Elizabeth Bear: Worldwired

But I guess we'll blow up that bridge when we come to it.

I pass a retired soldier on a park bench, stop, and turn back as his profile catches my eye. He climbs to his feet: still in uniform. “The jacket's gotten a little big for you, Fred. Did Patty tell you I was coming?”

She's doing grad work, now, at Oxford. They've rebuilt; Jeremy was invited to teach, and he recruited her as a student. Not that she would have had any trouble getting in, although Fred threw a fit when she decided to leave the service. It's good to see the kid getting what she wants for a change, instead of what her family's told her to want.

He shakes his head, his cover in his hand. Reddened cheeks pouchy, hair gone white but only slightly thinning, eyebrows that probably seem threatening when he glowers. “The Vancouver 's just left on an exploratory mission, and the Toronto is about ready to fly. They're going to give her to Genie as primary pilot, although I don't think Genie's heard that yet, and she's not going to hear it from you.”

“Done at twenty-three. Damn.”

“Kid's special.” He shrugs. “And I wouldn't call it done. You have some finished apprentices for us, I hope?”

“Some.” I shoo a curious honeybee away. “So how'd you know I'd be here? Dick rat me out? Did Doc?” Elspeth would, too. If she thought I needed closure.

“Elspeth doesn't talk to me. No, I heard the Montreal was home. I guessed.” He sticks his hand out and I take it, glad of my gloves. Brief contact, as if we're in a contest to see who can be the first to let it drop. I turn and keep walking. He falls into step. “Gabe's not here? Elspeth?”

“Couldn't stand to come.”

“Did you ever get married?”

All three of us, Fred, or any two in combination? Be funny if Elspeth and I did it, and kept Gabe around as a houseboy. Hell, I bet he'd be amused by that. Gabe, I mean. Well, Valens, too. “Why mess with what works?”

No answer to my sarcasm but the splashing of water as he strolls along beside me, supple and spry. Mideighties aren't what they used to be.

I scratch the back of my right hand. “You ever try again?”

“Georges raised parrots. He would have wanted me to pine.” He waves to the tall white stone, with the back of his hand as if his shoulder pained him. “I hear the colony is doing well.”

I shrug. There's a funny story about that, but it's not for today. “They're doing all right, I guess. I see those Benefactor ships are still in orbit.”

“Different two,” he says. “They change off. They still playing music at you?”

“And us at them. Jer, Richard, Elspeth, and Les have a pidgin worked out with the birdcages. And good chunks of a chemical — a pheromone — and a light grammar, I guess you'd call it with the shiptree. It's nice not having to leave Elspeth here, thanks to Dick and the wire. Gabe would drive me nuts without her.” I lower my head; he offers a handkerchief. I blow my nose. I'm not the only one. “They did a nice job on the memorial, Fred.”

“They did.”

The tide of pedestrians carries us to the edge of the reflecting pool at a shuffle and hesitates. Nobody pushes. We all take our time. Around me, people are unlacing shoes, rolling up pant legs, sliding stockings off. I do the same, a tidy little pile of socks and spitshined leather by the lip of the pool. People start staring when I peel the gloves off; I hear the murmurs. I hear my name once, twice, and then a ripple of excitement when I shrug off the black trenchcoat and stand there in the sunlight, barefoot in a fifteen-year-old uniform.

I don't look at them, but I can feel them looking at me, and the ones wading out to the island pause, each of them, as if a giant hand stopped and turned them in their tracks. Genie and Patty and Gabe came to the dedication, ten years back.

I couldn't. “Hold my coat for me, Fred.”

He doesn't answer. But he folds the coat over his arm.

The water's sun-warm against my ankles, the black stones slippery and smooth, bumpy with treasures. People stand aside as I stride forward, stinging eyes fixed on the blur of the obelisk, footsteps quick enough to scatter droplets of water like diamonds into the sun. I find the feather in my pocket by touch and draw it out — a little the worse for wear, but safe in its chamois. Like rubies, the beads catch the light when I uncover it.

There are words on the obelisk my eyes are too blurred to make out, even when I step onto the island and pick carefully between the scattered offerings — photos and flags, trinkets and caskets and a full bottle of 18-year-old Scotch — the airworthy ones weighted with the heavier.

I can't quite read the words, but they're graven deep and I trace them with a fingertip:

10:59 PM

December 21, 2062

I tug a bit of sinew from my pocket, because it's traditional, and I wind it around the obelisk — which is slender enough to span with my arms, like the waist of a teenage girl — and then I tie Nell's feather to it. Tight, just above the writing. So the veins I smooth with my fingertips flutter in the breeze and the glass jewels sparkle in the sun.

The stone's warm where I lean my forehead on it. When I straighten up and wipe my nose on the back of my hand, the crowd is so silent I hear my sniffle echo. Every single one of them stares at me, and they don't glance down when I stop at the edge of the island and glare, putting all the eagle in the look I can.

The moment is stillness, utter and heartless, and that stillness continues when I step into the water again and wade back to shore, sodden trouser cuffs clinging to my ankles.

Walking through the water. Trying to get across.

Just like everybody else.