Dusk (8 page)

—
Wow, I did that?

—
The room steward said she had never seen the
thieves win against those boys, that they were too stubborn a set
of bullies to ever admit defeat. I told her she didn’t have to
worry about my son. Darius Chamberlain would always be all
right—one way or the other.

—
I don’t feel all right right now Dada.

—
Well, the sting of defeat will do
that—especially when victory has been snatched from its jaws by
someone else.

—
What do I do Dada? How do I get all right
again?

—
Maybe the next time, winning or losing, ahead or
outnumbered, maybe you need to come out of the box with your DOOSH
DOOSH guns, just to be sure.

—
Well, Dada, I wish it really was so easy as
that.

—
Dari, I don’t think easy really has anything to
do with it.

• • • • •

Cyrus sat in his room on the bed, ephemeris in his
lap. He scrolled through data on the Van-Allen system on Asha. They
would have to scan the atmosphere and magnetosphere of the planet
and gather topographical information before making the final
decision of where to set up camp. The Uni had also collected years
of data from Earth, but Cyrus wanted to have a good idea of where
to look before they even turned on the scanners.

Just as he pulled up an image of the
projected magnetosphere, the almost offensively pleasant door chime
rang through his room. The intercom clicked on automatically. “Come
in,” Cyrus called, pressing a button on his ephemeris to save his
work.

On his voice command, the door unlocked
automatically and Dr. Tanner entered.

“Hey,” Tanner began then paused, noticing
Cyrus was sitting about a half-meter closer to the floor than he
should have been, “What happened to your bed?”

“Oh, I took the shock-absorbing frame and set
it up against the wall. Supports my neck better. And I think the
vibrations of the ship through the floor actually help me sleep.”
Cyrus logged off his ephemeris and set it aside on his bed. “What
brings you to my humble abode?”

“I just finished the calisthenics class with
the other scientists. I’m thinking of inviting Dr. Toutopolus to
our kung fu sessions. He seems more motivated than the others.”
Tanner pulled the chair from the desk and sat facing Cyrus.

“By motivated you mean insane I assume,”
Cyrus smiled.

“Well, it takes all kinds.” Tanner laughed a
bit himself.

Cyrus sat back on his bed, but seemed to slip
on something as he rested his weight on his elbow. “Stupid card,”
he uttered to himself as he picked up something flat from beneath
his elbow and turned it around in his hand. It was similar to the
cards that maintenance crews would leave in hotels when they still
used humans to service rooms. It informed him that his room had
been cleaned and it wished him a nice day.

“What’s the deal with these cards? I don’t
remember them from the briefing,” Cyrus said, continuing to flip it
around in his hand.

“Dr. Fordham told us about them at, I think,
the second dinner.”

“What the heck was I doing? I remember being
at that dinner.”

“I think you were off cleaning your own
bodily fluids off yourself. You adjusted better than anyone else to
the Hyposoma, but that doesn’t mean you adjusted well.”

“Yeah, I think I selectively chose to forget
that. Thanks for reminding me,” Cyrus tossed the card back on the
bed.

Tanner gave a histrionic bow, “At your
service.” He leaned over to pick up the card. “You’re supposed to
put it face down on your desk if you want your room cleaned. The
Shipmate will come in and clean your room automatically every three
week cycles even if you don’t, but if the pseudo-meat doesn’t sit
well one day or something, you can have him clean in here
sooner.”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to have paper
on this old tanker anyway. To help
avoid
the mess.”

“There are stores of paper in the cargo hold
that we can use if the Shipmate system fails when we’re
planet-side, but we should avoid the potential for litter at all
costs. As far as the room service goes, the Shipmate also scans for
anything out of the ordinary and picks up hair, skin, and nail
shedding to reclaim for the hydroponic beds. We waste no part of
the animal here,” Tanner laughed.

Cyrus allowed the fact that the food chain on
the ship was greatly truncated to settle in his brain. He had
learned this information in the year-long briefing that had
preceded their departure, but the idea that there were much fewer
degrees of separation between their waste products and their food
on this vessel created a slightly more visceral response now that
they had been on the ship for a few month cycles. But he quickly
reminded himself of Dr. Villichez’s admonishment when Winberg had
grumbled about the lack of variety, “You knew what you were getting
into when you signed up, and if it was going to kill you, you would
no longer be here to whine about it.” Cyrus smiled to himself. That
sounded more like something he would say than Villichez.

“I have something I’ve had on my mind
recently,” Cyrus shifted his weight forward on the bed, allowing
his lungs to expand so it was not as hard to talk and be heard.

“Go on.”

“You talk to Villichez quite a bit,
right?”

“Yeah, I like him.”

“I kinda like him too in an odd,
personality-clash kind of way. Thing is, I don’t think he likes
me
very much.”

“According to him, he likes you just fine.
You probably stand out in his mind more than anyone else though,”
Tanner clasped his hands together and rested the weight of his
upper body on his knees with his elbows. “He likes the fact that
you have heart, and that you are honest, and the fact you don’t
seem like a quitter.”

“You’re just saying that to make me believe
he likes me,” Cyrus lay back again, but not completely.

“Why would I do that? I personally think
you’re an angry clown.” For a moment Cyrus looked as if he took the
comment seriously, but Tanner smiled and he smiled himself. “I
think Villichez is just straight keel. He likes the fact that you
are too, but doesn’t necessarily openly approve of all the flotsam
you bring to the dinner table sometimes. That’s what fatherly types
are
supposed
to do. I appreciate it because I never really
got much of that growing up.”

“Your father wasn’t around much?”

“My father wasn’t around at all.” Tanner
looked down at his knees and lifted his hands to the sides of his
face.

“I’m sorry,” Cyrus said. “You don’t have to
talk about it.”

“It’s okay, I’m not ashamed.”

“It’s not that, I...”

Tanner just simply continued, as if he hadn’t
heard the beginning of the qualification, “My mother said she loved
my father very much, and he her, but even though they were hard
workers, they didn’t have much money in the economy before the
Unification.” Tanner sat up a little and looked at Cyrus, who was
riveted and still. “They didn’t have money for contraceptive
treatment and eventually she became pregnant. They needed more
soldiers for the Unification War, and they took draftees from the
lower classes before anywhere else. My mother said my father was
one of the first to go. He didn’t regret it, but because health
care was not easy to come by in those times, she didn’t realize she
was pregnant until after he had gone. My father died in the war,
somewhere in the occupied Middle East. I was born in an old
abandoned schoolhouse. A place where church volunteers helped
administer freebirths. My mother was a cheerful woman, even after
all that, but she never met another man. She said that I was
enough. When I got older, I felt sorry for her.”

Tanner sat up straight for a moment and
inhaled a great breath. He held it there, savored it as if it
contained the very scent of his memory, and then he let it out
slowly and as he leaned forward again. “She said I shouldn’t waste
any pity on her, that she had made her choice, and that she was
content to have a son that could take care of himself and would not
let the world bring him down. After that, I was tapped for the
Spencefield Laureate, and I began taking martial arts.” Tanner
hadn’t realized he had been looking at the laces on his shoes. He
leaned forward and he looked up to meet Cyrus’s eyes, which were
now wide with either sympathy, or understanding, or both. “I was
determined to turn the sorrow I was sure she felt inside into my
strength—mentally, physically, and spiritually. Her health had been
failing since I was a Novitiate. She always kept it to herself
though, spending every penny she made to keep me in matriculation,
never on medicine or health care for herself—and making damn sure I
never knew about it. For a while, I resented it, rebelled, and
without a dad there as a male example, or just to simply snatch my
houndwash out of orbit, I ran wild for a while—even did some things
I’m far from proud of. Eventually, I got my butt back on kilter
when it began to look like I wasn’t going to be tapped, and I began
to care that my mother’s life work was going to be lost to my own
monkeyshine. Finally, a month after I was accepted into the
Arcology of Ontario, she passed, but not before making sure I could
matriculate completely. There is nothing on Earth, this ship, or
Asha I wouldn’t give just to thank her.”

Tanner rubbed his hands together and sat up
again, “So, Villichez sort of gives me a way to honor my parents in
a way I was never really afforded. If that makes any sense.”

Cyrus stood and set his hand on Tanner’s
shoulder. “Makes plenty sense,” he nodded. He didn’t know if he
felt more sympathy for Tanner, for himself, or for Darius. He felt
selfish for just being here on this ship to hear the story. Here he
was, supposedly on some selfless, noble mission to help solve the
growing overpopulation on Earth. But he was hundreds of light-years
from his own son, who was either matriculating or not; but Cyrus no
longer had any say in it. He trusted his best friend to look out
for his family as if it were his own. And yet, Cyrus couldn’t help
feel like a deserter, a coward to be shot summarily on the common
grounds at daybreak. But in Cyrus’s case, the dividing line between
the condemned and the executioner was blurred, hazy, and as the
full weight of choice hung pitilessly on his heart, it took
everything he could muster to pat Dr. Tanner on the back, excuse
himself to the lav, and exit the room before the tears began to
form.

• • • • •

Cyrus walked into the dining hall, ephemeris
in hand, expecting the Common Hall to be empty. As the door slid
open, Dr. Jang looked up from his own ephemeris, and then went back
to work at the table. Dr. Jang was sitting three seats away from
Cyrus’s usual dinner seat, but Cyrus moved to the opposite side of
the table to lend him some space. Cyrus sat down and began working
on some figures for gravity drive recalibration to the specs on
Asha. They were already programmed into the Shipmate, but Cyrus
felt data collected from six hundred light years away was
inherently dubious, and he wanted to make sure he could recalibrate
them quickly if something was off.

Dr. Jang continued to work on his own for
another few minutes, and then spoke, startling Cyrus who was
mulling over figures deep in his own head. “You don’t have to sit
so far away,” Dr. Jang said, twirling his stylus between his index
and middle finger, “I mean, it’s okay if you want to sit in your
regular seat.”

Cyrus entered one last figure then looked up
from his work, “It’s okay. Dinner’s not for another thirty minutes.
I just got tired of sitting in my room.”

“I know what you mean. I usually work out
here or in the codex. The rooms here are a little too, sterile I
guess, for my tastes.”

“Well, the whole ship is sterile. Makes me
wonder what Asha will smell like when we open the doors. I wonder
if our sterilized renal cavities will be able to take it.”

“Can’t imagine it would smell like anything
except dust and open air. Maybe salt from the ocean, or other
mineral deposits. Perhaps some sulfur in some places.”

“All of which have been systematically
removed from the air on this ship,” Cyrus smirked a little, but not
enough to clearly indicate to Dr. Jang if he was joking or serious.
“I have to say, I actually miss the smell of air that has to be
reclaimed or it will kill you in five years. Something homey about
recycled L.A. smog.”

“Yeah, I always thought the air in Seoul
tasted like warm bread crust. Nothing on this boat tastes like
that,” Dr. Jang smiled and then rolled his eyes back a little,
remembering something from the past. “You know what smell I miss
the most?” Cyrus shook his head. “The smell of a woman who wants
you to notice her. It’s more like a class of smells I guess. The
smell that perfume makes when it rests on a particular neck. The
scent of herbal shampoo on hair,” he shivered. “Just thinking about
it gives me the chills. But then the chills go away just as fast as
they came when I realize I’ll probably never smell anything like
that again.”

“There’s no one coming to meet you on the
Damocles?”

“Nah, not me. I never really managed to stay
in one place long enough—well one place mentally—for anyone to give
up life in Seoul or Busan, or any other place for that matter, for
me.”

“You seem pretty young. What about your
parents—I mean, if you don’t find the question too imposing.”

“Imposing? Not at all. I don’t know. I guess
my relationship with my parents was nominal. They squeezed me
through matriculation, throwing every extramatricular activity they
could at me whether I enjoyed it or not, and they rolled out
credits like time code for it. It always seemed to me like the only
thing I was to them was bragging rights. There’s no one to
rightfully brag to on a giant, deserted gumball. They’re still in
Busan living out their lives; probably telling anyone they can
their son is saving the human race while they collect the pay for
this expedition because they were the only place I knew to send it.
Can’t use it here. Guess they are getting what they paid for all
those years. And now their income has gone up a quintile or
two.”