The Phoenix War (43 page)

I can’t do this, I have to clear my
head
. He got up and left. Thinking a change in scenery would
help him forget his woes. And it did help a little.

As he roamed the tiny ship, trying to remind
himself that he was part of something important that could save
lives, he eventually found himself in the secondary hold where Rain
had organized their medical supplies into a provisional
infirmary.

“Hey Cal, what can I do for you?” Rain asked,
sweeping a tangle of red hair out of her face. She smiled at him
with such honesty and enthusiasm that Calvin was somewhat taken
aback. He thought of the time Rain had confided in him that she had
a terminal illness and only a few years left to live. He remembered
thinking how young she was, and how unfair that a woman no older
than thirty was going to lose out on so many opportunities. He’d
expected her to be bitter or angry or depressed because of the
prognosis. But she hadn’t been, and still wasn’t. Rather she’d told
him how lucky she felt to have ever existed at all, against defying
odds, and instead perceived the universe through a lens of awe and
gratitude. Her words had stayed with him and he really admired how
she focused more on enjoying the moment rather than obsessing about
the future or the past. That was something Calvin wished he was
better at.

“Oh there’s nothing I need in particular,”
Calvin said, downplaying his upset feelings. Honestly he wasn’t
sure why he’d come here. He just had.
Probably because there
wasn’t really anywhere else to go
, he thought. He knew he could
go play cards with Miles, and that his old friend would like that,
but Calvin was not in the mood.

“Oh okay,” said Rain, she looked happy to
indulge him all the same. Even if he didn’t have a legitimate
medical reason for being here. “Having trouble sleeping?”

“Yeah, you could say that,” said Calvin. He
folded his arms and leaned against the bulkhead. Staring past her
and out the window into the blackness of alteredspace. He
sighed.

Rain gave him a sympathetic look and then
moved closer until she was standing next to him. Leaning against
the bulkhead too. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked
gently.

No
, he wanted to say.
No I
don’t
. But when he opened his mouth he was surprised to hear
different words come out. “I miss Christine,” he said, barely
louder than a whisper.

“Who’s Christine?” asked Rain.

“Do you remember when I told you about the
ship I was on called the Trinity?”

“Yes, I remember,” she said, looking
sympathetic. “You told me about the trauma you encountered on that
ship. Really, you’re a very strong person to have gotten through
it.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t tell you everything,”
admitted Calvin. He couldn’t believe he was bringing this up, and
yet he couldn’t help it. “When I served on that ship… before, you
know,
everything
happened… there was this other officer
named Christine. I loved her more than
anything
.” The
memories flashed through his mind, her tender smile, the teasing
looks she gave him, all the beautiful moments they’d shared, and
how he’d believed they’d have a long life together. Filling the
years and decades with delightful memories. And then suddenly, in a
flash of terror, it had all been ripped away. Savagely. Brutally.
Irrevocably
. “Anyway,” Calvin cleared his throat, feeling
tears well up in his eyes. He resisted them. Trying hard to make
himself not feel any emotion at all. Like a stone. “She uh… she
didn’t make it out. She…
she
died. And… I miss her. Hardly a
day goes by when I don’t think of her.” He knew his eyes were red
but he kept the tears at bay. Doing whatever he could to pretend he
didn’t feel any of the regret, or the anger, or the tremendous
sense of loss that choked him inside.

Rain didn’t say anything. Instead she put her
hand on his arm sympathetically. It was a small gesture, but one
from the heart. And Calvin found it oddly soothing. He even felt
the urge to place his hand over hers, but he resisted. Choosing
neither to take her hand nor brush it off.

“I guess, in light of everything that’s
happening,” Calvin found himself explaining. He didn’t think about
what he was trying to say, nor did he filter the words, he simply
let them flow. “The king’s death, the Empire’s division, everyone
arming for war, the isotome weapons, the dangers abroad, the chaos
on Renora, the slaughter at Cepheus… the fact that we’re here now,”
he paused, finding himself trapped in Rain’s stunningly blue eyes.
“I guess in the teeth of such bleakness, it makes me wonder about
what really matters.” He expected her to say something, but she
didn’t. She just listened. And Calvin couldn’t stop himself from
rambling. “I mean… we all die, right? In the end. But until that
happens… how we live, who we spend our time with… I mean, maybe
that what really matters, you know? At the end of the day.”

Rain took a deep breath and, just as Calvin
was kicking himself inside for opening up so much, She gave him a
heartwarming smile and said, “you’re right.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said reassuringly.

“Sometimes…” he hesitated. “Sometimes I feel
like, regardless of how hard we try, in spite of how much we care…
does any of it even matter? I mean
really
matter? Sure it
seems like a big deal now but what about in a hundred years? Or a
hundred million?”

“I don’t know what the answers are, or what
awaits us and the universe and everything else when we die,” said
Rain. “Maybe it’s nothing,” she shrugged. “Or maybe it’s something
glorious. But I do know this, as much as we might want to, we can’t
control everything. Events happen. Sometimes they’re wonderful.
Sometimes they’re tragic. I don’t know why terrible things happen.
But I like to think that there is a reason. Even though I don’t
know what it is, or indeed even what it could be, I can’t help but
hope that there’s some order to all this chaos. Some
significance
.”

Calvin nodded. He’d often hoped the same
thing, it was a more pleasant way to process the universe, but
unfortunately a more cynical, possibly even more
realistic
,
part of himself just couldn’t manage to believe that all the
horror, and the needless suffering, and the unequal distribution of
happiness and sorrow, was all a part of some grand design. More and
more everything seemed random, the product of chance, an elegant
unplanned chaos. Things happened. Sometimes those things were
brutally awful. And that was all that could be said of them.

“I don’t know if there’s some kind of cosmic
purpose behind everything that happens,” said Rain, as if reading
his mind. Her eyes were so sincere and her face so candid, Calvin
found himself lost in those pale blue irises, and drawn in by her
slightly crooked smile and tangles of wild hair. “I don’t know if
there is any grand, universal meaning to anything. But I know that
the things we experience, what we value, what we believe, do have
significance. Because they mean something to us. Maybe the meaning
doesn’t last forever, because we don’t last forever, but in the
moment, for however long we have it, whether it’s gone in a flash
or lasts a lifetime, the things that have meaning to us
do
matter. And in a very real way.”

“Yeah,” Calvin nodded, supposing that was
true.

“What you had with Christine, those feelings
you shared. The feelings you still live with,” Rain looked at him
intently. “Those
are
real. They were real to her and they’re
real to you now. Because of that, they matter. The grief you feel,
the longing for that time that used to be, that is very normal. And
very human And very understandable.”

He felt uncomfortable and his eyes
instinctively darted away. Rain brought them back by placing her
fingers gently in both sides of his face and turning his head to
face hers. He felt captured by her eyes. “And Calvin, it’s very
important you understand that it’s okay. It’s not a bad thing that
you feel those feelings,” her eyes seemed almost to plead with him.
“It’s okay. It really is.”

He took her fingers gently in his hands and
removed them from his face. Then he let go and looked away. Slowly
processing what she’d said. Realizing that her words rang at least
a little true. He’d never really allowed himself to be okay with
the fact that he felt such crippling grief, no more than he’d
allowed himself to be okay with the reality of Christine’s death.
He’d buried and tried not to think about it. He’d believed that was
what
moving on
meant. But he’d never tried to accept it and
get through it. He’d always just wanted to get over it and be
instantly whole.

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” said
Rain, looking embarrassed. Her pale face turned red and she took a
step backwards, giving him some more distance. “Sometimes I don’t
have a very good sense of boundaries, I—”

“No,” Calvin interrupted. He traced her face
with his eyes and a faint smile formed on his lips. “You helped.
Thank you.”

Rain nodded. Perhaps not believing him.

He thought of how kind Rain was, how much she
wanted to reach out and heal others—physically and emotionally—and
how her instinct was to help in any way she could, even if she
didn’t know how, and she looked different to him. Like he was
seeing her in a different light. It occurred to him that she was
rather pretty. Beautiful even…

“Seriously, Rain. Thanks for the talk,” said
Calvin. “It was just the thing I needed.”

Rain smiled weakly, still looking
embarrassed. “Good, I’m glad.” The words came out softly and she
had to clear her throat. “I, um, I have some sleep aids here if
you’d like to take something to help you get some shut-eye.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll be all right now,”
said Calvin. He wished her a good night and left. The universe
still felt grim and dark and cruel, and there was still a certain
haunting hopelessness that seemed to hang in the air, but for the
first time in a long time, it didn’t seem quite so bleak.

It was an alien ship. True, in many
superficial ways very different than the human ship Nighthawk, but
it was still every bit as alien.

As Rez’nac walked throughout the tiny vessel,
sometimes pausing to place his hand flat against the bulkhead and
feel the life of the ship, he found that there was none. No soul.
No energy. No
being
. Simply a skeleton of metal and
conductors and wiring and computer chips and other scraps of
technology that, amazingly-enough, somehow allowed them to glide
between the stars.

The Rotham and the humans saw their
technology in the same way. An artificial enterprise of breaking
and forcing and compelling the beautiful, intricate patterns of
nature into forms and functions suitable to their desires. For
Polarians it was different. Though metals and alloys and computer
chips were still essential, they were weaved together with a
gentle, spiritual consideration. The souls of the materials were
always taken into account and the resulting products were ships
that, in a very real—though admittedly subtle—sense, lived and
breathed and glowed with spiritual energy. With life-force. Unaware
and unintelligent but possessed of spirit notwithstanding.

The Essences which guided and governed all
things were the beacons of meaning that filled the universe with a
light so transcendent, that it could only be seen by those with
awakened eyes. Rez’nac had never known whether that light was
something physical or if it was more of a feeling, but the Oracles
and the Seers received guidance and higher orders of knowledge
because of the light, and no one more so than the High Prelain. The
transcended being who was the spiritual shepherd of all the
Polarian people. The embodiment of the Message. The physical
incarnation of hope, destiny, and all that could be considered
divine. Rez’nac had never been privileged enough to know the
subtlest truths of the universe—that had never been his role, it
wasn’t his Essence. But he’d seen the effects of the virtues and
truths of the Essences everywhere, every day. Most telling was the
story of how the Polarians had emerged from their dark, primitive
history after abandoning the Old Ways and finding the Essences. Now
they roamed the stars and tamed the beasts that lived there.

It was a rare and profound honor to be born
Polarian. To be gifted with Essence from birth. No other species
had such a privilege. Sure the Rotham and the humans were complex,
intelligent life that had also discovered a way to dwell in the
very heavens themselves. But they were finite. Here for a moment,
as the Essences saw fit, but ultimately destined to fade away and
disappear. There was never any promise for them to inherit the
stars and tame the beasts. That gift had been granted to the
Polarians.

The other species, through no fault of their
own, lacked the capacity for enlightenment and afterworld glory.
They lacked the Essences. They were
rakh
.

But the Polarians, they were kissed with the
very breath of life, raised from inception to be creatures of
greatness. After life’s end, each who proved worthy would be added
upon and brought into the warmth of the ancestors, joined forever
to an Essence.
The throes of death have no power over us
,
thought Rez’nac,
if we are worthy
. The unworthy, however,
did not share in the promise and were devoid of all hope. They were
no better than the rakh. Indeed, they were worse off. When a rakh
died, he stopped existing. But when an unworthy Polarian falls from
the true ways and disgraces himself and his Essence, he is forever
cast out, dispelled of his Essence, of his innate value, and he
becomes a dark spirit—a Dark One. And when he dies, his spirit will
wander alone in darkness forever. With no knowledge. Only
misery.