Jeffrey Carver - Eternity's End

Legroeder sighed, glancing at Morgan.

“Don’t mind my mom.”

“I like your mother,” Legroeder said. He looked toward the bridge, wondering what El’ken’s reply was.

“Well, she has good taste in clients,” Morgan said, busying herself with the pot of tea. “Sometimes, anyway. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I asked out of genuine curiosity. But if it’s something you’d rather not talk about—”

“Which—my life before? Or the seven years in a raider stronghold?” Legroeder shrugged, as if the distinction were inconsequential. But there was a tension rising between his shoulders, and he knew that it was going to be a long time before he could talk about either. Strangely, he felt more inclined to discuss the pirates now. It was no worse than sitting here wondering how soon he would wind up in prison. “It was—”

“Difficult?”

He chuckled. “Yeah—it was difficult.”

“That was stupid of me. What I meant was, when you had no freedom and your life was always being threatened, wasn’t it hard to keep a sense of your own identity?”

“Well, yeah. I suppose the hardest thing was being forced to rig ships for them. Not so much when we were just flying transport. But when we were out prowling—” he shook his head, as if that might somehow keep the memories at bay “—when we went out to attack other ships, and we knew they were going to capture or kill innocent people…”

Morgan winced.

Legroeder shrugged, trying to ignore a buzzing in his head. “There was nothing we could do—we either flew where they said, or we would be killed, or brainwiped. And not just us—”

“What do you mean?”

“They always had hostages on the ships—and they wouldn’t just kill us if we disobeyed, they would kill them , too. And it wasn’t an empty threat.”

Morgan was silent.

Legroeder frowned in thought. “Except for that one time. There was… one… occasion… when I actually managed to keep them from capturing a ship.”

“ Really? How?”

He wanted to laugh, but couldn’t. “We were attacking a ship—and we made contact with the other rigger crew. And…” He had to struggle to keep his voice steady; the memory was rising with incredible power. It was about four years ago; the three riggers on the raider ship had cast an oversized net around their intended victim, and were drawing it in like a fishing net. Something in the other net struck him as oddly familiar, and he risked opening a private speech channel, disguising it as a dark crease of cloud billowing over the landscape. “I couldn’t believe it. It was an old friend of mine, an old shipmate, flying the other ship! Along with some kind of alien, catlike thing.”

Morgan’s mouth dropped open.

Again, a half laugh rose in his throat. “His name was Gev Carlyle—one of the most innocent guys you ever met in your life. I mean, painfully innocent. When I flew with him, I had to watch out for him. A good rigger, but young—naive.” He shook his head, pressing his lips together. “I’m not sure what came over me—but I just couldn’t let them capture him… or kill him. I couldn’t.” Aboard the raider, a team of commandos was preparing to board the target, and another crew stood ready to blow it to pieces if it tried to escape or fight back.

Morgan’s voice was husky. “What did you do?”

“I was scared. Real scared. But I had to hide that.” His heart was pounding with the memory. “We were coming in—lights flashing in the Flux, drums crashing, boarding party ready to go. If you’ve never been under attack in the Flux, you can’t imagine how terrifying that is. We were already grappling, net to net, drawing him in. But I was able to sabotage the net imagery… just enough. Made it seem like a fluctuation in the net.” In fact, he’d been incredibly lucky. The only people who could really see what was happening were the riggers. He reshaped the image just enough: they already had the two ships enveloped in a flaring thunderstorm, and when an eruption of turbulence loosened their grip and clouded the image, it seemed almost natural…

Legroeder remained silent a moment, reliving the memory. He’d kept the covert channel to Carlyle open just long enough to yell, Gev, go! … and then let the two ships slip apart as though he’d lost his hold in the turbulence.

“And—?”

He swallowed. “I was able to give him time to break free and vanish. I couldn’t have gotten away with it if Rusty, one of the riggers in my net, hadn’t been willing to look the other way.” He laughed, this time for real. “And if the other guy hadn’t been so dumb. Rusty was a captive like me, but the second guy… he just didn’t catch on.”

“Dear God,” Morgan whispered. “Weren’t you afraid they’d kill you?”

“Sure—afterward. At the time, I just reacted. Pure instinct.” It made him shudder now to think of the peril he’d put himself into. “Why’d I do it then, and no other time? I don’t know. If I’d thought about it, I don’t know if I would have had the nerve then .” He closed his eyes, feeling vaguely ill. “You know something? I’ve never told anyone about this. Not until now.”

“It sounds like a very tough business,” Harriet said. She was back in her seat with a small printout in her hand.

Legroeder blinked. “When did you come back?”

“Just now. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.” Harriet folded the paper and then reopened it, with uncharacteristic nervousness.

“That’s all right. What did El’ken say?”

Harriet chuckled without humor. “That since we were halfway there, he wouldn’t turn us away. But if we were anything less than serious students of history, we shouldn’t expect much. It’s not what I’d call a friendly note. But since El’ken is one of the Narseil’s most honored scholars, I guess we’re fortunate to get to see him at all.”

Legroeder hmph’d noncommittally. “Well… McGinnis wasn’t eager to see us, either. But we won him over.”

“That’s true.”

“Of course, he’s dead now.”

“That’s also true. Legroeder, dear, this is starting to sound depressing. Can we go back to talking about your life among the pirates, and see if we can cheer ourselves up a bit?”

Legroeder managed a laugh. “To be honest, most of it was crushing boredom and frustration, and chronic anger—interrupted by periods of extreme terror.” Harriet looked away, and Legroeder suddenly realized that, despite her remark, Harriet probably didn’t much want to talk about life with pirates. Not with her grandson—if he was still alive—almost certainly enduring similar hardship at this very moment.

Legroeder cleared his throat. “I don’t really know what it would have been like for a young boy—if Bobby was even at that outpost. I wish I could tell you, but I just don’t know.”

Harriet nodded, stirring her tea. Glancing at Morgan, Legroeder could see appreciation in her eyes. He sighed again and fell silent.

Morgan brought him back to his story. “What happened after you let your friend go?”

“Well…” Legroeder scratched the back of his head. “I have no idea what happened to Gev Carlyle. He seemed to get clear okay. Funny thing was, he was flying around trying to put an old crew back together—including me. He managed to get that much across in the half second we had to talk. And here I was, in the net of a pirate ship. I can’t imagine what he thought.”

“But you did risk your life to let him go.”

“Yeah. But I never got the chance to tell him why I was there in the first place.”

Morgan frowned. “What happened to you afterward?”