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Vila stared at the man in the black jumpsuit and wondered if it would do any good at all if he told them he was a coward. If he told them that he was useless and a victim all his life. If he told them that he'd been caught so often he was beginning to think he should buy a real plant to brighten up his cell in juvenile detention. He didn't think they would listen, authorities were never very good at listening, but he thought it might be worth a try.
He took a deep breath and felt the too-tight collar and cuffs of his detention issue coveralls stretch his skin a little. He'd shot up a few inches in the last few months and they didn't fit him properly any more. If they ever had. He tried to slump his shoulders, to look as inoffensive and small as possible, although at the age of seventeen he was beginning to gangle alarmingly. It worried him. How was he supposed to be a good thief if he didn't fit into the right places anymore?
He smiled and spread his hands, "Look, you don't want me – I've been in and out of prison all my life. I'm hardened to it. I'm bound to do it again. I'd be no good to you. You don't want me."
The man in the black jumpsuit stretched his mouth into an expression that was probably meant as a smile. Via felt a little sick.
"It doesn't matter what you did, Restal. It only matters what you will do. Sign here… and here…"
Vila swallowed and looked at the form that was thrust across the desk.
"And what if I don't?"
The man exchanged a glance with the guard in the corner of the room.
"There are worse places than juvenile detention, Restal. There are prison planets. There's hard labour. You never know – you might even fit the medical profile for mutoid adaptation. If you're lucky."
Vila stared into cold fish eyes that didn't blink. He had a feeling the man meant it. And he was eighteen tomorrow – no longer a juvenile.
He pulled the form towards himself, proud his hands didn't shake. If only he had succeeded in faking the tests. If only he hadn't caught their eye. If only… The world was full of 'if only's. He pushed the form back.
The man picked it up and stood. He didn't loom as much as Vila feared he would, but that didn't make him feel better. The man held out his hand for Vila to shake. And somehow that was worse than all the rest.
"You won't regret this. We'll make a man of you yet, Restal. Welcome to the FSA."
Rebellions were dangerous. Everyone knew that. Vila decided that after the stupid little prison break that Blake had organised on board the London, he was going to keep his head down from now on. To be fair, it hadn't exactly been his idea, but since when did that matter in the grand scheme of things – he decided that next time he saw a shiny bauble on an unconscious wrist, he'd leave that alone too. Of course, he didn't think he really meant it.
But when Blake wanted people to join him in rebelling against Vargas, Vila remembered his promise to himself and he sat silently by and merely watched as the few idealists and the credulous joined him. He worried a bit when Gan got up, but thought he could always find another large mate to stand behind, in a pinch.
This prison break went as badly as the first one had, with death just as unpleasantly dealt from old-fashioned knives and spears, as that delivered by Federation issue blasters. Only this time Blake wasn't so lucky. People's luck always ran out in the end, so Vila told himself, thinking of his own countless arrests.
He thought of that too, later, as he hung from the cross. His mouth burned with thirst, and sweat rolled coldly into his eyes, reminding him sharply of his own mortality. He should have thought of old-fashioned punishments too, Vila decided, as he contemplated his own weaknesses. The shiny bauble had been Vargas' strange-looking new gun, and Kara herself was pretty enough to tempt any man, awake or asleep. He had remembered that people's luck always ran out sooner or later. And that rebellions were dangerous. But maybe he should, instead, have remembered that there were worse fates than dying swiftly in a lost cause.
Lullabies were soothing, Vila thought. And Kerril was very good at singing them. He leaned forward a little to hear her better, and the porch swing creaked as his weight shifted. He put his elbows on his knees and contemplated the horizon, the stars bright, as they always were here on Homeworld, so bright he could almost see the edges of his fields, and the progress of the harvest – a darker line stretching unevenly down to the stream in the bottom of the valley.
His body was aching, but not too fiercely, given the season and the work he had to do, and as Vila listened to Kerril sing to their children, he realised that they were growing up so fast. Little Gan would be ten this year, easily old enough to start taking on some of the more serious work on the farm. And Cally-Soo would be fourteen – Vila thought about how he would have to start looking for a match for her among the tribefolk's boys this year. About time too, he needed another pair of grown hands, had done for years, but only now had the wherewithal to arrange it.
So many mouths to feed! Vila thought back with a nostalgic smile to the Dome where he'd grown up – he'd been used to the cramped and crowded conditions there, after all. But he'd never really thought about how easily children could be taken for granted. After all, the Federation arranged all that, gave you a breeding permit, told you how many you could have. It had never really occurred to him that you could just keep popping them out year after year, the way he and Kerril seemed to do. They'd been short of food more than once, but at least he could be proud of something – all his kids were still alive, barring Poor Roj, who'd succumbed to the coughing disease in the Long Winter. And if they couldn't read, and if they didn't understand what a spaceship was, or a computer? Well, the knowledge had never done Vila any good, now had it?
Vila stared out over his land and absently began rubbing one hand with the other. He stopped abruptly when he realised what he was doing. There was no use crying over spilt milk. He closed the hand as much as he could and then opened it again, staring at the scar. That had been a scythe in their second year here, hadn't it? But so what if his fingers didn't have the dexterity they used to have? It wasn't as though he needed a light-fingered touch, not when he was ploughing, or hoeing, or haying. He felt the ghost of a sigh leave him and shook his head. He thought he was long over any lingering traces of any possible regret, but maybe he was wrong about that.
Vila got up, still listening to Kerril's song, and moved towards the still shed. He had one civilised comfort left to him, at least, and he intended to make the most of it. And whatever Kerril said, he was not drowning his sorrows. How could he be, as he told her whenever they argued. He didn't have any sorrows to drown.