Dusk (16 page)

There was a short, yet still uncomfortable,
pause. The air between the two men had the substance and texture of
a pall. “I follow, I think, but I’m not sure where you are taking
me,” Cyrus lifted himself and extended his legs. He turned toward
Tanner, moving the ethereal veil between them. Dr. Tanner looked up
from the floor and met Cyrus’s gaze with a smile, not forced, not
particularly cogent, but genuine, and for a moment, until he found
the words he had been looking for, the shroud slipped and revealed
something that it had been fighting to hide.

“You see, they were not the only culture of
the ancient world that believed in the spirit of the bear. Various
indigenous tribes of the Americas believed the bear bestowed power
to the warrior and that spirit sent him headlong and vehement into
battle, denying him the luxury of retreat.”

“I see that you are likening me to your
behr sarkrs
, but I fail to see what’s wrong with that.”

“Every one of those cultures I just mentioned
was also obsessed with death. And they experienced it often.”

“So you’re afraid I’m going to do something
stupid and jeopardize the safety of the colony?” Cyrus’s voice had
raised an octave and his words came out with force. It was more an
accusation than a question.

“No, I’m not saying that at all. I don’t
think ‘stupid’ is really a part of your repertoire, especially not
if it jeopardizes others,” Tanner paused then turned to meet
Cyrus’s eyes. “I guess what I’m saying is that one of these days,
if death does creep up behind you, I’ll be there somewhere behind
him
.”

Cyrus nodded and allowed a smile to spread
halfway across his face, not knowing what to say. “I can’t help
feeling like I should have been born in another time. Like maybe
the only way I’d be happy is if I had a war to fight—but a
real
war, not some houndshit Unification War over commerce
and eyewash—something that can either be won or lost. I need a
place where the measure of your day is whether or not you are alive
at the end of it. It’s like we’ve used all the ingenuity and
technology we could muster to just siphon every ounce of urgency
from our lives until we’re all worthless—just a festering pile of
ill-used lab waste. I’m tired of feeling like lab waste.”

Tanner pushed himself to his feet then
extended a hand to Cyrus to help him up, “I think you should be
careful what you ask for. In my experience, when life gives you
what you ask for, it doesn’t stop when you say ‘When.’”

• • • • •

—
Dada, I have a question.

—
Yes, Dari?

—
Do you love mommy?

—
Of course I love your mother. Why do you
ask?

—
I know it’s none of my business. But I heard you
and mommy arguing last night. You said a lot of mean things to each
other. Well, some of the things I heard were mean.

—
I’m sorry you had to hear that, Dari.

—
Why do you guys argue so much?

—
I dunno, Dari. I guess sometimes even two people
who love each other can get annoyed with each other to the point
where they don’t act like it any more.

—
Adults are pretty strange, Dada. If I don’t like
someone, I tell them. If I love someone, like you and mommy, I
remember that you love me too and that makes it better.

—
Yeah, I think adults’ lives are a little more
complicated though.

—
You know, sometimes I think complicated might be
the problem. But what do I know? I’m just a kid.

—
Dari, just maybe you know more than we
complicated adults give you credit for.

—
If that’s the case, why don’t they listen more
often?

—
Maybe sometimes we don’t have the ears to
hear.

—
Kinda like what you said before, ‘Many will
listen. Few will hear.’

—
Yeah, it’s exactly like that. Your mom will be
the first to tell you even I am guilty of that more times than I
would enjoy admitting.

—
I wonder, Dada, how do you get people to not
just wait until you’re done talking?

—
The answer to that is beyond me, but I’m sure
one day you will have plenty to say. You just promise me you won’t
stop talking until they hear.

—
You got a deal, Dada. I promise.

• • • • •

Even before the door had slid completely open, Dr.
Torvald was in Cyrus’s room wearing nothing but his underwear and
white socks. He had his nunchakus in hand, panting heavily.

“What’s going on?” Cyrus asked, wondering
what could possibly have this man armed and in such a huff on a
closed ship traveling through virgin space at nigh unto the speed
of light.

“Your buddy Tanner has lost his mind! Shut
the door, quick!” he gasped. Cyrus couldn’t tell if Torvald was
trying to whisper or could not vocalize through his wheezing. Cyrus
pressed the button to close the door, and as it slid to the floor,
Torvald looked anxiously over his shoulder. “That pod-waste lab
monkey jumped out of my closet and tried to keelhaul me with those
stupid sticks of his. Luckily, I’ve been keeping my nunchakus under
my pillow. I whacked him pretty good in the knee and I ran out of
the room.”

“His knee? You could have wrecked him for
good.”

“I don’t think so. It sounded awful plastic
when I hit him. Besides, I just reacted. If he’s worried about his
knees, he shouldn’t jump out of the closet of a jittery,
half-trained man with nunchakus under his pillow!” Torvald’s
breaths were calmer now, but his voice was still a whisper.

“Why are you whispering?”

“Because when I was on my way here, I think I
heard him ransack Milliken.”

“He’s testing us,” Cyrus said calmly,
returning to his bed. Torvald looked across the dimly lit room and
saw the shock-dampening bed frame against the wall and noticed the
mattresses on the floor. Cyrus leaned over the mattresses and
pulled his staff from the hidden side of the bed. “Wait a second.
Did you say you keep your nunchakus under your pillow?”

Torvald’s eyelids fluttered slightly and his
cheeks vibrated almost imperceptibly. “Yeah well, call me
superstitious, but I figure if I keep them close to my head, they
will be less eager to meet it during training.”

“Fair enough,” Cyrus walked over and turned
the light off completely. Torvald stuck his ear next to the sliding
door to try to hear what was going on in the hallway. “Won’t work.
Soundproof,” Cyrus said in a matter-of-fact tone. “Which means you
can stop whispering.”

“How can you be so calm? I’m sure he’s gonna
bring his little rampage to your doorstep in due time.”

“And we will be ready for him. When he told
us to keep our weapons with us at all times, I was sure he was
planning something like this. Just didn’t think it would take this
long. I think he was waiting for us to forget.” Even in the dark,
Cyrus could see the bewilderment in Torvald’s eyes. “You stay here
with your back flush to the wall. I’ll be the bait. When he comes
through the door, you put the keelhaul down on him, and I’ll jump
up and we’ll take him together.”

Torvald nodded as if he was not quite
convinced of the wall’s sound dampening. Cyrus walked over to the
bed with his staff in hand, and curled up into a fetal position on
the bed. He pulled the sheet over his body and the staff, and then
sat for a moment before he kicked twice violently. As Torvald’s
pupils widened in adjustment, he saw the sheet, now loosened from
the weight of the mattresses, flutter back to the bed over
Cyrus.

“Lock the door,” Cyrus said, whispering now
himself. “It will help maintain the illusion.” Cyrus could not see
Torvald, but he heard him shuffle and he heard the beep the door
made as it locked.

They waited like that for a long minute, and
then another longer minute, and then yet another one even longer.
Torvald’s breathing sounded like someone rustling through a refuse
bin.

Although Cyrus was calm, Torvald could swear
he heard Cyrus’s heart beating. It was odd considering his own
heart felt as if it was rattling inside of his chest rather than
pumping blood.

And suddenly the door slid open—no beep, no
door chime. Tanner eased over to the bed carrying a thin rattan
stick in each hand. From the dimmed light in the hall, Torvald
could see Tanner was favoring his right leg even though he was
wearing plastic greaves that guarded his shins and knees. When the
door opened, Torvald had almost let his bladder slip, but he was
composed enough to hold his breath as Tanner sidled past him.
Torvald took a step from the wall to get closer, but the rubber of
his shoe caught on the floor and let out a squeak. Tanner began to
turn, but only managed to turn in time to see the glimmer of
nunchakus as they swung toward him. Tanner’s movement looked like a
blur in the light coming from the hall. One moment Torvald saw
Tanner’s back, the next, Tanner was parrying the attack with the
stick in his left hand. Torvald lifted his left leg to kick, but
Tanner smacked Torvald’s shin with the stick in his right hand.

By then, Cyrus was up, lifting the sheet from
the bed with his staff. The sheet went up and floated over Tanner’s
head. Tanner turned and kicked Torvald in his chest, sending him
back-first to the wall. The light switched on and the door slid
shut as Torvald collided with the controls. Tanner faced the bed,
but the sheet was coming down and he only caught a glimmer of Cyrus
leaping past him. As Cyrus flew by, he jabbed the staff behind him
at the back of Tanner’s right knee. Tanner shifted his weight and
twisted, blocking the attack with both sticks as the sheet came
down over his head and shoulders.

Cyrus landed and grabbed something that
Torvald could not see because he was busy lunging toward the
shrouded Tanner with a battle cry. Something hard and round caught
Torvald in his ribs, knocking the air from his lungs. The end of
Torvald’s own nunchakus jabbed into his thigh, but he managed to
hold the sheet tightly over Tanner. Torvald tackled Tanner onto the
end of Cyrus’s bed. As the second blow dug into a rib on the
opposite side of Torvald’s body, Torvald let the air escape on its
own, keeping his body firm to absorb the blow.

A muffled, “Okay, enough,” came from under
the sheet. Tanner began to twist, but Cyrus’s staff came down
across his shoulder, narrowly missing Torvald’s head. Cyrus dropped
his staff on Tanner and it rested on him a moment. Torvald knocked
the staff away with his elbow and struggled to hold Tanner. The
staff made a hollow-sounding report as it bounced off Tanner’s
head.

Torvald looked over his shoulder for Cyrus,
but he was already next to him, wrapping Tanner’s ankles with a
piece of what looked like rope. “What the hell is that?” Torvald
asked after dropping an elbow on what he hoped was Tanner’s
shoulder beneath the sheet.

“A piece of the rigging for that stupid
longhouse tent,” each word came out staccato and rushed as Cyrus
pulled against Tanner’s battered shoulder. Torvald shoved and
Tanner rolled across the rigging line into the floor with his arms
tangled in the metal rope.

Something like, “Hey!” was lost in the sounds
of shifting mattress and tangled limbs colliding with the
floor.

“What are we…” before Torvald could finish
and Cyrus could tighten the line, a kali stick jutted out from the
sheet and into the inside of Torvald’s thigh. Torvald stumbled
backward and fell. Cyrus watched him fall toward the doorway just
as Milliken hobbled in with his wooden broadsword. Without missing
a beat, Milliken brought the flat of his sword down across the
place where the arm that held the kali stick must have been.

“You scumrakers aren’t safe anywhere!” Tanner
bellowed as Torvald gathered himself and helped the others finish
tying him.

They turned the cocooned Tanner onto his
back. The rigging and sheet were now so tight the shape of Tanner’s
head could be seen in the imprint. “I’m gonna get you two!” The
sheet sank into his mouth with each word and an oval darkened the
area with saliva.

“Not tonight you won’t,” Cyrus retorted. He
snatched off his left sock, and just as Tanner uttered the “I…” of
his next sentence, the sock was already in the impression his mouth
formed in the sheet. Cyrus held it there and pointed at the pillow
on the bed. Milliken, as quickly as his bruised hip would let him,
grabbed the pillow and tossed it to Cyrus. Cyrus then snatched off
the pillowcase and wound it into a twine. The three men tied it
around Tanner’s head, securing the gag with military precision.

Torvald leaned over to where Tanner’s ear
should have been. “When you were sitting in my closet waiting to
spring your sadistic little trap, did you think in about ten
minutes, you’d be getting gagged and gaffled by three so called
scumrakers? Huh? Did you? Who’s bottom feeding now?”

Cyrus and Milliken looked at Torvald as if he
had just opened Pandora’s box, only the gods had forgotten to add
Hope in the mix of hell spawn that was filling the hollow ship even
as his words echoed off the walls. “What?” Torvald asked, almost
convincing them of his obliviousness at their alarm.

“What do we do with him now?” Milliken asked,
picking up his broadsword.

Cyrus looked back at the doorway, dim
nighttime hall light still streaming into the room, “I have an
idea.”

Dr. Villichez, nursing a headache for the
last three days, had doubled his intake of water throughout the day
per the advice of Dr. Fordham, who was convinced the headache was
due to dehydration. This double dosage of water had subsequently
tripled his trips to the restroom—especially during the lights-out
hours on the ship. The cold and utter silence in his room seemed of
little help. Even dispelling the silence with music spheres did
nothing. The night before, he had shambled to the lav half-asleep
at least four times. And as this was already his third trip, it
seemed this night would be no different. A long, lazy yawn
struggled to escape his throat as he rubbed his eyes and shuffled
to the lav down the path he was learning all too well.