Althea

If she unfocused her eyes – the cracks above the bed transformed into rings – rings within rings.

She ran a thumb and finger along the warm fabric of her memsuit, from her neck, along the hardness of her collarbone down between her breasts. Unlike with Traejan, there was nothing meaningful to break the smoothness, not with what he had – and never had been.

Oh, there had been moments, adventures, dreams: Nayr, Morog’n, Triese. Nothing good, nothing enduring had come of them. Still, her thoughts kept returning to those long discarded hopes, then back to Traejan’s vivid recollection of loss.

Fleeing from the drones – the approach of the corpore, she could see it in her mind – looming, falling, surrounding, the force of its thrusters blowing everything around them. Then losing her – the guilt in Traejan’s eyes, his face, his voice, she visualized all the ways he physically reacted to the recalled memories.

Althea wondered who would remember her in that way. If she had died underneath all that ice… who would have missed her? Like that? What human being would care that much? Or at all?

She hadn’t wanted to leave him there, alone with his reawakened grief; but couldn’t stay either, and risk exposing her own. So… she allowed him to turn away, forced herself to leave. Pushing past the piles of broken, useless tech, struggling with the sliding door, she’d made her way down the corridor, tears threatened to burst forth all the while. Later, lying in the bed, concentrating on the ceiling, breathing deep, she allowed quiet calm back into her.

Dorian’s voice broke the silence.

Althea.

“I’m here,” she replied softly.

I’ve analyzed the scans you requested, yes, the secret scans to determine if either of the men were implanted. She took in a breath, let it out slowly.

“Tell me.”

Kyso is clear, his field is purely bioelectric. Traejan’s is not. There are anomalies.

“Location?”

Cranial.

She felt herself sink into despair. That fact, just compounded the tragedy. He could have done it, then. A Macro’s implant in his brain, he could have done it all and never even know. She felt her breath quicken, heart thumping in her chest, her eyes growing wet with tears.

What was happening? Had her head injury caused her to completely lose her objectivity, her emotional distance, control?

The probability he was responsible for the events he recounted is high.

“I know!” But did that invalidate the way he felt?

Althea, you must alter your plan.

She wiped the water from her eyes, her cheeks – sat up – took Dorian’s case in her hand. She spread open the reactive fields, stared at the graphic comparisons between Kyso and Traejan. The difference was damning.

“I’m still taking him. He can help us. He wants to.”

Are you certain? Dorian was surely thinking of the potential threat – and of Seddo…

“You said I needed help, didn’t you?” she responded bitterly “Traejan has contacts in the settlement, Panak, with the locals and the greggas. Kyso wants him with us as well.”

Then I trust you are making the best choice.

“It’s not the best choice!” The best choice wouldn’t have her stuck on this ice planet for fifteens, wouldn’t have her dependent on micronic technology. There wasn’t any other way she could live with.

“It’s not even a good choice; it’s what I have to do! If I had made the best choice, we’d never have ended up here at all,” she lamented. “You wouldn’t even be thinking of ripping that thing out of his head, or anyone else’s.”

Such acts, would not make you the same as a Macro, Dorian insisted. Or the First Centurion.

Wouldn’t they? Wouldn’t they?!