So maybe she wouldn’t be as surprised as he thought that it had come to fighting.
Maybe, he thought, that evening in the mess hall, when he and Jeremy were in line ahead of Chad and Connor, maybe humans had to fight. It might be as human a behavior as a walk in spring was a downer one. It might be human process, to fight until, like Jeremy, like him, like Chad, they just wore out their resentments and found themselves exhausted.
So he’d only done what other humans did. But a human who knew downers never should have fought over Satin’s gift. He most of all should have known better—and hadn’t refrained. It certainly proved one point Satin had made to him—that he really was a wretched downer, and that he was bound to be the human he was born to be, sooner or later.
And it showed him something else, too. Downers left the spirit sticks at points of remembrance, at Watcher-sites, on graves. Rain washed them, and time destroyed them—and downers, he now remembered, didn’t feel a need to renew the old ones. So they weren’t ever designed to be permanent. He had the sudden notion if he were bringing one to Satin, he could make one of a metal rod, a handful of gaudy, stupid station-pins, and a little nylon cord. She’d think it represented humans very well, and that it was, indeed, a human memory, persistent as the steel humans used.
In his mind’s eye he could imagine her taking it very solemnly at such a meeting, very respecting of his gift. He imagined her setting it in the earth at the foot of Mana-tari-so, and he imagined it enduring the rains as long as a steel rod could stand. Downers would see it, and those who remembered would remember, and as long as some remembered, they would teach. That was all it was. It was a memory. Just a memory.
And no one could ever steal that, or harm it.
No one but him.
He’d been wrong in everything he’d done. He’d waked up knowing the simple truth this time, but he’d still been too blind to see it. He’d felt Bianca’s kiss, it was so real. And that had been sweet, and sad, and human, so distracting he hadn’t been thinking about hisa memories. And that was an answer in itself.
Silly Fetcher, he heard Melody say to him. He knew now what he was too smart to know before, when he’d set all the value on physical wood and stone.
Silly Fetcher, he could hear Melody say to him. Silly you.
He sleepwalked his way through the line, ended up setting his tray beside Vince’s, with Jeremy setting his down, too, across from him.
Chad and Connor were just at the hot table at the moment. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest thing, remembering keenly that he wasn’t a downer and that those he dealt with weren’t—but he waited until he saw Chad and Connor sit near Nike and Ashley.
Then, to Jeremy’s, “Where are you going, Fletcher?” he got up, left his tray, and went over two rows of tables.
He sat down opposite Chad, next to Connor. “I owe you an apology,” he said, “from way before the stick disappeared. I took things wrong. That doesn’t require you to say anything, or do anything, but I’m saying in front of Connor here and the rest of the family, I’m sorry, shouldn’t have done that, I overreacted. You were justified and I was wrong. I said it the far side of jump, and I’m still of that opinion. That’s all.”
Chad stared at him. Chad had a square, unexpressive face. It was easy to take it for sullen. Chad didn’t change at all, or encourage any further word. So he got up and left and went back to the table with Vince and Linda and Jeremy.
“What’d you say to him?” Jeremy wanted to know.
It was daunting, to have a pack of twelve-year-olds hanging on your moves. But some things they needed to see happen in order to know they ought to happen among reasonable adults. “I apologized,” he said.
“What’d he say?” Linda wanted to know.
“He didn’t say anything. But he heard me. People who heard me accuse him heard it. That’s what counts.”
Jeremy had a glum look.
“Chad’s an ass,” Vince said.
“Well, I was another,” Fletcher said. “We can all be asses now and again. Just so we don’t make a career of it.—Cheer up. Think about liberty. Think about cheerful things, like going to the local sights. Like going to a tape shop. Getting some more tapes.”
“My others got stolen,” Jeremy said in a dark tone.
“Well, don’t we have money coming?”
“We might,” Vince said. “They said we were supposed to have some every liberty. And we didn’t get anything at Voyager.”
“Ask JR,” Linda said. “He’s a captain now.”
“I might do that,” Fletcher said.
But Jeremy didn’t rise to the mood. He just ate his supper.
That evening in rec he lost to Linda at vid-games, twice.
Won one, and then Jeremy decided to go back to the cabin and go to sleep.
That was a problem, Fletcher said to himself. That was a real problem. He was beginning to get mad about it.
“Am I supposed to entertain you every second, or what?” he asked Jeremy when he trailed him back. He caught him sitting on his bunk, and stood over him, deliberately looming. “I’ve done my best!”
“I’m not in a good mood, all right?”
“Fine. Fine! First you lose the stick and now I’m supposed to cheer you up about it, and every time I try, you sulk. I don’t know what game we’re playing here, but I could get tired of it just real soon.”
“Why don’t you?”
“Why don’t I what?”
“Go bunk by yourself. I was by myself before. I can be, again. Screw it!”
“Oh, now it’s broken and we don’t want it anymore. You’re being a spoiled brat, Jeremy. You owe me, but you want me to make it all right for you. Well, screw that ! I’m staying.”
Jeremy had a teary-eyed look worked up—and looked at him as if he’d grown two heads.
“Why?”
“Because, that’s why! Because! I live here!”
Jeremy didn’t say anything as Fletcher went to his bunk and threw himself down to sit. And stare.
“I didn’t mean to do it,” Jeremy muttered.
“Yeah, you mentioned that. Fact is, you didn’t do it, some skuz at Mariner did it. So forget it! I’m trying to forget it, the whole ship is trying to forget it and you won’t let anybody try another topic. You’re being a bore, Jeremy.—Want to play cards?”
“No.”
Fletcher got out the deck anyway. “I figure losing the stick is at least a hundred hours. You better win it back.”
Resignation: “So I owe you a hundred hours.”
“Yeah, and Linda beat you twice tonight, because you gave up. Give up again ? Is this the guy I moved in with? Is this the guy who wants to be Helm 1 someday?”
“No.” Jeremy squirmed to the edge of his bunk, in reach of the cards. Fletcher switched bunks, and dealt.
Jeremy beat him. It wasn’t quite contrived, but it was extremely convenient that it turned out that way.
Esperance Station—a prosperous station, in its huge size, its traffic of skimmers and tenders about a fair number of ships at dock.
Among which, count Boreale , which had sent them no message, and Champlain , which had sat at dock for days during their slow approach, and because of which, yesterday during the dog watch of alterday, Esperance Legal Affairs had sent them notification of legal action pending against them.
Champlain was suing them and suing Boreale , claiming harassment and threats.
Handling the approach to Esperance docking as the captain of the watch, JR reviewed the list of ships in dock. There were twenty ships, of which three were Union, two smaller ships and Boreale; five were Unionside merchanters… ships signatory to Union, and registered with Union ports. All were Family ships, still, and four of them, Gray Lady, Chelsea, Ming Tien , and Scottish Rose , had chosen to believe Union’s promise that their status would never change: they were honest merchanters who’d simply found Union offers of lower tariffs and safe ports attractive and who’d believed Union’s promise of continued tolerance of private ownership of their ships. JR personally didn’t believe it; nor did most merchanters in space, but some had believed it, and some merchanters had been working across the Line from before the War and considered Union ports their home ports.