The Galaxy Game (8 page)

‘Some of the men are asking to become co-husbands,’ Dllenahkh remarked casually.

‘What?’ Aunt Grace sounded wary and uncertain rather than shocked.

‘It
is
one of the options offered by the Ministry of Family Planning. It would reduce the number of single men and increase community bonds,’ Dllenahkh explained and drank his water peacefully.

There was a small silence, then, ‘Do
you
think I should take a second husband?’

Dllenahkh started. It had clearly not crossed his mind. ‘No . . . no. I do not think that would be appropriate.’

Aunt Grace looked down at her plate with a small smile. Dllenahkh blinked at the remaining water in his glass.

‘Don’t you hate,’ murmured Freyda to Rafi, ‘how they pretend to ignore each other when they’re communicating without words?’ She spoke with humour and no bitterness whatsoever, but he felt a trace of wistfulness leaking through.

‘Do
you
want another husband?’ he asked her.

She smacked the side of his head lightly. ‘You’re too young for me,’ she teased him.

‘Aie! I didn’t mean
me
!’

She almost laughed, but her face sobered suddenly. ‘I want to go to Punartam, but Lanuri won’t . . .’ The unfinished sentence made Rafi itch. Won’t let me? Won’t come with me? ‘There’s a lot happening on Punartam, like research and debates on the future of the galaxy. Delarua doesn’t realise. She listens to Nasiha and Dllenahkh and their sources, and I doubt New Sadira is putting out objective reports on the state of galactic affairs.’

‘You’re a biotech specialist?’ Rafi asked, puzzled but taking care to match her light, conversational tone.
Tell me your secrets
.

‘Yes, and I talk to colleagues in other fields. They’re keen to talk to me. Everyone wants to know what the Cygnian Sadiri are doing and saying.’ She mumbled the next words, words he was sure he was not meant to hear. ‘Delarua is too busy living her dream life.’ She caught the edge of Rafi’s sudden tension, saw the way he bit his lip on a retort and became defensive. ‘It’s a beautiful place. A lovely community.’ That wistfulness again, trailing her final words into a fading fall. ‘We don’t all share the same happy-ever-after. Even if it existed.’ She paused. ‘But life is good.’

Good
, Rafi thought.
Good is better than a shared happy-ever-after
. He didn’t trust those.

‘Well,’ said Aunt Grace abruptly, ‘I need to talk to Freyda and Nasiha about a few things. Dllenahkh, take Rafi for a walk and show him what’s changed since he was last here.’

Rafi blinked at the sudden dismissal and realised there was a very slight strangeness in the atmosphere, the kind of cautious air that comes from having a group of people talking around one person unaware of their greatest secret.

*

Dllenahkh took Rafi to the meditation hall, guessing correctly that he would be most interested in and distracted by their new microgravity Wall – not at all the standard for proper Wallrunning drills, but still useful training for those who wanted to keep their sense of three-dimensional space while planetside. It was especially popular with their growing community of pilots. Rafi gladly tried it out while Dllenahkh monitored the controls via handheld and pondered the discussion that was taking place back at the main house.

He was still very much absorbed when Rafi dropped down to the floor and suddenly demanded, ‘I want you to push me.’

Dllenahkh set the handheld back in its slot and gave the youngster a puzzled look.

‘You’re powerful. You stopped my father.
Push
me,’ Rafi insisted.

Still puzzled, Dllenahkh walked over to Rafi, set his hand under his sternum and shoved him so forcefully that he flew backwards, bounced off the wall and fell onto the floor. Rafi curled up slowly, holding his stomach and squinting hard as his eyes watered.

‘That’s . . . not what I meant,’ he gasped.

Dllenahkh crouched beside him but did not move to touch him or help him up. ‘No? But that was power, too, was it not?’

‘Your mind . . . I meant with your mind.’

‘Ah. I see.’

He sat on the floor, back to the wall, and waited. Eventually, Rafi’s breath evened out and his body uncurled slightly, though his eyes remained closed as he struggled with the slow ebb of the nerve pain.

Dllenahkh continued the casual tone of the conversation. ‘May I ask
why
you want to be pushed?’

He did not expect an answer and no answer was given. He sighed.

‘There are several possible reasons for such a request. I hope that fear of what I could do to your aunt is not included among them.’

‘No,’ Rafi whispered. ‘I don’t think you’d hurt her. Not ever.’

Dllenahkh grimaced. ‘
Ever
is too great an accomplishment for any mortal, as you well know. If you do not fear for your aunt, then perhaps you fear for yourself, that I might . . .
stop
you as I once stopped your father?’

Rafi’s breathing had been growing smoother and slower, but at that it hitched and quickened.

‘Or you fear that no one will be powerful enough to stop you if you need to be stopped,’ Dllenahkh concluded. He examined the wooden beams of the ceiling so that his nephew could take a moment to shed a few tears privately.

‘I cannot stop you. I can help you stop yourself. That is all I can do for anyone.’

The boy raised his head at last, no longer caring about hiding his wet face. ‘Do that for me. I can’t stand the nightmares any more.’

This was news to Dllenahkh. ‘How long have you been having nightmares?’

Rafi bit his lip hard. ‘Since they gave me the cap,’ he whispered.

‘Cap?’ Dllenahkh said, confused. ‘Please explain?’

Rafi told him about the cap and his brief research on the use of caps for diagnosis or punishment. He stuttered for a moment, and then slowly described his nightmares. Dllenahkh absorbed the information in a silence that was deeply ominous, not least for the sensation of growing tension like the silent, rapid build of a thunderhead.

‘Thank you for telling me this,’ he said at last. ‘May I discuss it with your aunt? It might be better for us to jointly assess whether the treatment you are enduring is in your best interests.’

Rafi exhaled loudly, a sound of utter relief. ‘Yes. Yes, please.’

Dllenahkh patted his shoulder reassuringly and got to his feet. ‘Concerning power, bear in mind that if you fear the strong, you should also fear the gentle. They slip under your guard so easily, and it takes only the smallest push to overwhelm an unsteady base.’

‘Like my aunt did to you?’ Rafi grinned at Dllenahkh.

He smiled and allowed the boy a few seconds of apparent triumph before replying. ‘There are times when taking a fall is the right strategy.’

*

They went back to the main house. Freyda and Nasiha were sitting on the edge of their chairs, leaning over a low table with scattered documents and three handhelds. Aunt Grace was perched on a stool beside the bar, empty-handed and frowning as she hugged one knee to her chest and looked at her friends. They had finished their discussion, but they quickly gave Rafi a small share of their secrets as he introduced his own dilemma.

‘Nasiha and the New Sadira government. You and the Cygnian government. That’s two of you I have to worry about now,’ his aunt fretted.

‘But I thought Nasiha was expected to return to service?’ Rafi asked in bewilderment, watching as Dllenahkh sat beside Nasiha and picked up one of the handhelds with a heavy sigh.

Aunt Grace looked at him without expression. ‘New Sadira is not the best place to be right now. That’s none of your concern, however. Let’s talk about how we’re going to get you out of that school without you getting brain-tagged for the rest of your life.’

‘You’ve never asked me . . .’ He hesitated, as if all too aware that his words could smash the last unfractured security of his childhood. ‘You don’t ask what I can do. Is that . . . is that you or me?’

Aunt Grace gave him a puzzled, sympathetic look. ‘You don’t know?’

She reached out and took hold of his hand, pulled him close. She was now small enough to tuck under his shoulder, a new thing that made the once-familiar warmth strange. He awkwardly pressed against the side of her updrawn knee and the edge of the stool and hugged her.

‘It’s both. You and me. You’re a lot like me, but much stronger. You can charm, and you can . . .’ She stopped, seeking the right word. ‘Quieten.
Lull
. I never wanted you to be worried or scared of what you are, and you didn’t want me to worry either, so you persuaded me and I persuaded you. We mutually pacified our curiosity. Not the wisest thing I’ve done, I admit, but . . .’

She fell silent, but he imagined he knew her thoughts. They were both wondering how much should be allowed for the sake of wanting your loved ones to be happy.

He pulled away gently and sat on the stool next to hers. ‘You know, I’ll be fifteen soon.’

Aunt Grace smiled. ‘Counting down the days?’

‘Three weeks, five days,’ he replied with a laugh. ‘Then I’m a homesteader grown and no one’s responsibility.’

Her smile vanished immediately. ‘No. No you don’t.’

‘You’re not my guardian,’ he reminded her, keeping his voice low, reasonable and not in the least accusing. ‘I’m still registered as a homesteader, otherwise you could have kept me till seventeen.’

‘You can’t do this to Maria,’ she whispered angrily. The whisper was useless for privacy. Rafi saw at the edge of his vision when Dllenahkh raised his head and looked at them, perplexed, then returned his gaze to his handheld with a reluctance that hinted at divided attention. He continued to protest quietly. ‘I’m not trying to do anything to anyone. I’m trying to get control over my life.’

‘You’ll get
some
control and you’ll lose
a lot
of protection. There’s no easy solution to this, Rafi. Let’s think things over carefully before we make any grand gestures.’

Rafi opened his mouth, paused, then rushed on before fear or common sense could make him hold his tongue. ‘It’s already in process. I . . . I went to the Registration Bureau in the City.’

‘Your so-called research – you idiot! No,
I’m
the idiot, trusting you not to get into trouble in one afternoon!’

Her voice grew too loud to be ignored. Rafi looked anxiously at the faces now turned in their direction. ‘It’s not as bad as it sounds,’ he insisted to the room at large. ‘It’s perfectly legal.’

Nasiha glanced very quickly at Aunt Grace, her eyes flickering over for a split second before coming back to give him a pensive look, and in that moment Rafi felt intensely guilty, as if her problem were being weighed in the balance with his. He was an unexpected, unwanted distraction, a family embarrassment derailing a serious matter of interplanetary importance.

‘It won’t be finalised until my birthday,’ he said, seeking a graceful retreat. ‘We can deal with it later.’

It was easy when you knew what to watch for. Dllenahkh gave his wife a look that was somehow both stern and pleading. She bit her lip, her eyes anguished as she answered her husband’s silent communication, then blinked and smoothed her features leaving only a slight tension in her jaw as she spoke her words softly through clenched teeth.

‘Go to bed, Rafi, straight to bed. Don’t do anything – don’t even
think
about doing anything until we discuss this again.’

Feeling thoroughly shamed, Rafi got up and walked quickly out of the house, running an uncomfortable gauntlet of guarded, sympathetic, querying and worried looks. At first he kept his head down as he took the short path to the living quarters, but the night breeze was so cool and comforting that he gradually lifted his heated face to the sky and slowed his pace. Stars shone intermittently through patches of drifting cloud, serene and timeless beyond the changeable atmosphere. He glanced back at the lit windows of the main house, suddenly wishing he were an adult in truth and fact, someone who could be told secrets and asked opinions, someone who could help give protection rather than always needing it.

If he had remained on the homestead, he could have used his majority to take up work at another homesteading with no need for permission or blessing. If he had remained there and the past two years had not happened and there was no cap with his name attached to it. If he had remained there and never had a father – only a mother, a sister and a normal household with the ordinary struggle of selfishness and love.

But he had a family that was not normal and a brain that was not normal and the government was too interested in both. When he stopped to think about it, he could not for the life of him see how officially becoming an adult was going to make that situation any better.

Chapter Four

Rafi had forgotten what it was like to sleep easily without nightmares or student pranks to disturb him. He should have been awake and stressed about when he would be missed at the Lyceum, but instead the next day came at sunrise instead of midnight. He stretched blissfully, cuddled his pillow and listened a while to the morning birdsong before drifting off into a few more hours of slumber.

A tugging on his ankle finally woke him. ‘Get up and eat before breakfast becomes lunch,’ his uncle told him.

He uncurled slowly. ‘Aunt Grace?’ he mumbled. She would never have let him sleep so late as to miss breakfast.

‘She’s attending to a business matter with a colleague.’

Rafi sat up straight and alert. ‘What—’

‘It has nothing to do with you,’ Dllenahkh interrupted.

He fell back with a dramatic thud. Part of him wanted to wake up and find his problem solved and another part was scared of what kind of solution his aunt might put together.

His uncle chuckled quietly. ‘Life looks easier after a meal. Come.’

Rafi got up and followed Dllenahkh into the main house where he allowed himself to be fed familiar fruit, unfamiliar curds, soft and bland, which might have been dairy or vegetable in origin, and a strongly seasoned broth which burned away the last traces of his fatigue and set his ears tingling. Dllenahkh joined him at the table but only drank tea and scanned his handheld idly.