The Legend of Ivan (24 page)

"I told you his name wasn't Traverian-"

Grey held up a hand, cutting off his friend. "Mr. Newson, thank you for bringing him. I need to speak privately with Sid here, so if you could please shut the door on the way out...?"

The man seemed poised to object, but he nodded. "I'll be right outside, Deacon. Holler if you need anything." He passed a brief, irritated gaze in my direction before passing outside. The door clicked shut.

"My friend Mr. Newson was correct," Grey said, still nothing but passive interest registering on his face. "I don't go by Traverian."

"But that is...
was
your name." I folded my arms.

A tiny smirk curled at the corner of his mouth, the first real reaction I'd seen out of him, but he skipped by the question. "I go by Silas now, Deacon to the First Church of the Penitent Children of Ivan."

"Listen, Mr. Grey." I gestured. "I'm trying to find both information about Ivan's location and Ivan himself. I know you were the last known individual to see him. I respect the fact that you're hiding here in peaceful retirement, and I don't wish to disturb you any longer than it takes to find out what I want to know."

He chuckled, wheeling his chair around with one hand and the stump of his other arm. "Can I get anything for you? Something to drink, eat maybe?"

"No, thank you."

Moving over to the stove, he set down a clean pan and clicked on a heating element. "Must have been Lorric, hm? Tell you where I was?"

"Yes."

"Shoulda known he'd keep tabs on me." Grey shook his head, laughing softly as he opened a cooled box. He withdrew a few eggs from a small container. He held them up. "You see these? Fresh as you can get 'em." He pulled out a tomato. "Same as this. Better than any hydroponics garden can ever match."

He grabbed a knife from a block and set the tomato down, skillfully cutting without difficulty. Still smirking, he dropped what looked like some kind of animal grease into the pan before cracking the eggs.

"I'd like to get moving along as soon as possible," I said.

He ignored me.

I watched, impatient, as he cooked the ingredients together, slicing off a slab of some kind of cheese to go with it and scrambling everything together. Eventually, he dumped the whole mess onto a plate. Cradling it in his lap, he used a fork to take a few bites. He gestured at the plate. "I've spent a thousand credits on a meal not half as satisfying."

"Oh nothing, it's just..." Shaking his head and laughing, the crippled man said, "You think I'm crazy. Out of my mind. Snapped, cracked, overcome with madness, and unable to cope with my one magnificent failure."

I said nothing.

"You think I'm hiding, laying low in this land beyond corporate reach, beyond the vengeance of comrade and kin, beyond the niceties of modern civilization. You think I live on this antiquated pebble of the galaxy to let my reputation die, afraid of what the unwashed masses will think of my poor, crippled self. You think I'm crazy to have not bought five or six mansions to live in, new body parts to make me whole again, and enough expensive luxury items to live out my days in blissful abandon. And most of all..." He paused, taking another bite. "You think I've gone completely batshit to be hanging around Ivan worshippers. Does that about cover it, Sid the Archivist?"

Blinking, I kept an even expression. Everything he said was more or less true, and I considered his ability to acknowledge madness poor proof to him lacking it.

Grey laughed again. "It couldn't possibly occur to you, with your infinite wisdom and experience, that I stay out here in this place because I actually
like
it?"

Cold surprise and realization spilled through my body. My careful control of emotion must have slipped, considering the hysterical torrent of laughter my new companion fell into.

"Right on all counts, I see!" he shouted, thumping his hand against the stub of his leg as he laughed.

A hot flush bristled through my body. It was embarrassing to be ridiculed, to be coming in with such high preconception only to have completely misjudged. His amusement did little to temper my rising irritation.

Striking him crossed my mind briefly, but I decided there would be no satisfaction to be had in such an act. Besides, Grey still managed to kill two bounty hunters and wound another who was a brilliant strategist. This was after losing three limbs in a cataclysmic explosion and crashing a hover vehicle.

Granted, "Silas" Grey was much older, and the people he ambushed were half-starved. Either way, I still had no good reason, aside from his continued mirth at my expense, to hit him.

Besides, my assumptions though premature were quite reasonable. "Why should I believe otherwise?" My tone contained a hard edge as I tried to cut through his amusement. "Here you are, what's left of the mercenary legend. Traverian Grey, playing worship-aide to a ridiculous cult."

"Ah, ah, ah." He wagged a finger at me. "I caught you again. You think I can't possibly be this man, this wholly legitimate Deacon of the Penitent Children of Ivan, without ulterior motive. You think I can't
believe
."

This time, surprise was knocked aside by anger. "Not a chance. You've
met
Ivan. You
know
he's nothing more than a simple man, unless your mind truly
was
addled by failure and fear."

Grey ignored the insult, another peal of laughter escaping him. "Oh-ho! Clearly you don't know much if you think of anything about Ivan as
simple
. I thought Archivists were supposed to be smart." He grinned, far too smug, and I again contemplated the advantages of striking him.

"Very well..." I seethed. "You are aware that he's made of flesh and blood. He is human, not some kind of deity."

"Oh, well technically," he waved his hand back and forth. "Our doctrine states that Ivan is a manifestation, a living embodiment of God sent to herald our salvation or destruction." He shrugged. "It sort of depends upon humanity's worth as a whole."

I shook my head. "Superstitious absurdity, and your seeming adherence only proves your madness."

Shrugging, he replied. "Perhaps, but perhaps it's you who can't see beyond your preconceptions of what does and doesn't make sense for an individual in my situation." I opened my mouth to object, but he held up his hand. "I can see we're not off to the greatest start, so why don't we begin again. I'll stop poking fun at you if you agree to hold an open mind."

I pulled a folding chair out from a corner and sat down, waiting for him to speak. Even with my irritation, I could not overcome the curiosity I felt. The situation and how it developed was too strange to overlook. I wondered if it
was
some kind of madness or if Traverian Grey, galactic scourge, changed so drastically as to become a peace-loving country bumpkin, worshipping his greatest foe.

"You want to know why I'm here," he offered.

Nodding, I responded, keeping my tone carefully neutral. "Of course. Even you must understand it represents a very odd change in attitude and priority. Though it's possible all I've heard about you was mere conjecture..." I trailed off, the question hanging.

He shook his head. "Not a bit of it. Money, power, guns, the thrill of a good fight..." A wistful expression crossed his face. "Crushing an opponent, dancing with death. There's nothing quite like it." The expression hardened, and he looked at me. "But it creates no lasting happiness, for me or anyone else. Nothing matters but the thought of
more
, and all the credits, bodies at my feet, and destruction does nothing to fill that need."

"So, by living this way, out here... you keep yourself away from temptation?"

"Not so complicated as that, I'm afraid," he said. "At first, I was simply tired. I'd never lost before at all, and to be crushed so completely. Coping was..."

"Difficult?"

Grey smiled. "To say the least. Either way, once I passed the initial stage of recovery, hiding
was
my first thought." He looked at me and shrugged. "Yes, I'll admit your notions were not far from the mark."

I motioned for him to continue, not wishing to inhibit further conversation by lording a smug attitude over him.

"Gods, I wanted to get patched up as soon as possible. I had seven more plans of attack in mind, ready to corner Ivan again and gain my redemption, but..."

I finished his statement. "You were afraid."

He sighed. "More than you can imagine. I knew... I knew so deeply, so completely, I couldn't ever match him. Yet I couldn't imagine not trying if I was capable." His expression softened, a helpless, almost fearful appearance seeming laughable coming from someone with such a fierce reputation. "I'd worked with him. Saw how he fought, calculated everything, and still I never stood a chance."

Grey lapsed into silence for a moment, lost in consideration. He looked up at me. "I knew pursuing the failed conquest would become my only choice for redemption. If I had myself put back together, the obsession would have driven me back to him, back to my final end."

"That..." he gave a bitter laugh, "and I couldn't face the thought of the galaxy knowing about my coward's defeat. I was beaten, broken... but alive. The moment I dropped a stack of currency upon the desk of the best prosthetics surgeon, everyone would know that Traverian Grey was yet living... and an appalling failure. Oh I told myself so often that I didn't care what others thought, but I was a bit of a slave to my reputation, I'll admit that much."

"Of course," he continued, "not many people knew I was even there besides a few corporate bidders and our apparent friend-in-common Lorric."

I said, "True, most of my research suggested you simply vanished into hiding, retirement, or an early grave. The only relation I found between you and Ivan was a story passed down from a drunken buffoon."

Grey cocked his head. "Was that...?" He closed his eyes. "It couldn't have been Hunter's End? You heard about that?"

I gave a nod.

My companion burst out laughing, "I can't believe anyone remembers that... A hell of a contract, and I thought Ivan was the craziest son of a bitch I'd ever met." Nostalgia overcame his expression, and he asked me, leaning forward and excited. "Your contact told you Ivan woke up that monster, right?" I nodded, and he laughed harder. "There we are, the damn thing is sleeping and the easiest hundred thousand I could ever imagine, and he starts yelling! I mean, who does that? Honorable combat with a giant lizard? Then the damn thing tries to eat me!"

I chuckled. "It was quite a tale."

"I'm sure you've heard plenty more," he settled back into his chair, "but we're getting off topic here, my apologies."

"Not at all," I smiled. "It's nice to validate especially some of the less believable claims."

He gave a contented sigh. "I'd imagine... Gods, I do miss those days sometimes..." He shook his head. "But after a month in recovery and hiding out, to my own considerable surprise... I actually started to like the quiet life." Grey shrugged. "Oh, every day I'd tell myself it was time to quit hiding and find myself a surgeon, but..."

Strange as it was, it made a measure of sense. I wondered if I'd ever grow weary of flying about the galaxy in search of information, but the idea seemed beyond absurd. A quiet life of sheer boredom would end me as surely as five undisturbed minutes with my good friend Cain.

"I stayed. I relaxed, and there came a time where I got used to being like this. I don't do anything beyond my means, but I still manage to take care of myself just fine." He set his plate upon the cool end of the stove.

"What about the, well... the religious part of this?" I asked. "When did the... movement begin?"

Grey gave a thin smile. "Only about five or so years ago."

Since we'd been developing a mild rapport, and his information seemed genuine, I didn't want to remind him of the complete absurdity I saw in this idiotic faith. I tried to be delicate. "How did you get involved?"

"It just sort of happened. A few folk in the city not far from here joked a bit about some lame-brain preacher out in the country. I still thought about Ivan and our little tiff," he smirked, "every single day. Yes, I considered the very idea of worshipping him a complete pile of shit."

I held my tongue, not wanting to emphasize how much I agreed with his early assessment.

He shrugged. "I listened to the things they said," he looked up at me, a tiny measure of pleading in his expression, "and I compared them to what I knew about Ivan." Grey frowned. "I actually started to see where they were coming from, and I thought it was less stupid the more I heard."

Grey chatted about the beginnings of his transformation into the glorious faith, and his conflicted expression and tone of voice was fascinating. It seemed as though much of him wanted so badly to believe Ivan held some deity-esque standing.

This too made sense to me. How better to cope with a terrible defeat than to consider the opponent wielding divine favor and power? On the other hand, his logic, his knowledge of a flesh and blood, mortal man screamed for credence and never allowed Grey to truly lose himself in belief.

I returned my full attention to Grey, noticing that he was touching upon some of those issues. "...realized long ago that I thought of myself as..." Grey sighed, casting away his gaze, "well, God. Something like it, anyway." He waved that aside. "Nothing I did was beyond self-motivation, but my injury and time with these people has changed all of that. It was very refreshing to find something else to hold in awe."