Ghost in the Machine (Corwint Central Agent Files) Page 33

A crushing emptiness surrounded the campfire, and the flames sputtered. Orynn slid her hand from his and bowed her head. “I am truly sorry.”

  “What is this?” Grohin was distraught, and his distress started to evolve into anger at the shame being put upon his family. “Why, Ashae? Is not my son a good and strong son of Tir? Are we, the Tir, not a good and honest people? Do you not care for us and for me?”

  With each question, Grohin’s voice gained volume and fury, and with each question, Orynn’s head sunk lower and lower. It was all falling apart so fast. Everything they had worked so hard for leading up to this point was disintegrating in front of her, and it was all because of her lies. The truth of it hit her and she fell to her knees. She heard gasps in the crowd and Torhin reached for her, but Grohin held him back with an outstretched hand. Her mind fought and held her guise, but her heart could tell them no more lies.

  “Ji lhem vanash.”

  Grohin’s rage ended in an instant with the Tir words Orynn whispered. He shook his head in disbelief. He didn’t want to hear it. “What... what did you say?”

  Orynn unleashed a crying sob that shook her entire body as she crumpled down into the dirt at Grohin’s feet. She drew in a deep breath and called out louder. “Ji lhem vanash!”

  A look of shock came over the faces in the crowd. Every woman gasped and held their hands over their mouths, and each of the men made the sign of foreboding across their brow.

  Her eyes opened wide at hearing it spoken from her lips. A truth she had denied herself and kept locked away at the very back of her mind came forth in a raw blinding revelation. Hearing it spoken made it real. She wanted to say it again. She wanted to know truth, no matter how unbearable.

  “Ji lhem vanash, Umpah. I can bare your people no strong sons and no beautiful daughters. Ji lhem vanash! My womb is barren.”

  Hank didn’t know how to react, but he hoped this was all part of a ruse. He swore the pain in her cry had been real though. He turned to Tara and saw a rare tear gliding its way down her cheek. Even Brom had look of remorse on his face. When he glanced behind at Ethan, the Mecha’s expression was completely vacant.

  From the crowd, Grohin’s wife Yariell rushed forward. She knelt in the dirt and put her hands on both sides of Orynn’s face and lifted it gently. Grohin shuffled his feet anxiously behind the two women. “Well, my wife?”

  Yariell looked deeply into Orynn’s eyes until finally a look of understanding and sadness washed over her. She touched her forehead against Orynn’s and closed her eyes in tears. “Oh, poor daughter of my heart. You speak a sad truth.”

  Grohin flung his hands up to the stars in dismay. A communal wail arose from all of the women as they clutched at their stomachs protectively. They rocked back and forth as the men spoke in Tir and spit into the dirt. There was no greater curse in the ways of Tir than the barren womb of a woman. Children were the lifeblood of their people. Without them, there was no laughter, no continuation of the people and no reason for living.

  “I do not care, Ashae!” Torhin moved toward her with his arms outstretched. Grohin stepped into his path and pushed him back.

  “Do not shame me, my son. Do not!” Grohin held onto his son’s shoulders tightly and shook him until his son’s eyes met his. “She has just bared her shame to all! Why? Because I am a fool! I have caused her this pain.” Grohin turned to her. “Look, my son. Look! She cries because we men are fools. She cries because she does not wish to shame our family. Look, and understand her heart.”

  The longer Torhin’s eyes lingered on the figure of his Ashae being cradled by his mother, the more distraught he became until the fight had completely left him. His father was right. They had presumed much. He had been prideful and didn’t think to speak to her privately first. He had been a fool, and now the spirit of his heart was in tears. For a man of Tir, there was no greater crime.

  “Forgive me, anae lahem.” Torhin broke free of his father’s grasp and disappeared into the darkness behind the crowd.

  Grohin turned with heavy shoulders and knelt down, taking Orynn in one arm and his wife in another. “This great fool begs of your forgiveness, daughter of my heart. I will give you the information you request. Please do not think unkind of me after this night. Please say you will return to us!”

  Orynn’s sobs subsided as she let herself sink into the comfort of Grohin’s loving embrace. Her spirit had a sudden weightlessness that felt as if it could carry her to reach out and touch the stars above them. She could have lied, but instead she had chosen to use truth.

  Gathering herself, she wiped her eyes and gave Grohin a true smile. “I am grateful for your understanding, Umpah, and I could never stay long away from the people that I love.”

  Grohin slid his other arm over the head of his wife and took Orynn into a deep embrace, threatening to smother her with his emotional energy. As he held her, he whispered to her the vital information she had just bared her soul to obtain. It had been a costly price, but as he whispered to her, she knew it had been worth it. They had the key now. The people of Ventaris would be saved.

  Others from the crowd started to join Grohin and his wife as they spoke with Orynn. Hank and the others remained seated on their mats, not sure of their next action. A few eruptions of laughter from the group was followed by some leaving and more joining. After several minutes, the group parted and Orynn began walking toward her companions. The expression on her face was so out of place, that at first, Hank wasn’t sure it was Orynn at all. The smile she typically wore was gone. In its place was a stoicism bereft of any emotion.

  “Come, it is time for us to depart.” Orynn spoke as she reached the group. “Captain, we need to set a course for the Ruisk moon of Entarsk. I will explain the rest on the way, but first I must rest.”

  Without another word, she walked away and headed back the way they had come. The group fell silently behind her as they left the campfire behind and walked toward the dimly lit horizon. Two of Tir’s three small moons were now visible rising into the night to offer their amber hued light. It gave them a direction as they started the steady climb up the rocky slope. A rising sound of laughter and music gave them all pause as they neared the crest of the ridge. The group stopped and looked back toward the fire, which was now burning even higher.

  Brom ran a hand over his bald head. “Y’know, they are really good people.”

  “Yes.” Orynn was the only one who kept her eyes facing forward. Her guise started to dissipate and the windswept brown hair that clung to her face faded to white. She reached up and brushed it away from her cheek, removing the purple nalahem. She closed her green eyes for a moment and took in a deep breath as she released the nalahem into the wind. As she exhaled, she opened her eyes of liquid mercury and watched the shroud disappear into the darkness. “They were.”

  “Were?” Tara’s voice held deep concern as she touched Orynn’s shoulder lightly. “Orynn, did you... You aren’t coming back?”

  “No. You must continue to build this important relationship with their people. You will need it in the future, I think.” Orynn started walking again, Tara’s hand sliding from her shoulder. The group followed behind as she kept her eyes on the horizon. “But Ashae… I will not return to them. I have done enough to them this night.”

  Ethan finally spoke from the back of the group, his tone as dark as the look he had in his eyes. The revelation of her inability to bear children, not even daughters, had ripped a gaping hole in his system, and he had to know if it was true. “That was quite a cunning lie to get out of marrying that kid.”

  “Not everything that I am is lie, Ethan.” Orynn continued walking as the rest of the group stopped again just short of the top.

  They all turned toward Ethan as Orynn crested the hill and disappeared down the other side. Tara marched down the few paces to Ethan, sliding and crunching the rocky dirt beneath her fury driven strides.

  “You really are a cold-hearted prick sometimes, you know that!”

  “That
would require that I first had a heart.” Ethan’s eyes were on the crest of the hill where Orynn’s figure had disappeared moments before. He didn’t see as Tara reeled back with a clenched fist and landed a heated blow squarely across his jaw. It was enough to cause him to take a step back before his stabilizers kicked in. He rubbed his jaw and looked at her as Brom raced to catch her elbow. She was pulling back to hit him again. “I suppose I earned that.”

  “And alot more, you over-evolved toaster!” Tara fought to get away as Brom encircled her waist with his large arms.

  Brom picked her up and turned toward the ship before putting her down again. “C’mon T, let’s get the ship ready. I think the boys need to have a chat.”

  “Fine!” Tara pulled out of Brom’s grasp and straightened her bomber jacket. “Fine. Hank, if you see fit to leave that tin can to rot in this desert, you won't find me shedding a tear over it.”

  “I’ll be on board in a minute.” Hank watched as Brom and Tara disappeared over the ridge before turning back to Ethan. He watched his friend in silence for a long moment. Ethan was staring with an emotionless face at the moons rising over the horizon.

  “You knew that wasn't a lie, Ethan. We could all tell, and so could you. Yet, you intentionally dug that knife deeper into her, after she just gave up what she had with those people. What the fuck is the matter with you?”

  Ethan finally turned his eyes to Hank. It was evident that there was an underlying pain he was trying to mask with an air of detachment. “I believe that it was just determined that my lack of a heart was to blame.”

  “Don’t give me that shit.” Hank took a few steps closer, but Ethan turned away from him again. “I’ve seen the way you look at her. I saw tonight how jealous you were of Torhin. I thought things between the two of you were heading towards something... something I was happy to see you trying, Ethan. You actually had a connection with her, I could feel it. Then the next thing I know, you’re giving her the cold shoulder. What happened?” The frustration in his voice grew as Ethan continued staring ahead in silence.

  “Was it that shit with Merik? Did she hurt you?”

  “No!” Ethan jumped to her defense. “I…”

  I fucked up. I fucked everything up. She gave me her heart and I threw it away.

  Ethan looked up at the stars and ran his hands through his hair. He was trying to logically define how everything that happened had led up to this moment. There was no logic to it, though. All logic had disappeared the instant he first looked into her eyes and felt the connection between them. Since that moment, he had been traveling in unfamiliar territory with no map or guide posts. All he knew was that he continued to make the wrong turns.

  “No. I hurt her.”

  “And you think continuing to hurt her is going to fix it?” Hank reached out to grab Ethan’s shoulder, but took a step back as Ethan turned around with his eyes full of unexpected tears.

  “I don’t want to fix it!” Ethan started grasping for the right words as the sadness of his voice caught inside of his chest. “It needs... to be broken, Hank. She and I… it can’t work. I can’t give her... I can’t be what she needs. I can’t...”

  With a startling realization, everything fell into place for Hank. “You’re in love with her.”

  “How can I be? I’m just a machine, Hank!” Ethan’s shook his head and spread his fingers across his chest. “I have no heart. I have a neural network that simulates emotion and references a database of common situations to logically define the appropriate physical response. I wasn’t programmed to love anything!”

  “You were also programmed to evolve, Ethan.” Hank grasped the Mecha’s shoulder. “I have watched you do just that, every single day of my life. You care for me, and not out of some fucking logically defined bullshit. I think you do love her, but you just don’t know it because you’ve never experienced it before. Damn, Ethan! No one knows what it is to really love someone until they are in love.”

  “But all I keep doing is hurting her!” Ethan had reached a breaking point. The sound of his voice was pure anguish. “If I was capable of love, why would I do that?”

  “Because you’re running from it!” Hank never expected he would have this conversation with Ethan. Not in a million years. He knew Ethan was a Mecha unlike any other, and he had watched Ethan evolve socially, physically and emotionally over the years. Still, to be in love was an emotion even Hank had thought might be beyond his friend’s reach. As he surveyed the lost look in his friend’s eyes, something deep inside of him formed the words he spoke. For a brief moment, he almost felt like his Uncle Jhonis was guiding him.

  “Ethan, you’re trying to define love as something definable that has a logic and a set course of action. Love is the single most illogical thing in the universe! It has no set course. Jhonis told me once that love is like a wormhole. You stumble on to it blindly, it sucks you in and takes you somewhere completely unexpected. You can’t fight it, because that would tear your ship apart. You can’t control it, either. All you can do is set your thrusters on glide and let it take you where it's going to take you.”

  Hank reach out and grabbed Ethan’s other shoulder and looked him square in the eyes. “You are trying to control a wormhole, Ethan. You need to let go and let it take you where it's going to take you. If it doesn’t work in the end, then it doesn’t work, but how do you know you can’t be what she needs until you ride it out? How do you know that what’s waiting at the end of that tunnel isn’t the best place you’ve ever been?”

  “I don’t.” Ethan’s system stuttered as it all finally clicked. Hank’s voice had sounded just like Jhonis and had given him an unexpected dose of wisdom. “I don’t know, but I want to find out.”

  “Then you had better go apologize.” Hank smiled as he watched the lost look return to Ethan’s face. “Just be honest with her, Ethan. I have a feeling she is just as afraid of wormholes as you are.”

  “Careful, Hank.” Ethan finally let his smile return. “You’re starting to sound like your uncle.”

  Hank straightened up and scratched the back of his neck with a chuckle. “Yeah, I know. Scary, isn't it?”

  “It’s actually kind of nice.” Ethan started to turn, but stopped. “You know, Hank, Jhonis would be proud of you. You’re a good friend and you’ve grown up to be a damn good Captain. I’m sorry I’ve never told you that before.”

  Hank lowered his hand from his neck and smiled. Compliments and sentiments were not something Ethan gave lightly, especially when they concerned Jhonis. Hank knew that Ethan respected Jhonis more than anyone. “Thanks. That means a lot. I promise not to let it go to my head.”

  Ethan laughed as he turned and finished the climb up the hill. “I’m sure.” He paused when he reached the top. “Oh and about Tara...”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll cool her down and explain things.” Hank joined Ethan at the top of the hill.

  “Good luck with that.” Ethan smirked down at him and the two continued down the slope.

  “Yeah, well, that’s what friends are for.”

  28 Broken

  Once on board, Ethan and Hank parted ways outside of Orynn’s quarters. Hank patted Ethan’s shoulder in encouragement, then headed down the corridor to the bridge. Stepping onto the bridge, he was met with Tara’s heated glare and Brom’s look of questioning concern.

  “Did you leave Tir with a new lawn ornament?” Tara huffed.

  “No, we talked it out.” Hank sighed and scratched the back of his neck. “Look, it’s complicated.”

  “Didn’t sound very complicated to me.” She countered. “I don’t know what crawled up his network lately, and frankly, I don’t care. He’s my friend, Hank, but so is she! He has no right to be such a prick to her!”

  “Calm it down a bit, T.”

  “I am calm!” Tara looked over at Brom with a warning scowl, then turned back to Hank. “I guess I can’t expect you men to understand completely what she just did back there. For her to just come out with tha
t... that she can’t have children? You both saw how much she loved those kids. She bared her soul to those people to save our fucking mission and that Goddamn Mecha threw it right back in her face!”

  With a deep breath, he sat himself down into the Captain’s seat and started up the Zera’s engine. “I know, Tara, and I know why he did it. I’ll explain it later, okay?”

  She crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat. “Fine. It had better be one damn good explanation, or I’m not responsible for what my temper and my blowtorch may do.”

  Hank chuckled lightly and nodded. “Understood. Now, can we please just get our butts on the way to Entarsk?”

  Brom entered in a few navigational commands to Zera as Hank disengaged the landing gear. “Well I’m no Ethan, but I can at least point our ship in the right direction.”

  The Zera hovered over the rocky steppe of Tir for a few moments before lifting into the atmosphere. Hank used the manual controls to guide the ship through the cloudless sky and back out into space. He knew Zera’s autopilot may have made a smoother exit, but he had always liked to feel the pull of a planet’s gravity through the controls as the ship left orbit. With tech these days, some Captains never took their ships off autopilot. Jhonis had taught Hank that forgetting how to fly your own ship was a one way ticket to getting yourself killed.

  As he banked the ship around the smallest moon, Hank thanked his Uncle for another well taught lesson. “You gotta be kidding me!”

  A line of T’jaros fighters were waiting for them as they crossed the threshold of the moon’s shadow. Wasting no time to see if they wanted to chat, Hank used the gravitational pull of the moon to slingshot his ship at a wide arc around the outside of the T’jaros formation. The maneuver pushed the ship ahead of the fighters and he headed towards the small asteroid belt that orbited Tir between the two larger moons.

  “We got more of ‘em come’n, Cap!” Brom brought up a view-screen overlay. The asteroid belt started coming to life with moving objects as waiting T’jaros fighters ignited their engines.