An Officer’s Duty (39 page)

“What task is
that
?” he challenged her, gaze fixed on her face. “I saw horrible things. Destruction, death…”

It was the same conversation she’d replayed hundreds of times with others here on the timeplains. She looked away from
him, off to the future and the desert in the distance. “As melodramatic as it sounds, I’m trying to stop the galaxy from being destroyed. I’m setting up a path of dominoes, each to be knocked down at the right time and place, to prevent an extragalactic invasion centuries from now. I am…I
was
supposed to be ignoring the side possibilities that would otherwise lead away from that path. Including things like dating.”

He looked at her. “But I know we could have a good life…good lives…”

Ia shook her head slowly, still not quite looking at him. “I told you I never wanted to hurt you, Meyun. I knew when I was fifteen that I’d have to give up quite a lot. But I never foresaw you. And…I would beg your forgiveness, but I suspect you aren’t in a mood to forgive me for what I have and will have done.”

“Get me out of here,” he growled. “Return both of us to sanity—to reality!”

Sighing, Ia complied. Grasping his hand, she flipped both of them inside and up again, pulling them out of the golden light of the timeplains, and back into the half-shadowed light of their rented cottage bedroom.

Meyun shuddered as he came back to himself. A moment later, he flinched away from her fingertips. Away from her. Ia let him move away. While he sagged back against the base of the wall, slumped and struggling to deal with whatever he had seen in Time, she rose and padded over to the closet.

Shrugging into one of the complimentary robes that came with the use of the rental house, Ia brought the other one back to him. When he didn’t reach for it, she dropped it onto his lap, letting the nubbly white fabric pool over his knees. It did seem to give him something to focus on. His hand shifted to touch the material, fingers first resting, then clenching. A frown of confusion creased his brow.

“You’re going to Antarctica.”

“What?” Ia asked him, confused. The statement had come out of nowhere, a non sequitur in an already unstable moment.

He looked up at her. “It was one of the things I saw. I had a…a vision of you, an older you, and you—
we
—were in Antarctica.”

“That’s impossible,” Ia said flatly.

“No, it felt
real
,” he argued. “I
was
there, at your side. Or will be.”

She shook her head. “No, I mean that’s impossible, because I’m going to walk away from you.”

He pushed to his feet. He fumbled and clutched at the robe, shrugging into it, and faced her. “I
know
what I saw. You were a ship’s captain, I was a commander, and we were going to…to steal schematics for something from a…a place you called the Vault of Time—
why
would you walk away from me? Away from
us
?”

Ia shifted back a step, putting distance between them; his demand had made her flinch, and she didn’t like what his vision implied. He stepped forward, closing the gap between them. His hands caught at the sleeves of her robe, holding her in place.

“Ia…why can’t I see you?” Meyun asked her, staring into her eyes. “Why can’t we be together?”

She could see him now, in the timestreams. Not always clearly, but she could finally see the consequences of allowing him to stay with her.
This is going to hurt…
“Because you’ll distract me. You will distract me so
much
that I will fail. And failure is
not
an option.”

“Shova v’shakk!”
he swore. “You may only
think
you know—”

“I have known for five
years
!” she snapped back. “I can see
every
possibility, and I have searched every corner of Time itself for some
other
way to get through to what must be done. Do you honestly think I would be in the military if I had any other choice? I grew up wanting to be a singer. A
singer
, Harper! Innocent. A civilian. With
un
stained hands.”

She lifted her hands, fingers curled into claws at the memory of all the blood she had spilled so far, and in warning of all the lives she had yet to take. His hands slipped from her sleeves at the movement, letting her clutch the air between them.

“I dropped out of school and spent half a
year
of my life trying to find
any
sane path that would stop the coming invasion and save our galaxy—you spent a
minute
in the timestreams!” she scorned. “What do
you
know about the path I need to take? Or sacrifices I’ll have to make? Or the ones I’ve
already
made?
Yes
, I will walk away from you. For
two
reasons. One…because the feelings I have for you are a distraction and a liability. Because my
sanity
is on the line. I cannot,
dare not
fail
because I’ll have a trillion screaming lives echoing in my brain until the day I die!

“And for the other…I
promised
I wouldn’t hurt you.” She held his gaze fiercely, willing him to understand. “If I tried to divert the future so we
could
stay together, I’d hurt you a lot more than I already have. A
lot
more.”

He started to argue the point. His breath caught in his throat, his eyes unfocusing for a moment. “Suicide…”

“I’ll be driven mad. Literally mad. And worse,” she agreed quietly. “Meyun…I may not have
wanted
to go into the military, but when I realized what course the future would have to take, I made a pledge to
myself
. As long and as strong a vow as that which
any
soldier makes to defend their country, their people, and their beloved homes. I swore a solemn oath that I would do
anything
to save the future of our beloved homes. It’s the only way I
can
retain my sanity.”

“Such as it is,” Meyun shot back, though without much heat. He stared at her for several seconds, then flipped his hands helplessly, taking a step back. “So you’d just walk away? No second thoughts, no looking back, no hesitations, or even a single regret?”

“I didn’t say
that
,” Ia retorted, folding her arms over her robe-draped chest. They glared at each other for a moment, then Meyun lowered his gaze. Ia let out a shaky breath, looking away. “All I wanted…was one moment of peace. A moment to call my own. Some…some
semblance
of everything I must otherwise give up—the same things I’m fighting a race against Time itself to give to everyone
else
.

“Something to warm my heart when the days ahead grow long and cold…but that one
golden
moment has turned to useless dross and slag. Regrets? Oh,
yes
, I have regrets. But no matter how much I love you, I will
not
be distracted from my task,” she stated roughly, slashing a hand between them. “If you cannot understand just how important this is, or at least how important it is to
me
…then we have nothing more to say.”

He wrapped his arms tight across his chest. “It’s not like you’re giving us—
me
—that much of a say, anyway.”

“I wish I could, Meyun,” she confessed softly. “But you’ve only had a small taste of what it’s like to be me. A single bitter drop from my ocean of misery.”

“An ocean of misery?” Meyun challenged. “Well, you
seem
to be fully capable of enjoying life.”

“Well, maybe I’m just a good actress. Or maybe I’m just a masochist,” she offered.

Meyun snorted at that. It wasn’t entirely mirthful, though her quip did feel like it had softened some of the sharper edges buried in the mood between them.

Shaking her head, she gazed at her former roommate and brief lover. “I’m
sorry
I hurt you, Meyun. I truly am. I’d give up a lot to be able to go back in time and
not
hurt you. I just…I cannot give up the universe. I cannot give up my conscience, and I cannot give up my duty, and I
cannot
give up the future. I’d gladly give you my heart,” Ia offered, “but my life is no longer my own. I’ve already traded that.”

Meyun gave her a sarcastic look. “Trade it for
what
? Your sanity?”

“That, and saving the lives of everyone else.” She gave him a lopsided smile. “You could say I got a real bargain.”

“You’re going to throw away
your
life for people you don’t…even…” Faltering at his own words, he hung his head. “You’re doing what
I’m
doing. What any soldier would do.”

“Just on a larger, far more complex scale.” She started to say more, but a horrified look widened his eyes.

“You…you’re going to have your
ovaries
removed?” Meyun stared at her as if she had grown a second set of arms, Gatsugi-like. “Why would you do
that
?”

She didn’t realize that was one of the visions he had seen in the timestream flood. Uncomfortable, she tightened the arms folded across her chest and gave him the truth. A modified piece of the truth. “One set will be donated to my homeworld, the other to the heavyworld genetics repository, to be distributed to worlds like Eiaven and Parker’s, and other 2G-plus planets. Since I don’t plan on having any children myself, it makes sense to send them where they’ll be of use.”

Shaking his head slowly, he leaned back against the wall behind him. “How can you…how can you just
give up
something like that?”

She wasn’t about to tell him how much her younger self had agonized over this choice as a teen. “Some people are born to be mothers. Others aren’t. I’ve never been
maternal, but there are women out there who would literally do anything to be fertile. Why should I hog all my eggs to myself, when they actually want them?”

It seemed to take him a few moments to absorb that idea. Ia gave him the time to think about it. Finally, Meyun shook his head. “That is just…
not
the choice I would have made. I,
ah
, can respect your reasons, but…”

“It’s the best choice, really.” She didn’t know if she was trying to convince him, or reconvince herself. Ia shrugged. “I’m career military, heading into an unofficial war zone. They’ll be removed between flight school and shipping out to the Salik Interdicted Zone—thank you for respecting my right to choose what to do with them.”

Meyun shrugged, then raked his hands through his hair. “What else could I do? It’s your body, not mine. Though a part of me…”

He didn’t finish that thought out loud, just shrugged and folded his arms across his chest again. Moving to the bed, Ia sat on its edge. She tucked the edges of her robe over her legs. “So…What do we do now?”

“What do we do? What do you mean, what do we do?” he retorted. “Can’t you already tell?”

She gave him a chiding look. “Meyun, I above all others know that the future is
fluid
. And I told you, I cannot see
you
clearly. Or I couldn’t. Now I can
sort of
see you in the future. Some of the potential possibilities, but not all of them. I think it’s my mind trying to protect me from myself…”

That earned her a confused look. “What do you mean, protecting you from yourself?”

Ia shrugged, tightening her arms protectively under her breasts. “If anything happened to you, I’d…want to prevent it, whatever it was. Which could upset the delicate flow of events that
must
progress, if I am to achieve my goals. Which means if we stay away from each other, there’s less of a chance I’d be tempted to veer off course.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked tersely.

“
No.
But it’s what I
need
to do.” Sighing, she ran a hand over her short locks. “I should pack and go to the Afaso Headquarters…”

His eyes widened at that. “No…
no
, if you go there, you’ll
die! I’ve seen it, in one of the visions. A hovertaxi accident.” Dropping to one knee, Meyun caught her hands. “
Don’t
go to Madagascar.”

Even knowing it was really the wrong response, given the intensity of his reaction, Ia couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped her. She squeezed his fingers. “Meyun,
don’t worry
. What you saw was just one of the
many
possibilities that could happen if I ever go there. Trust me, I’d see it coming, and take a completely different cab. I have no intention of dying anytime soon.”

He squeezed her fingers in his, holding her gaze intensely. “Don’t you
ever
die, you hear me?”

That made her roll her eyes. “Meyun,
everybody
dies. Even the Feyori, though it takes them a few thousand years.” She started to say more, but honesty prompted her to tilt her head and amend, “Well, everyone except for the Immortal, but technically she
can
be killed. She just keeps popping back to life afterward. Which is why the Feyori think she’s so dangerous, and why they want her destroyed somehow.”

Brow creasing, Meyun gave her a confused frown. “You…We’ve had this conversation before. Or…will have had it…? In the Vault of Time—Ia, what
is
the Vault of Time? And what is it doing here on Earth, if it’s the creation of…of some sort of Feyori?”

“Don’t ask—
don’t
,” she asserted. “Don’t go there, don’t try to get inside, don’t even think about it. Just put it from your mind. As much as having you around would be a severe distraction and a danger to my goals, having the Vault’s owner take an interest in anyone even remotely connected to me would be an outright disaster.”

“Why? Would she try to stop you?”

Ia shook her head. “Worse. She’d try to help.”

He started to speak, then sighed. “Right…because some kinds of help end up being far worse than the problem at hand, don’t they? Is that why you don’t want me at your side? You think I’d mess things up for you?”

Instinct warned her this was one of
those
questions. One she had to answer carefully. Ia opted for honesty, because that was the one course least likely to stab her in the back, later. “I think…I
know
you’d want to help me. I think you could actually
be
helpful. But…”