Loralynn Kennakris 3: Asylum (14 page)

“Time will tell.”

“I wish her all the best.” Looking up, she raised her right arm in a slow, exact salute. “Thanks for letting me in, Commander.”

Huron returned it. “Welcome aboard, Captain.”

*     *     *

“Your eyes are different. What happened?” Kell, straddling her, worked her fingers even deeper into the small of Min’s back. She exhaled slowly as Kell bore down with all her slender weight.

“Different, huh? Are they any prettier?”

That earned her a laugh and a hard, stinging slap on the ass. “Keep on trying, Captain.”

Min smiled into the warm towel beneath her cheek. Kell had been married for twenty-one years to the same man—helluva nice guy, structural engineer, kinda shy, tall but still easy to overlook, great sense of humor but no damn use at a party, hated ‘em in fact. They had three kids, with a license for two more if they ever felt the need. Great kids. Karolyne, the eldest, was off studying genetics. The youngest, Cybil, was eighteen kinds of hell-on-wheels and champing at the bit for a chance to turn the universe on its ear. (
Be afraid, Universe—be very afraid
.) Ryan, the boy in the middle who took after his dad . . .

Her eyes closed as Kell resumed doing that magic thing her fingers did. “Well, you know me. Never say die.”

The
Bellerophon’s
skipper chuckled. Being teased about her sexuality had been a fixture of their friendship ever since that weekend of liberty back at the Academy when they discovered she was laser-straight and Min wasn’t. But it was also a good barometer of how her friend was feeling. Not as good as the muscles she was kneading—Min was an open book there—and the two together were an infallible sign that something important had changed.

You know me
.

She did—about as well as anyone could. Minerva Lewis was every centimeter the bluff, profane, hard-drinking, cheerful Lodestone native she appeared to be. As for her qualities as a marine, well . . . No one had any right to be so much like a realized Valkyrie. She even looked the part. It was a lot harder, Kell thought as she devoted herself to relaxing Min’s cramped adductors, to see that she could be stubborn about the heart—both ways. Kate Walker alone got had gotten a life-lock there.

Never say die
.

Kell suppressed an urge to shake her head and kept on with her work.

Min’s thoughts, as she drifted on the warm, aching, punctuated languor produced by Kell’s ministrations, ran in like currents, although a good deal more lazily and rarely following the shortest distance between two points. For some time she’d been reflecting, in light of Huron’s revelations, on the light itself—the concept of it, now given by his words a more-than-metaphorical existence. She was not unacquainted with these sudden shocking illuminations, but they were among those experiences which are ever-new—like love, orgasms, or barking your shin. You never really got used to them.

This one wasn’t the light that cleaves the darkness, the one bright shining truth that slashes through the murk and banishes all doubt, the divine radiance that heals all wounds before plodding Father Time gets his boots on. She had no faith in those counterfeit notions, though it wasn’t the thing itself that was false. It was the yearning for it—the yearning that must cleave to something (
anything
) because it was bright, not because it was true; that confused letting go with running away; that believed healing was the mere dead absence of pain. So Huron’s explanation made the loss less bitter but not less deep. If it didn’t heal (which was the case), it did throw things into sharper relief, exposing what there was to
be
healed.

Sifting those thoughts like a child stirring a pile of dry leaves so that they flew up and spun on a chill cleansing breath of Autumn air, the fragments of an old ballad from her childhood, which she hadn’t thought of in years, rose up as well.

Make my heart a bed, on which your soul might rest,
Make my love a guide star for the Isle of the Blest.

How I longed to hold you here—it was your time to go,
And though I long to follow now—

Here the verse broke both meter and rhyme in an odd, poignant fashion that always threw her out and made her forget what came next—something about times unripe, tasks undone, journeys still to be undertaken. But the final lines were:

When you arrive at harbor safe, hoist the lantern high,
That I might see your light reflect—
In Eternity’s blind eye
.

Her eyes fluttered open and shut as Kell’s capable hands mauled her right calf deliciously, and her thoughts began to recondense, return to the
here
and
now
: her date with Quinn tomorrow; nudging Kerr to jettison some of his more burdensome notions on how to do his job; keeping her eyes on some of the new people who were getting a bit too starry-eyed over their prospects.

Stars
. . .

Sweet voyages, Caitlyn
.

Then she grunted softly as Kell, finished with her calves, shifted off her. “That’s two massages you owe me, sister.” Kell sounded quite pleased with herself, as well she might.

Min, having passed the limp-noodle stage half an hour ago, grunted louder. At length, she said, “Take it up with my adjutant. He’ll get you on my schedule.”

Kell laughed, soft and musical, and gave her behind a playful pat. “So what did happen? You make a new friend?”

Kell was no doubt thinking about her date with Quinn. She’d didn’t know
quite
everything.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

Kris opened her locker and, reaching far back on the top shelf, took out the metal case there. It was half again as big as the bronze boxes the CEF shipped off to the families of those killed in action, weighed about the same, and served a related purpose: safeguarding critical items, such as service records and anything else the owner could fit into it. It was equipped with a recovery beacon and built to survive the most catastrophic events. Officers and enlisted alike called them DMBs: Dead Man’s Bank.

She set it on the berth’s small desk and sitting, opened it with her ID tag. Most people’s DMB held a few mementos, maybe some credit chips, and for the pessimistic (or well-prepared, depending on one’s point of view) a last letter to be sent to family or friends. Other than her service records and a sheaf of official documents, Kris’s DMB held just two envelopes and a dented tin cup.

The tin cup, which CEF marines referred to as a
pialla
, had belonged to PFC Marko Tiernan, a member of Covert Action Team 5. He’d died last year on Rephidim, a thoroughly undistinguished planet far off in the Outworlds Border Zone, during an attempt to capture Nestor Mankho—died saving her life. He’d also saved the lives of Huron and the rest of CAT 5. But that was different. They weren’t the reason Marko Tiernan was dead. She was.

One of the two envelopes was curled into the cup. It was a letter from Marko Tiernan’s widow, who lived on Whitworth in the Outer Trifid. She took it out now and unfolded the plaspaper sheet inside. For the first few months after she’d received the letter, her fingers trembled every time she touched it. These days, there was usually just a flutter in her stomach, but today she had to concentrate to keep her hand still. Smoothing the neatly printed page next to her console, she read it again:

Dear Ms. Kennakris,

I wanted to write and thank you for your kind letter regarding my husband, Marko. Commander Huron was so kind as to enclose a letter of his own, explaining further the circumstances of Marko’s death, and we are glad to know what happened and why. It has helped us much.

I do understand your feelings and appreciate them but please know that we do forgive you. Marko loved the Service. It was very important to him to do his duty and I know in my heart that he does not blame you nor would he wish us to, and I forgive you in his name as well as my own.

I know how you must feel but that is a burden you cannot forever carry. Marko would not wish it so, nor do I.

Yours most sincerely,
Laeyna Tiernan

Opening the message module of the desk’s console, she brought up Laeyna’s last email. They’d been in full comms lockdown during their transit and much of the time they were on-station. This email was stamped almost a month ago and it had just been released to her that AM. Now, it looked like they’d deploy within the next thirty-six—yesterday and today there’d been more exercises; she’d stood watch with Tole both days, assigned to the comms department—and they’d certainly go back into lockdown before they left. Skimming Laeyna’s email again—a warm, friendly, comfortable missive full of domestic details she didn’t always comprehend—she expanded a compose screen and started typing.

Dear Laeyna,

Thank you for your last email. I’m sorry I couldn’t reply sooner. Things have been busy around here, maybe you’ve heard. I’m happy Jeska and Little Marko liked the stuff I sent—I hope they don’t get into too much trouble with it. I hope Marlys is feeling better too. Those inoculations can be a real bitch.

She stopped and bit her lower lip. Was it okay to say
bitch
in a letter? Especially to someone you’d never actually met? Shaking her head slowly, she hit backspace and rekeyed:
can be really uncomfortable
.

Anyway, things are heating up. It looks like something major is at the horizon, so I may not be able to write back again. I want to let you know, that if anything does happen, I’m making arrangements to send you Marko’s pialla.

The CATs had given it to her at Marko’s funeral—she still wasn’t exactly sure why—and she’d written Laeyna shortly after to tell her she had it, and that she wanted to return it. Laeyna, unaccountably (as far as Kris was concerned) had insisted she keep it. So she had. But with her last outing and the way things were shaping up, it felt like time to stop taking chances.

You probably know better than me how screwed up—

She paused again and reread the last line. It was probably alright.

things get after a big dance, and I don’t want anything to happen to it. I’m leaving instructions with Rafe to send it to you. Either he, or his people, will handle it. It will be good for the kids to have when they are older.

I also want to thank you again for that first ever letter you sent. I can’t tell you how much it means to me. It has really kept me going at times. Your emails have always meant a lot to me too.

Please give my best to the kids, and especially thank Little Marko again for his email, that you enclosed. He already writes a better letter than I do.

Sincerely yours,
Loralynn Kennakris

PS: I forgot to mention that I got a note from CPL Gergen. The re-gen of his hand still won’t take so he accepted retirement on a medical instead of being stuck as a base wallah. He’s going back to Reveille. He’s passing through Whitworth on the way and said he’d like to call on you. (You might have heard from him already.) If you see him, please give him my best.

Lance Corporal Benn Gergen had been CAT 5’s gunner; he’d lost his left hand in the same firefight in which Marko lost his life. She still got a message from him on occasion, as she did from First Sergeant Andréa Burdette, CAT Second, who’d come close to losing her leg, and Gunnery Sergeant Antoinette Lopez, Fireteam
Charlie’s
leader, who had lost an eye and made good on her threat to replace it with a bright blue prosthetic to go with her remaining hazel one. As much as she appreciated their consideration, the kindness tended to put her on edge, as being undeserved. It was one thing for Laeyna and CAT 5 to forgive her for fucking up. Forgiving herself was quite something else.

Reading her reply over, she sighed. It reeked lame. Fuck it. She wasn’t kidding when she said Marko’s eight-year-old son wrote a better letter than she did. She hit
SEND
.

Refolding Laeyna’s letter and carefully putting it back in the
pialla
, she reached for the second envelope. Her hand hovered a moment over the crisp paper—the real thing, handmade by artisans and very expensive—and then dropped to the desk. Staring a moment longer, she reached out again and picked up the envelope, turning it over. On the back was a gold wafer, slightly curled up at one edge.

Setting it facedown on the desktop, she steepled her hands over it and squeezed her eyes shut. There was no need to open it, to pull out the sheet inside and read the words again. She knew them by heart—knew every loop and curve. Four spare lines of poetry, written in a woman’s graceful hand.

Mariwen’s hand.

She’d received it—without any explanation—when she graduated from the Academy. No address, for Mariwen remained in protective custody, her contact info highly restricted. No word since—nothing. Just those four unanswerable lines, floating in limbo, meaning nothing—everything.

Kris shook her head. She didn’t even know how Mariwen was doing, how she was recovering, if she still remembered . . .

Fuck
.

Looking away, she picked up Marko’s
pialla
and put it back in the DMB. She took out the sheaf of documents, flipped through it until she found the one headed
Final Deposition, Statement of Instructions, Disposition of Personal Effects
, and pretended to read it. It named Huron as her executor—they’d made her have one as her estate was above the legal threshold, thanks to her repatriation settlement—and contained instructions to continue the annuity she’d arranged for Kym, a young girl she’d pulled off a slaver boat a year ago and become fond of. (She hoped Kym was okay: she’d married some guy she met by chance at Ceres transfer station, and that was the last Kris had heard of her.) Otherwise the document was blank, except for a note she’d written on the back about returning the
pialla
. No family, no next of kin, no possessions to speak of.

Just Mariwen’s letter.

Why was she even keeping it at this point? Maybe it was time to just—

No
.

Hands shaking worse now, she gathered up the papers and stuffed them back in the DMB. She checked the time, and swore under her breath. She had a physical therapy session in five minutes—she was gonna be late. Again.

Shit
.

Putting the envelope back on top of the other papers, she shut the lid. The edges glowed briefly as it sealed. Hurrying those few steps to her locker, she shoved the DMB back where it had been, slapped the door shut, and reached for her undress tunic.

Thirty-six hours
—

Then what? More watchstanding. Watching. Waiting. Being fuckin’ useless. That letter . . .

She was gonna be late. She hated bein’ late.

Hated it.