Requiem (31 page)

'Knowing all
that doesn't change anything,' she said. 'I still feel like
shit.'

'And you
probably will for a long time,' said Belameir. 'But as long as you
know, at least logically, that you shouldn't respond to these
messages, then it will keep you from doing anything...'

'Rash?'

'I was going to
say stupid.'

She stared at
the ceiling for a long time then across at Belameir who was still
sitting on the edge of the bed, biting at his nails, casually
watching her.

'Fine,' she
said.

'Fine
what?'

'I won't do
anything stupid.'

'I'm not saying
you should stop doing stupid things all together. Just maybe give
this one a miss.'

'Yeah.' She
rolled onto her other side so she was facing the wall. She closed
her eyes but didn't sleep. Instead, she read through Abigail's
original message, the one that had lured Seline back to Earth. The
message she
knew
was from Abigail. She compared them. She
wasn't quite sure what she was looking for. Something that might be
hiding between the lines, something that might indicate an
imposter, something that might whitewash at least some of the
guilt.

She was back on
Yarfor Station, reading through Abigail's message for the first
time. Her and Belameir had just finished their shifts. Seline had
been trying to forget one client in particular, Sam, the one who
kept asking her to marry him, who got violent when she refused, who
got even more violent if she made a sound or moved a single muscle
when it finally came to the sex at the end of their two hour
session.

'Lay on your
back. Eyes straight up. No. Don't look at me. Keep your eyes on the
goddamn ceiling. Arms at your side... good. I don't even want to be
able to see you breath, understand me? Open your goddamn legs, what
am I paying you for?'

At least it was
short.

Seline had told
Zackry about him, but “he pays well” so that was the end of
that.

Belameir was
lying on the end of her bed, waiting for Seline to read some of the
spam emails that had filled her junk box since she always got the
best ones.

'Is your
Maclary too hairy? Why not get permanent laser surgery? Only 50
credits!'

'STAY STIFF
WITH SERGEANT'S SUPER SPRAY! SIX SIMPLE SHOTS OF OUR SECRET
SOLUTION AND YOUR SHLONG WILL OUTSHINE THE STARS!'

Sam had been
jolted from her memory when she found the message from Abigail.

Dear
Seline,

I hope this
message finds you well. I will be as forthcoming as possible. My
name is Abigail Shaw. I'm a teacher and caregiver at a small school
in Sinn on Earth. You were a student of mine, years ago. I'm not
sure you'll remember me but I knew your mother and have found
something of hers that you might be interested in. I believe this
is something better discussed in person. You can find me at number
17, 23rd Street, Sinn. I will usually be home in the afternoon.

Best
regards

Abigail
Shaw.

And she was
back on the cruiser again. This time it was Belameir who'd been
scouring through the junk mail when he'd found the message from
Abigail.

Hello, dear.
Sorry for the cold shoulder but I've been a bit busy lately. I'm
not sure if this address is still valid but I thought I still have
to try it. In case you haven't guessed, this is Abigail. I managed
to get off Earth, away from NeoCorp. I made it to Sceril. I just
had to let you know, if you blamed yourself for what happened to
me... don't. You couldn't have known what would happen. I think
it's best if you don't try to contact me. I don't know what NeoCorp
might have planned but it's best if we go our separate ways from
here. Good luck, Seline. Stay safe.

Abigail.

She was walking
through her house again. The floorboards creaking and the dust
swirling around her feet as she walked, the afternoon sun barely
visible through the boarded up windows, the bitter taste of green
tea and the feeling of the springs through the cushion of the red
chair. It was like another world in there, within the countless
piles of books that didn't smell of anything but the passing of
time, not of this time but of the ancient moments that Abigail had
somehow locked herself into. It was a place that felt like a home,
as crowded and cluttered and ancient as it felt, there was a sense
of freedom within its walls, freedom from what, she couldn't quiet
explain.

'Is there
anything specific in the letters?'. That's what Tialus had asked
her. Was there anything that only Seline and Abigail would know?
Technically there wasn't anything. Apart from the word
dear
there was nothing specific about the message at all. But that
didn't change the fact that Seline heard Abigail's voice in the
words and that she could see Abigail sitting across from her, her
creased olive skin, the crow's feet in the corners of her eyes and
her mischievous smile bathed in the dancing light of a candle
flame. Why wasn't it obvious to the others? Why did they dismiss it
so easily?

Were they all
blind? Were they all hiding the truth from her? Or could she just
not admit that she was wrong? But everyone says to follow your gut
don't they? They say that your first instinct is usually the right
one but her first instinct had already come and gone and now she
was sitting here analysing it into oblivion, confusing right with
wrong, doubt with certainty, anger with fear, guilt with... no, the
guilt she was sure of, it was the only thing that stayed the
same.

An hour had
passed since she'd told herself to give up on the letters but she
was still pouring over them. Their ship was hundreds of billions of
kilometres from Sceril and counting. There was no way they were
going back and that's what made her stop. The realisation that even
if Abigail was on Sceril she had no way of reaching her. From this
far out the landing ships in the cruiser's docking bay probably
wouldn't make it.

She finally
closed the messages in her optics. There was nothing to learn from
staring at them any more. Maybe Abigail would send another message
when she felt it was safe. Abigail knew what she was doing didn't
she? Of course she did. She was in control, she knew how to
survive.

It was a
cowardly vindication but it was the only thing that allowed Seline
to pull herself away from the letters and accept that she couldn't
change anything, at least not at the moment, at least not from
here.

She sat up on
the edge of her bed. Belameir was gone. She hadn't even heard him
leave. Her stomach rumbled some questions about food and she
wondered when she'd last eaten. She was about to get up when she
heard a noise coming from somewhere down the hall. Footsteps? They
were light but they were getting louder, making little rattling
noises on the floor grates.

The feet
stopped outside her door. There was a knock. Belameir doesn't
knock. Seline thought about lying back down and ignoring it but ran
her hand through her hair and said, 'Come in.'

The door slid
to the side and Sear was standing in the open doorway. He stepped
in and closed the door behind him.

'I'm sorry that
we can't make a more concerted effort to track her down,
Seline.'

Her arms folded
across her stomach and she looked down at the floor.

'I'm sorry,' he
repeated, 'but I happen to agree with Tialus. Her argument is
sound. We have no reason to believe that the message you received
is genuine.'

Seline still
said nothing.

Sear stepped
further into the room, he was going to seat himself on the bed
across from Seline but decided to remain standing. 'I'm s-'

'If you say
you're sorry again, I'm going to start thinking you've actually
done something wrong,' said Seline.

Sear's eyes
moved around the room, unsure of where they should be looking.
Maybe it was the reflection of light against the black of his eyes
or the way his left foot had shuffled slightly to the side but
Seline could sense that he was unsure of what he should say. She
was as surprised that she could even pick it up as she was as it
being there in the first place.

She took a deep
breath. 'It's not something you need to apologise for, Sear. That's
actually... I wanted to say that I'm sorry if I got you into
trouble with Tialus... she was right. I agreed to come on this
mission and this mission has nothing to do with finding Abigail. I
just... I dunno... when I read the message I could hear her voice
in my head like I knew it was her, that she needed, that she
needs
help.'

'You feel
guilty,' said Sear. The tone in his voices was softer than normal
as if he'd taken a file to their edges. 'It's natural, at least it
is for you. But as natural as your reaction is, it's still
unjustified.'

'Yeah. I've
been telling myself that.'

Sear was quiet
for a moment, then. 'She must have had quite an impact on you.'

'Maybe more
than I've been willing to admit,' she confessed. 'She was the first
person in a long time that I felt I could trust.' Seline kept her
arms over her stomach with tight handfuls of her singlet clenched
in her fists.

'There are
others aboard this ship whom you can trust if you let
yourself.'

'Yeah...' She
looked at the floor. Her left hand loosened and she began running
the tip of her index finger over her ribs as if she were counting
them.

'What was she
like?' Sear asked.

'It's stupid, I
mean, I only knew her for a few hours, really.'

'Sometimes a
few hours is all you need.'

Seline's eyes
met Sears. It wasn't just his voice that he'd taken the file to.
His entire expression had softened. The creases on his brow had
become more pronounced, they almost looked like cracks in the
glassy texture of his skin. There was movement at the edges of his
lips like they were more than simply tools for uttering carefully
weighted words.

This was the
humanity he'd found on Earth, the humanity that Mercer told her of,
that he knew Sear was hiding. But if what Mercer had said was
accurate then there was a reason Sear kept this side from people.
There was a reason he'd tried to hide it or, rather, there was a
reason that he was showing it to her now.

'Abigail was...
I mean she
is
nice,' said Seline. 'She doesn't rush things.
She takes her time but she knows exactly what she's doing. She's
confident which I guess you would be if you had that much knowledge
sitting inside your head.' Seline glanced at Sear. 'Her entire
house was filled from top to bottom with books like she'd rescued
them from one of the old libraries or something. Some of them were
old, hundreds of years at least... I never did ask her why she'd
collected them, though.'

She thought of
the smoke she'd seen billowing from Abigail's house when NeoCorp
had found her. Most of that smoke, she thought, would have come
from those same books, burning like a funeral pyre.

Sear was
waiting silently across from her. Seline's eyes were on the
floor.

'Abigail's
like...'

Say it
,
she told herself.
Say it. She's like the mother you wished you'd
had. Everything your mother should've been. Abigail wasn't a
traitor. She was someone you could actually bring yourself to like,
to love, even.

'She's like a
sister,' said Seline.

Coward.

'I can see why
you were attracted to her,' said Sear. 'Being someone like Abigail
in a place like Sinn couldn't have been easy. She must have been
incredibly strong to be able to fight for so long.'

Seline smiled.
'She had an old shotgun rigged up behind her front door. She called
it Jessie. I saw an old pistol in one of the drawers in her kitchen
as well.'

'How old did
you say she was?' said Sear.

'I didn't but
I'd guess that she was somewhere around seventy, maybe.' Seline
flicked her fringe from her face. The image of Abigail's burning
house was still in her head, the smell of dust and cinder reaching
through her nose until she could taste it on the back of her
tongue, the feeling in her stomach like it was being pulled to the
floor by a ten tonne anchor.

'I never knew
Abigail,' said Sear, 'but there was one person I met in my time on
Earth who spoke of the same spirit.'

Seline looked
up, glad for the distraction from her own thoughts. 'Who?' she
asked.

'I met him
within the last months of my first year on Earth. He was a
caretaker at an orphanage in Vale and one of the few people I met
who was actually willing to sit down and have a conversation with
me. He was young, although I never asked him I would've guessed
that he wasn't much older than you are now.' Sear stared straight
forward, he wasn't looking at Seline, his eyes were only fixed on
the wall and the space before him like he was staring at something,
at the memory itself perhaps, as if he were reliving it again not
just as a thought but as the reality it once was.

He was calm,
his voice resonant.

'His name was
Cooper...'

Sear stepped
onto the paved surface of the car park. At the far end of the
parking lot was the face of a single story building nestled between
the back ends of the three story neighbours on either side. Apart
from the cleared car park, there was nothing that stood out about
the building. If it wasn't for the footprints he probably would
have walked straight past it.

Sear didn't
need to check for his pistol. He could feel the weight of it on the
inside pocket of his coat and if what he'd been told was true, he
shouldn't need to even touch it. He walked across the parking,
keeping his eyes on the door and the boarded up windows of the
neighbouring buildings. There was no sign that he was being
watched, not a trace of movement and with the stillness of the wind
he could hear nothing but his boots crunching the grains of sand
into the tarmac.