Thinking about it.
Thinking about my words. What they mean, and what they do not.
A single fundamental meaning, a huge, raging declaration written in fire across the soul:You can live. You can live. You can live. You can live until you die, and you will not die prematurely, and you will not die in the burning end of your planet, and you can live, and you can have your life back again, undefined by its ending, and you can live.
There are people on other worlds – worlds that are not doomed to die – who think that this should be the only motivation. Theoverriding battle cry that drives all decisions. They are mistaken. History is filled with soldiers who went to war even though only death awaited them; with revolutionaries who died by fire for an idea bigger than their own existence; with lovers who chose to live short and bright, even when long and slow was on the table. But as always, before the fire of a binary star, people tend to forget these sorts of nuances.
Te said: “No.”
And rose and started picking up ter clothes, ter bag, ter belongings.
“Why not?”
“This is my home. These are my people. This is what I do.”
“You could have a new home. One where you might live.”
“This is my home. Perhaps my number will be called, and when it is, I will go – but I will go as part of my people, as one of my people, not as some…”
A place where many words could be, some joyful, some cruel.
“Dependant”, perhaps.
“Victim”, even.
A victim of a world-breaking event, dependent on the kindness of others, stranded on a foreign world.
Or maybe a different word. “Lover”? “Partner”? Our relationship had remained strictly physical, strictly pleasure, te had been very firm on that. We would not break bread, we would not perform the rituals of binding and coming together. Te enjoyed my body and I enjoyed ters, and te told me about the history of Adjumir, its peoples and language, and I told ter about the stars and the worlds I had seen, and together there was a kind of companionship. A lightness of belonging that for a little while could make us forget about the end of the world, and that was good, te said. It was important to stay light when everything else was crashing down around you.
All broken now, of course. Blasted away in a single moment.
“Gebre, don’t…” I tried as te gathered up ter belongings to go.
“My work is done in this place,” te replied, brisk, marching through the corridors of theEmni. “I don’t have any further authorisations and doubt I’ll return.”
“Gebre…”
“Now now,” te tutted. “It was nice while it lasted, but this was always a mingling of skin, not breath and bone. Let us keep things skin-soft, Mawukana. Skin on skin, no?”
I believe that it would be considered appropriate that at this point I scream. Fall at ter feet, beg, grovel, fight. I had read a lot of stories where “fighting” for someone is considered an essential act. No matter how much the other person says no, no – listen to me, I am telling you no – you are supposed to hound them, pester them, torment them until finally they gofine, fuck’s sake, yes!
This is in some tellings deeply romantic.
I think Gebre would have hated me then, if I had grovelled.
I think te would have said it was unfair, cruel even. That I was giving ter the choice – come with me and live, or stay behind and die – and that was no choice at all. Te would have none of it.
So I didn’t. Instead I stood upon the cargo ramp of theEmni, and I watched ter go, and te did not look back.
When I returned to Xihana, the Major told me that my services were no longer required. There would be other missions, of course, but not to the edge of the binary suns.
I think she was lying, that Hadja had whispered in her ear, that decisions had been made behind my back, and I was, in my own way, grateful to have the matter taken out of my hands.
Ten years later, Lhonoja went supernova.
In theory, that should have been that. Billions would die, and I would not see them, would not know them, their deaths unremarked as I went about my day.
Instead, Hulder came.
