a tag to The Widening Gyre
by Laura Boeff
He.
Was.
Infected.
.....
Shit!
Harper sat in one of the many observation
lounges that dotted the Andromeda. Sat
in it's dimly lit confines, watching the stars flicker by outside.
Now what?
It was the question he kept asking himself
over and over again. And yet, the
answer did not come.
Not yet.
Drawing his eyes away from the streaking stars,
Harper looked down at the gun in
his hand. His pistol; an Allison V special. Tinkered with, of course,
by his genius self.
Jacked out to maximum efficiency and destructiveness. The harness it
rested in was worn
and ragged but not the gun. It was clean. Flawless. It's matte black
finish seeming to draw
in any ready light. It's snub barrel, custom formed grip and hair trigger
awaiting his beck
and call.
He lifted the barrel to his temple. Rested
it's cool muzzle against his head, feeling
goosebumbs dance along his neck from it's indifferent caress.
The easy way. The way to insure he didn't
suffer. That he didn't live out the
nightmare that had lurked in the dark recesses of his mind; had hidden
in the corners of
his psyche ever since the very day he survived his first Magog raid.
The easy way.
The way to insure the pain never came.
The easy way.
And then....
The gun dropped back into his lap. He stared
at it without really seeing it.
Then there was the hard way. The way where
he willed himself to wait. To trust
Rev and his Lucapreem variant to keep the larva at bay. To buy him
the time for Trance,
or Rommie, or just *someone* to come up with a way to get these abominations
out of
him!
Trust.
Wait.
Live.
The barrel came up and rested against his
temple.
The easy way.
Then went back into his lap.
The hard way.
Temple.
The easy way.
Lap.
That hard way.
Temple.
The easy way.
Lap.
The hard...
Harper started at the soft scuff of movement
behind him. Simply *felt* that he
was no longer alone. He sighed.
"You can stop lurking in the shadows, Rev,"
he declared, turning as he was
approached. But it was not the repentant Rev, who had been hovering
around him like a
misbegotten shadow. No. To Harper's surprise, and confusion, it was
Tyr.
"What are you doing?" Tyr asked, eyes resting
distastefully on the gun in Harper's
hand, clearly communicating his thoughts on the subject of suicide.
"Deciding what to do," Harper said, indifferent
to Tyr's glower.
"Live."
That simple; to Tyr. As long as you lived,
you weren't dead, which meant you
were ahead of the game.
But what if you didn't want to play the game
any longer?
He laughed, bitterly. "Great argument, Tyr.
Nice, simple. Can't fault you for that."
"Did you learn nothing from my story?"
"Take your observations on support beams seriously,
or wake up with a second
smile," Harper said blithely.
Tyr snarled. "Harper..."
But Harper gave into his own anger first.
"Look, I'm not you! I'm not a god-damn Nietzschean.
I'm just a sad excuse for a
human being. I'm sorry if that doesn't sit well with you, but that's
your problem, not
mine!"
That didn't help Tyr's glower.
"No. You are Seamus Zelazny Harper and you,
like a million other beings in this
cruel and uncaring universe, have been challenged to fight for the
life you have!" Tyr
roared back, arms crossed over his chest, clenching together in a display
of a Nietzschean
controlling his temper as he stared down at the young human.
Harper stared up, strangely untouched by the
Tyr's simmering anger. He'd lost his
fear of the hulking Nietzschean. What could be more frightening then
the Magog larva he
carried in his belly?
The silence dragged in a dead-lock. Harper
expected for Tyr to give into his
frustration, and give up on the petulant human. But, he didn't. He
took a deep, steadying
breathe, a gleam that looked suspiciously like compassion coming to
his eyes as he
glanced out the window thoughtfully.
"Where are you right now, Seamus Harper?"
Harper blinked. Rhetorical question. He knew
that, but decided to play along.
"Observation deck 4, on level 7," he replied
dryly.
"Wrong."
Tyr's gaze dropped back to him.
"You are not just on the Andromeda- you are
not on Earth. You have escaped the
ravaged planet of your birth. You fought for a place on the Maru and
went on to prove
time and time again your skills and cunning for caring for the last
battle ship of the
Commonwealth!" Tyr's voice grew louder and firmer as he spoke. "You
did not get here
by giving up! You did not accept the fate your lowly birth destined
you for, but rebelled
against it. Raised yourself up above you peers to free yourself of
their short-lived and
miserable lives to be here! On the Andromeda!"
Harper found himself utterly speechless beneath
the Nietzschean's verbal assault.
"What did you fight for?" Tyr demanded of
him. "Why did you bother fighting so
hard to get here, only to give up all that you have so dearly won when
faced with the
darkest trial of your life? A trial you do not face alone. Will not
face alone!"
Silence fell between them, Tyr's eyes boring
into his own as if the Nietzschean
could transfer his defiance, his fighting sprit to the small human.
Tyr repeated his demand, but not in a challenging
shout, but a soft and elegant
question.
"What did you fight for?"
Good question, Harper reflected. He'd fought..
he'd fought because.. because he
didn't want to die on Earth. He didn't want to be a nobody. He wanted
to be somebody.
Do something.
He wanted...
He wanted to...
Live.
Harper looked at the pistol still in his hand
in a moments contemplation. Then just
dropped it back into it's holster as he stood, feeling it's weight
tug
gently at his gun belt.
Tyr's expression did not change, not one iota, but there was something
there in his dark
brown eyes akin to triumph.
"You have made your decision?"
Harper couldn't help the slight smile that
came to his face. A mere crinkling of his
lips as he glanced up at his large companion. And, in a strange and
unexpected way,
friend.
"For today," was his confession, with his
thanks silently laced into his reply.
Tyr simply nodded his acceptance as Harper
headed toward the door the
Nietzschean silently padding behind him.
Harper nodded as well.
"For today."