Compete

  The guy who, I was once told, cares about me in some way.

  . . . You matter to him, Lark. . . .

  And the guy who, when confronted, laughs in my face, and tells me he does not.

  I take another deep breath to steady myself.

  “Gracie,” I say. “It’s a complicated mess. Some of it is my fault. Mostly, it is not anyone’s fault.”

  But Gracie continues looking at me with concern, still holding the two glasses in her now shaking hands. “What did Logan do? What did the jerk do?”

  “Nothing. He told me some hard things about myself that are true. And I have to admit, I’ve been unfair to him.”

  Gracie frowns. “How so?”

  I make a stupid little laugh noise and point at myself and at my plain uniform. “For one thing, I didn’t dress up. There you have it. I’m kind of a crappy girlfriend.”

  “No! No way! That’s just junk! You mean you had a fight over your outfit? What a horrid jerk to make something out of it—”

  “Nah. That’s just a minor symptom of the problem,” I say softly. “The problem is, I care about Logan, but—I also have these stupid feelings for someone else. And—they are—nothing is ever going to come of it.”

  “Oh . . . wow.” Gracie’s mouth opens again. “You like—I think I know who it is—”

  “Gracie, don’t. . . .” I interrupt.

  But she bites her lip and whispers. “It’s Kassiopei, isn’t it?”

  “Damn,” I say tiredly. And then I add. “Is it that obvious?”

  She cranes her neck at me. “Well, not really, at least not too much, don’t worry. But I think most of us kind of knew you two had something going on—”

  “That’s the thing, nothing is going on!” I exclaim in a sudden burst of emotion. “Nothing! Yes, okay, I’m attracted to him somewhat, but it’s ridiculous. He’s my commanding officer, and a damn prince! The whole crazy unrealistic thing is just—Why am I even discussing this with you now, Gracie? You need to get back to Blayne, and we can talk later—”

  “Oh! But this is so important!” my sister says. And then she leans in to me and whispers loudly with a smile, “I kind of think he likes you back.”

  I make a gesture of disgust. “That’s enough,” I say. “I need to go.”

  And before Gracie can say or do anything else to rip my heart apart, I get out of there, walking with determination past the remaining dancers, until I’m out of the great blue chamber.

  I don’t start crying until I reach my cabin and close the door.

  The next morning, I wake up and it hits me all over, like an ice-cold bucket of despair.

  Logan and I are no longer together.

  I have feelings for Kassiopei.

  I am so damn screwed.

  Moving apathetically, I take my time getting ready, as I shower, dress, then head to breakfast in the Officers Meal Hall where I hardly eat more than a mouthful.

  How in the world will I face him? And by him, I don’t mean Logan, but the CP. The crazy thing is, it’s not like anything has changed between the two of us—I’m the one who has changed.

  Okay, get a grip, I tell myself. You have no time for this crap. You have to work. You have to learn as much as you can about everything you can. You have to train yourself, and you have to keep going. . . . And at some point, somehow, you have your family to save.

  Remember the Atlantis Grail?

  And I go to the CCO.

  Thankfully Aeson Kassiopei is not there. However, the post-dance cleanup is going on in the central hub corridor right next to us, and Gennio and Anu are both late. So I end up having to handle a number of Atlantean officers who come by to see the CP. By the time the other two aides arrive, nearly an hour late, I am ready to hide somewhere.

  “Great job at the dance last night,” I say instead to Gennio, who looks sleepy and tired this morning from his long shift at the Zero-G Dance.

  He mumbles something with a smile, then begins his work.

  Anu yawns deeply like a crocodile, and works also.

  I open my file and start a new chapter in the chronicle of the journey of Earth refugees that I’ve been writing.

  The rest of the day passes like a bad hallucinogenic dream of various office tasks, classes, meal halls.

  I don’t see Aeson Kassiopei until our 8:00 PM voice training session. As I arrive at the doors of the CCO and pause while the guards admit me inside, my heart is hammering so wildly that I think I am going to die.

  The Command Pilot sits at his desk, working on a console. The moment I walk in, he looks up. “Come on in,” he says, and swings the console-and-monitor unit mech arm out of the way, clearing the desk surface.

  His expression is unreadable and his eyes watch me steadily as I approach—while I maintain an illusion of as much calm as possible—while inside me oceans of emotion are churning.

  “Hi,” I say, breathing shallow.

  His one brow rises slightly at my oddly casual, monosyllabic greeting.

  Okay, what did I just say? That was suspicious. Not to mention, stupid. I should’ve said, “Good evening, Command Pilot.” Or maybe not—that would’ve been too formal, so even worse.

  Okay, this is crazy.

  As my thoughts go into panic mode, I take a seat across from him at his desk.

  Aeson Kassiopei continues watching me silently. I wonder if he noticed something unusual about me? Am I staring too hard at him? Am I meeting his gaze too directly, head on—or not enough?

  Am I being sufficiently normal?

  Okay, what does that even mean, what’s being normal for me?

  “Remind me what we were doing the last time?” he says, as he takes out the familiar soundproof box with the pieces of orichalcum and sets it on the desk. And then he remembers. “Oh, that’s right, it was the heat generating exercise.”

  “Oh, yes,” I say. And because I think of heat, and then remember again the Semi-Finals in Los Angeles, when he put his bare hand on the burning baton and saved me and Gracie, my face suddenly erupts in a horrible deep flush.

  He is not looking at me as he takes out one lump of orichalcum and begins to sing the complex series of notes to cause the piece to levitate and then undergo the incendiary reaction. His dark, beautifully low voice sends cascading shivers through me. . . . The piece starts glowing angry rose-red as it hangs in the air before us.

  “If I recall, the last time you had some trouble,” he says, glancing up at me in that instant while I am trying to control my breathing enough to dissipate the blush. “Let’s see if you can replicate the sequence this time around.”

  And he sets a new inert piece before me.

  I keep my eyes down, avoiding any direct confrontation with his gaze, as I try to sing the difficult array of notes he just demonstrated.

  Once again I am unsuccessful.

  “Take your time,” he says, and again turns to his console, to do the usual tasks while waiting for me to achieve the new vocal ability in practice.

  I glance up at him periodically, fleeting and quick, and his face is composed as he concentrates on the work. As usual, his lips are held in a tight line when he is particularly engrossed.

  And, God forgive me, I start examining him blatantly, shamelessly noting every tiny detail about him, in those moments as I continue to look up. This is no longer unconscious and innocent on my part—this is me checking him out and being aware of it, knowing precisely what I’m doing.

  “What is it?” he says, glancing at me eventually. “You’re distracted, you’re not paying attention.”

  “Oh, sorry,” I mutter. “I was just thinking about how incredible the Zero-G Dance was last night. I had no idea that kind of thing could even exist!” And I smile shyly, then have to look away, because his so-very-blue eyes—oh, he is looking at me.

  “You seemed to have a good time,” he says, after the slightest pause. He does not smile back, but his expression is bland, or maybe controlled. “It’s a fine old Atlantis tradition,
zero gravity dancing. There will be more chances for you to experience it in the coming months. . . . All right, now try again. This time, focus on holding the sharp notes a little longer.” And he nods to the orichalcum piece lying before me.

  I get back to my efforts. It’s futile; I’m incapable of concentrating tonight—at least not this soon after my new-found awareness of my feelings toward him. Having him so close, and having to do a focused task just now is an impossibility.

  Get. A. Grip. Idiot. Gwen.

  By the way, the incidental absurdity of it doesn’t escape me—I’m supposed to generate heat in an inert piece of alien metal, all the while I’m burning inside.

  Slow, slow burn.

  I have no idea how I’m going to survive—this evening, tomorrow, all the coming days, for as long as I have to work alongside him until we arrive in Atlantis.

  And then what?

  I try not to think too far ahead.

  One day, one moment at a time.

  This is the point in the recounting of events when things become blurry. Time stretches out into a long daily routine.

  There’s no reason for me to describe every day, and for that matter every week that follows. I wake up every day, go in to work, take classes, see my fellow CCO aides, my commanding officer, all while I maintain a careful wall of composure that eventually becomes second nature—because it must.

  The Fleet has left the solar system, and the vast reaches of the Oort Cloud which is the final, quasi-theoretical marker of the Sun’s influence. Whenever I go to the shadowy ICS-2 Observation Deck, to stare at the perfect darkness of interstellar space, there’s no more Sun to look for—not even as a bright, remote, blinding pinpoint of light. The Sun has faded into yet another distant, anonymous star and dissolved into the surrounding cosmic expanse. Nothing remains now as a frame of reference except the surrounding ark-ships of the Fleet itself, seeming to be stationary objects of violet plasma, as they stretch out into an endless formation all around us.

  I have no idea where we are in space. . . .

  The Atlantean Blue season—abbreviated artificially into three Earth-style months—finds me studying and spending much time in the Pilot Training flight simulator classroom, even during after hours.

  The Pilot Training itself is arduous and slow progress. Hugo Moreno and I work together very poorly, and our improvement is marked in tiny daily increments. But then, so is it with most every other Cadet in this advanced training classroom taught by ruthless taskmaster Mithrat Okoi.

  Every day we practice endless variations of shuttle run scenarios, with and without weapons grids, enemy obstacles, and other complications. As a working pair, I think we’re relatively average in our achievement, and that seems to annoy Hugo to the extreme. He greets me with grumbles and frowns, and tends to blame me for every failed run. “Your fault, Gwen Lark, again—so stupid. You slow me down, man! Way down!”

  Other people in the class show markedly faster improvement. Erin and Roy Tsai are one of the top three Pilot and Co-Pilot pairs, together with the Russian girl Alla Vetrova and her South African partner Conrad Hart, plus Leopold Deller from Austria and his partner DeeDee Kim from the Philippines.

  Logan is in the class of course, but he and I have been avoiding each other for days, now—which is turning into weeks.

  We’re completely polite if forced to be in the same room, which happens a few times in classrooms, meal halls, and even at the CCO—since Logan still does work for the CP, and those Earth Union criminal procedures are ongoing, in conjunction with the Atlantis Central Agency and the Poseidon courts. But otherwise Logan never looks at me directly or meets my eyes, and all our contact is forced. I have no idea if Aeson Kassiopei has noticed—how could he not, seeing how chilly Logan and I are with each other?—but the Command Pilot does not say anything.

  So, did I screw it up big-time, by breaking up with Logan Sangre?

  Let me think. . . . Logan was the perfect boyfriend. He’s been my dream for so long and he made me happy. Yeah, I still have feelings for him, even right frigging now. They are not the same mushy overwhelming, all-consuming feelings, but they are there, and I do care about him. I miss his sensual strength, his soulful kisses, the touch of his hands. . . . And yes, I continue to agonize over this decision many late nights as I lie in my tiny solitary cabin, listening to the gentle hum of the air in the vents.

  However, I also can’t deny the reality. Which is—I can no longer give all my emotional attention and attachment to Logan, and that’s unfair in a relationship such as ours was supposed to be. Was I ever in love with Logan? I think so. But I was also so much younger than I am now, and he was my first intense crush.

  Besides, stuff like this is a distraction. I have serious work to do, and a mission, a goal, to take care of my family. Whatever my feelings might be just now—for anyone—it will have to get on the backburner. . . .

  I know—easier said than done.

  My other classes are proceeding well. Consul Suval Denu sees me once every few days in his perfumed personal quarters to teach me Imperial Protocol, and now I know a thing or two about life at Court—and how precarious and insanely ritualized it is—and how each member of the Imperial Family is to be treated. For example, I’ve learned that the proper term to use is Archaeon Imperator, and that the present one, Aeson’s father, is Romhutat Kassiopei, the Archaeon Imperator of Atlantida.

  I’ve also learned that Aeson Kassiopei has a younger sister, the Imperial Princess Manala Kassiopei, and their mother is Devora Kassiopei, the Archaeona Imperatris of Atlantida, who is known as the most beautiful woman of her generation.

  This probably explains, I think, the stunning physical appearance of her son. . . .

  Furthermore, under the tutelage of Consul Denu, I’ve also picked up another unexpected skill. It’s the ability to maintain a subtle new level of composure under trying circumstances and to hide my turbulent emotions behind a neutral or pleasant mask. It’s proving to be very useful whenever I am in the presence of my commanding officer Aeson Kassiopei.

  In Atlantean language class, I’ve picked up enough basic phrases from our Instructor Chior Kla to at least recognize a few words spoken by the Atlantean officers and crew in the meal halls (and a few cuss words from Anu Vei). But after only a few weeks, I and the rest of my fellow Cadet and Civilian classmates, have a long way to go before we can speak Atlantean well enough to hold a proper conversation.

  Meanwhile, I am doing reasonably well in Combat class, taught by Oalla Keigeri. The Twelve Forms of Er-Du are becoming second nature, and I spar well enough to be in the top third of my class.

  It’s also interesting to note that whenever I practice my Forms at one of the gyms, I often find Pilot Xelio Vekahat is there too, working out with weights and punching bags, naked to the waist, covered in sweat, and beautiful enough to make me turn away and blush. He glances my way and acknowledges me with a confident smile, which makes me recall the times during Qualification on Earth when I first had to work with him on the Forms. After his workout, he sometimes lingers, watching me move, and I find the almost tangible sensation of his gaze upon me a strangely stimulating thing.

  There’s no question that Xelio Vekahat, with his long midnight hair and sensual eyes, is also completely out of my league. But for an awkward nerd like me it’s nice just to be noticed for once. I don’t think it’s anything more than that, but I enjoy the charge of energy I get during these workouts.

  Oalla Keigeri is also the Instructor for my Navigation Class. I haven’t mentioned Navigation before, because it’s a very specialized short tech course for members of the Yellow Quadrant only, held just once a week. We get to learn the in-depth function of the Yellow Navigation Grid, and also the role of sharp notes in various command sequences.

  In a nutshell—sharp notes compensate for the natural degradation of pitch that happens over an extended duration of time (a weird form of acoustic entropy at the quantum level). They are used to fine-tune the Grid its
elf and other instruments that require pitch precision.

  During Technology and Systems classes, Instructor Klavit Xotoi takes us on frequent tours of the ship and makes us disassemble things down to their basic components. Some people find it tedious, or icky—as in the case of sewage and recycling systems—but personally I love it. My favorite part still remains the Hydroponics greenhouse deck. Instant peace and Zen-state relaxation.

  Overall I find Culture classes with Nilara Gradat to be the most casual and relaxing. After all, Instructor Gradat was the one who first taught us about zero gravity dancing. We learn other basic aspects of everyday Atlantean life—the kind of entertainment they have, and their equivalent of films and television, books, and games. Atlanteans love to tell stories through music, so their equivalent of opera is a very big deal on Poseidon.

  Of course, the serious stuff is also interesting. One of the aspects of Atlantean society is the early age at which children begin to study and assume adult responsibilities. “You will find that we have very young people doing work that you might find surprising,” Nilara Gradat tells us. “If you think this Fleet is full of teens, wait till you see our towns and cities and the kinds of business trades that are handled by your peers.”

  The bulk of my time outside classes is taken up by work at the CCO. Gennio, Anu, and I have arrived at a basic common routine in our various tasks, and I find I’m comfortable around them. Even Anu is slowly growing on me, even though he’s still a real prick. Meanwhile my chronicle of the journey of Earth refugees to Atlantis is turning into a book filled with fascinating events and descriptions.

  Back in my cabin I call up Gracie and Laronda on a regular basis. We gossip, chat, and make things a little easier for each other. “Girl, I still can’t believe about you and Logan!” Laronda tells me every time, mourning my breakup. “How’d you let that boy go? You were so perfect together!”

  “Apparently not perfect enough,” I say, and try to change the subject.

  I’ve even chatted with Dawn and Hasmik a few times, though my brother Gordie seems to be an elusive fish and almost never calls me back, no matter how many messages I leave. Seems like he’s always doing a shift at his ark-ship’s Hydroponics, and I don’t blame him.