In Every Eden (The Heroes We Can Afford)

Chapter 8: The Planetary's Problem

Soon after, the door opened and Khadi emerged in conversation with Carlo Vasca.

“Alright, Carlo, I'll look into it, but I can't promise you anything. For what it's worth, my gut says you're still wrong. This isn't their style.”

“So you say, but my gut, it says the opposite. It is proof we need to settle the difference, no?”

“And one way or the other, I'll get it, count on that.” Khadi caught Morgan's eye. “Listen, I'll contact your office the moment my people turn something up.”

“As you say. And I have business at the spaceport yet. Good day, Planetary.” Carlo Vasca nodded his perfectly coiffed head and continued on the way Susan and Hector had, with a speculative sideways glance at Morgan as he passed.

Khadi watched him go and then turned to Morgan, her eyes shrouded and unreadable.

“Thought you would have been long gone with your crew.”

“I needed to talk to you, Khadi. Figured we might be busy later.” He shrugged again and let the corner of his mouth test out a small smile.

“You think so?” She snorted out a laugh despite herself. “I had forgotten that Earthman's talent for understatement.”

The laugh was only on her face for a moment and then it fell away.

“If you're hoping to talk your way out of this, save your breath. What I said in that room still holds. The facts are the facts.”

“Damn it all, Khadi, this is me! I know how much the Work means. You've got to know I'd never do anything against it.”

“Got to? You telling me what to do on my own moon?” She stiffened visibly and her scowl got deeper.

“Come on. What is all this? It's me, Khadi. Morgan Gannis. Look at me. Just look at me. It's still me. I'm as the same as I ever was.”

“Yeah. Same as you ever were.” She closed her eyes and sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose with her fingers. She seemed to deflate a little bit, bringing out her deep lines and the scars on her face, the lines a little deeper and the scars a bit more numerous than he remembered under the harsh artificial lights.

“And that's the problem. You say to look at you? Well I am, and you know what I'm seeing? The same man I worked Oclla with ten years ago. The very same man.”

“And that's a problem?”

“Morgan, look at me. Then look at yourself again. I'm older. Don't bother flattering me, I am and I don't mind it. Well I don't mind it most mornings anyway. But you aren't. How much of the last ten years have you spent in the Sleep, in the long dark between stars?”

“I... I don't know. A fair bit, I guess.”

“Let's try it another way. How many years subjective has it been for you, huh? Two, maybe three?”

“I suppose. Yeah, about like three.”

“That's two-thirds of the last decade you just slept through, Morgan. Well I've lived every minute of the last ten years. And lived them hard. The war's not going well, and we're down to drafting kids who hadn't been born when the first shots were fired. I’ve commanded them myself, children young enough to be my own, for two tours in the Crescent Systems. That's why I've been jumped from platform skipper straight to Planetary, because there's nobody else with any experience left.”

Morgan opened his mouth again but this time no easy answer came rolling out, so he shut it and let her go on.

“So you see why my problem isn't that you've changed, but that you haven't. And the rest of the universe has. I have. That's what makes you one of them. You share their time.”

The hum of the city's life-support systems filled the empty silence between them.

“Well if I'm still the same man I was then, ask yourself this, Khadi: would that man, the man you knew, ever do anything against the Work?”

She narrowed her eyes and gave him a long, hard look. Then she closed them and took a deep breath. When she spoke again, there was a hint of a laugh in it.

“Damn your blue eyes, Morgan. Just stupid enough to cut through to the basics of things, just like always. No matter how long I live I will never understand that.”

“Well? You going to answer? Would he?”

“No. No, he wouldn't. Not the Morgan I knew.” She opened her eyes and shook her head. “Or thought I knew. I've never known all of you, have I?”

“Who does? But you know enough. Let me prove it to you. Give me something to do with my hands. If we're going to be stranded here, I'll need something to keep me busy anyway. Words are just words, so let me do it with actions.”

Suspicion lived in her glare.

“You're plumb crazy if you think I'm going to go straight from accusing you of sabotaging my platforms to putting you on one.”

“Then I'm crazy, what's new about that? You said yourself, I'm one hell of a terraformer. And with the Safa down, the other platforms will have to pick up the slack. You can't tell me they won't need extra hands.”

She sighed.

“I will regret this. I know it. But I guess I'm starting to get senile at last.”

“So, you'll let me help?”

“Because you are a hell of a terraformer and...” she stopped for a moment and then continued, softer. “And because I guess I want you to prove yourself to me as much as you want to.”

He waited for her to continue.

“Alright. Report to the labor office in the morning. I'll fix it up with them. Truth be told, it will be good to see you with dirt under your nails again. It's where you belong.”

“I belong where I'm at, Khadi. That's all. You should get to know my crew, they're good folk, underneath it all, spacers or no.”

“They are what they are. And I am what I am. And the day is going to come when you're going to have to decide which you are, Morgan, or life is going to decide for you.”

She shook her head and chuckled and didn't say goodbye as she walked away.

He wondered where Susan had got to. A mighty thirst had suddenly come upon him.