Chapter 17

SEVENTEEN

F or a moment, a single golden moment every time he awoke, Felix existed in a place where he almost believed Zed hadn't left him. Eyes closed, he could imagine the warmth at his side was a man, that he could hear the soft snore his breath deepened to in the early hours—that he could smell his skin, his hair.

For six days, Felix resisted opening his eyes for as long as he could, but the illusion always faded before he let the world in. The awful weight of loss would crush him, pin him to the bed. He would blink his eyes open and enter the second round of denial, resist the urge to turn his head and confirm that the warmth beside him was nothing but a pillow, the scent a shirt he'd dug out of Zed's pack, the scrape of breath his own.

On the seventh day, he lay there with his eyes closed, already aware of the lie, the truth, the pain of his loss, and wondered if he could have done something different. Something more. Something…less. Had he been responsible for Zed's rapid deterioration? If Zed had had less to worry about, namely a lover, would he have held it together longer?

If Felix had died in the stin work camp, or succumbed to his injuries after…if he'd been taken out of the equation, would Zed be alive?

Or was it his simple lack of belief in a higher power? If the seventh day actually meant something to him, other than the relentless passage of time, would Zed be lying next to him now?

Sucking in a ragged breath, Felix punished himself for sins real and imagined by rolling away from the pillow he wanted to hug. His gaze fell on the small vial of pills Nessa had left him and he ignored those too. Oblivion beckoned, but he had to pay for his trespasses first. He sat up on the opposite side of the bed without gathering up the black shirt and pressing it to his face. He denied himself the scent of Zed. He opened his eyes.

Outside the bubble, dusk gathered. The long days of Ashie Prime messed with his internal clock as much as the sedatives. His days and nights were purely subjective and not constrained by the passing of real time. He measured them by periods of wakefulness and longing, for Zed, for another dose of nothingness. Even assisted, his sleep wasn't restful, though. He woke stiff and sore, as if he'd spent the night clinging to the edge of a cliff. The sedatives were supposed to keep the nightmares at bay—and they did, but only just.

Over the ocean, sunset mists thinned to streamers, layering the sky in brushstrokes of color. It should be beautiful. It sort of was. Sure beat staring into nothing but his reflection, or slipping into memories that left him aching and alone. Rationally, he knew he had to pull himself together, that he couldn't continue to drift between the nightmares and the quiet death of drugged sleep. He couldn't keep yelling at Nessa every time she touched him, or refusing to talk to Elias. He couldn't ignore that for every hour he whiled away, Qek risked her livelihood and freedom. His crew was hurting too. They hadn't loved Zed the way he had, but they'd liked him and had welcomed him into their family.

Right then, though, staring at yet another beautiful Ashushk Prime sunset, he could not find the strength to form a plan otherwise.

His door chimed. Felix didn't answer, he didn't see the point. Whoever it was would come in anyway, concerned that he'd slept too long, not slept at all, or had torn his room apart in the grip of another nightmare. They wanted to check on him and he'd stopped telling them to fuck off.

Sure enough, the door swished open and light footsteps padded into his room. Felix remained seated on the edge of the bed, eyes pointed toward the mist, but he acknowledged his visitor, if only because she was something of a novelty.

"Hey, Qek." The casual greeting was callous—and he was an asshole. What if it had been Nessa at the door with news that Qek was gone, that his delay had cost her everything? Felix sucked in a breath and held it. He couldn't deal with another loss.

"How are you feeling, Fixer?"

"Like crap." Qek valued honesty.

"I am sorry to hear that."

Felix turned to look at the friend he had all but ignored in his grief. Qek had not approached farther than the threshold. She stood with her hands linked behind her back, her posture reminiscent of a banker with bad news. Her smooth face indicated a quiet, pensive mood.

Oh, God…

Why did he have to keep reminding himself what her friendship meant to him?

Felix turned back to the mist and exercised the only control he'd mastered over the past few days, that of banishing tears before they burned the back of his eyes or clogged his nose. His chest hitched once with the need to sob, then fell still. He would not cry, could not. He was not a boy; tears wouldn't change anything and he had the awful feeling that if he did give in, his tears would mean the end. That he had given up, given in.

Quietly, he said, "I'm sorry I've been such a shit friend."

Jesus. Now he'd have to apologize to Nessa and Elias too. Then they'd show him smug smiles and start coddling him even more. Or expect him to get out of bed. Or cry.

"I do not require my friends to hold to any standard. They only need be themselves."

"You're a better man than me." Feeling Qek prepare a question, Felix held up a hand. "It's an expression. You're a better person."

"I am a different person."

Felix turned back around. "How come you haven't been pestering me like Ness and Eli?"

Qek's face wrinkled gently. "The ashushk process grief differently to humans, but it was my understanding you preferred to be alone."

"You got that right. I don't suppose you tried to share that insight with them?"

"I did not, because they needed to tend you."

Well, damn.

Feeling the annoying press of tears again, Felix turned away and scrubbed at his face. He swiped the heel of his palm over both cheeks, removing any evidence of his weakness. Maybe he hadn't been strong enough. Had he let Zed down because he was broken inside and not properly reset? Brittle, and just plain moody. Not…healthy.

Maybe he was just a bad person and the galaxy, or the gods he didn't believe in, needed to teach him a lesson.

Did thinking that make him conceited?

Fuck.

Felix dragged in another deep draft of air, held the breath until his lungs twitched, and breathed out. He peeked over his shoulder at the guest he'd left in the doorway, the one who didn't seem to mind that he sat facing away, clad only in shorts that probably weren't visible behind the rumpled sheets. Waving at Nessa's favorite perch, the slack lounge under the window, he said, "Have a seat. Stay a while."

Qek's quiet presence offered the comfort Nessa wanted to give him and, with a sudden sharpness, Felix craved the ashushk's company. He understood the method behind Nessa's madness; she prodded and poked to keep him from slipping into oblivion and, for the most part, it worked. In contrast, Qek's quietude offered solace and above all, Felix craved peace. An end to his misery.

"What about you, Qek? What do you need?"

"I need only for my friends to be well."

"That's a bullshit answer. Everyone needs something for themselves."

The ashie inclined her head to accede the point and moved to sit on the low lounge. Forehead wrinkling and smoothing, she appeared to consider his statement, and then she said, "I have lived for ninety-one of your Standard years, which is about a third of my expected life-span, if I do not gender." Her skin tightened and loosened. "I have tended many needs in that time, throughout what many ashushk consider to be their childhood. The first third. Right now, my needs are simple. But…"

The hesitation fascinated Felix, and for a moment he forgot the pain clutching at his heart. He forgot his needs. Leaning toward his friend, Felix nodded, prompting her to continue.

"There is something you could do for me."

Felix's brows crooked together. "Sure. What is it?"

"You advised me to come to you, and so I have. It is time for me to leave this planet. We have been here for three intervals and every day I fear I will become trapped."

Three intervals? An interval was the ashushk equivalent of a week, or six thirty-hour days. He'd lost so much time. How long had Zed been…Felix shook his head, shunting those thoughts away. He needed to focus on Qek, and why Qek had come to see him.

"I'm sorry."

Her eyes narrowed slightly and her cheeks smoothed. Again, Felix read her expression clearly. She did not understand his apology. She did not understand that no human should ever have to hear an ashushk's fears, and that by that very action she'd deepened a friendship he had taken so for granted.

God, would he always be such an ass?

Probably. He had survived the stin, discharge from the AEF and the loss of his family. Hell, life had kicked him in the gut so many times, he should be used to it. Yet still he kicked back.

Felix turned back to the clear bubble wall and noted that the purple light of evening had started to darken the landscape. Soon, the ethereal beauty of Ashushk Prime would be lost for another endless night—not that he'd paid any particular attention to it during the long days. Or, maybe he had, because he knew that dark shadow over there was a curved tree that reminded him of an Earth palm. The ashushk seemed to favor them. They shaded every walkway, and potted versions leaned toward every windowed wall inside.

He pointed to it. "What are those trees?"

Qek clicked, swallowed a few consonants and then translated. "Windward recline."

"You seriously have a tree called windward recline?"

"That is a literal translation. The trees represent two ashushk ideals, the direction of the wind, which is a prevailing force, and the inclination to lean away from it, which is a restful pose."

Felix's thoughts flopped sluggishly around inside his head. He caught the concept, but it sounded too Zen for him. Elias would like it. He returned to Qek's request and considered all that it meant to him.

Departing Ashie Prime would mean leaving Zed behind. The Guardians had taken his body—for which purpose no one could divine. Elias reckoned they'd taken Zed as a trophy, that the gesture had something to do with the end of the Human-Stin war, and that video, the one that had ended Zed's career—Major Anatolius defying orders to rescue ten civilians, making him a hero and a problem for the AEF. Elias had often inferred that the Guardian interference at that time, which had ended the war, had not been coincidental. Felix figured Elias simply tried to make him feel better by assigning meaning to random acts.

The Guardians were not going to give Zed back. They'd probably already…Felix didn't want to think about what they might have done to his body.

Leaving this planet would mean abandoning a portion of his grief. Twelve hours in the space elevator would require him to be either civil or sedated. Felix supposed they'd all prefer the former option. The latter appealed more to him. Otherwise, he would have to pull the fragments of himself together and return to function. He would have to consider the future. His ship, his crew.

Leaving would mean that he accepted the fact that Zed had died.

Qek had waited something like a week to ask him. She had danced with fate for weeks longer than that, because she valued his friendship.

She'd given enough. More than enough.

Felix felt his chin dipping even before he'd decided to nod. The bob of his head was stiff, but he let the motion happen and confirmed it aloud. "You're right. It's time to go."