4 Erbe 1117: Girar – Tlianke/Hinterworlds (1205 B645766-9 M Ag O:1104 A 322 Na M4V M5D)
I went back to Inversion after my meeting with Dr. Korvusar yesterday, mainly because the beer was better there. I wound up staying long enough to get dinner. I wound up with something called Icefish, which tasted more-or-less like fish but was apparently a burrowing animal of some kind that lived in the ice.
I did get a few more cargoes sold, and I put in a few more bids. Then I went back to my room and started looking at cryptography. I got to the point of figuring out what it was that Dr. Korvusar was telling me to do before calling it a night.
I was a bit surprised when Saahna came in sometime during the night. I woke up long enough to realize who it was before falling asleep again.
She was awake and in fresher when I got up. I was checking my comp as she came out.
“Things not work out?” I asked without looking up.
“What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t expecting you back until lift.”
“No, nothing like that. I’ve been spending time with Jami and Shelly.” Something in the way she said that made me look up.
“Something wrong?”
“No, not really.”
“So, what’s wrong?”
She sighed. “Have you talked to Shelly lately?”
I shook my head. “Is this about her and Varan? I talked to her and told Varan to back off. Why?”
“That’s… part of it. Did she… did she say why she went to his room with him that night?”
“Not really. None of my business.”
“What did Varan say?”
I hesitated. “Nothing. Well, nothing about why she went with him anyway.”
“You know he keeps trying to talk to her.”
“Um… no? Neither of them has said anything to me.”
She glared levelly at me for several long moments. “As I said, Jami and I have spent the last few days with Shelly.”
“And?”
“She doesn’t feel like she’s part of the crew. That’s why she wound up with him that night. She feels like we left her waiting alone outside of that place and that we just went in without her.”
“Yeah, and I apologized for that. What else can I do?”
“She’s still nervous around Varan.”
I sighed. “I told him to back off. I’ll… talk to him again.”
“No. He’s been behaving himself, but hanging out with us and… she’s uncomfortable. You need to spend some time with him.”
“Me? What?”
“You two used to be inseparable.”
“Well… yeah, we did a lot together. But… I’m the Captain now. I’ve got more to do while we’re down.”
“That’s the problem. You used to spend time with us. You have to decide if you want to be our friend or our Captain.”
“What?”
“Shelly was in a bad place because she thought we were ignoring her. Varan was in a bad place because he had just broken up with Karma. And you, as Captain, didn’t handle either the way you should have.”
“Hey, I had no idea what was going on!”
She nodded. “But… you should have been. If you had been hanging out with us, then you would have picked up on it.”
That stung. “Hey, you’ve always seemed to find a way to avoid me on our downtime!”
I saw her tense, but she shook her head. “No, not always. And you know that. But, even when I wasn’t there, you hung out with Varan. He… looks up to you. And now he feels rejected by you; like since you became Captian, you don’t want to hang out with him anymore. That’s why he’s been acting the way he has lately.”
I sighed. “So… what do I need to do?”
“Hang out with him more? And Jami and Shelly. And me, for that matter.”
“Oh?”
“I… think we’ve gotten past that now, but…”
I sighed. “I’ve got to do trades on downtime. It… takes time.”
“That much? Look, I know you. You’re probably spending half your time feeling sorry for yourself.” She walked over and kissed my cheek. “I’m heading out for the next few days.”
“Oh. Yeah. Great. You say I need to spend more time with you, then you announce you’re going away for a few days.”
It was her turn to sigh. “I’m going down to where it’s warm, with Jami and Shelly. We’re going to have some girl-time together. You need to spend some time with Varan.”
“OK. Fine.”
“See you in a few days.” She turned and headed for the door.
“Wait!” I yelled. She stopped and turned back to me.
“Captain Anna had Jacobs. Do I have you?”
There was a very long pause. “You do. Honestly… if you weren’t who you are, then I would have found another ship long ago.”
“Really?” I was surprised.
“Really.”
There was a long silence.
“What… what do I need to do? I don’t want to lose you.”
I saw her relax, though she continued to look away for several seconds. Finally, she looked back at me.
“We’re with you because we think you will keep doing the right things for us. Maybe Doctor Korvusar is right. I don’t know. But… I love you. Mistakes and all… I love you.”
I stepped forward and embraced her. “Once I met you, I knew I never wanted anyone else.”
She returned the embrace. “Me too.”
We held each other for a long time.
Finally, she pulled away. “You do need to talk to Varan. And Shelly, when we get back.”
“I will.”
“Yes, you said. But… I know you and Varan are friends. I do. But… He’s still making Shelly uncomfortable. And she wants to be part of the crew but thinks you don’t want her. So… you need to fix it.”
I sighed. “I’ll try.”
“Good.” She leaned forward and kissed my forehead, then pulled away. “See you in a few. Let me know if there is an emergency.” She gave a half-wave then left before I could think of anything to say.
—-
I just stood there for a long time, trying to decide how I felt. I trusted Saahna, but… it still felt like a rejection. I eventually pinged Varan. He responded almost immediately.
“What?” I could tell he was annoyed.
“Meet at Samone’s in a few? I need to hang out with someone for a while.”
“So, I guess Saahna ran off on you too?”
“Um… yeah. So… meet?”
“Fine. I’ll be there as soon as I figure out where this Samone’s is.” He cut off.
I sighed. I wasn’t looking forward to this, but I grabbed my pack and headed out.
—-
Varan was already sitting at the table nearest the door when I entered. I sighed; he knew better. I didn’t say anything and just dropped into the chair opposite him.
He looked up. “So… what do you need?”
“Just looking to hang out for a while. You’ve been out while I’ve been dealing. What’s around?”
“Saahna dump you too?”
“What? No. Saahna is her own person, she can do whatever she wants. If she wants to go off on her own while down, then she does. I finally accepted that long ago.”
“Yeah. I’ve been trying to be nice to Shelly, but she still isn’t interested.”
I shook my head. “She… isn’t. She’s pretty upset about what happened back on Tlianke. Nothing against you, but… she thinks it was a mistake.”
“She didn’t act like that.”
“She does. I get it, you’re doing the best you can but… Don’t even try. That was an opening that has passed, You had one night together. Accept that and move on.”
He frowned. “Hey, she was pretty interested…”
“Hey!” I said, annoyed at his reaction. “That was over a week ago. And, she now thinks it was a mistake. You need to accept that or… you’ll have all kinds of problems. Remember when you said that hooking up with Carma was a mistake? Why didn’t you go back to Kupakii with her?”
“Because she…” he started to respond, then I saw his expression change. There was a long pause.
“Yeah. That didn’t work, did it.”
“Shelly is saying the same thing. ‘It didn’t work.’ Respect her on that.”
He sighed. “I’ve backed off. I’m just trying to be friendly to her.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you are. But… she’s in a sensitive mood right now. Honestly…” I briefly paused, wondering how much of what she had confided in me that I should share.
“She… isn’t really that interested in… anything intimate. She told me that the night she boxed herself into a corner. I wasn’t lying; we really didn’t do anything. You know about her netcast, right?”
He nodded but didn’t say anything.
“Apparently, a lot of her viewers were worried about the fact that she wasn’t with anyone. She… doesn’t want to be with anyone. But she covered that by joking that she was holding out for a ship’s Captain.”
“Then she wound up on the Grayswandir.”
He shook his head. “Why not say that she just wasn’t interested?”
“Maybe the people on Boilingbrook don’t accept that? We’re Travellers. We know that things are different everywhere, but most systems only know about themselves. I guess not wanting to be with someone is odd there.”
He sighed and lowered his head. “So why did she…”
It was my turn to sigh. “She hasn’t felt like she was part of the crew. You brought her inside that restaurant, remember? And you stayed with her after the rest of us left. That’s… how much she wants to be part of the crew. That’s how much she wants to be a Traveller.”
“So… what can I do? I mean… she wasn’t bad…”
“First… drop that. Second, interact with her as much as you need to, but don’t try too much outside of that. Eventually, she’ll be able to be around you again.”
He shook his head. “How do you and Saahna do it?”
“I have no idea. But, as long as it works…” I shrugged.
Anything he was planning to say was interrupted when Kanar came up. “Hey, I didn’t know you were friends of Derek here, you should have said!” He turned to me. “What do you need?”
“Let me get a Glitterbelt. And can we grab a booth?”
“Sure! Take the second one. I’ll bring your Fallout there. And some Tama leaves?”
I nodded, and he left for the bar. I stood up and gestured. “Let’s move to someplace a bit less open.”
Varan was frowning. “Making deals again?”
“Always.” I gestured again. “Let’s go.”
A few moments later, we were in the booth, and, after Kanar had brought my order, the curtain was closed.
“So,” he asked, grabbing some Tama leaves. “You’ve been here before?”
“Yes. And?”
“What did you get us involved with this time?”
“I got rid of that ‘special cargo’ we picked up on Tlianke.” I made air-quotes. “We don’t need to make any odd stops when we leave, which is a win as far as I’m concerned.”
“I guess. I wasn’t looking forward to that.” He looked away.
I waited for him to say something. When I didn’t, I asked, “So… what have you been up to while down?”
He shook his head. “Not much, really. I’ve been pretty much just following Jami, Saahna, and Shelly around, but… they kinda made it clear that they wanted some time away from all of us. Do’rex never spends his down-time with us. And you? You’re busy with ship stuff these days.”
“Not that busy,” I said, thinking of what Saahna had said. “And I need to make sure I’ve still got it anyway. Any plans for the evening?”
He smiled slightly. “While Saahna’s away, the Captain can play?”
“Her rules. I don’t mind playing by them.”
He leaned forward. “So… where to?”
—-
We wound up back at Happy/Joy. Yeah, the local places were much better, but I had an idea.
We hung out at the bar until I spotted a pair of off-worlders. Obviously, since they weren’t wearing the usual Tlianke jumpsuit and monocular. I had suggested that we change into our ship’s jackets, and so the two of them were quite happy to talk to a couple of Travellers instead of the locals.
It turned out that they were with Ontology Media, a net-vid producer out of Kaggits. They had the Tlianke subsector and were visiting clients and trying to make some new sales, and they were glad to have someone from off-world to talk to.
After an hour or so, Varan left with one of them, a woman named Karran. I stayed a while longer with Reina, her companion, and suggested that we go somewhere else, but she said she was happy to have her room to herself that night and left shortly afterward. Probably just as well; I had found out that they were heading for Gashuumi next and had suggested that they jump with us. If anything had happened and they wound up on the Grayswandir, then things might have gotten awkward on-board.
Hopefully, Varan will be in a better mood, at least.