GW Strangers Arc – The Kindness of Strangers
Fandom: GW
Characters: Zechs, Marimaia, Une, Treize
Warnings for all chapters: References to intimacy.
Disclaimer for entire story: GW and its characters belong to whoever holds the rights to them. I made up this story.
Summary: Kindness is in our power, even if fondness is not. (Samuel Johnson). Treize's legacy, and what Zechs, Une, and Marimaia can make of it.
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Episode 1 – Look for wind in a field.1
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Dust. It gets everywhere. Grinds between your teeth, makes your eyes ooze, chafes down there.
Hunched in his high-backed office chair, Zechs bit his lip as he ran his fingers over the old-fashioned keyboard, clackety-clack, stroke by stroke closing down his computer terminal. His hands stuck in fingerless gloves. Even in his rollneck jumper and padded trousers, he felt the chill of the tiny room, kept at a steady fiften degree. The small, unasked-for, gratefully accepted privilege of an extra three degree, afforded to nobody else on Terraforming Project.
And all that crap about taking time off...
His desk and files were housed in what looked like a small glass cupboard at one end of the research centre. A laboratory at the heart of the vast complex of hive-like, pressurised structures, blistering like dark grey foam in the red Martian landscape. Along the walls of the lab, arrays of consoles, studded with the controls of the terraforming project. A handful of technicians were on shift, managed by one senior engineer.
Why did I let her talk me into this?
He leaned back and watched the windows on the screen wink out, one by one. Outside, frozen dust drifted across the plain of Vastitas Borealis. Its reddish hue belied the bitter cold of the Martian summer where day-temperatures at the equator reached just above twenty degrees, and the North and South remained frozen. Extra-strong wind turbines, rotating on magnetic fields instead of bearings that the dust would have ruined, their bodies set on sturdy, low pylons to make them withstand the storms; and arrays of extra-sensitive photocells supplied power to the terraforming project. In spite of their special construction and newly developed materials, the machines wore quickly and needed constant maintenance. Some of it was computerised, carried out with remotely controlled drones, and some of the more advanced machines had limited Artificial Intelligence, but the human mind was still needed to deal with the more complex unforeseen.
Zechs had taken the tour of the planet when he arrived, less out of curiosity than necessity, the cool acknowledgement of a soldier that he needed to know the lay of the land if he wanted to join battle and win. Ice caps on the poles – water in the North, carbon dioxide in the South of the planet – and frozen wastelands in between. Dust storms and avalanches of dirty snow pouring at snail's pace into enormous craters; the incomprehensible, soaring vastness of Olympus Mons, and jagged canals wider than the Siberian Yenisei...
He felt his chest tighten and rose abruptly. A few more Earth days, then he would take the newly established, regular Mars fast shuttle to the Baikonur cosmodrome. The new space liner operated when the orbits of Earth and Mars started closing on each other, through the period of closest approach that happened around every two years, to the end of the near phase. It was for personnel and urgent freight. The older transport ships took much longer but were capable of carrying larger tonnage, such as the terraforming machinery.
Once he had recovered and passed a battery of prescribed medical checks and fitness tests, he would use his personal jet to fly from Baikonur home to Siberia. He would go back to Russia, to the estate that once had belonged to Treize's family.
And now it's only me...
He reached for his coat, made of highly insulating material that offered limited protection against the biting cold – the corridors were heated to just above zero degree celsius, bearable because it was cinderdry, and the pressure there was less than in the working and living quarters, to conserve energy. He didn't particularly like Mars. The cold, the constantly varying pressures, the loss of control that came with low gravity, and the silence that made the place feel like congealed loneliness. Sounds muffled, as if everything was wrapped in cotton wool. The disorientation of the never-adjusting sense of distance, always fooled by the lack of sound and the swathes of dust. Movements, a little too forceful, sending people afloat and scrabbling for purchase on the ceiling of a corridor. Endless fake daylight pouring into the warren of hallways linking the working and living quarters. Most people working here were either die-hards or burnt out after a few weeks. The die-hards formed a company of engineers, military personnel, researchers and mechanics, some of them also students at the Terraforming Academy. Working conditions were raw and generic. This, combined with boot-camp based suitability tests and word-of-mouth, ensured that there were only two women among four dozen men – a psychiatrist and a psychological analyst – and Zechs thought that this balanced just fine.
Trust Une to sort things out this way.
Zechs locked his office and groped his way towards the central comms station. Communication was still patchy, with one large room divided into booths, most equipped with audiophones, plus a couple of videophones. The strings of radiation, encoding messages and images, were a spiderthread linking the station to Earth, but the spaceport was the gateway to home. But Mars was changing from a colony of misfits and undesirables into a test for the rugged. The newest generation of space cruisers could bridge the distance to Earth in less than two weeks when the planets were close, although the old battleships that took almost ten months were still in commission, carrying bulk and heavy cargo. At least the station crews did not have to wait years anymore for the planets to come close to each other before setting off for home. Crew rotation was on a sliding basis, and the maximum permitted stay for anyone had just been cut from seven to three years, followed by a compulsory year on Earth.
Nonsense, Zechs thought, considering that colonists on the Lagrange colonies lived permanently on those flimsy, man-made structures, but the Project Management Group for the Mars terraforming project had insisted on this old-fashioned approach.
To keep us rooted in homesoil, so we don't go off like the colonists. Treize, that could have been your idea. You were full of ideas that Easter when you got back from L3...
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Interlude 1 – Snow in Spring
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Spring had arrived with tufts of snowdrops in the park behind the old house, and anemones pushing through the snow under the forest trees. The river grew louder under its mantle of ice. Yet winter had not withdrawn yet; what thawed during the short, sunny days froze again during the long nights. But with Treize returning home, and Easter to celebrate, the Khushrenada estate was suffused by a festive, occasionally raucous atmosphere.
Easter had been welcomed with richly coloured eggs, daring sledge races on the frozen river, and a table set in the salon, crammed with dishes that both echoed lent and marked its end: lamb stew, roast rabbit, pelmeni, baked fish, a massive sponge cake filled with thick sweet cream and rose petal marmalade, soup and salad of the first fresh herbs of the year – the tips of young nettles and dandelions.
The old house was filled with the smells and noise of cooking and cleaning. Treize's mother had organised a party – something as predictable as snow in winter, and much in keeping with the traditions the Khushrenadas cherished, or at least observed.
The family – close and extended – arrived in droves, along with assorted friends and carefully selected acquaintances, to share the joy and pride that was displayed without restraint by Madame Khushrenada at the return of her son as a hero. For a few days, the house was swamped with people and noise. Village elders, churchmen, business partners, army brass and relatives filled the festive rooms.
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The Easter celebrations were colourful, rich with food and symbolism, and filled with ancient hopes when the church, patronised by the Khushrenadas for centuries, crowded with village people, guests and family. Under the gaze of dark, gold-shimmering icons, bathed by incence so thick it fogged up the brightly painted, arched ceiling, the priest sang mass, and Zechs watched Treize kneel, bow his head and fold his hands. Treize wore full winter dress uniform – his new one, with the insignia of his new rank prominent on sleeve and shoulder, and the hastily awarded decorations for individual courage and outstanding leadership pinned to the left and right side of his chest. The jacket seemed ill-fitting, too large for his frame, and the cap had been made for European, not Russian winters, leaving his ears bare that had reddened with frost. Zechs thought that Treize had changed during his year away, and if the clothes had been taylored to his old measurements, there would not have been time to adjust them.
Treize had laid his cap on the tiled floor, and his copper hair shimmered in the vague golden light of the church. His eyes were closed, his head bowed, his lips moving in prayer. Zechs did not care for prayers or incense. Although he longed to be closer to Treize, he had chosen a place near the wall of the nave, whilst Treize was next to the aisle. The shadows suited Zechs because he wanted to look without causing a scandal. There had been no time at all to talk back at the house, apart from a brief exchange of words in the library. Unable to control himself, he had welcomed Treize with a broadside of pent-up anger, worry and accusations. They had been sharpened by something else – his maturing body, his physical desires and utter frustration, and the shock at seeing Treize stil unwell.
The congregation was singing in response to the priest, and Zechs could hear Treize's clear, schooled bariton rise freely over the dull mumbling of the crowd. Treize knew every word of the sung prayer as he knew a whole store of folk and modern songs, not to think of the stuff the men at the base liked to holler; he loved singing, and the solemn tune flowed into the smoke-filled, jewel-coloured dusk as if on wings.
Zechs clasped his hands together, and still gazing at Treize, he said his own prayers, a confused, searing worship of fleshly love and the only god he knew.
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With the service over at last, people shuffled out of the glowing dusk of the church into the cold, crisp winter night. There was the shaking of hands, embraces and kisses – left cheek, right, left again – the daubing of crosses of holy water on foreheads, fingers carefully aligned and folded in the prescribed way. Treize bathed in the crowd pressing around the priest, people eager to touch his clothes, the water, the smoke, as if it were the bread and water of life itself. Zechs let himself drift towards the edge of the throng, a strange, dragging sensation in his chest. They were Treize's people, and Treize – the colour high in his cheeks now, his eyes bright, his smile engaging, returned their blessings. He pulled a bag of coins from his coat pocket, small silver pieces Zechs knew the Khushrenadas had minted every year for the high celebrations of their church, and started handing them to the children and old people. The coins had been blessed by the priest, and Zechs was sure most of them would never be used for paying anything but stashed away as keepsakes.
That's the idea, Treize had said once, when Zechs asked him why he bothered, people will keep them, but trust me, when things get rough, they will spend them...
Zechs turned when he felt a light touch to his elbow. Madame Khushrenada, her head covered in a plain black scarf that contrasted strikingly with her floor-long coat of silverfox, took his hand and squeezed it gently. "I want to light a candle for my husband."
And Zechs, glad about the distraction, offered her his arm to guide her to the bank of waxlights near the altar.
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The night was cold and blue, countless stars glittering in an endless sky. People were moving towards their carriages – some had come in four by fours or motorsledges, others – more traditionally – in troikas with high, painted dugas and bell-studded harness, or in single-horse sleighs with curved horns. Some started to walk home. Zechs, muffled up in mink and cashmere, his blond hair tied into a long loose ponytail down his back, took his troika from one of the grooms from the Khushrenada estate. A beautiful trio of dun Vyatkas2 was hitched to the sleigh. The groom re-buckled the outer reigns of the trotting horses, making their necks curve elegantly, and pulled the thick appliqueed felt blankets off the horses, to stow them in the back of the troika. Zechs grasped the reins and the long, soft leather whip and lightly snicked the animals. He didn't like bells, and the only sounds were the creaking of metal buckles on the harness and the snorting of the horses. He turned the sleigh away from the church, careful to give people time to get out of the way. Ahead he could make out the shimmer of tracks in a field of snow – the road back to the estate, past a long, spaced-out line of ducked wooden houses with carved gables and thick straw roofs. Beyond was only the endless steppe, still covered in snow, and the night in starlit glory. He raised the reins, but before he could smack them down, he heard stomping and puffing. He pulled the horses up, there was a crack and a thump, and he felt the sleigh dip under the impact of something heavy. Looking back, he met Treize's glittering gaze. Treize lay on his back in the pile of furs and blankets in the wickerwoven back of the sleigh; his breath came in thick white clouds, and he clutched the ledge of Zechs' seat with one gloved hand.
"You won't guess," he yapped. He was out of breath, his voice oddly tight.
Zechs shook his head. "You're crazy. What if I'd been gone?" He clicked his tongue, and the horses picked up speed, snow bursting from beneath their unshod hooves. He got the trio into a light trot, the centre horse starting to canter, and behind him light and the din of the crowd began to fade.
Treize pulled himself up with a grunt. "My uncle wanted to show off. He's driving Ann and Dorothy home." With Treize's mist-grey Old Don's3, a present from his mother on his return.
"You lent him your sleigh?"
And then Treize's lips were close to Zechs' cheek; he slung his arms around Zechs' waist, squeezing him tightly. "I did. I would have gone back to the church." His breath was warm and damp, condensing against Zechs' windchilled skin.
"What?" Zechs threw back, disconcerted. The horses broke their stride, the lead animal nervily tossing its head, and they fell from trot and canter into a sharp gallop, foam flying from their mouths. Treize took the reins by covering Zechs' hands with his, and the animals, sensing the calming touch, regained their rhythm. Steam rose from their heated bodies and nostrils, and for a moment Zechs felt surreal, as if thrown into one of the old fairytales Treize loved.
Treize settled next to Zechs and let go, slipping only his right arm around his friend. "I said, I'd have gone back and begged for asylum," he smiled.
"Do you believe in all that? Smoke and prayers?"
"I believe in the future, whatever its name."
The sleigh broke through a thin layer of frost snow and sagged into the powdery drift below before rising again, grinding through firm and soft snow by turns. Treize gasped, clutching at his stomach for a moment, but before Zechs could say anything, Treize leaned against him firmly. "The human soul... isn't that eternity?"
Zechs shot him a glance. "You're weird tonight," he said.
Treize smiled. With his free hand, he reached into the sable coat he wore over his dress uniform. The coat could have bought half a house, Zechs thought as he watched him pull out a flat silver bottle. "Let's drink to that."
Zechs snorted. "Vodka? Your mother will have you spanked for giving me that, and all your decorations won't help you then."
"Only if you tell." Treize pulled the stopper with his teeth, took a deep gulp and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "Na sdorovye," he laughed and handed the bottle to Zechs, who took it after a moment of hesitation.
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Notes:
1 Ищи́ ве́тра в по́ле. (Ishchi vetra v pole.) - The wind cannot be caught in a net. (Once something is gone, it's lost.)
2 Vyatkas – tough steppe ponies, used for light field work and to pull troikas
3 Old Dons – enduring, intelligent and quick steppe horses, formerly cavalry horses