Three Lives Of Mary (5 page)

Ben was whistling. Mary couldn't place the tune, but that wasn't surprising considering how off-key he usually was. It was a good sign though and Mary smiled. She wondered if he was trying to add in ultrasonic harmonies, something he did when he was really happy and usually failed. But if he was, she couldn't hear them anymore.

Mary dragged herself through to the main control room, the sight of the acceleration chair and control surfaces flooding her with happy memories. They'd shared so many years with her in there and she was glad she hadn't lost all that now she no longer had her supplemental memory.

"Ben?" She spoke quietly, not really wanting to interrupt.

The whistling stopped and several seconds passed before the audio crackled. "Is someone there? Jennar?"

Mary's skin prickled at the sound of Ben's voice. It had been decades since she'd actually heard him physically, unfiltered by any CyTech. His voice still had the warmth she remembered from when they'd first met. Without her SLink she'd entered undetected, she realized. Normally Ben would just know. Now she was just 'meat' and didn't register with him unless he specifically checked.

"It's me, Ben. Mary."

"Mary?" Ben hesitated. "Mary? It's really you?"

"Don't sound so shocked. You knew I was coming back. Right?"

"Sure." Ben's voice wavered. "I was distracted and didn't notice you come in."

Mary slumped into the padded chair, happy to take a break from standing up. A green indicator lit up under one of Ben's optics as he switched it on.

"You look… good. Different, but good." Ben paused. "My sensors say you're good too. Everything went well. You're one hundred percent 'meat' again? I wasn't sure that was even possible. It's amazing, you look just like you used to."

"I have an artificial heart."

"Oh yes, J… someone mentioned it."

A number of deep-space charts flickered across one of the auxiliary screens, the theoretical Jump routes highlighted in glowing blues.

"Planning our next mission?"

"Well, I guess. Maybe." Even accounting for Ben having to use the audio circuits his response took too long. "I didn't think… that is, you're not ready for a mission yet."

"It will be a few weeks at least. Physically everything is okay, but the adjustment is a long process." Mary waved one of her canes in the air. "As you can see, I'm not at the somersault jumping stage yet."

"No-"

"Who's your friend, Benjy?"

Mary looked around. A tall CySap dominated the entrance, arms folded, its chromed surface glinting menacingly under the internal lights and for a moment Mary thought she was looking at her old self.

"You must be Jennar. I think Ben's been expecting you…" Mary tried to hold out her hand, but couldn't.

There was a delay of at least thirty seconds—an eternity for a CySap—then Ben finally spoke. "I SLinked with her. That is,
we
SLinked. Together."

A shard of pure pain stabbed through Mary's heart and her stomach knotted so hard that she wanted to throw up.

"Jennar and her partner were hit by a radiation storm. He didn't make it." The words tumbled from the speakers almost too fast to follow.

Mary remembered hearing the news several months ago and feeling sorry for the survivor. Now she wished they'd both died. Her thoughts were jumbled. What will I do without Ben? How could you do this?

"You two are going to pair?"

Again that ghastly long pause. "You can't SLink anymore."

Her thoughts screamed impotently inside her head. That's temporary. Just until we can do a profitable mission. We discussed that. One damn mission and we'd buy back the SLink. We
discussed
it, dammit. Mary collapsed back in the seat. "I know."

"Tell me you understand." Ben sounded like he'd been caught stealing.

Mary understood better than she wanted to. "I should leave."

"It's okay isn't it?"

She didn't reply immediately, her thoughts burning again. No it's not! She wanted to hurt Ben. Hurt both of them. Make them feel the pain she felt. But she held her response in check. Melodrama wasn't going to change anything.

"Yes, it's okay." Her artificial heart felt as though it was forcing its way through her ribs. "I can't stay. The medical team gave me strict orders."

Mary hobbled outside as quickly as she could and staggered against one of the station's bulky support braces. She gasped in the station air, hardly able to breathe as tears pooled and blinded her. She sniffed them back, not wanting to let Ben detect how much he'd hurt her. The solid yellow block of a cab pulled up and she clambered blindly into the back, curling up on the bench-like seat.

****

"I'm sorry, Mary." Tartoa swiveled around as she entered. "It's all my fault."

Mary was suddenly more conscious of how trapped Tartoa was in his bio-mechanical seat, much more even than Ben. She shook her head slowly. "How? You didn't force him."

"I asked Jennar to check on him. Make sure the repairs were going as planned." His voice was harsh. "Only a CySap can really tell how another is. I never expected that she'd… that they would…"

That Ben would SLink with another woman after all these decades with me? That he'd forget everything they'd been through and jump "in to bed" with someone else in a few days? "No, you couldn't have anticipated that."

"Stay here. You need time to recover and I can always use a good assistant."

"You've already helped far more…"

"Than you thought I would? I'm pleased my reputation as a cold-hearted bastard is intact." Tartoa grinned. "Wouldn't want anyone to think I'd gone soft."

"I won't tell." Mary wanted to fall into a wormhole and never come back. "But the longer I'm here, the greater the chance of it slipping out. And if the Company finds out, you'll be in a lot of trouble."

"The Company?" Tartoa laughed and span three-hundred and sixty degrees. "No chance. They won't ever find out. I've buried it too deep. I'm not as sloppy as I was."

Mary glanced at her walking sticks. She felt more vulnerable than she could ever remember—even than when she was human before. She needed time to recover, both physically and from Ben's betrayal. Tartoa was a good companion. He seemed to know somehow just when to be silent and went to speak up.

"I'll stay a while."

****

Another crowd of open-mouthed settlers flowed out from the recently docked transport. Mary studied them as they swarmed through the corridors like ants searching for crumbs of food. Most looked in shock—as if they couldn't believe that they were finally on their way to a new world. Or perhaps it was the sheer volume of Haven station. Many of them came from enclosed cities and hadn't experienced anything as wide open.

"Three today." Mary tapped the view surface. "You'd think they'd spread them out more."

Tartoa slid up behind her, swirling grandiosely to look at the screen. "Not these. They're all heading the same way. One of yours in fact—HIP22449-5. There's a colony ship scheduled to take them there in three days."

"That was our first A+ find." Mary zoomed in on the crowd examining faces at random. They looked so happy and alive. Almost smug. Bitterness rose up inside her. What right did they have to feel like that when she'd died after Ben left? "How many?"

"Twenty thousand. Throw Granny out the air-lock, it's going to get crowded around here."

Mary smiled, but it faded quickly. Tartoa had a dry humor, which only came out when he was comfortable with someone. It had shown itself increasingly over the last few months as they'd worked together. "At least they're going
somewhere
."

Tartoa slid back to his own screens. "There was always the risk that you wouldn't be able to accept another Cynaptic interface. There's only so much nerve splicing they can do. Would you want to end up a quivering pile of flesh?"

"Some men would probably find that attractive." Mary turned back to the screen.

"Men can find
anything
attractive if they try hard enough."

"Thank you so much." Mary laughed briefly. Tartoa had an answer for everything. "I've not been doing well."

Tartoa slid over next to her again. "How so?"

Mary sighed, her shoulders falling as she leaned back in the chair. "Life. Love. Everything. Hell, I couldn't even make a baby."

"Procreation isn't a measure for success in life. You're one of the warmest and most well-balanced people I've met—I'd call that a success."

"I've had two lives and screwed up both." Mary looked at the people swarming past on the screen. "Those people risk their lives to colonize a new planet, to create a new life for them and their families. Me? I was so scared of growing old I convinced myself, and Ben, that the best thing was avoid it."

"He didn't want to?"

"It was all my idea." Mary said. "I didn't want to get old and lose his love. I wanted to lock him to me, so he'd never want to leave. All very selfish."

"You loved him. Most people probably feel the same way."

"But they don't
act
on that feeling. I did." Mary examined the bulkhead between her feet. "I deserved what happened. Ben was right to do what he did."

"Tsshhh! Excuse me while I get my violin. I better withdraw my earlier compliment, that's not 'well-balanced'." Tartoa slid back a little. "Ben was an adult when
he
decided to become a CySap with you. You didn't
force
him to do that. He made his own choice for his own reasons. In my experience, no-one does anything they don't want, despite what they say. Ben wanted this, just as much as you did. If he claimed otherwise, it was a lie."

"As for you deserving what happened? I'm disgusted to hear you blame yourself for that. You risked your life for him and he betrayed you without a backward glance. Has he checked on how you are? Of course not. He even tried to have your joint assets assigned to him and Jennar." Tartoa glowered. "I blocked it when you didn't."

Mary looked up sharply. "You knew?"

"They're operating out of the Song-Jiang station now and you've been tracking him. Discretely I know. But I'm tied into everything on the station. Nothing gets by me if I'm interested."

"You probably think I'm stupid. And I am." Mary thumped the control panel, wincing as her knuckles skinned on the cold metal.

"Just human. We all want things we can't have. No matter how futile." Tartoa slid to the far end of the room, his words softening with the distance. "What
would
be stupid is if you wasted your new life obsessing over your past. Life has to be lived—joyously, exuberantly. Anything else is a waste of people."

****

Mary watched the hordes shuffling around the dispatch office, not entirely sure why she was there. Perhaps it was because they were going to "her" world and she felt some kind of kinship with them, despite the massive differences in their backgrounds. People pushed by on all sides, buffeting her uncomfortably in different directions and she was glad she no longer needed canes—she'd have been knocked over in minutes. It was almost the definition of chaos and she found herself a little repulsed as the warm bodies pressed against her.

She waded over to one side of the throng, then an elbow caught her solidly in the back. She stumbled forward, half falling against one of the usher's tables and a bored man looked up from his computer screens.

"Name?"

"Sorry. I'm not here for-"

"Name?"

"Mary Reyes. But I'm not here for boarding."

"Reyes, Mary. B6D7-679CDC70F131." The man ignored her and checked his lists. "Unmarried. Un-virgin. No children. It says you have a cardio unit."

"Yes, that's true, but…"

Mary thoughts whirled like a cyclotron. How was she in the system? She hadn't applied and it cost thousands of credits to pay even basic fees, let alone a single-person premium. She didn't have that kind of money.

"That's within allowed limits. You're in berth 17B, bunk 43. Put your hand here."

Mary slid her hand over the indicated spot, too confused to argue. A small metal arm rotated out of the table and glued a black plastic datatoken to the back of her wrist. The top glowed with green direction arrows that pointed ahead and to the right."

"Follow this to your berth. You're responsible for looking after your boarding pass." The usher pointed at the wrist band. "That's your pass and ID until you land. Don't remove it or exchange it with anyone else. Not that you could get it off anyway. Congratulations, you're all checked in. Have a good look around. Haven's a dump, but the next stop is HIP22449-5."

Mary twisted out of the seat and drifted through the crowds, still confused. It was impossible. Someone had made a mistake, but how? It must be a system glitch, but that was impossible too.

She glanced up. Tartoa's window looked down over the dispatch area and, despite the distance, she was sure she could see his bulky silhouette behind the shaded glass. A new world? That was crazy. Why would she want to become a colonist and suffer all that hardship? She was used to civilization and order, not chaos and adversity. She'd helped establish over a dozen worlds; why would she confine herself to just one?