Thanks to everyone who read and to Aileil and KB for reviewing.
"Damn it, boy, get out here!"
"No! I don't want to, and you can't make me!"
"Oh, really?"
In retrospect that probably hadn't been the smartest thing to say to a Nietzschean who made two of him and for some insane reason had decided that he needed self-defense lessons, and Harper tried to scoot further under the bizarre machine in the corner of the gym at the amusement in Tyr's tone. There was no way that that boded well for him.
He was reasonably sure that the machine he was currently under had something to do with weights, and definitely sure that he didn't want anything to do with it either since most of the weight panels would probably squish him, but most concerning was the fact that the walls that it backed up to didn't seem to contain any useful access panels. Or escape hatches. Or anything else that might slow down a hand-to-hand-happy Nietzschean.
One spiked forearm—blades down; Tyr wasn't an idiot—came in through the gap that Harper had wriggled through and swiped at him, but Tyr's shoulders were far too broad to fit and Harper was safely out of reach.
Unfortunately he didn't see a lot of options. Coming out and participating in whatever insanity Tyr wanted to include him in wasn't going to happen. He didn't want to stab or shoot Tyr. He didn't want to get smacked by Tyr which precluded use of his shriller or a flash-bang. "This is not fair," he muttered.
"Life isn't fair, now stop this nonsense."
Stupid Nietzschean hearing. "You first," he returned, raising his voice. "I was just minding my own business, looking for breakfast, and the next thing I knew you were dragging me into a gym." He was reasonably sure that this was some kind of payback for letting Tyr talk his ear off the other day, although he wasn't sure why that would require payback one way or the other. It was pretty obvious that Tyr had needed to talk, and okay, sure, the rugrat was Nietzschean so by definition not on Harper's Christmas list, but he was also Tyr's rugrat which made him sort of a little bit okay. Or at least Harper would absolutely get him something annoying and noisemaking just to irritate Tyr, and never mind that no Nietzschean that Harper had ever met even celebrated Christmas anyway. "Now, if you want me to fix one of your weird machines I'm happy to help," he continued, returning to the more important subject at hand wherein Tyr had him thoroughly trapped under a whatever, "but other than that I want nothing to do with any gym anywhere."
Tyr swiped at him again.
"And that is not helping your case!"
Tyr growled and pulled his arm back, and Harper couldn't decide if that was a good or a very bad sign. The weights above might be heavy enough to crush him, but Tyr had almost certainly brought the thing onto the ship which meant that he could move it again if he really wanted to.
Harper twisted around, prying open the wall panel a little further. He didn't need much of an opening, just enough to scoot through.
"What, precisely, is the harm in learning to properly defend yourself?" Tyr asked, and Harper looked over to find him crouched down staring through the gap.
"I know how to properly defend myself, thanks. Shoot, stab, or blow up whatever jackass wants to hurt me this week." No luck with that panel. He twisted the opposite direction, careful to keep as close to the wall as he could. Tyr had long arms.
"And if you can't do any of those things?"
"Hide until they go away or curl up in a ball until it's over."
Tyr scoffed.
"Hey, I've kept myself alive this long, haven't I?" He'd taken more injuries over his lifetime than he cared to think about, maybe, but it was still a lot better than the alternative.
Tyr didn't look convinced, and Harper sighed.
"Look, if you ever see me in anything even vaguely approaching hand-to-hand combat, you can feel absolutely and totally free to take over, okay? In fact, I encourage it. But I've got no interest in throwing punches at someone twice my size. It doesn't end well for me. It's never ended well for me."
Tyr was quiet for a moment. "Come out and I'll make you a deal, professor."
Harper paused. "Deal first and then maybe I'll come out."
"You do realize that I'm the one who moved that trainer in here."
Sometimes he hated being right. "Deal first," he repeated as he resumed his search for an alternate exit. This panel was a failure too, but maybe if he could scoot a little further...
Unfortunately Tyr's reflexes were good even for a Nietzschean's, and his hand was wrapped around Harper's wrist in just about the same instant that Harper realized that he'd gotten too close.
"Damn it!"
That got a chuckle out of Tyr although he made no attempt to remove Harper from his hiding place. Of course, he didn't release Harper's wrist, either. "Simple enough. You come out here—let me finish. You come out here. I will start on the other side of the room. If you can make it out the door without me catching you, the lesson will be over for the day and I will come make us breakfast."
Harper considered for a moment. "Get out of the room, that's all I have to do?"
"Yes."
"And if I can't?" Seeing as Tyr had already technically caught him once.
"Then the lesson is not over and you will attempt what I ask. Do we have a deal?"
His hand tightened slightly on Harper's wrist, not that Harper had needed the reminder that he didn't have a lot of options, and Harper sighed. "Fine. Deal. But you have to let go and back up first."
"Such faith."
"Nietzscheans don't fight fair." Not that he did either, fighting fair was a real good way to get dead, but that wasn't the point.
"Of course not, it greatly decreases one's chance of survival." Tyr released him. "But the terms are acceptable."
He moved away from the gap, and Harper scooted closer, watching until Tyr was leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed over his chest, staring at him with no little amusement.
"Well?"
"Oh, fine." Harper wriggled back out from underneath the machinery and stood up.
Tyr bowed slightly, making an expansive gesture towards the door. It was closer to Harper than to him and at first glance it looked like Harper would be able to make it if he made a mad dash, but Tyr had height and speed on his side and Harper was pretty damn good at physics.
On the other hand... He leaned back against the machinery, mimicking Tyr's posture. By his estimate he had about a one in three chance of picking correctly, two out of three if he could get a look before he got going. And he wasn't a Nietzschean; he'd accept merely 'good' odds any day. "This is completely and totally ridiculous, you know. Even you couldn't stop me from getting to my shriller right now." Or the blaster on his hip, not that he was bringing that up.
"If I thought you were inclined to use it, I would have removed it from your person before. Since you haven't used it the point is moot."
"The point is not moot, if you weren't you I would have used it already."
"If I wasn't me I would have simply broken your wrist earlier. Or worse."
"Would not because I would have used it first."
"Would so because I wouldn't have simply dragged you to the gym."
"At least you're admitting you dragged me here."
"I don't recall ever denying it."
"Yeah, well, this is still stupid. I'm not a..." Harper trailed off, waving his hand around. All the while making very sure not to take his eyes off Tyr for more than the instant that he needed to. There was no chance that he wasn't looking for an opening himself given how much he hated losing at anything, and he really was fast. "I'm not a gym person."
"That is not a term."
"Is so. Come on, if you stop being ridiculous I swear I'll build you the best sparring bot ever."
"I am not the one that needs the practice, and I already told you, no androids."
"Not an android, a bot." He was pretty well done with androids, himself thanks. "And what do you mean, 'needs the practice,' anyway? My whole life has been practice."
"You were caught when the ship was boarded."
"That's…." What it was was entirely true, unfortunately, although if he'd had a little more time to prepare or knew the ship a little better it might not have been. At least his leg was mostly cooperating again. "That's not the point," he decided.
Tyr looked skeptical. And relaxed just marginally.
Harper didn't wait for a second opportunity, flinging himself not towards the door but upwards, scrambling up the side of the machinery and towards ceiling panels. If he was wrong he'd bounce off plasti-steel grating and Tyr would be on him before he had time to recover, but it was the best chance he had.
Tyr swore, and Harper shouldered the panel next to the lights aside and pulled himself up into it, and as he'd hoped he found the conduit space just large enough to give him clearance. He didn't dare waste time looking back, from the sounds of things Tyr was at or near the top of the machinery as well and while he wouldn't fit into the ceiling panels, he'd have no trouble dragging Harper back out if he could snag an ankle.
The space wasn't large, barely enough to belly-crawl even for him, but as he'd expected it extended well past the wall of the gym and over whatever the next set of rooms were. He was half-tempted to make the argument that he was out of the room as soon as he was out of Tyr's reach and had therefore won the bet, but he had a feeling that Tyr wouldn't consider 'in the ceiling' to meet the terms of 'out of the gym', and it wouldn't take much for him to find something to stand on that would let him punch open a ceiling panel and drag Harper back down. So along he wriggled until he reached a light panel that was definitely beyond the gym walls. He moved on to the next ceiling panel and pried it open to let himself back down into the ship proper, only to find Tyr staring up at him.
"Hey, go away. I won fair and square."
"You did not. I specified the door."
"You did, yep. But I just said 'out of the room' and then you said 'yes' so I win."
Tyr opened his mouth and then paused. "Remind me again why I don't beat you within an inch of your life?"
Harper made a face at him. "Can we go have breakfast now?"
Harper yelped and squirmed, but Tyr had no intention of releasing the grip on his collar. The little man was irritatingly wily. And clearly not in any actual distress as he switched from unintelligible complaints to explaining why Tyr's whole plan was a bad one and why there was zero need for him to learn anything new in the realm of self-defense in between breaths. Which was, of course, as absurd now as it had been the first time that Tyr had brought him to the gym, and the only vaguely reasonable part of the whole thing was that he never stopped trying to twist out of Tyr's grip.
"Professor—"
Harper threw up his hands and dropped, and Tyr swore as he found himself with a handful of cloth and a distinct lack of human. And to add insult to injury, Harper kicked him in the back of the knee as he scuttled away. Not as hard as he could have, but enough to make a point, and Tyr swiveled on his other leg and lunged. If Harper got away, and 'away' in Harper's case just meant into one of the wide variety of nooks and crannies that Tyr had barely even realized that his ship had before they'd begun these exercises, he'd hole up and refuse to come out until Tyr promised something ridiculous. Or made a meal.
Tyr's arm found Harper's waist before he could reach the door, though, and Tyr flipped them to take the impact of the floor against his back. Harper's ribs might have survived if he'd hit first, but they might not have, and Tyr had no intention of breaking bones. They would give Harper far too good an excuse to avoid any more sparring—or running away in a variety of clever ways which was very much Harper's preference—and Tyr had found their morning matches more interesting than he'd first thought he would.
This time Harper was the one who cursed as he bounced off Tyr's chest, but he wasn't able to do much besides curse since Tyr had no intention of letting him slip away again. "That is so not fair," he finally said, looking over his shoulder at Tyr.
"Surely you are not making the argument that life ever is."
"No, just a complaint about the state of the universe in general. Chapter 7, paragraph 4, line 1." He twisted again, but it was obvious that he knew that he was trapped because he stopped as soon as Tyr pushed himself to his feet and brought Harper up with him. "Can I just point out again that—"
An alarm chimed, and Tyr frowned. It was a personal alarm rather than proximity or attack or anything of that sort, but he didn't recall setting one. And from the way that Harper was looking around he hadn't done it either. "If I release you, are you going to run?"
Harper looked up at him. "No, of course not. Never. Would I do that?"
Tyr couldn't help a chuckle. It had been foolish to ask the question. Especially since Harper could well have set the alarm and was pretending otherwise just to distract Tyr. It wasn't a tactic that he'd tried yet, but with Harper 'yet' was very much the operative word when it came to underhanded tricks. Fortunately Harper wasn't heavy and it only took about three steps to reach an access panel and a few taps to bring up the information behind the alert. "Ah."
"Ah, what?" Harper asked, twisting again.
This time Tyr released him. "I must be on Abraxis by tomorrow in order to begin my next job." He had set the alarm, but it had been days ago when he'd had the expectation that he would be able to quickly track down whoever had planted that bug on his ship and hadn't wanted to forget about his next job while he was dealing with them. And clearly he had lost track of time, albeit for a different reason.
"Oh." Harper grabbed his over-shirt off the floor and shrugged it back on. "Guess we better go have some breakfast, then. I've got most everything on the 'really bad idea' list in progress with parts all sorted, and from what you said about the length of the job it shouldn't be any trouble to finish by the time you're ready to leave."
"Good." Tyr was already aware of that, of course, since after he gave up attempting to teach Harper basic self-defense in the mornings he generally spent the majority of the rest of the day helping with whatever needed to be done, but he appreciated the confirmation. Although…. He hesitated as they reached the kitchen. "You needn't—"
"Needn't what?" Harper asked as Tyr cut himself off, bypassing any breakfast ingredients and heading for the plates. As Tyr preferred since he still didn't know how Harper managed some of the messes hat he did in the kitchen. At least with near-unbreakable flatware there were limits.
Tyr hadn't in any way thought through the idea that had crossed his mind when Harper had mentioned him leaving, but upon quick reflection there was no reason not to make the offer. He still needed an engineer to finish the retrofits that Harper had identified as necessary if not immediately critical. Harper was as good as he was going to find; certainly better than any that he was capable of vetting personally. And Harper would be able to keep the ship in top condition which was critical for some of Tyr's jobs.
True, some of those who hired him, particularly other Nietzscheans, might look at him askance for his choice of crew, but he made his decisions to maximize the benefit to himself not to them. Unlike someone they would approve of, meaning another Nietzschean, Harper would never attempt to challenge for dominance. Tyr's time trying to unite the prides had given him more than his fill of that behavior, and despite the fact that it was a completely appropriate thing for any Nietzschean who wanted to prove himself to do, it was something he'd been relieved to be done with once he was on his own again. Maybe if he'd spent his early adulthood with a pride his tolerance levels might have been different, but that constant pushing was one of the reasons that he hadn't attempted to bring on any other crew members before this. With Harper, as long as he had projects to keep him occupied—and when Harper didn't have projects he went and invented some—he was perfectly content.
Keeping Harper around meant that no one would have the opportunity to ask him any questions about what he might know about Tyr or Tamerlane either.
And he was tolerable enough company, all things considered.
"Tyr?" Harper asked, looking up at him. "Is something wrong?"
"No." Tyr retrieved the breakfast supplies and turned on the stove. "No, I was simply thinking that if Abraxis does not suit you, you could always remain on board."
"What?"
He kept his eyes on the food in front of him. "Your list has a number of less critical repairs to complete. As I recall you thought that they would keep you busy for months if not longer. Not to mention that thing in my smugglers' bay that you keep lying about diagramming and whatever else I'm sure you'll unearth to keep yourself busy."
"I haven't been lying, I've been creatively redirecting. And I told you, that was impressive engineering once upon a time."
"Mmm." He didn't try to keep the skepticism out of his tone. "Regardless, I suppose you're as good as anyone else I could find to get the jobs completed, and it would not be such a bad thing to have an engineer on board."
"I thought we went over this? I am the best. But if you're working with Nietzscheans, they're not going to be happy to see me. Especially if they figure out who I am. I mean, on some random drift it's not a big risk as long as I just use my last name, but both of us together…."
The humor had disappeared from his voice well before he'd trailed off, and Tyr turned back towards him. "They will deal with it. And they will not touch you." He'd make that clear if Harper couldn't, and it was a legitimate concern. Tyr's previous thoughts had centered more upon the impact of having a human on board, but having a human who'd participated in the war did put things in a slightly different light. Then again, the fact that Harper was human and less than likely to get a second glance by any Nietzschean who hired Tyr would work in their favor in this, as was the fact that his name—or the name that he regularly used, as he'd noted—wasn't particularly uncommon. And perhaps that was why the news that Harper was no longer with Andromeda's crew hadn't been widely, if at all, spread. It was safer that way, and Harper would recognize that even if it never even occurred to Dylan. "It is known that I didn't leave Andromeda under the best of circumstances, and this is my ship."
Harper nodded slightly. "You know I'll never call you boss."
"I wouldn't expect you to." Harper had been born on a Nietzschean slave planet, and on a personal level some things would never be acceptable to him no matter how willing he might be to follow Tyr's orders most of the time. Tyr could understand that. "It's of no matter. I'd likely find myself looking for Captains Valentine or Hunt if you did."
Harper nodded again and started to say something, but then his eyes darkened a little, his stare going distant as he hooked his teeth on his lip.
"Professor?" Tyr prompted.
For a moment he continued to stare at the wall, but then he shook his head and returned his gaze to Tyr, a quick grin dispersing most of the sudden darkness. "Never mind. I don't even want to think how many relatives I have that would die all over again of shock and horror if they weren't already dead, but sure, I'll stay. At least for a while. You're right about plenty to keep my busy here, and I'm not exactly fond of shop-keeping anyway. And we still don't know anything about whoever planted that bug on your ship or where your files went or if the two are even related."
Facts that Tyr was painfully well aware of. He'd spent more than one evening brainstorming ways that he could find information, but so far he had nothing that didn't involve tracking down one of those contacts that had somehow disappeared. Nor had Harper been able to offer many suggestions, although he was a willing enough sounding board.
"Given that I am sticking around, are you sure you don't want me to rip through your encrypted files and at least check that half of things?" Harper continued.
He'd made the suggestion before and Tyr had declined despite finding the idea more than a little tempting. Not only would it be good to know how quickly the encryption could be defeated, Harper had fresh eyes and might see something that gave a clue as to Tamerlane's location that Tyr had missed. That had been when he'd been planning to leave, though, and Tyr hadn't wanted to him to know any more than he already did. Given that he would be staying…Tyr found himself nodding slightly. Any reference to genetics would likely be completely missed, it wasn't the sort of thing that a human would think to concern himself with, but that he'd reviewed extremely thoroughly himself and neither he nor Olma had said anything about it even obliquely. It was the possibility of someone finding Tamerlane that concerned him most.
"Good. I'll take a look after breakfast."
"You really think you can break into them that quickly?"
"You really need me to tell you again how good I am again?"
