Three days and counting…
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"My second thirties?" he asked, looking for clarification.
"Yeah. Basically, from when your brother first met the insurance girls to the time they first saw you. Ass slung over your brother's shoulder after he kicked your butt."
"Kicked my butt."
"Yup. And a bit of backstory. Seeds ships, Rem, July. That sort of thing," she explained.
"That sort of thing," he repeated, still a bit lost.
"Think of it as the Gung Ho Gun story arc of your life."
"Story arc. I didn't know my life came in story arcs. What the hell are you talking about, woman?" he asked, losing patience with the conversation.
She blinked. "Nothing, I guess."
He stepped closer and put on a scary look. He loomed. His eyes shot out menacing sparks. She yawned.
"It's not nothing," he ground out through clenched teeth. "It's something, and you just aren't making any sense."
"Sense is highly overrated."
"Health isn't."
"Subtle."
"Want me to get less so?"
"No. Not really." She fell silent.
He clenched his fists and suppressed the urge to shake her. "What the hell are you talking about?"
She sighed. "Haven't you ever wondered how I knew about you and this planet and such?"
He waited, and when it became painfully clear that she was waiting for a response, he managed to grind out, "Yes."
"Well…I sort of watched a story about your brother on television. A few years ago. Late at night. When I couldn't sleep." She fell silent again.
Knives sighed. "We are still failing to communicate, here. What the hell are you talking about?"
Kiley looked at him quizzically. "How I know about this place, and you, and such. I thought that was what you wanted to know."
"That is what I want to know. That isn't what you're talking about."
"Yes it is."
"No, it's not."
"Yes it is. I watched a television series based on your brother's life. Back on my world."
"A show. How the hell did you watch a show about my brother on your world?"
"I have a theory," she pronounced.
"Oh, do tell," he said sarcastically.
"I will. After I get a drink of water." She pushed past him and walked to the spring. After a long drink and a quick and futile attempt to get the sand out of her ear, she looked around for Ace.
The girl was sleeping in the shade of one of the spires. A quick smile flitted across Kiley's mouth as she looked on her face, sculpted sweetly in repose. Kids always look so sweet when they sleep. She would have spent longer enjoying the sight, but could feel impatience radiating behind her. She sighed, then returned to the annoyed man and the difficult conversation.
"I have a theory," she repeated.
"I know that part," Knives interrupted. She shot him an exasperated look as she settled on the sand.
"It's an opening, a device that allows me to center and collect my thoughts for the discussion to come. Now shut up.
"I have a theory," she began again. "It's nice and simple. I believe in infinity. The universe is a very large place. Larger than my mind can comprehend, in truth. And I rather like it that way, huge and mysterious. In such a huge universe, stretched out over an expanse of time that also boggles the mind, in all the permutations of the universe's contractions and explosions, I believe that everything can happen. Everything. That's my belief in infinity.
"So, when I see a story, no matter how farfetched or strange, a part of me always believes that it can happen, that it could be real. Not that the story itself may be possible in my reality, but that somewhere, in the vast expanse of space and time, what I see, what stories I am told, could actually happen.
"So to me, it's entirely possible that Dream Dancer would twist space and time and drop me in, what to me, is a television show, or was, but to you is nothing more than your born and raised reality."
He sat silently, staring at her while she raved.
"That's ludicrous," he pronounced when she fell silent. "What an asinine theory."
"Asinine? Why? It works for me. For all you know, back in the memory on your ship could be a movie, or a book, or something with a story from my world.
"I think all the best stories travel outside of time and space, imprinting themselves on minds attuned to what they have to tell. Maybe there really was a Beowulf, and a Grendel, in a space a long time ago or a long time to come. Maybe good stories resonate with many minds, many lives, and are spread across space and time regardless of their origin. Maybe it's a cosmic way of spreading experiences and lessons to places that would otherwise be bereft. Maybe it's just my silly little theory. But I've always liked it."
"It's a stupid theory. Get back to the part where they made a show about my brother's life."
"Ok, in my world, someone got this great idea. Then came a lot of work, and a story, starring your brother, was created. It was put on television. I had insomnia. I watched it. Those are the facts. The rest of my babbling was me explaining how I feel a story in my world can be translated into this reality, here." She picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle through her fingers. "This is real. This isn't a story. But on my world, any mention of this planet, you, your brother, whatever, it's all made up."
He looked at her, looking for something in her face. "You're a bit crazy," he remarked after a moment.
"Yup," she agreed easily. "No big shock there. Functionally insane, I think they call it. Or, suffering from an overactive imagination. Personally, I like having my own view of the world. Being a bit unique has always made me feel special."