Chapter Text
Jonas has spent most of the voyage back to the Highest Light with Phineas affixed to him like a limpet.
The kid barely speaks at all, just watches the Company with huge eyes that shine with both wariness and awe. He opens his mouth only to eat and to answer questions. He only seems to be at ease when he’s huddled in Jonas’s shadow, and the dark looks Costigan keeps sending his way assure Jonas that that won’t be a workable solution. Spahr can see the contempt printed on her face every time she passes him, and with their destination drawing closer, it’s getting harder to ignore the knot of unease in his stomach. It won’t be long, now, until she’ll summon him to the gardens of the Consector’s mansion and make him pay, word by word, for slouching in the ready room with his hair unstyled and his face unwashed, with Phineas dangling from his arm.
With that in mind, Spahr is trying, in earnest, to get the kid to sleep in one of the bunks the flagship has set aside for rescued Unlifts. It might be easier, if they had more than one Unlift.
As it is, Phineas takes one look at that big room full of empty beds and collapses into immediate, shivering panic, wrapping both of his skinny arms tightly around one of Jonas’s.
“It’s okay,” Jonas says. “It’s just so—”
So you’re not underfoot. So Costigan won’t think I’m being unprofessional.
Well. Neither of those are super great answers to give an eight-year-old, and Spahr finds himself frozen in a moment of uncharacteristic doubt that would tank his ratings if Pom were on hand with the teletherics.
Thankfully, the only witness right now is Gretel, one of the only Company members younger than Jonas himself, who still has a few beads of Caenum dangling from her abacus.
She doesn’t seem to notice Spahr’s blunder at all, just stooping to Phineas’s level with a practiced air that marks her as someone who possesses the younger sibling and/or babysitting expertise that Spahr sorely lacks.
“Hey, Phineas!” she says brightly, her mousy, braided hair falling over her shoulder. “I’ll race you!”
At a run Spahr knows to be about half her true full speed, Gretel takes off into the room full of bunks, baiting Phineas to chase her. She glances expectantly over her shoulder, a grin still pasted across her face.
But Phineas doesn’t move an inch. He stands rooted to the spot, his own arms still locked around Spahr’s, his eyes wide and uncomprehending.
“Gretel’s nice,” Spahr says, trying for warm, encouraging. “You can play with her, it’s alright.”
Phineas doesn’t seem particularly convinced. He still eyes Gretel with wariness, his gaze darting around the large, uninhabited room.
Gretel circles back around toward them, her bootsteps echoing against the metallic walls of the chamber, and sticks a hand out to Phineas easily, still smiling.
Phineas bites her.
“Shit!” Spahr says, startling backward with Phineas still grafted to him as Gretel recoils, and as he realizes that he probably shouldn’t say shit in front of the eight-year-old or anywhere that Pom’s microphone might have a chance of picking him up.
Gretel jumps back with a help of pain, cradling her index finger, and Phineas makes a small, frightened sound, hiding his face in Jonas’s side, expecting, Jonas realizes, some form of reprisal.
“It’s all right,” Gretel is saying, audibly jittery with shock. “You were just scared. It’s all right.”
Spahr sets a hand on Phineas’s head. “See?” He says. “I told you she was nice. Still, it would probably be best if you kept your teeth to yourself, okay?”
“Okay,” Phineas says. His face has flushed a bright, mortified red. “Sorry,” he mumbles, his face still half-hidden in Spahr’s arm.
“I forgive you,” Gretel says breezily, even as she clutches her visibly swollen finger. “It’s easy to be nervous in a new place.”
Phineas looks up at Spahr. “I don’t… could we go somewhere else?” he whispers.
With a sigh, Spahr nods. At this point, he’s running on so little sleep that he would just bite the bullet and take Phineas back to the Company bunks with him, if there weren’t at least two dozen Company regulations barring stray children from close proximity with lazer weapons. As it is, he shambles out into the main hold of the ship and collapses—well, not collapses, sinks down with tired dignity—on one of the ready benches.
Beside him, Phineas conks out instantly, his head leaned heavily against Spahr’s arm.
Spahr smiles, ruffles his hair with his free hand, and resigns himself to another few hours trapped on the bench here. Gretel is kind enough to drop a magazine onto his knee as she passes, giving him a small and knowing nod.
Spahr makes a mental note to report that kindness to a notary as soon as he returns to the Light. It won’t be enough to remove even one of the beads hanging around Gretel’s neck, but it will be something.
Spahr, of course, can’t read the magazine. It’s some cheap, trashy rag full of hair dye ads and nightclub reviews. He can practically hear Costigan’s voice—“Are you the Prime Adsecla of the Trust, or are you a bored teenager at a train station, poring over the latest fashions because you have nothing more worthwhile to do with your time? I suppose it’s no surprise that the love the gossip rags hold for you is reciprocated.”
With his free hand, he shifts the magazine off of his knee and into the seat beside him, hoping Gretel won’t notice and take offense, then slips it to the floor and slides it under the bench with the heel of his boot.
Just in time. Costigan emerges from her cabin just then, and her eyes fix immediately on Jonas, sharpening with disdain. She’s out of armor, her clothing chic and pristine in unblemished white.
“I take it our guest is refusing to lodge in his quarters?”
Spahr nods. “It’s understandable,” he says, in a tone that he hopes sounds even-handed, reasonable. “He’s been through a lot.”
“I suppose he has,” Costigan sighs, “and I suppose he doesn’t care much about running up his bill, at this point.”
“What do you mean?” Spahr asks, trying to keep his voice low so as not to wake Phineas.
Costigan scoffs. “Come now, Jonas, I know that notarial mathematics is far from our field, but I refuse to believe that you’re quite this dense. Do you really think that this little pet of yours isn’t accruing Caenum with every second he spends hanging from you?”
Jonas, without giving it any conscious thought, shifts away from Phineas, as if one or the other of them is lined with mica. Phineas lets out a small mumble of protest, his head sliding down Spahr’s arm.
“Ah,” says Costigan. “So, you really hadn’t thought of that.” She sighs and sits down on the bench beside him, smoothing the fabric of her pants as she does so. “Repeat for me again, Jonas, the terms of the oath you took before the Senior Notary when you were named Prime Adsecla?”
“‘To rooting out Caenum in the cosmos,’” Spahr quotes, infusing the words with the weight and reverence that they deserve. “‘To cleansing—‘”
Costigan holds up a hand, silencing him. “It is a Consector’s sworn duty to mitigate the flow of Caenum through the universe.” She nods at Phineas. “And yet here you sit, letting it well up unchecked.”
Jonas’s jaw goes slack, a slow-creeping kind of horror numbing his hands and deadening his legs.
“We do not show weakness, Jonas,” she says. “And we cannot indulge it, either.” She stands, crosses her arms, the bracelets of Valor adorning her wrists catching the light. “I expect you to bring your stray into check, and I expect you to leave him to those who know how to make something of him. Do I make myself clear?”
“You do,” says Jonas. He doesn’t hesitate in answering. He knows that he can’t afford it. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Good,” says Costigan. “That’s settled. Now, talk with makeup before we land. The media is certain to want a photoshoot with their little fan favorite, and those dark circles will do you no favors.”
Spahr nods and watches her leave, gliding back to her quarters. He looks back at Phineas, dozing against his arm in ignorant, absolute trust.
And inside of Jonas, something cracks—nothing structural, of course, nothing load-bearing, but—he perceives it as pain. Something complicated and regretful and—well, better not to parse out all the things that are bundled into that pain. So, he doesn’t.
He lets himself wait until Phineas wakes up on his own, at least. Shaking the kid awake feels cruel, in a way that Spahr finds he isn’t prepared to be. It’s like when your cat falls asleep on you. Sure, your arm is filling up with that unpleasant pin-and-needle sensation and you kind of have to go to the bathroom and you haven’t eaten anything in too long, but, if you move the cat even slightly, your soul will be damned to perdition.
So, he waits, for the disheveled blond head on his shoulder to stir.
“‘Morning,” Spahr says. Do they have mornings in the Delta? “You sleep good?”
Phineas nods, rubbing his eyes with his fists. He does look pretty well rested, for somebody who slept sitting up with their neck at a weird angle. With the amount he was able to doze, Spahr knows that the same probably isn’t true of himself. Aside from the dark circles Costigan mentioned, he can feel his hairpin askew and jabbing into his skull. The usual windswept half-up, half-down look he favors with the cameras has devolved into a sweaty, unruly knot at the back of his head and a tangled mess plastered to the nape of his neck. It is an absolute fucking disaster that has Jonas half-ready to ditch the kid, sprint to the nearest shower, and put himself back into order before doing what Costigan has asked of him.
But that will give him enough time to lose his nerve. So Jonas tucks a flyaway strand of hair behind his ear, turns to Phineas, and says, “How about we take a walk?”
Phineas nods readily enough, and Jonas takes the lead, guiding them through the halls of the flagship until they reach the doorway of the observation deck. Phineas cringes at the onset of the glaring Unlight, and Spahr pauses for a moment with the door half-open, waiting for him to adjust.
When Phineas has stopped blinking, Spahr presses on into the observation chamber, taking in the soaring mica fields of the upper Un, their crystalline and unforgiving luster. And there, hanging in the distance like a crowning jewel, is the Highest Light.
Phineas is gobsmacked, visibly, his mouth hanging open and his eyes enormous as he takes in the boundless, glittering vista spreading out before them.
Jonas points upward, at the Highest Light. Even at this distance, the size of a nickel, or, um, a really low-denomination Valor bead, it gleams more brightly than anything else in the cosmos.
“That’s where we’re going,” he tells Phineas. “The Highest Light. The greatest city in the entire universe.”
Phineas looks appropriately awed. He’s knitted his hands together in front of his chest and is standing on tiptoe, as if that will help him see the city more clearly.
“I wanted to tell you about what it’s going to be like when we get there.”
Phineas drops back onto his heels, looking, for the first time, apprehensive in Jonas’s presence.
But, he doesn’t say anything, so Spahr forges on. God, where to even start? Phineas truly does not know a single thing about—well, anything.
“We’re going to get you someplace safe,” Spahr tell him. That’s the most important thing, after all. “There’s an org—a group of people called the Family, and their job is to take care of kids like you, and make sure that you have good lives.”
Phineas pipes up at this. “Oh, so you’re—are you… one of them?”
Spahr shakes his head. “I’m an Adsecla.”
Phineas tilts his head. “Ad… secla?”
“I’m, Costigan—the Prime Consector—I’m her second-in-command.”
There is not even the faintest glimmer of understanding in Phineas’s eyes—just a wash of something that might be desperation.
Spahr tries again. “My job is to go out into the cosmos and help people who are in trouble, like you were. Or to find people who have broken promises, and bring them back, so that they keep them.”
“So—” Phineas draws in a watery breath—“You’re going to—go away?”
“Yeah,” Spahr says, feeling like an absolute piece of shit. “But—you don’t need to be sad.”
Phineas blinks at him, looking waterlogged and miserable enough to make Jonas hate every word he’s ever said.
“The people you’re going to meet are going to help you,” he says, and he gets down on Phineas’s level, his best teletheric voice finding him like an angel of mercy. “Phineas, you may not know it yet, but you have so much good to offer the world. I know that it’s been frightening, and I know that you’ve been alone, but that’s not how it’s going to be anymore. You’re not lost, Phineas. You’re not going to have to scavenge. You’re going somewhere where you’ll have a purpose, and a home, and you’ll get to become somebody you never thought you could be before. You’re going to be a great Trustee, Phineas. A good man.”
Phineas is watching him, eyes still wide, still welling up with tears, but a kind of reflected light now shines in his pupils. It is almost the same as the light that Spahr’s armor put there, in the squalor and darkness of the Delta.
Phineas blinks. A tear rolls down his cheek. With that same, small, heartbreaking smile that he wore in the Delta, he wraps his arms around Jonas in a hug.
“Thank you,” he whispers, and Jonas knows, with perfect certainty, as he embraces Phineas in turn, that bringing this boy safely to the Light will be the greatest deed he ever commits.
That evening, as the ship is coasting in to dock at the Company’s wharf, Costigan catches Spahr’s eye, a question and a challenge in her glance.
Spahr nods in answer, not needing to say anything. The absence of Phineas clinging to his arm is proof enough.
He doesn’t escort Phineas to the Family’s estate, on its small islet just outside the Highest Light. The last thing the kid needs is to lose his nerve at the last minute and dim his caretakers’ impressions of him. So, Spahr charges Gretel with seeing Phineas safely along, and with a final nod, he sends Phineas on his way.
Phineas’s right hand, the one Gretel isn’t tightly clasping, is still half-raised in a forlorn attempt at a wave when the crowd at the docks pulls him out of sight.
“You did well,” Costigan says, as they climb into the bocular stallion after their final interview with Pom. “That boy will be a benefit to the Trust now. Not a parasite, feeding his Caenum with the kindness of others.”
It’s a mistake, probably, but Jonas chooses, in that moment, to be honest with her. “It didn’t feel good—or, Valorous, I mean.”
“Well, there’s the truth of things, isn’t it?” says Costigan. “What feels good and righteous, and what is Valorous, are entirely separate things. You cannot be led by your heart, Jonas,” she says, an air of sugary condescension coating her words, “Or by a stomach as weak as the one you have. The Trust is our guiding light. The only one in which we can place our faith. Whatever foibles or qualms you indulge in your own head are worth nothing under that light.”
Spahr bows his head. This, he knows—he believes. Too many of his actions have ended on the sharp lances of Costigan’s speech for him to believe that he will ever truly know what is best.
“Thank you, Consector,” he says. “I will remember it.”
“I will always remind you,” Costigan says, and that, he knows, is a kindness.
When he returns, to his modest house on the grounds of the Consector’s mansion, an account statement is already waiting for him.
He unfolds it as he sinks down on the couch in his sitting room. Costigan will probably expect him to join her for supper in the mansion, to debrief on the mission in more depth, discuss points where Spahr could improve, celebrate his successes and review his failings. He has only a few minutes of respite.
As he opens the statement, he sees the usual items—his debit to Costigan for the housing on her estate, his pension for the mission—but, there, below it, is another number, significantly larger than both of the others combined. A number that can be incurred only by the enaction of a truly great deed.
It is no more and no less than the exact worth of Phineas Thatch’s life.
Spahr looks at the number—runs his fingers over the ink used to print it. He did act rightly. The Valor rests in his account now. Glowing, unassailable proof.
Spahr rises from the sofa and throws a fresh half-cape of velvet over his shoulder.
When he reaches the mansion, he will not be afraid to meet Costigan’s eyes.