Ages in Oblivion Thrown: Book One of the Sleep Trilogy (16 page)

She looked over at the counter in her little
kitchen. Partially empty bottles from the night before were neatly
arranged against the wall. Why had they left it all with her? It
was possible to ignore them, of course, but she didn’t necessarily
want to. The problem was that she knew she ought to. She’d been
down this road already. That particular memory was right up front;
no hiding from it.

As she’d been brought out of sleep, just
being in the clinic had brought it back to the surface. How many
times had she cheated death? It was easy to lose count. It had been
alright the other night, she argued. Even though she’d pretty much
flung herself at someone, even though he’d turned her down not
once, but twice.

She walked over to the counter, staring at
all the different shades of browns and reds. Why today? Why not the
night before last, when things were actually going wrong? Delayed,
it was delayed. Merlot was the color of blood. And why had he
turned her down?

The Major and the Colonel. They had a
bromance. Who else was there to turn to? Nobody. Just the little
soldiers lined up against the wall. They were quiet. Everyone had
to be quiet. Wars didn’t happen in your own country. They happened
to other places. Other people watched bombs and rifle fire from
their windows. Other people lived with visions of humanity torn to
pieces. The bottles saluted, each in their own turn.

She set down a tumbler and poured for a very
long time.

۞

“
You know, I hated school the first
time around. I just really would rather not.” Grace frowned at her
fingernails. Antonio shrugged, knowing he’d been on the unpopular
side of opinion lately. Might as well run with it.

“
Sorry. It just seems like one of our
few options right now.” He didn’t mind the thought of being back in
a university, actually.

“
I prefer the simple act of blowing
stuff up. How much school does that really take to carry
over?”

“
You’re right. Let’s just forget any
possible advances in technology.”

“
I don’t have to
make
the stuff, I just make it go boom.” She
mimed a detonation with her hands, and smiled at the logic of
explosive agents.

“
I think we just ought to worry about
our own selves for right now, and take whatever comes our way.”
Antonio could at least be relied on to take a pin to anyone’s
inflated mood.

“
You mean…split up?” Grace had let her
hair go rampant of late. She looked like a golden-haired
moppet.

“
Yes, I do.” Antonio got up, leaving
the rest of them to sit and mull over his words. They stared at one
another.

Grace, Josh, Jemi, and Leif were playing
cards at a table under a weeping willow. They didn’t like the
reality, but it was possible that Antonio wasn’t entirely
wrong.

“
But….” Jemi couldn’t even begin to
formulate her thoughts.

“
What? How can we possibly sustain
ourselves like this?” Leif shuffled his cards
restlessly.

“
Leif, man, you know I’m open to new
possibilities, but I think parting ways might be a premature leap.”
Josh was immune to the stress as usual. He had better things to
worry about.

“
We could be a carny act, ‘World’s
Oldest People’.” Grace threw down a pair, trying to regain her
sense of humor.

“
We have no more mission. It’s pretty
obvious that some of us are already moving on anyway.” Leif avoided
Josh’s appraising look.

“
Oh, ho, so that’s what this is about.
You
are
upset over this whole
Maeve thing with the station XO.”

“
I can’t sit around hoping she’ll see
me any other way than she does. She almost called me her brother
last night.”

“
So? Don’t let your wounded ego get in
the way of making good decisions. We need to have each other’s
backs for a while…my two cents, anyway.” Josh made a play with his
own pair, earning a hearty curse from Grace.

“
With inflation, his two cents is
worth a lot more these days.” Jemi poked Leif pointedly. He swatted
her hand away.

Conversation was interrupted by Antonio
walking back up. He looked deeply thoughtful, and stood next to the
table for several moments, saying nothing.

“
What’s up?” Josh was surveying the
lie, looking for an easy victory.
Maybe on
the next play
, he thought.

“
Hmmm?” Antonio was still staring
aimlessly into the distance.

“
You look like you have something on
your mind.” Leif didn’t really care, but it seemed as though he’d
stand there until someone asked.

“
Strangest thing. Still not sure I
believe my eyes.” Antonio smiled without mirth and shook his
head.

“
Would you mind sharing with the rest
of us?” Josh was actually feeling a little annoyed by the
performance. Antonio could get on the nerves after a
while.

“
I think I just saw Wallace.” They all
fell silent.

۞

She wasn’t sure why she’d left her little
apartment. It was probably a bad idea. Not one of her better ideas,
anyway. Things were hazy. The actual memory of standing up and
walking out the door was lost. All she knew now was that she was in
the middle of the commercial sector, surrounded by little shops and
cafes. How…odd.

It had too much of the noise of things
gone by. Everything else was gone and obliterated by the passage of
time. So much noise. How was that possible in space? Space was a
vacuum that
abhorred
. It
should have turned her to dust as well. She closed her eyes and put
her hands over her ears. Only the sound of her breathing was left.
Draw air in, let it out, in, out. It seemed that hours were passing
by the second as she stood there, until a firm hand on her arm
stopped the clock.

“
Maeve? What are you
doing?”

“
Nothing. Trying to remember to
breathe.” She didn’t want to look at him.

“
Have you been drinking?”

“
Not that it’s really any of your
business, Major, but I think you know the answer to that
question.”

“
You’re right, it isn’t my business,
but you’re standing in the middle of a public place looking a
little crazy. It’s bound to draw attention sooner or later.” He was
overwhelmed by feelings of concern and irritation. She drew up
close to him; a little touch of anger overcame her.

“
What the hell do you care?” Her pain
reached out and slapped him. Dmitry felt his surge of annoyance
begin to draw heat.

“
I’m beginning to ask myself the same
thing.” He kept hold of her arm as she turned to leave.

“
Leave me be, if you don’t care.” She
pulled, trying to break free, but he was unyielding by
then.

“
I can’t do that.”

“
What, as in your
duties
require it? Don’t you feel the need to
ask your commanding officer for permission first?” She felt the
bitter satisfaction of first blood.

“
I don’t know what it is you’re doing
right now, but I’m stopping you before you do something really
stupid.”

“
I don’t really know what I’m doing
either. What is it you’re proposing, knocking me out or arresting
me?” He looked down at her hands; they were balled into fists, and
her expression was one degree off dangerous.

“
I’ll take you home. You can sleep it
off, how’s that?”

“
Boring.” She waved a hand carelessly
at him, heedless of the stares from passersby.

“
Maeve, I’ve been down this road
before. Except I was standing where you are. It can’t end well like
this.”

“
I’ve been there before, standing
where I’m standing. Fuck.” She ran her hands through her hair in
anguish. “I don’t want to do this anymore. It was just there…I
don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.” She was still fighting
it down, whatever it was. “I’ll go…back.”

“
Let me go with you.” He drew close,
pleading in a voice that sounded wholly unfamiliar to his
ears.

“
Why? Why? What are you going to do?
Save me?” She looked at him with ragged emotion.

“
I told you. Someone did that for me.
Maybe it’s time for me to repay that.” He held out a hand and
waited.

۞

“
Where do you think you saw him?” Jemi
watched her friends thoughtfully as she asked this
question.

“
Commerce. Near the entrance to a
theater.”

“
They told us he wasn’t in the
container with us. What is going on?” She and Grace exchanged
equally anxious looks.

“
Maybe they don’t know about
him.”

The card game was forgotten. They were all
watching Leif, waiting to hear his reaction. Of them all, he was
the only one who actually knew the history between Maeve and Fergus
Wallace. The rest of them only knew that Leif did not like
Wallace.

The extent to which he disliked the other
man was notable, given Leif’s typically dispassionate demeanor.
Josh suspected there was jealousy in that dislike. Actually, it was
more than just suspicion; Leif had confessed his feelings late one
night, long ago. It was why they’d not asked any questions when
they’d come to and found Wallace was not there. Less conflict, less
stress; no possibility of homicide.

“
I don’t know how he got here. Don’t
care.” Leif stood to leave.

“
Where are you going, man?” Josh stood
quickly after him.

“
To get to him before he gets to her.”
There was no murder in his eyes, just turbulence. Leif was trying
to resist the storm.

“
I’ll go with you.” Josh moved
swiftly, not wanting to be left behind.

۞

“
I don’t know if I can be saved.” This
was less self-pity than realism, at least in her mind. Dmitry knew
what she was saying, though. He’d been there, ready to give up and
jump off the bridge, literally. It seemed like forever ago, that it
had happened to someone else.

“
Why don’t you stop fighting?” He
gently turned her back to face him, and closed the distance between
them. “Let me try?”

“
And what happens when you get tired
of your experiment?” She bit back harshly. He frowned. It was an
odd choice of words….

“
One thing at a time. Who’s to say you
won’t get sick of me first?” He tried to put on a good show. She
made a face.

“
I’m a mess.”

So was I
, he
thought. It was almost involuntary how he reached up to touch her
face. He looked from the dark, hunted eyes, to the defiant chin
that was still set to keep arguing with him. After all the
resisting he’d done, it finally seemed like the moment had come, at
least for one thing. He leaned in and gently kissed her. Just for a
second. She was still drunk; he could taste the maltiness of her
breath.

“
One thing at a time.”

۞

Wallace was put off. Or perhaps put out.
Probably both. He drew back behind the corner from which he’d been
observing. There she was, only a couple of months out of stasis,
already intimate with someone. It bothered him that he was so
obviously hung up over it. He knew how long it had taken Maeve to
be intimate with him.

The guy she was with was familiar. It took
Wallace a few minutes of hard thought to place him. The context had
to slide back into place. That guy was the guy he’d run into in the
theater. Mrs. Han had said he was the second in command for the
Nimitz. Great. It didn’t help that he was tall, athletic…Wallace
supposed he was good-looking. He grimaced as he replayed the kiss
in his mind.

He’d come to the station thinking that all
he really needed from her was forgiveness. Now, he was not entirely
sure what he wanted. It was time to get back, though. Jules had
this compulsion to grill him and follow his every move. Like she
didn’t trust him or something. He retraced his route back to the
theater, as he barely missed running into yet another hapless soul.
Wallace brushed by the tall figure, oblivious to what the person
even looked like. This was not going to be as easy as he’d
thought.

۞

Leif turned and watched him walk away. It
was definitely Wallace. The question: how to handle this
development?

“
I’d love to know how he came to be
here. It’s a little strange, don’t you think?” Josh had seen what
Wallace had been looking at. He hoped it had escaped Leif’s
notice.

“
I’m sure that once we get our hands
on him, it’ll only be a matter of…squeezing the story out of
him.”

۞

After speaking with the harbormaster,
Antonio was led down the stacked rings of docks by a seaman, until
arriving at one that held small, schooner-sized vessels. He stared
in awe at the slim and darkly metallic hulls, wondering why he
hadn’t come to the lanes before.

It was amazing! Thanking the young hand
who’d guided him, he waited until he was alone. Then, he began to
carefully investigate the locks to the docking doors. It was the
same sort as the ones for the housing units. It wouldn’t take much
to break down its algorithm; he could be inside by tomorrow.