Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [38]
When Orsova’s customers kick me now, it doesn’t heal anymore. I won’t survive the Constrictor when it comes. You don’t have to pretend. Even without the Constrictor I don’t have that long. Orsova’ll have me beaten up once too often, or I’ll fall down and my heart’ll collapse… I can’t have more than a few more weeks.”
“If I hadn’t caused the Constrictor, you would be somewhere else today. Probably a lieutenant.” His sharp features creasing, Zevon pressed the heels of his hands into his thighs as if the mental torture caused him some physical pressure too. Several seconds passed before he could finally say, “Now my great mistake has killed my only friend”
Stiles gazed at him, feeling supremely wise. The inner peace would’ve knocked him over like phaser stun if he’d been standing. He was completely content, as if lying in a hammock under a bower of autumn leaves. Zevon’s grief actually amused him, and he smiled.
“Jesus, do you do Irish tragedies too?” he chided. “Zevon of the Sorrows… Listen, clown, you gave me four extra years. My own mistake killed me that night, the night we met. I was in the hole. I died there. You crawled through the wall and gave me four years I wasn’t gonna get.”
Irritated by the compliment, Zevon shook his head. “You wouldn’t have been here at all-“
“Yeah, well, flog yourself again. Gimme that broom over there to hit you with. If I could get up, I’d beat your ass blue.” “It’s ‘already green.”
Stiles laughed, despite the fact that his midsection had cramped again. He stiffened and moaned, but then he laughed again. Zevon smiled as he stuffed a rolled lab apron under Stile’s head. For a moment they retired into peaceable silence. Over the years, they had learned to be silent together. In fact, they seldom talked like this anymore. Seldom needed to. They knew each other so well, and what a great feeling it was to be silent, silent together.
The lab seemed quiet, but now as they sat together Stiles focused on the chitter of the computer as it doggedly worked on the last problem fed into it, the burble of chemical processors trying to separate molecules for identification of spaceborne particles brought to them by the Pojjana Air Patrols, and the plink of the faucet in the sink dripping Plink… plink… plink …. Nice sound.
He dared to draw a longer breath, which forced him to cough convulsively. When that cleared, he wiped spittle from his beard and tried to relax.
“I was pointless back ill Starfleet,” he wandered on. Why did he feel like talking? Oh, well. ‘Where were a thousand of me. Ensigns by the carton. Probably most of them are officers by now. Wouldn’t have happened to me… botched the mission like I did… might as well be here, distracting somebody like Orsova. I mean, if he wasn’t hitting me he’d just be… hitting you.” “Quiet.”
“After I die, you go on without me. Don’t you quit. You don’t need me. Don’t let Orsova slow you down. If you can predict the Constrictor within days, you can save thousands. Within hours, you can save millions. If you can get the Pojjana to listen, they can save ten million this time, maybe a half billion the next-” “Without you, I have no wish to keep working.”
“You don’t need me.” Stiles raised his head and grasped Zevon’s arm with a ferocity of strength he didn’t think he still had. “I’ve never been anything much more than raw material anyway. Starfleet tried to whip me into something worth having, and I thought they’d succeeded, but twenty-one-year-olds never think they’re young. They’ll go out and hoe a row of stumps before they realize they forgot to bring seed. That was me… was it ever me.”
“Eric,” Zevon pointlessly admonished, but had nothing new to say about that.
“You think you can do it, right? Whether I’m here or not, you can do it, right?”
“I can improve the predictions