Archive of Our Own

Vila's face wore a pain-filled look of surprise; the fate he'd so skillfully avoided for so long had finally and uncompromisingly caught up with him. He fell backwards with a soundless scream of protest, his body joining Dayna's and Arlen's on the floor.

Tarrant and Soolin were already moving, scooping up their discarded weapons. Avon alone remained motionless, his head down, his eyes fixed on the bloody and broken body of Blake as if nothing else mattered.

Soolin fired, as quick and accurate as ever, but even her skill and speed was no match for the sheer numbers of black-suited figures appearing at every exit.

Her hair was fair, the eyes cold-green, burning like ice. She stood like a statue at his father's side, and he gave her a push forward.

"Present for you," he grunted. His own eyes gleamed with savage elation, the look of a satiated hunter.

The woman glanced up briefly from the small, primitive stove she worked at. Behind her lay the dull metal hull of their ship. On every side the forests closed, dappling the small clearing with shadows. The boy was sitting under one of the trees, his back against the gnarled bark. He never spoke, but he watched them covertly - the man, the woman and the girl.

"Another mouth to feed!" The woman pushed a strand of lank hair out of her eyes, a sharp, impatient movement.

"We'll have food soon enough. And money. All the money we could wish for." The man hooked one finger over his gun belt and smiled, a lazy, well-satisfied smile. "I staked a claim on some rich land today. Miming Amalgamated will pay highly for it."

The boy guessed that the girl's family had already paid highly for the land. No doubt they'd been settlers, farmers, but now that the planet's mineral wealth had been discovered they were no longer wanted. If these people refused to leave then men like his father were paid to drive them out. Or kill them. The boy had seen too many killings to be disturbed by the thought. At eleven years old, violence and suffering left him indifferent.

"Why did you bother saving the brat?" The woman's voice was a perpetual whine and the boy watched his father's eyes narrow, sensing his irritation. He knew his father was bored with her and would soon get rid of her. The knowledge didn't disturb him. The woman wasn't his mother; she'd been discarded so long ago that he'd forgotten her face.

"Why not?" There was a harder edge to his father's voice now, and even the woman, low-grade Delta though she was, recognized that arguing further would be unwise. "She's a pretty little thing .... " His father was appreciative of the opposite sex - whatever their age. The woman had been pretty herself, once.

The girl didn't speak. She stayed where she was, the bitter hatred in her eyes masking an anguished loss she was refusing to acknowledge. The boy placed her age at some three years younger than himself.

His father crossed to the stove, picked up a pan from the fire and took a huge gulp of near-scalding liquid. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "You can do what you like when you've got this -" he tapped the gun at his side "-to back you up. Especially if you're the best." It was no idle boast. When sober, his father could out-shoot anyone in the Federated Worlds. Those who disagreed didn't live long enough to regret it.

The expression on the girl's face altered sharply. A sudden look of hard purpose glittered in her eyes, a resolve which belonged on a much older face. And then it vanished. A screen seemed to close over her eyes, leaving them still cold but now inscrutable. Her face was smooth as she turned to the man and spoke:

"Will you be looking after me now?" Her voice was artless and innocent.

He nodded, and she took his hand, looking up at him shyly - slyly? "I want to be like you," she said.

His father slapped his thigh in amusement. "Oh you do, do you? And how will you manage that?"

"I want to learn to shoot," she said. "To be the best. To shoot people. Like you."

The shot took Soolin in the back and she fell, half-turning, her long hair swinging across her shoulders. The movement was filled with a curious grace. Her eyes were very wide, but they reflected no surprise, only pain and a sudden anguished sense of loss.

"You killed him," the youth said flatly.

The shutters closed out daylight and slanted deep shadows across the room. Outside the world went on. Inside there was silence.

She nodded, holstering the gun and not even sparing the body at her feet a second glance. All the years of deceit whilst she won his father's confidence, and even - at the end - affection, had given her beauty a cold, mask-like perfection. "Are you sorry?" she countered.

He stared back in silence. He felt nothing towards his father. Even the man's death aroused no emotion in him.

"He's just the first," she said. "I'll get them all. All those who were responsible for my family's death."

He didn't doubt her; her mind and purpose had been fixed on vengeance for a very long time.

"You don't hate me?" she asked, sounding curious. "I've never been able to tell what you were thinking."

"No, I don't hate you." He shrugged. "Perhaps I ought to."

"What will you do? You can shoot straight enough when you've a mind to. You could make a decent living as a mercenary now you're not tied to your father's tail."

"I've had enough of killing," he told her, a note of weariness creeping into his voice. "If I could really choose, I'd just like to live ... quietly."

"But we're living in an unquiet world," she reminded him as she crossed to the door. "And to stay alive, we have to fight. It's either kill, or be killed."

The massacre was over. At the last second Kerr Avon had swung the blaster up towards his own head and fired. The result was far from pretty and would cause more than a certain amount of irritation to Commissioner Sleer.

The room was a mortuary, the officer reflected as he gazed over the corpses; Arlen's death had left him in command. He crossed the room, avoiding the heap that was Kerr Avon and Roj Blake, the former's bloodied remains covering the latter. The woman, Dayna Mellanby, and the man, Del Tarrant, wore expressions of horror mixed with fury. The thief, Vila Restal, looked vaguely puzzled by his death. He passed them by, and then paused at Soolin's body. It had been nearly nine years since he'd last seen her, and death had lent her features a peace and serenity they had never known in life.

She'd been right. In this unquiet world it was either kill, or be killed. He'd chosen the former and let himself be drafted into the Federation during the war. After the Andromeda fiasco and the resulting political purge he'd found himself promoted to officer by the new administration. He'd been obeying orders ever since he was born. This was nothing new, and it was a way of living.

So here they were. Right back where it had started. Gauda Prime. He wished he could feel sorry for the way things had turned out, but his upbringing had left him as emotionally crippled as Soolin, as her rebel companions, as all the people in this crazy, mixed-up, unquiet world in which they lived. So many things could have been different, but in the end there was only death, disillusion and detachment.

He gave the orders for burial.

THE END