Thel 'Vadam

I sat by Zardoz's grave waiting just waiting in the night.

Zill arrived and looked at me.

"I got my draft orders, I'm shipping off next month. What do you want, Thel?"

I took another swig of shine and looked at him.

"They're promoting me to Arbiter."

The boy... no. The man was silent as he looked at me.

"What's the real reason why you called me here, Thel."

I pulled out a box, and gave it to him he opened it.

"Your father's sidearm... the one he used during the war."

I took a breath.

"I want you to kill me with it."

I looked at him.

"Why..."

"I... I killed him. Your father, he's dead because of me."

He looked at me as if judging me.

"I always suspected."

"You knew?"

"No, I suspected. The way you never looked me in the eye, the way you supported me and my mother and never once tried to make her your woman, and the fact that you never pushed me to get revenge on Huey. That last one was the big tip-off, with your personality."

I looked him in the eye.

"I'm ready, I have paperwork labeling this an official duel. You won't get in trouble for this, and you have a right to this."

He looked at the gun, taking it out of the case.

"I have a right to the truth... Why did you kill him?"

I winced.

"He wanted to end the war."

"There's more to it. Lots of people want to end the war, it has been that way for years. There are people in the peace movement on our homeworld right now."

"He found a way to do it."

"Explain."

"Huey... found out about the Flood, and apparently decided that we would use it as a bioweapon against them. So he developed a cure."

"Gods above."

The boy fell to his knees and stared at me.

"We lost 3 worlds to Flood outbreaks since the war started, billions of people died because they didn't have that cure..."

He looked me in the eye.

"Your father said that if people knew they would end the war."

"Of course they would end the war! That stuff is a nightmare, it has wiped out entire species it is the single worse thing to ever exist, and they thought we would use it on them? Gods, I've never thought that lowly of someone."

He struggled and got up, and placed the gun against my head.

"It's ok, I deserve this."

I was at peace. After being haunted by his face, being haunted in my dreams, I was finally going to be punished for what I did. I deserved this, I deserved to die.

"No. You will live with this."

He removed the gun.

"What?"

"You're looking for forgiveness, for absolution, for closure. You don't deserve any of that. I do not forgive you, I do not absolve you, and I am not giving you closure. If you want redemption... then do what my father did, end this war."

"I can't do that."

"Then live with what you have done and what you have become."

He turned his back on me then and walked away, leaving me alone with the body of the friend I murdered and the guilt that wouldn't go away.