies and no toddlers smearing honey on the walls, no adolescent boys tramping mud through the house, no dinner parties for twenty at an hour's notice.

Most housekeepers would envy her, Mathilde knew. I'd have envied myself, fifteen years ago.

Never thought I'd miss cleaning M'selle Camille's handprints off every surface less than three foot off the ground.

She sighed. Can't hold on to your own forever, let alone the others.

What was it her own Maman had said? First they make your arms ache. Later they make your heart ache.

And she was old enough to know better, too.

Still, it would be nice to -

As her thought had bespoke Fortune herself, the front door banged open.

"Ami!" It was M'selle Roth's voice, Captain Roth as she was now. "Ami? I'm home." Rapid footsteps in the hall, and then the girl herself appeared at the door.

"Ami? Mathilde, where's Ami?"

"M'selle Invelen is not here," Mathilde said.

"Did she go out?" Ciarente asked. She crossed briskly to the chiller and opened it. "She'll be hungry when she gets back, Ami's always - ugh, Mathilde. Something's gone off in here."

"No, M'selle," Mathilde said.

Ciarente began to pull things off the shelves, sniffing them cautiously. "Well, something smells terrible."

"I am quite sure I would not let anything spoil," Mathilde said. "But I meant, no, M'selle Invelen has not gone out. She has not been here."

"Oh." Ciarente paused, and then said brightly, "She's probably stopped in to see Alain on her way from the shuttle. She'll be here soon. I wonder if she'd like some - oh, this is it." She held a bowl out at arm's length, grimacing. "The vichyssoise. Ugh, it stinks."

Mathilde took the bowl. "Made fresh this morning, M'selle."

"I don't think so, Mathilde. Get rid of it, please, it's turning my stomach."

The only odors Mathilde could identify were onion and chicken, but she turned to pour the soup away. "You are expecting M'selle Invelen today? She did not call."

"I'm sure she'll be here soon," Ciarente said. "Do we have enough eggs? Ami does like Pierre's omelettes."

"More than enough, M'selle," Mathilde said. "Even for M'selle Invelen."

"Good." Ciarente took a handful of mushrooms from their storage bin and then put them back with a sigh. "Fortune, I'm tired. More jumps this week than I like to think about."

Mathilde studied Ciarente a moment. "Would you like some tea, while you wait for M'selle Invelen?"

"Coffee, I think," Ciarente said. "It's been a long few days."

"I think we may be out of coffee," Mathilde said.

"Well, tea then. Thank you." Ciarente pulled a stool over to the counter and sat down with a sigh. "It is good to be home, Mathilde. I miss this place, you know."

"We miss you also, M'selle, and M'selle Camille." Mathilde set the kettle to boil and took clump of ginger from the root cupboard.

Ciarente looked out the window at the garden. "I've all but missed summer this year. You're well? And Pierre?"

Mathilde grated the ginger and tipped it into the teapot with a handful of lemon rind. "We are both well, yes. A little creaky, these days." She poured hot water into the pot. "And M'selle Camille? And yourself?"

"Oh, Cami's Cami, as always," Ciarente said. "And I'm fine. That tea smells lovely."

"I thought you would like it," Mathilde said, pouring a mug and setting it on the counter by the pilot. "You do look a little tired."

Ciarente wrinkled her nose and sipped the tea. "Ah, worries, you know how it is? But things will be fine, now." She turned on her stool at the sound of the door opening again. "Ami?"

"No, Captain Roth." It was a man who answered, and when he came into the room Mathilde recognised M'ser Tanith Burke from the times he'd visited to check on the security arrangements. "I'm afraid not. It seems now that Commander Invelen changed shuttles on station."

"Well, of course," Ciarente said. "Interbus doesn't do planetary runs."

"No, Captain Roth," M'ser Burke said. "Changed to a different interbus line. With a ticket to Reblier."

Ciarente set her mug down with a click. "I'm afraid you're mistaken, Tanith. Amieta wouldn't buy a ticket for Reblier when she was coming down planet."

There was a little silence in the room. M'ser Burke looked at Mathilde and she made her face expressionless. She'd had decades to practice that, in this household.

"Well," Ciarente said decisively. "When she gets here, she'll be hungry." She stood up. "I think I might make a cake, Mathilde. Do we have any candied oranges? I think with a vanilla base that might be quite nice for a warm evening."

"Captain Roth," M'ser Burke said. "Commander Invelen has, we are almost certain, left the system."

Ciarente opened a cupboard energetically. "That can't be right, Tanith. It simply can't."

"If we move quickly, we may pick up her trail in Reblier," M'ser Burke said.

"She's on her way here right now." Ciarente took the flour down and set it on the counter with a thump that raised a little white cloud from the bag.

Mathilde looked at M'ser Burke, and then reached out to put her hand over Ciarente's. "I think you should listen to M'ser Burke, M'selle."

"I would like," Ciarente said a little shrilly, "to make a cake for my sister."

"I know," Mathilde said.

"So when she gets here, she'll have something to eat." Ciarente's fingers tightened on the bag until her knuckles were white.

"M'selle. If she were here, right now, what would she tell you to do?"

Ciarente stared at the flour. "She - she ... "

"M'selle."

Ciarente let go of the flour suddenly and put her hands over her face. "She said ... stop hiding, she said. Before. Stop hiding, and do something about it."

M'ser Burke cleared his throat. "The shuttle off-world ..."

"Yes." Ciarente lowered her hands, tears tracking lines through the dusting of flour on her cheeks. "The shuttle. I will tell the crew to prep the Firefly."

Mathilde picked up the cloth from the counter and began to wipe Ciarente's face, just as she had so many times before.  Baby, toddler, child ...

There had been a time when she had had a solution for any problem Ciarente could bring to her. Long past, now, that time. 


Long past.

Mathilde dusted away the last of the flour.

"Bring M'selle Invelen back to visit," she said. "Pierre will make her as many omelettes as she likes. D'accord?"

Ciarente sniffled, and nodded. "I will." She hugged Mathilde quickly, and then turned to M'ser Burke. "We should hurry, I suppose."

They went out together, Ciarente looking very small and young beside M'ser Burke.

But not so young, anymore.

Mathilde sighed, and began to clean up the flour. When they are little, they make your arms ache.

But she is not so little, anymore.

Conversations on the Utopian Ideal: Twenty Three

People say starship pilots become their ships, when they're plugged in to the pod.

It's as true as any simple explanation of a vastly complex process affected by a thousand thousand variables can be, which is to say, not very.

Apart, the ship and the pilot exist, separate entities. When the intricacies of Jovian technology join them in a union more intimate than any imagined in the world of the flesh, one does not become the other.

The pilot is not the ship any more than the ship is the pilot.

But it is true enough that when the neural links slide home into the pod-jacks and the connection goes live a pilot is no longer themselves entirely, either, not the same self that walks on two feet through the corridors of the station, that sees only what can be revealed by limited human eyesight, the self contained entirely by a frame of flesh and bone.

A pilot in pod gains and loses with each transit of the barrier between metal and mind. Loses and gains with each journey back.

Capsuleers differ in the way they negotiate the constant demand of their profession to cross again and again from the self of the flesh to the self of the stars. Some reject the idea of unity between themselves and their ship as much as they can, and talk instead of controlling their ship as if pod technology is only a more efficient version of the Captain's bridge chair. Some regard their ships as if they were bodies to be put on and taken off, as casually as anyone with access to cloning technology puts on and takes off the body of their birth, declaring that their self is contained entirely in their intellect, whatever physical architecture it may be hooked up to at any given moment.

Both may be right. Or neither.

Cloning teaches us that the mind must be separate from the brain, that the self must be separate from the body it inhabits. If that is true, then the capsuleer makes the ship they wear themselves as thoroughly as anyone wearing a vat-grown body has made that biomass lattice their own even before the slow colonisation of their DNA.

But not everyone believes it is true. Some hold that something essential is lost with that first transliteration of memory and personality from flesh to flesh. Other say they believe no such thing, but hoard and protect their first body behind steel walls and security screens sufficient to keep even CONCORD out. The mind is the self, true, but the mind is the product of the brain, with all its intertwined and ceaselessly firing neurons responding to every twitch and tingle of the body that houses and shapes and changes it daily.

Except for capsuleers, who regularly, even eagerly, switch off the sensations of their flesh and switch on the carefully calibrated information flow from the thousand systems of their ship.

A pilot in pod does not become their ship, but perhaps in the intangible alchemy that technology provides, pilot and ship together become, temporarily, a single self, a mind created by the biological reactions of a human brain to mechanical stimuli fed directly into the cortex.

As complex as the technology of the pod is, the human mind is more complex still. For many pilots, their sense of control or habitation, of ownership or union, varies widely between one ship and the next. Different makes and models, different specifications and capabilities, all affect the comfort - or lack of it - of the pilot in the pod. And other intangible considerations, too: more than one pilot has been known to complain that this Vagabond, this Falcon, this Megathron, is just not as comfortable as the last.

Many a Chief Engineer has spent hours hunting for undetectable flaws and cursing their employer's eccentricities.

This pilot, though, had no such sense of nagging incongruity as he stretched his consciousness out through the kilometers of corridors and ducts of his Chimera-class carrier. This ship was not new, not unfamiliar. It was, in fact, home, in the pod or out of it, and the flood of information that poured through the pod implants was a background hum as reassuring and unnoticed as the beat of his own heart.

The ship had a heart, too, although the core life-support processors didn't beat, but hummed a steady whirr. Air hissed through vents and was drawn back again, washed through the scrubbers, pumped past the green leaves of the plants in the hydrobays and sent on its way again. Across the ship, machinery kept up its pace while redundant systems were in various stages of power-down or maintenance cycles.

The bipedal carbon-based components of the ship performed their tasks with the same reliable consistency, or moved through the rest and recreation stages necessary to peak efficiency. In one compartment, staff from engineering discussed improvements to the capacitor output mix over a game of cards; in another professions of undying love were offered and received; the muffled Rat-tat-tat. Rat. Tat of marines at pistol practice came from the range. A woman was singing as she switched out relay circuits in the cargo hold, a child was crying quietly in compartment 1583C, a med-tech sighing with relief as he looked at a test result ...

For the ship, all these sounds were of equal importance, or lack of it: non-operational background noise, of far less relevance than the hum of the capacitor or the whine of the shield buffer.

But the ship was not just a ship, when the human pilot was in pod, just as the human pilot was not only human when he was encased in the ship's embrace.

A child crying.

Responding to the pilot's interest the ship's systems sorted and ordered the flood of information with a new set of priorities. The sound was separated out from the quiet babble picked up by sensors all around the ship, identified, pin-pointed.

The neural links withdrew and the pod seal opened. The pilot slid through the decanting chamber and to the floor below, enduring the indignities of the process stoically. Jets of warm water sluiced away the pod-fluid before a blast of hot air dried the moisture from his skin. A uniform, immaculately pressed, was laid ready. Mere moments after that single anomalous sound had caught his attention, the captain stood before the door of compartment 1583C.

He pressed the call button by the door frame. "Camille? It's Silver. May I come in?"

At Camille's assent, muffled but intelligible, he keyed the door open.

The room, with its profusion of vegetative artwork, was of course familiar. The small red-headed girl sitting in the far left corner, hugging her knees to her chest, was less so.

"Camille, it's past twenty-three hundred. Shouldn't you be asleep?"

Camille sniffled without looking up. "Couldn't sleep," she said.

"I see." Silver paused. "Do you think you might be better able to sleep if you went to bed?"

The girl shook her head. "I feel better here," she said.

"I see," Silver said again, although in fact he did not, in more than the strictly literal sense, see. "Do you mind if I join you?"

"Yes," Camille said. "I mean, no. I don't mind." She shuffled herself sideways a bit, making room for him in the narrow wedge of space between Commander Invelen's desk and the wall.

Silver lowered himself down to sit beside her, his back to the ventilation duct, the faint hum of the life-support processors distantly audible under the gentle hiss of air, the constant whirr of the Utopian Ideal's heart, not, of course, a human heart that beat a steady rhythm but an artificial heart that hummed steadily without pause, much as -

I see.

He hesitated, and cleared his throat slightly. "I imagine you miss your sisters quite a bit. Cia. And Ami."

"I'm not crying," Camille said.

"I can see that," Silver assured her.

"And even if I was, sometime even marines cry." Camille sniffled again and wiped at one eye with her sleeve. "But I'm not."

Silver offered her his handkerchief. "Certainly not."

"Thanks." Camille took the handkerchief and blew her nose.

"You're welcome."

Camille blew her nose again. "I'm a bit worried about Ami," she admitted softly.

"Cia will take good care of her."

"I know," Camille said with a sigh. "Cia's good when you're sad. It's nice she's good for something." She held out the handkerchief to him. "Thanks."

"Ah, you should keep that. In case you need it again," Silver said quickly.

"Okay." Camille tucked the handkerchief into her sleeve.

"When you can't sleep, at home, what do you do?" Silver asked.

"Cia usually makes me hot chocolate," Camille said.

"And that helps?"

Camille nodded. "Yeah."

"I'm sure the officers' mess could send up some hot chocolate, if you wanted," Silver said.

"It's okay," Camille said sadly. "It wouldn't be the same. I think I'm just going to sit here for a bit."

Silver nodded. "Do you mind if I sit with you?"

"No," Camille said. "That'd be okay."

"Good."

Camille sighed again, and shuffled herself a little closer to Silver. "Silver?"

"Yes, Camille?"

"Cia said you're not very used to little kids."

"I suppose that's true," Silver said.

Camille leaned her head against his shoulder. "It's okay, though. You don't need to worry about it. I'm nearly nearly-ten, and when I'm ten I'll be nearly big enough to start training to be a marine, and that's practically almost grown up. So don't worry. I won't be a kid much longer."

"I will," Silver reassured her, "do my best not to worry about it."

"Good," Camille said, and fell silent again.

A thought brought up the interface for Silver's internal neocom, another created a memo for the Facilities and Maintenance division. Work order: Commander Invelen's quarters, compartment 1583C. Temporary relocation of bed to far left corner of compartment, adjacent to ventilation duct. Work to be completed next main-day shift.

He let the interface fade from his vision and glanced down at the top of Camille's head, her ginger hair a vivid contrast to the dark blue of his uniform. The slow regularity of her breathing and her limp weight indicated that she had fallen asleep.

Given the lateness of the hour, that was not unexpected.

What Silver had not expected was his own discovery that he did not, altogether, mind.

Conversations on the Utopian Ideal: Twenty Two

Isala Haya had, in twenty-five years of service, seen it all.

He'd waited on Captain Katamara as a junior steward on the Blue Star the night the Captain had dined with Ruunuken Vulli and Tsilo Ralttilo, and never breathed a word of what he'd overheard.  He'd poured wine for Mens Reppola without spilling a drop, pulled out chairs for C.E.O.s and pirate lords and podders with equanimity, and even, in the recent years of his employment as Captain Night's chief steward, Sansha. 

But spirits and ancestors, there are some things nothing can prepare one to see at the Captain's table.

It wasn't Captain Night's guest's spectacular black eye - there had been plenty of occasions when Commander Invelen had eaten her dinner with an icepack handy for whatever bruises she'd acquired that day.

It wasn't the less-than-impeccable table manners, either - customs differed throughout the Cluster and no Chief Steward worth the salt in the Captain's silver salt-shaker would turn a hair even if a dinner guest picked up the finger bowl and drank it.

But of all the things Chief Haya had seen in his long and varied career, a small child at Captain Night's table had to be the most unlikely of them all.

Unlikelier still, the girl seemed quite at home, black eye and all. Haya himself had never exchanged more words with Captain Night than the minimum required for food and wine to be ordered and delivered, and if the ancestors love me they'll keep it that way, but Miss Camille Roth chattered away at the Captain as if he were, well, a normal person.

In three years of waiting on the Captain's table, Haya had observed many things about his employer: that he had impeccable manners; that he not only ordered, but also appreciated, wine of exquisite quality and breathtaking expense; that no reason short of a hull breach would see him appear in the officer's mess wearing informal attire.

And if Captain Night treated the crew with slightly distant formality, if he sometimes went days at a time without leaving his capsule, if he had the unsettling habit of occasionally looking through his Chief Steward as if the presence of another human being was a momentary distraction from the contemplation of warp vectors and jump points, well, what else could be expected?

The Captain was a capsuleer. He was immortal, impossibly powerful.

He was most definitely not normal. 

The little girl's apparent blithe disregard for that simple fact unsettled the foundations of Haya's universe, but what rocked them to their core was the fact that Captain Night didn't seem to mind.

None of his internal turmoil showing on his face, Chief Haya inclined his head in acknowledgment of the Captain's order of seafood for himself and a cheeseburger for the child and took himself back to the galley to recover his composure a little.

"... say sister," one of the junior stewards was telling another as they washed the fine china dishes that no cleaner drone could be trusted with, "But do the math, right? No-one knows where she - "

"Mister Makkura," Haya said frostily. "There will be no gossip in my kitchen while the Captain's at table."

"No, chief!" Makkura said quickly.

"Kaalioka Trefin, quickly now. And a cheeseburger."

Haya watched closely as the food was prepared, but as usual, could find nothing that fell short of his exacting standards. At the head of a small procession of junior stewards, he returned to the officer's mess.

"You know what is very important, when you fly fighters?" Captain Night was saying to the little girl as they entered.

"What?" she asked.

"Picking your fights very carefully," Captain Night said.

Haya decided that he had clearly either inadvertently eaten something with hallucinatory side-effects or the Sansha invaders' rumored wormholes led, in fact, to an alternate reality, because the only other possibility he could think of was that Captain Night was, in fact, imparting avuncular advice to Commander Invelen's eight year old adopted sister, and that clearly wasn't happening.


The comforting conviction that he had simply lost touch with a reality that nevertheless retained its accustomed shape and was waiting for him to rejoin it, let Haya view with equanimity Captain Night agreeing with Miss Roth that indeed, biting was an option when one was losing a fight, although more general strategies were also useful to have. It carried him through half-heard snatches of conversation about gardening and it withstood Miss Roth asking the Captain Did you always know who you were going to be? Like, when you were my age? and the Captain actually answering. It wavered a little at Captain Night reassuring Miss Roth that in his opinion, she didn't need to be afraid of growing up to be an accountant.

It buckled completely when Captain Night gave his dessert order.

Chief Steward Isala Haya was a seasoned officer. He inclined his head in acknowledgement, turned precisely on his heel and strode into the galley to relay the order. He stared down the junior stewards with a glare that said the first person in my galley to comment will be scrubbing pots until the end of time. He supervised the preparation of the dessert the Captain had chosen and its delivery to the table.  When the Captain and his guest had finished their meal, shaken hands with all the formality any Deteis could desire, and gone their separate ways, Haya oversaw the clearing of the table and the careful cleaning of the irreplaceable cutlery and crockery.

Then he dismissed his juniors, and locked the door behind them.

In twenty five years of service Chief Steward Isala Haya had never once taken even the smallest liberty with the ship's stores or the Captain's property.

There is, he thought, as he took down a bottle of the Captain's least expensive hak'len and poured himself a precise single measure, a first time for everything.

For drinking the Captain's liquor. 

For eight year olds at the Captain's table.

He tossed the hak'len back, shuddering a little at the alcohol and a little at the memory.

For two chocolate milkshakes.

With, spirits help me ...

With extra chocolate.

Conversations on the Utopian Ideal: Twenty One

The girl was eight years old but she had a black-eye worthy of a heavy-weight prize fighter and a scowl that wouldn't have been out of place on the face of a Civire bouncer.  An air of don't-want-to-be-here radiated off her like heat shimmer from warp-core housing, and had been since Inola Toras had dragged her off a Brutor boy a year older and twice her weight and marched her into the empty classroom.

The boy was on his way to medical.  By the time the sixth sense for trouble that Inola had developed over twenty years of teaching had sent her down the hall to the lunch-room at a run,  Commander Invelen's sister's excellent impression of a small, red-headed whirling dervish had done considerable damage.

Not the first fight Irt Kalur has been in, Inola thought, but quite possibly the first he's lost.

"Miss Roth?" Inola asked the small bundle of resentment sitting in front of her.  "I asked you a question."

Camille Roth folded her arms and sighed. "I know."

Inola folded her own arms. "Are you going to answer it?"

"No."

Inola's sigh was internal, twenty years of teaching having given her more than a little self-restraint when it came to dealing with miniature miscreants.  "Miss Roth, that's not an acceptable response. Why were you fighting?"

Camille shook her head. "That's not any of your business."

"Children fighting in my classroom most certainly is my business, Miss Roth."

"We weren't in your classroom."

Strictly speaking, true. "You were in the lunchroom after you were in my classroom, and that's not an excuse. And I know you've only been here a few days, but that's not an excuse either. What would Commander Invelen say if she heard you'd been fighting?"

"She'd ask if I won," Camille said.

Quite possibly true, Inola thought, given some of the rumors about the Commander. "I think she'd be unhappy you got in trouble. We don't allow fighting here, Miss Roth."

The little girl stuck out her chin and said stolidly, "Then I guess you better punish me."

"I need to know what happened to know who deserves punishment, and how much. Did Mr Kalur start it?"

"I'm not saying."

"Miss Roth. Camille. I know that when you come to a new place, it can be hard to fit in. Sometimes the other kids want to make sure you know who the boss is, yes? Is that what happened?"

Camille's expression didn't change. "I'm not saying."

"If you don't tell me what happened, I'll have to punish you both."

"Good," Camille said.

"You want me to punish you?" Inola asked.

Camille rolled her eyes. "If you don't, the other kids will think it's because of whose sister I am."

Ah ha, Inola thought. "Is that what happened? Mr Kalur thought you were getting preferential treatment because you're Commander Invelen's sister?"

"No. And I'm not saying."

"If the other kids are teasing you, I can make them stop, if you tell me."

"Ms Toras," Camille said patiently, "If I tell you, then I'll be a tattletale. And they will stop, now. I proved he was wrong."

"Mr Kalur? Proved he was wrong about what?"

"About Ami. I proved he was wrong on his body."

Inola blinked. "On his body?"

Camille sighed again and gave Inola a pitying look. "He's Yushkal clan," she said, clearly thinking that explained everything.

It took Inola a moment to dredge up what she knew about Irt Kalur's clan background, and then Camille's words made sense. Yushkal clan, one of the Brutor clans with a long tradition of trial by combat. "He said something about Commander Invelen and you challenged him to prove the truth of it with a fight?"

"I'm not saying," Camille said, but her expression gave her away. "And it wasn't true, anyway!"

"What wasn't true?" Inola asked gently.

"She's not a Sansha!" Camille burst out, glaring at Inola. "Ishukone made her arms, not the Sansha! And she hasn't let the crew down, either, that's not fair! It's not her fault! She's the best XO ever and it's not because she's Silver's girlfriend!"

Oh.

Inola pulled out the chair from the desk nearest to Camille's and sat down, used to compressing herself into a piece of furniture made for eight-year-olds.  "Honey, no-one thinks  that about your sister."

Camille blinked hard, tears trembling on her eyelashes. "They say it."

"This is the first time you've lived in a crew, isn't it?" Inola asked.

"Cia has crew!"

"Your other sister, Captain Roth? She has crew, but do the two of you live with them, do you go to school with their kids, like you do here?"

"No," Camille admitted.

"Well," Inola said. "A crew is bigger than a family, but it's not like a station, either. People know lots of other people, especially someone like Commander Invelen. She's in charge of everybody, right, after Captain Night?"

Camille nodded, and unfolded her arms long enough to swipe surreptitiously at one damp cheek.

"And sometimes grown-ups, they say things they don't mean. And they don't think that kids overhear them, or they think their kids know they aren't serious, but the kids don't always know. Right?'

Camille nodded again.

"So you don't need to take it to heart, something like that. It doesn't mean anything.  You just ignore it next time."

"There won't be a next time," Camille said, with a certainty that could easily have belonged to her sister.

"There won't be a next time for fighting, either. Will there, Camille?"

Camille heaved a sigh. "I'll try," she said. "I do try, you know, Ms Toras. But it's a lot of work, sometimes."

Inola let herself smile. "I know, honey. It's a lot of work for everyone, sometimes."

Camille nodded.

"You tell a teacher next time someone says something mean, okay?"

"Oh, it'll be okay," Camille said. "Irt is the leader. That's why I picked him."

Kalur is the leader, Inola thought, studying the girl. Headed for a good career as an NCO, if he can learn to control his temper rather than letting it control him. "Do you want to be the leader, Camille? Is that why you fought him?"

Camille rolled her eyes again. "I am the leader, Ms Toras. They just don't know it yet.  How are you going to punish me?"

"I think this time we'll say that a warning is enough, Camille, since you're new."

"No!" Camille said indignantly. "You have to punish me! If you don't, it won't work!"

"I see," Inola said, and she did. The formal curriculum for the children of Captain Night's crew focused aptitudes and trained skills, but there was an informal curriculum that the teachers kept an equally close eye on. Who leads, who follows. Which ones make peace, which ones get their friends working together, which ones can't suffer fools ... 


The ever-shifting relationships in a class of five-year-olds settled and hardened as time passed, under the teachers' watchful eye. By the time they graduated, their files would have reports on the intangible complexities of personality as well as their academic achievements, making sure they were slotted in to the right place in the massive human machinery of the crew.

And in that process, the ideas of settling things yourself versus tattling to the teacher, of being the defiant martyr as opposed to the teacher's pet, those ideas carried a certain weight.

"All right, Miss Roth," Inola said. "Report here at zero seven hundred tomorrow morning for cleaning duty. You'll be making this classroom shine every morning before the other students arrive, and you'll clean up after them when they leave at the end of the day."

Camille nodded. "Okay!" she said. "Can I go?"

"Yes. Go on to medical and get your eye looked at before dinner."

"I will!" Camille stood up. "Thanks, Ms Toras! I'm sorry I caused you trouble, but you know. Sometimes you just have to."

Inola turned in the under-sized chair to watch the girl leave. For a moment longer, she sat looking at the door.

I am the leader. 


They just don't know it yet. 


Inola shook her head, and unfolded herself slowly. They might not know it yet, she thought.

But they will.  

Conversations On The Fortune's Firefly: Eighteen

"Should you be doing that?"

Nerila finished fitting the new filter into the scrubber-drone and flicked the power switch before she looked up. Pilot stood watching her, arms tightly folded across her stomach and an upright line of worry between her blue eyes.

"I'm not sick," Nerila pointed out, setting the drone down and getting to her feet. "And it's not exactly heavy lifting, is it?"

"I guess not," Pilot said, her voice softer than usual.

The scrubber ran industriously into the nearest wall and stuck there, whining.   Nerila sighed, and nudged it in the right direction with her foot. "Can we maybe take this conversation as read, Pilot? I have to herd these little fuckers all the way around to Section C before shift change."

Pilot watched the drone as it found a smudge of grease on the floor and started polishing it away, the low note of its engine changing tone to a happier-sounding hum. "As read?"

"Yeah, you know. You're going to ask me if I've changed my mind, I'm going to tell you I haven't, you're going to ask me to wait another day and since you're the one the marines at the security checkpoint answer to, I'm going to let you pretend you're not keeping me locked up here and say, okay, Pilot, one more day. Right?"

"Oh."  The blue eyes showed hurt now, as well as worry, and Nerila looked away and then forced herself to look back. It's not like I care if her feelings are hurt, is it?  

"So let's not, and say we did, all right?"  Another scrubber got itself struck on lip of the section seal, and Nerila dislodged it with her toe and then started down the corridor after it, at the ambling pace she'd found kept her just about in sync with the drones.

Pilot turned and fell into step beside her. Shit.  Nerila glanced down at her, about to say Fuck off already, and swallowed it back as the shift in light showed her for the first time how dark the shadows beneath Pilot's eyes had gotten.

She opened her mouth to ask, How are you feeling? or You not sleeping well? or Let's make an appointment for you, Pilot.  Swallowed all those back as well.


It's not like I care, is it?


"It's not what I was going to say, anyway," Pilot said quietly.  "It's, you know. Dr Iorthan said, with the dates and everything."

"I thought that was your plan," Nerila said.  "One more day, Nerila, one more -  for another six months, maybe?"

"No," Pilot said, softly but firmly.

"No? You're so fucking sure you know what I ought to be doing, isn't it?" Nerila kicked one of the drones forward harder than necessary and Pilot winced as it bounced off a wall with an indignant bleep. "Changed your mind?"

"No," Pilot said again, the same quiet certainty in her voice. "But if you're not going to change yours, not much I can do, really, is there?"  She looked up at Nerila. "You don't really think I'd keep you locked up for the rest of the time, do you, like some sort of ... breeding stock?"

Well, no, Nerila had to admit, if only to herself. I didn't really think she would.

"It's not what I'd do," Pilot went on. "'And not what I think you'd do, if things were ... different. But whatever you chose, you know I'll do what I can to make it easy on you. Right?"

"So I can make the appointment?" Nerila asked. "Security will let me out of the hangar?"

"Oh, you don't need to go anywhere," Pilot said. "I checked with Dr Iorthan and there's no reason you can't have the termination in medical here."

"Right," Nerila said.

"We could go now, if you want," Pilot went on.  She stooped to coax one of the little scrubber drones forward to keep up with the others.

"I can't go now," Nerila said immediately. "I have to get this done."

"Later, then. After shift change," Pilot suggested, straightening again.

Nerila shook her head. "Medical runs main-and-alterday shifts like everybody else. Night shift's no time for elective procedures."

"Mmmhmm," Pilot said. "Then I should get security to escort you around to station medical after all. Straight after shift-change suit you?"

"Sure," Nerila said. "But, you know, there's no need to put security to the trouble. I can go up to medical tomorrow, maybe."

"Tomorrow?"


Nerila shrugged. "A day's not going to make any real difference, is it?"

Pilot nudged one of the drones with her foot. "It isn't?"

"Nah."  Nerila took another clean filter from her belt pack and knelt down as a scrubber dashed over to her, beeping piteously.  "Just a day, after all."

"Sure," Pilot said. She knelt down beside Nerila and picked up the drone, holding it for Nerila to change the filter. "Just a day."

"That's right." The filter snapped in neatly and Pilot let the scrubber go. Nerila watched it race off to join the others as they polished their way along the corridor, leaving the floor pale and clean behind them.


She turned to meet Pilot's level gaze. "Just a day, Pilot. That's all."

"Sure," Pilot said again.  She got to her feet and held out her hand. "Not like it makes any real difference."

Nerila hesitated, and then put her hand in Pilot's, her own long, square-tipped fingers a dark contrast to Pilot's pale, clone-soft skin.  Soft or not, Nerila thought, as Pilot pulled her to her feet, stronger than you'd expect.


"Thanks," she muttered, taking her hand back.

Pilot smiled a little. "You're welcome, Nerila," she said softly.  "You're welcome."

Conversations on the Fortune's Fist: Seventeen

"L-looks l-like y-y ... b-bit of tr-trouble, Alpassi."

Helmi laced her hands behind her head and stared at the ceiling of the brig.

"On y-y feet when I speak t-to y-y!" Fisk snapped.

The tone grabbed hold of ingrained reflexes and yanked. Helmi found herself on her feet, back straight, without thinking about it.

Sir! was on her lips, but she managed to bite it back, made herself slouch.  "Not my boss anymore, Sarge. Need to stop acting like it."

He gave her a cold, level stare through the grill. "Y-y not y-y b-boss either, Alpassi. St-stop acting like y-y are."

"Yeah, well." She met his gaze unflinchingly.  "If I was I wouldn't be in here, would I?"

Fisk sighed. "Y-y ... really. Went t-too far. This t-time."

"I did? Fuck that. And fuck the XO, and fuck you while I'm at it. She's standing outside that door with a medic and the ship locked down so no-one can get on to help and she left Pilot in there for fuck knows how long because she didn't have the guts to open the door." Helmi hit the grill with the flat of her hand, hard enough to bounce it. "Pilot could've died, Sarge, would have, if there weren't some people with sense in her corporation."

"Y-y always ... d-did have. A fl-flair for the ... dr-dramatic."

"I saw her." Helmi hit the grill again.

Fisk shook his head. "So the ex-ex-XO wouldn't open a d-door, so y-y p-p-p ... held a g-g-gun on her?"

"No. I was going to melt out the locking circuits."

"Bullshit."  Fisk took a step closer to the grill and hooked his fingers through it. Helmi knew that he was more than capable of ripping it clear out of its housing. "Lockdown means t-tapes, Alpassi."

"So, tapes. Then you know I didn't point it at the XO."

He flexed his fingers, made the grill groan in protest. "Y-y m-m .... could just fool P-p with th-that. She d-doesn't know pr-pr ... training. N-n m-m, though. Y-y had your r-right foot p-p ... straight at her. Ready."

Helmi glared at him. "Well. She opened the fucking door for Atamahara and Invelen. Didn't she."

"Y-y are in a d-deep p-p ... d-ditch. Of shit, Alpassi."

"So talk to the XO." Helmi hooked her fingers through the grill by his, almost close enough to touch. "Talk to Pilot, make it right. They'll listen to you."

"Don't know that I should," Fisk said. "This t-time."

"Fuck you! Fuck you, Sarge, I did exactly what I was supposed to! Exactly what you knew I'd do when you wanted me in this job!"

"I n-n ... d-didn't. Want y-y to g-g-go waving your ... sidearm. At the - "

Helmi pulled herself right up to the grill. "You fucking picked me to try out for this job because you knew I'd do it if it came down to it, and don't you fucking lie to me, Sarge. Who else wiped those mails out of my box, huh, while I was nothing more than patterns in the buffer waiting to be woken up? Yeah, that's right. You cleaned out my files but you couldn't get at my mother's.  I know, Sarge. I read what I wrote."

He looked at her. "Alpassi. Hel. N-n ... d-didn't want y-y to know."

"Well, I do."  She let go of the grill and stepped back.

"Kn-know it wasn't y-y. Was the ... chip. N-n ... y-y ... fault.  P-p ... chose. Y-y anyway, d-didn't I?"

"You didn't pick me anyway, Sarge. You picked me because.  I killed you to keep her safe, and that's what you wanted, wasn't it? The TCMCs can make you believe things but they can't make you act against your nature.  You wanted me in this job because you know what I'll do."

"And wh-what's that?"

"Anything."  She gave him a level stare. "So get me the fuck out of here so I can do it."

"Alpassi. Hel. I n-n ... wanted ..."

"Well, neither did fucking I. But we've got it, don't we? So fuck off out of my face and sort this shit the fuck out!"

Fisk looked at her a moment longer while she held her breath before he nodded, and turned for the door.

It wasn't until his footsteps had faded down the hall that Helmi realized.

First order I ever gave him.


She closed her eyes.

Well, shit, Alpassi. 


It's not like you didn't know. 

Conversations on the Fortune's Fist: Sixteen

"I've fucking seen him," Erin Tan snapped, "And don't you go saying I haven't!"

Helmi Alpassi didn't sigh or roll her eyes, although it took fairly heroic self-restraint. Ancestors spare me. 

Not that they ever did, in Helmi's experience.

"Erin," she said reasonably, scraping the last forkful of beef-flavored protein off her plate. "You saw your grand-dad in the engine room and some woman made of fire down by cargo. Maybe - "

Erin turned sharply enough to set her sleek black hair swirling out around her shoulders. "Yes! I did see them. And I saw the Chief too! Clear as I see you, Helmi, clear as I see you right now!"

"All right."  Helmi leaned forward and rested her elbows on the mess table. "Say you did see the Chief. What was he doing?"

"He was adjusting the enviro controls."

Helmi grinned.  "Well, that explains why it's been so spirits-damned cold around here lately, anyway."

"No!" Erin dropped onto the bench opposite Helmi and leaned forward. "He was turning them up. You know, it's cold because Pilot's always telling us to set them down further. And the Chief was putting them back to normal!"

Helmi pushed her plate away. "Uh-huh. So ghosts can change the settings on things?"

"Sure! Like, there was that one on that ship, the frigate, that kept setting the autopilot to the old pilot's home world? And the one that - "

"Erin."  Helmi rubbed her forehead. Ancestors and spirits spare me from superstitious fools, if you would be so fucking kind. For once in your afterlife. "Those are just bar stories."

Erin folded her arms and set her chin. "You don't believe me."

"I've never seen a ghost, I've never seen any proof of a ghost, I - "

"What about the ghost ships, the - "

"It's a big black Deep out there, Erin. You don't need ghosts to have a reason for strange stuff happening."

"You believe in spirits, though, don't you?" Erin asked. "Dead people, protecting you?"

"It's not exactly the same thing," Helmi said.

"Well, why not? If your ancestors can watch over you, why can't the Chief be watching over the ship?"

"Well, they don't follow me around fiddling with enviro controls, for one thing!"

"Then what do they do?"

Helmi thought about the low table in her quarters, the little figurines worn featureless and smooth with years of handling. "You know what? I'm not going to get into it. Religion is religion, and it's private."

"Well," Erin said stubbornly, "What I believe is private too."

Helmi shook her head. "No, not so much. Not when you're going around telling people that dead people are hanging around. Then it's ship's business. And - " Helmi held up her hand as Erin drew an angry breath to reply "And, if you think I'm wrong about that, then just think about what the XO would say if she heard about it."

"I'm not going to pretend that - "

"Don't be a fucking fool!" Helmi snapped, and got wide-eyed silence from the engineering ensign at last. "You can't be stupid enough not to realize what's happening to this crew! Sarge is gone. The Doc's gone. The  Chief's dead. Pilot's in medical every day and she never was exactly proactive, was she?"

"So?"

Helmi sighed. "Ship's more than steel and engines, Erin. Maybe being engineering makes that hard to see? But look around. Hear what people are saying. Place is coming apart at the seams.  You think telling ghost stories is going to help that?"

"Um ..."

"Um is fucking right."  Helmi picked up her empty plate and stood up. "So do us all a favor, okay?"

"What?"

Helmi tossed her plate in the 'cycler and turned to the door. "Keep what you see to yourself."

"Don't you think it would help?" Erin asked.  "People knowing ... that the Chief was still looking out for us?"

Helmi stopped at the door. "The dead don't look out for us, Erin."

The dead look out for themselves.

In that way, at least, they're just like everybody else.

Conversations on the Fortune's Fist: Fifteen

Nerila didn't hear him the first time.

The thoughts that raced and crowded and tumbled through her head, pushing each other aside before she could bring them in focus, Pilot's tests - Crew - pod maintenance - need to make that bed - hire new medtech - stove needs cleaning - check Alpassi's scans - inventory assessment, drowned out Mitch's voice until he took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him.

"Talk to me. Sweetheart. Please."

Her heart did a little double thump at what she saw in his face, and her thoughts went straight to the glass vial tucked down at the bottom of her pocket. Hidden. Hidden well enough? Safe? "Nothing, nothing's wrong, I'm just distracted. Too much to do, you know?"

"Sweetheart," Mitch said softly. "Don't take me for a fool."

The lie was ready on her lips, rehearsed. Hells, rehearsed. Because she'd been ready for this moment, not knowing who it would be, but knowing it would come. Like it always does. Like it had last time, time and time over. She knew how to handle it, had handled it a dozen times before. 

First denial. No, of course not. Perhaps with a touch of outraged anger. How could you think that of me? If that didn't work, carefully calibrated admissions. I did try it. I know it was silly. Or I do occasionally, yes. Not more than once a month.

All of it, tried and true strategies.

She looked into his eyes and realized there was nothing in her that could lie to this man, not this man, not Michael Mitcheson, not her husband.

"I'm sorry," she said, instead. "I'm sorry."

"How much?" he asked. "For how long?"

How much? Enough. Isn't that the only answer? "Too much," she said at last, looking away from him. "Too long."

"Sweetheart." He tightened his grip a little on her shoulders. "You have to deal with it. Get clean. Time off, whatever."

"I know, I know.  When I get this last lot of tests through for Pilot, I'll - "

Mitch shook his head. "No. It won't ever be the right time, sweetheart. There'll always be something else. Another reason."

Nerila bit her lip. "I can't, not yet, not right now..."

"You can. You have to."  He folded her in his arms, whispered to the top of her head. "I'm here, sweetheart. We'll get through this. We will."

Then she could lie to him, look up and meet his gaze and smile and say "I know. I know."

Because there was no we. In everything else, maybe.

Not in this.

After that, it was easy, so easy it felt inevitable.  I'll put in for leave. Today. This is it. 

It'll be hard. I'll need you.

She watched him leave for his duty shift.

She packed a bag.

Not with much. A couple of changes of clothes.

She left her wedding ring on the dresser.

The transport hub was crowded. Old men walking with sticks, children clinging to parents' hands and gazing around wide-eyed, sullen teenagers with too much makeup.

Everybody trying to get to somewhere that isn't where they are.

She picked a destination. Pochelympe .  Nowhere she'd ever heard of. She liked the name, liked saying it over to herself as she waited in line to buy a ticket. Pochelympe. Pochelympe. Pochelympe.

Pochelympe.

A simple transaction, which she found a little disappointing. Moments like this should have some sort of complicated rigmarole attached. Maybe a ritual.

No ritual. Just pushing her bank chip across the counter and the clerk pushing it back with a ticket, not even looking up from the holonovel he's watching beneath the desk.

And then she's taking the short walk to the Interbus, pushing her way through the mass of people, all trying to be somewhere or someone they aren't.

The crowds close around her.

And she's gone.