[ 2.2 ]
In the morning, as much to distract himself from the food as anything else, Serafin reviews the PubComms packet to see who he has become. He’s gone on assignments under his own name, of course, but never like this, never so exposed; there’s something eerie about the legend on the data-panels, his entire life twisted and mutilated until it becomes acceptable for public consumption.
His origins remain unchanged: first generation space-born, raised in the Kennedy Cluster, three siblings, two children. Fluent in three languages (not that it matters these days). Enlisted in the SDF at seventeen, transferred to ASF two years later, where he would go on to earn two citations for combat valor. Trained in variable gravity maneuvers and swarm operations; sterling service, honorable discharge.
University is where the variations begin to creep in. His studies under Doctor V.A. Perez are mentioned — but not his much longer tutelage with the irascible Ustad Hakim Abdul Nasser. Serafin’s admission to the Kalaam Club warrants a line — but not the second offer, which came the night after his admittance party, when he was taken to the vertical gardens to meet the false-faced man who ushered him into a more exclusive set.
After that, many extracurricular activities go wholly unmentioned, along with his final, brutal six months of training at the Shadow House. According the profile, this post-graduate era was spent attending a seminar on Luna exploring the ideology of the Universal Soviet in the 20th century, and there’s no shortage of corroborating documentation and recordings attesting to his studies, if one bothered to look.
Generally, PubComms does their best to make his career look plausible. Has he spent more time in Mars-space than the average civilian? Perhaps, but he specializes in crisis management; no one can claim Mars lacks for crises. Was he in Devasthal during the Sharma Revolution — one of the most pivotal moments in its history, and indeed, the entire history of the Copernican struggle for liberty? Of course. But was he involved in those events in any way? No more so than any of the millions of the colony’s other residents. He may have served a brief stint with the Free Worlds Diplomatic Mission toward the end, yes, but that’s not terribly surprising, given his Solar Politics minor and his close relationship with Martin Haynes, the local doyen.
The Churchill era requires the most creativity on the part of the profile’s assemblers, since many of the standard deniability protocols were cast aside in the name of expediency once the war truly began. His time with DCS disrupting the Toporov smuggling ring is transformed into an extended consultancy for a private firm; his eight months running down Iblis collaborators has become a relaxing vacation through the colonies. He’s been nocked with Paean Medical Services for nearly three years — the profile says nearly a decade — and he’s amused to see they’ve promoted him a few times to account for the discrepancy.
Senior security facilitator — not a bad choice. He’s operated under similar titles before. The “senior” will provide useful autonomy to explain behavior that wouldn’t make sense otherwise; the “security” is even better, as it provides considerable latitude. Can’t tell you everything — you don’t want to be insecure, do you?
Last year — the abduction, the torture, the recording, the escape — has its own dedicated file, which will require its own dedicated study… some other time, he decides. Even though no one can access material in his personal view, he feels uncomfortable reviewing it in public.
All in all, the man described in the profile is as meek as one could imagine. Oh, James Serafin? You’d forget him as soon as you met him. He’s never recruited an asset, blackmailed anyone, stolen anything, never saved a life or taken one.
He double-checks personal details to make sure they haven’t foisted any new and unexpected hobbies or peccadillos upon him. The only real discrepancy that leaps out is that he is apparently still happily married.
How nice, he thinks. How lovely.
On the way back to his cabin, Serafin comes across a patch of consensus graffito: hands surrounding a slowly spinning nuclear fusion symbol with the words STRONGER TOGETHER emblazoned underneath in Universal that shifts into three dimensions as you walk by. He walks through slowly, observing its details — it’s too elaborate to have been done on the spot, but the complexity of the work suggests a personal piece, not something downloaded from one of the propaganda depots. No signature, of course.
“Excuse me, sir,” a blank says, half-hidden behind a luggage cart.
Serafin probably shouldn’t say anything, but he does.
“Say,” Serafin says. “What’s this all about?”
“This is a public space.” The robot pokes its head over the luggage. “The Verdant Travel Corporation, as a member of the Copernican Allied Conglomerate, values freedom of speech. Public spaces provide passengers with the opportunity to share their story, whether it’s a message to a friend or—”
“This is a Fusionist marker.”
The blank turns to scan the image. “Yes. This appears to be a graphic indicating support for the Fusionist movement.”
Serafin isn’t convinced the machine even knows what a Fusionist is — although that might be for the best; the last thing Copernica needs is robots with drives full of political theory running amok.
“Can you have this taken down?”
“Unfortunately, sir, I’m not authorized to edit public spaces. However, if you are concerned, please note that all public spaces are reset after every trip.”
“That’s all well and good,” Serafin says. “But I’d prefer this be done sooner, rather than latter.”
“Unfortunately, sir, I’m not authorized to edit public spaces. If you encounter anything you find personally upsetting, please note that you can use your consensus controls to remove it from your view. If you’d like to know more about accessing—”
“Yes, yes,” says Serafin impatiently. “Of course. But it’s not my view I’m concerned about. Other people are going to come through here. Other people are going to view this.”
“Unfortunately, sir, I’m not authorized to edit public spaces. If you’d like to speak with a human crew member, I’d be happy to take a recording—”
“No,” Serafin says, reflexively. “Never mind.”
“Very well. Thank you for sharing your concerns. The Verdant Travel Corporation values your business. If anything else fails to meet your expectations during your time on the Oberoi, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.”
With that, the blank heads off to take care of people who matter.
Serafin runs his fingers across the edges of the marker, which flutters and swirls at his touch, offering links to learn more about the cause. It’s really quite beautiful, which makes it all the more nauseating.
Serafin finds himself settling into a routine over the next few days, beginning each morning with a jog around the ship’s outer walkway or somewhere more pleasant in the interface room, if one is available. After spending a few water credits on a cold shower, he takes an hour reviewing the PubComms packet before returning, inevitably, to the Notion, which remains irritating and alluring in equal measure.
What, he keeps wondering, is the question?
There is a general sense of relevant and irrelevant when he flips through his notes, but the overall shape of the problem continues to elude him. There is something catching in the mechanism that keeps it all from moving forward. Every time he starts digging, every promising lead he uncovers crumbles away in his hands like worthless regolith.
He returns to fundamentals, the old questions from university: what does he believe? What does he know? What does he need to know?
Start with the basics. Where is the problem?
He’s confident that the key lies with Churchill Cluster. The rest of Copernica has always disrespected Churchill, treated it like the collection of waystations it was at the beginning of the century, but the surviving habitats — Mitchell, Peake, Foale, Sellers, Sharman, and Kubasovsk — are now home to millions, and they have become vital to the continued functioning of the celestial powers.
Serafin reviews the records, studying the cluster’s population — how the complex blend of Irish, Indian, South African, and UAE settlers have fought, mixed, and metamorphosed since the first space-born generation; how they adapted to the sudden flood of refugees from the rossiyskiy habitats; the alliances and political factions that have risen and fallen over the years, from the planetarians to the splitters, the PDP to the Automatics. He carefully examines the flow of resources through the cluster, which is constantly shifting depending on the trajectories of the mining colonies and the planets throughout the year. He studies the adaptations made to accommodate the needs of the cluster: factories and ship-yards in the early days; farms and munitions as the other colonies went dark and supply lines collapsed. Whenever he comes across a point that seems relevant, he pulls it from the reference and tosses it into his idea-space to review later.
As he waves through the time-line, the pivotal moments of the colonies — the collapse of Garriott, the destruction of Nelyubov, the ‘76 killing of Administrator Rice, beaten to death by a mob in a rare moment of multi-lateral cooperation — make his heart ache. For almost every major event, there have been good men on the ground doing their best to keep bad situations from getting exponentially worse. And over the years, a lot of them have died — most recently, Piapil, Morson, and Ashley.
But while there is a surfeit of tragedy, he has trouble seeing any patterns. In the crush of two wars, casualties are to be expected. Every man lost is just a drowned star in the fireworked sky.
And Serafin? No star he, no, not at all. He’s not even a bit player — only a stagehand upon whom the spotlight has briefly, inadvertently fallen. The sooner his return to shadow, the happier he will be.
He reads until his eyes grow tired, and then he watches and listens until his focus slips away. When his attention starts consistently dipping below threshold — helpfully indicated by a med-sense chime — he ventures out into the halls of the ship, where he is, inevitably, accosted by Herman Schott.
Herman has taken a shine to Serafin, for some reason, even though Serafin has made it quite clear he will not be purchasing any shares of Peverall Entomologics. The bug man is constantly shooting over invitations for drinks or meals when not actively engaged in honeymooning. Serafin makes no effort to match Herman’s energy, and in fact barely contributes to most of their conversations, but there is still an undeniable, curious closeness that develops between them almost immediately, the intimacy unique to long voyages, where rough differences fall away and all parties are free of post-arrival expectations.
Herman is a loud-mouth, a boor, and a lush — and, Serafin soon discovers, a rather poor sport, best evidenced by his challenging an opponent to a fight following a particularly humiliating loss in Scenario. But to his credit, Herman makes no secret of any of this, and is more than happy to forgive your sins if you forgive his.
He has opinions about everything, which he shares as loudly as possible, frequently peppering in trivia about insects as he goes; after a day spent reviewing personnel statistics and shipping manifests and solar reflector cycles, Serafin finds the constant stream of drivel oddly relaxing.
There’s a practical advantage to the friendship, as well: Serafin needs to be public, but not too public. Fewer people might remember a man who spends all his time locked up in his cabin, but the few who do — the crew, the help, the regulars — will remember him all the more clearly because of his hermitage. Serafin’s experience has led him to conclude that it is better to be just another face in the crowd; better still to stand near the man who everyone remembers instead.
“All this cooperation with the Union, it’s a disgrace!” Herman bellows Friday evening, already fully fueled by the time Serafin has emerged from his daily oblations to the Notion. Serafin’s late to the impromptu political conference the bug man has apparently assembled, but a seat has kindly been reserved for him.
“You space-born, you make everything so complicated!” Herman booms. “There’s us, and there’s them! Our countries and their countries! Ever hear of the Berlin Wall? The 38th Parallel? The Mohammedan Divide? Earth had this figured out before the end of the millennium! I mean, it’s no wonder half your population is constantly on the verge of revolution, you can hardly tell where you are or who’s in charge of what on any given day!”
“What about the Iblis?” says one of Herman’s new friends. “We had a common enemy.”
“You did! But whose fault was that? If the Chinese had been honest about what was happening back then, they could have nipped the whole thing in the bud before it even got started! And the Soviets, ha! Don’t get me started! Not only do they break their treaties, but they don’t even follow their own rules about autonomics! We Earthers saw this whole mess coming from a mile away!”
This rant is factually incorrect in at least four different ways, but the crowd murmurs approvingly all the same.
“What would you propose?” Serafin asks, sipping a glass of something with aspirations of becoming wine.
“Bill Hessman has the right of it!” says Herman, holding up three big fingers. “Shut down the grey zones and take back Allied territory. Run full patriot checks on everyone to root out the subversives and uprisers and deviants. And most important: ‘Children of the sky, it’s time to come home!’ You’ve had your fun, you’ve raised some hell, but enough is enough!”
“Come home? You mean abandon space?”
“Not at all!” Herman says. “But all this talk of independence and autonomy? It’s foolish! Putting aside the absolute mess you’ve all made of things, just be practical: if Earth disappeared tomorrow, how long would the clusters survive? Ten years? Twenty, if you pulled out all the stops?”
“I’d be a little careful with that kind of chatter,” says another man at the table — Hasan Cluster, by his fashion, with enough stellar pride he feels obliged to push back, even if only a little. “You’re liable to start a ruckus if the wrong person overhears.”
“I welcome it!” Herman booms, standing up and rolling back his sleeves, the muscles in his forearms bulging as he readies himself against an imaginary foe. “I was best in my weight class — and that’s real weight, Earth pounds, the full G! Anybody wants to shut me up, they’re welcome to try! That’s something you should know about we Earth-men: we don’t back down from a fight!”
Of Maila, Serafin has less to report. She must be half Lucy’s age — cultural observers have noted that Earth-born men are quite fixated on youthful partners, a tradition which hasn’t really made it off-planet — and not the brightest star in the sky. To her credit, she is unfailingly good-humored and sweet; every time Serafin comes across the girl she’s sharing a meal with some senior citizen or running some errand for a fellow passenger.
By the end of the week, the Schotts essentially have the run of the entire deck, even going so far as to throw together a talent show in the atrium when Saturday night’s entertainment falls through. One by one, the volunteer impresarios harass and press-gang their newfound friends into performing, using their conversations against them — “You said you played guitar, didn’t you?” — until their victims surrender and take the stage.
Serafin, at a loss for any better idea, recites God’s Weaver by Parvin E’tasami, which earns some polite applause, likely more for the verse than the delivery.
“What about you?” Serafin whispers to Herman, as a scrawny young man takes to the stage with an amusing comic routine about the joys and sorrows of dating a Realist.
“What about me?” Herman may not even be capable of whispering.
“Shouldn’t you be doing something?”
“You know, we probably should! What do you think Maila?”
“Oh, I don’t know!” she squeaks, eagerness set against modesty.
“Maybe that little number from last year?”
Words now fail the girl entirely, but she nods, nods, nods, hands against her cheeks.
“I’ll need a blank!” she gasps at last, and rushes off to prepare.
By the time Maila returns in an ostentatious white and gold leotard, Herman has managed to bully one of the ship’s crew into letting him upload a routine to one of the service robots. He raises a hand against the side of the blank, and the machine’s eyes light up as a new skin trickles down its exterior, transforming the unit into the image of the devilish Grey Jinn, from the popular ‘60s media series.
Maila hands out her Concord code; Serafin waves it off with a polite smile, a choice born not only born of his generation’s cultural reluctance to open up personals to strangers, but also his individual discomfort — he’s never much cared for the sensation of shared physical and emotional states.
With that out of the way, there’s a bit of hustle and bustle, moving chairs and adjusting lights, before they’re finally ready to proceed. No one has been on stage in ten minutes, and the crowd is beginning to grow restless.
The beginning of the act is simple enough: from the dark edges of the stage, Maila emerges. As she glides toward the audience, consensus glitter spins from her limbs, leaving pulsing, glowing patterns behind her.
A narrative begins to form, aided by the song of strings: see the girl, new to the world, trying to find her way. Her limbs sway through the air cautiously, experimentally, as if reaching, searching, striving. Her gestures are flowing and fluid until she comes to a sudden, sharp stop — she has discovered Herman, the man.
The music grows faster, more playful. The girl sways around him, darting forward, back, forward, curious yet uncertain. He reaches for her; she retreats. He moves toward her in short quick steps; she backs away, arms high, shoulders low.
There is fear, yes. But when he retreats, she follows.
Serafin is impressed. Herman is not as talented as his wife, but he’s far more nimble than his portly frame might indicate; just keeping up with Maila takes no small degree of flexibility and skill. As they begin to fall into sync, their movements quicken; they are still not touching, but they are growing closer together; the girl’s movements might even be called flirtatious. Behind her, the golden trails glow brighter, lighting up the room, and her costume begins to glow as well.
The man takes her hand, and spins the girl — but when the spin ends, she finds herself facing the jinn.
The machine stomps forward, and she dances back. The music becomes more ominous, more percussive, growing faster and faster. The jinn reaches for the girl, but she nimbly pivots around it each time, striking a pose of defiance after each attempt. The blank’s movements are deliberately artificial, sharp and stiff, presumably to emphasize Maila’s grace, but it moves so quick in its pursuit that Serafin worries a half-step in the wrong direction could break a limb.
The man follows, follows, but the jinn always manages to position itself between them. The girl attempts to twirl past the jinn, but it takes the opportunity to seize her by the wrist — she rolls away, but it rolls her back, and she dramatically pounds her fists against its chest and feigns weeping.
The gold fades, along with the lights of the atrium. All that remains is the girl’s own slow, faint, pulsing glow.
But the man arrives, and the three figures begin reacting to one another in complex, sweeping patterns, the girl and the man attempting to reach each other despite the jinn’s interference. Each time the jinn swings at the man, the girl adjusts her stance. Finally, the man swings back, and the jinn recoils, lifting the girl into the air — which she accentuates with a tilt jump before landing en pointe on its outstretched palm. From there, she executes a series of staccato steps across the blank’s open palms as the machine snaps precisely to catch her feet again and again. Slowly, the robot bends its legs and lowers its arms as she continues her descent, creating the impression she’s fleeing — gracefully — down a flight of stairs.
The robot sets one knee against the floor, and she stomps on its thigh, leaping to the air just as the blank rises, sending her sailing into the air. It snaps its arms out to either side, and she uses the momentum to balance on its shoulders, nimbly spinning and pirouetting down one arm and then the other before it pivots, holding her up like a trophy as she strikes an arabesque.
And then she lets herself fall.
The blank shifts its skin to translucent, and guides her down.
Maila tumbles — and as she does, the blank’s nearly invisible arms shift to hold her in various poses as it slowly lowers her down, creating the illusion that she is falling, falling, falling, although she never reaches the ground. Serafin is impressed by how much grief she manages to express in this artificial descent, each turn of her arms finding new variations in her desperation.
At last, when all hope is lost, a trumpet’s call signals the man’s return. When he takes her in his arms, she is luminous once again, but one final twist remains — she falls away, one last time, through his arms, and it seems as though all is lost.
But at the last second, he surrenders himself to gravity, cradling her just as she strikes one final pose– one arm flung to the sky, the other precisely bent to rest her fingers gently against the man’s cheek. It takes a moment for Serafin to realize what has transpired: Herman has surrendered his balance to catch her. Her angled leg is all that keeps them from toppling over. In this final moment, her light bursts free at last, and they are surrounded by golden décoratif, framed by golden curves, stars and flowers.
In the end, no Concord is necessary. Serafin can’t hear his own clapping over the roar of the crowd. Autographs are requested; sometime later, a porter stops by to reveal that the captain has reviewed the performance and invited Maila and Herman to dinner next week. She’s so overjoyed by the reception she cries, although she insists that this is common, after a performance.
“It’s just how you let the energy out,” she says, drying her eyes.
The select members of Herman’s cadre retire to some tables underneath the balcony, where he treats everyone to a round of drinks, although Serafin abstains.
“How about that!” Herman says, yet again. “Can she move, or can she move?”
“Very fine work,” Serafin agrees.
“You’ve been rather quiet.”
“Oh, I was just thinking about what you were saying earlier,” Serafin says. “The Hessman strategy and all.”
“What about it?”
Best not call it the dumbest twaddle I’ve ever heard. “I’m just not sure it’s entirely feasible. The colonies may have been self-sufficient in the early years, but to the best of my knowledge none of the cluster governances can maintain their habitats without some measure of … philanthropy, zakat, mutual aid — whatever you want to call it.”
Herman gives him an oh you chuckle. “That’s the oldest trick in the book. You ever hear about the ant and the grasshopper? You might not have; it’s an old Earth fable.”
“I thought it was a cicada.”
“No!” Herman barks, smacking the table. “Grasshopper! Totally different species! Cicadas, they’re very big, but they have little bitty legs! And grasshoppers — small, but with great big legs! They’re jumpers!”
“My mistake.”
“Don’t feel bad! You’re a spacer, you can’t be expected to know these things!”
“Mm. What about this ant, then?”
“The ant!” Herman says, remembering there was an ant. “He works hard, he digs tunnels, he forages for food to store for the winter. (Of course, most species of ant don’t actually store food for winter, but never mind that for now!) One day, he runs into the grasshopper, and the grasshopper is singing and dancing and carrying on, and the grasshopper asks the ant to join him. And the ant, of course, says, ‘I can’t! I’m storing food for the winter!’ And the grasshopper laughs at the ant, because — why bother? It’s nice and sunny, and there’s food everywhere!”
“For now.”
“Exactly!” says Herman. “So the ant keeps working hard. But then winter comes, and what happens? The ant is in his little hive, with his food. And the grasshopper — well! The grasshopper, he’s in a real pickle!”
“Out in the cold?”
“Yes! And he’s got nowhere to go! And so the grasshopper knocks on the ant’s door, and says, ‘Can I have some food? It’s very cold, and there’s nothing to eat!’”
“Goodness. And then what happens?”
“Well,” says Herman, pausing for effect — what he lacks in ideological rigor, he more than makes up for in showmanship. “The ant looks at the grasshopper, and he says, ‘You spent the summer singing, so go dance for your food!’”
“What’s that mean, then?” the scrawny comedian asks.
“Why, it’s obvious!” says Herman, irritated. “You have to work hard, and accept the consequences if you don’t! You can’t depend on anyone else! That’s just how it works, on Earth, in space — everywhere! It’s as fundamental as electro-magnetism or gravity. That’s what the Reds don’t understand! If it was up to them, what would they do? Nationalize the ant-farm! Redistribute the ants’ food! And you better not protest, or it’s off to the gulag with you!’”
However they feel about the fable, everyone is happy to get on board with this last bit of rhetoric.
Everyone, that is, except Maila.
“The poor grasshopper,” she sniffles. “Couldn’t they at least give him something?”
“Maila, my wife, my beloved,” says Herman, laughing as he pulls her into his lap and kisses her. “If everyone in the system had a heart as big as yours, we’d have the whole universe sorted out by now!”
Maila pouts, suggesting she’s at least capable of recognizing patronization. In Serafin’s rear view, a thin, scowling man stops behind him, staring for a moment before moving to get a clearer look at Serafin’s face.
“Say, you’re that fellow from the recording,” says the man. “Serafin, Serafin.”
The man’s a hard and natural fifty — at least — clad in old, faded standards, although he’s taken pains to disguise the wear with consensus thread.
“Yes,” says Serafin, carefully.
“Hush-man,” the man snarls. “You’re a hush-man.”
“I beg your pardon—”
“Your lot came down on one of my kin last year. Wasn’t even doing anything wrong and they tricked him, got him to break the embargo. Thought he was helping people, and now he’s off to Kuiper and his wife and kids are in the vents. Because of you bastards.”
There have been many times in the course of his career when Serafin has been confronted by angry men — for so many reasons he’s honestly lost track of them all. It’s happened often enough that, over time, he’s developed an almost reflexive routine, a checklist of what to look for and how to react, depending on the circumstances.
But right now all Serafin can hear in his mind is this is your life now, this is the rest of your life, this is all your life will ever be. Closing his eyes and shaking his head doesn’t seem to help him recalibrate.
But work through it. Save the dread for later.
He considers the merits of refutation, perhaps mentioning — truthfully — that he’s never even been to Phobos, but, no, that’s not the best way forward. This is not the sort of person who is interested in a debate.
But there is an opening here. Despite the scowl on his face, the man’s hands are open, trembling — no fists or weapons — implying there’s a conversation to be had. There is grief as well, etched across his mottled brow, which Serafin understands all too well.
Don’t intellectualize. Just listen.
“What happened?” Serafin asks, rising from his chair.
“He was a good boy, my brother’s son. And this man comes, and my nephew, he takes him into his home, as a guest, they break bread together, he thinks of this man as family. And then the peacekeepers come in the night, into his home, and they take him away. And who is in the court? This liar — not a man, but a snake, who points the finger and says my brother’s son is a criminal!”
There’s a way through this, Serafin concludes. A little finesse is required, but he’s confident he can manage. He’s about to suggest they move somewhere quiet to discuss this further, but—
“Hey!” Herman barks.
Serafin flinches. A stupid, elementary error: ignoring a major body in your orbital calculations.
“We’re having a nice night, aren’t we?” Herman says, with an impressive blend of merriment and menace. “Why don’t you go find somebody else to bother?”
“Why don’t you mind your own business?” the man says, fists now pressed firmly against his pockets.
“Herman,” says Serafin, “it’s fine—”
The man throws a punch at Serafin, but not much of one. There’s a rush and clatter but Serafin moves quickly, positioning himself in between the man and the crowd, waving the defenders back.
“It’s fine!” Serafin barks. “It’s fine!” He turns to look the man in the eye. “Listen, mister. What’s your name?”
“Colin.”
“And your nephew’s name?”
“Addy.” Colin’s eyes dart back and forth, trying to figure out Serafin’s angle. He’d like to keep swinging but Serafin’s arms are raised in supplication. It’s a hard thing to fight a man who won’t fight back, especially in front of a crowd.
“Addy,” says Serafin. “You know, I don’t have any nieces or nephews myself. But I do have two children. And I know how angry I would be if someone locked them up for no reason. Did you serve?”
Colin nods. “Colonial Defense. 14th Mechanicals.”
“Go big metal,” says Serafin. “I was SDF/ASF. I need some water. Can I get some water?”
Who would deny a man water?
On Colin’s nod, Serafin moves to the bar.
“It’s hard, not knowing why,” says Serafin, pouring himself a cap. He offers one to Colin, who declines. “My second assignment, I got stuck with brig duty on this rickety old tempo out in the Mars conflict zone. Every day, I’d check the cells, break up fights, make sure the inmates were actually doing their jobs. Not the most pleasant work, but I’ve done worse over the years.
“After Molniya went hot, the Reds dropped a rod right through the module, blew a hole big enough you could fly a cruiser through it, vented every single last prisoner in that place. And most of them, they weren’t bad people, not really. Mostly pups. Some drunk and disorderlies, some insubordinates, couple nutters who probably should have been sent to psych instead. But still, all of sudden, every single one of them gets death sentenced. So you know what they had me do?”
Colin’s still angry, but he’s having trouble holding onto it. “What?”
“Same thing as before: guard the place. The duty roster said I was still on brig duty, so by God I was still on brig duty. Every day I’d suit up and float over and guard this big empty box. Every day, I’m drifting in the dark, watching the war sail around my head. You know why?”
“Why?”
Serafin shakes his head. “Me either. Three months later they shoved a rifle in my hand and tossed me in the canals. Couple years after the war ended, when they finally remembered it was there, they took the prison apart for scrap.
“I’ll level with you, mister. I don’t know why the people in charge make the choices they make. I don’t know why they make people do the things they do. I don’t know why they stitched up your nephew. But I am, truly, sorry.”
“They shouldn’t have done that.”
“They shouldn’t have.”
Colin looks away. “I shouldn’t have hit you.”
“It’s alright. I understand why you did.”
Colin can’t quite work up a verbal apology, but he nods something to that effect.
“Have a good night,” he mutters, and walks away.
Herman, stationed nearby, watches him go, eager for war but willing to preserve the peace. There’s an expression on the big man’s face Serafin can’t quite read, but Herman’s not the type to keep his opinions to himself.
“Why’d you let him wallop you like that?” Herman asks.
Serafin is too tired to come up with something clever, so he just smiles and shakes his head.
Because that’s who the profile says I am.