But maybe it was easier to do that when you thought you’d already died.
“I could finish that for you,” he said.
“I need to do it, sweetheart.” Shan hacked away at the hard soil. Aras had buried one of his rats here, too, one of Rayat’s lab animals until Aras had taken them from him, appalled at the things gethes did to other people. “I promised Eddie a good view. That’s what he’s going to get.”
“Do you mind me asking something?”
“Have I ever?”
“Were you really going to infect him if he’d said yes?”
Shan straightened up and rubbed her nose. “No. I don’t think so. But I’ll never know now.”
“I wouldn’t have blamed you, but I think you did the right thing not to.”
“Yeah.” She rubbed the back of her hand across her nose, probably because she was sweating from the effort. She’d kept any tears to herself. “I know. But it was Eddie who said no. Where’s Aras?”
“Wandering around.”
“You want to tell me what’s up with him?”
“He’s had a lot on his plate lately.”
“He hasn’t touched me since he came back from Baral.”
Ade knew that only too well. Aras had done so before when he thought Shan wasn’t well enough, or when he was having a rough patch, but Ade didn’t know if Shan was seeing what he suspected—that Aras was withdrawing from both of them. For the first time in his life, he really could go back to being a regular wess’har.
Maybe it was just a phase. It really had been a shitty few months: trauma, bereavement, reconciliation with an estranged family. Ade tried to imagine how he’d feel if his own family somehow showed up and brought all that past flooding back. It would definitely have killed any passion in him.
“He’s doing that wrestling with his principles thing,” Ade said at last. “Boss, you should understand that better than anybody.”
She stood back and took a lot more time than necessary inspecting the grave. “Yeah, that’s what worries me. Come on. Let’s collect Eddie.”
They walked back down to the city in silence, but Ade could hear all the unspoken stuff in her head if he thought about it: guilt, abandonment, and all the fears that Aras was going to do what he’d set out to a while back—to leave so that they could be two nice normal monogamous humans together. They’d fought about it last time. He was bloody sure they’d fight about it again.
Shan and Ade carried Eddie out of the city wrapped in a dhren shroud on a pallet, just as wess’har did. Wess’har left their dead out on the plain for the scavengers, and retrieved the shroud material; they were all about pragmatism. But Ade hadn’t been prepared to leave Shan out in the open like that. He knew it made perfect sense, but it was bloody horrible, and he owed his dead loved ones a lot more than treating them like that. Eddie wanted a nice spot. He hadn’t said he wanted to be lunch for some srebil. Aras could argue all he liked that it was the same as flies and bacteria doing the job, but it wasn’t, it just wasn’t, and never would be.
Eddie didn’t weigh much, and Ade slung a couple of straps under the body so they could lower him into the grave. It was like any battlefield burial; Eddie had fought in his own way, and he was every bit a casualty as far as Ade was concerned.
“You’re burying the dhren too?”
“It’s Eddie,” she said. “Can’t bear the thought of soil in his face, I can always get another dhren. Never wore the thing anyway. Not my color.”
So it was hers. She might not have said much—did she think he didn’t know she felt things keenly?—but sometimes she’d do something deeply sentimental that would stop him in his tracks.
“That’s a lovely thing to do, Boss.” He held out the straps to her. She was a nonpracticing Pagan, and he wasn’t sure which funeral rite she was carrying out. “Lower away, or do you want to say something first? I don’t know how Pagans do stuff.”
“Eddie wasn’t Pagan. Orthodox Church of Hack, I reckon.”
“Probably Christian. But we’re fresh out of those.”
“Which disposal did you put down on your form, Ade?”
“Christian.”
“Well, then.”
Ade knew how to do this, and he didn’t feel self-conscious in front of Shan. He laid the straps down again and stood over Eddie’s body at the graveside a small shape draped in opalescent white fabric, then took the bee cam from his pocket and laid it on the shroud so that it sat in a hollow. Ade had to shut his eyes hard to stop them welling. “You were a good mate to us all, Eddie. If there’s a god, he’d better treat you to the five-star suite, and if there isn’t, get some rest. You earned it. We haven’t got a bugler for you, so just know that you were loved and respected.”
When he opened his eyes, Shan was looking at him in that funny kind of way that said she didn’t know he could do something so well. She swallowed and looked back at the body.
“Don’t interview God, will you, you old bugger? He hates being misquoted.” She bent down to pick up the straps on her side and laid her hand on the body, lips moving in silence for a couple of words. Ade couldn’t work out what she’d said and didn’t ask. “Goodbye, Eddie.”
They lowered the entire pallet carefully into the grave and stepped back. There was nothing more to say. Shan took something from her pocket and threw it into the hole, then began shoveling soil; Ade didn’t see what she’d dropped into the grave. It didn’t take long to fill the shallow pit and build a cairn of stones on top.
Ade looked up at the sun. Tem flies loved shitting on smooth, sun-baked surfaces. “It’ll be all nice and pearly in a few weeks.”
“I’ll plant some of those succulents up here, too,” Shan said. They were like fat, shiny cacti without spines, just a coating of bubbles that mirrored the skylight domes that had once dotted the surface above Constantine. “Then maybe Aras can get his arse here to pay his respects, too. And Rayat.”
She was pissed off that Aras hadn’t showed. It probably wouldn’t have seemed rude to a wess’har, though, and Ade hoped she’d cut him some slack. Ade was relieved Rayat had done the tactful absence thing. They walked in silence, and Shan made her way to the Exchange of Surplus Things, which was empty except for a couple of male wess’har tidying crates of fabrics. They looked up when she came in, nodded, and carried on.
“Tools,” she said, holding out her hand to Ade.
He gave her his bag, unsure what she was going to do, but she was the Boss. She went over to the alcove where Ade and the rest of the Royal Marines used to play cards, took a sharp metal peg out of the bag, and began sizing up a flat slab of wall at eye height.
“Did Jon have a middle name?” she asked. “Or Izzy?”
“Michael,” he said. “Izzy never used one. It was never on her paperwork.”
“Okay.”
It was another of those unexpected things that showed him how Shan’s mind really worked. She began roughing out letters with the tip of the spike and stood back after a while to assess them, selecting a chisel and a hammer.
“Before I start hammering, did I get that right?” she asked. “And I need some dates.”
MARINE ISMAT QURESHI, 37 CDO ROYAL MARINES
MARINE JONATHAN MICHAEL BECKEN, 37 CDO ROYAL MARINES
Beneath the scraped letters was a big space, presumably for the others in due course, and then:
COMRADES AND FRIENDS, GREATLY MISSED
“I know they were civvies when they died,” Shan said, “but they were Booties while they were here. Anyway, it’s not a war memorial.” She looked as if she’d caught herself off guard, embarrassed by her own gesture. “Don’t expect me to carve the emblem, though. I’ll have enough trouble getting the letters right.”
“Globe and laurel,” Ade said, realizing again why he loved her so fiercely. “I can do that.”
“I’ll do a bit at a time,” she said. “It’ll take me a day or two.”
She was a bloody good woman. See, Izzy, I told you that you didn
’t have to worry about her. Funerals always made Ade scared and clingy, forcing him look around his mates and dread that they’d be next. He thought he’d never have to worry about that with Shan. They had plenty of time. It made him feel relief each time he remembered it. It was the only thing, and now it didn’t look so certain.
He took the peg from her hand, pausing to squeeze her fingers, and then sketched the outline of the Corps’ badge. It was pretty good, even if he did say so himself. Shan smiled.
“Clever,” she said. “My old man’s full of hidden talents.”
Ade was happy to be her old man. Even in a painful time, it made him feel invulnerable in a way that even c’naatat couldn’t.
He’d stick around as long as she would. The choice was up to her.
F’nar, Wess’ej: October 3, 2426.
I know this is right.
Aras watched two of Giyadas’s grandsons playing on the rear terrace. He’d almost forgotten how different wess’har children were from humans; they were quiet and purposeful, observing and learning as much as they could. Shiporis and Citan were busy learning to pot up pepper seedlings under Ade’s supervision. Ade was very good with youngsters, endlessly patient and quick to praise them.
Does he feel any yearning to have back the child he lost? Is this hard for him too?
“Okay, this is how you do it,” Ade said. He held the seedling by one leaf and gently loosened the soil around its roots with a twin-tined fork. Citan watched intently with his head tilted to one side. “See? You have to leave the roots in one piece. Doesn’t matter if you damage a leaf, it’s the roots that matter. Then use your thumb to make a hole big enough…like that.”
Ade held the seedling upright in the hole while Shiporis sifted soil around the roots. He showed them how to press on the surface just enough to compact the compost without crushing the fragile net beneath.
“Now we water it in. Go on, Citan. Just a steady dribble. Don’t saturate it.”
Ade had been a city boy; he’d learned cultivation from Aras. In a few short years, their worlds had come full circle.
It’s not just what I have to do. It’s what I want, too.
Citan and Shiporis seemed sufficiently confident now to pot up the rest of the seed tray on their own. Ade stepped back and left them to it, smiling to himself.
“Child labor,” he said. “I’ll get them making cheap rugs next. I’ll be a millionaire by Christmas.”
“They amuse you.”
“Kids are great.” Ade looked a little regretful, but there was no pain on his face. “So what are you going to do, mate? Not that I can’t see.”
It was the hardest thing Aras had ever tried to explain, but Ade knew, just as Shan did; it had been growing in him since the trip to Jejeno, the realization of what he had been and what he’d never had. The feelings were so persistent that they must have passed to Shan and Ade at some level. Visiting Baral had finally tipped the balance, and Eddie…Eddie could walk away from the offer of permanent, healthy life on his deathbed. If Eddie had ever reported a great truth, then it was this one: that there was a point at which life had to be lived to its conclusion and death faced. All wess’har knew and accepted that. Aras had forgotten how, until now.
“How can I do this to you, Ade?”
Ade shrugged. He couldn’t suppress his scent like Shan could, and it was at odds with his expression. He was upset. “You have to do what you want, Aras. Don’t live your life for anyone else. And nobody’s responsible for making someone else happy.”
Is he saying that to be brave? Or is he finally being human at last, and wanting Shan to himself?
“Shan opted to stay c’naatat so I wouldn’t be alone,” Aras said. “If I were to…have it removed, I know what choice she would feel she had to make too.”
“Yeah. We’ve talked about that.”
“You see my dilemma.”
Ade wandered over to the low wall that formed the edge of the terrace and sat down beside him. “Tell me what you want to do. I know bloody well when you’re unhappy, and you’re not happy now. You haven’t been really happy for ages.” Ade snorted, that mock laughter that said something wasn’t actually funny, but painful. “Ages. Listen to me. You know how long our relationship actually adds up to, all the days added together? The time we’ve actually been a family, the three of us? Months at most.”
Ade stared at the flagstones, arms folded. Aras remembered building this house stone by stone, excavating the rooms, utterly alone and simply seeking to fill lonely time until he couldn’t stand being surrounded by normal wess’har with families any longer. He thought he’d never forget Askiniyas, his first isan; but there came a time when he could barely picture her face even with his perfect wess’har memory, and the pain of her suicide had dulled to a vague sorrow after nearly five centuries.
Why did I carry on after she chose to die? Bezer’ej didn’t need me, not with the garrison in place. I hung on because I didn’t feel I’d tasted enough of life. I was greedy for existence, even one in exile.
If Shan felt the same way, how could Aras judge her after he’d burdened her with c’naatat in the first place? She never asked for it. He didn’t even tell her he’d infected her. She found out the hard way, and she’d been distraught. She’d had a life of little else but duty too. Ade—Ade was just starting to live, it seemed. They had no debt to him or some wess’har principle.
Aras loved them both, isan and house-brother, and the pain of separation would be immense.
But Ade’s always there for Shan. She adores him. And I must, absolutely must, live out the life I never had. I have to try, at least.
I must be a father.
“Eddie was wise enough to know when his life was lived, and that c’naatat wouldn’t be a life for him at all,” Aras said at last. “His decision made me think harder.”
“Eddie didn’t think about it. He just reacted right away and said no.”
“And Jon and Izzy? I’ve seen the regret in your face. You sometimes wish you’d done what I did for Shan—saving their lives with your blood, without their asking. But you didn’t.”
“It was just that. A split second. Don’t you think I hate myself for that? I didn’t even think of infecting them until it was too late. But they could have had it removed later, and that was a choice we didn’t have when you saved Shan. Maybe I got to Jon too late, but Izzy would have lived. I don’t know what that makes me—a stupid bastard who didn’t think fast enough, or a callous one who let his mates die on a point of principle.”
“Never callous, Ade. Never that. Don’t think about it. You can’t change the past.”
“It’s hard not to.”
“Humans and wess’har have different views of c’naatat. That’s the core of the problem. And I’m torn, because of my love on one hand, and my need for a child on the other, and I can no longer justify being c’naatat.”
I started all this strife and killing. I was the first source of infection; I passed it to Shan. I even caused Ade to infect Lindsay Neville, and so the bezeri too, and Esganikan. Shan never really succumbed to the temptation. If Eddie had said yes…no, I think she knew in her heart that he’d refuse.
“You don’t have to decide now, if you don’t want to,” said Ade. “The antidote thing will still be there.”
“If I avoid confronting the choice, I’ll live in limbo.” Aras took Ade’s arm. The contact didn’t upset Ade now. There was a time when he would have reacted badly, the product of a childhood where any sudden touch was a violent one. “I have to do this.”
Ade went quiet and just watched the two children, swallowing so hard that Aras could see the little lump moving at the front of his neck.
“When are you going to tell Shan?” he asked.
Aras had tried to imagine how she would take it, an alien thought process for most wess’har, because blurting out your views and intentions was simply how they did things. Shan would be upset. She wouldn’t know why she was upset, whether at the prosp
ect of losing a lover or because she feared he was making a sacrificial act again, but she would not smile and bless him on his way. He knew that.
“Soon,” he said. “As soon as she returns.”
“Just be sure why you’re doing it, mate,” Ade said quietly. “That’s all.”
Aras was. For the first time in many years, he was clear that he was making a selfish decision. Self-regard had probably kept him a c’naatat for far longer than he needed to be one, because he was the last of his kind and had always had an exit if he’d had the courage to take it, but now he faced what a human might regard as shortcomings.
There was nothing wrong with being selfish. If you couldn’t act to make yourself happier when it harmed nobody, then you were what Deborah called a martyr, except she regarded it as a fine thing. Humans seemed to value their own pointless suffering, part of their constant attempt to get their god’s approval.
Motive didn’t matter. That was the core of the wess’har worldview.
“I’m sure,” Aras said at last. “I’m wess’har.”
F’nar; the Exchange of Surplus Things.
Shan kept chipping away at the C in the stone, refining the name BECKEN and suddenly afraid to look away from it. Carving the stone had taken much longer than she expected. Now she was glad of the displacement activity.
The curve filled her field of vision. She wouldn’t even let herself register the peripheral stuff of the stone ashlars and the crates around her. If she concentrated on that awkward curve, far beyond her carving skills, then her gut would steady, the hot pounding pulse in her throat would ebb, and the world would not fall apart. She was a child again, being reminded that she was of no consequence.
Aras waited in patient silence. He was calm, exuding a scent of male wess’har musk, a pleasant sandalwood aroma that always caught the back of her throat and made her feel good. It was one of the first things she’d noticed about him; he smelled wonderful, and he was a strikingly beautiful creature, so far outside her own human standards of aesthetics as to be meaningless, but beautiful nonetheless.