Fighting Gravity (23 page)

It was much the same as the first time. Layered on top of the beating from only five days before, it felt like they were going to kill me, and part of me didn’t mind. When I was dragged off, bloody, to my dark, cold cell, I was as grateful to see it as if it had been the emperor’s own bed.

That thought brought its own pain. The adrenaline from earlier had been beaten out of me, and I was having a hard time understanding the scene that had passed. With the last look on Pete’s face scorched on my brain, I was having a hard time remembering anything at all, or making any sense of it.

Pete, who had been the sun that anchored my wandering satellite, was now a black hole pulling me in, crushing me. Or was it me, wrong about that, and everything else? Again.

Pete was a good person, probably the best I’d ever known. Much better than me. I had always known that about him. I couldn’t have been wrong about that for so long. Maybe it was as he said: this was a complex situation, and the best he could do. And if anyone owed him support in public, it was me. No matter what their motivations, everyone else had been loyal. Everyone but me.

Treason. I felt sick. And very afraid. My execution. Three days. Somehow I slept; the prospect haunted my dreams.

fg
26

A day later when I was brought a meal, I summoned the courage to ask the guard for a tablet so that I could write farewells to my friends. He just looked at me and left. So I was shocked when, a few hours later, the door opened and he entered with a tablet and handed it to me without a word.

It was a text-only unit, and it wasn’t in good condition. The battery was more than half dead, and from time to time it would completely shut down for no reason I could discern. Every time it did, I feared it wouldn’t come on again. So I kept it off and composed my mails in my head. The morning of my last day, I began to write them.

I wrote to Chuck first. My relationship with Chuck was so uncomplicated. I only told him how much his friendship had always meant to me, how much I admired him. I assured him of my guilt and that the sentence was justified, and told him how sorry I was that I had done this to myself and my friends. That was enough.

The second mail I wrote was to Dr. Okoro. That relationship, too, was simple and straightforward. There were more layers, as he had been both friend and father figure, but I said to him what I’d said to Chuck and little more.

Kirti’s was more difficult. I composed and discarded a hundred mails to her in my head. In the end I wrote only:

Kirti,

The others will tell you why this is my last mail to you. I know you might consider even this unwelcome, but I can’t go to my death without telling you that I love you. I have always loved you and I still love you. I’m sorry that I hurt you and that, because of that, I lost you. You meant more to me than anyone for so long. Thank you for all you were for me. I love you.

Pete I saved for last, of course. There were so many things to say to him, and none of them adequate. But I did finally record this:

Pete,

I’ve taken pains to make sure you don’t read this until after it’s all over. I don’t want you to think I’m asking you for anything, because I’m not. You’re doing what you have to do and I know that.

More than anything I need to tell you I’m sorry. I was wrong. It was my fault, and there is no one to blame for any of this but me. I still think you made the wrong decision. But I never should have acted the way I did, and I know that’s why I’m in here writing this now.

I can’t say why I did it. I don’t suppose it matters now.

You’re probably beating yourself up about all this. Stop. If you’re upset about the end of us, I can’t tell you not to be. But don’t blame yourself for this. It’s not your fault.

All I can seem to think about these past few days is you. Well, really, us. More than anything, I have been remembering the first time we were together, the day I realized I loved you.

You’ve made me happy, Pete, more than I deserved. Thank you for that. Thank you for everything. Please believe that I deeply regret what I’ve done to you; how I acted, and that I ended our relationship in such a horrible way. I think even now that you wouldn’t want for us to be over. You’re ridiculous like that.

I love you. I never stopped loving you. I hope you’ll forgive me. Actually, I know you’ll forgive me. But move on before long, OK? I want that for you. You deserve it.

Goodbye,

Jake

The mails to Chuck, Dr. Okoro, and Kirti I forwarded immediately to Jonathan. I knew I could trust him to deliver them only after the execution.

Pete’s presented difficulties. I could have forwarded it to Jonathan, but I was afraid that, for any number of reasons, it might stop there. But forwarding it to Pete’s private mailbox, the one hardly anyone knew of, would have to be done before the actual execution. I was determined that Pete would not to see the mail until after it was all over.

But, with few options, in the end I sent the message as an attachment to a mail. In that I simply told Pete that my final farewells were attached and should he receive this before the execution, to please respect my wishes and not read it until afterward.

I was careful to time my sending. I knew Pete’s habits, and waited until an hour when he would be long out of the office and unlikely to return. He rarely checked his messages anywhere else, so with the execution early in the morning, I knew there was a good chance that he wouldn’t see my mail until after it was over. Then I lay down on the bed. All I had left to do was done. Of all the ridiculous things to do, I slept.

fg
27

It was the light that woke me. My door had been thrown open and light from the hallway flooded the room. I blinked into the brightness, blocking it with my hand up in front of my face. It seemed far too early for them to come and get me. I cringed to think what that meant they had planned for the hours before my execution.

It was Pete standing in the doorway. He stormed into the room and threw a tablet at me. “You love me?” he demanded. “You don’t blame me, you don’t want me to feel guilty, but you send me
that
?”

I sat up without even looking at the tablet. “You weren’t supposed to read it yet.”

He glowered at me.

“Look,” I said, testily, trying to hide how happy I was to see him, “I did my best to keep it from you until tomorrow. Don’t get angry with me that it didn’t work out. I don’t exactly have a lot of resources here.”

His face fell, and I felt sick over the flippant comment.

He was in pain. It was all I could do to keep myself from getting up and closing the distance between us, taking him in my arms, comforting him. Telling him, really telling him, how sorry I was, how much I loved him, and how wrong I’d been. Instead I put my elbows on my knees, clasped my hands together in front of me, and locked my eyes on them.

“I’m sorry, Pete,” I said, “I just wanted you to know that. I’m sorry for everything.”

I glanced up but he wasn’t looking at me, his head was turned to the side, staring off into the distance. “You’re making it worse.”

“You would prefer I hadn’t tried to apologize at all? Or that I’d written you some scathing, heartless mail telling you what a horrible person you were for doing what you had to do? I can’t do that, I’m sorry. And anyway, it wouldn’t have helped. You’re no good at holding grudges. Saying things to make you angry would only work for a little while. And then you’d get over being angry with me no matter what I’d said. It’s just the way you are.”

He still wouldn’t look at me. I could see that he was trying not to cry, and it hurt more than any of the beatings to keep myself on that bed, to not stand and do something.

After a long silence he met my eye. “So what am I supposed to do now?”

“Nothing. You’re going to go back to your room and I’m going to sit here, and in a few hours this will all be over with. It’s just the way it has to be.”

“How can you say that? You want to
die
?”

“No. I’m scared shitless, to be honest. But what other option is there? You have your responsibilities. I did this to myself. I hate what that means for me, for both of us, but I can’t go back and undo it.”

He was silent for a long time, his face twisted with pain. He stepped forward, put his hand under my chin, and lifted my face, examining me.

“They’ll be punished for that,” he said, looking at my bruises.

I pulled away from his grip, but not with any force.

“Don’t bother,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”

He didn’t answer.

“I can’t do it,” he said finally. “No matter what you say, I can’t have you killed. It’s not the only option. Maybe it’s what I
should
do, but there are other things I
can
do.”

I watched him.

“I’m going to have you Resettled,” he said.

The word hit me like a punch in the gut. When I could breathe again I said, “Well that’s not so bad, is it?”

He sighed. “There’s more. I’m also going to have you publicly flogged.”

I shivered.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to…I wish I didn’t have to. You have to understand, they’re expecting a public spectacle. And besides, the Resettlement alone can’t be justified as a substitute for execution. If there were any other way…But it’s better than the alternative, isn’t it?”

“Of course. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be all right.”

He moved close again and laid his hand against my cheek. I wanted to lean into it. I wanted him to hold me. Instead I removed his hand, squeezing but quickly releasing it.

“Thank you,” I said. “So I guess this is goodbye. It sounds so ridiculous, but I really am sorry. For all of this. It’s all my fault, OK? Don’t go blaming yourself.”

His voice was strangled. “Is that really all you have to say to me?”

It took me a minute to get it out. I put my elbows on my knees again and watched as my knuckles turned white. I couldn’t look at him and do what I had to do.

“Yes.”

He was quiet for a while. “I love you,” he said.

Squeezing my hands together until it hurt, I kept my face down, biting hard on my lip, and nodded. He stood there a long time. I needed him to leave. I couldn’t do this much longer.

Before my strength failed, I heard the door open and close, and I was alone again.

-

I didn’t sleep. My head was too full of Pete and the overload of emotions from his visit; the added pain of the happiness at seeing him that had almost overwhelmed me, and the necessity of killing it. I knew Resettlement was preferable by far to a beheading, but that didn’t dull the misery over now having to face going on after my life with Pete had ended. And if I managed not to think of that, there was the flogging.

It was a long few hours.

In the morning they came for me. They brought me no breakfast. I wondered if they already knew I was not going to be executed or if the concept of a last meal was simply lost on them. When I was taken out of the building by a different way than before, I decided they must know that someone else was going to beat me up for them. I couldn’t imagine them passing up a chance to do it one last time, otherwise.

They led me through the halls and into a part of the palace I’d never been in before. Everywhere we went people stopped and stared as we passed. There were surprisingly few people in the halls, but when we got to the justice square I saw why. The courtyard was teeming, packed with people by the thousands.

The justice square saw little use. It never doubled as a space for any other purpose, only executions and other public punishments, and such events were rare. Only in cases that had come all the way up to Pete himself were punishments meted out at the palace. Cases did not come to Pete often.

My case, of course, the offense against the emperor himself, began and ended with Pete. There was no jury, no appeal; Pete’s word was final. I wondered how his reputation of being impartial would be affected after I was sentenced.

I was led to a platform at the head of the crowd, where Pete sat with Aliana beside him, flanked by their guards. Sam smirked at me. Aliana met my eye and gave me a sad little smile. I tried to smile in return but I didn’t have it in me. I looked around for Jonathan but I didn’t see him. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to divorce his name from mine as quickly as possible. Still, I would have liked to have seen him again.

I looked at Pete. His face was set in his neutral, expressionless emperor’s mask. The effort he was putting into maintaining it looked painful. He was positioned so that he was facing me, his head turned in the right direction so any spectator would think he was looking at me. But he wasn’t. I didn’t take my eyes off of him so that when he did look at me I wouldn’t miss it.

In my peripheral vision, I saw Lord Sifer move forward.

“Jacob Dawes.”

I looked at him as a reflex. He was regarding me as he always did, dispassionate and calm. In all the time I’d known Lord Sifer I’d never gotten the impression that he disapproved of me, but I hadn’t gotten the impression that he approved of me either. It wasn’t hard to believe that the man held no actual opinions of his own; that every situation was evaluated on the bare facts and circumstances alone. He was the perfect politician.

Lord Sifer continued to address me but I looked back at Pete, waiting for his reaction, or just for him to look at me.

“Mr. Dawes, you have been accused and found guilty of gross disrespect of the person and position of His Excellence, Emperor Rikhart IV, willful defiance of a direct order of Emperor Rikhart IV, and violence against the person of Emperor Rikhart IV. These charges amount to treason. Have you anything to say in your defense?”

Addressing Pete, I said, “I have done what you said. I am guilty of treason. But I beg His Excellence to forgive me and show mercy.”