Ally (45 page)

“We are, as you say,
done,
then.”

“We are.”

It was one thing off her mind, anyway. Her pulse was still pounding in her ears when she got to the ship. Earth wasn't her problem any longer, and she'd lost count of the times she'd said that over recent weeks. She wasn't, as she'd told Aras and Ade, going to be the green movement's El Cid, a dead hero used as a rallying point. She'd done her bit. She didn't care, and she wasn't worried about the Skavu.

You bloody liar. You're horrified. You don't want those zealots waging jihad on your world, and not because you're squeamish but because you know that if you got up off your arse and did your job, you'd make a difference back there. Guilt, professional conceit, and a refusal to accept this is a bigger league than you ever played in.

She was about fifteen strides from the hatch when her swiss
eeped
loudly. She took it out without thinking, flicked the key and had one boot on the coaming of the hatch before she read the source code.

She knew that one, even if it didn't have a name on it.

Rayat.

Rayat was trying to call her. There was no message, no indication of what he wanted. It just said
CONTACT RAYAT URGENT
. How had he managed to get a message out? They'd taken his handheld ages ago. She still had it. But he was a spook, and spooks could do that kind of thing. It bothered her that she didn't know how.

She paused, one hand gripping the rail. She didn't like
loose ends. But this was Rayat, and he didn't make social calls. He was after something; she was damned if she was going to give him the chance to get it. All that mattered was that he was heading a long way from human reach, and if she couldn't trust Eqbas wess'har with
c'naatat,
then she could trust nobody.

CONTACT RAYAT URGENT

She looked at the text flashing against the dark red body of the swiss. He never let up: he always had one last trick left.

“Fuck you,” she said, and erased the message.

F'nar, Wess'ej

“A month? Oh Christ, no.”

Aras watched Ade's face fall. Mart Barencoin, Ismat Qureshi, Bulwant Singh Chahal, Jon Becken, and Susan Webster stood awkwardly in front of their former sergeant on the terrace overlooking F'nar. They looked like they were expecting a dressing-down, not a farewell.

“We might as well go now,” said Barencoin. “Otherwise we have to wait for
Thetis,
and then that crate's going to take seventy-five years to get home. Then it's another four years or whatever for the next bus to turn up. If Esganikan's slinging her hook now, we might as well go.”

Webster nodded, rosy-cheeked and still looking sturdy despite the inadequate diet. “From where we stand, it'll feel like being home in weeks.” She pursed her lips, defocused, and did a quick calculation. “Okay, maybe a few months. But home.”

Aras watched, wondering if it wasn't better that the parting happened fast. Those who stayed behind on Wess'ej had to face the separation sooner or later, and it was probably kinder than building up to it for four years. But Ade's face said otherwise.

It had been a painful, harrowing few days. Shan was scrubbing the floor with a ferocity he hadn't seen since she first arrived on Bezer'ej. She had to spend her angry adrenaline somehow. Aras relived his shame—necessary, but shame nonetheless—at destroying unlived and blameless life. Shan told him he'd get used to it.

“Waste of bloody time getting the shit generator going on Mar'an'cas,” said Webster. Aras was jerked back to the here and now. “But it's only sweat and blood.”

“You can come and give us a tearful farewell when we embark,” said Barencoin, winking at Ade. “I'll even let you kiss me goodbye, but no tongues, okay?”

“Piss off, Mart.” Ade had tears in his eyes. Aras didn't even need to smell his distress, even if it filled the room. He was openly distraught. “You'll get a kick up the arse and like it.”

“Yeah, but we can always call you when we get home, right? I mean, you're a permanent fixture in the universe now.”

“You bloody better.”

It was the worst afternoon Aras could recall spending since the terrible days after he was told Shan was dead. And it felt like a bereavement again, too: for all the beer that had been found to mark the occasion, it was funereal. Eddie showed up and stood looking at the marines with an oddly detached expression on his face. He'd been quiet and largely absent since they'd returned from Umeh Station, as if he knew something terrible was coming. He wasn't the bulletproof, emotionally undentable, resilient Eddie of old. Aras handed him a small glass of beer that he'd kept aside specially, and gripped his shoulder hard.

“I'd better let the bee cam loose,” Eddie said. “Might be one of the last times we'll all be together like this. You'll be wanting some footage for the family album, Ade.”

Nobody said they'd miss each other, and nobody talked about old times. Aras made a point of staying in the background and not attempting humor, because the ribbing and joking that was going on had an edge to it that he'd never seen before in humans. He'd never seen them facing perma
nent separation, and realizing what twenty-five light-years actually meant.

The last time they left, they left together. They were all people who weren't tied to Earth by relationships, even Eddie. A culture and a world was far, far easier to leave behind for a long time—or even forever—than the people you'd grown to love.

Aras was going to miss Eddie more than the marines. He leaned against the pearl-smooth wall, warmed by the sun, and recalled how Eddie had been the one who came to be with him when Shan died: Eddie had been the one who cooked and made him eat: and Eddie had hidden the grenades Aras had been set on using to end his life, even when Aras had physically threatened him to make him give them up. Eddie had very nearly been as close as a brother.

Aras walked over and sat beside him on the broad, low perimeter wall. He seemed very focused on the marines.

“You'll be a celebrity when you get back,” said Aras. “Will you remain with BBChan?”

“Ah, I probably need a change.” Eddie wasn't even sipping the beer, let alone swigging it back. “I'm such an adrenaline junkie now. I'll look for something more exciting.”

“I never thought you would actually leave.”

“Neither did I.”

“Shan will be out soon. She's not avoiding you.”

Eddie seemed not to hear. “You realize you lot are my family.”

“I do, Eddie. As you are ours.”

“I'm not a pretty sight when I get weepy.”

“I know. We wept together, remember?”

“At least I'll still have some non-human company.”

Aras didn't know what else to say.

“So what happened to Rayat?” said Barencoin. “Did Shan finally frag him?”

Ade took a steadying breath. He was on that sentimental edge that he often was, the odd counterweight to his other persona that switched off and became a professional soldier. “He's been taken back to Eqbas Vorhi for tests to work out how to remove
c'naatat
from him.”

A small mocking cheer went up from the marines. The barracking started.

“Bloody good job,” said Becken. “Makes me think that vivisection isn't such a bad thing after all. I hope they start with his balls.”

“Nah, Shan had those made into earrings.”

“You could have sold tickets for fragging him, mate.”

“We should have slotted him when he started getting arsey in
Thetis
camp and saved a lot of paperwork.”

Aras supposed that a display of aggression was easier than weeping. Walking away fast was the best option, Shan said, but Aras wasn't sure when she'd ever done that.

Barencoin was quieter and more thoughtful than Aras had seen him before. “Where's Lindsay Neville, then? She went with him?”

Ade opened his mouth to speak and then froze, looking to one side in slight defocus as if gathering his thoughts.

“She's a squid now,” he said.

The marines held their breath for a second and then all burst out laughing at once.

“You're not taking the piss, are you, Ade?” said Qureshi.

“No.
C'naatat
changes you. She's adapted to a marine environment, you could say.”

“Funny, you never did,” said Barencoin, and the banter degenerated into playful insults and speculation about tattooed genitals, how squid had sex, and why Lindsay Neville probably liked having tentacles. It was all a useful diversion from saying what they all felt and what they all knew anyway: that they'd been through the unthinkable together, and that parting was the worst thing they could imagine.

Then Eddie looked up and past Aras, and said: “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough,” said Shan.

She ambled across the terrace, sat down between Qureshi and Ade, and gave him a sad reluctant smile that Aras recognized.

“I can't do this,” she said.

“What can't you do, Boss?” Ade was instantly focused on her, and so was Aras. “What's wrong?”

“I can't sit back and wait twenty-five years to see Esganikan and that fucking mob of fanatics unleashed on Earth.”

“The Skavu or the colony?” said Becken. Quite a few people had asked to go back with the Skavu and Esganikan's ship rather than wait, both Umeh Station crew and colonists. “It's not going to be a laugh a minute when the Christians land in Australia with the way the religious shit's going.”

“You're just convincing me,” said Shan.

“You're a copper,” said Qureshi. “They'll need someone who can break up riots, won't they?”

Laughter broke out again, strained and nervous. Then the terrace was completely silent except for the ticking of insects on the roof and the echoes from the city. Aras looked at Ade, and he could see sudden and instant hope on his face; it was unguarded, and it was
there,
and it told Aras that his brother really did want to go back to Earth for whatever mix of reasons—homesickness, comrades he couldn't bear to say goodbye to, loyalty, unfinished business, duty, and maybe all those things. And Shan…Shan was never, ever going to believe that she didn't have some responsibility for her homeworld. If that hadn't been an inextricable part of her, then she would never have come this far without even consciously knowing why.

Where Ade and Shan went, Aras went too. This was the price of having a human family, as well as having a human component in himself; he was curious about Earth, and a feeling in his chest said
home
just as an unwanted isenj voice had told him Jejeno was a city he loved.

Aras began working out a mental list of who would look after his plants when they were gone.

“I'm sorry,” said Shan. “I'm sorry to do this to you. I've got to go. We've got to go. Me and Ade and Aras—we'll come back, but we have to at least go.” Aras could have sworn she was going to cry. He smelled the faintest of changes in her scent, this time from her skin and mouth. Ade must have caught it too, because he wrapped his arms around her and buried her face in his shoulder in a fierce and boisterous embrace that seemed designed to block her from his comrades' view.

“It's better than listening to you crabbing on about Esganikan for the next few decades, you daft tart,” he said, forcing a laugh and giving her an excessively noisy kiss on the head. “Okay, let's do it.”

“One problem, Boss,” said Qureshi. It sounded odd to hear her call Shan that, but she used it generically, without any of the sentimental endearment that Ade did. “You've got
c'naatat
. You were bloody set on not letting it reach Earth. How are you going to deal with that?”

There was an awkward silence. Shan extricated herself from Ade's arms—if she'd been close to tears, there was no sign now—and reached in her pocket to take out the ball of gel. She tapped it on her hand and it coated her as far as he elbow, giving her skin and sleeve a slight sheen and nothing more.

“This is how we're going to deal with the accidental contamination risk,” said Shan. “It was the condom that gave me the idea. You can coat yourself in this, head to toe. It's amazing stuff. Complete barrier.”

“Condom—”

Ade cut in. “Yeah, condom.” Marines were savage piss-takers, Eddie said. Ade would never live this down. “Had to get a special one made because the regular varieties were too bloody small.”

He got the raucous mocking communal laughter he seemed to aim for. “Yeah, yours is so small you needed lights on it to find it.” Barencoin balled up a piece of hemp paper from his pocket and threw it at him with impressive accuracy. “You'll never be out of work as a novelty act, Ade.”

Chahal didn't join in. It didn't seem to be a reluctance to barrack Ade and discuss his genitals, but that he was working out something.

“Bugger me,” he said. “That means you won't see Nevyan for fifty-odd years. Giyadas will be a grannie. Shit.”

Eddie stared down into his beer, and Shan muttered, “Yeah,” and seemed very preoccupied with removing the gel from her hand. The marines played with it for a while until Becken asked if Ade had laundered it first. It was interesting to note what they found hilarious after a glass of weak beer.

Eddie didn't seem as amused as usual. Aras wondered who the separation from F'nar would be harder for, Shan or Eddie.

F'nar: Nevyan Tan Mestin's home

“I knew you would have to do this,” said Nevyan.

“You think I'm running out on you.”

“No, Shan.” Nevyan had Fulaor on her lap, her baby son adopted with his father Dijuas. It was the first time Shan had seen her cradling one of the boys. “This is inevitable. You're a matriarch. I did what I had to protect my home, and you still feel a duty to do the same for Earth. We both see the Skavu as the same threat, so how can I criticize you for that?”

Nevyan never disappointed Shan. She took the news with regret, but no recrimination. Wess'har never hid their feelings. Nevyan understood what it was to feel compelled. It was what matriarchs did, not out of ambition but out of necessity.

“I swear I didn't mislead you, and Esganikan didn't lean on me,” said Shan. “I have to see this through. You know why.”

Nevyan held her hand splayed so that Fulaor could grip her fingers. He seemed to be getting very independent, now very much a miniature wess'har male and not a stick insect with a downy head. “It's the time and distance that makes this hard.”

“I'm going to be back, though.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because I can't keep Aras from his home forever, and because this is my home too.” Shan had found a way of suppressing her scent, but the weeping reflex still required clenched jaws and pressing her tongue to the top of her palate to keep under control. “You'll be around when I get back, and Giyadas will be a matriarch herself by then.”

Giyadas stood staring at Shan, and if Shan hadn't know wess'har better, she'd have thought her expression was
one of being betrayed by the trust she'd foolishly placed in adults.

“I knew Eddie would leave,” she said, “but I thought I would have more time with him. Will he forget me, do you think?”

It was the kind of thing bereaved adults said, and so typically Giyadas that Shan bitterly regretted she wouldn't be around to see her grow up. It made her all the more determined to come back to F'nar.

“You go find him, sweetheart,” said Shan. “He's at my place with the marines.”

“Go on,” said Nevyan. “And try not to make it hard for him.”

Shan listened carefully for sounds in the house. There was loud trilling echoing from another room down one of the passages; it was the two other boys and their fathers, playing. It was sometimes hard to work out where the sound was coming from in these warren homes. “I never really got to know your sons.”