Scott didn't answer, quietly squirming under his father's argument, but Aleksander pressed on.
"Scott, for once try to appreciate how lucky you are. You have the qualifications and ability to become a research scientist and avoid flight service. Stop being so unreasonable.”
“I’m being unreasonable, even though you’re the one who won’t listen.”
“There are millions who would be grateful for the opportunities you have. You might even find a position in the research and developmental programs." Aleksander said, putting a glass of wine down on the table.
“Not if I refuse it.” Scott rejoined. “Or sabotage myself. They’ll put me into flight service, anyway. Untrained.”
"No, you won’t!” Aleksander shouted.
“No, I won’t,” Scott agreed. “Not if you let me go.”
“Scott, I will not be coerced by my own son!” Aleksander said. “I'm putting my foot down. You will have to learn to accept what’s best for you."
"Father, she's gone! She's dead!”
“Scott—”
“Nothing will bring her back, father! And I won't let you keep me here because you want to hold on to memories of a happy family—don't you see I have to go? I’m no coward!" Scott threw at him. His eyes began to burn, but he would not cry.
"But—I promised her I’d keep you here, where it’s safe!" Aleksander's voice remained steady, but inside his resolve at last wavered.
"There isn’t such a place, father." The boy stated calmly, his expression defiant.
Aleksander Alekseivich looked deep into his son's eyes and recognized the courage there that he had taken for foolishness.
“Who taught you to be so wise, huh?” Aleksander shook his head, weakening.
"Father, I must fight for what I believe in! I have to do it for mother... and for Katya."
Aleksander reacted as though he had been slapped. The name had been unutterable for both Aleksander and his son, as though to speak it might summon back painful visions of the owner. Aleksander did not understand until then that Scott had never let go of his memories of her. For in all of these years since his twin sister Ekaterina's death, Scott had never shown any outward sign of grief.
Aleksander had always thought his own grief ran deeper than his son's. He knew a boy needed his mother, but Aleksander had lost his soul mate, his beloved wife, and a daughter more precious to him than any material thing he possessed. His little girl—yes, he remembered the game they used to play. He would pull on her imagined whiskers with both hands while she made a suitable cat face and purred at him. Then she would step away, curl up, and pretend to pounce on him. He always let her win. And Scott—Scott was always her protector, her defender, who would rescue her from the vile wizard's clutches—
Suddenly Aleksander understood his son. Mary had called Ekaterina "Kat", and so the rest of them did. But "Katya" had been Scott's special name for her when they were small, when they had played the days away together, lost in their own world. They had been closer than any brother and sister could be, indifferent to the world imposed upon them and to all of its rules, of one mind, always in agreement.
Perhaps this would have changed, and they would have begun to go their separate ways, but Katya had been taken before Scott could have imagined a world without her. He had lost his childhood that day, as though he had wrapped it up and put it away in some sacred part of his heart.
"All right, Scott, my son." Aleksander said quietly after a moment. "Do what you must do for them. You are right not to fight your natural feelings.” He said, sighing. “Go ahead. You choose your own destiny."
* * * * *
“Erin’s annual physical is approaching.” Cameron had just settled into his new apartment in the urban zone of Central City when he received the message from the Statue City base. Richard Mathieson had sent the video communiqué to remind him.
Cameron then reminded himself to mark the date of the physical on the calendar, but then he remembered that this year he had planned on traveling to Statue City and visiting the family. He had accepted their long-standing offer, and planned to treat Erin in the medical wing Mathieson had reserved, at Cameron's insistence, for the day of the exam.
“Now bother, what have I done with my electronic book?” he wondered, getting ready to pack his belongings up for the trip.
Cameron always found it interesting to see how the girl adapted to her environment and grew more human; nearing the age of nine, she still had no idea of her true identity. Or did she? Cameron often wondered about that, but if she knew, she didn't let on.
To his disappointment, Cameron had only been able so far to conduct a preliminary examination of Erin's brain with the time constraints pressed on him as her parents waited during the physicals. He pored over the data he had collected for countless hours in the privacy of his apartment. His instruments had picked up increased electromagnetic activity near the examination table. He had made a breakthrough in interpreting her brainwaves by correlating them to the frequencies and cycles of the increased activity near her. The understanding had led him to a more than a few far-fetched conclusions.
First, she was telepathic.
If he was not mistaken, Erin should be able to transmit her thoughts to others at will, something no human had yet learned to do, although he was not sure if the process could be reversed—if she could receive extraneous brainwaves. As soon as he had made the discovery, Cameron had begun to search the evidence for signs of other exotic brain activity, such as telekinesis, but his search ended in failure.
Even if he had known what to look for, his subject had not been conscious at the time of the exam, and the brainwave output seemed to have been reduced by some conservation mechanism within the body.
Yet Cameron did not completely rule out further possibilities of unusual talents surfacing in Erin Mathieson. As he watched her year to year during her brief visits to his quarters, he noticed a kind of self-denial in her daily activities inhibiting the manifestation of her extraordinary abilities.
He began to wonder if Erin knew of the innate extra-sensory abilities he had recorded within her. And perhaps her talents could remain dormant without proper indoctrination in how to use them. After all, he reflected, baby birds are born with wings, but without their parent's care and coaxing, they never learn to fly.
Purity of soul cannot be lost without consent.
—St. Augustine
Chapter Seventeen
Only her eyes betrayed her thoughts, and few enough people ever interpreted their expression correctly. She was a very reserved girl, but not willfully secretive, independent, stubborn but fair-minded, and logical to a superlative degree. She could be emotional, but was not often.
She was self-motivated and seldom allowed herself the luxury of momentary pleasures. She liked to play hard, and to win.
She was about Earth fourteen years old in appearance, and felt much older.
She did not know how very much older she was.
* * * * *
"So what are you doing here by yourself? Are you lost?" an adolescent male voice asked, as its owner at last drew near. It seemed likely that the stranger had been watching her from behind for some time as she made her way towards the recreational bulletin board.
She turned sharply to face the intruder, who turned out to be a boy around her age, with thick, dark hair, pale skin, and intelligent, quietly critical eyes. He was tall, muscular, and wiry, with a light stride that defied the Earth to hold him.
As his victim turned on him, Scott Dimtriev instantly forgot why he was grinning, caught up in the bluest eyes of the girl before him.
She was wearing an intent expression, then half-smiled at him. The combination of her mannerisms affected him in the oddest way, and a way that none ever before had affected him, nor would anyone after her affect him in quite the same way,
though he didn’t have even the faintest suspicion of this at the time.
Scott felt ashamed to have been teasing her and wished he knew how to make her smile; he recovered, rethought his mortification about teasing her and decided he had done no real harm. The tactic always worked in the end. Yes, he decided, he was going to make her smile. His decision made, the only thing which remained was waiting until it came about.
"Lost?" Scott asked, wearing a lop-sided grin.
“No,” she said, still staring at him in miscomprehension. “Looking around.” Privately, Erin was stewing over the strange contradictions between what she instinctively imagined this boy’s stubborn, somewhat noble character to be and the silly manner he had adopted in talking to her. Perhaps she was wrong, but she sensed that he was a highly complex and motivated person, even though his questions were simple enough, and direct.
Perhaps it was the indefinable way he carried himself, or perhaps it was the objectively calculating look in his eyes. Or perhaps because she saw a sharp mind and focused will beneath his quick, deliberate, but effortless movements.
"I'm taking the third year flight exam today," she offered.
The boy's grin melted into a look of surprise. "Oh, so you really do belong here." He laughed. “Sorry about that.” He didn’t sound very sorry.
"Well, and what are you doing here?" Erin wondered. “Aren’t you too old to be taking third year exams?
He smiled indulgently at her. “I’m fifteen," he said, "but then, I had to wait to enter the flight training program. I only began pilot training a year ago, so I’ve come a long way in a short amount of time. And that isn’t an easy thing to do."
"Oh." Erin stuttered.
Scott watched as the girl made an attempt to escape him, and felt it as a challenge not to let her. He took a step closer to remain in her field of vision.
"So, what’s your name, kid?" He asked, determined not to let her get away so easily, after all. Erin tensed at his words, hesitating.
“That bad, eh?” he laughed.
“What?” Erin asked, confused and annoyed.
“Well obviously you don’t like your name very much, or you’d tell me what it is.” He said.
“That’s not true.”
“You don’t want me to know it, then, Gertrude? Maybe I’ll just have to start calling you Gertrude—”
"It’s Erin Mathieson-Blair." Erin cried at last, unable to take his game any longer.
She watched him anxiously, waiting for a sign of recognition, hoping he wasn't going to adopt the usual "oh so that's how you got here" look. Perhaps Scott would have said something along those lines, but at that moment, the comnet interrupted.
"Aamodt, Gunnar, report to flight exam area nine. Dimitriev, Scott. Five minutes. Ryder, John, ten minute warning..."
"Well, that's me." Scott said, combing a hand quickly through his hair and then again. His reaction to the call was two-tiered. Though he was excited, he was also rather annoyed at being separated from the lovely and opinionated and rather adorable Miss Mathieson-Blair. Who, he realized didn’t even know his name yet. Time to remedy that.
"Since you’ve been so sweet and agreeable, my name’s Scott, Scott Dimitriev.” He told her. “Strange to say it, but a few minutes ago I couldn’t wait to get the first half of this test over with—I’ve been waiting forever to take it—and now that the moment’s finally arrived here I am getting nervous. Makes no sense, does it?” he confided.
“It’s understandable, how you feel.” She nodded.
“You really think so?” He said, looking at her almost wishfully, then dismissed a random approving thought. She was probably just making polite conversation. “I suppose people always imagine their own situation to be unique, when it really isn’t. Have you eaten lunch?"
“No.”
“Then meet me in mess hall for lunch if you’ve got no one else to sit with.”
“All right,” she agreed.
* * * * *
Erin spent the next hour wandering about the complex, finding herself drawn to the cafeteria almost against her will. She sat at a table for a while fidgeting and watched the table beside her empty and fill up again twice before deciding to leave. As she stood, she recognized Scott entering the room.
At the same time, a young girl rushed over to him and yanked his hair. He wrenched around and made a move for her long, golden-brown hair in retaliation, but she danced away. After a moment they gave up the childish antics and settled into talking; Erin thought to strain her ears towards their conversation, but decided against it. She got up to leave, but just as she was about to reach the door safely, she felt a hand on her arm.
"Where do you think you're going?" Erin half-turned around. Scott was smiling in a smug way. The girl was standing beside him, and she was smiling, too.
"This is my sister, Lara," he said, letting go of her arm. Lara, this is Erin Mathieson-Blair."
Lara wasn't as tactful as her brother.
"You aren’t serious?” She blurted.
“Well, anyway, she claims her parents are Mathieson and Blair.” Scott said, receiving a brief glowering look from Erin.
“The ones who discovered the first alien ship and defeated the Charon aliens at Statue City?" Lara blustered, her eyes widening, her tongue catching in her throat. She swallowed compulsively, blinked in awe, and thrust a hand out to shake Erin’s. Erin took it hesitantly, and let Lara shake it several times before she let go.
“I didn’t do something special, though, did I?” Erin said uncomfortably.
Scott laughed in a way that managed to tease his sister. "Hungry? I’ll go get us something to eat. Lara was just leaving."
Lara visibly remembered that she was leaving, and shrugged apologetically.
"My flight test starts in half an hour, so I guess I should go to the simulation room.” She explained. “Then I’m going to head back to my room and get in some studying for the written test. I’m in the group scheduled to take it tomorrow.”
“Good idea, sis, why don’t you head back and attack those electric textvolumes.” Scott agreed.
“Well, it was nice meeting you, Erin.” Lara said in a hurry, responding to her brother’s desire to hurry her along, though she smiled brightly. “I'll see you later, Scott. Don’t bore her too much with all of your stories, okay?" She smirked, then hurried away, returning to her table to pick up her tray.
Scott shook his head, smiling agreeably. Lara seldom ever retaliated so well.
Erin sat down again while Scott went over to collect two lunch trays for them; he returned with both balanced on his palms while she kept their seats free.
For a while as they ate, they talked about the flight tests. This was established protocol; every time cadets met each other, they always talked of training, test flights, and cadet ranks. Erin was tired of protocol.
"Are you from Central City?" she ventured, interrupting something about a silly trick one of his friends had played on their Trainer.
"You read minds, then, Ms. Mathieson-Blair?" Scott laughed in surprise.
"Don’t be ridiculous." Erin shook her head.
"Well, how else could you know?" He teased, then shrugged. "There are only ten of us here from Central City taking the tests this year. I'm from the northeast sector. We've lived there since my sister Lara was born. She's younger than you I guess, eleven but only a first year."
"You two are close?"
He nodded. "She tagged along when I finally joined the training program. My dad almost didn't let her go to the school with me—we're fortunate enough to train in the city we come from and live at home."
"Then you must have been there when the aliens attacked the city." Erin said. "I remember the shelters—we were hiding near the commercial center, hoping that they wouldn't collapse the support pillars and crush us. I remember
the echo of the passage by us thundering as they collapsed the skyway tunnel."
Scott responded with a distant look. It was the first time she had seen such a dark expression on his face. "My mother and twin sister died during that attack." He said bluntly, his stomach screwing up into knots.
I shouldn’t have brought it up, he thought darkly.
"I'm so sorry—I had no idea." Erin said quietly, then stopped suddenly.
Her heart was pounding. It was coming back. She tried to shake it but couldn't. The sensation reached her, filled her, and above the drone of the cafeteria she heard ghostly screams that belonged to another event, years ago, shrill feminine screams of agony as the world collapsed around them.
Erin heard an announcement waking her and knew with horror that they were dead when they didn’t answer back when she called to them through the thick, obscuring vapor of smoke and dust and the rubble of a city reduced to nothing but ash and fire and darkness swarming round. She shivered, her eyes stinging with cold tears as she called their names frantically
"Don't worry about it." As Scott said it, Erin's vision faded. "I'm sad that it happened, but I know I have to accept it. Nothing can change it. It's just hard to live on, you know? It changed my perspective on life; I don't expect things to always work out for me anymore." He glanced up but continued to stir his tea. He tried to take tight control over his emotions once more. "Wait a minute—how is it that you were in that attack?" He asked suddenly. "I thought your family lived at the Statue City Base."
"We were living at the UESRC at the time," Erin admitted, "but my parents were on temporary assignment in Central City overseeing the final preparations of our second flagship, the Hyperion."
"But how can you possibly remember it? You couldn't have been very old."
"It made an impression on me." Erin said quietly.
"I suppose so." Scott swallowed a lump in his throat. Detestable lump it was, betraying what he tried so hard not to feel or to show to anyone. “On that day I swore that I would make sure it never happened again," he added decisively, with words like wrought iron; he couldn’t seem to stem them or the emotion behind them, no matter how hard he consciously tried. “I know I can’t really fulfill that vow, but I have every intention of trying to live up to it.”