Her lips twitched up in a shame-faced smile. “Yeah,” she said, and touched her cheek. “And so do you.”
She sat down at the table with him, folding her hands before her and staring fixedly at her fingers. “I need to apologize,” she said. “I don’t really want to. It seems like every other word out of my mouth since you came along has been ‘sorry’. By now, it’s really started to lose whatever meaning it ever had. But I have to apologize anyway. I can only hope you understand how much I do mean it. I feel horrible for how I’ve treated you.”
The weight of guilt was all around her, seeming to pull the light and substance from the room with all the capacity of a newborn black hole. Tagen felt himself wanting to fidget. “You had your reasons,” he said, wincing internally at the awkwardness of the words.
“I had an excuse,” she said, immediately and with scathing bitterness. “I had no reasons.”
The self-disgust in her words put a new gravity in the room. Tagen could think of nothing he could say to lighten it. The silence stretched out.
“I’m trying to say that…I’ve been…” She trailed off. Her head bent, her hair falling forward to hide her face. It made her look smaller, younger. She said nothing for a long time, but then, “I’m going to try to be better.”
She sounded utterly without hope, as if ‘better’ were as far beyond her as the moon.
Hell. He groped for something cheerful to say to her.
“I appreciate your efforts,” he said, and then covered his eyes and sighed.
She laughed, a harsh and hurt-filled sound. “What exactly do you appreciate, spaceman?” she asked, again with that tone of loathing.
He moved his hand and gave her a hard look. “That you have not stabbed me in my sleep.”
“Christ, you’re easy to please.” She shook her hair back and dragged her hand across her eyes. Her fingers lingered on her cheek.
He wished he knew what to say to appease her. Speech had never been one of his strengths. Not speech, not wit, not insight…gods, they’d make anyone a sek’ta these days.
He said, “If you are seeking my forgiveness, you have it.”
She did not look at him or respond in any way.
Tagen shrugged uncomfortably and let his eyes rest on the wall. “And if you are not, I suppose you have it anyway. What the hell, as you humans say.”
She laughed, which surprised him, and when he saw the sincere light of humor in her sad eyes it filled him with a cautious pleasure. She rubbed at her cheek again and then dropped her hands and offered him a wan smile. “You’re a good man, Tagen,” she said.
He thought bleakly of slipping into her room that night, painting his hand with her oils as he plied her sleeping body. “We can both be better,” he said.
“Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry for all the shit I’ve given you. I won’t bother you anymore.” She seemed about to say more, but abandoned it with a sigh. She got up from the table and moved to prepare him food.
“Thank you,” he said. He thought it an inappropriate answer, but it seemed to be what she needed to hear.
She only nodded, she didn’t even look at him. Soon the smells of cooking eclipsed those of cleansers. Daria worked at the oven, her head bent as though in penance, and perhaps it was. It would take a punishing mind to make Tagen stand over hot pans on such a warm day. He felt for her.
“Shall I tell you of Jota?” he asked suddenly, as much to fill the silence as to raise her mood.
She glanced at him, her eyes still shadowed, but managed to smile. “Sure. Tell me…Tell me about you.”
“Me?” He drew back slightly. “What of me?”
“I don’t know. Anything.” She prodded at the food listlessly. “Why’d you become a cop or…join the army, I guess, since it’s pretty much the same thing. Did something happen, or did you just wake up one day and decide to sign up?”
“Neither,” Tagen said, still thrown by her interest. Was there a deeper meaning, or merely a desire to be repaid for the intimacy he had forced out of her the day before? In either case, his answer could only benefit him. He said, “My…father wished me to join. I did so at the earliest age allowed by our law. I have served now…fifty-one years.”
“Seriously?” She gave him a wide-eyed scrutiny, her stirring-spoon dripping into her open palm. “You don’t look that old.”
“Because I am not old,” he said, somewhat defensively. “Most think me quite young for my rank.”
“Are the years on Jota shorter than Earth’s?”
Tagen thought about it, and then had to close his eyes and sketch figures on the tabletop to think about it some more. “No,” he said at last. “In point of fact, I believe they are longer. Our days are shorter, though. Notably.”
“Oh yeah?” Her head cocked to one side and she regarded him with open interest. “Is it hard to get used to Earth’s time? I mean, if the days are so much longer here…You’re still sleeping just at night. I imagine it must be like pulling a double-shift every day.”
He aimed a claw at her. “That is exactly what it feels like,” he said. “Barring, of course, the expectation of additional pay.”
“Yeah, well, we people of Earth have these great things called ‘unions’ that you might want to look into a little before you go home.” She turned back to the oven. “Was your father a soldier, too?”
“Yes.” He picked up his glass and sipped to take away the sour taste that had suddenly invaded his mouth. “One of my world’s greatest.”
“Really?” She turned again, and this time her gaze lingered. “He was famous?”
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
Tagen smiled wryly. “Oh yes.”
“How famous?”
His chest swelled slightly as his body displayed for her without consulting his mind. He had to laugh at himself, breaking the bitter sound into pieces by takking his claws hard on the table. “Very,” he said, answering her question. “Indeed, I think there is not a major city in all of Jota’s worlds that does not have at least one military hall named for Pahnee.”
“Then…” Slowly, her expression faded into puzzlement. “Why are you here?”
He frowned at her, wondering what could have prompted this bizarre spate of amnesia. Slowly, he began, “To pursue—”
“No, I know that. I guess I should have said, ‘Why are you here?’ Famous people tend not to be asked to do dangerous things here on Earth.”
“No? How then do they become famous?”
“They act or play sports or go into politics.” Daria’s mouth puckered. “You know, when I say it out loud like that, it sounds pretty stupid.” Her attention returned to the stove. She turned away from him and resumed cooking.
“I am here because I am famous,” Tagen told her. “On my world, those with well-known names are at times called upon to earn them out.”
“Lucky you.”
“Indeed.” But there was not as much bitterness in his answer as there might have been only a few days ago. It made him feel that he had to justify his tone, and he lamely added, “If I should be successful in this mission it will be a…a rising stair for me.”
“Actually, it’ll be more like a platform,” Daria remarked, her back still to him. “It sounds like you went up that stair when they gave you the job. Now that everyone knows no one can do it but Tagen Pahnee, the only stair in store for you is the one they’re all waiting for you to tumble down.”
Tagen felt a smile stretching his lips.
Daria’s back stiffened and she spun around, her spoon raised. “Oh, I’m sorry! Me and my big mouth, what a rotten thing to say!”
“But a true thing, I think.” He flicked his claws dismissively at her horror. “Such have been my feelings since I woke to find my orders, although I could not put them into words.”