Solace
An excerpt from Peripatetica, by M. K. Sebastien, Engr. ret.
Friday, 23 Sep 2518
Kuiper II Class Summer’s Gift
En route to Deadwood
21:15 hrs, ship’s time
Three days out of Sampson Array I walked into the passenger lounge and found Mike laboring under another of Christian’s art sessions. One look told me everything I needed to know. Nika must have read my thoughts, because she attempted to head me off at the pass.
“Is this helping you at all?” she asked Mike before I’d gotten halfway there.
“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging.
“Passes the time,” Arden chimed in.
“I can think of a way we could pass the time,” I said and marched right up to Mike. I took him by the arm, ignored the ribald comments my statement touched off and looked Christian straight in the eye. “Can I steal your student?”
And got Mike out of there before Christian could reply.
It’s an unavoidable fact of shipboard life that secrets are hard to keep. With a crew and a ship this small, it’s not just hard, it’s damned near impossible. Therefore I didn’t even try to change course after we left the lounge but went straight to my quarters. I got us inside, closed my door on the hoots drifting in from the others and locked it with a touch more force than necessary. Christian meant well, but dammit, playing with pencils and paint wasn’t going to cut it with Mike.
“Thank you,” Mike exhaled, running a hand through his hair, frustration in every line of him. “If you hadn’t stepped in when you did, I would have gutted Christian with that charcoal pencil.”
“You’re welcome.” I turned around and leaned against my door. “Had you, I’d have held him down.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Don’t think I wasn't tempted.”
I could see the constant strain of dealing with the crew, with everything that had happened to him, was wearing him down. There was one thing I knew would make it go away and I pushed off my door, crossed my quarters and kissed him. Under my lips I felt Mike go still. Comprehension and shame flashed through me and I put some distance between us.
It was bad enough that having Mike aboard was driving me crazy with the need to touch him, but knowing that I could render him helpless with a word made it worse. Had it been anyone else, I would have had no trouble keeping my priorities straight and leaving well enough alone. But this wasn’t anyone else, and I should have known this would happen. All the evidence was there right in front of me and yet… I turned and looked at him and the expression in his eyes made me want to die.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking,” I managed before I had to stop. It was that or cry, and Mike had been manipulated enough. I wrapped my arms around my gut and sat down on my bunk, kept my gaze on the deck and said, “I’m sorry.”
The mattress dipped as he sat beside me.
“Do you want me?”
Oh, God.
“Yes.”
“Then take me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You’re not here because you wanted to be, Mike.” I met his eyes and told him the truth, even if it meant losing him. “Without free will, it’s rape. You know that.”
“Impasse.”
“Looks like.”
“Do you want me to stay?”
What could I say? ‘Yes’ would trap him at my side. ‘No’ would send him out the door. Either might not be what he wanted. How could either of us be sure? A single word had the power to compel him and every compulsion, deliberate or not, consumed another piece of him. If we didn’t find a way around it soon, there’d be nothing of him left. Damned if I’d take that last piece. There had to be a way to give him something back.
And that’s when I knew, as sure as I knew my name, what to do next.
“What would you like to do?”
We talked. I settled at one end of my bed, he took up the other, and we talked. Or rather, it would be more accurate to say he talked. I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t censor him or prompt him, but let him ramble on any subject he wished. After days of being fettered by illness, by uncertainty, and by the rest of the crew, the words just poured out of him and some of the tension I sensed in him eased. When his voice hoarsened, I silently rose and got a water bottle from my stash, and put it where he could reach it without comment. I refused to check the time, to avoid delivering any implicit request or rebuke, and I wasn’t entirely awake toward the end of it. By then we’d gravitated toward each other as we’d shifted with the changes in topic, and before I dropped off, I felt his hand in my hair. I fell asleep with him stroking it, snugged against him with his voice rumbling through his chest into my ear. When I woke a few hours later, I was alone under my blankets and the spot where he’d been had already grown cold.
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