Trading in Danger

And now for Hal. The envelope enclosed some kind of box; she could see its outline. Had he sent a present? Her spirits rose; he had understood, he was still her friend, and maybe… She ripped open the envelope and tipped out a little brown-leather-covered box she recognized. Her heart stuttered. It couldn’t be… She opened it, half-hopeful and half-afraid. A heavy gold ring, the Academy class ring, its crest battered and scarred, almost unrecognizable. Someone had attacked it with a chisel. She plucked it from its slot and looked at the inscription. Kylara Evangeline Vatta, with a line gouged through it.

Her vision blurred. He’d sent it back. He’d sent it back defaced.

She clamped her jaw shut on the scream that wanted to come out; her stomach churned; she felt cold and sick and empty all at once. Memory threw up a vivid image of the day they’d exchanged their class rings, the day the rings had been handed out. It wasn’t like engagement rings; it had nothing to do with marriage—though, buried deep, she’d had a hope that marriage might come to them someday. It was about trust and honor, not money or sex, a ritual begun, their seniors had told them, before Slotter Key even had a Space Academy, transferred in by those who founded it. Few cadets exchanged class rings, but she and Hal had been so sure of each other, so sure of their abilities, so sure of their friendship…

He had stood there, hazel eyes looking into hers. “It would be an honor, Cadet Vatta, to exchange this token with you—” He had asked; she had wanted to but waited, not willing to pressure him.

“And it would be an honor for me,” she had said. Formally they had linked arms, and formally passed the boxes hand to hand, and she had considered herself the custodian of his honor as he was of hers. For all that the Academy did not list numerical rank, there were ways of knowing who was at the top, and they both knew they stood number one and number two, and had—sometimes alternating those positions—since their first year. She had taken it seriously, as she took everything seriously…

And he had sent her ring back defaced, scarred, even her name scratched across. She did not need the letter to tell her what he now thought of her.

Her hands were shaking. She dropped the ring onto her bunk and unfolded the letter that had come with the box. However bad it was, she had to read it. She had to know why, how he had come to hate her so much. She had understood he might have to cut all ties, never contact her again—she had not imagined that he would turn on her like this.

“Ms. Vatta,” the letter began. Hot tears stung her eyes; she blinked them away, trying not to remember the sound of his voice calling her “Ky” and “Kylara” and once—just once—“Kylara-beshi.” The letter was… even worse than she could have imagined from seeing the ring. She had almost ruined his career, he said. Because he had trusted her, because he had believed her lies—“I never lied to you!” Ky burst out loud. “How could you—!” The cabin’s hard surfaces threw the sound back at her. She clamped her lips again and kept her eyes on the letter, reading every word, every word that stabbed her with unfair, untrue accusations. Disloyalty. Dishonesty. Deliberate attempts to sabotage not only his career, but the honor of the service. She had seen him angry before; she knew just how his face would harden, how the muscles along his jaw would swell, the veins throb… It was all too easy to see him writing this letter, nostrils flaring, breath coming fast. Hal’s outrage built, from the first cold, formal sentences following the salutation, through a series of increasingly angry dissections of every mistake she had made in the Academy, to a furious conclusion that accused her of seducing Mandy Rocher, an i

She let the letter fall from her hand when she had read that last sentence instructing her not to attempt a reply; she felt strangely detached, a vast cold gulf inside her that had once been a warm friendship she’d believed would last forever. How could it disappear so completely, how could he change that much that fast? Had it ever been real, then? Probably not. Nothing real could change that fast, surely. He had liked her when they were the best of their year, because liking her enhanced him. But what she had felt—that warm attraction, that love—he had not felt.

Every error of judgment she’d made about people rose up in memory… Time after time she had believed that someone needed help, or was friendly, and time after time… She fell from shock into a depthless black hole of misery.

She was a fool, and so were those who had misidentified her problem. It wasn’t the lost puppies, the seemingly helpless whom she’d tried to help, who caused her the most trouble. No, it was those who seemed sound and solid, the ones she had trusted because anyone would, the ones she’d considered allies, not victims. She hadn’t had rescue fantasies about Hal, or Paison. Anyone might have believed they were what they appeared. Yet Paison’s apparent goodwill and common sense had been as false as Hal’s apparent admiration and affection.

People had died because of her naïve stupid faith in someone not worth it. Slowly, anger seeped in to replace the shock and horror of Hal’s attack. Anger at those who had failed her, lied to her, fooled her. Anger at herself for believing them.

She had told herself not to make that mistake again when she’d quit crying about missing her own birthday party. And—whatever her family said, however they had misunderstood her motives on other occasions—she had learned. When she looked at her own motives, case by case, she had barged in to help others only about as often as anyone decent did. Mostly she’d been asked to help because—with the family’s certainty that “helping others” was her favorite role, she was the one they turned to.

That had to stop. If nothing else came out of Hal’s betrayal, she must somehow convince people—her family, others, herself—that she was who she was, and not who they thought she was.

When she finally fell asleep, hours later, something new and hard had replaced both the cold emptiness and the hot anger.

The next morning, the day of Gary Tobai’s funeral, Ky awoke calm, surprising even herself.

The entire crew attended the funeral service; to Ky’s surprise, the consul also showed up, just as Ky pressed the button that signaled the start of their service.

“My duty,” he said. “You’re looking a bit peaked, Captain. Have you heard anything official from Vatta yet?”

“The ansibles aren’t repaired yet, are they?”

“Not yet, but we expect them up in a few days. Of course, I keep saying that, echoing ISC… just another few days now. But I’ll speak with you after the service.”

The service itself was properly Modulan, restrained and cozy at the same time. The recorded voice that read from the Book of Changes and paused for their responses had exactly the right blend of sincerity and calm. Ky eyed her crew; nobody burst into tears, nobody looked angry or otherwise upset. The graceful harmonies of Modulan funeral music concluded the service, and then they had ten minutes to socialize before they had to leave the chapel. Ky didn’t know what she felt. Her mind shied away from considering her feelings about Hal, and avoiding those feelings kept her safely remote from the ones about Gary or Skeldon. She concentrated on seeing that everyone else was taken care of. The consul had nothing more to say, really, and left before their time was up. When the warning light blinked, she ushered them all out, where they stood in the corridor as the mourners for the next funeral arrived.

“I know what we should do,” Beeah said. “We should go eat something onstation.”

“Where?” asked Lee.

“There’s this place—Tiny’s. Not expensive, close by. Unless the captain wants us back on the ship right away?” He looked at Ky. She had no more desire than the rest of them to go back aboard right now.