MCAH Online

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      Hirianthial’s hands began to tremble. He clasped them tightly in his lap. “My oath does not allow me to perform permanent operations on individuals without their consent.”
      She laughed. “You’ve absorbed the culture well, if you’ve assumed that I made the decision for her. You’d even be right. But I’m not the only one who wants it to be done. Salaena wants it as well. Miscarrying the baby has only convinced her that she’ll die if she has another. Everyone will be happier if you ensure that for us.”
      “I don’t have a specialization in gynecology,” Hirianthial said.
      Zhemala nodded. “Nicely said. Quite true. But a dodge. You do have a specialization in surgery which would be more than adequate for the task. We’re not asking you to do something difficult. A few twitches with a medical laser and you’ll take care of a very difficult situation for us. We’ll pay you well for the service.”
      “I am not moved by money,” Hirianthial said.
      “Then be moved by pity,” Zhemala said, exasperation tingeing her aura orange. “Salaena needs your help.”
      “No,” Reese said.
      They both looked at her.
      “It’s my decision to make, right? I’m the only one who can release him to employment in town. Well, I’m making the decision. He’s not going to do it.”
      Zhemala paused. “Captain—”
      “I’m sorry,” Reese said. “That was a little abrupt. It’s just that I have too much for him to do before we leave. I can’t spare him.”
      The Harat-Shar looked at Hirianthial again, eyes half-lidded, with an expression of such cloying sweetness he didn’t need to read the steel-gray resolve around her to feel its falsehood. “That’s too bad. I thought you’d like the opportunity to make up for what happened.”
      Hirianthial stared at her.
      “You would, wouldn’t you? You feel responsible. Salaena would be glad of your help. It would answer nicely for you not being there for her in her need.”
      “That’s enough.”
      Hirianthial hadn’t heard that tone from Reese… ever. Her aura had expanded to twice its size and blazed fire as she stood. “Zhemala, the answer is no. And if you’re looking to pin the blame on someone, choose someone else. But don’t you go sticking it on my crew because it’s more convenient to point fingers at someone who’ll be gone in a few weeks.”
      The Harat-Shar’s ears slicked back. “You can’t blame me for trying, Captain.”
      Reese’s halo sizzled. “I most certainly can. Hirianthial, we’re leaving.”
      Struggling with ambivalence and guilt, he followed her into the hall and all the way to her chamber. There she turned, still seething.
      “Did you unpack?”
      “Lady?” Hirianthial asked, distracted by the roil of her aura.
      “From our trip to Mars. Is there anything in your chambers that belongs to you.”
      “A few things, yes,” he said.
      “Go pack them and meet me at the cafe when you’re done. We’ll bunk at an overnight house until they’re done with the Earthrise.”
      “Lady?” Hirianthial asked.
      “You think I’m leaving you here? You’re crazy. I’m not staying either. This might be a fine place for the twins and maybe Bryer and Kis’eh’t are just too unflappable for it to get to them, but we’re not staying here a minute longer than we have to. Get moving.”
      “Irine and Sascha will be disappointed,” Hirianthial said.
      “Then they can yell at me when I arrange the crew meeting later today,” Reese said. “They’re going to anyway when they find out we’re leaving.”
      He said softly, “She was right.”
      Reese squinted at him. “About what part?”
      “About being there. I should have been there.”
      Reese growled. “If she’d wanted you there twenty-four hours a day she should have hired you for them. I’m not going to let her blame you for not being precognitive. Unless that’s a secret ability you haven’t let me in on.”
      He looked away.
      “Damn it all, Hirianthial. Could you have known? Under the circumstances?”
      “No,” he said after a moment, voice hoarse. “Up until I left her, there were no signs.”
      “And no one called you to tell you she’d started cramping and bleeding?”
      He shook his head, his hair barely brushing his jaw with the motion.
      “So how the bleeding soil is this your fault?” She waved a hand. “Don’t even answer that. It’s obvious. It’s not. They have no business putting it on you and you have no business taking it. Pack up your things and meet me at the cafe, and don’t waste a single minute doing it. Go.”
      Hirianthial took the first few steps down the hall, propelled by the force of her command. When it dissipated, he stopped, staring at the corridor and realizing some part of him had responded to the conviction of her words… her absolute belief in his innocence. He looked over his shoulder at her.
      “What?” Reese asked, aura crackling.
      What to ask? How to quantify the tangled confusion? It made no sense to him that she would believe in him. “Why?”
      Something in his stare unnerved her: the wreath of anger deflated and was replaced with an embarrassed wrinkle of brown and something mysterious and iridescent. With a shrug, Reese said, “Because you didn’t deserve it. Because you didn’t want to do the operation. Because it was the right thing to do.” She glared at him from beneath lowered brow. “I’d have done the same for any of my people.”
      The spikes that popped through her crinkled aura during her final words boded no further information and certainly no good if he remained, but habits older than any of the people in the building stopped him. He turned completely and bowed. Without the speech of his people and its delicate mood-modifiers, he could not impart the grace and gratitude he had always in his words with his Queen, his first and current liege, but he willed them into his voice anyway.
      “Thank you, lady.”
      “Just go pack your stuff.” But she blushed pink all the way into the air around her.

      “We’re leaving?” Irine said, grasping her ears. “But we just got here!”
      “Just got here?” Reese asked. “We’ve been here for a month and a half, Irine!”
      “That’s nothing,” the Harat-Shar said.
      Reese hadn’t been able to find a room she trusted for privacy in the entirety of Irine and Sascha’s family house, so she’d arranged for the crew to meet her on the cafe patio. Kis’eh’t lounged along the sunlit table, relaxed; Bryer seemed neither surprised nor disappointed by her announcement. Allacazam was all-too-pleased in Hirianthial’s arms, and Sascha wore a resigned expression Reese was certain had more to do with forthcoming troubles with his twin than with her decision.
      “Look, we got a contract,” Reese said. “A really, really good one. I’m getting our repairs done at one of the better shops in the port… I’m even making some upgrades! And for once you all have pay in your accounts. Isn’t that the point of being traders?”
      “But what about what the Fleet captain said?” Irine wrung her tail. “About staying out of the way of pirates?”
      “That shouldn’t be hard,” Reese said. “We’ll be going past the system where we ran into them. Way past.”
      “How past?” Irine asked.
      “Sector Tau.”
      “Sector Tau! We’ll be stuck on the ship for weeks!”
      “Maybe the upgrades will be entertaining,” Kis’eh’t offered.
      “You actually have money for once,” Reese said. “I suggest stocking up on things to keep yourselves busy.” She folded her arms. “Why is it that when we go on a short hop, everyone complains about the work, but when we go on a long hop it’s suddenly all about having nothing to do?”
      “Not complaining,” Bryer said.
      “Of course you’re not,” Irine said. “You barely talk.”
      Bryer canted his beak and looked down it at Irine.
      “The decision’s made,” Reese said. “We’re lifting off in a week and a half. Unless you object, I’ll be terminating everyone’s temporary contracts four days before we leave. Hopefully that’s enough time to make your good-byes. Okay?”
      They murmured their assent.
      “Good,” Reese said. “One thing before you wander. Our assignment’s in cold weather, on what looks like to me to be nothing better than a glorified asteroid. We need to play Seek in very cold weather. I’d like you all to pick up winter gear.”
      “How cold?” Kis’eh’t asked.
      “Negative two hundred degrees, about,” Reese said.
      “Gah!” Irine exclaimed.
      “She finally found some place colder than the ship to put you two,” Kis’eh’t said with a laugh.
      “I’m not going into any negative two hundred degree weather!” Irine said. “I’ll freeze harder than a statue!”
      “We all will without thermal bodysuits and masks,” Kis’eh’t said, amused.
      “I want everyone to get one,” Reese said.
      “But… but they’ll be expensive!” Irine said.
      “There’s extra in your pay-drops for it,” Reese said. “Humor me, okay? We might not need everyone to go, but I do want everyone to be able to. Just in case.”
      “Good plan,” Bryer said.
      Reese looked around. “That should be it. I’ve already made the deposit, so go enjoy your pay.”
      That perked Bryer and Kis’eh’t, at least. They headed for the portside shops, with the latter drawing away Hirianthial. Leaving the kitties with her, of course. Reese steeled herself.
      “Was it something the family did?” Irine asked, turning a thin sugar wafer in her fingers.
      “No,” Reese said. “It’s exactly what I said. A good deal dropped into our lap. I’m not going to turn down an offer that earns us enough to make the ship spaceworthy again.”
      “I thought you were going off-planet to take care of our funding problems,” Irine said.
      Reese shrugged. “And I did. Not exactly the way I planned, but it worked.”
      Sascha tugged on Irine’s tail, which was looped in his lap. “It’s okay, little sister.”
      “No, it’s not,” Irine said. She sighed. “I just wanted it to last a little longer. Just a little. It’s the last time I’ll be back here and—”
      “The what?” Reese asked, just as Sascha said, “The last time?”
      Irine’s laugh was halting. “I know this might be hard for you to believe, but I’ve always felt like… I don’t know. I had a destiny. Me and Sascha.” Her ears drooped. “You don’t usually earn those by staying home.”
      “But all this time!” Sascha said. “I thought you wanted us to stay here!”
      “Of course I did!” Irine said. “I want to stay here! But it’s not Destiny if it doesn’t make it impossible for you to do what you want. If you could just choose to not do it and that worked, well… that wouldn’t be very Destiny-like, would it?”
      Sascha gaped at her. Irine touched his open mouth. “It was a test, I guess. And now we’re leaving… and we won’t be back. Not to stay. I was right.”
      “Oh, don’t be silly,” Reese said. “You won’t be working for me forever and then you can come back.”
      But Irine didn’t answer. Sascha tried to smile at Reese. “What do you mean we won’t be working for you forever?”
      “Well, I certainly hope I’m not working forever!” Reese said, though the joke didn’t sound as funny as it had in her head. “I want to make enough at this to retire. At some point. In the far, far future.”
      “I wish I could see there from here,” Sascha said.
      “Me too,” Reese said.
      They were silent, then, and the world filled in for their conversation with the calls of birds and the chunks of conversation released by the door as it snapped open and shut on the cafe’s patio.
      “I’ll miss it here,” Irine said. “But that… that’s okay.”
      “Blood and freedom,” Reese muttered, and thought of Mars and wherever Hirianthial’d come from and now Harat-Sharii. If none of them had a home, where would any of them go when it was all over?

Those of you who were pleased to see Reese sticking up for Hirianthial will probably like this episode. :)

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