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I've been around long enough to take it for granted that you should carry around a lot of salt. I’m not talking about real, edible salt. I’m talking about the kind you take whenever somebody tells you a story. Because the funny thing about truth? It’s never that, not completely. Not as much as the teller may want it to be, or even think it is. It's called cognitive bias. Or selective memory. Or, if you're particularly cynical: history.
I study history. Civilizations—people—for a living. Carrying around salt pretty much runs in this line of work. Of course, most of these people tend to come in large groups, and be long dead. Sure, you often make generalizations, but you also have to dig deep, be liberal with that salt. That’s how you uncover things, extrapolate things. Things these people never even would’ve recognized about themselves while they were alive. When you've been doing it for so long, this kind of thing naturally gets under your skin. That's the truth, for me. I can be pretty single-minded about it. No shame in that.
And sometimes these things just happen.
I wasn't expecting to bump into that obsessive old student of mine. She was mostly up to her same tricks—but I have to admit, she and her newfound friends got me out of some bad trouble. So that was appreciated. And it seems she's been getting this planet, these people, under her skin, and everyday is acting more and more like someone who's finally found herself, a world away from the trappings of her family. Someone who doesn't need some kind of fabricated relationship to define who she is. Good for her. Lately I've started thinking maybe an experience like this would also be good for her sister. Maybe I should even bring that one along on the next planet-hop. God forbid. Perish the thought.
But this story is really about this kid I met. He’s a funny one, full of opposites. Reckless and bold about some things. Unexpectedly cautious, even timid, about others. Easy to figure out, but hard to read at the same time. In a sense, not unlike that old student of mine in a number of ways, but with fewer years behind him to prop him up. And at the same time, maybe more history than some people twice his age. He's got a remarkably level head on his shoulders, all things considered. Especially considering that being on an alien world with the kind of background and reception he had would shake pretty much anyone up.
I’m sure it was a relief for him to have the two of us there. Two people who could understand where he was coming from, even if it was sometimes only at a shallow level of shared experience. People who wouldn't bat an eye when he accidentally tossed around words that made everybody else's eyebrows shoot up into the stratosphere. And I’m sure it was easier for him to talk with me about some things than with her. When you're nineteen and the other option is a twenty-three-year-old femme fatale? It happens.
We had some fine conversations too. I was pleasantly surprised at how well read-he is. Things most people I know—even most of my students—wouldn't be all that interested in. He had some pretty interesting theories and a sense of humour and inventiveness about them. I found it hard at times to see him doing what he supposedly would do—is doing—for a living. “You're in the wrong line of work,” I’d tell him, more than once.
He'd just laugh. Sometimes he'd add, “You should've talked to my dad.” An eyeroll or two. There's an understanding about things like that; one of the oldest stories in the book. He never said it outright to anyone, but after a while, I started piecing it together. The last name. The other mentions of his family. And I realized that, for him, it's compounded. The shadow of the famous father—another classic story.
Sometime after, when we were on Energy Nede, he told both of us about what happened back at the tower, when he’d been beamed up. We’d nodded; it was something that’d be hard to explain to everyone else. Let them wonder. With what we knew at the time, we figured it was probably for the best. He’d kept his story straightforward with us, sticking to the facts. But I pondered here and there about how it must have gone down. With what I knew about him, it was probably the hardest thing he'd ever done. One of the few times he went with not only what he felt was right, but also what he really wanted to do.
And based on what I knew of what he knew when he made the call—that meant what he had really wanted to do was essentially a suicide decision. To go out like a light with everybody else in the unavoidable collision between Arctura IV and the high-energy body. It was a complete fluke that we made it out on the other side. He couldn’t have known when he chose to leave his communicator behind.
But since we’d ended up all alive and well as could be? It hadn't been a hand-slap reprimand kind of situation. Depending on how it all worked out, he knew he'd pay for it afterwards. Whether it was just his father giving him hell or, much more likely, the entire system.
Later that afternoon, the two of us spent a good amount of time discussing court martials and possible outcomes for desertion and insubordination. He considered the idea that involuntary discharge could be a positive in the long run, since a Federation officer career wasn’t exactly his personal lifelong dream. In addition, or alternatively, I offered him to planet-hop and explore ruins with me. Assuming, of course, the Nedians give us some kind of spacecraft to be able to return to Tetragenesis, since mine was gone in the collision. He was clearly interested and entertained the thought, but my suggestion of going AWOL versus letting his case work its way through military court to confirm an actual discharge didn’t fly. To his credit, he never seemed inclined to jettison responsibility for his actions. So I helpfully shared some related experiences in UP3-bending and legal technicalities. Hope that doesn’t come back to bite me in the backside later.
We also debated if it was worth pressing the Nedians further on options to contact the Federation. They didn’t seem open to breaking their isolation space. And we didn't know what the situation was with the field, whether or not any part of it could even be brought down in a controlled way to do it. In any case, the immediate situation seemed relatively contained to Energy Nede. And then we were running—or flying—all over the place and had little time for other considerations. And before we knew it we were in Fienal.
And as it turned out, he did pay for it. Dearly. But not in a way any of us could’ve imagined.
I'm still not sure how many people know the whole story. And it's not my place to tell it for him. To be frank I don't think he would mention it to anyone else if they didn't figure it out themselves. But at least in my case—thanks in part to some of those related experiences I mentioned earlier—it took me all of an instant to recognize the distinct silhouette in the projection as a Federation battleship. And from his reaction, identify exactly which one it was. And to know exactly who was on it when it all went down.
Knowing what I know, it's been a little eerie watching him. He seems to be acting completely normal, as if he didn’t just recently watch his father and his colleagues get blown up before his eyes. I think about back at the tower, when he knew everything was about to explode, and the rest of us were just intent on finding the next set of stairs.
Finally, late one day I catch him in our shared room, sitting on the edge of the far bed. He seems to be zoning out, staring at the wall.
"Hey," I say. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even look up or acknowledge I’m in the room. And I say, “I don't know if you want to hear anything. But it wouldn't have made a shit of a difference if you'd stayed on the ship. Except for the fact that you wouldn't still be here to do something about it.”
He jerks up like I poked him in the back with a live wire. He turns his head and stares at me for about five seconds. Then he slumps, covering his face with his hands. I walk around the first bed and sit next to him on the second.
The story comes out in a torrent. About the past. About the people he knew. About who they were, and what he remembered, and what they did, and what he thought of them, and how that mattered or didn't matter anymore. And really, mostly about one particular person. About how this person had more impact on shaping a life than any one person should have the right to, whether they knew it or not. About how much he hated or didn't hate him. About what he did or didn't do. About what this person must have thought up until the very last moment. And about how sorry he is and how much he can’t express any of it to that one person, the one person it would’ve mattered to the most. His words aren’t the clearest and it’s hard to follow, and honestly he probably doesn’t actually say that much. But I don’t really need to follow it or hear it to understand it, with what I already know about him.
I recognize it as an old story, but it’s not worth anything to point out. This is his cognitive bias, his selective memory. His story. In between I resist the urge to say trite, useless crap about the memory of his father and how he would be proud of him if he knew the full story and whatever. Mostly I’m just there, nodding my head. The simple fact that someone else is witnessing a history and that he doesn’t have to explicitly tell me what happened is probably more important than anything else.
I barely make his last words out. I hate this place. And I know he’s not talking about Expel or Energy Nede or the room we’re in. And frankly it’s the first time I'd ever heard him say outright that he hates something, so I figure that’s progress.
Like I said. These things just sort of happen. And when he's sleeping, especially, he looks even less than all of his nineteen years. Or sometimes more.
It's an old story. Hope I didn't use up all of your salt.