Wandering Storm Read online

  Winn didn’t even look up. “Duse, do you know why all of your other roommates dumped you?”

  “Dumped? They didn’t dump me. I just kept requesting to have you as my roommate until Dean Bahrfeldt relented. Now we’ve been roomies for a whole year.” I smiled at her.

  “I had to sign a waiver that I understood what I was getting into. He said you were messy, moody, and prone to waking up screaming in the middle of the night, especially since Bridger.”

  “That’s all true.” I sat down on the floor with my pile of clean clothes, leaned back against the bed, and closed my eyes. “Why did you have to bring that back up again?”

  “I’m taking your award with me.”

  “Why?” I pushed hard on my eyes with the heels of my palms, trying to wipe out what I was seeing. “I keep putting it in the trash for a reason. Why do you keep pulling it back out?”

  “It’s the Daniel O. Graham Special Award of Merit, one of the highest forms of recognition the Union has. Not many Academy students ever earn it. Hannah wants to see it since she was off planet somewhere she can’t talk about and couldn’t come to the ceremony last fall. She’s proud of you. And I see you still wear the winged lion pin the Trade Guild of Venice awarded you for the same innovation.”

  I touched the small silver broach attached to my collar next to my senior rank markings. “They just wanted to protect their ships and save their crews and cargo. The Union saw it as a weapon. They wanted, um, wanted…” I shivered, feeling myself starting to shake somewhere deep inside, unable to stop what I was seeing. It was all there in front of me again.

  After the battle, Bridger petitioned to rejoin the Union, and then Meeker and Pomplamoose not long after that, giving up without a fight. The Union government and RuComm presented me with their Special Award of Merit on a cold November afternoon. After the ceremony, I had gone back to my dorm, cried, and put it in the trash. Winona took it out and hid it from me for a time.

  I let the memory play itself out. The media on Bridger had published short biographies of everyone that I had killed. I read about fifty of them before Winona blocked my access. I don’t know how she does things like that, but she’s Winona, and I gave up trying to explain her a long time ago. I just know that she loves me as much as I love her.

  Her forehead pressed up against mine and I opened my eyes. She smiled at me and gently pushed the hair away from my face. “Mala Dusa? Little Soul?”

  “That’s what my name means.”

  “Are you better?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Bridger’s Quarter was almost a year and a half ago, and still it’s echoing inside your brain.”

  “Uh huh. Maybe I should have quit right then and gone to live with my Aunt Cory making clay pots and custom tea blends.”

  She pulled me to my feet. “No, your Aunt’s tea is terrible. Your destiny is to build starships. It’s what you were made for and you’re a hell of an engineer.”

  “Thanks. I thought you said I was made to be with Sam. It’s what the Tarakana want.”

  “You can do both. You will do both.”

  “I will do both.” I looked around at the floor on my half of the room. “Should I clean up before we leave?”

  “Why start now? Shove everything in the drawer under your bed as usual. You can’t afford any more demerits.”

  “Good point.” I glanced at my watch. “We should be leaving for the station anyway.”

  “Being at the station early doesn’t mean you’ll get to see Sam any sooner.”

  I wrinkled my forehead at her. “It might. It’s worth a try.”

  No luck. We sat, talked about finals that were coming up in a few weeks, and watched angry April snow squalls trying to make it past Mount Herman. A couple of them were successful, sweeping across the Academy grounds and sending wet flakes to smash against the big windows of the station. Then the sun would come back out and it would feel like spring again.

  The maglev arrived on schedule, meaning we’d probably be on time into Flagstaff at 18:23 instead of 18:22 or 18:21 as I’d hoped. I settled into my seat, rested my cheek on my fist and stared out the window. Five hours to go until I was with Sam. My parents too, but Sam most of all. I sighed, leaving the beauty of the mountains that were rushing past at three hundred kilometers per hour unappreciated.

  There was a gentle touch in my thoughts. Winona, trying to comfort me. It was the gift of the Tarakana that she could do that, the gift of the colony I called Merrimac and thought of as my friend. The Tarakana were alien, intelligent, cold, and beautiful. No one believed the Tarakana existed except for the few of us that had met them. I was convinced they were symbiotic with humans. Winona saw them as parasites, but the ability they had given us to feel each other’s emotions was keeping me stable right then.

  I could feel Sam in my head too, the other half of my soul. His arms were around me, telling me that he loved me and that he cared. His longing was the same as mine, so it did little to cheer me. I didn’t know where Sam was, and it didn’t matter. As long as he was on the same side of the Deep Space Hole network as me, I could feel him. I hated it when he was on the other side of a DSH. I felt cut in two.

  Winn needed to be within twenty meters of me to touch my emotions, which is where she usually was anyway. I smiled at her. “Thanks.”

  “It’s interesting, the way your emotional distress increases the closer you get to being with Sam. Most of the time you’re one of the happiest people I know, at least when you’re not obsessing about Bridger. As soon as you’re within twenty-four hours of a Sam rendezvous, you get like this. Your despair has sharp edges this time, and something else.”

  “Six years, Winn. I’ve wanted him for six years, almost seven. The emotional connection helps. We can sort of be together that way, but I want him more than ever now. Is that Merrimac pushing us or is it because I love him?”

  “The Tarakana have been secretly breeding both your families for generations. I’m surprised you’ve been able to resist this long. And what you feel for him? I don’t think love is a strong enough word.”

  “They’ll kill him once I’m pregnant. It’s the next generation they’re most interested in, not so much Sam and me. It’s why we’ve waited so long. But it’s not right to wait. We’ve talked about it, the risk…” I swallowed hard, feeling dizzy at the thought of helping Sam make a baby. “The risk is worth it.”

  “Your fertility’s been reversed since you were fourteen.”

  “Yeah. Just like my mom’s was when Dad got her pregnant with me. Tarakana, Winn, their technology is more advanced than ours.”

  “And they won’t kill him, they’ll just…”

  “Remove their protection and let him die,” I finished for her. “That won’t take long. He’s been serving on board the Esprit Vengeur for the last six months. He won’t tell me what they’ve been doing, but I can feel it when he’s on this side of the DSH, like he has been since Tuesday. He’s a research biologist and RuComm made him into a medic, or so he tells me. He wakes up screaming sometimes too.”

  I leaned my head back and watched my reflection in the window for a while. La Veta Pass came and went in a blur of rocks, trees, and snow. “I’m going to marry him.”

  “Sure you are.”

  “What?” I turned to look at her.

  “You said you’re going to marry Sam.”

  “Out loud?”

  She tipped her head to the side before answering. “We graduate in six weeks, then we have a few weeks leave, and then three,” she held three fingers up in front of my face for emphasis, “back-to-back ten-month tours of duty in order to complete our minimum active duty service obligation. If you’re married or pregnant, that’s a violation of your contract. If you refuse your commission or willfully make yourself unable to serve, you’ll have to pay RuComm back for the high-quality education you just receive
d. You can’t afford that. What are you planning to do, Mala Dusa?”

  “I’m going to marry him. Some day.” I turned back to the window. “Soon.” I giggled. I tried not to, but it just came out.

  Her reflection was staring at me and I could feel her becoming concerned, even though she usually blocks me completely. “When? Please don’t be stupid.” She reached around me and pressed her finger against my forehead, which was better than the hard tap I usually got when she thought I was being an idiot. “Are you thinking about right after graduation?”

  “No, he’ll probably be on the other side of a DSH by then, risking his life. I’m thinking Saturday afternoon.” I tried not to giggle again. “Day after tomorrow.”

  Winona closed her eyes. “Please God; don’t let her be this stupid.”

  “Prayer?”

  “When it comes to you, it’s all I have left, even if I don’t have your faith that it does any good.”

  I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them. “I’m going to do it, Winn, please don’t try to stop me. I’m going to be with him, really with him. I’m going to have him inside my body, not just inside my mind. And it will be worth it, even if I can only have him for a few days before the reunification war takes him, or the Tarakana let him die, or if I have to find a way to repay every bit of what RuComm spent on me. I don’t care anymore. I need to be with Sam. Ow!”

  Yeah, I knew that was coming, the hard poke on my forehead. Then she looked at me, head still tipped, and kissed my head and then my lips for good measure. “What did your parents say?”

  “I don’t plan to tell them. Sam and I can have a proper ceremony in a couple of years, if we’re both still alive. The fewer people who know about it the safer we’ll be.”

  “Saturday. I thought we were going hiking.”

  “We are. Well, a very short hike. You know that big clearing a couple hundred meters up from the trailhead? We’re going to do it right there, just short of the boulder field.”

  “I can’t believe your pastor agreed to this.”

  “I didn’t ask him. He and my dad are too close and I don’t trust him to keep it a secret.” I giggled again, the thought of finally being with Sam making me too happy to hold it in. “Father Ryczek is doing it for us.”

  “You didn’t tell me that he’s going to be at your dad’s party. Has he ever even been off Bodens Gate before this? How old is he?”

  “Dad says he’s ninety-one, still strong, and with the lower gravity here he should be fine. He says he’s looking forward to it. I think he feels like he’s putting something over on my mom.”

  “He and Hannah never have seen eye to eye. About anything. Still…” Winona drifted into deep Winona thoughts. “Will it be snowing on Saturday?”

  “That’s something I have been praying about. It will be thirteen or fourteen degrees C and bright sunshine; you won’t even need a heavy coat. See? God is on my side.”

  “Have you ever thought about trying to be on God’s side?”

  “Sam and I have talked this through. He wants it as much as I do.”

  “What a surprise. He’s been trying to get into your pants since you were sixteen.” She wrinkled her nose at me and I could feel her surrendering. “Fine. I don’t know what we’re going to do if he puts a baby in there.” She patted my stomach. “Have you thought about having it removed?”

  “Take out the fertilized egg and freeze it? We talked about it, but no, I don’t want to do that. It seems wrong somehow.”

  “Now that is Merrimac messing with you. I can feel the Tarakana haze filling your head when you try to think about it. Your brain’s been fuzzy since we left the station.”

  “Who knows? Maybe I won’t get pregnant. And maybe it won’t matter. I can still do my job as engineer even with a baby growing inside me. Mostly.”

  She took my hand. “You are a great deal of trouble, you know that?”

  “Am I worth it?”

  “Mostly.”

  CHAPTER 2

  HOME AGAIN

  I was trying to catch my breath, but it wasn’t easy. My chest was being crushed and my mouth was covered. My nose was clear, but it was smashed up beside Sam’s nose. Breathing could wait, kissing was more important.

  Winona’s voice came to me from somewhere. “Samuel, if you make her faint again, you’ll be responsible for carrying her to the car.”

  I sighed and moved my head to his shoulder, nipping gently at his ear before snuggling my head against him. “He hasn’t gotten me to faint in years.”

  “But I still try,” Sam added. “You look good in that cadet uniform, MD. Very sharp, very RuComm.”

  “And you, my Captain.” I touched the bars on his collar. “Very Union. I can’t wait to get out of this thing. Might need help, though.” I wiggled against him and made him blush, which was my intention. He’s cute when he blushes. I forced myself to let go of him and wrapped my arms around my mom.

  “You seem excessively happy.” Hannah gave me a squeeze.

  “Yeah. It’s good to be back home.”

  “Right. I’m sure that’s the only reason.” She sighed, staring at Sam.

  I leaned back and looked at her. There was more gray in her hair than last time, and…“What’s this?” I touched a mostly healed cut below her left eye that arced down across her cheek.

  She sighed, embarrassed. “My reflexes are slowing down.”

  “I know that you can’t tell me where you were or what you were doing, but you’re too…valuable for ‘wet work’. What’s the Union thinking sending you where you could get hurt like that?”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes you don’t know how things are going to go until you get there. And it wasn’t supposed to be wet work. Just a little damp, maybe. And I’m not too old for that.” She took me by the elbow, steering me toward the exit. “And look at you, not quite so skinny anymore. I think the Academy has put some muscle on your bones.”

  I put my arm around her while we walked. “I don’t enjoy it, though. Except for the running. I love to run.”

  She glanced at my legs, then back up to my face, shaking her head. “You know, you’re just a couple of months younger than Ted was when I first met him. It was his first time off planet, first RuComm assignment, first big adventure, first everything. Your eyes are the same as his; honest and always a little amused at something. The rest of you though, it’s all Alice.” She chuckled. “Your real mom would be terribly proud of you.”

  “You’re my mom, and you always say that. Where is Dad anyway?”

  I could feel a flash of irritation go through her mind. “Marcus is here for the party tomorrow night. We’re on our way to meet him for dinner and drinks at Casa Paloma, and of course he talked your father into getting a head start on the drinking part.”

  “Dad drinking? Anything more than two beers or a margarita and he just falls asleep.”

  “I hope that’s all he does. Damn Marcus.”

  Dad was still awake when we got there. I recognized Marcus Wright instantly despite the ten years since I’d seen him last on Dulcinea. He had a coarse beard, with just a trace of its original brown remaining, and he was holding a glass of something dark and smelly. He was in the middle of a story about my dad that I didn’t think was physically possible.

  He slammed his glass down when he noticed me, sloshing beer on the already wet table. “God damn! It’s the Little Soul of Alice, come to haunt me for my evil ways.”

  I smiled my innocent smile at him, trying to feel my way to the right response. “Professor Wright. It was good of you to come for my dad’s party. He speaks of you often.”

  He glanced at Dad, then back to me, then back to Dad. “Are you sure you’re her father? Alice may have cloned herself; I wouldn’t put it past her. Let me check.”

  He looked into my eyes, trying to focus. “Are you here to
save my soul, Ms. Mala Dusa?”

  I stared back at him. “I hadn’t planned on it, but I suspect your soul is in desperate need of saving and I’d be willing to give it a try.”

  “There, you see?” He pivoted back to Dad. “Definitely an Alice clone.”

  Dad was laughing. “No, Marcus, I can assure you it didn’t happen that way. And look at her eyes. A little bit of me in there too, don’t you think?”

  “Mistakes happen sometimes in the cloning process. Maybe if you told me more details about her creation?”

  That was about enough for Hannah. She and Dad loved each other more than seemed humanly possible, but she was not about to tolerate hearing the story about how Dad and my real mom made a baby me. Certainly not in the middle of a restaurant.

  “Marcus.”

  That was all she needed to say.

  “Hannah, my unrequited love.” He took her hand, to shake it I thought, but he kissed it gently instead, almost reverently. “Every year you are lovelier than the year before. How do you do that when the rest of us only grow older and more…tiresome?” He let her take her hand back. “Do you have plans for later?”

  She sighed, looking at Dad. “I did, if you haven’t put too much beer inside him already.”

  “For your sake, I shall refrain from encouraging any further damage.”

  “Thanks, I’d appreciate that. We’ll get some enchiladas into him for ballast and hope for the best.”

  He focused on Sam next. “Samuel Coleridge.” He grabbed his hand and shook it. “You almost became a biologist. What is it RuComm has you doing now?”

  “I can’t really say.”

  “Damn the Union. They’re wasting your potential. And, damn RuComm too. They should be in the business of turning out scientists, but now they want to build soldiers instead.”

  “Careful, Marcus,” Mom cautioned him, glancing at the ceiling to remind him that on Earth there was always an AI listening.

  He frowned at her and then put a finger in Sam’s face. “You still owe me time on the Margo Islands. That putz RuComm sent in your place didn’t know a trivalve from a brachiopod, and then I was stuck with her for nine months until the Oceanus Protectorate and the Palma Federated States settled their differences again. You would have enjoyed it there too, we had quite the time. I even got a paper out of the experience on the effect of enforced isolation on teenage and young adult behavior and sexuality.” He turned to me, grinning. “And you, my conniving little girl, you would have been there with him if you hadn’t been bent on using me to manipulate your parents into getting what you really wanted.”