Fire On High (12 page)

"Of course not," Burgoyne replied. "I'd have thought that would be obvious. You don't know much about Hermat psychology, Selar."

"Yes, so you have told me on previous occasions,"

she said carefully. "What aspect of that psychology is pertinent to this moment, may I ask?"

"We're not built for long-term relationships. It's just not in our makeup. We're a free-spirited group, we Hermats. We're not especially monogamous. We prefer a variety of partners, and to savor whatever it is that life has to offer us. It would be natural for you to fall in love with me—"

"I?" She cocked an eyebrow. "I . . . fall in love . . .

with you?"

"Well, you had this whole
Pon farr
thing going. You weren't thinking especially straight. You left yourself vulnerable to me. It would be natural for you to form an attachment to me, but I'm telling you right now, there's no point to it. We wouldn't have a prayer together. Not even a prayer of a prayer."

"I find it . . ." She sought the right word, since

"stunned" and "shocked" expressed more emotion than she desired. "I am intrigued that you would feel this way. It is not how I perceived you."

"Perceived me?" S/he laughed curtly. "I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that."

"It means that I . . . thought I had a sense of the person that you were. And now it would appear that I was mistaken. I emphasize that it appears that way.

However—"

S/he raised a long tapering finger, momentarily
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silencing her, and s/he said, "Was I, or was I not, there for you when you were ready to get physical."

"It is not quite that simple—"

"Was I," s/he repeated patiently, "or was I not?"

"You were," she admitted.

"And you were about to tell me that you weren't really comfortable in continuing our relationship as it was. That, in effect, you wanted to end it. Correct?"

"There is more than—" But when Burgoyne once again interrupted her with a slightly scolding gesture, she sighed and said, "Once more you are, in essence, correct."

"Don't you see, Selar?" asked Burgoyne as s/he backed up toward the door. Impressively, s/he managed to do so with something of a swagger. "That's why we were perfect together. We always know exactly what's going on in the other's mind. I was—and remain—everything you ever needed in a man. And in a woman, for that matter." And with that, Burgoyne touched hir forehead with hir finger in a signal of departure, turned, and walked out of the room.

Selar sat there for some time longer, amazed that it had been that simple. Burgoyne had taken it perfectly well, had not made a fuss over the situation, had even beaten her to the punch by ending the relationship before it began to get uncomfortable. She should be happy that it worked out as smoothly as it had.

Still, for some reason that she couldn't quite articulate, she suddenly felt a bit cold. She placed her hand on her stomach and felt warmth radiating upward from it.

And she looked around right and left, as if afraid that someone might somehow see her (illogical as that
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concern was) and when she had satisfied herself that she was, in fact, alone in her quarters, she allowed herself to smile once more.

Burgoyne's first impulse was to go straight to hir quarters, but s/he was not, by nature, a solitary individual. Besides, s/he would have felt as if s/he was hiding, which would not have been far wrong. And so, deciding firmly to take matters in the other direction, s/he headed straight for the single most populated area of the ship that s/he could find, namely the Team Room lounge.

It was busy, as it often was this time of day when the day shift had just come off duty. The noise and chatter from within hit hir like a solid wave. S/he looked around carefully, spotted Robin Lefler and Si Cwan off in a corner by themselves, and Lefler seemed somewhat intense in whatever she was saying to Cwan. Then s/he noticed the captain and commander seated at one table, involved in what seemed like a rather animated discussion. For a moment s/he considered endeavoring to join it, but then s/he spotted the person s/he was looking for. He was seated at a table by himself, calmly nursing a drink and staring off into space as he so often was. There was no one on board ship whose mind was always a million miles away quite like this individual.

S/he made hir way across the room to the bar, and then procured a shot of scotch. Then s/he headed for the table, stepping between people who were heading to or from the bar, and dropped into a seat opposite him. "Hello, stranger," s/he said.

Mark McHenry looked up at hir with momentary
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surprise, and then he smiled in amusement. "Come up for air, did you?"

"A very large lungful," s/he replied. "So how are you? Haven't seen you around in a while."

"Possibly because you haven't been around," McHenry told hir.

S/he leaned forward, dropping hir chin into hir upraised hand. "Do I detect a tone of annoyance, Mark?"

"Not at all," he said easily.

"I think," said Burgoyne leaned forward, looking playfully at McHenry with that decided cat-and-mouse manner that McHenry frequently found annoyingly attractive, "I think that you are jealous of the good doctor and myself."

"That is ridiculous."

"I think that you picture me in her arms and it drives you completely crazy nuts with envy. Yes, I do." Burgoyne was now grinning widely.

"Burgy," McHenry sighed, "if you're wrong about that, as I assure you you are, then you're just wasting your time. And if you're right about it, then what you're saying now is kind of . . . what's the best word?"

"Sadistic? Torturous?"

"I was gonna say 'silly,' but those are fine, too."

Burgoyne studied McHenry for a long moment, and then leaned back in hir chair, way back. "Doesn't matter," s/he said. "The doctor and I are
pffft
anyway."

"What?" He looked at hir in surprise. "That one didn't come down the rumor mill yet. When did that happen?"

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"Just now. It was a long time coming though."

"A long time? You were together less than a week."

"Really? Seemed so much longer."

"Well, that's . . . that's really surprising, Burgy.

And a . . . shame, I guess."

Burgoyne hadn't been entirely sure what s/he expected McHenry to say, but that wasn't it. "A shame?

Why a shame?"

"I don't know. I just felt like you had wanted her, fought for her. You really seemed to like her, that's all."

And Burgoyne ran hir tongue over hir upper ridge of teeth. "I like you, Mark."

He stared at hir as if he couldn't quite believe what he'd just heard. Then, with a slight laugh, he said

"Ooooohh no. Oooohhh, I get it."

"Get it?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do. You and Selar had some kind of fight, that's it." He pointed an accusing finger at hir.

"You had a fight, and because you can't stand being alone, you're coming back to me. Good old reliable McHenry. You must figure, 'Mark, he's such a flake, he probably didn't even notice I was gone.' Well you know what, Burgy? I did notice. And I'm not completely the flake you assume I am."

"Oh, Mark—" s/he sighed.

"Don't 'Oh, Mark' me. What am I, your life preserver? Your way of avoiding solitude? I don't think I'm comfortable with that, Burgoyne. Go off to other people, have your flings or your affairs, and then come back to me, the safe harbor, the port in the storm. I feel used," McHenry said indignantly.

"Aw, come
on,
Mark. What the hell are you talking
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about? Are you completely flutzed in the head or what?"

He was about to reply, but then stopped. "I don't know," he said honestly. "No one's ever asked me if I'm flutzed. For all I know I might be."

"Take my word for it, you are. We had fun together, Mark! You and I, we had some great times."

"Great times." He chuckled softly.

"What's so funny? We didn't have great times?"

"We had fun, Burgy. That's all we had."

"Yes! Exactly!" S/he thumped the table for emphasis. "Wasn't that great?"

McHenry leaned back and shook his head. "Burgy, you just don't understand, and I don't think you're culturally capable of understanding. So let's just leave it, okay?"

S/he shrugged. "Fine. So you wouldn't be interested in seeing me tonight?"

"No way. You just don't get it, Burgy. Maybe I need someone who cares about more than just using me as an object to satisfy hir. Maybe I want someone who won't make me feel like a Ping-Pong ball, or a toy to be picked up when s/he feels like it or put aside when s/he finds someone else, only to be grabbed later when s/he wants another guiltless 'good time.' Maybe I want someone who cares about Mark McHenry the man.

Who cares about my hopes and dreams and aspirations more than my body. Maybe I need someone who'll treat me better than you do.

"Then again," he said, the memory of their last interlude coming back to him, "maybe I don't."

"Your place or mine?" s/he inquired, looking completely innocent.

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"Whichever," he managed to choke out, "is closer."

"Mine, then." S/he put down the drink. "Shall we go?"

Robin Lefler and Si Cwan sat undisturbed in a corner of the Team Room, and Lefler hadn't been saying a word for some time. Si Cwan stared at her in silence and finally he asked, "Was there something in particular you would like to discuss?"

"What gives you that idea?" she asked sullenly.

"Well, to start off with there was that rather scath-ing communique you sent to your mother."

She looked up at him, her dark eyes snapping.

"How do you know about that? Were you reading my personal communications? Who do you think you are?"

"Well, when the Momidium government first got it, I was the one whom they came back to and asked whether we really wanted it delivered. I told them to transmit it back to me so that I could 'review' it. In point of fact, I hadn't seen it at all."

"It was sent as a private transmission. They had no business viewing it,"

"It was sent to a prisoner. They had every business viewing it, and you should have known that, Robin.

Considering the fact that I authorized its delivery to the intended recipient, and considering that I am choosing not to make a further issue out of an extremely inflammatory message, I would mind my tone a bit if I were you. Do we understand each other?"

"Yes," growled Lefler, "I understand."

"If I may make an observation, it seems to me that you have a great deal of anger toward her."

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"She abandoned me! She—" She stopped and shook her head in frustration. "You wouldn't understand."

"I might."

She considered that possibility a moment, drumming her fingers on the table as she thought about it.

"This stays between us?" she asked after a time.

"Doesn't leave this table?"

"Yes, presuming you feel that you can trust me."

"Yeah. Yeah, I think I do. Okay," and she shifted in her seat, "you have to understand, I never really felt like I knew my mother. I never felt as if she was really there for me. There were always other things on her mind, and when she spoke to me it was like she was a million miles away. She was sad much of the time, and I never knew why. Every night—every single night of my life—she would always be outside come nighttime, sitting there and staring up at the stars. I don't ever remember her going to bed. I'm sure she did, but not so I ever saw. I always figured that something terrible had happened to her. Some sort of trauma in her childhood that made her that way. And I wanted to work past it. I mean, she was my mother.

You're supposed to love your mother, right? You're supposed to do whatever it takes.

"So I made it my job to try and be her personal jester. No matter how down she was, how depressed or melancholy, I made that much more effort to be upbeat and cheerful. I'd joke with her, clown with her.

Broke my back just to get a smile out of her. And she knew I was doing it, of course. She was a brilliant woman, my mother, I mean absolutely brilliant. Dad said that when she did sleep, she relaxed herself by doing complex equations in her head. He could hear
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her muttering them to herself. So there I'd be, her little Robin, dancing and smiling and saying, 'Let's have a party, Mom!' She called me her Tarty Girl.'

The Walking Grin.' There was a character called the Cheshire Cat in that book I mentioned to you,
Alice in
Wonderland,
and he always had this big smile. After mom read me that book for the first time, she started calling me Cheshire because I always had this big, stupid smile plastered on my face all the time. I felt I didn't dare ever let her see me sad, because I didn't want to take any risk that I might ever depress her. I'd always be looking for the upside. Laughing hyenas would have looked morbid next to me. I started doing that whole 'Lefler's Laws' thing because she seemed to think it was funny when I would just come up with these crazy rules of mine.

"But with all that, my mother never seemed to try and make any time for me. Not ever. She seemed amused enough by my antics, but she seemed to regard me as a curiosity, like she was studying me through a microscope. Like she was afraid to get too near me. I think, bottom line, she never really liked me much. I was just this pathetic little thing practically killing herself just to get a laugh out of her mother. How pathetic is that?"

"I don't think it's pathetic at all," Si Cwan said softly. "Clearly you cared a great deal for her. Certainly she must have known this. I'm sure it made a difference to her."

"Not enough of a difference to get her to change,"

replied Lefler bitterly. "And then, when I was still a teenager, just like that,
poof.
She's out of my life. I spent years mourning the loss, Si Cwan. Not just mourning the fact that she was taken from me, but
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