John Ringo - Against the Tide

“Fine?”

“Good,” Bast said, grabbing her arm, “I’ve something to show you in the rigging.”

“I have something to tell you,” Shanea said, as she mounted the ratlines.

“Aye?”

“I prefer boys for fun.”

“Well, nobody would believe me but that wasn’t what I wanted to show you.”

“Captain,” Herzer said touching his forelock. “Permission to come on the bridge?”

“Granted,” the captain said with a grin.

“I heard there was a report of an orca pod,” Herzer continued, glancing over at the chart. The charts had come back out as soon as Edmund’s plans became apparent and he blanched when he looked at the updated positions. The Hazhir was sailing between the New Destiny combat fleet and the invasion fleet. They were apparently trying to slip through the gap and make it to Newfell Base. If either fleet noticed them the combined fleets could fall on them like wolves on a sheep.

On the other hand, this sheep had teeth made for more than shearing grass.

“Tricky, isn’t it?” Karcher said, giving one of her catlike grins. “The worst bit is that we’ve got a high-pressure system bearing down on us; we’re going to lose this wind in a bit. Then we’ll be becalmed between both fleets. That’s why I sent the mer and delphinos to check out the orcas; I didn’t want them to know that there were any dragons around. Out here they could only mean a carrier.”

Herzer opened his mouth and then closed it again.

“And, yes, I considered the possibility of an underwater attack,” Karcher said with a grin. “But we’re doing nearly forty klicks. A kraken would be hard pressed to keep up with us.”

“If you don’t mind, ma’am, I’d like to put a wyvern up prepped for launch,” Herzer said. “Both a Powell and a Silverdrake. Just in case.”

“No, it’s a good idea,” Karcher said. “See to it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Come in,” Megan said at the light knock.

“Heyo,” Bast said, striding in and flopping on the cot that was one of the few places to sit in the room. “Been in here a long time.”

“I’m more comfortable in here,” Megan said, primly. “And I don’t interfere with the working of the ship.”

“And don’t have to see the sky,” Bast said. “Don’t have to look at water stretching away on every side to the horizon, nearly infinite, what if something happen, what if ship sink, what happen then?”

“Bast…”

“People always say that, never work, even for council member,” Bast said, her face solemn. “You know what makes people people?”

“No?” Megan said surprised at the apparent non sequitur.

“Interact with other people, mix in tumble of society,” the elf said, doffing her sword and obviously preparing to stay a while. “Hermit only thinks own thoughts. Most of time bad thoughts. Think about fear of outside, think about fear of power, fear of failure, think about fear all the time. Fear reinforces fear.”

“I was courageous enough to kill Paul Bowman,” Megan said, hotly. “I just… don’t like the sea.”

“Too big,” Bast said, nodding. “Swallow up as if never exist. Understand. More fear there, though. Fear of self, methinks.”

Bast waited as Megan played with a sculpture of a flower, muttering under her breath. Then the sculpture turned black and collapsed.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Megan said with a shrug.

“Need to, though,” Bast said, then waited again.

“Do you think you can outwait me?” Megan replied, gesturing up another sculpture. This one started as a face and seemed to morph itself into a skull as if against her will. She waved it away as well.

“Thousand years old,” Bast said. “Gonna out live you much less outwait you.”

Megan started to call up another structure then her hands dropped.

“Sometimes…” she said after a long pause and then stopped.

Bast pulled a stoppered flask from her belt and tossed it to Megan.

“Have a drink,” Bast said. “Have two, then toss back. Going to need some myself.”

“What is it?” Megan asked, sniffing at the opening. It was alcoholic, she could tell that much.

“Would make mysterious noises if real elf,” Bast said. “Is Navy rum. Very high proof. Have big drink. Put hair on your chest.”

“I don’t want hair on my chest,” Megan said, taking a swallow and coughing. “God that’s rough!”

“Also burn hair off,” Bast admitted. “Useful as paint thinner. Have another drink. Then start at beginning. Where meet Paul?”

So Megan started at the beginning. How Paul had found her washing clothes. She had been a general maid for a local couple. She had many skills that would have gotten her better jobs but not in the small Gallic town she had washed up in after the Fall. At the time she was glad enough to get the table scraps while she tried to figure a way out of the hole. She had clawed her way to relative power in the harem and stood it when her time came with Paul. But it was not so much the rape, or the constant strain of maintaining her position in the harem while planning to kill Bowman, that had shaken her. It was the feelings that arose in her as the months and years went by. As the words, halting at first, began to spill out of her it seemed as if the ship must have hit a storm for all the waves out the window looked the same. Her tosses to Bast were going all over the cabin and she couldn’t catch anymore. Finally she moved over to the cot and Bast sat at the end.

“I didn’t want to love him,” Megan said, almost pleaded. “And in the end, I didn’t want to kill him either. I don’t trust myself. I have this… weakness I found for servility. It disgusts me.”

“But if had not found, would have gone mad or ended up like Amado,” Bast pointed out, turning the flask upside down. “Blast, not a drop left.”

“Mirta didn’t,” Megan pointed out.

“Bet you a dollar,” Bast responded. “Could not fight and win. Could not lay out and succeed. Did the best you could, body and brain took over. Think you did very well, even ignoring killing Paul Bowman.”

“Even ignoring falling in love with him?” Megan said, bitterly. “I just feel… broken. I feel as if there’s no metal left in me.”

“Yet held onto metal and killed Paul,” Bast said. “Plenty of metal there. Fine and hard, harder than before your test.”

“But what about this… instinct to servility?” Megan said. “Everybody wants something and I find myself wanting to please. I never felt that way before… this. And I really loved Paul.” There were tears now to go with the cracked voice. “How do I trust myself? How do I trust my feelings about…”

“Herzer,” Bast said with a grin. “Is okay, plain as day to everybody on ship with eyes. Herzer very easy man to love, trust me.”

“But how do I know I didn’t just glom onto the first reasonably presentable guy to show up?” Megan asked, bitterly. “Herzer is the first person I’ve seen who is… presentable.”

“Malcolm Innes?” Bast asked.

“How do you know about him?” Megan said, thinking back. She’d mentioned him in passing but not described.

“Could write book,” Bast chuckled. “Good looking fellow. Older than looks. Quite ‘presentable.’ ”

“I couldn’t live among the Gael,” Megan shuddered. “I admire them. I even, sort of, understand why they live the way they do, the necessity of it that is. But I couldn’t live there. Even as queen of the Gael or whatever. I’d end up ripping half their heads off.”

“Not bad looking, though,” Bast pointed out. “Feel the same way about him as you do Herzer?”