The Balance of Silence (7 page)

Watching her in action at the orphanages she’d helped found was a lesson in both compassion and strength.

She laughed ruefully. “Yeah, me too. I don’t hate Jess. And I actually still like Lew. You know, in a completely nonsexual way now.”

“I don’t
dislike
him…”

“No, of course not. I don’t doubt that the two of you will be drinking buddies the next time you meet, and fuck buddies the time after that. Now shut up and tell me who’s sending you presents from Karibee.”

“Could be my mum. She still likes to send me cookies.” He grinned at her amiably, fingers laced together in front of him.

“It’s too heavy to be cookies. Open the fucking box!” Del reached into her impossibly tight and alarmingly low-slung pants and pulled out a pocket knife, slapping it down on the top of the carton.

“I don’t know. Could be more of those batik boxers she sent me. I wouldn’t want to be accused of flirting with the captain’s wife…” Fearing imminent dismemberment, he unfolded the blade as he teased her and slid it through the packing tape. Inside the box were a half-dozen well-padded bundles. He sliced one open, unrolling layers of bubble wrap before setting the bottle carefully on the table. He was pretty sure that Del hadn’t missed the rather dopey smile he knew he’d cracked, but she chose not to say anything just then.

“Oh, it’s that god-awful fizzy stuff you used to bribe Denny with. Why the hell would your mom send you
that
? Doesn’t she care about your teeth at all?”

“Not from her. It’s from Pryce. Ducks.” Yes. Dopey smile, firmly planted on his face.

“Ducks. The guy you found on Maltana? You’re still in touch with him?”

“Right. Like it’s not common knowledge.” He rolled his eyes. “You can’t tell me that you’re that out of the loop.”

Del laughed. “Hey, you can’t blame me for trying. I was hoping you’d let something slip. You know, and give me the gossip coup of the month.” She grabbed a piece of the bubble wrap, absentmindedly popping three or four bubbles in a row. “You’ve been kind of secretive about this guy. We’re curious.

Well, I’m curious. Bin’s foaming at the mouth, wondering if you’re going to up and disappear on him again, going after this Ducks person.”

So yeah, his love life had always been pretty much an open book on the
Melisande
. Mainly because a lot of it occurred on the
Mel
. And it wasn’t that he was that embarrassed about his relationship with Ducks.

No, more a matter of not having a clue as to what that relationship actually was. And if he couldn’t accurately describe it to himself, there was no way in hell he was explaining it to anyone else.

Riv sighed. “I’m not going to go running off. He’s still in a facility on Karibee for the foreseeable future. We vid each other. A lot.”

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“And?”

“And what? That’s about it.”

“And, are you going to go visit him? And, is he getting better? And, are you madly in love?” For a second he could see her as the teenage girl he’d first come to know, and her barely hidden giggle did little to put aside the image.

He shrugged, getting up from the table to refill his mug of tea from the pot he’d set on the counter.

“You’ve seemed better since you came back,” she said quietly, and he let her go on as he spooned some sugar into the cup. “Like you’ve finally forgiven yourself for what happened. And maybe like you’re waiting for something, but nobody can figure out what. Bin thinks you’re going to leave us for ReliefCorp permanently.”

“I’m not,” he told her as he sat back down, offering her the mug he’d fixed without her requesting it.

She drank coffee with Bin, but with him it was tea, and she seemed to enjoy the different blends he ordered.

He’d been amused to realize that he was the closest thing she had to a girlfriend. “I’m not leaving, but I don’t exactly feel like I’m all here, either.”

“So is part of you on Karibee?”

“Hell if I know.”

When he didn’t say anything else, Del scowled. “You’re not going to leave it like that, are you?” she demanded. “You need to be completely someplace, Riv, and you just admitted that it’s not here.”

“Are you trying to get Bin to kick my ass? Because I’m not above telling him that you told me to leave.” He grinned at her annoyed huff and slouched deeper into his chair. Damned if he was going to give her credit for saying out loud what he’d been thinking for the last few weeks. Did he need to leave?

She was suddenly pacing the small galley, table to counter and then behind him so that he had to crane his neck to keep her in view. “We’ve got a lot more in common than you might think, Riv.” He winced as she clenched her hands together, knuckles white. “Did Bin ever tell you why Den and I were looking to get off-world when he picked us up? Because I’m going to guess Denny didn’t.”

Den’s face as he’d first seen him, bruised, painfully thin and unmistakably terrified, flashed through his mind. Riv had never asked—it was Den’s story to tell or not. But then again, it had been obvious enough that someone had abused the kid. Later on had come the story of a childhood lost, of ignorant, superstitious relatives on a backwater planet. Hard to see how Del’s question connected with any of that right now though, but he was willing to play along. “Don’t think he ever did, now that you mention it. I kind of wondered how Bin ended up with a couple of scruffy planetside runaways.”

“I killed someone.” The words were offered in a completely inflectionless voice. “The man—” She cut herself off. “The
priest
who hurt Denny so bad. He would’ve killed him, would’ve fucking beat him to death if I hadn’t…stopped him.” Del paused next to his chair, and although she was standing still, he could see the tension thrumming through her body. “We both killed somebody for Den.”

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The Balance of Silence

Riv grabbed her hands, unclenching one fist and then the other, and rubbing at the half-moon holes she’d left in her palms. “Shit, Del, I had no idea.” He swallowed hard. “A priest?”

“You know how they feel on Camargue about people who are different.” Her voice gave the word a particularly ugly twist. “Who else would deal with something evil besides the church? Our aunt certainly didn’t want the taint on her family.”

“Denny’s not evil,” he protested, sick at the thought of a couple of kids being tortured for something the rest of the empire accepted as merely unusual.

“Yeah, well, he’s not normal either. Normal people don’t talk to the dead.”

It wasn’t the time to rehash their old argument. Her prejudices were based on her upbringing, and there was no way around that, despite the fact that those same prejudices made her constantly fear for her twin as well as deny her own particular talents.

She smiled fiercely, a savage baring of teeth. “And now you’re wondering what the fuck this has to do with anything. It’s just that it was obviously a catalyst in your life as much as it was in mine. Something you’ve suffered for.” He started to protest, but she kept on relentlessly. “You’re getting better, and obviously something’s been a catalyst for that. This Ducks person. Don’t waste that.”

I thought it would come back in a crisis. I really hoped it would. That I’d just snap back to who I was.

Riv let Ducks keep typing, resettling himself on his bed to ease the ache in his neck. It had been a long day in the pit, and he seemed to have spent most of it twisted at odd angles. He’d come back to his room after a quick shower and found the waiting vid request, and all his good intentions of an early sleep cycle had vanished. They’d been talking for hours, and he didn’t want to say good night until Pryce was ready to go.

If I never find my voice again, I guess I could always become a really gifted mime.

Riv snorted a laugh to match the humor he saw on the screen, but he couldn’t help feeling unreasonably morose over the idea of never hearing his name come from the mouth that still managed to convey so many emotions, even without a sound.

You look like I kicked your puppy.

That jerked him out of it, and he forced a smile. “Sorry. It was a long day. Don’t mean to be a downer.

I just think you deserve so much better than that.” And as soon as he said it, as soon as he saw the confused and slightly worried look on Ducks’ face, he wished he’d gone to bed after all. “I’m sorry. I—”

The thing is, Riv, even if my voice comes back, it doesn’t mean I’ll be normal again. I might never be
all better. I still can’t stand people touching me, unless I know them, and I brace myself for it, or unless I’m
so used to them that they don’t scare me anymore. And whatever you think I deserve…Riv…fuck.
He got up suddenly, disappearing from the camera entirely, only to come back into view at the far side of the room,

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pacing with his arms wrapped around his chest. Riv sat up, ignoring the painful cramp in his shoulder and leaning closer to his vid screen.

“Pryce, I’m sorry. Damn, I should just shut up sometimes. I’m sorry. I have no fucking right to say anything like that to you, to push you into anything.”

Ducks looked over at him, shaking his head, and his mouth moved for a second before his frustrated resignation drove him back to the keyboard.

You didn’t do anything wrong.
A beat, with Riv leaning on the edge of the table under his screen like it was holding him up entirely, and Pryce’s fingers brushing the keys but not exerting any pressure, leaving them as mute as he was.
Riv, what do you want from me?

He could deny it, or change the subject, but an honest question deserved better than that.

“I want whatever you think you can give me. I care about you.”

This time the silence dragged on for almost a minute, a long painful grind of time where Ducks refused to meet his eyes. And when he finally began typing, his gaze never left the keyboard.
What if I
don’t know what I can give you? I’m not who I was. But I don’t know if I’ve changed that much.
The pause was interminable, his fingers immobile on the keyboard.
I was never much for guys, I mean, beyond a
passing interest. I don’t know if that’s different now, because of this, or because it’s YOU…

Children’s rhymes be damned, words did hurt, hurt plenty. In the gut, in the heart, a great solid blow that felt amazingly physical. Riv gritted his teeth and forced something approaching a shrug.

But Ducks was still typing.
I said I don’t KNOW.
He looked up, but it was Riv who had to look away this time, unable to meet the anguished expression.
The doctors here have said I won’t ever be the same
person, that trauma is like a head injury, it changes the actual shape of the brain. So I’ll never be who I
was. But I don’t know who I AM.

He wasn’t sure if the small distressed sound came from his throat or Ducks’. Riv swallowed hard. “So what do you want from me?”

The weak smile was at least that, and Ducks shrugged helplessly.
Come here and help me find out?

“I’m not sure I should,” Riv said softly. “Because what I want, what I really want, it isn’t friendship.

I’m not sure I can keep that out of how I act around you.” Kicking the chair next to him out from under the table, he sat down in a defeated sprawl, tipping his head over the back and rubbing the bridge of his nose while he listened to the clatter of fingers over the keyboard. When he looked up, the text splashed across his screen was enough to make him blink.

I’m not asking you to. But what happens if it turns out that I’m not wired that way? I never really was
before, but you… There’s something about you and I.

“Then you’ll at least know that much about yourself.”

What about you?

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The Balance of Silence

Riv grinned wryly. “I’ll be disappointed. Really disappointed. But I’ll survive. Besides, it won’t be the first time I’ve mistakenly hit on a straight guy.” Okay, so that part was a lie. He could in all honesty say that he’d never hit on anyone who didn’t return the interest, but if it made Ducks feel better…

The hope in the blue eyes meeting his was painfully intense.
So you’ll come here?

“Of course.”

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“Vid me if you need to talk, okay?” Del whispered in Riv’s ear as she gave him a hug goodbye. He had to practically bend in half to reach her, but he managed an extra squeeze of thanks.

“Enjoy the beach, hot stuff. Try not to burn your nose again.” He hefted his duffel and sauntered away from the rest of the crew as they fell to arguing over whether to eat or hit the beach first. Del had trembled her lip at Bin when she’d heard that Riv was taking leave to see his mum on Karibee, and now they were all docking for the weekend. He was still smirking over Bin’s choice of an alarmingly loud floral shirt.

The tram ride to the facility was quiet, a mercy from his rather loquacious countrymen, and when he got off at his stop he was pleased to find the streets cleaner than he remembered, and fewer bars on the windows.

“Hello. Can I help ya?” the nurse asked.

“Yes, I’m here to see Pryce Markham.”

She glanced down at her notebook, frowning slightly. “Is he a doctor or a patient?”

“Oh. Um, patient.” Riv winced. He’d never even thought about having to make the distinction. That, and it still didn’t seem right that Ducks was a patient at this facility, well-respected as it was. It implied that there was something wrong with him, that he needed to
be
somewhere.

“Yes, here he is.” Briskly businesslike now, she tapped the screen, waiting for a sheet of paper to slide out of the printer before pushing it across the counter to Riv. “He’s in the south wing, room 296.” She traced the path with a finger. “You need to go out the main doors at the end of the lobby and cross the courtyard. His room is towards the back of the building. It should take you about ten minutes.”