Chapter 12
"All done?" Trip smiled.
Malcolm grinned back. "All done."
All the same, he gave their handiwork a last, critical look-over. It looked more like a random assembly of wires and unidentifiable mechanical parts than a sophisticated tracking device, but it was going to do its job. And with the limited tools they had at their disposal, Malcolm found they had done quite well. All that was left to do now was to connect the ugly thing with the communication console.
He picked up the connection cable he had prepared, and plugged it into the opening at the back of the device. For a brief second, nothing happened, then the systems powered up with a barely audible hum. Malcolm wiped his hands on his trousers.
"It works. We did a good job."
"You did a good job," Trip corrected as he gathered up the scattered precision tools and microspanners and neatly stowed them away in the kit. "I only aligned the microcircuits..."
"... and installed the encoder and tested the back-up systems for the power supply," Malcolm added dryly. "You did half of the work, Trip."
Trip said nothing as he closed the tool kit, but Malcolm saw that he was pleased. They had been working on the tracking device for the last five days, and it had proved a challenge, building the advanced instrument with only a standard tool kit and the spare parts Malcolm had hastily gathered together before their departure. They had spent hours sitting on the floor of the shuttle, tinkering with the individual components and aligning the parts that needed to fit together. Once again, Malcolm had been surprised how fast Trip picked up on the advanced mechanics involved; he never needed to be told the same thing twice, and often worked it out on his own before Malcolm even had the chance to give him instructions.
If we ever get back to Earth, I'm going to tell M'Benga about this
, Malcolm had found himself thinking as he watched Trip work on the microcircuits.He'll get his engineering genius, all right.
"In a way it's a pity that we're done," Trip said, breaking into his thoughts. Malcolm looked at him, and Trip smiled, a little embarrassed. "I... I've never had that much fun before."
"I noticed," Malcolm smiled. "I'm afraid the Captain needs only one tracking device to locate us, though."
"Will we be able to communicate with Enterprise?" Trip asked, eyeing the device critically. "Or is it just a one-way transmission?"
"We'd need to add a subspace amplifier to cross the distance," Malcolm said, and felt secretly amused when he saw Trip's eyes lighten at the idea. "I'm afraid I didn't bring the necessary spare parts, though. Like this, T'Pol will be able to track down the shuttle's signature and pinpoint our approximate position, but we won't be able to communicate. We'll have to find another way to contact them once we're on Denobula."
Trip nodded, his eyes still lingering on the device that was giving off a low, steady hum. "Have you ever been there?" he asked. "On Denobula, I mean?"
Malcolm shook his head. "We've been in orbit around it once, but I wasn't part of the diplomatic team going down to the surface. They say it's a beautiful world. Mostly forests and huge lakes, and the cities are famous for their architecture."
"I imagine it's beautiful," Trip said. Recognizing the absentminded tone of voice, Malcolm knew that Trip was thinking of his children. No matter how beautiful Denobula was, he wouldn't be able to appreciate it if Sara and Sammy were on a different world several dozen light-years away. Trip was trying not to let just how badly he missed them show, but Malcolm had noticed the way he would fall silent at times and withdraw into himself. He was hurting, and even though Malcolm had a hard time admitting it to himself, he could sympathize with Trip's feelings. There had been times when Malcolm had come dangerously close to depression himself.
It was ironic, in a way, that he should feel homesick for Enterprise. He had never been enthusiastic about transferring off the T'Ler, and it was only during the last two years that he had begun to feel at ease at his new post. Now, however, he found himself thinking of Enterprise as if it were the only home he had ever known. A rather melodramatic notion, maybe, but nevertheless it was the truth. He missed the ship, and most of all he missed the people aboard. Malcolm wasn't quite sure if that feeling was something he needed to worry about, and decided to stop that particular train of thought before it took him somewhere he didn't want to go.
"Are you hungry?" he asked. "I know I could use some lunch."
Trip nodded, shaking off whatever thoughts had been occupying him. "Lunch sounds good."
Malcolm opened the storage compartment. "Let's see... we've got prime ribs, vegetable casserole, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, and fried noodles with bamboo sprouts. Oh, and another one of those horrible Vulcan soups... Va'ron, I think it is."
The ration packs came in fifteen different varieties, but Malcolm didn't want to open a new box when they hadn't finished this one yet.
He turned around to Trip. "What would you like?"
"You pick yours first," Trip said. Malcolm had expected no different; there were a few things that Trip still wouldn't do, and one of them was picking a meal before Malcolm had chosen his. Knowing that Trip was rather fond of meatloaf, Malcolm decided to have the fried noodles. He had a feeling that yet again, the Va'ron soup would be the last pack left in the box.
While Trip heated up their meals in the shuttle's small microwave oven, Malcolm went to run a quick check of the navigation systems. So far, they had been lucky; there had been no malfunctions worth mentioning, and the most exciting thing they had stumbled across had been a small asteroid field. Malcolm kept his fingers crossed that it was going to stay that way. If they continued at this speed, they would be entering orbit around Denobula in about two and a half weeks' time.
"Here." Trip came up next to the helm and handed him his meal.
"Thanks." Sitting down on one of the rear benches, Malcolm peeled the plastic covering off the small food container. The noodle dish looked less soggy than he had expected, and Malcolm dug into his meal with a fair amount of gusto. Working on the tracking device had left him hungry.
Trip had taken a seat on the opposite bench and pulled out a padd, his eyes fixed on the small display while he forked meatloaf into his mouth. Malcolm noticed a familiar frown crease his forehead.
"More homework?" he asked.
Trip raised his eyes. "Yes. But I don't seem to be getting anywhere." He laid the padd aside with a small sigh. "Sometimes I think I'll never get the hang of it."
"That's not true." Leaning over, Malcolm picked up the padd and scrolled through its contents. "This is Lesson 10. Hoshi said that most adult learners don't get to that proficiency level in their first three or four months. And you only started eight weeks ago."
Trip still didn't look happy. "I've got to be able to read and understand technical manuals if I want to work as an engineer. As it is, I still have problems reading a text about..." He glanced at the headline at the top of the padd. "... about someone going shopping."
Malcolm skimmed through the paragraph which described - in neatly mapped-out detail - a tour through an average supermarket. "Maybe if they made those texts less dull it'd be more fun to concentrate on the lesson they're trying to get across," he commented, handing the padd back to Trip. "Anyway, I don't think you need to worry. Hoshi told me that at the rate you're going, you'll be able to read and write fluently in less than six months' time. And you'll have more than enough time to practise, now that we're done with the tracking device."
Trip nodded, staring down at the padd in his hands with a strange expression on his face.
"Trip?" Malcolm asked carefully.
"I... " Trip shook his head. "I just remembered how Deborah tried to teach me the English alphabet. I never really put that much effort into it, thinking I'd never need it anyway. Most of the time I was too tired to concentrate. She kept trying, though, saying that learning how to read would be a good exercise for the mind, if nothing else. Now I see what she meant. I think this," he raised the padd, "would come easier to me if I'd tried harder back then."
Malcolm said nothing for a while. There were a number of things he wanted to ask Trip, questions that had been on his mind for some time now, but he wasn't sure if Trip was willing to confide that part of his life to him yet. Or if he was ever going to do so, at all. From the little Trip had told him about the mother of his children, it was apparent that the memories linked with her were painful, mingled with an undercurrent of anger and shame. Malcolm had a vague suspicion of how their relationship had come into existence, and if he was right, then he could see why Trip wouldn't want to talk about it.
"How come Deborah could read?" he asked finally. "She would have been abducted as a child as well, wouldn't she?"
Trip was still staring down at the padd. "I believe the MoH'kwan caught her roughly around the same time when they caught me. But she was already a teenager at the time. Deborah was almost ten years older than me."
"So she remembered about Earth?" Malcolm asked.
Trip nodded. "She remembered that her parents, Sara and Samuel Winter, had been killed when she and her brother were abducted. But she never talked about her past. Said it hurt her too much to think about it."
Malcolm was silent for a while. "Did you love her?" he asked then, quietly.
Trip said nothing, at first. A flicker of pain crossed his face, and Malcolm had already opened his mouth to apologize when Trip spoke up again.
"No. I don't think I did. But I respected her. She was a good person. And smart. Hell of a lot smarter than I'll ever be." Finally, he raised his eyes to look at Malcolm. "We didn't have much of a choice, you see? No one asked us if this was something we wanted."
A sick feeling rose in the back of Malcolm's throat.
"They forced you to... have children?" he asked. The words left a bitter taste in his mouth. Trip's eyes had returned to the padd in his hands.
"Yeah. Ja'Lin wanted to... to sell them when they were old enough to do hard work. I wanted to kill him when he told me." Trip's fingers clenched the padd so hard that they were shaking. "That was when I first met her... I'd never seen her before, and there he was, telling me I...we...had to... and all I could think of was killing him."
Malcolm tried, and failed, to imagine how he would have reacted to someone treating him like a breeding animal. Beating that someone to a bloody pulp was one of the less violent options that came to his mind. Not trusting himself to speak, he waited for Trip to continue.
"He said he was going to send us away if we disobeyed him. Cast us out, you know. I... I just stood there. I couldn't think. Then he made some... some joke, and I knew I couldn't take any more or I'd have killed him on the spot. I turned around and left. I knew he was going to punish me later, but it would've gotten a lot worse if I'd stayed."
Carefully, Trip set the padd aside. His hands were still trembling. "I don't know what would've happened if it hadn't been for her. Deborah, I mean. She came to me..."
He trailed off, his eyes fixed on a spot next to Malcolm's shoulder. Without thinking about it, Malcolm put his meal aside and got up to sit next to Trip. He could almost feel the tension radiating from the other man. For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.
Malcolm hesitated. He'd have hated for Trip to think that he was prying, intruding into things that were none of his business. But maybe if he wanted to help Trip let go of the anger and pain he had to do exactly that. Praying that he was doing the right thing, he carefully rested a hand on the other man's shoulder.
"Want to tell me the whole story?"
For a moment, Trip said nothing. Then he turned his head to look at Malcolm.
"I don't know if I want to. But..." He paused. "I guess I should."
Malcolm wasn't sure what to make of Trip's answer and so he simply nodded, indicating that he was ready to listen.
After a while, Trip began to speak.
Part III
Sev strode away from the house, his hands clenched to fists and shaking. The mental image of closing his fingers around Ja'Lin's throat, increasing the pressure until the man's windpipe crushed under his grip was still vivid in his mind, and he knew that he had to keep walking, get away from here before he did something that would sign his own death warrant.
The face of the woman came back to him, a dark mask of carefully concealed anger and humiliation. Her eyes had softened when she looked at him, had silently warned him not to do anything he was going to regret. But he knew he couldn't have taken any more. If he hadn't left, he would have killed the man.
He walked past the stables where he slept at night, past the shed where he and Sarin kept their equipment, and broke into a jog when he had reached the meadow where the ghurat were grazing. A few of the shaggy animals raised their heads, then continued their feeding when they recognized the familiar figure. Sev never looked at them. He picked up his pace, without really noticing what he was doing. He had always loved to run, although he hardly ever got the chance to do so. The pale blue grass felt soft under his feet, and he found that with every step it became easier for him to control his violent anger. His hands were still shaking, but at least he was able to think again. The first thing he realized was that by walking out on Ja'Lin he had probably earned himself a flogging. Again.
Sev came a to a halt next to a large tree that stood at the edge of the field. He would come here every now and then, just to be alone for a while - not very often, of course, since his work hardly ever left him time to do so. Sarin had shown him this place years ago, saying that it was good for meditation. Sev didn't know how to meditate; when he came here, he would simply sit in the grass and enjoy the silence and the absence of people. It was one of the few places where he could find something resembling a state of peace.
Not today, however. He was still shaking when he lowered himself to the ground, his mind returning to the things Ja'Lin had said.
"I don't want to hear a word from you. And if I find out you disobeyed me, you're going to be out of here before you know it. I'm not taking any of your nonsense this time."
Out of here. The idea of Ja'Lin casting him out had suddenly lost some of its terror. He might even have a chance; he was young and strong, and there was the possibility that he would survive long enough to go into hiding somewhere. Live in the forest, maybe. Anything seemed better than staying here.
But even if he managed to somehow get by, the woman certainly wouldn't. She would be killed in a matter of days, and even if she somehow escaped the mob she wouldn't make it for long.
Sev rested his head on his arms and closed his eyes. He didn't know that woman, so there was no reason why he should care what happened to her. If she couldn't survive as an outcast then it wasn't his problem. Being honest with himself, however, he knew that even his chances of staying alive were rather slim. He wouldn't be able to survive without stealing food, and if they caught him he would die a violent and definitely painful death. Kareedian society took care of its own, one way or another.
Sev felt something hot rise in his eyes, burning behind his closed lids. It had been years since he had cried, and he didn't even know why he would feel so strongly about the thing he had been ordered to do. It wasn't unusual, and Ja'Lin expected him to do as he had been told without a question or word of protest. A tear threatened to trickle down, and he quickly wiped it off. Back in the house, he had wanted to scream at the man that he was not an animal, that this was a thing he had no right to ask of him. But Ja'Lin had every right, of course. It was he who would be breaking the rules if he disobeyed.
It wasn't so much the fact that he would have to sleep with someone he hardly knew or cared about. He had done that before, spent a night with one of the female farm workers just because it brought a change in the dull toil that was their life. He had never expected any of those brief encounters to evolve into a relationship, however. People like him didn't have relationships. Free people might have the time and energy for that sort of thing; he and the others only lived to serve, end of story.
But this was different. He felt... humiliated by Ja'Lin's orders, helplessly infuriated that even this private part of his life should be controlled by that man. That he should be coerced into this farce of a relationship only so his children could be sold one day.
He squeezed his eyes shut and the tears trickled down his face, feeling strangely cold on his skin. His breathing was harsh, but he refused to give in to the sobs that threatened to come out. It was all he had left, acting as if none of this really concerned him, as if none of the things they did could ever hurt him. Sev wasn't going to give up on that one small victory. Illogical, Sarin would have said, but for Sev, life was hardly ever logical.
He stayed that way for a long time, his head resting on his arms, focusing so hard on holding back his tears that he never even heard the approaching steps until it was too late.
Someone came to a halt next to him. Sev raised his head, fully expecting that it was Ja'Lin who had come to punish him for walking out on him. He made as if to stand up, but stopped short when he realized that it wasn't the Kareedian who had followed him to his private hiding place. It was the woman.
They stared at each other for a few seconds, then, to Sev's astonishment, a tentative smile formed on her face. "May I?" she asked.
At first, he had no idea what she was talking about, realizing only a moment later that she was asking if she could sit down next to him. Nonplussed, he moved over to make room for her. He had never known anyone who would go to the trouble of asking permission.
She sat down gracefully, and Sev glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She was a small person, almost delicate. Standing up she would hardly reach up to his shoulders, her arms and legs almost fragile in their appearance. Her skin was of a dark brown, the color of fresh wet earth.
He saw her smile and realized a second too late that he had been staring. Embarrassed, he turned his eyes away, looking at the grazing animals instead.
"My name is Deborah," she said after a while. Silence ensued as she waited, but he had no idea what to say in response. This sort of... kindness was not what he had expected. He would have been less confused if she had started the conversation by spitting in his face.
"Deborah Winter," she tried again. "What's your name?"
He shrugged. "Everyone here calls me Sev." But that's not my name, he added in thought. That was one thing he knew for sure, something he had always known. It was none of her business, though.
Suddenly she said something in a different language, words that sounded vaguely familiar. He looked up in surprise.
"What..."
She repeated the words more slowly this time. "Do you speak English?"
"Yes." The alien word was out of his mouth before he even noticed that he was speaking a different language. And he did speak that language, he realized. It must be the human tongue, words that still cropped up in his mind from time even though he had not said any of them aloud since he was a small child. "I... I think. I..." His words failed him and he switched back to Kareedian. "I have not spoken it in a while."
"Neither have I," she answered in the same language and smiled. "Maybe we can teach each other."
He stared at her. Teach each other? The way she talked, it seemed almost as if the argument back at the house had never happened at all. As if she had no idea what this was all about.
When he didn't answer, she continued. "Look. It's not as though I want this. For a moment back there, I... I wanted to kill him. That's why you left, wasn't it? You were afraid you wouldn't be able to hold back any longer."
He nodded mutely.
She was silent for a while, then continued quietly. "I wish I could do it, too. Kill him, or just... go away. But... " She looked up at him, her face solemn. "That would get me killed too, wouldn't it? I wouldn't stand a chance."
Hearing his own thoughts coming from her was another thing he had not expected. She seemed to understand what odds they were up against. "They'd kill both of us."
She nodded, her dark eyes still intent on his face. "I don't want to die, Sev. Do you?"
It wasn't a rhetorical question. Slowly, he shook his head. "No."
She held his gaze for another moment, then they both turned their eyes away. The ghurat had moved to another part of the meadow in the meantime, flicking their long, purple tails to chase away the flies. Sev watched how they slowly moved from one tuft of grass to the next, as if they didn't have a care in the world.
It was true, he did not want to die. And he was afraid of what would happen if he was cast out. He had heard stories about outcasts being raped and murdered and tortured to death, by Kareedians who saw it as a welcome interruption of their day-to-day life if they could vent their anger on someone whom the law had declared a non-person. Sev had seen the victim of a public killing once, a young man whose features were hardly recognizable anymore after he had been beaten to death by an angry mob. It was not how he wanted to die.
"I... " Deborah's voice broke through his thoughts, and he pushed the memory away. "I just wanted to say, I don't... hold any grudge against you. And I hope that you're not angry with me. It'll make things easier if we don't blame each other."
"I don't blame you," he said quietly. "It's not your fault."
She was silent, resting her chin on her knees as she watched the grazing ghurat. She didn't look happy, but her face was oddly calm, as if she had decided not to waste her anger on things she couldn't change. Sev found that he could respect that.
"Thank you," he offered, surprised at his own words. "For coming here to talk to me," he elaborated when she raised her eyebrows at him. "I... I wouldn't..."
He wasn't sure how to tell her that he wouldn't have been able to do the same thing, but she seemed to understand. "That's alright," she said quietly.
They sat in silence for a while, watching the grazing animals, and Sev found her company strangely comforting. At least, he thought, he wasn't going to hate that woman.
"Sara was born a year later," Trip said. "Deborah had a delicate constitution, and she was ill through most of her pregnancy. She almost died on the day she delivered her, and had a high fever for weeks afterwards. Miss Elin showed me how to care for the baby. I was lucky that someone did, since I had no idea what to do. It was almost three months before Deborah could get out of bed again."
"Didn't they get a doctor to look at her?" Malcolm asked.
Trip pressed his lips together. "Yeah, but it was only lucky coincidence. Ja'Lin's wife had broken her wrist, and so he had to come anyway. He took a brief look at Deborah and said that another pregnancy would kill her. That was at a time when we didn't think she would make it."
Malcolm said nothing, waiting for Trip to continue.
"It took Deborah several years to recover. Her health was always fragile after her pregnancy, and it didn't help that Ja'Lin put her back to work as soon as she was feeling a little better. I don't think she would've made it if it hadn't been for Sara. She was crazy about her." Trip smiled a little. "She was the one who picked the name, and insisted that we talk English to her as often as we could, even though it wasn't allowed. I had forgotten most of it, and so she had to teach me first. Took me some time until I was able to speak it fluently again, but she never gave up on me. She was the most patient person I've ever known."
He paused briefly, his smile fading. "Sara was four when Ja'Lin said he wanted us to have another child. He said that she'd had enough time to recover. I couldn't believe that he would do such a thing, but Deborah wasn't really surprised. She got really frightened when he threatened to send her away, though. Said she'd rather die here than be killed as an outcast. In the end, we... had no choice."
Trip rested his face in his hands. "She was so sick we never thought she would make it through the nine months. The last few weeks she couldn't even get up anymore. She'd lost so much weight I thought the baby was literally going to starve her to death. I... couldn't even look after her most of the time, Ja'Lin wouldn't let me... he threatened to take Sara away from me if I neglected my work."
He took a deep breath. "Somehow, though, she made it. I think she kept herself alive through sheer will-power. She... she asked me to make sure that they'd never sell our children and I promised, although I knew I wouldn't be able to do anything about it if Ja'Lin decided to give them away. I couldn't ..."
He broke off. Malcolm rested a hand on his shoulder, feeling the tense muscles tremble under his fingers. "You did the right thing."
Trip shook his head. "She knew that I was making a promise I couldn't keep. I think... I think at that point she just wanted to hear that everything was going to be all right. And I told her so."
Malcolm hesitated. "She died in childbirth?" he asked then, quietly.
Trip nodded. "Yeah. The day Sammy was born."
The narrow bed in the room behind the kitchen was stained with red. Elin, hurrying back and forth between bed and kitchen, tried to staunch the blood flow with disinfected cloths and towels, but to little effect. Deborah bled so hard it pooled on the sheets next to her body, and Sev realized with a cold certainty that no one could lose that much blood and survive.
The dying woman on the bed moved her lips, but no sound came out.
"Say it again, dear," Elin said, stroking Deborah's sweaty hair out of her face. "We didn't hear you."
"... want to see her," Deborah whispered, her eyes resting on the bundle in Sev's arms. "Show me."
"It's a boy," Sev said, carefully placing the baby next to her on the bed. With trembling fingers, he pulled the towel aside so she could see the small brown body. "Here."
"A boy," she said, her lips parting in a smile. She reached out to stroke the baby's cheek. "Is he alright?"
"He's fine," Elin said, and folded up a wet cloth to place it on Deborah's forehead. "And he looks just like you, dear."
She was right. The baby's heart-shaped face was a smaller version of his mother's features, and when the little boy turned his head, Sev saw that even the dark eyes were the same. Deborah smiled.
"Sev..."
He leaned forward, close to her face. "Yes?"
"You'll take care of them, won't you?" she whispered. It took him a second to realize that she was speaking English. "Tell Sara... tell Sara that I love her. I don't want her to see... all this..." She gestured weakly at the blood on the bed. "Tell her that I love her. And... tell him when he's old enough..."
She closed her eyes and a pained shudder ran through her body. "Oh, it hurts..."
"You'll be alright," he answered in the same language, gently closing his fingers around her hand. "You'll be just fine."
"No," Deborah shook her head. "You know that I won't, Sev. I'm dying. Promise me that you'll tell them. Please..."
"I promise," he said, a slight crack in his voice that he was barely aware of himself. "I'll tell them. And I'll take care of them..."
"I know you will." Her eyes drifted close again. Sev watched her and felt his fingers grow cold around her hand. Then, after an endless second, she opened her eyes again and slightly turned her head to look at the baby.
"What... are you going to call him?" she whispered.
"I don't know," he said hoarsely. "I don't know any human names..."
"Sammy," she said, and for a brief moment her limp hand grew stronger, gently squeezing his fingers. "What do you think of... Sammy..."
"Sammy's fine." He swallowed. "Deborah..."
Her eyes came to rest on him. "It's alright..." Her fingers slackened in his hand. "You'll... do fine. I know you will. You..."
He watched her eyes close shut, saw how her chest rose and fell once more, then stopped. The pain lines had left her face. She lay still.
With her labored breathing gone, there was only silence left. Sev sat motionless, and hardly felt it when Elin gently pulled Deborah's hand from his fingers, placing it at the dead woman's side.
"Sev." The old woman laid a hand on his shoulder. "Sev. You need to take care of the baby. He'll be hungry."
She picked up the small bundle and placed it in his arms. The little boy had fallen asleep, his tiny hands curled under his chin. Sev stared down at him, unable to speak.
"I know," Miss Elin said quietly. "But you're the only one he has left. They're going to need you now more than ever, he and his sister. You understand that, Sev?"
He nodded, his eyes still resting on the baby who looked so much like Deborah. "I understand."
"What's going on here?"
The loud voice made them both startle, and they turned around. Ja'Lin stood in the door, his disgust apparent as his eyes traveled over the room. He pointed at the bed.
"She dead?"
Neither of them answered. He stepped closer and roughly pulled the baby from Sev's arms, shaking off the towel so he could inspect the small body. His large red hands wrapped around the baby's torso, he turned the boy from side to side, ignoring his startled crying.
"Well, he seems to be alright. A little puny looking maybe, but he'll grow. Would have been such a waste if he had died as well."
He gave the baby to Elin and threw a brief glance at the bed. "Well, she was always the feeble type."
A lopsided grin appeared on his face when he turned to Sev. "You'll have your hands full with the little ones, won't you? Never mind the stable work today, I'll tell Sarin to take care of it."
Ja'Lin turned to the door with the air of a man who has just granted someone a huge favor. Before he left, he glanced briefly over his shoulder. "Oh, and do take care of that mess, will you? My wife'll have a fit when she sees it."
Later, Sev didn't remember what had happened in the few seconds before he reached out to grab Ja'Lin's shoulder. All he knew was that he suddenly found himself spinning the man around and slamming him into a nearby wall, so hard that Ja'Lin cried out with pain.
"You don't give a shit, do you?" Sev shouted, his fist that was curled around Ja'Lin's shirt pressing against the man's throat. "It's your fault that she's dead and you just don't give a shit! You fucking asshole, I'm gonna - kill - you!"
Each of the three words was accompanied by a punch in the man's face, and a wild, trembling satisfaction ran through him when he felt Ja'Lin's nose crack under his fist. The man screamed as blood gushed over his mouth, and tried to push him away. Sev pulled his fist back for another blow, but he never got the chance to deliver it. Someone grabbed him from behind and pulled him away from Ja'Lin, who held his broken nose with both hands, moaning and uttering muffled swears. A second before a blow plunged him into darkness, Sev got another glimpse of Elin who stood in the door with the baby in her arms, her face pale.
I'm sorry
, he thought.I'm so sorry.
Malcolm stared at his friend. "What... what happened?"
Trip sighed. "Ja'Lin and his men took me outside. I was only semi-conscious at the time and thought they were going to kill me. They almost did, too, kicked me and beat me with iron bars and I don't know what else until I passed out. I think Ja'Lin stopped them at some point. He probably didn't want to lose two of his workers at the same time."
"Is that how your arm and ribs were broken?" Malcolm asked, remembering the scans that had shown Trip's slightly crooked ribs and the old fracture in his left arm.
"Yeah. I could barely move when I woke up, I was in so much pain. Sarin saved my life. He and Elin took care of me for the next few weeks, and looked after Sara and the baby until I was able to do it myself. They told me that I was an idiot for what I had done, that I had only made things worse. They were right, of course. I guess... I guess that moment after Deborah had died I just lost it."
"Understandably so," Malcolm muttered. "Did Ja'Lin..."
"Cast me out?" Trip shook his head. "No. He couldn't afford to do that. Sarin died a few months later, and he needed me to take care of the animals and the equipment. And he would have lost the children as well, since there was no one to look after them except for me.. But..." Trip pressed his lips together. "He made me apologize. Get down on my knees and all. And I did. I was afraid of what would happen if they beat me up again. And there were Sara and Sammy, of course."
Malcolm was silent for a while. Trip's story had only given him a vague idea of all the pain and hate that must have built up in those people over the years. But even from the little he had been told, he could hardly imagine how anyone could have gone on living under such circumstances. How anyone could actually raise his children like that was beyond him.
Trip seemed to pick up on his thoughts. "It wasn't easy after Deborah died. I hardly found the time to look after the children, and Ja'Lin picked on me whenever he got the chance. He couldn't forget that I had socked him one. I think he was rather happy when Senator V'Lin bought me and had me taken to the city so I could be given to you."
Malcolm winced. He did not like to be reminded of the scene back at the Senator's house, when he had bargained for Trip's children as if they were two cheap pieces of furniture.
"At first, I had no idea what V'Lin would want with me," Trip said. "No one bothered to tell me. When they led me into the assembly hall and I heard the Senator's speech, I realized, of course. I was scared to death that they would take the children away from me." Trip's eyes were solemn. "I believe I've never thanked you for what you did back then."
Malcolm shook his head, not sure whether to laugh or cry. "Trip... "
"You saved them."
Malcolm decided against both options, and laid a hand on Trip's arm instead. "I'd rather you wouldn't thank me for any of things I did back on Kareedia. I... I feel pretty bad about the way I treated you."
Seeing that Trip had no idea what he was talking about, he sighed. "Look... I had to pretend I looked down on you, treat you as... inferior. The way Ja'Lin and the Senator did. I still feel ashamed about it."
Trip shook his head. "You never treated me as inferior."
Malcolm sighed. "Let's just say we didn't have an ideal start."
To his surprise, Trip smiled slightly. "Agreed."
Malcolm leaned back against the wall, glancing at his half-eaten dish of noodles and the meatloaf Trip had barely touched. Neither dish looked very appetizing anymore.
"Want me to put that back into the microwave oven?" he asked, pointing at the two meals. He did not feel particularly enthusiastic at the idea himself, but it would not do to let any of their rations go to waste.
Trip nodded. "We'd better finish them, hadn't we?"
They ate their meal in silence, Malcolm glancing at Trip from time to time. He didn't look particularly upset, even though Malcolm knew that reliving those memories must have been painful. It took a lot of courage to face a past as harsh as the one Trip had been through. And it took a fair amount of trust to share it with a friend.
After a while, Malcolm spoke up again. "Thank you," he said. Trip looked up, and Malcolm continued, "For telling me about Deborah. I know it wasn't easy."
Trip's eyes rested on him for a moment. "I never thought I'd ever tell anyone about her. I never thought anyone would listen."
Trip picked up his padd, which he had abandoned earlier. Before he returned his attention to his study work, however, he smiled briefly and there was nothing strained about the expression. "Thank you."
This time, Malcolm nodded.
TBC...
Please let me know what you think!