Chương 47: Twilight

Academy Hill, Vidako Imperium Stellarum November 6, 2847 Cassie hummed to herself as she folded the last triangle of thin, gold paper up, using her nail to score a sharp crease. Then, she took a small piece of tape from where she'd left it stuck on her left finger and used it to secure the pointed top against the rest of the wrapping. Finally, she flipped the package over, took a pen from where she'd set it aside, and carefully wrote, 'To: Arc, From: Cassie.'

While she'd have enjoyed spending the day with him down in The Valley, Arc's not-so-subtle expedition with Pika had given her a chance to make her own preparations for the winter break without risk of discovery. The paper, the tape and the marker had come from the commissary, while the package had arrived on the most recent cargo ship to have made a stop at Terra. The same ship had taken a large box in return, filled with presents for her father, mother, and brother.

She'd picked out shirts with the academy logo on them, which she'd wrapped around a framed picture of herself in her academy uniform. There was a package of holo-files, as well, containing more pictures and a recorded message, as well as a hand-written card. She only hoped that, one, the abundance of presents would defuse her mother's temper, and, two, that Admiral Nakagami wouldn't bear the brunt of Cordelia Anne Sabran-Solaris's disappointment that neither of her children would be home for the holiday.

This particular celebration seems rife with contradictions, Lyra mused, while Cassie carried Arc's present over to the closet and packed it inside of her empty suitcase for safe-keeping until their flight to New Toledo. My databases record that it is a fusion of traditions developed across centuries throughout a variety of pre-colonization Terran nation-states, half of them apparently more secular than religious.

I have media archives of everything from an 'abominable snowman' to an apparently radioactive cervid purported to fly through the air. Cassie laughed, closed the closet door, and headed back over to the desk to clean up the mess she'd made.

"Welcome to the mess that is religion in the imperium," she told the AI.

"Try not to think about it too hard." She'd just put the leftover tape away in one of the desk drawers, along with the pair of scissors which had become a sort of communal property for the room, when the dorm door opened and Rain stalked in.

"It is time for dinner," the Alu'kan girl declared, her voice more firm than Cassie could recall from any time other than their unarmed combat practices. Cassie nodded.

"I'm just about ready to head down." She scanned the desk one last time, to make certain that she hadn't missed anything, and then followed Rain out and down to the dining hall. To her surprise, she found a small group of women waiting for them, including not only Vee, but also Natalie Ramírez, Jessica, and C'rise. All four of them were carrying packed containers of food.

"What's going on?" Cassie asked, as Rain ushered her toward the end of the line.

"We're getting food and eating somewhere else," Rain said.

"To go, please," she told the server on the other side of the trays of food. Cassie had the distinct impression that she was being ambushed. With a member of the imperial guard present, I estimate the possibility of any serious harm coming to us to be quite low, Lyra said. Two pieces of evidence corroborate this conclusion. First, none of the women waiting for us appear to be carrying concealed weapons of any kind. Secondly, their body language does not – Not a literal ambush, Cassie told the AI, interrupting her.

More that Rain's planned something, and I don't have the slightest idea what it is.

'What,' it turned out, was that everyone took their meals and followed Rain up to the top floor of Tycho Hall, where she led them to a short set of stairs which ended in a door out onto the roof. Cassie would have expected such a thing to be locked, but at her friend's approach, a red light went out and a green blinked on. One of the two suns had dipped down to touch the western horizon, while the second still hung fat and bright just above the trees and buildings of campus.

A purple-orange spray of clouds spread out from west to east, ending in the first glittering stars visible in the encroaching darkness of an evening sky. With three storeys beneath her feet, and below that Academy Hill, Cassie could see all of San Teodoro laid out around them, to the west, the east, and the north.

There were three high points, two on the west side of the river, and one on the east, with gently sloped valleys between them, and they were connected by two bridges which stretched over the river—and over The Pylons, the slums where the street gangs reigned. Cassie could see the imposing structures of Government Hill across the river, and just north of it, wedged between the rise and the coast, a cluster of glass towers which made up Downtown.

Cassie's eyes were as close to perfect as a human's could be, and she could pick out the lit signs of the city's most prominent businesses: Meridian Power Corporation, Great Bay Shipping, Broadleaf Arms, and the First Bank of San Teodoro. On the third hill, Uptown was glittering. There, elegant towers were meant for living, not for business, and they were adorned with balconies and rooftop gardens. Cassie could see patches of greenery marking parks, and then the hill sloped down toward the ocean, and Coastside.

Beyond it all, across a short stretch of bay, lay the island which contained the spaceport and the Pinnacle Space Elevator, a line of blinking lights stretching up into the sky.

"Over here," Rain said, collecting them all, and picked her way through a series of pipes, ducts, and humming air conditioning units. Cassie and the others followed her over to a clear section of room on the west side, and a sudden gust of wind brought the scent of the ocean over. A blanket had been paid out on the roof, and Rain sat down on it, leaving plenty of room for the rest of them.

Everyone seemed to hesitate for a moment, so Cassie carried her to-go container over, found her place next to Rain, and opened up her dinner. Natalie was next, settling down on Cassie's other side, followed by Jessica, then Vee, and finally C'rise. By the time every one of the women had taken a seat, Cassie had a forkful of vat-grown pork loin in her mouth.

"So tell me the truth," Natalie Ramírez asked, leaning out in front of Cassie so that she could look straight at Rain.

"Did you crack the locks? Did you have your AI do it?" Rain shook her head and looked down at her food.

"I told Karisa that I needed a place I could go to be alone sometimes," she admitted, voice so low that Cassie had to strain to hear it over the wind off the ocean.

"Back during the second week of Hard Burn. She talked to Doctor Seung, and they agreed to give me access to the roof. I try not to come up here unless I really need it." Cassie chewed her pork, swallowed, and read between the lines. She'd never pushed Rain to tell the full story of her childhood, but the summary from Orion had been enough to tell her the girl had been thoroughly traumatized.

Of course, if there was one aspect of mental health that fleet was absolutely equipped to treat, it was post-traumatic stress disorder. She had to admit that she was a bit curious about what her friend's psych evaluation would say.

"It's nice," Cassie said, putting that thought aside quite deliberately.

"Especially at sunset." Rain smiled, but didn't relax, while the other women opened their dinners one after the next and began to eat. Finally, she seemed to have worked her courage up enough to speak again.

"Vee and Cassie, you're both my friends," she said.

"C'rise is our roommate. I don't like that you're fighting." If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Ramírez laughed out loud, and had to raise her hand to her mouth so that she didn't spray out half-chewed potatoes.

"Oh, I get it. This is an intervention. Not sure why I'm here, though."

"Because you're part of the team now," Rain answered.

"And the upperclassmen aren't?" the tech asked.

"Ireti Ọlatẹru and the rest of them?" Rain set her fork down and shook her head.

"They won't be for long," she explained.

"We all have three and a half more years here, even after they're gone. That's why we need to stick together." I wonder how much of this comes from the Alu'kan need for a pod, Cassie wondered. Even if her friend wasn't actually raised in one. It would make a fascinating study, Lyra agreed.

"And I presume I'm here because, now that the secret's out, you knew I'd be somewhere around anyway," Jessica grumbled.

"I suppose at least this way I get to sit down and eat my food. Alright girls, go ahead and work your drama out, then."

"There's no drama," Cassie said, and then froze as Rain, Jessica, and Natalie all looked directly at her. Both Rain and Jessica managed to keep a straight face, but the tech student was practically cackling.

"That is not true," Rain insisted.

"You and Vee have hardly talked to each other in days. You used to be friends."

"We still are," Vee said, with a slump to her shoulders.

"It's just—awkward. For me, probably. I'm the problem, not Cassie."

"Because you feel badly about Arc," C'rise broke in, speaking for the first time.

"You like him." Until that moment, Cassie didn't think she'd ever seen a Torean blush before. She wondered whether they could all do it.

"You can't just come out and say things like that," Vee sputtered.

"That's private, and that's why Cassie's always had a problem with you!" She turned to meet Cassie's eyes, and lowered her voice.

"Anyway, I wasn't gonna make it your problem. It's my issue, and I'll get over it. No big deal. You're my friend, he's a good guy, I'm happy for you, enjoy yourselves. Sorry it got awkward."

"It's alright," Cassie said.

"I probably should have talked to you sooner, honestly." She set her fork down, picked her way across the blanket, and then kneeled down to wrap her arms around her friend.

"Really, it's ok. You haven't done anything wrong. I was just trying to give you a bit of space. But no more cutting classes, alright? I want us all to graduate together." After a moment, Vee relaxed and returned the hug.

"I won't," she promised.

"Good," Rain said, with a nod, and a smile.

"Now we only need to talk about C'rise." Cassie gave Vee one last squeeze and then carefully stepped back to where she'd been sitting, making certain not to step in anyone's food.

"I am not certain what there is to discuss," C'rise said. The light of the setting suns glinted off the opalescent layers of shell which adorned her skull.

"You are all, to some degree, friends. I understand that I am not. We can co-exist without becoming friends." Cassie wasn't so certain about that, but for once she chose discretion and kept her mouth shut.

"If you want to do that, you need to not blurt out people's personal feelings in front of the entire group," Vee grumped.

"I mean, that's basically what Cassie was afraid of from the moment we met you."

"In all fairness, I do not think that I have made C'rise's life any easier," Rain admitted.

"I even considered moving out of the room."

"Not that they'd let any of us do that," Cassie grumbled. C'rise ignored the comment.

"It has actually been somewhat better in recent weeks," the LeShaii said.

"Your nightmares seem to be coming less frequently. Most of the dreams I receive from the three of you now are sexual in nature." Natalie slapped her thigh.

"Alright, I like this one. Can we keep her? It's like everything that goes through her head just comes right out of her mouth, with not even a bit of hesitation." The psycher frowned, and looked away. For the first time, Cassie thought that she actually looked angry.

"You're all so frustrating," C'rise said.

"I don't understand you. You say you want to keep everything you're thinking and feeling a secret, but your minds are screaming for anyone who can hear. You think I wouldn't rather a moment of peace and quiet? You think I came here with the deliberate purpose of making everyone hate me? That I want to be miserable?" Everyone else froze, forks in hand.

"I don't hate you," Cassie said.

"You certainly don't like me," C'rise shot back, turning toward her.

"You don't want to come anywhere near me. I offered to teach you how to quiet your mind over a month ago, but you haven't come to see me."

"Wait, wait," Jessoca broke in.

"When did this happen? Why didn't I know? You didn't tell me about this, Cassie."

"It was in our dorm room," Cassie said.

"You weren't there."

"And you didn't think to –" Jessica, clearly frustrated, took a visible calming breath.

"The Imperium is only just starting to learn about how LeShaii telepathy works, and you literally have someone willing to teach you how to shield your thoughts from them, and you didn't take them up on it?" It does seem like quite a potential tactical advantage, Lyra pointed out. Not to mention that one would assume the imperium will eventually need to institute such training for everyone with access to classified information… They were right, of course, and for a moment Cassie felt like an absolute idiot.

But of course, the idea that any kind of training would be beneficial rested on a single assumption: that she could trust C'rise. If you threw out that assumption, it all fell apart. The only question was, did she actually have reason to distrust the other woman, or did she simply dislike her? Cassie thought back to the camp in the jungle, when C'rise had tried to warn her that something was coming. Should she have paid more attention?

Would it actually have made a difference, when the spiked terror came crashing out of the jungle? If she'd said something to Arc, would he have even believed her? That question, at least, she knew the answer to. Of course he would have. Had C'rise actually done anything to her, at all, since the moment they'd all arrived here on Vidako? Cassie let out a sigh.

"The thought of someone else knowing what goes on in my head, what I'm feeling, makes me really, really uncomfortable," she admitted.

"Probably to an unreasonable degree, if I'm going to be honest. I don't know if I can put my finger on why, but it seems like such an invasion of privacy, that it just… makes me want to get away. And as long as I'm trying to be honest, I probably haven't been fair to you, C'rise. It isn't your fault." The words were hard to force out, at first, but the farther she went, the easier it got—as if some knot which had been tied tight inside her was finally loosened.

"I probably could have handled it better," Cassie finished.

"You definitely could have," Jessica grumbled.

"Yeah, I guess so." Cassie made herself look C'rise in the eyes.

"I apologize. Can we try to start again?" C'rise hesitated. It was a mistake, Cassie knew, to try and read human emotions into the facial expressions of other species. Some things were in common, and some weren't. But between the look in the other woman's eyes, and the hesitation when she opened her lips to speak, it certainly seemed like she was nervous.

"We can try," C'rise said.

"It would be nice to not feel as if everyone in our room would be happier with me gone."

"We should do our part, too, then," Rain said, speaking up for the first time in quite a while.

"Our dreams bother you." The LeShaii opened her mouth, closed it, and then started over.

"Whatever degree of control you have over your thoughts while you're awake—which, for most of you, isn't much –""Hey!" Vee objected.

"—you have even less once you're asleep," C'rise continued, ignoring the interruption.

"Every subconscious anxiety or fantasy you've been suppressing throughout your day comes bubbling up to the surface. It's like—like sitting next to someone who is watching a video on their tablet, with the volume turned all the way up. Or, in our room, like having someone to each side of you and one behind, so that all the noise just turns into a confused mess. It would actually be better if it was only one of you."

"That really does sound horrible," Vee admitted.

"Speak for yourself," Natalie teased.

"If you tell me about the juiciest bits, C'rise, I'll buy you a cupcake from the commissary."

"Really?" Cassie raised her eyebrows.

"Bribery?"

"How do you think techs get all the best parts?" Natalie told her.

"You've got to know a guy."

"Can you teach us how to quiet our dreams?" Rain asked C'rise.

"So that it won't bother you at night?"

"All of you?" C'rise asked, clearly surprised. Jessica nodded.

"If you're willing to teach, I think it would be a good idea," she said.

"Your species can't be the only one in the entire universe with psychic abilities. If we've got a chance to learn to defend ourselves against that, I think that we should."

"Then… yes. I will teach you." Something in C'rise's shoulders visibly relaxed.

"It is easier while you are awake, so we will begin with that. The first step is to learn to empty your mind."

"That'll be easier for some of us than others," Vee joked, and a ripple of laughter spread through the circle of women. As the second sun of Vidako set, they began.