“In a few minutes, it’ll be time for afternoon Physicality.”
“Ooh, excellent. I want you to show me what you learned from Grecca. According to Robert, she’s a supernova. “
“I can do that.” I turned off the tablet and put it into its carry-pouch. “I don’t know about supernova, though. I thought she was sweet.”
Shirley came out of the fresher wearing a clean uniform. “Sweet? You couldn’t have thought that when she had you pinned to the ground, tickling you until you were red in the face.”
“Mmm. Maybe not then.”
We left the familiar bed of our quarters for the equally familiar bed of our classroom.
“So,” she said, hands on her hips. “Show me what you’ve learned.”
I sat in the center of the bed, knees bent, feet together. “Sit here,” I said, patting the diamond-shaped space between my legs. “Facing me.”
Shirley sat and I positioned her legs on either side of me. Our faces were so close I could feel the heat of her body on my nose and her breath on my lips.
“Look into my eyes,” I said. “Put your arms around me, but don’t hold tight. Relax.”
“I know this position,” she said, reaching down toward my crotch.
“No,” I said, “just sit. Relax. Look into my eyes.”
Shirley giggled. She was seeing the same thing I was—a squashed one-eyed head.
“It looks a little silly at first, but just let that go. Relax. Breathe.”
The moment Grecca showed me this technique was the moment the true depth of my feelings for her opened up. It wasn’t true love, perhaps, but it was a kind of instinctive, basic intimacy. This was, I could see, the foundation of the surprisingly deep relationship we had built over those three short days.
Now that it was gone, I missed it, terribly. Everyone that mattered to me had been taken away. There was only one person who was a constant in my life, and I hoped that if I could build that kind of relationship with Grecca so easily, then with the right techniques, I might be able to do the same with Shirley.
I synchronized my breathing with Shirley, breathing in only when I felt her exhalation on my lips. I could feel myself falling into her eyes, losing myself there. The “she” and the “I” were becoming “we.” I could feel it.
And then, suddenly, she pulled back, breaking the link almost before it could get started. She held my shoulders and smiled. “That was an absolutely fascinating experience! We’re definitely going to have to do that again sometime soon.”
“Wait, no. We only just started.”
“Challers, if this is all you did for Physicality class for the last few days then we have material to make up.”
I gritted my teeth, struggling to keep my rising pique in check. She moved to stand, but I put my hands on her thighs and held her down.
“Challers . . .”
“Listen. Shirley. This is important. You said that you can’t have sex with someone without developing feelings for him. I know now what you were talking about, but there’s more to it than that. You can allow a relationship to happen as a byproduct of all this, or you can deliberately set out to form a relationship, to create something real, something meaningful.”
Shirley’s brow knitted for a moment, and then her eyebrows twitched upwards. She was holding onto something, holding something back, holding it in. She put her hands on mine, ready to peel them from her thighs to escape.
“Shirley. Do this with me. Please. I want us to be more than business partners.”
She blinked and swallowed, poised between jumping away and giving in.
In a whisper, she said, “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“So tell me.”
Her gaze flicked back and forth between my eyes, as if she were searching for something behind them.
“Shirley. Tell me.”
“No.” She stood, pulling away from my grasp, almost shaking with emotion. “No, I can’t.”
What was it? Fear? What could she be afraid of? What was it that put her in such terror?
I put out my hand to comfort her, but she spun away from it, took a step, and then stopped. She put her hands at her sides, unclenched her fists, and took a deep breath. The armor that had seemed ready to crack solidified again, and when she turned back, the vulnerability was gone.
No, not gone. Hidden. She had buried it again, buried it where she thought I would never see it again.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked. “To us?”
She looked away. “Challers, I have a confession. You will be my fourth ship-partner since I joined the Scouts. That was almost ten years ago. Every one of them, when we were having sex, I would . . .”
She took a deep breath. “I would imagine that he was Robert. It was the only way I could do it.”
“But everything you said about . . .”
“Yes, Challers, yes, I’m a hypocrite and liar. I never really believed any of it.”
I put my arms around her, pulled her close. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have dragged this out of you.”
I had no idea her façade was so thin. Before, she seemed made of iron, and now she was crumbling right there in my arms. I didn’t know what to do, so I just stayed there, holding her. It seemed so funny, me comforting her, after all the times she had done the same thing for me.
After we stood there in each other’s arms for a few minutes, I asked, “So what do we do now?”
“We?
We
don’t do anything.” She pulled away again and took her tablet out of its carry-pouch. “I send in my resignation. The Service will find you a mentor who can actually do the job.”
“What? No, not again. Listen, everyone I know is disappearing. Everyone I care about. Valka. Grecca.” I almost blurted out “Trace” but stopped myself in time. “Now you.”
She set the tablet on a stand near the door and activated it. “Challers, I’ve done you a terrible disservice. Unforgivable. You don’t care about me; you’re just well-conditioned.”
I put my hand over hers, preventing her from entering commands on the tablet. “I forgive you.”
Her eyes finally met mine. Something there told me I had gotten through to her, but it was like looking through a wall of ice.
She turned off her tablet and smiled. I could see the ice melting, just a bit, though there was still a good deal left to go.
I hoped that the revelation the night before would change things. I had hoped that we could sit the way Grecca and I had, nose to nose, eyes to eyes, minute upon minute, building a sense of intimacy that could be the beginning of something more. I realized that Grecca had shown me the technique not because she wanted to form that kind of relationship with me, but because she knew how valuable it would be to have an emotionally close bond with Shirley.
What she didn’t realize was how difficult it would be. If anything, Shirley became even colder, even more distant. She spoke hardly at all, except as needed, and would not look me in the eye.
In the morning, I awoke to the sound of Shirley sitting at the desk, talking quietly into her tablet. I propped myself up on my elbows and listened.
“. . . I’d like to say you’d like him, if you got to know him in person, but I don’t know. Maybe you wouldn’t. He’s still got some emotional rough edges to smooth off, and I know you don’t like that. But even though he’s sleeping behind me, right now, I still miss you, my love. I can’t wait to see you again. Send a message as soon as you get this.”
She touched the screen, the tablet beeped, and the pale glow from its screen flickered.
“A message for Robert?” I asked.
Her breath caught and she turned quickly. “You heard that?”
“Just the last part. Rough edges?”
“Maybe it took a rough edge to cut me deep enough that I’d feel it.”
“I never wanted to cause you pain.” I rolled up to sit facing her. “So what do we do now?”
“We go on with your classes.”
“Like nothing happened?”
She put her hand on my knee. “We both know something happened. But you’re so young in some ways, Challers.”
“I’m not too young to understand. Tell me what you’re thinking. Tell me why you’re holding back.”
She turned away.
When we arrived at morning Physicality class, Shirley went to a secure storage locker for a pair of bulky white pistols.
“Based on your stellar performance in wrestling, we’re going to jump ahead to the next section. Marksmanship.” She held one out to me, butt end first.
I took it by the handle and frowned at it, disappointed that we would not be wrestling again. This was, I was sure, another way to push me away. “I thought the Marines took care of the fighting.”
“There isn’t always a Marine handy and they aren’t always cooperative.”
“I remember the Marines on Stakroya.” It occurred to me that the next time I met a Marine, things would be quite different. “Were you armed when you met them there? I don’t remember seeing you carrying one of these.”
“I didn’t have time to retrieve it, but it doesn’t matter. If it had gotten to a fight, the situation would have been pretty badly handled anyway—which brings up a good point. The reason you’re learning how to use this weapon is not because the Service ever expects you to use it. But people will treat you differently if they know you’re armed, and if they sense that you’re confident with its use. It’s a tool for taking control of a difficult situation. Hopefully, you’ll never have to use it.”
“Have you ever had to use yours?”
“I’ve never fired in anger. I expect no less of you.” Next, she produced a light helmet for each of us. “This is to protect your vision and hearing, and to allow us to communicate. Ideally, you should wear one whenever you expect you might need to use your sidearm. That doesn’t always happen.”
The helmets had visors and ear protectors built in, and a headset radio to allow us to talk to each other. We put them on and checked to make sure they were working.
“Computer, display standard targets, please.”
The lights dimmed and a set of silhouettes appeared on the wall opposite us.
“Your weapon is a mass driver powered by crisis orgone. We’ll cover the details of its operation and maintenance in Technology class. For now, it’s enough to know that we’re remaining calm during this exercise in order to keep from punching holes in the walls.”
She turned, took up a firing stance, and pulled the trigger. Three sharp cracks echoed against the walls in rapid succession and three spots lit up on the silhouette. Numbers appeared above it—ninety-eight in yellow and eighty-four in red.
“The yellow number indicates the chance that the target has been stopped. The red number, the chance of death. Depending on the circumstance, you might want that last number to be low, or high. Computer, display training targets.”
Shapes lit up on the silhouettes: red areas on places like the head, neck, and torso; yellow on the knees, lower abdomen, and shoulders.
“You will remember from our anatomy studies about the location of sensitive and vital areas of the body. These are your primary targets. Don’t worry about shooting to disable yet; the surest way to keep someone from killing you is to kill him first.”
I looked down at the weapon in my hand.
An instrument of death. I felt unsteady.
“Challers?”
“I’m sorry. Just . . .”
I took a deep breath and imitated Shirley’s stance.
“By your right thumb, there’s a switch. Hit it once to take off the safety. That will put it in burst mode. Touch it again for single shot.”
I did as she said and a tiny indicator lit up with three blue lights, and then just one.
“Good. Now give it a try. Squeeze the trigger slowly. If you jerk it back, you’ll spoil your aim.”
I lined up the sights on the silhouette and fired. The shot struck a bit below the neck. The numbers above the silhouette both said seventy-five percent.
Dizziness surged in my head. My stomach heaved and I had to swallow hard to keep the contents inside. I dropped the gun and put my hands over my face. The idea that I could have the power to take someone’s life seemed alien, sick,
wrong
.