Last Song (Heinlein's Finches Book 3) Read online

  Alya frowns. “Problems? What kind of problems?”

  “Serious problems. History repeating itself kind of problems.”

  “Gods. And Kolya was caught up in it?”

  “No. Not in the version I saw, anyway. You went over there and fixed it, somehow. Nothing happened. It could have been terrible, but it wasn’t, because of what you did.”

  “What the hell did we do?”

  “I didn’t see that. I just saw you going over to see Kolya, going off on some kind of mission, and saving them all.”

  “Dee, that’s not much to go by!”

  “I know. I’m sorry. You weren’t alone. You had local help, but I couldn’t see them properly. One of them seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place him. It felt a lot like someone I know, but different, too. The other one was a total stranger. But the three of you, you were definitely there. Or you, Luke, and someone who loves you. Not Kolya: I’d have recognized him. That’s all I’ve got.”

  “What if we don’t go?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t see that. But the problem was serious. And I saw you going, which makes sense. Now that I’ve told you, you’re not going to risk ignoring this, are you?”

  “Of course not.” Alya sighs. “Godsdammit. I wish we had clearer parameters. You didn’t see the specifics of the mission?”

  “Not a damn thing. You were looking for something or someone to stop whatever it was, so that you-know-who wouldn’t start you-know-what all over again.”

  “Well, that’s clear as muck. And we did it?”

  “Yes. The tragedy was averted.”

  “Ok, then. I guess we’re going to have to go by that. If there’s nothing else, I guess we best let you go.”

  “Actually, I need to talk to Luke.”

  “You what?”

  “Luke. I need to talk to him, in private. It won’t take long.”

  Alya looks boggled, but she shrugs and gets off her chair.

  “Ok, then. Until the next time. I’ll try and get in touch with you as soon as we’re home and dry, ok?”

  “Sure. Break a leg, sweetheart.”

  “I’ll bring an axe handle along just for that purpose.”

  Raj waves vaguely at Dee and walks off with Alya. I stay in my seat, wondering what the fuck could possibly be going on. I’ve never actually had a proper conversation with Dee. I was around a few times while she was talking to Alya, but that’s it. The first time she told me that one day we’d meet properly, but later on I figured she may have just been humoring me. I had a massive crush on her when I was a kid. I have no idea what the hell she might want with me now. She looks so damn uncomfortable that, whatever it is, I’m pretty sure it’s going to suck.

  “Luke, I don’t know how to tell you this.”

  “Small words and short sentences, for preference.”

  “Don’t make light, please. This is serious. You need to know this, and you need to think about it. Maybe Alya should know it too, but I know that if I tell her it will affect her decision. More than that, she’d make your decision for you. Does that sound reasonable?”

  “It sounds like Alya, for sure, but it’s hard to tell without knowing what this is all about.”

  She takes a deep breath and lets it all out. “In my dream, I saw the three of you set off, but I didn’t see you come back. Just Alya and her lover.”

  “Oh.” I’m sure I should have something more meaningful to say, but I can’t think of a damn thing.

  “You just disappeared. You were there, and then you weren’t. I didn’t see what happened to you, but whatever it was stopped you being there.”

  “So you think I’m gonna die out there?”

  She flinches. “It’s not impossible. I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t.”

  “But everyone else gets home fine?”

  “As far as I could tell, yes.”

  “Alya and Raj, in your dream, they’re ok at the end? Healthy, happy?”

  “I couldn’t see anything that specific, but I didn’t see any problems.”

  “Alright. Thank you for letting me know.”

  “What? That’s it?”

  “I need to think about this, is all. It’s a lot to take in.”

  She looks like she’s on the verge of tears. “I could be wrong. It could all be a lot of nonsense. I just thought you had a right to know.”

  “Yes. Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

  “Luke? Don’t make any rash decisions, please. And think about talking it through with Alya. She’ll kill me when she finds out I kept it from her.”

  “No, she won’t. She’ll be really angry for a while and then she’ll accept that you did the right thing. Don’t worry about it, ok?”

  She shakes her head. “You’re telling me not to worry? After what I just told you?”

  “Yes. Worrying won’t change anything, anyway. I’m going to go now. I have some thinking to do.”

  She doesn’t look convinced, but I don’t give her a chance to object. I push the com button and cut her off.

  I don’t know what I expected from our chat. I didn’t expect this, though, that’s for sure. I also didn’t expect the whole mystery-mission-to-save-the-world prelude, so I started off lost.

  I don’t understand how the future could be foretold. I don’t actually believe anyone can have that kind of power. I’ve not met many people with psi-bilities, and I’m not sure how much of that I believe in, anyway. It all seems a bit far-fetched, but that’s only half the problem with this.

  For someone to see the future, it must be fixed. In that case, I’m going to die in weeks or months, and there’s nothing I can do about that. If the future is not fixed and what Dee saw was only a possibility, then every part of it is changeable, including us going, Alya and Raj getting home safe, and the mission being a success. I can’t get my head around this. There are too many variables.

  I try a different approach. There’s a damn good chance that I’m going to die on this trip, but Alya, Raj, Kolya, and a whole damn planet will be ok.

  There’s a damn good chance I’m going to die on this trip.

  I’m going to die on this trip.

  This is fucking brilliant.

  It’s going to be over. I won’t have to live with whatever is chewing its way through my chest. I won’t have to pretend I’m ok, keep failing, and hurt those around me. I won’t be hurting Alya or Raj – they’ll be upset, no doubt, but it won’t be something I did.

  Ever since the shit hit the fan, I’ve been so damn tempted to end it. I knew all along I wouldn’t have the guts to do anything painful: if I could deal with pain, I wouldn’t need a way to get away from it. I also knew I wouldn’t be brave enough to do anything that could fail and leave me alive and fucked up. I’d need a foolproof, painless way out. That’s not really a problem, not with me having access to Lara’s lab. People die all the time from connecting the wrong gas canisters to their suits and not realizing it. They don’t feel a thing, apparently. They just stop.

  I knew I was bullshitting myself all along, though. I knew I couldn’t do it. I may fantasize about it, about what I would use, about how I could arrange things in order to upset people the least, about the best time of night to do it, which doors to lock, where to leave out the message, what to say, but I knew I wouldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t do something like that to Alya. She cares about me. I don’t have the right to hurt her just to cut down on my own hurt. I’ve hurt her enough already.

  This is different, though. My life isn’t worth as much as the welfare of a whole planet, particularly a planet with Kolya on it. If something happens to me while we’re on our mission, Alya won’t be happy, but I can’t help that. I can’t make any other choice. She wouldn’t, in my place. I know her, and she’d go ahead, regardless of any risk to herself, and she’s got Raj to think about. She would do the right thing and save a world. She can’t blame me for this. Nobody can.

  She could blame herself, though. She will probably
make up some bullshit story where it’s all her fault because she dragged me into this to start with, because Dee is her friend, because she didn’t tell me to fuck off when I was sixteen, or some other crap. She’ll revisit our entire shared history and rewrite it to put this on herself. She does that with everything. I need to make sure that doesn’t happen.

  I let my head fall against the back of my chair, and repeat it to myself: it’s going to be over soon. It’s going to be fucking over.

  I’m so lost in my thoughts that a knock on the wall startles me. Alya is peering through the doorway.

  “Luke? You’ve been here ages. We didn’t want to disturb you guys.”

  “Sorry. We got done a while ago. I’ve just been thinking stuff through.”

  “What did she want to say to you?”

  What the fuck can I say to her? “She wanted to make sure that I thought about this. That I understood the risks. To be honest, I don’t understand half of it. But if I’ve got to risk myself to save a planet, that makes sense, doesn’t it? The needs of the many and all that.”

  “There’s more to life than numbers, kid.”

  “These are big numbers, though. How many people are on Pollux?”

  “No idea. Not as many as there were before the Fed tried to wipe them out, that’s for sure.”

  “I want to go. If I did anything else, I couldn’t live with myself. I’m not just following you guys. I’d go on my own. You get that, right?”

  “Ok, then. If you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.”

  She walks over to me and pushes the hair off my face. It’s kind of a big deal. She’s not a touchy-feely kinda person, apart from the occasional bone-crunching hug or a sharp poke with a finger. She’s the tiniest adult I’ve ever met and I’m way too tall, so my ribs aren’t safe around her.

  “Well, kid, I don’t know what Dee said to you, but you look better. Not so tightly wound.”

  “I feel better.”

  “Maybe this is what you needed all along: a sense of purpose, or an adventure.”

  “Maybe. Alya?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  “What for?”

  “Everything.”

  Her eyes get kind of wet. “What are you getting all mushy for?”

  “Dunno. But we’re going on a mission. Like in the old days.”

  “In the old days we weren’t on any damn mission. We were bumbling around from disaster to disaster for no discernible reason.”

  “We had some fun, too.”

  “That we did.” She sighs. “Are you ready for some food?”

  “Who’s cooking?”

  “Raj.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “And if I’d said that I was?”

  “I would have asked you what was wrong with Raj, and whether you needed help to space his body.”

  “Very funny. Come on, then.”

  It takes over a week to get to Pollux, even going at full speed. The time seems to go faster, though. Everything seems a little bit easier. Knowing that it will all be over soon makes it easier to deal with stuff. This is just the last push forward. Today sucks, but that doesn’t matter so much because it will all stop sucking soon. Somehow, that makes today suck less.

  Things are getting easier between us, too. Alya isn’t as worried about me, which means that I don’t have to worry so much about what I’m doing to her. Raj is happy because she’s happy. It’s a weight off my chest.

  My chest still hurts like a motherfucker, on and off, but I can sit with it and let it happen. It’s not so bad that I can’t stand it for a while – I know that, because I already have. I won’t have to stand it forever. Until then, I can deal.

  I find myself able to enjoy stuff again – well, not full-on enjoy it, not quite, but remember that I thought that it was good. Alya puts on some music one day, and I hear it and realize that I’m going to miss it. I’m going to miss my music. I’m going to miss my guitar. I’m going to miss Alya and Raj like hell. I try to be really present when I’m with them, now, because I know that our time is running out. I try to be present in whatever I’m doing, because it could be the last time I do it.

  I’m not scared. I’m sure I will be, when it comes to it. I’m not brave. But for now, thinking of myself ending is such a relief that it leaves no room for fear. I hope I don’t cock it up when it comes to it. I hope I go easy.

  I’m not brave enough, or not dead enough inside: reaching Pollux freaks me out. We’re crawling our way there, which makes it worse. Alya slowed us down and cloaked us up way before we got to normal detection range.

  “Sorry guys, but we’ve got to take it steady.I don’t know what systems they use or what they’re like with unexpected visitors. I don’t know how they feel about Anteians, either.”

  Raj squeezes her shoulder. “I thought everyone loved us.”

  “I’m not sure. You aren’t Fed, but you get on with them well enough.”

  “We have nothing the Fed want, we are useful to them, and we’d blow them to smithereens if they tried to take us on. I wouldn’t class that as ‘getting on’.”

  “You have a mutual non-aggression pact with them. That’s more than Pollux ever got.”

  “They did better than anyone expected them to.”

  They keep chatting away about nothing much, probably to ease their tension. I wish I could do something to ease mine. The bigger Pollux gets on our screen, the more my insides clench.

  I’m wound so fucking tight that when a sudden bump rattles our ship and sets our alarms off, I fall right off of my seat.

  “What the fuck is going on?” screams Raj over the clanging.

  Alya is groping at her controls. “Ship nearly fucking hit us. They’re inside our cloak now.”

  “What do you mean, inside our cloak?”

  “They’re under us, close enough we could spit on them. Matching our course. I don’t know how they didn’t hit us.” She turns off the alarm noise, but the lights keep flashing. “Gods, they’re fucking close.”

  The com starts making a racket. Alya fumbles with the switches until it clears up, audio only, and a man’s voice fills our ship.

  “Well be with you, fair visitors. I must apologize for the somewhat intrusive nature of this first contact. However, we don’t know who you are, we weren’t expecting you, and you’re armed and cloaked inside our space. Call us silly, but that’s the kind of thing that makes us a tad suspicious. Now, before you decide to do anything regrettable, may I point out to you that my ship is too close to yours for you to point your weapons at me, while my guns are aimed right at your belly. Blowing you up into next week wouldn’t bother me much, but it would likely scratch my paint. So, in the spirit of friendship and mutual understanding, I suggest you disarm your fucking guns, turn your com to video, and keep your hands where I can see them until we’ve got this sorted out. How’s that for a plan?”

  Alya turns to look at Raj, who nods at her. She speaks in the com as she operates her controls.

  “Following your instructions as I speak and as quickly as I can. I would appreciate it if you could not shoot us while I’m doing so. We come in peace.”

  “Sure. I’ll take you to my leaders, if you don’t make me kill you.”

  Once the guns are offline, she fiddles with the com to go to video. Our screen shows a dude about Raj’s age sprawled in the pilot’s seat. He’s looking way too relaxed. Then again, it’s his guns pointed up our ass. Maybe he’s cool with that.

  “Alright then. Now that we’re all here, would you be so kind as to tell me the purpose of your visit?”

  “We’re here to see our uncle. Friend of the family, really.”

  “And his name?”

  “Kolya. Nikolai Ivanov.”

  He shakes his head. “Not helping.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve got at least three of them. Can you be more specific?”

  “Big, tall guy. Mid fifties. Animal train
er. Good cook. Plays the violin.”

  The guy’s face splits into a grin. “Oh, Kolya! You should have said.”

  “I did say…” Alya trails off and squints at him. “Hang on a moment. I know you. Where do I know you from?”

  His grin disappears and he tenses up. “You tell me.”

  Her eyes turn inwards for a moment, then she gawks. “Ash McGee. You’re Ash McGee, aren’t you? Gods, you look different!”

  “I haven’t gone by that in years. Who the fuck are you?”

  “We met at the Academy. Alya Pax. I don’t go by that now. You were training to be a floater.” She sounds breathless. “You were… Well…”

  He tilts his head. “I was kind of fucked up. Yes, I remember you. What does the Patrol want with Pollux, and on an Anteian ship?”

  “Oh, no no no.” Alya flaps her hands about. “I quit years ago.”

  “You quit?”

  “Yeah. I ran away with the circus.”

  Now it’s his turn to gawk. “You what?”

  “Ran away with the circus. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  He stares at her for a while, then he shakes his head and his grin comes back. “That’d make for a fine obituary. Ok, then. Let me talk to my people. One Alya Pax and assorted gentlemen, visiting Nikolai Ivanov.”

  “Tell him that Raj is here. Rajesh Cadwaladr.”

  “Bit of a mouthful, that, but I will try. And him?”

  “Luke.”

  “Just Luke?”

  “Yup.”

  “Thank the gods for that. Alright. We’re gonna switch the sound off, but we’ll be keeping an eye on you. Shouldn’t be long, if they can find him. Don’t do anything silly. I hate to blow up people I’ve been introduced to.”

  As soon as the sound goes off, Raj turns to Alya.

  “Darling, who the fuck is that?”

  “Patrolman. Ex-patrolman now, I guess. He was one of those who got sent to the Academy for retraining after Pollux. He was seriously messed up back then, but a lot of them were. He looks different now. Like, really different. I wouldn’t have recognized him if it weren’t for his voice.”