Chapter 10

"Any distance greater than a single span

Requires a second pair of hands."

From Book of Matches by Simon Armitage

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'So, Beka, tell me how you met Obi Wan and the crew!' Harper said, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet excitedly. Beka looked at him strangely but sighed, tossed back her head and replied anyway.

'Shouldn't I be asking you that?' she responded. 'After all, you are somewhat an expert in the area of flashing lights and black holes and whatnot.'

'Ask Reb; he wrote the book on flashy lights and black holes,' Lise interjected, grinning teasingly at him. They were sitting on the Maru, which Reb had insisted upon seeing. But he had avoided looking at the Deepwater as they boarded Beka's ship. It's hull was scarred and battered from their entry and more repairs than he had ever had to do before would have to be made on it. It was just a reminder of his failure, of his weakness, of his temptation. It was a reminder of how he had nearly got them all killed. So Reb saw the absent-minded joke as an attack.

'OK, I get it, I screwed up. Big deal. What are you going to do, throw me in jail?' he snapped defensively. Lise looked taken aback, and Bren scowled hatefully at Reb for being so spiteful. There was a tense silence, in which Harper looked at Reb, surprised at his attitude. He had expected his double to be more… well… more like himself. Then Beka decided the silence was unbearable and spoke again.

'I don't think that's what they were getting at, Reb.' He snorted and looked away. Beka observed him, noting the pale smoothness of his face, unmarred by stubble or scars or wrinkles. A sudden thought hit her. She remembered overhearing Reb saying something… "I swear if he calls me 'boy' once more I'm going to wrench his intestines out with my bare hands and make him eat them." It was an unusually violent response to such a little thing. And she remembered the way he had clenched his fists, reached for his gun momentarily.

'How old are you, anyway?'

He flinched, and looked at the others. It was something that he had thought about a lot. Responsibility put upon the young when those old enough to bear it were gone. It was the one thing that had kept him going, the thing he told himself when he knew his best efforts didn't equal that of his donor. At least the first Reb had been older and more experienced. That was what gave him comfort when he cried himself to sleep, hating having to bear all this, be a captain of a ship and looking after others. He had never had a childhood except for the memories implanted into him; he had spent his real early days in a state of deep unconsciousness, and had woken up a teenage baby. He mumbled his age, hoping Beka wouldn't ask to hear it again.

'Huh? What was that.'

Silence. Then, 'I'm eighteen. We all are.'

It was most unfortunate that Harper had chosen that moment to take a gulp of coffee, because he promptly spat it out, spraying Bren with lukewarm mocha. He tried to apologise but was choking too much to get the words out. He started to turn red, eyes watering, and Lise took pity on him, leaned across and started hitting him on the back. Harper got his breath back and wriggled away, staring at her.

'Hey! Look, lady, you're really hot but I don't appreciate girls trying to break my spine on a first date!' She tutted and pulled away. Then Harper remembered why he had soaked Bren in the first place. 'Eighteen!' he gasped.

Reb's lips tightened and he sucked in a deep breath. 'We were woken up before our time. About 40 years, actually. That's why we look a little…'

'Underdeveloped?'

'Young,' Bren interrupted indignantly, using a towel to wipe down his uniform.

'Innocent,' Zak said, grinning at Gret wryly. She rolled her eyes and added:

'Immature.'

'Fresh-faced,' Lise volunteered.

'Hormonal,' Yuna finished, looking at Reb warningly as he opened his mouth to let out a torrent of abuse. There was an awkward silence, which seemed to be occurring far too often.

Harper whistled softly. 'Now I see why Mr Muscle pissed you off by calling you boy. Well, you just wait until he starts in on 'annoying little man' and 'Little Professor'.'

'Although admittedly you are annoying. And little. And…' Beka pursed her lips. 'We're still trying to work out that last bit.' Harper pointed at her and scowled, opening his mouth to bite back a response, but at that point Trance entered the room. Reb's eyes lit up and he sat up a little straighter. Yuna noted it mournfully. Trance didn't even seem to notice.

'Dylan wants to talk to you all about getting the Deepwater up and running again. We're trying to work out if we have any parts that could help you out.'

'Great,' Beka said, grateful for a distraction. 'When does he want us.'

'Ten minutes ago,' Trance replied promptly, then turned on her heel and left. The rest of them looked at each other then filed out. Reb was last. Before he left, he hesitated, looked around, and then snatched something off of a table, stuffing it into the pants pocket of his uniform.

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Harper hurried into the slipstream core, knowing that it was overdue for an overhaul. Like he didn't already have enough on his plate with the arrival of the peroxide twin, but Harper didn't like to let things get on top of him. Reb isn't going to interfere with me here. Here, the engineer is k…

He screeched to a halt at the hatch. Reb himself was on the bridge, his eyes roving over the panel, glancing up occasionally at the ice-blue glow of the slipstream drive itself. Harper's nostrils flared; this had gone too far.

'Hey!' he yelled, striding over to Reb, catching him by the scruff of his neck and spinning him around so that the two were face to face. It was quite a comfort to be able to look at someone as opposed to looking up at them. Being cosmic twins or whatever, he and Reb were exactly the same height. Yet Reb didn't seem at all alarmed. He calmly extricated Harper's fingers from the collar of his uniform.

'Hi, Seamus,' he said, smiling sardonically.

'It's Harper,' Harper replied. 'Now tell me what the hell you're doing here.'

Reb sighed. 'OK, I am not calling you Harper. That's stupid. I don't ask you to call me Anderson, do I?'

'Just humour me, Anderson, and answer the damn question.'

Despite himself, Reb grinned. 'I like you, Seamus.'

Up with the eyebrow. 'In what way?'

'I have a proposition for you, Seamus.'

'Thanks, but I'm not looking for a long-term marital relationship just yet,' Harper said, increasingly worried. Reb snagged what Harper was thinking and laughed despite himself. He grabbed his twin by the shoulder and pulled him down until they were sitting with their backs to the railing. Taking Harper by surprise, Reb pulled a flask of gin from inside his jacket and offered it to him.

'I know you prefer cola and beer or whatever, but you'll need something stronger. I have something to ask you, and it would probably be best if you were sitting down and properly inebriated before I told you. Now take the Goddamned drink before I pour it down your throat for you. It's not poisoned or anything, I promise you.'

Harper was worried. Had someone died? He took the flask, downed a swig of gin, gulping it even though it was so strong it made his eyes water and burned his insides, the aftertaste licking it's way back up his throat in tongues of fiery alcohol. He dropped the hand with the flask in down to the ground and started coughing violently. Reb watched him and waited for the fit to end. Finally Harper looked up and tried to pretend that he had installed a mirror in the slipstream core to reduce the weirdness of the situation. 'You had a proposition?' he gasped, eyeing Reb suspiciously. The ivory-haired double laughed.

'You remembered! Well that's something.' His voice turned serious and he grabbed Harper by the shoulders again. 'Are you happy here, Seamus?'

'Harper…' Harper murmured, slurring his words a little as he swigged the gin again. 'Course I'm happy… I'm a real happy bunny. Gorra lotta friends, ain't I?' he grinned and his head lolled back against the cold metal bar, his dataport clinking against it. Reb shook him again.

'Look, Seamus. I know you a bit now. I know about what you do here. You take this old ship apart, put her together again, save lives, yet you think nothing of it. It's just everyday life to you now.'

'Yup… sure is. I like it too.'

Reb ran a hand through his hair and panted with excited, frustrated laughter. 'My God, Seamus, you drive me nuts! How can you be happy like that, when you could do so much… so much more! Look…' he pursed his lips. 'You are a genius, Seamus. I know you say it just for a laugh, but you really are. Look at this…' he grabbed Harper by the wrist, held up his hand and pressed his own against it. It could have been one hand pressing against a sheet of shiny metal; they were identical. 'You can see that? Our hands? Those are engineers' hands. Healing hands. You have an affinity with them, just like I do. But with me… I know my limitations.' His voice grew bitter. 'I only know what people before me know. But you know so much more… and it would be easy for me to teach you about the Deepwater. With my knowledge and your intuition… and above all…' he looked ahead of him at the thing that lit up his face. 'You know about Slipstream.'

Harper saw where this was going. 'You want me to leave the Andromeda?' he asked, sobering up a little.

'Don't think of it as leaving! That'll never work! Think of it as moving on. If you come with us… and we repopulate the Earth… you'll be a hero! You'll be a legend! Forget this enslaved Earth you grew up on; you can recreate it from scratch. And millennia from now people will remember the name of Seamus Harper, because you will have saved mankind.'

'Saved mankind…' Harper echoed in awe. Then he shook his head violently, trying to clear it. Now he understood the gin. 'No! Dylan needs me! I work for him now. And Beka… I'm still part of her crew, really. They both need me! Ask them… just ask them…' his eyes welled up with tears.

Reb looked at him in despair. He was losing him. Then a sudden idea struck him, and he smiled slyly.

'That's an excellent idea, Seamus! I'll tell you what, I'll make you a deal: if I can get both Captain Hunt and Captain Valentine to say, within 24 hours, that they don't need you, that they wouldn't care less if you left, then you come with me onto the Deepwater and become a God. If I can't then you stay here, and I'll leave you forever.'

'WHAT? No freakin' way!'

'Why not? You just said that they needed you.'

'Yeah but…'

'If you're so sure then you have nothing to worry about.' Reb saw triumph coming a mile off and managed to keep his grin on hold. He had won. If Seamus said no, he would be admitting his doubts about his friends. If Seamus said yes, Reb would have him… he would be able to get to Earth in less than a day after Harper equipped the Deepwater with a slipstream drive.

'OK,' Harper said quietly, coming to the same conclusions as Reb. 'I'll do it. Beka would never say that. She never would. Never. Not in a million freakin' years. Not Dylan, not Beka. They need me.'

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