Helix Wars (28 page)

He recalled what Calla had said on Phandra about his relationship with his wife.

Maria would be back tomorrow. Two days ago she had left a message on the com-system, saying that there had been ‘complications’ at her end. He wondered what ‘complications’ might be a euphemism for, and tried to banish images of his wife and Dan Stewart from his mind’s eye.

When she did get back, he decided, he would confront her, admit his failings and tell her that things must change.

He came to the bedroom and leaned in the doorway. Maria had never been the tidiest of people – she mocked his penchant for order and organisation as proof of his anal-retentive tendencies – and a collection of her clothing was strewn across the bed and the polished wooden floor like the debris of a whirlwind. He tried to recollect the last time they had actually shared the bed: a month ago, maybe longer, when their routines had accidentally intersected – and they had last made love perhaps six months earlier, a loveless coming together dictated by the degree of his need and her reluctant willingness to accede. He could not help contrasting the state of their relationship with how it had been in the early days, and he closed his eyes in sudden pain and pushed himself away from the door-frame.

He crossed to the kitchen, fetched another beer from the cooler and stepped out onto the veranda.

It was midday on a beautiful summer Saturday, and pleasure boats were out in force on the glittering surface of the lake. He watched them idly for a while, polychromatic slivers riding the wind that blew across the lake. Earlier that day he’d called Michael, a friend and colleague from the shuttle service, only to find that he’d left on a routine flight to Agstarn and would be away for six days.

This was his first free time since arriving back on New Earth. For two days he’d undergone endless debriefings and medical checks. The former had been exhaustive, conducted by a grim-faced government official who seemed to take the line that, until proved otherwise, the crash-landing on Phandra had been Ellis’s fault. Only with his detailed description of the subsequent events, and his recounting of the Sporelli invasion, did the official’s manner relax, as if Ellis’s first-hand account of the aggression tallied with government intelligence.

When the official dismissed him, Ellis had remained in his seat and asked, “I’d like to know just what the authorities intend to do about the situation on Phandra.”

The official had busied himself with his com-screen, not even looking at Ellis. “The situation is still in its... formative stages, let’s say. We have a council meeting in a couple of days, and we’ll discuss your account along with the little intelligence we have gathered thus far.” The official had looked up. “Is there anything else, Mr Ellis?”

He had half a mind to ask why the council had not convened an extraordinary meeting, in light of the unparalleled events on Phandra, but had known the official would merely stonewall him.

The gears of government, and the even larger gears of the peacekeeping force, ground slowly. Nothing he could say would urge them to precipitate action.

By comparison to the debriefing, the medical examination had been rapid. An hour after feeding Ellis through the body-scanner, the medic had said, “For a man whose ribs were broken in three places, and who’d suffered a fractured femur, you’re in remarkable condition. Those fairy Healers sure know a trick or two.”

Only then, after the debriefing and medical examination, had he been allowed to speak to the press.

He had expected a riotous press-conference, with the networks eager to put their respectively lurid and sensationalist slant on his experiences. He was surprised to find himself interviewed by a single representative of the government-run broadcaster, who had asked a series of anodyne questions – clearly sanctioned by the government official – and switched off her needle after fifteen minutes. Interview over.

That evening he’d tuned into the eight o’clock broadcast. News of the crash-landing, not to mention Sporelli hostilities, had not aired. The latest on the diplomatic crisis between two second circuit worlds, and a lengthy report on the skyball semi-finals, but nothing at all about the brutal Sporelli invasion of Phandra.

He’d checked every hour the following day, with the same result: nothing.

He wondered if the Peacekeepers were planning a strike, and a news black-out was a security ploy.

He was about to leave the house and head down to the Oasis Bar for lunch when his com-screen chimed. He moved through to the lounge and activated the wallscreen. No image showed, but a voice said, “Jeff?”

Maria...

He slumped onto a lounger, glad that she had elected not to show herself. “Activate.” He would keep it sound only, too.

“Jeff, are you there?”

“Here,” he said, heart thudding.

“I... I heard about what happened, the crash and the rescue. I hope you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.”

“Good.” A long pause. He imagined her biting her bottom lip as she considered her next words. “Look, we need to talk.”

“Fine. When are you coming home?”

“I... I won’t be, Jeff.”

“I thought you said...” he began.

“I did. But that was then. Look, we need to talk.”

“Fine,” he said again, taking a swallow of beer. “We’re talking.”

“Not like this, for godsake. I mean, we need to meet. There’s a lot we have to discuss. I’ve been thinking.”

He thought of what Calla had told him, to meet Maria, talk over their relationship. Be honest with her.

He nodded, more accustomed to being seen when talking over the com-net. He remembered himself and said, “Okay.”

“I’ll pick you up in... say, an hour?”

“Pick me up?”

“We’ll go for a drive into the country...”

He let the silence stretch, then said, “Okay. See you in an hour.”

He cut the connection before she could respond. His heart was pounding and his hands, he realised, were clammy with sweat.

He fetched a beer from the cooler, then sat in silence and contemplated the imminent meeting with Maria.

2

H
E SHOULD HAVE
known not to, but he made to kiss her as he slipped into the passenger seat. She turned her head, offering her cheek instead of her lips, a gesture she had taken to performing increasingly over the years. Like a fool he went through with the action, and kissed her cheek.

She pulled away from the A-frame and drove around the lake.

“Where are we going?” he asked, glancing at her. As ever, he was reminded of the woman he had married, ten years ago, a woman very different to this one.

“Like I said, into the country.”

He sat back, staring out at the passing domes and A-frames of this gardened residential area.

“I thought... When I found out about the crash, I feared you’d be badly injured.”

Before he could stop himself, he said, “Would you have cared?” and felt an immediate stab of regret.

From the corner of his eye he saw her long fingers tighten on the apex of the wheel. He imagined the compression of her lips, the anger in her brown eyes.

“As a matter of fact, yes. You might not believe it, but I still feel something for you.”

“You have a strange way of showing it.”

He glanced at her, and he was right: anger flared in her eyes. “Meaning?” she snapped.

“Meaning, why the hell are you running after that bastard Stewart if you feel anything at all for me?”

“Black and white,” she said.

He stared at her. “
What
?”

“That’s what everything is with you, isn’t it, Jeff? Black and white. Right and wrong. Nothing in between. No shades of grey. No moral ambiguity.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” He squeezed his eyes shut in impotent frustration. Why was it that whenever they spoke she always twisted his words, or failed to comprehend his meaning?

“No,” she smiled. “No, you wouldn’t, would you? That’s one of the reasons I no longer feel for you what I did, back in the early days.”

His stomach turned. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve changed. You no longer talk, no longer discuss the... the meanings of
things
. Everything’s is so clear-cut in your world. Like I said, black and white.”

“I haven’t changed, Maria. I’m the same person. It’s your perception of me that’s changed.”

She sighed in exasperation and accelerated.

The silence simmered between them.

He said, “Where are we going?”

“The country.”

They were heading along the western highway towards Cartwright Park.

He felt a sudden welling of panic. “No. You can’t do this. Stop the fucking car and let me out!”

She turned to him, and what he saw in her eyes was shocking: not the hatred of earlier, but something very much like compassion.

“No, Jeff. I’m not stopping the car. You’re not getting out until we get there. You need to face this.”

He moaned and closed his eyes. He’d rather not see the passing countryside, the rolling hills of the parkland he found so painful. He’d not come this way for years; it was one of the ways he coped.

“Why are you doing this?” He still had his eyes tight shut, willing himself not to weep.

“Because it’s necessary, Jeff.”

She fell silent, and he kept his eyes shut for the next few minutes until the car slowed, turned, crunched over gravel, and finally came to a stop.

The engine cut out and ticked as it cooled.

He sensed Maria, watching him.

He heard the door crack and the squeak of seat plastic as she climbed out, then the crunch of her boots on gravel. She rounded the car, opened the passenger door, and said, “Get out, Jeff.”

He opened his eyes. They were in the car-park next to the picnic area, surrounded by tall pine trees. He averted his eyes from the stand of trees to the right and climbed from the car.

She led him from the car-park to the area of tables and benches, and sat down. He sat across from her, his back to the trees, and regarded her across the slatted timber table-top.

Fortunately, they were alone; fortunately, there were no children playing nearby.

He said, “What do you want?”

He looked up at her, and he was shocked to see tears filming her eyes. He felt a sudden stab of guilt.

She said simply, “To talk, Jeff. Simply to talk.” She reached out and gripped his hands and held on tightly, as if preventing his escape. “We never talked about what happened here, Jeff. I wanted to, but you just erased it. As if it never happened.”

He nodded, sour reflux blocking his throat. “Self-preservation,” he managed.

“Unhealthy,” she said. “It’s unhealthy to bottle things up. In order to grieve, you need to share the pain, not make it worse by never addressing it.”

He said, “How... how could I begin to talk to you, share the pain, when you blamed me?”

She squeezed his hand. “I never –” she began.

He interrupted. “You said... You said, in the hospital... You said, ‘Why did you turn away?’”

“I was in shock. I didn’t know what I was saying. I don’t blame you.”

He stared at her, whispered, “I didn’t know that, then.”

“Oh, Jeff, Jeff.” She massaged the back of his hand, pressing urgently with her thumb.

“Do you think,” he said, “that it might have come to this, had Ben lived?”

She narrowed her eyes. “This?”

“Our being so far apart, so distant? We would have had a common interest. We would have made the best of things, for Ben.”

She smiled sadly. “I don’t know. I sometimes think you wanted to get away from us, not long after Ben was born.”

A month ago, before meeting the alien called Calla, he might have argued the point. Now he was beyond anger. He said, “You were distant after the birth. You didn’t want me. It was as if you just... withdrew your affection. You had Ben, you’d got what you wanted.”

“That’s not fair!”

“It’s what I felt.” He stared at her. “Am I wrong?”

“I... I don’t know what happened, Jeff. I no longer... Things changed. I didn’t feel for you what I’d felt earlier, and I honestly don’t know why that was.”

“And then what happened here...” He stopped.

Be honest, Jeff
, Calla had told him.

“After what happened here...” he said. “Do you know what I felt, mixed up with all the grief and... and the hatred of you for blaming me? I felt that now I could get away from the woman who no longer loved me.”

He looked up at her, saw silver tears coursing down her cheeks.

“Maybe we should have split up then,” she said. “Instead of playing games, trying to pretend that things were normal.”

He felt the tree at his back, a pressing weight, but he could not bring himself to turn around and look at it.