A Picture Of Dita
Hibiki stood in the observation deck, staring out at the stars. It was late by the Nirvana's clocks and Barnette was sure he had been there for at least an hour. She saw him here almost every night, and tonight she'd been watching him for more than five minutes.
It was always the same. Every time they visited a new star system he started in Communications, getting them to scour the local networks for clues. As soon as he got off duty, he took his Vanguard out to search. He'd even gotten Parfet and her engineers to enhance the sensors' range and sensitivity. He would ignore his own needs and hunt to the limit of the Vanguard's endurance, then wander up here to brood. Between times, he pulled up his private records and went over and over everything he had done, every place he had searched.
The Captain allowed it, because he always watched for enemies too, and turned in his sensor logs, and because there was no telling what he might do if denied. The whole crew quietly supported him, and wished him luck.
No one else was here; they had learned not to intrude. He was never rude, or even impolite, but he seemed to radiate leave-me-alone.
Barnette thought he had been left alone long enough. She would intrude.
She walked across the darkened room and stood beside him at the transparent wall. The view from this system was spectacular, unique, and yet the same. Billions of points of light, some of them composed of billions more. She felt both insignificant, and magnificent. Because humans had traveled to thousands of those lights, and carved out places to live at scores of them. She lived aboard one of the ships which had done some of that work. No sign of it could be seen from here.
After several more minutes, she broke the silence. "No news?"
He grunted and shook his head. The silence returned. Then, "Would I be standing here?"
"I don't know. Nobody knows. It's never happened."
He turned and looked at her, hostile, but she was still looking at the stars. "It's been three years, Hibiki."
He was still hostile. "Plus a couple of weeks. And?"
"And nothing. Not a word, not a data packet, not a transponder ping, not a sighting. Not so much as a puff of gas with the right traces."
"I've heard it all before."
She turned to him. "Have you? People have been saying it, I've been saying it, but have you been listening?"
He looked back at the stars and turned up the leave-me-alone. She ignored it and returned her attention to the view.
"I have to find her."
Barnette dared to reach over and put her hand on his arm. "We all miss her, Hibiki. We all want to find Dita, but how? What can we do that we haven't already done? Where could she be that in three years we haven't found her, and she hasn't found us?"
When he didn't answer, she continued, "Every planet that can support human life has people on it. All she'd have to do is get a message to Mejere, or Melanos, or one of our other friends. They'd move whole star clusters to help her."
He still didn't answer. "Meia and Jura don't feel where she is. Your telepathic friends can't sense her presence. How many people, on how many worlds, on how many ships, have been helping us look for her, over the years? Why haven't any of them found anything?"
She felt his arm quiver. She looked at him and saw tears. She felt guilty about that, but it was the first time he'd shown any emotion in longer than she wanted to think about. He wore his face like a mask these days, showing nothing. His hair was short and neat; Gascogne had literally dragged him off to get it cut a few times. Now she or Meia only had to remind him once or twice when it started to get shaggy. He had them inhibit his facial hair at the same time; he'd let it grow once but found it annoying and distracting. He'd outgrown his old Taraak clothing and picked up a few things on some of the planets they'd visited, selecting for utility and caring little about his appearance. Tonight he wore dark blue pants and a black shirt, open at the collar.
She moved closer to him. "I know you're in pain, and I don't want to add to it, but when is it enough? We can't spend ten million years searching every star. Look how many there are."
"Don't. You think. I know that?" he gritted out.
"I'm not sure you do. I think you're not letting yourself know it."
He stared at the stars and fought back tears.
Barnette squeezed his arm lightly. "Why won't you talk to me, Hibiki? You should. You need to talk to somebody."
He glanced at her, then went back to stargazing. He barely noticed, but in their travels she'd tired of her skimpy blue-and-purple outfits and picked up a different sense of style. She wore white shorts and a green blouse, and she'd let her glossy green hair grow out to just less than shoulder length, with a slight curl at the ends.
"If not me, talk to Meia, or Gascogne. Or Duelo. One of the new crewmen? It's a big ship. There has to be somebody."
It was always this way — like talking to a black hole. Anything she cast into it just disappeared without a trace. Wanting to get some reaction out of him for once, she turned and stepped in front of him, slipped her arms around him and pulled herself close.
Hibiki was shocked out of his gloom. He was taken completely by surprise, and had no response for this thoroughly unforeseen situation. He hadn't touched anyone, or been touched, in a long, long time. Barnette felt soft and warm and wonderful and alive. He could feel her heartbeat, and her breath on his cheek. He caught a faint scent of flowers in her hair.
When he didn't protest, or push her away, she sighed and closed her eyes. She had never held a man in her arms before. It felt quite unlike holding a woman, even allowing for the…anatomical differences. He'd grown several centimeters over the last few years, and was now just barely taller than her. He felt strong and solid and right, as if she were meant to hold him, as if he answered some need she hadn't even been aware of until now.
Hibiki wanted her to stop. He couldn't bear for this to end. No one had ever comforted him like this before, not even Gramps. Barnette soothed the aching places in his soul. He didn't deserve to be soothed, not after three years of unending failure. He needed her, and he didn't want to, and he couldn't refuse.
She held him for a long time, then moved her head and looked at him. He appeared confused and uncertain. She whispered, "Oh, Hibiki. Don't you see? You don't have to be alone any more."
He didn't reply, but she thought she saw an answer, of sorts, in his eyes.
Barnette tilted her head and kissed him.
She had shocked him again. He started to respond, started to put his arms around her…
He turned his head and pulled his arms away. "No! I can't—"
"Why not? Why?" She felt a sudden, irrational rage. "Because you're waiting for her? Some day you're going to have to accept that she's gone, and she's not coming back! Why not today?"
He went rigid, then shoved her away violently. She fell on her back as he turned and stumbled to the door, so stunned by her own outburst that she didn't even try to break her fall.
"No, Hibiki, wait, don't—"
It was too late. He was gone.
Hibiki lay on his bunk with the lights turned low and a blanket pulled up to his chin. He was uncomfortably warm, but deep inside was a bitter cold no physical heat could reach. He knew the cure, the only cure…gone, three years gone…
It was Barnette's fault. She said it. The thing he had avoided from the beginning — she's gone, and she's not coming back. He had managed not to face that possibility for three years, and she just threw it at him. How could she be so cruel?
He sought solace in a picture on the bedside table, captured instant of a lost past — bright blue eyes, a flood of red hair, a happy smile. Her carefree laugh echoed in his memory, and the picture blurred. He closed his eyes against the tears. He would give the whole universe and throw in his soul just to hear that voice say 'Mister Alien!' one more time.
His voice was a hoarse whisper. "Where are you? What happened to you? I can't find you… Why does the galaxy have to be so big?"
He wasn't sure how long he lay steeped in misery before he heard the door open. He croaked, "Go away."
It closed. He was just regaining his self-pity when he felt a weight settle on the bunk. He opened his eyes and blinked several times to clear them, to see who dared…
Barnette.
He croaked again. "I said go away." He'd meant it to be an angry command, but lacked the energy to make it more than a dull protest.
"I can't. I can't leave you like this." She was croaking, too. "I'm sorry, Hibiki, I didn't mean…" Her voice trailed off. The tears in her eyes spilled over and she sobbed quietly.
Part of him wanted to shout at her, drive her away, force her to leave him alone. Part of him…didn't, and held him back. Her crying reached him, a little. He had never seen her cry before. He heard she had cried twice, for Jura and Gascogne.
Tonight made three. After a long time she continued. "I was wrong. We don't know there's no hope, we don't know anything. I just know you're suffering, we both are. We're both alone."
He responded before he could stop himself. "You're not alone, you've got Jura."
"Jura's not right for me. I'm not right for her. Whatever."
He didn't know what to say about that.
"I'm not attracted to women. I never was, really, I just thought I was supposed to be. It's what we were always taught. Jura…well, you know her, she's everything I should have wanted. I never would have known what was missing, but then I ran into…you."
He still didn't know what to say.
"Oh, there was Duelo, and Bart, but you were the man I saw every day. A pilot, like me, fighting the enemy. I felt things, like Dita did, but she accepted her feelings. I didn't."
Yeah, he knew all about that. He'd fought against his feelings for Dita from the start. Not because he believed the Taraak propaganda, not any more. He could see that women were not horrible evil fiends, that they were people much like him, just…different. Disturbingly different.
No, he'd fought his feelings because he found them inconvenient. Confusing. Embarrassing. He hadn't known how to respond to Dita's overtures of friendship, and then love, so he'd tried to avoid the issue by avoiding her.
"I've stopped fighting it, Hibiki. Women and men belong together. I know that now."
He'd stopped fighting it too, at least a little. Dita had shown him that his life could be better, richer, than he had ever imagined, but it wasn't until she was gone that he'd realized how much he had lost. He felt that loss every day.
Barnette managed to smile. "We belong together."
He hadn't seen where she was going. "What? I don't—"
She interrupted him hastily. "I'm not asking you to give up on Dita, or stop searching for her. But that can't be your whole life. There has to be more than what you've lost."
That made him stop, and think. What had his blind obsession done for Dita, for him, for anybody? He was no closer to finding her. All of his friends were worried about him, and he was lucky to have any left. He hadn't been much of a friend to them, these last three years.
Her tears flowed again as she finished, thickly, "What would Dita want? Would she want you to be empty and suffering and alone? Or would she want you to have someone, to help you, to be here for you?"
Hibiki gazed up at her as if seeing her for the first time.
She whispered, "I'm here for you, Hibiki."
Barnette slowly bent down and touched her lips to his. When he didn't pull back, or push her away, she moaned softly and leaned into the kiss. He fought free of the blanket and put his arms around her, and she moaned again. She had never felt a kiss this intensely before. A woman just couldn't do this for her. She reached out and found that he was still mostly covered by the blanket; they would have to do something about that, soon…
They lay side by side, almost painfully crowded in the narrow bunk, as they slowly recovered from the overwhelming experience. Neither of them had ever imagined anything like it, although Barnette had started with at least some idea what to expect. She felt a sense of fulfillment; Hibiki was everything she'd always wanted, and never found. She cursed the lies that had kept her apart from him, kept men and women apart, for so long. At least she was free of them now.
Hibiki's feelings were deeply divided. On one hand, he felt strongly connected to Barnette, far beyond the physical pleasure she'd given him. He wanted to keep her close, spend time with her, get to know her better. On the other hand…this was what he should have felt for Dita. What she had wanted to share with him, what he'd been too stupid to accept.
Out of long habit he looked at the table. The picture was gone. He hunted around frantically, then pushed himself up and leaned across Barnette. He could see it now, face down on the floor. He reached for it but came up about half a meter short.
Barnette twisted, and saw what he was after. She stretched, picked up the picture, and handed it to him. One corner of the frame was dented and cracked, and the picture inside was skewed. He felt a crushing guilt and would have shrunk away from Barnette if the bunk allowed it.
She felt him move and guessed what it meant. "I'm sorry, Hibiki, one of us must have knocked it off."
She tried to reassure him. "It's all right. The picture's not damaged, it just needs to be straightened up, and the frame's not really important. You could get a new one."
Hibiki just sat there staring at the picture. Barnette felt panic growing in her chest. She could lose him, right now, over a stupid picture. She usually knew just what to say in any situation, but this one defeated her. Maybe, the right thing to say was…nothing. She lay there looking up at him.
Finally, he reached over and stood it on the table with painstaking care. He pulled his arm back slowly and continued staring at it. Barnette still didn't dare to speak. After a long wait, he looked down at her.
"Barnette…"
She said, hesitantly, "Should I go?"
He nodded slightly. Her heart sank, but she sat up, turned, got off the bunk and gathered her scattered clothing. He watched her dress, silently, his expression unreadable. She made just a bit of a show of it, without being obvious. Twice, she caught hints of a smile on his face. It made her feel better.
When she had nothing left to do, she gave him the best smile she could. "Good night, Hibiki."
He managed an almost normal, "Good night, Barnette."
At the door she turned back to him. "Hibiki…I know you still miss her. It's right that you do. Just…please, don't shut me out. I care about you even more now. Let me — let me see you again. Let me talk to you, tomorrow."
She had almost said 'let me be here for you' but with the context, it was definitely the wrong thing to say. She waited anxiously. He nodded again.
She smiled, relieved. "I'll see you tomorrow, Hibiki. And, if you can get a good night's sleep, it can help. Everything seems better."
He waited until the door closed, then picked up the picture again. He turned it over, worked the back off and inspected it carefully. The picture really was intact, and the frame damage seemed to be superficial, if unsightly. He carefully realigned the picture, put it back together and returned it to its place.
A good night's sleep. Sound theory, but not so easy in practice. He'd found that out the hard way, over and over. Well, one way or another the night would pass. They always did. Tomorrow, he would see Barnette again. He had given his word.
He looked into those clear blue eyes. "What am I doing?"