"Three Suitcases"

 

 

 

 

“You’re what?” Ruben asked, staring at him.

“Leaving,” Andrew replied, opening the drawers and starting to stack his shirts on the bed. “For good. With Lenore and Jaran.”

“With the alien?”

“With the alien.” How had he fit all his life in a suitcase the first time? Technically the second, he supposed, if he counted divorcing his wife, and he should. It felt like another lifetime ago, though. “The Ai-Naidari Emperor exiled him, and Lenore and I are going with him, because otherwise whatever world he ends up on is going to kill him. Ai-Naidar don’t do well alone.”

Ruben moved between him and the dresser. “Start from the beginning. And this time don’t leave anything out.”

“I didn’t leave anything out the first time.” He met the man’s eyes, a man who’d become a trusted subordinate… that he’d had to learn to trust in that role, the way the Ai-Naidar didn’t. They just took it for granted, that you would have good people beneath you, and above you, too. That you could start working from a position of strength, with the assumption that everyone around you was going to support you. What would it be like, to build a human society with assumptions like that? Was it even possible?

He was going to find out.

“Sit,” he said, pointing at the chair in the corner of the room. Once the other man had done so, he said, “You know I’m in love with him.”

“No,” Ruben said. “I don’t. I know you’ve been seeing him with Lenore. I know you like him. But that doesn’t mean anything.”

How to put this. Andrew looked up at the ceiling and blew out a breath. A thousand ways for humans to describe the act, and he had to choose one with the right nuance. “I’ve been sleeping with him.”

A very long pause. Very long, for Ruben, who talked as fast as he thought. “That doesn’t mean anything either—”

“I didn’t say I was screwing him,” Andrew said, trying not to be irritated. “I didn’t say I was experimenting with him. I said I was sleeping with him. As in ‘I care enough to still be there in the morning.’ Maybe I should have said I was making love to him. Would that make it clear enough?”

Ruben stared at him, hands on his knees and both feet planted flat on the ground. “An alien.”

“Jaran,” Andrew said, and started putting the shirts in the suitcase. “An Ai-Naidari. Not human, but a person. Not an animal.”

“They think of us that way.”

“Jaran doesn’t.”

Ruben stared at him, then said, “I didn’t think you swung that way.”

“Which way?” Andrew asked, not sure whether to be tired or amused. Mostly tired, he thought. He wanted all this to be over with already. The interstices were always hard. “Liking men? Liking aliens? Liking threesomes?”

“Everyone likes threesomes,” Ruben said dismissively, and then stopped abruptly. “You’re not joking. You and—” He covered his face with a hand, rubbed it. “So you’ve been sleeping with this guy, and his wife objected, and that got him exiled?”

“No, we’ve been sleeping with him, and his society objected, and that got him exiled.” Andrew shook his head. “Look, this part of it… there’s no point discussing it. We’re going with him. The question is what you’re going to do with the people who are left behind.”

Ruben straightened. “Don’t you tell me—”

“That I’m leaving you with the outpost? Who else?”

“I’m not qualified!”

“You’re a damn sight more qualified than anyone else on this rock,” Andrew said. “You’ve been my right hand man since we left Earth, Ruben.”

“I’m not a diplomat, though. I’m a soldier. Was a soldier.”

“Still are. Some things stay in your blood.” Andrew gave up packing and sat on the bed, facing the other man. “There’s not going to be much here left when Lenore and I go. Because we’re taking as many people with us as we can, and I’m hoping that’s almost everyone.”

Shock made Ruben’s caramel-colored skin look gray. It wasn’t a good look. But better here in private, away from both the rest of the outpost and the Ai-Naidar, than in company. “And now you’re gonna ask me why. And I’m going to tell you: we finally get a chance at what we wanted in the first place. Which was to colonize a world of our own. We got here, Ruben, and these people were already here. And they were willing to let us land and make what might as well be called an embassy, because that’s what it is. But they wouldn’t let us overrun this place, or make it ours. But this new world… we’ve got their permission to do what we want with it.”

“Their permission,” Ruben repeated with a curled lip.

“Yeah. And their transportation,” Andrew said. “So instead of spending a few decades in a ship, hoping the world we find at the end of it can support us, we step across a Gate onto a world guaranteed to be able to hold us, where we can thrive. Where we can have kids, spread out, and not worry about them shooting the satellites out of orbit.”

“They don’t even—”

“Yes,” Andrew interrupted. “They do. They know about it, and they’re letting us keep it up there. But the moment we step out of line here, they’re gonna bring the hammer of God down on us. You saw the reports that came out of the hospital about those rifles they shot their own man down with? Care to guess what the hell made that wound? Because they’re baffled, and so am I. You’ve seen more combat than I have. You tell me what it was.”

Ruben grimaced. “Fine. So we’re not familiar with how it worked. It doesn’t mean they can come after us and win, Andrew. You told me yourself they don’t have wars. We’ve done nothing but have wars since we climbed onto two legs.”

“And I’m tellin’ you, Ruben, I saw the look in that man’s eyes,” Andrew said. “That Emperor of theirs isn’t a fake. And I don’t think he’d make threats, even implicit ones, he didn’t think he could back. We don’t know how they put those Gates up, but I’m guessin’ anyone who can do that can freakin’ drop one on us. We’d vanish from the universe and no one would know where we’d gone.”

“And this is the man you want to take a gift from? Of an entire world? What’s to stop him from coming after you there?”

Andrew paused. Made himself remember the agonizing interview in the capital, which he wanted very much to not remember because of the pain it had caused Jaran, and because of the uncertainties it had created in him. He brought up the memory of Thirukedi’s face and said, “You’re gonna have to trust me on this one. They don’t want Jaran back. At least not in our lifetimes. They’re sending him away because we poisoned him, made him no good for their society, and they want to push him away before he does something to it they can’t control. No, if we go through that Gate, Ruben, they’re not gonna ask us to come back.” He snorted. “Besides, what do they need one more planet for? They’ve got five, six, who knows how many. They can make Gates and go to whole new ones. They haven’t even filled up the ones they’ve got!”

“Must be nice,” Ruben muttered.

“Yeah,” Andrew said. “And I aim to see if we can figure out how they succeeded, and maybe bring some of that home with us.”

“You’re really leaving,” Ruben murmured.

“Far as I’m concerned, I’m already gone,” Andrew said. “Better start picking out your command team and makin’ your pitches, because I’m going to do my damnedest to take as many people as I can with us.”

Ruben frowned. Andrew ignored him and resumed packing, opening the drawer for his pants. Would he need the uniform anymore? Best to bring them anyway. The colony would still need a command structure, even if it was going to be Ai-Naidari influenced.

“All of you and one alien,” Ruben said finally. “And that’s worth going for.”

“Even if it wasn’t worth going for him,” Andrew said. “It’s worth it for a real chance at a world we can have.” He drew in a breath and finished. “But it is worth it for him.”

Ruben watched him pack in silence, then said abruptly, “Aw hell, you’re taking our best translator with you!”

Andrew grinned. “You’ll get by.”

“You’re not going,” Laurence said, grabbing her wrist. He shook it lightly. “Lenore. You’re not. What will our parents say?”

“They’ll wish me every happiness, the way they did when we left Earth,” she said, sliding her hand out of his grasp. “I’ll remind you, we both decided to go on this trip. Why do I have to be the one to come back? You go back, if you’re so eager to make them feel better.”

“I’m not the miracle daughter they never expected to have.”

She stopped, throwing her bag on the bed. “Is that what this is about? Again? About you being adopted?”

“No,” he muttered.

“They don’t love you any less because I came along after they thought it was impossible for them to have their own kids,” Lenore said, forcing herself to moderate her voice. It was so hard, though. She was done here. Jaran was somewhere over on the throne world, awaiting word from them. She missed him, missed the sanity of Kherishdar, missed speaking the language, missed touching fur softer than velveteen. She was going to lose a lot of that, of course—Jaran alone did not make an entire society. But he would carry some of Kherishdar with him wherever he went, and if she was lucky, they could turn that seed into a better society.

Even if they didn’t, it would be better than living here in an uncomfortable détente with the aliens she wanted so badly to belong to.

“Laurence,” she began, then sighed. She put her hand on his shoulder and pulled him over, hugged him. “Laurence, I love you, but you can’t protect me forever. “

She felt his hands rest on her back, but she could tell he was upset by how his arms trembled. “You want to go away. With people who tried to kill me.”

She pressed her forehead against his chest, pushing past her exasperation. “Laurence, you started yelling at one of their heads of state. If you started yelling at the President, getting in his face about something, you’d better believe the Secret Service would have done something about it.”

“Sure,” he said, angry. “They would have stepped between us. They would have tried to pull me away. But they wouldn’t have tried to kill me, like a rabid animal, like something they couldn’t reason with. Lenore, they’re not like us. They’re not just not like us, they don’t think of us as people.”

“Yet,” she said, and leaned away. “They’ve never met anyone like us—”

“How do you know?”

It was the first thing he’d said since she started falling in love with Jaran that gave her pause. Because… she didn’t know. And Laurence had grown up with her, the perfect baby sister, the miracle child he’d doted over, no less than their parents. He could see it instantly in her eyes, the uncertainty.

“How do you know you’ll be different?” he asked.

“Because,” she said at last. “I already am. He’s been with me, Laurence, and he loves me.”

“That’s what all the guys say who cheat on their wives. He’s got one, doesn’t he?” He folded his arms.

“It’s not like with humans—”

“Yes, exactly. It’s not. So how do you know that’s not going to turn around and bite you in the face? Right now, it’s all ‘they’re not like humans in a good way.’ What about when they’re going to be not like us in a bad way? What about when he gets tired of you and wants to go home?”

“It won’t matter,” Lenore said, quiet. “Because he can never go home.” She met his eyes, said the words, even knowing how little chance there was of his acquiescence. “You could come with us.”

He snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“I mean it, Laurence. This will be our world—”

“One given to us by the aliens? How do you know?”

More firmly, she continued, “Our world. To colonize properly, the way we can’t do this one. We can build something there. Maybe… maybe we can do the job we wish we could do here, there. By showing them that we can be civilized.”

“Why do we have to show them anything?” Laurence said. “They’re not any better than us, Lenore. They’re just different. Different isn’t always better.”

“It’s not always worse, either. And in their case, I don’t think it is.”

“Then you go,” he said. “Go… make this fantasy with your alien, for as long as that lasts. I’m going to stay here and meet the ship that’s coming after us.”

“If you come with us, there will be only one Ai-Naidari for you to hate,” Lenore said, frustrated. “Why do you want to stay on a world with an entire town of them?”

“Because there’s no question here about our roles,” Laurence said. “No lies. We know we don’t trust one another. We know where the lines are. I’d rather that, than go off to try to make some hybrid society where no one knows where anyone stands… including the people who ostensibly now “own” the world, but only because some aliens gave it to them.”

Lenore stared at him for a moment. Then said, “That’s… the most Ai-Naidari thing you’ve ever said.”

Laurence’s glance then was fulminating. He looked away to hide it from her and said, “You really want to go. Throw everything away. Never see your family again.”

“There’s no reason you can’t change your mind and come see me,” she said. “I’m not giving up communicating with my family just because I’m going somewhere else. But Laurence… this is why I came. To learn, to explore, to do things and be things no one’s ever done or been before. I thought it was why you had come too.” She paused, bit her lip. “Come with me? I’ll miss you if you stay.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to miss me,” he said, and quit the room.

Lenore sat on the bed and covered her face until the urge to shake stopped. She loved Laurence. Had loved and looked up to him since she was born. But she could not, would not check her course for him. In that, she thought ruefully, she was still more human than Ai-Naidari, for all her desperate desire for ribbons of her own.

Heartsick but resolved, she returned to packing.

“You cannot mean it,” Jaran said as he stared at the Heir to Qenain, aghast. The words that tumbled out came in Implacable, though he had no right anymore to use it. “You must not. I will not allow it. There is no future there, Givela!”

Unperturbed, his niece—his very pregnant niece—returned his gaze with all the serenity of a woman who’d made up her mind. She’d always been a touch headstrong, Givela… a proper niece for someone whose esar was the kevej, the daring, the risk-taking, and a surprising one to have come out of his far more rigid sister. Givela had been born a tranquil spirit, but while she never raised her voice, nor argued, she also never wavered once she’d made up her mind. But this once, this very important once, she could not be allowed her head.

“I mean this,” he said. “I will apply to Thirukedi myself to have you barred from following me.”

“Thirukedi has already accepted my petition,” she replied.

He stopped, his horror complete.

“My irimkedi wishes to come with me, and my fathrikedi. Also, three of Qenain’s Guardians. That, I fear, is the balance of our new household… and it will not be a fruitful one. At least, not for long. My child will be the first and last to be born on alien soil.” She rested her hand on the curve beneath her breasts. “My Servants cannot have children, and all the Guardians are male. But even if we had more volunteers, I fear that Thirukedi would not allow it. I sense that He is well with us accompanying you in your exile, Father, but He does not want us to breed there. “

“No,” Jaran replied, hoarse. The very idea was abhorrent: a community of Ai-Naidar cut off from Kherishdar and the guiding touch of the God of Civilization? Who would want such a fate? Within a generation, would they even be Ai-Naidar anymore, absent the society of their peers? “I imagine not. But I cannot allow it. Givela… please. Stay home. You have a future here!”

“And what future is that?” she asked, stripping the grammars to show him the steel in her soul. “Qenain is broken, Uncle. What would I ascend to, now?”

“Thirukedi would find you a place—”

“My place,” she said firmly, “is with you.”

“Will you make that choice for your Winter’s Child as well?” he shot back, ears flattened. “Be reasonable, Niece! It is not one life you are throwing away, but two… six, if you count the others!”

She met his eyes, sudden, grave, so grave he couldn’t find insolence in it, only grief. “If it is throwing our lives away, Uncle… why are you doing it?”

 He sat abruptly, gracelessly, put his face in his hand, the layers of his sleeve dragging over his lap.

“You made your choice,” she said. “There must be something in these aunera worth giving up Kherishdar for.”

“I am not giving up Kherishdar for them,” he said, low. “I am leaving Kherishdar to save it from myself. Because I am tainted, Givela, and I love Kherishdar too much to spread maien.”

He heard the whisper of her robes as she crossed the room and settled on the floor at his knee, as she had as a child, fleeing to him to escape the exasperation of her mother... or coming to him to comfort him when it was he who was exasperated with the Lady. She rested her head against his leg, grounding him out of his sorrow with the familiar pressure. So much history. He had been grooming her to replace him since she was old enough to walk. She would have been magnificent. “You knew, though,” she said. “That your path would lead you here eventually. And still you continued.”

“Yes,” he said, hoarse.

“So there must be something in it worth pursuit. Is that not the purpose of your esar? The risks fulfilled, which become amazing things. And you did bring something amazing to Kherishdar, Uncle. The black blossom that will extend our lives. What else have you learned from these aunera?”

“Does it matter, if I am not there to see the fruits of it?” he asked, quiet.

“You have regret.”

“Of course I have regret,” he said. “But… I also have love. I don’t know how to choose between those things. That is why Thirukedi has done it for me, perhaps. Because there should be no such choice at all.”

“These creatures love you, then.”

He thought of Lenore, so wistful over Kherishdar’s peace, her yearning bled over into passion and a tenderness which she touched him. And of Andrew, who remained shy and reserved, and yet rested a hand on him with such wonder. He had no idea how to explain what it was to be trusted by people who trusted so little. He could feel the wounds in them that longed for a mending. The thirsts in them that he had unexpectedly quenched, not with water, but with wine, so that they were all intoxicated, and not sure if it was wise to drink so deeply. “They do. And I do not know if they love as often as we do. I don’t think… I don’t think that they can. It is not supported by their societies. It is…” He sought a word. “Dangerous. Transgressive.”

“Love is deviation?” she asked, startled.

That didn’t feel right. “Love is… rare and precious. To us also, but for them, it is as if they come into the world without its guarantee.” That felt closer. “Sometimes even their parents do not want them.”

She shivered. “How can that be? How can they survive that way?”

He thought of the wars Andrew had told him about, several long nights after Lenore had fallen asleep: two men, talking of things the human said were traditionally the work of men, though that had changed… as it must have, Jaran thought, for a world convulsed in eternal conflict must chew through its male population and hunger for new victims to fuel its destroying furnaces. He had paid close attention to those stories, of the complex web of relationships, good and bad, that resulted in so much death. “They don’t,” he said. He looked down at her. “And there is no guarantee that they will not re-create that world where we go. Do you still feel so certain of your desire?”

“But they will have us,” Givela said. “Surely we have some say in how the world is run?”

“There will be seven of us, and nearly a hundred of them. They will breed, and we will die out. How much say do you think we could have?”

“Well, if we die out, we will not live to see what they make of it, either way,” she said. “And meanwhile, you will have company. It is not enough to have love, Uncle. You must also have family. You will be no good to these alien lovers of yours if you wilt of grief.”

“And you don’t think I will to see you with me, consigned to exile?”

“I think you have no choice,” she said, unperturbed. “So you will grow resigned to it, and come to be glad of it in time. And I… I will see new things, and that will interest me more than overseeing the dissolution of Qenain.”

He felt it then: the spasm of pain that she was concealing so well. She had loved Qenain, had expected to run the capital world’s premier, and first, House of Flowers. Had been proud to be heir to a tradition that had resulted in the creation of all of the Ai-Naidari Houses of Flowers. Could he blame her for not wanting to be present at Qenain’s death? He sighed and rested a hand on her head, between the ears… felt her relax. They both knew the touch was his acquiescence.

Perhaps it was inevitable. Qenain had begun with transgression... with a Regal daring to love beneath the Wall of Birth. Its ending had been implicit in its inception, as with all things. Thirukedi had made that first transgression right. Was this, then, His doing so again? Or had Jaran gone so far there was no hope for healing?

“They’re all sure of it,” he said, turning again from the constant turmoil of his thoughts. “Not just you. You did not talk them into it.”

“They love you, Uncle,” she murmured. “It did not require much convincing. It would have been harder on them to be left behind.”

He bent until he could rest his brow against her glossy hair, and tried not to weep. As with the aliens, he was not sure whether to be grateful or shattered at this newest turn in his fate. But if the God of Civilization had permitted it, surely he was allowed to be a little more glad than unhappy.

“One Ai-Naidari child, born on alien soil,” Givela murmured. “I wonder what he or she will be like.”

His first instinct was to say ‘more alien than any human,’ for surely such a child would feel at home completely with neither human nor Ai-Naidari. Born between two worlds... it seemed a horrific fate, gaul made manifest. But because he was tired of misery, and because he could not bear the idea, he said instead, Implacable, “Loved. Very loved.”

Givela smiled and turned her face into his knee. “And I love you, Uncle. Now, help me up, and I will help you pack. We shall have to grow accustomed to doing without Servants.”

It was not the least of what they would be doing without. But because she was right, he rose to do as she suggested.