Aftermath - Ann Aguirre [51]
“Please.”
The tale will be told with all ceremony and formality because of the great regard he bears for Adele even now. It’s hard for me to resign the image of the older, coffee- skinned woman with someone who would take Vel as a lover, but I can’t wait to hear their story. I know this much, though; he’ll share it at the right time and place.
Once we leave the spaceport, Hit and Dina find a romantic lodging house, all pale stone given a sweet, rosy glimmer by the shadows above the dome. Vel and I continue on, closer to Adele’s neighborhood. I know she will permit me to stay in the garret with its glastique walls, but I’m not sure if Vel would be comfortable there. I don’t ask because his body language reveals clear distress, the closer we get.
The crowd parts around us, giving him a wide berth. Even with the increased Ithtorian galactic presence, people still stop and stare. Women pull their children away from him, and I hear whispers about how Sliders steal little children. Because I know him, their behavior infuriates me, and Vel snags my hand to keep me from popping one especially rude female in the face.
“It does not matter,” he says, spreading his claw in an open gesture.
My chip tells me that signifies letting go, how it all flows away. But anything that hurts him sets my teeth on edge, and it’s been a long time since I cut loose. If they keep this up, I’ll wind up in a Gehenna jail. There are few people I’d fight for these days, but Vel is one of them.
He selects a quiet café a few blocks from Adele’s building, and we take a seat inside, where it is all soft shadows. The servo-bot takes our order, something simple that will not distract me from his secrets. I want them because I have none from him. Not now. He’s seen too much of my past while I know so little of his.
“Here. I will speak here.”
And I sit quiet, rapt with the emotion radiating from him.
[Vel’s story, told to Sirantha Jax in his own words]
I have no mate.
I have no house.
I have no young to guarantee my immortality.
When I die, there will be no one to lay out my body or log the colors of my deeds in the ancient way. I have no colors.
Once, I thought it best that way. I saw my opportunity and took it. The life the stars gave strangled me, and so I ran. I called it by another name, but so many turns distant from the choice, I can name it what it was: cowardice. Shame finds me bare among my own kind, and they know me for what I am. Exile. Outcast. It does not matter that I chose it.
And yet . . .
And yet . . .
For a time, I was happy.
Not in the service of the legendary bounty hunter, Trapper, for all he was a fair man. Without his offices, I would not have survived. That one discovered me quicker than anyone since. He had a knowing to him that I miss to this day. He could look at a thing and tell you its nature. I have never experienced the like.
He alone knew that my name, to my people, means “white wave.” And so, I stayed with him because it was the closest I had to home, though I had left mine of my own free will. An artist may starve in uncertain times, so I laid aside those dreams as the price of freedom. Thus, I learned to stalk and track my prey. I learned to be ruthless. I learned never to back away from a deal once I gave my word. All that and more I learned from Trapper.
Over the turns, I became a legend. I do not say this lightly, but doubtless you have heard the stories. In colonies all over the galaxy, mothers tell their children: “You had better be good, or the Sliders will get you.”
That is not strictly accurate. Since the Axis Wars, I am the only one to break the isolation. I alone turn our native camouflage into something else, passing among humans undetected. Thus, the stories they tell?
They are all of me.
The time I spent with Trapper did not seem long, but he aged like a husk before my eyes. It almost seemed a flicker; humanity flares so bright that it cannot sustain the flame. I find the process fascinating but alarming. So I stayed with him