Date Point: 15y7m AV
Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Rachel “Ray” Wheeler
Jamie was the first of the Dauntless crew to ship out back to Earth. Cook was long gone, of course, having been committed to a psychiatric hospital within only a day or two of their return, but for the rest of them…
There’d been a lot of legal bullshit to handle. All of them were legally dead, after all. Then there’d been the terror attack, which hadn’t reached them in their guest quarters on the military base but it had shaken things up and locked them down.
Finally, a week after the attacks, Ray was enjoying her first day of freedom. And she was using it to say goodbye to a friend and then visit a grieving family.
It was an emotional farewell. Jamie was pretty adamant that he planned to live the rest of his days quietly, surrounded by family, and staying as far away from the Byron Group as he possibly could. Moses Byron had accepted the criticism with a quiet nod.
Holly was talking about taking Vows. Ray didn’t know if she’d actually go for it, but she seemed pretty serious. And as for Spears…
Spears was weighing up a job offer from Byron. That had driven a bit of a wedge between him and Jamie, who blamed Byron for everything they’d gone through, and thus for the deaths of Thomas Berry and Pete Conley. There hadn’t been any recrimination, exactly, but it was clear both men were aware of a divide opening that neither of them knew how to fix.
In the end, it seemed like the last thing the crew of Dauntless had done together had been to escape. Any hopes Ray had had about them remaining an inseparable unit afterwards had crumbled pretty quickly. All of them wanted to move on and put Hell behind them. That was hard to do, when surrounded by the people who’d most intimately remind them of it.
Still, Spears and Jamie shared a handshake-hug and some warm words in the departures lounge. Maybe the promises to visit and catch up sometime were even sincere. Ray doubted they’d be kept, though. Somehow, she could feel it in her gut that today would be the last time those two men ever saw each other.
No sense crying over it, though. They were both alive, and that was the important part. They had a future in front of them. Keeping the past’s ghost alive would have been nice, but she’d settle for this.
Jamie’s hug with Holly was rather more heartfelt. “You take care of yourself, Hol.”
Holly was fighting back tears. “You too…”
Finally, it was Ray’s turn. Jamie stopped in front of her and gave her a complicated smile. “…I never thanked you properly,” he said at last.
“For what?”
“For always pushing. For never giving up. I think we all kinda got used to the idea of being stuck there until we died, but you never quit. I think we only got out because of you.”
Ray vaguely noticed Spears and Holly nod in her peripheral vision, but she looked down at her feet. “We got out as a team, Jamie,” she told him.
“…I’m gonna miss the hell outta you, Ray.”
“Hey. You ever want to see me, just call. I’ll come.” She meant it. Again, somehow, she suspected he wouldn’t.
They hugged, and Ray wiped away some tears as he gathered his bags and headed through the gate with his family. He paused just before heading through, turned back and waved, they waved back, and then…
And then, Jamie Choi was gone. Possibly she’d never see him again.
That was the first of the day’s two unpleasant jobs. She left Spears and Holly to return to the base or whatever it was they had planned for the day, and headed down to Delaney Row for her second.
She’d got to know Jack Tisdale during her time on the base. Warhorse had introduced them properly, and it broke Ray’s heart to see just how much such a fine young man lived in his sister’s shadow. He was aware of it, too, but didn’t seem to know quite where that shadow ended or how to step out of it.
He was sitting on the wall in front of his parents’ house waiting for her, and stood up as she got out of the cab. She was getting stronger day by day, but walking all the way across town was a bit more than she felt she could handle, for the moment.
“Hey, Doctor Wheeler.”
“I told you, you can call me Ray,” she smiled.
He cleared his throat. “Sorry. Just a little nervous.”
“What about?”
“Well, for starters I didn’t tell them who you are or why you’re visiting,” Jack explained
“…Huh. Uh… why not?”
He shifted awkwardly. “This is all kind of a big deal for my family. To me, it feels like… like if Sara had been an organ donor and we suddenly met the woman who’d inherited her heart, you know?”
Ray nodded. “Is everything okay? If this is too awkward, I could–”
“No, don’t go,” Jack interrupted her. “Look… can I tell you something about my parents, just between you and me?”
Ray nodded, and he chewed on his thumbnail for a second, staring distractedly down the street as he thought. “…Look, I’m no kind of a psychologist, but… sometimes I’m not sure they ever finished grieving for her. I think having that huge secret hanging over her murder, and the fact that the, uh, individual responsible was never brought to justice… It’s all kind of hung over them and got in their way.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying… I don’t know. Don’t be surprised if they get very emotional. Dad especially. You might get all five stages of grief in one go.”
Ray nodded, then took a deep breath and looked at the house. “…Shall we?”
The Tisdale house was obviously home to a little girl, and a willfully girly one, too. The adult attempts at order and aesthetic were made ridiculous by the ubiquity of pink, princesses and ponies, jarringly interrupted here and there by the occasional well-meaning but obviously futile parental effort to steer their daughter onto a slightly less feminine course.
Of the child herself, however, there was no sign. Presumably she was in kindergarten or school.
Behind the frills and fairies however, the house smelled of scented candles, incense and burnt sage. A handsome Vegvísir tapestry decorated the cluttered hallway wall, behind an equally cluttered bookshelf full of titles like “The Crystal Bible” (volumes 1-3), “Book of Shadows,” “Drawing Down the Moon,” “The Spiral Dance” and “The Book of Kitchen Witchery.” Even the doormat sported a pentagram and the words “Blessed Be.”
Interesting folks, the Tisdales.
Things were more toned-down in the living room, which had two sofas, a sturdy oak dining table, and an archway through into the kitchen. It was a nice house, actually. And allegedly this was the cheap part of town.
Mark Tisdale was… impressive. Ray had never met a man who suited long salt-and-pepper hair before—normally the options were wizard or beatnik—but it combined with the tattoos and hard knotwood muscles to make him look fearsome.
Jack clearly took more after his mother, who was petite and brown-haired and slender. The hair had to be dyed, and Ray momentarily realized she hadn’t visited a salon since getting back, which had been pretty high on her to-do list while fantasizing about their escape. But the face was Jack’s, as was the slightly shy but optimistic energy.
She welcomed Ray into their home and offered her a drink. It sounded like they had every conceivable infusion under the sun stuffed in one of the larger kitchen cupboards: Ray talked her down to a glass of juice. Hot drinks and soup still made her uncomfortable.
Despite his fearsome appearance, Mark immediately turned out to be a huge soft touch. His handshake was firm but gentle, his welcoming smile warm and genuine, and his nerves obvious.
“You have a lovely place,” Ray complimented them as she sat down.
“It’s usually covered in dolls and teddy bears…” Hayley grumbled fondly. “And laundry.”
“Hayley went into a cleaning frenzy when Jack said you were coming,” Mark explained, giving his wife the look of weary fondness that seemed to be hard-wired into every man alive.
That made Ray laugh. “Thank you. You didn’t need to bother.”
Jack chuckled and touched his mother on the arm as he entered the kitchen. “I’ll handle the drinks,” he said. “You sit.”
“…Right.” Hayley was obviously glad to be off her feet, and perched on the couch next to Mark with some visible nerves. “Um… Neither Gabe or Jack ever really said who you are, or why you wanted to meet us.”
“I was one of the mission scientists on BGEV-03 Dauntless,” Ray explained. “Doctor Rachel Wheeler, but I prefer Ray.”
They nodded, so she pushed ahead, briefly going over a carefully curated version of her meeting with Gabe Arés in the park.
“Anyway… we got to talking about this and that, and… well he told me about your daughter, Sara.”
The change was immediate. It was like a ten-tonne mass of sadness had been floating around the ceiling just waiting for an excuse to drop on them. Both parents glanced at each other and their age showed a little more, the lines in their faces got a little deeper.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know that’s got to be a painful subject. But… well, he told me all about her. And about how her life affected the people around her, and the fact that Gabe’s son joined the military and became who he is today because of her…”
Mark nodded. “We’d have all had pretty different lives if she was still around,” he said hollowly.
Ray nodded. “For instance… I’d be dead right now.”
They stared at her. Jack chose that moment to hand out the drinks, and she took a sip of her juice before continuing. “I actually did die, you see. Or at least, I suffered a mortal wound. But the HEAT were there, and the first one to get to me was ‘Horse’s buddy Baseball. And I talked with him, and he said the only reason he joined the HEAT was because of ‘Horse, and… to cut a long story short, they got me into surgery and I lived.”
Jack sat down next to her and nodded. “I was there. She came back through the array in a body bag. Without John and Adam…”
“I’d be dead,” Ray said. “And without Sara…”
“…There’d be no John and Adam,” Jack finished.
“So… you came to us?” Mark asked. Ray glanced at Jack, who took a sip of his cup of tea before putting it down.
“Dad… You know why I enlisted. You know why Adam enlisted, and why Ava went into photojournalism. It’s about making her life matter. Well…”
“Look, I know I’m cold comfort,” Ray interjected. “If you had the choice between your little girl living and some stranger you never even heard of dying? I know you’d choose her, and you’d be right to. But you didn’t get to choose, and I lived. I… just wanted you to know. In case it was any kind of a help at all.”
Hayley scrubbed away some tears and then crossed the room to sit next to Ray. After a wordless second, she gave Ray a hug.
Mark’s reaction was more complex. A whole series of emotions seemed to roll through him, all tightly contained and visible only by their shadows across his face. He didn’t move from where he sat, but after a few moments of deep thought he finally just… gave up. Sagged. Softened.
“Doctor Wheeler–” he began.
“Ray. Please.”
“…I’m s orry. I don’t really feel any better.”
He stood up and shook her hand. “I appreciate the thought, but… If you’re trying to help us find closure, I don’t think there is any. Not for me, anyway…” He cleared his throat and then headed for the door. “Stay as long as you like.”
“Dad?” Jack asked.
“If you need me, I’ll be down at the Dog House.”
He let himself out with a kind of stiff dignity, and left them alone.
Jack sighed and shook his head. “…Dammit.”
Ray had no idea what to do next. She settled for retrieving her juice and drinking it while Hayley stood up, checked that her husband was gone, and then returned to the other couch.
“Sorry,” she said.
“He’s obviously a passionate man,” Ray said. “No need to apologize for that.”
Hayley gave the closed door a look that was equal parts fond and sad. “You have no idea. But I think he probably will feel better, after he’s had time to go over things in his head.”
“I hope so.” Ray finished her juice and set it aside. “…Uh, if it’s not too painful? I think I’d like to hear the story from your perspective.”
Hayley nodded, and took a second to gaze past the floor as she got her memory in order.
“…Actually,” she said after a while, “I think I’d like to hear your story.”
“Are you sure?”
“Please.”
It was Ray’s turn to gather her thoughts, though it didn’t take long. She’d been sharing her account with people for a while now. She was getting pretty good at it.
“Well… I guess it started with a crooked merchant who sold MBG some bad star charts…” she began.
Date Point: 15y7m AV
The Dog House, Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Julian Esticitty
Agony.
No trip to the Dog House was complete without a metric ton of pain, and tonight’s offering was way, way worse than anything Warhorse had ever inflicted before. Nofl had apparently called ahead about Julian’s foot and his month on the Crude, so once he showed himself at the gym, Adam decided to push things as hard as they could possibly be pushed.
Sometimes, Julian wondered if everything that had happened to him might end up going to his head. He was tough and strong enough these days to hang with the HEAT. He was well more than a match for anyone outside of it, and it showed. He was apparently pretty handsome too, at least according to his girlfriends. Then there was the wealth he’d found himself with, his celebrity status, how special his work was and all the rest…that was a heady position to be in, no lie about it, and he often wondered if it was maybe all too easy to fall into some kind of self-regarding trap about it all.
Fortunately, Julian reckoned he had access to a few easy antidotes to any lurking hubris: wrestle Yan, or hang out with the HEAT. There weren’t many better ways to instantly humble oneself.
Even better? Let Warhorse crush you like a bug. With just his hands.
It was late evening. Julian had lifted until he had absolutely nothing left to give, and then some. He’d flopped to the ground, too weak to even stand anymore, and Adam decided that it was high time for a sports massage. He had his weird metal “scraping” tools and everything but frankly he didn’t need them. Adam had a grip that made Vemik’s seem like a little boy’s and he didn’t even pretend to hold back. The giant bastard worked with so much crushing strength, Julian imagined he could hear his muscles squish and tear as they were forced into a more perfect looseness and alignment.
Saying it hurt was an understatement like saying the ocean was wet.
Eventually, Adam grunted in satisfaction, climbed off of Julian’s hips, and flipped him over. Adam’s big goofy grin managed the trick of being simultaneously smug, friendly, playful, and sympathetic.
“There! All those years compensating for the foot did a fuckin’ number on your spine, so I smashed all that out for you. You’ll feel way better in an hour when the Crude fixes you up!”
Julian rested his forearm on top his forehead and groaned in reply.
“Aww, don’t be a big baby! It’ll be fine, I promise. Have I let you down yet?” Adam helped Julian up to a sitting position, then hoisted him up to a bench; he was still light-headed.
“Ungh …no, I guess…wait, is this how you fellas train?”
“Yup! Well, the Crude is a big part of it, sure. And if you do it long enough you can train way harder. We’re not gonna do that, this is strictly rehab and some opportunistic body hardening. I mean…” He have Julian a calculating look. “Unless you wanna get bigger?”
Honestly? That could be a fun project, but these days Julian knew what kind of time and effort it would take, and that made it not quite as tempting as it might have been a year ago. “…Nah, not too much. I’m pretty damn big as it is. All I want to do is keep ahead of Vemik.”
“Okay! We can do that. I reckon you’re about as big as a healthy man with your frame can normally get anyway, anything too much more and you’d need to dedicate yourself, y’know? We won’t add much bulk, but we’ll use the month to slab on a lot of weight and strength, and get you conditioned as fuck, too. How ‘bout that? Keep up with Vemik?”
The bastard knew how to make a sales pitch. “…Okay. Nothing too crazy, though.”
Adam’s happy grin stretched from ear to ear. “Sweet! Also! I got some non-Slab stuff to talk about, if you want!”
That piqued his interest. “Wait, Warhorse, talking about something other than a meal plan?”
“Har har,” Adam rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “But for real, this is pretty important. There’s all this fallout flyin’ round from the APA attack, right? An’ both the SOR and my dad have gotta work through it all, an’…”
“I did notice Murray followin’ Xiù around. Thank you from me to him, by the way.”
“You did? Shit. He’s slipping.”
“Nah, I’m just good,” Julian grinned. “I gotta have something next to you bastards…”
Adam snickered and offered Julian a water bottle, spiked with…whatever witchcraft he’d been enthused about lately. Whatever, it seemed to help.
“Anyway, Dad thinks he’s hit on a solution, and my CO likes it enough he gave it the go-ahead. Oh! Time’s up, get up and move!”
It wouldn’t be a training session with Adam if it didn’t include some murderously intense intervals. They spent a few minutes lifting, sprinting, sparring and jumping their way across the open space in Adam’s gym. By the end of it Julian was again utterly winded while Adam hardly seemed to notice. The grinning hulk waited a bit for Julian to catch his breath and jumped right back into the conversation. “You three had some pretty serious tactics training before you left, if I remember right. We put you through some of it ourselves.”
It took Julian a moment to unscramble his brain and remember. “…Yeah. We, uh, had a bit of a refresher on that like…six months ago? I think? It was urban assault if I remember. Not sure why it was so important but there were paintball guns involved, so I wasn’t complaining.”
“Right. So you have the skills to do private military contracting.”
“Wait…what?”
“Yeah! Or, at least, enough for some intro-level security work. You’d gain experience while doing it, too.”
“Us?” Julian swigged his water.
“Yeah! Like, okay. You didn’t come up through the military, right? Normally that’d be a showstopper but you three’ve got some unique qualifications, and we know you’re cool under pressure, and…well, recent events sorta confirm that. And we trust you. That’s really the most important part. We can train people all day long, but we can’t vet ‘em fast enough. APA’s got all the spooks, uh, spooked. But you three? We can arm you and trust you’ll be useful right away.”
“Are we expecting another attack?”
“…Yeah, bro.”
“Well… shit.”
Adam shrugged. “They promised more to come. An’ this way, it’s easier to give you access to Akyawentuo, too. You’ll have access badges to Sharman, all that. The officers all think this’ll solve a bunch of problems at once, y’know?”
“…You guys decided all this today?”
“Yeah. We figured out it was a problem right when we tried to come up with a schedule with our security forces. We gotta patrol you guys, our own property, and a couple other places ‘round the city on top of what dad’s guys gotta deal with, and there just aren’t enough people to do it. If we didn’t have to worry about y’all…”
“That makes sense. Not sure what Xiù will think, but Allison? She’ll jump at it.”
“Which reminds me. Dad said to tell her the prosecutor agrees they have bigger concerns. Uh, they’re asking in return that you three keep a low profile for the moment.”
“…Why are you telling me all this?”
“Well, ‘cuz I know you, and Nofl’s message came right when we were hashing all this out. Well, when the officers were. I just happened to be there and I spoke up.”
“You were there for something like this? What were you doing?”
Adam shrugged his vast shoulders. “What else? Lifting! It was my personal training day with Powell when it all blew up.”
Of course.
“Well… If it helps us stay safe and gives us the means to look after ourselves, I’m all for it.”
“Pay’s good, too.”
“I’ll talk to the girls.”
“Bueno. Time’s u–”
Adam’s inevitable call to return to the torture was interrupted by the door, which was shoved open unceremoniously, and a human thundercloud came in off the street.
He immediately had Adam’s attention. “…’Lo, Mark.”
Mark gave Adam the slightly dazed look of a man who’d been stewing on some pretty intense feelings for a while and needed a second to remember how to interact with people. “…I need to beat on something. Someone. I don’t know.”
“Shit, man. You okay?” ‘Horse asked the question while moving toward the locker where he kept the boxing gloves. Mark just waved a hand and shook his head. “…Right. Julian. Five more sets, ‘kay? I’ll know if you cheat.”
“Right…”
Adam had an uncanny ability to…hell, to just dominate any situation whenever he wanted. He bounced on his toes and threw the gloves at Mark’s feet. “Tape up and put ‘em on. They’re for you, not me.”
Julian’s workout didn’t leave much spare attention, but he still managed to keep an eye on their session as the big viking dude worked out what looked like a lifetime of baggage with, it had to be said, more vigor and raw fury than actual form. Still, Julian wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end of some of those blows.
They were still going strong even after he’d forced himself through his last agonizing set, so he sat down and watched. It came to an end with one last exhausted, flailing haymaker. The blow was so wild that Adam failed to dodge and caught it right on the jaw instead, while Mark spun around on his feet and nearly collapsed. Adam caught him and carried him over to the bench to catch his breath. Apparently even that hammer blow to the mouth hadn’t really registered.
“Okay. Feeling better?”
“Can…” Mark panted desperately, “Could you even feel any of that?”
“I felt it plenty.”
“Did I manage to hurt you at all?”
“…No, not really.”
“…Fuck.”
“Yeah. Shit, Mark, you’re real outta sorts. I don’t think I ever heard you swear before.”
Mark just shook his head and wiped half a gallon of sweat off his face and out of his hair. Adam went and fetched him some water.
“Feelin’ better?” he asked as he returned. Mark shook his head before emptying half the bottle down his throat.
“…Hey Julian. Been a while.”
“Yeah. How’s the family?”
Mark shrugged expansively, drained the second half of the bottle, and handed it back to Adam.
“That bad, huh?” Adam asked.
“They’re fine. Just… there’s this lady came to visit us. One of the Dauntless crew.”
“Rachel Wheeler?” Julian guessed. Mark gave him a wary look.
“You know her?”
“Not really. Xiù met the crew when they first got back, told me all about ‘em.”
“I know her,” Adam said. He handed Mark a second bottle of water.
Mark accepted it and took a more measured sip this time. “She said you saved her life.”
“‘Base did. I helped.”
Mark grunted a “hmm” sound and scrubbed some more sweat out of his hair before wiping his hand on his pants.
“…What’s eatin’ you, Mark?” Adam asked at last.
Mark shook his head again. “Ugh, I don’t know. Ray came along to thank us, I guess, but all I heard was ‘I’m glad your little girl is dead.’ And I know that’s not what she meant, and it’s not even how it came off. But…”
“She thanked you?” Adam asked.
“Makes sense. You saved her life,” Julian said. “And you only enlisted because of Sara, didn’t you?”
“…Yeah.”
“So if she hadn’t died, you wouldn’t have enlisted, you and ‘Base wouldn’t have joined the HEAT and Doctor Wheeler would be dead,” Mark explained.
Adam paused for a moment to gather his thoughts. “…Guess I didn’t see it that way. But if there’s anything I’ve learned doing all of this, it’s that you really can’t second-guess things, y’know?”
“Doesn’t change the fact that a woman—a nice, kind, compassionate woman with the best intentions in the world—just came into my house and thanked me for the fact that my daughter was murdered.” Mark said.
“No, it don’t.”
“…And part of me knows I should be grateful to her. I know she wants me to feel like it all meant something. But…”
“Dude. I get it.” Adam sat down at Mark’s side and gave him a trademark sideways one-armed crusher of a hug. “Shit, I think about that happenin’ to Diego and…”
Julian, feeling a bit out of place, decided to hobble around and clean up the aftermath of their gym fun while the two talked it out. It took just long enough that when he could avoid the conversation no longer he found that it was basically over. Mark didn’t exactly look upbeat, but he had an air of resolve around him now.
“—should thank her,” he was saying. “I mean, what she intended is what matters. Just because it hurt me doesn’t change the fact that she meant well.”
“Yeah.”
“…I need a drink. You chaps want in?”
“I’m on call, bro,” Adam said. “Gonna be tea and water for me but sure. I’ll come with.”
“…I should probably avoid alcohol until I’ve checked with my doctor,” Julian said.
“You’ll be fine, don’t worry,” Adam assured him. “But you’re new on the Crude so I’d avoid it anyway. The two don’t mix well.”
“Doctor? Crude?”
Julian just glanced down at his foot. It took Mark a few seconds to wrap his head around what he was seeing.
“…Didn’t that used to be plastic?”
“Up until a week ago, yeah. Nofl and Xiù talked me into it. Blew Allison’s mind when she finally noticed.”
“Heh. How long did that take?” Adam asked.
“About three days. We didn’t tell her. Which given we sleep in the same bed, is pretty impressive, really.”
Mark actually chuckled. “If I pulled a stunt like that on Hayley, she’d kick my arse. With her biggest boots on.”
“Yyyup.” Julian grinned fondly. Funny how a stinging slap on the arm and a choice insult just made his heart melt, when they came from Allison.
“Heh. Well, how ‘bout we grab a shower and go get those drinks?”
Adam’s gym had a convenient set of showers on the ground floor, and a quick run through was refreshing as all hell. The pain was already gone, too; fuck, Crude was magical.
…Good reason to avoid it, really. Something like that had to have a downside, even if its poster child didn’t seem to suffer from any. He was just…Adam. Big, goofy, frustratingly perfect Adam, an impossible living comicbook superhero. Julian tried not to stare and, well, compare himself while they cleaned up, but honestly it was impossible not to—how often does a guy get to stack himself up against the best? He didn’t measure up of course, but then again nobody did. Julian sighed internally, resigned to his place in the pecking order. While he was toweling off he noticed Adam’s somewhat apologetic grin; thankfully the big bastard didn’t seem to mind. Julian also noticed that Adam wasn’t bruised. At all. It was like Mark hadn’t laid a finger on him.
Mark noticed, too.
“…Look at you. You’re not even a little sore, are you?” Mark pulled a clean t-shirt over his head; the Dog House kept some gym-branded clean clothing in a bin for members to borrow.
Adam glanced at himself in the mirror and flexed for a moment, then pulled on his tent-like tank top. He looked strangely dejected. “No. Pretty much nobody can hurt me these days.”
“…That bothers you.”
“Yeah. I know it’s stupid. That’s what I’ve been working towards, right? But still. There’s only like four dudes these days who can make me really feel a workout, an’ two of them are aliens. I dunno how I feel ‘bout that.”
Mark used the hand dryer to do a rough job of blow-drying his hair, reassembled it with a lifetime’s efficiency, and dragged a comb through it. “Be thankful they can. It means you’re not completely invulnerable.”
“I guess.” They walked out of the gym and onto the street, just in time for the nightly rains. Adam didn’t bother with any footwear as usual. Julian copied him, intent on rebuilding his foot.
“Y’know,” Adam continued after a while, “I’d grown like a goddamned weed for years. A while back that finally slowed way down, and I was super happy about that…but I’m still so far ahead of ‘Base and Righteous, it’s looking like they may not ever catch up.”
“I thought you liked the competition?” Mark asked.
“Yeah, man. I like the competition. It ain’t a competition if they can’t ever win. I can out-run, out-lift, and out-wrestle them both at the same time.”
…Jesus. “What about the others?”
Adam considered. “Yan? Maybe, but he’d need to lift for years to catch up, and he says he’s getting old. Daar’s right in his prime and keeps making ridiculous progress…but we’re different enough physically that it wouldn’t really be apples-to-apples. And he’s the Great Father. It’s not like he can, I dunno, pop over for a game of Gravball and rep out on the bench with me.”
“If Vemik keeps beating on steel, he’ll be as strong as Yan even if he doesn’t become a Given-Man,” Julian predicted.
“Eh. Maybe. But…like, I mean…fuck. ‘Base and Righteous are my bros. I like Daar and Yan and everyone well enough but I grew up with those two. I don’t wanna be alone at the top.”
“On that cheery note… there’s the pub.” Mark indicated it.
“…Sorry. I feel like a huge douche whining about this shit.”
“Nah,” Julian replied. “Sometimes it helps just to get it out, y’know? I’m just glad you could talk it over instead of beat the tar out of us…”
That got one of Adam’s trademark goofy smiles, and his somber mood seemed to have lifted. “What, you can’t handle a few love taps?”
“Adam, your ‘love taps’ could rearrange my organs. Xiù gives me love taps.”
They descended into macho banter and prowled into Rooney’s. Funny, really. All three of them had started off the evening nursing a boatload of pain of one kind or another. None of that seemed to bother anymore.
It was good to have friends.
Date Point: 15y7m AV
Planet Akyawentuo, Ten’Gewek Protectorate, Near 3Kpc Arm
Professor Daniel Hurt
Visits from Vemik were always welcome. Or… well, they were usually welcome. Maybe this one would be too, but somehow Daniel doubted it. He had a lot on his mind, and only a few hours to go before the next scheduled jump to Cimbrean.
He didn’t want to catch that jump, but it was that or miss Steve Lawrence’s funeral. And he owed it to the man to be there.
Vemik was therefore both a welcome and an unwelcome paradox of a distraction as he knuckled into their dig camp carrying three root-birds as a friendship offering.
It was a good offering, too. Like a slightly gamier version of turkey. They’d have a damn good dinner tonight thanks to those birds.
Then there were the greetings, the handshakes, and Daniel invited Vemik to sit by the fire where he’d been reviewing the translated Corti cultural analyses of the Coastal Ten’Gewek civilization.
They would have seemed very alien to Vemik. They’d loved water, for a start, and had built a large public baths. Ordinarily, Vemik would have found a conversation like that fascinating, but today it was clear he had something specific on his mind.
“So,” Daniel guess. “I take it you’re here about the attacks, and the APA?”
Vemik shook his head. “They attacked us, we fought, we won. They can’t attack us here, can they?”
“No.”
“Well then. APA are a question for humans, not for my people.”
“Just a social call, then?”
“Social call? Come to see you just to see you?”
“Yes.”
“No. I mean, seeing friends is fun. But I’m here about… Vaccines.”
He pronounced it carefully and slowly. ‘Vack-Seens.’ But the question was enough to make Daniel groan.
“Godshit…” he cursed. “…I take it you heard about those on Earth?”
“Singer and me… our first child, she died of a sickness, before she could even try to talk,” Vemik reminded him. “Every year, we lose hands of children to sickness. Others who live, they’re marked and weak. Some never grow strong again.
“…What did you hear exactly?”
“There was a thing on the radio. One man saying they’re bad and cause… ort-ism?”
“They don’t.”
“Yes. That part made Jooyun and Heff very mad. They grumbled about it for half the night. And the woman on the radio, she said they work by teaching your body to fight sickness by giving you a weak sickness.”
“That’s the essence of it. It’s not a complete explanation but… yes. Basically.”
Vemik sighed. “Yes. I have learned that I do not know enough to really learn yet.”
Daniel scraped his fingers through a day or two of stubble as he thought. “Vaccines aren’t easy to make,” he said at last. “It takes a lot of very clever people a lot of time and hard work to make them properly. They have to, uh, learn the magic for each sickness, and then they have to make sure they’re safe to give…”
“Each sickness is different?”
“As different as Werne and Yshek and root-birds. You say that the shivering-sickness is in the water, right?” Daniel asked. Vemik nodded and he forged on. “But there are other shivering-sicknesses too. You see that a person is hot, and sweating and shivering. We call that a fever. But lots of different sicknesses can cause a fever. The shivering-sickness from water is a lot like one we call ‘malaria,’ but another one that goes around a tribe with sneezing and… well, not sneezing in your case…”
“We sneeze. Just not the same way you do. ” Vemik tapped the middle of his face where the Ten’Gewek didn’t have a nose, then opened his mouth and pointed inside. Of course, their olfactory organ was in the roof of the mouth.
“…Right. But when people cough and sneeze and pass the disease between them, that’s more like what we call ‘influenza’ and that killed many, many humans in the past. Tens of millions in one year.”
Vemik scowled as he tried to recall Human numbers. “…Six zeroes?”
“Seven.”
“In one year? You did not have vack-seen for it?”
“No. Not then. And our vaccine for malaria isn’t very strong. But others… there are some diseases that are just gone now. Nobody has died of them in a long time. And, yes, our children almost all grow up strong and healthy.”
Vemik nodded, watching the flames.
“…Is hard, to lose a child,” he said at last. “We move on, but we don’t forget. It… hurts. Deep inside. And it never goes away. The Singer and me, we have a little boy now. Going to name him soon. But still a long way to go before he is a man, and can learn to hunt and work steel. Many seasons. He’s strong now, but…”
He trailed off, and Daniel shifted uncomfortably in his camp chair.
“There’s… things we can do first that might make things better,” he suggested. “Things like soap, and cleanliness. Knowing where sickness comes from, that sort of thing. All by itself, that kind of knowing makes a big difference.”
“How big?”
“Big. Much of our medicine is just keeping things clean. That all by itself will help.”
“You’ll share that?”
“Yes. Vaccines are… much bigger. Much more difficult. You won’t be able to make them for a very long time, and if we made them for you… It’d be a strong debt, and a way for us to control you. Dangerous.”
“I know that,” Vemik assured him. “But the danger feels small when you’re the one who warns me about it. And it feels very small when I think of my daughter.”
“Well… soap and water are a start, anyway,” Daniel said. He smiled when Vemik pulled a face. “Actually… come and see.”
He called up the footage of the Coastals bathhouse. Forest Ten’Gewek had no functional concept of modesty, and Vemik was sitting on the log naked of all but his knives and the little leather flap that Ten’Gewek men wore to protect their sensitive bits from stray branches as they swung through the trees. Nor did they see any point in gender segregation, or sexual exclusivity. Oh, they had men’s work and women’s work, and they tended to form close bonds like the one between Vemik and the Singer, but there was no formal contract or expectation of fidelity among them. Ten’Gewek men were generally quite happy to be good friends with their mate’s children from other men. The tribe, ultimately, was a big sprawling extended family.
The Coastals had been more structured. Their more sophisticated lifestyle and economy had allowed a handful of powerful men to achieve enormous power and influence. That had led to harems at first, with a few of the more influential men having all the female attention, which naturally meant a large number of disgruntled bachelors. After a while they’d established a convention of monogamy between male and female couples, though notably they’d been happy to accept more… freedom… in their same-sex associations.
One consequence of that had been a sense of modesty. It worked both ways: bonded couples wore simple, loose clothing in public, and the bathhouse had been open to single and coupled males in the morning, single and coupled females between noon and sunset. Bonded couples and their children were welcome in the firelit hours around and after sunset, but singles weren’t.
For Vemik, however, the confusing part was watching people who were much more similar to him than a human was, frolicking in and apparently enjoying large bodies of water.
“…Very strange,” he muttered.
“But clean,” Daniel pointed out. “You see the strange cloudy white colour of that water?”
“Yes?”
“That’s the soap pool. They had many different pools: first a cold one for rinsing off the worst dirt, then that pool which was warmed by fires under the floor where they soaped and scrubbed, then another warm pool for rinsing off the soapy water and relaxing, and finally a cold plunge pool to wake them up.”
“Humans just shower. Seems easier.”
“It is for the human. But there’s a lot of effort involved in making water come out of a little nozzle like that.”
“Yes. Plumbing is the word.”
“You did pick up a lot on Earth.”
“That’s why I went.” Vemik tapped the screen thoughtfully to no real effect, then tilted his head at it. “…And this helped them not get sick?”
“This? Probably. But what really would have done it would be washing their hands before and after handling meat.”
“Our women scrub their hands with Benka leaves.”
“Which is a good start. That’s good medicine. But it would even better if they rinsed their hands with clean water. Any water that’s good to drink will do, but boiling the water first is a good idea.”
Vemik nodded. “And soap?”
“I’ll have to look that one up.” Daniel patted him on the shoulder. “Look, I’m going back to Earth for two hands of days. You heard that a man named Steven Lawrence died?”
“Yes. You knew him?”
“He was a friend. I want to be there when we give him back to the gods.” Daniel explained. Vemik nodded, and Daniel took that as understanding. “I’ll talk with some other thinkers while I’m there,” he promised.
“Thank you. I know it’s a big thing I’m asking.”
“If I were in your position, I’d be asking for the same thing,” Daniel assured him.
“Will you be safe?” Vemik asked. “These people, they attack men like you to protect aliens like me, yes?”
“Hoeff’s coming back with me,” Daniel explained. “And then I’ll have what we call ‘private security.’ I’ll be fine.”
“I ask Singer to Sing for you anyway,” Vemik nodded seriously.
“Thank you, Vemik. I appreciate that.”
Vemik swiped through the images from the bathhouse again and shook his head. “I think… Even if this is a good idea, we won’t like it.”
“I’m not asking you to take up regular bathing, Vemik,” Daniel reassured him. “Just… keep your hands and feet clean. Especially your hands. It makes a bigger difference than you’d think.”
“I’ll tell them.”
“Have you talked with Yan about this?” Daniel asked.
“Not yet. I wanted to learn more first.”
“I’d be interested to hear what he has to say. But…maybe after I come back. Yan likes to take his time and think about things.”
Vemik nodded. “Thank you for not saying no, anyway,” he said. “Is good to know you’ll think about it.”
Daniel nodded, shook his hand, and with one last glance at the monitor Vemik returned to the trees and headed back in the direction of the village.
“Mind if I share a thought, Professor?”
Daniel turned. Claire had emerged from the field lab at some point, and was relishing a nice cool drink and what was obviously a fresh shirt.
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Western nations distribute vaccines to third-world villages all the time.”
“…True.” A half-dozen vague counters to that thought leapt into Daniel’s brain instantly, but he found none of them persuasive. Developing vaccines for an alien culture would be more complicated but that wasn’t a moral argument against doing so, it was an economic one. Pointing out that third-world villages were still Human and the Ten’Gewek weren’t seemed bigoted somehow, and there was no good “Prime Directive” argument because that had gone out the window the moment Allison, Julian and Xiù made first contact.
“Something to think on,” he agreed. She nodded.
“Sometimes I’m glad my job is just to watch and write papers,” she joked. “Uh, anyway. The Array’s due to fire in about ten minutes. Hoeff asked if you wouldn’t mind joining him on it.”
“You mean he said ‘tell the professor to get his ass on the platform or I’m leaving without him.’”
She laughed. “Almost word-for-word.”
Daniel chuckled and stood up. “Any requests for provisions? I’ll be gone a week, I may as well bring back some luxuries.”
“Oh, the usual. Chocolate, deodorant, hot sauce, some new books… If you can find room for a cake, it’s Jim’s birthday next week, and I know he’s lost track of the date.”
“Cake, huh? I will need to bring a big one, then. I bet the Given-Men and Singers will want to celebrate. They’ve taken our celebration of that very seriously.”
“Several big ones,” she agreed. “But I can hear Hoeff grinding his teeth. You’d better go.”
“Right…”
Daniel sighed and hauled himself over toward the array. He really didn’t much want to go back to Earth anyway, usually. His work on Akyawentuo was too important.
Going back for a funeral was so much worse. But he’d do it. And maybe he could come back with some good news.