Betrayal

By

Mark Eller





Chapter 1



“Sausage on a bun. Get yer sausage on a bun.”

“Bagel an’ a smear. Right here for yer bagel an’ a smear. Nothing better in the mornin’ to getcha goin’.”

Screeeee

“Hey there. Get yer arse out o’ the road. Ain’t ya heard o’ street corners? All ya damn men are the same. Ya think the damned road was put there just fer yer sakes. Well I’ll tell ya Mister, there’s others of us what need to travel--”

“Watch yer language you old harridan! Have the law on you, I will. It was you and yer horses what was doing--”

“Half an onion with a smear,” Aaron told the bagel seller. He breathed in deeply. The smell of cooking food overwhelmed the animal rich stink of the city’s air. He smelled the aroma of fresh bread and baked cakes mingled with the sweet scent of maple syrup, bacon, the bouquet of spiced sausage, and fresh manure. All the odors spoke to him. They said “this is N’Ark.”

“Right you are sir,” the bagel man said. “Half an onion with a smear.”

He quickly sliced open a fresh bagel with a knife so large and so sharp that Aaron feared for the safety of the man’s fingers. The bagel fell apart beneath the blade. A moment latter the knife dipped into cream cheese and spread it across the face of the brown baked half bagel. The cheese was better than a quarter of an inch thick. Aaron looked at the completed offering and had serious doubts he could finish more than half of it. The pigeons would eat well this morning.

“Speed it up there, ya old harridan! Ain’t got all day!”

“I’ll speed you up--”

Aaron smiled, paid the man a quarter copper, and jostled his way back into the crowd, bracing himself for the inevitable pummeling. He was surrounded by people heading from home to work and by people heading from work to home. Tourists blocked sidewalk traffic and gawked. Panhandlers and the street players partially blocked the walkway, creating a backlog of irritable pedestrians. Everyone on a N’Ark walkway in the morning expected to be pushed and crunched and otherwise abused. Aaron looked towards the street and knew he would rather be here than there. The sidewalk was chaos. The streets were short temper hell.

Delivery wagons churned up the not recently enough oiled dust. Horses snorted and laid down their droppings. Hirelings ran into the street to scoop those offerings into a coal shovel, disposing of the load into fly covered barrels lined up along the side of the street. Mule drivers yelled at those who used slower oxen. Horse carriage drivers cast invective upon those who drove mules. In short, a rowdy time was being had by almost all.

Welcome to early morning in N’Ark, Aaron told himself once again. There was nothing lazy about this city. N’Ark was the center of Isabellan society, seat of the Isabellan Assembly, and the financial center of several stock and security markets. His mornings in this city bore little resemblance to the easy waking and simple duties he had enjoyed as the owner of the Last Chance General Store. Easy relaxation and contemplation did not exist in N’Ark. This place was never comfortable or calm. At best, it was controlled chaos.

He took a long anticipated bite. The bagel tasted heavily of onion, more so than the ones he had eaten in his birth home of Jefferson on those occasions when the cafeteria served them in the morning. He rolled a bit of bread and cheese around his mouth, enjoying the sensation of sharp onion and semi-sweet garlic cheese.

“Hey Mister, got any spare change?”

He felt a tug. A hand pulled insistently at his wrist. Aaron looked down and saw a threadbare jacket covering a rather large arm. He moved his gaze to a shoulder, and then to a face. The woman accosting him looked neither small nor hungry. She stood inches over Aaron’s five six. She outweighed him by a least sixty pounds. Her eyes did not beg. They demanded.

Aaron smiled, giving her his best suck up, don’t hurt me grin. “Sure--um yeah--I have something here. It’s in my pockets. Here hold this.”

He handed her the remains of his half bagel. She took it with her left hand. The grip on his wrist tightened.

Aaron winced. The woman owned the grip of Atlas. He would probably have a necklace of bruises around his wrist in an hour. Then again, bruises he could live with. Bruises were simple and temporary. N’Ark was vibrant and rude and violent, but nobody here had tried to kill him. He hadn‘t been cold-cocked or knifed. None of his bones had been broken, not like when he had lived in Last Chance. For a sleepy town in the middle of nowhere, Last Chance had done its best to put him in a grave.

“Half a gold,” the woman demanded. Aaron nodded eagerly and upped the amperage on his fear sick smile. Okay, so the woman wanted more than his pocket change. Half a normal workday’s pay? Greedy.

“I have it right here.”

He moved his arm shakily towards his shirt pocket, changed direction, and used a move Kara Perkins had taught him to break the woman’s hold. He immediately drifted into the thick crowd while his smile became real. It sometimes paid to be slight. He could slip through gaps in the crowd that left most of these people struggling.

“Hey ass wipe!”

A quick glance showed her caught in the center of the crowd. She struggled to break through the tight pack. Her face twisted. One hand raised and gestured, his bagel still clamped in its grip.

“Get back here! Listen up. I’ll find you. I’ll--”

Aaron quirked his lips and ignored her. A good deal of what Miss Perkins had taught him was lost. He had not practiced self-defense once since he came to N’Ark. That one move was the only truly reliable thing he had left--and that was only because he was forced to use it when people tried to shake him down.

The woman’s distant curses followed him. Aaron silently wished her well and hoped she liked his leftovers. He lengthened his stride because he had an appointment to keep.

Damn It.

Five minutes later he stood in front of Emmon building. He paused before he entered, taking time to study the building’s reddish brown almost new bricks. Donald Emmon had finished the six story building five years earlier. Ten minutes after the last wall was painted, Mr. Emmon smiled and had a massive coronary. This gave his final creation the reputation of a jinx, which meant its suites had some of the lowest rents in the city. Amanda Bivins quickly grabbed an empty suite and damned the consequences. Amanda knew how to squeeze every coin until it begged for mercy.

“You going to stand there all day?” a man’s voice asked dryly. “Other people need to get inside.”

Aaron gave the complainer a curt nod and pushed his way through the doors.

“Sir.” A guard he did not recognize confronted him. “There is a dress code in Emmon.”

“Never mind,” the second guard, Mistress Harlan, hurriedly interrupted. “This is Mister Turner. You go ahead, sir.”

Aaron gave both women a small wave and wondered how much Miss Bivins paid them to ignore her client‘s little ways. He hated suits and ties. He liked his imitation jeans and his common wear shirts, so Miss Bivins paid exorbitant bribes to all the guards on this block to ensure he did not actually have to wear something respectable when he went out in the morning.

Such is the price of nonconformance.

He walked across the large lobby, ignoring people lounging in the scattered chairs, newspapers clutched tightly in their hands. He reached the spiral stairway, set his foot on the first step, and wished he had the guts to turn around and leave.

Gods, he really hated these meetings.

Heavy footed, he climbed the stairs, reached the third landing, and clumped his way down the wide hallway. He ignored paintings decorating the walls and plants placed in small alcoves cut into those same walls. He reached the third door on the left, drew in a deep breath, pushed the door open, and stepped into the waiting room.

Miss Bivins’s waiting room looked small compared to the offices of other legal firms she and Aaron habitually dealt with. As yet, she did not need a great deal of space because her practice only had one lawyer, herself, and one client, Aaron. Of late, she often complained of being overworked. Keeping up with his financial interests had changed from a one day a week job into one requiring her entire attention and a great deal of her secretary’s, Miss Heidi O’Malley, time. Aaron did not know the exact details of what Amanda Bivins did for him, but he knew she her main goal was to make him filthy rich because her finances rose proportionately with his. The woman suffered from an intense desire to succeed. She measured success by the size of her bank account.

Miss O’Malley ripped a sheet of paper out of the typewriter and inserted another. She gave Aaron a quick wink and adjusted her skimpy shoulder strap.

Aaron gave her a non-committal smile in return because Miss O’Malley was actively hunting a husband. At least thirty, she dressed and acted sixteen. Her attire seemed professional in a form hugging this is almost too much skin sort of way. She wore light makeup and heavy lipstick and she absolutely loved to flirt with every man she happened to lay her eyes on, including Aaron.

She looked up from her keyboard. “Good morning Mr. Turner. Miss Bivins is expecting you. Go on in.” She gave him a wide-eyed stare and a full mouth smile. Her right eye drooped in another wink. “She’s been waiting all morning so her mood is somewhat ambivalent.”

“Riiight.” In other words the ever so efficient Miss Bivins had just finished chewing her teeth down to her gums and was now grinding those gums into paste. Amanda Bivins did not take well to sitting when she had places to be and plans ready for hatching. Nothing frustrated her more than Aaron’s habitual tardiness.

He gathered the fragments of his courage, sucked in his belly, and marched forward.

“Remember,” he muttered beneath his breath. “She works for you. She works for you.” He turned the knob and opened the door.

“You were supposed to be here an hour ago,” Amanda instantly snapped. “How am I supposed to present our argument when I don’t even know how you feel about the matter?”

Aaron checked. No froth around her lips. She wasn’t rabid--yet.

“And a good morning to you.” He pulled a chair around and plopped himself down. Unlike the other guest chair in her office, this one was padded and angled for comfort. He had carried it into her original office himself because he could not stand the normal run of visitor‘s chairs executives stocked their offices with. Most of those chairs were designed to make the visitor uncomfortable and nervous. They were designed to give the person behind the desk an edge over the people they dealt with. The way Aaron saw it, Amanda was normally so far ahead of him that the last thing she needed was an edge.

“As always,” Aaron said, “you’ll do exactly what you planned on doing. We both know my opinion does not matter in the least. Besides, I have no idea what this is about.”

“Excuse me?” Her eyes narrowed. She leaned forward in her seat, two sure signs he had goofed big.

“Miss Bivins, I have no idea what you are talking about.”

She sat back in her chair. Aaron watched her forehead wrinkle in silent pain. A muscle twitched in her cheek. “Aaron, I sent you three messages. You’ve had a week’s warning on today’s events, and you’re telling me you don’t have a clue about anything?”

Aaron frowned and studied the stack of papers piled on one corner of her desk. He tossed a pair of dice in his head and decided telling her the truth was probably the best approach.

“That sounds about right,” he admitted. “I haven’t been home for the last several days.”

She groaned. “Been visiting the kids again?”

“Uh-huh.” Actually no, but that was none of her business. Sometimes a man just reached a point where he needed solitude. Amanda was not the type of woman who could appreciate or understand a man’s deep psychological need to camp beside a deserted stream and wrestle with past ghosts and regrets. He had that need. Sometimes an overwhelming desire for solitude swept over him that he could not deny or set aside. When those times arrived he had no choice. He had to leave.

“That’s just great,” she snapped irritably. Her eyes opened and they were not pretty. “Just frigging great. Look, we have a problem here. As you know, you have a five percent gross interest on every new product introduced to Isabella through the use of the books you brought with you from Jefferson. You also know that Isabella has given you a waiver on all taxes for ten years on any undertaking you have a direct interest in.” She paused and gave him a long look. “You do know this, don’t you?”

“I did sign the papers, ”Aaron reminded her.

“You sign a lot of papers. I doubt you read more than one percent of them.”

“I only leaf through most,” Aaron admitted. “However, the papers you’re talking about were the first ones you ever gave me so I read them from front to back several times over.”

“Well fine, at least we have that much,” Amanda said. “What we don’t have is a agreement in the Assembly that you should be allowed to retain ownership of the books. There is a movement among the Liberals. They believe the books represent too great a financial and industrial opportunity to be owned and controlled by only one person. Certain people want them nationalized so their continued safekeeping is assured. They want to remove the books from the University’s keeping and add them to the National Archives.”

Aaron shrugged. “If they want to do that there isn’t much we can do about it, is there. All we have to do is let them have the books and call it a day. After all, I don’t really need the money.”

Amanda shook her head. “You need all the money I have brought in, and more. I know you don’t keep track of your finances, but the sad fact is that we have to keep expanding if we expect to start buying up Turner Houses again. We have seventeen now. Only five are wholly self-supporting. Seven get at least a quarter of their support from you, and all the N’Ark Houses are a major drain on your finances. With the present revenue your investments bring in those seventeen houses will break you inside of the year. That being the case, you either have to keep control of the books or you have to sell off the Houses.”
Aaron took a moment to enjoy the way she had switched from we to you. Expanding his interests and buying up more Houses were we items while the money needed to run them was entirely a matter of you. Of even more interest was the fact that the she part of we had not one thing to do with the Houses. Hell, he barely had anything to do with them his own self anymore. He had hired a director to do that work for him here in N‘Ark. The other houses were all single unit affairs that could very well take care of themselves. He just wrote a check every once in a while. Heck, it had been close to forever since he opened a new House. The last Turner House was the fifth House here in N’Ark, and that one was about to turn a year old. Still.

“The Houses stay,” he said firmly. “I will have nothing to do with putting those kids back out on the street. Our job is to make sure those Houses stay open and that we continue expanding their numbers. I don’t care if the government gets hold of the books, but I do care whether or not the orphanages continue running.”

“Well,” she said emphatically, “your choices are limited. You can give up your books and the potential income they offer. This will force you to exist on your present funds, and those funds are insignificant in comparison with the needs of all seventeen Turner houses. Your other choice is to ensure that you maintain your ownership of your books. Personally, I like the second option.”

Aaron laughed gently. “You should. The continuation of your practice depends on getting money out of me. Once my money is gone you have no work.”

She shook her head again. Her long hair gently bounced against the sides of her face. “Wrong, Mr. Turner. That would have been true a year ago but I’ve gained a reputation since then. I’ve turned down three offers this week alone. No Mr. Turner. Without you, I will do just fine on my own. I may have to give up my private practice for a short while, but I would be snapped up by a respectable firm in an instant. You are the one who will not do well.”

Aaron scowled and thought of all the buried silver bars he still had that she didn‘t know about. He frowned again. Even that much silver would do little more than delay matters for a few years unless his personal income became substantially better. The Turner Houses were expensive to run and Miss Bivins was correct. Only five were self-supporting right now. Only a few of the others came close to breaking even. The rest were a continuing drain on his resources, but he really did not want to stop with the Houses he already had. The Turner Houses were important. Not only were there children depending on them, they were Aaron’s penance. They were his way of making amends for the misery his presence on this world and on his birth world had caused.

“The Houses stay,” he repeated. “We’ll do whatever it takes to ensure that matter. If that means the books remain in my possession, then they remain with me. I do have a signed agreement with the government and the N’Ark University to that effect. They will both live up to the agreement or they will deal with us in court for the next fifty years.”

“You won’t have the money to sue them for nearly that long,” Amanda told him. “A suit will do nothing but make you poor that much quicker. Besides, you’re not a citizen of this country. You’re an alien resident who is here on suffrage. The Isabellan Government has the option of kicking you out of the country altogether if they throw the agreement away. Try suing them when you have no funds and don’t live inside their borders. Go ahead. Try.”

Aaron tapped his fingers on his knees. He hated governments and politics and everything else that was devised for the sole purpose of deception and sneakiness. His mind tended to work in a straightforward manner. He had a difficult time envisioning the whorls and convolutions the minds of politicians traveled to politically survive for a week, let alone for the length of a career. The filth inhabiting the heads of those who stayed in office for more than a few years had to be appalling. Even those politicians who were clean and honest had to crawl through mud and slime if they wanted to get anything accomplished.

“So what do we do?” he asked. “What are our options?”

“We need to head off the forces wanting to confiscate your books,” Miss Bivins answered. “We need to show the government that they not only need the books, they need you too. Frankly, that is a tall order. Now that you can no longer transfer to the other realm there is little about you that is valuable to the Isabellan Government.”

“I do have a slightly different Talent now,” he reminded her.

“And you are best advised not to let many people know this. Your Talent is one an unscrupulous Assemblyperson could make very good use of. I don’t think you would enjoy the using. Don’t get me wrong. Isabella does not have a bad government. All in all, its government is good. The problem is that the people in charge are more interested in Isabella’s well being than they are in yours. It’s our job to ensure that they see ensuring your best interests is in their best interest. The difficulty is that I’m not sure how to go about making them see this. I hoped you would give me some ideas before I went into this initial meeting.”

Aaron raised his hands hopelessly. “Haven’t a single idea. Give me some time and I might be able to come up with a good reason, but for right now my mind is a blank.”

Amanda‘s smile became thin and unhappy. “So you’re saying we need to go in there totally unarmed and try to lie our way through this thing.”

“We?”

“You’re coming too, buster. This decision affects you more than it does me. Also, I’m not going to defend your interests and have you come back later and tell me I did not do the best I could. No, you’re going to be there to see exactly what it is I do.”

“Gods.” Aaron groaned. This was why he liked to hire people. He hated politics and politicians, and he hated dealing with them even more. There wasn’t one of them that was worth saving.

No. Wait. He had to admit, if only to himself, that some of his opinions might not be fair. Most of his exposure to their slimy breed was through the censored releases General Field had allowed into the Militia Compound. Perhaps there were a few good politicians out there. If so, he did not know of one, but then he really did not know much about most of Isabella‘s politicians.

He snorted at his own hypocrisy. He was probably one of those slimy people himself. At one time he had been one half of all the scouts for General Field’s invasion of this realm. If Aaron had first transferred here instead of to Last Chance, he had little doubt he would have gone along with Field’s plans. There was something about this city that sucked the vitality out of people. It was a vibrant place, but it contained a good deal of ugliness too.

“When do we leave?”

She looked at her watch and stood up. “Thirty minutes ago would have got us there fashionably late. If we leave right now and get there by conventional means we will be unforgivably late. That will not make a good impression. Do you know where the Assembly is?”

“I’ve never been there but I have an idea of its general location.”

“Good, then it’s up to you to get us someplace close by so we can make it on time.”

Aaron sighed. He hated using his Talent in this big city. The chances of being seen were much greater with this many people around. He was not well known. His picture was not in the papers, and he tended to keep a low profile. The chances of being recognized by sight were slight. Still that chance did exist.

Then again, if his potential income was taken from him it would not matter who knew of his Talent. He would truly be a nobody then. He would be a nobody and his ability to pay his penance would be gone.

That he would not allow. There were times when the knowledge that he had created the Turner Houses was the only thing holding him together.

“Let’s go.”

She walked over to join him. Aaron closed his eyes, drew the essence of her toward him, and concentrated on the secret part of his mind that wanted to take him to someplace else.

__Flicker__



Crash

“Son of a--Where did you two come from? Look, I’m sorry I didn’t see you.”

“Forget it. Forget it. We shouldn’t have been here anyway.”

Aaron picked himself up and then hauled Miss Bivins to her feet. The garbage woman tried to brush some of the spilled trash off his clothing but he shooed her away after he straightened up the trashcan that had been slung into him. This was the last time he would transfer into an alleyway without knowing when garbage day was. Those thin copper cans hurt. They were heavy and hard.

“My suit,” said Miss Bivins in an unnaturally reasonable voice, “is ruined.” Her lips twisted in distaste. “Mr. Turner, there is trash all over us. We cannot go to a meeting like this. It will make entirely the wrong impression.” She shook her head unhappily. “Gods, we are going to the National Assembly. They won’t even let us in the building if we look like this. Can you just--you know--move some of the stuff off our clothes?”

Aaron looked at her, disbelieving. “I am not the Lord or his Lady, Miss Bivins. That kind of discrimination I don’t have. We will just have to do the best we can. Accidents do happen. They will either accept us or they will not. Either way we will do our best.”

She grimaced and nodded. Pulling herself together, she pushed past the still distraught garbage-woman and led the way from the alley. Aaron followed. Once on the sidewalk, she stopped and peered around to get her bearings. He saw her focus on the gold brocade of the Freedom Monument. She smiled with satisfaction, suddenly her old confident self again.

“Very good Mr. Turner. We will be right on time.”

She struck out with a purposeful stride that dared any passerby to get in her way. Aaron had to hurry to keep up with her longer steps.

They reached the Assembly Building with ten minutes to spare.

The doorman gave a pointed sniff and barred their way. “There are no public tours today,” he said. “You can come back in two days if you are cleaned up. Until then, go away.”

Amanda drew herself up authoritatively. She settled her dignity around her like it was a robe of state. Her eyes probed into the doorman’s, daring him to add further impediments to her path. Aaron had no choice but to admire her presentation. It was a stance that had done her well in court. It might even have been effective here if she had carried a few extra years on her shoulders. As matters stood, she looked exactly her age, and that age was several years younger than Aaron’s twenty-seven. The doorman did not look impressed.

Aaron allowed her to try cowing the doorman for a few more moments. It felt somewhat refreshing to see Miss Bivins at a loss for a change. She usually carried herself with such an air of competence that people tended to be overwhelmed by her. This man appeared merely annoyed.

“You will leave,” he said, “or I will call for guards to remove you.”

“These are public buildings,” Amanda spat, “and you are a public employee paid by my taxes. I have a right to enter into this building and you have a duty to allow me entrance. My name is Miss Amanda Bivins. With me is Mr. Aaron Turner. We have an appointment to see the Subcommittee on Domestic Affairs. Our appointment is eight minutes from now. It will cost your job if you make us late.”

The doorman cocked his head and studied her as if she were a chicken he was about to turn into a stew. “You go right after my job, Miss. I assure you that I will get fired as soon as you make your complaint. After I’m fired I’ll get a two week vacation while my Guild negotiates and threatens a strike. Then I‘ll be back on the job with back pay plus grievance money.”

Aaron caught the man’s attention with a subtle gesture. It was time he showed Miss Bivins that he was more than capable of handling some of these small difficulties himself.

“Dom Verilago et Burrauge will not be happy when he discovers you are keeping us from our appointment,” he said. He peered at the doorman’s lapel. “I’ll be sure to let him know that Mr. Issac Penfrost is the gentleman responsible for this outrage.”

Laughter leaped into the doorman’s face. “I’m sure the Dom will be glad to hear from you. He needs the company right now. According to the morning papers he was pulled from his own well yesterday.”

“Oh.” Damn, the next time he pulled the name of a crime figure out of the papers he would make sure the person actually still lived. The one thing a good lie needed most was believability. Delivering an implied threat while invoking the name of a dead man was not very believable.

“Mr. Turner.” Quick footsteps clacked across the floor. A woman rushed towards them. “I have been waiting for you sir. The Assemblypeople asked me to show you the way since we have met before and thus were most likely to recognize each other.” She took a long look at their clothes and wrinkled her nose. “I must say, you have a novel approach toward petitioning the Assembly. Most people leave their peculiar odors behind.”

“Most people don’t have garbage cans flung at them while they are on their way to fulfill an appointment,” Aaron noted. “Good morning, Mistress Bestrow. I don’t believe we have spoken since we saw each other in Last Chance.”

“Good morning, sir.” She gave the doorman a perfunctory glance. “You may give them admittance Issac. Catlow wants to see them.”

“The Minister?”

“Yes the Minister,” she said impatiently. “She wishes to determine whether these two are important enough to merit her future concern.”

“But their clothes,” he sputtered.

“Their clothes are perfectly acceptable for someone the Minister wants to see. The matter would be different if they were petitioning her, but that is not the case.”

“Yes Mistress Bestrow. Sir, Madam, you may enter the Assembly Building.”

“Thank you.” Miss Bivins entered like she was royalty visiting the commons. Aaron followed. He could not carry off her regal charade without laughing. “Mistress Bestrow, you may show us the way.”

Bestrow smiled faintly, amused forbearance on her face. “Perhaps you could follow me then?”

“Perhaps so.”

Miss Bivins managed to look as if she were leading the way while being guided along. Aaron happily took up a position in the rear. He had never been one to take his own dignity too seriously. He would not start doing so now. Only a fool of a client would try to one-up Miss Bivins at this point.

They walked down several long corridors, passing numerous people who appeared to know the business they had been sent to do. Mistress Bestrow used the magic words of Mistress Catlow to get them past two other sets of doorway guardians, and then she led them down an ornately decorated hallway and into a large sitting room.

“Wait here,” she said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I have to make sure everyone who is supposed to be here actually bothered to show up.”

She left with a fast clicking of her heels.

Aaron looked to Amanda and saw she had the same problem he did. They stood in an immaculately clean room, looking on some of the most comfortable sitting chairs it had ever been Aaron’s privilege to see, and they could not decide whether or not to sit down while wearing their garbage strewn clothing. Amanda decided the issue.

“Always bold,” she said just before she decisively plopped her butt down in the plushest seat in the room. She lifted one leg and threw it over the arm of the chair. “Mr. Turner, do make yourself comfortable.”

Aaron peered carefully at the seating. He chose the chair with the seemingly most cleanable material. Settling in, he let out a faint groan of pleasure as the chair seemed to wrap itself around him. “This is one nice chair.”

“Isn’t it? I have to confess, when I went through law school I never thought I would find myself dealing with the movers and shakers this early in my career. I thought it would take me at least another four or five years to make it this far.”

“So you always assumed you would be one of the country’s top business lawyers?” Aaron asked bemusedly. He understand her confidence in her ability. She was very good. She seemed to live for her law books. Still and all, she was also a virtual nobody. Her parents had paupered themselves putting her through school. Large sections of the family farm were sold off and several of her siblings took on extra jobs to bring in the needed money. Amanda had since made amends to the family. Her parents lived in a larger home and she was presently putting two of her sisters through collage. Still, she was a woman who had sprouted out of common ground. She had no political connections and her parents knew nobody on the inside of the power scene. It struck Aaron as the purest hubris for her to have assumed she would get the breaks that would see her rise to the top of her profession.

“I always knew I would own one of the top law firms in Isabella,” Amanda replied. “I have since expanded my plans. I now know I will own THE top firm in Isabella. I will expand my influence into several other countries too.” She smiled lazily. “I think I will like that.”

Aaron shook his head. “If that’s your idea of fun, then I wish you all the luck in the world. Personally, I want something a lot simpler. I want as little stress as possible, as little notice as I can get, and I want to be left alone.”

Amanda chuckled. “I don’t see much of that happening. You are rather at the center of things. Not many people know exactly who you are, but your interests have affected national policy. You hold more potential power in your hands than many of our elected assembly. I suspect that is why we are here today. I think somebody wants to pull your claws before you start flexing them.”

She stopped speaking at the sound of approaching voices. Swinging her leg down off the chair arm, she stood and brushed the lines of her clothing straight. She gestured sharply for Aaron to rise.

A number of women and one man entered the sitting room just as Aaron pulled himself erect. Curious eyes fastened on him, gazed at his small stature, at his trash stained clothes, and dismissed him immediately. One woman and the only man stared at him with ill disguised distaste. They were dressed much like the others, wearing power suits and crisp cut hair, but they did not fit into the dynamics of the group. They appeared uncomfortable and held themselves distant.

“Do you have business here?” one severe woman demanded. She had a face that made Mistress Bestrow’s humorless features look soft. Disapproval of the world stared from her eyes. This was a woman who knew where the bodies were buried. She had probably shoveled some of the dirt herself.

“We’ve been invited to a meeting,” Amanda told her. Mistress Bestrow bade us to wait here.”

“That one,” the woman sniffed. “It figures. Wait here then, if you must. Just keep your eyes off your betters while you do so--and keep those filthy clothes off our furniture.”

The man placed a hand on her arm, stopping her voice. He did not walk forward. He glided with an unconscious grace that would shame a professional dancer, leaving most of the group behind. His female companion glided forward with him. If anything, her movements were smoother than his. Glancing at Amanda Bivins, they dismissed her.

“You are the small man,” the woman said, her voice carefully controlled. She spoke her words with the practiced precision of a recent student. Her accent sounded thick and heavy, yet her meaning was clear.

Aaron looked at her. “I suppose I am small, yes. There isn’t much I can do about that.”

“Your size is greater than your inches,” the man said gravely. His voice was angry and respectful and filled with firm dislike. “You have taken much away from us. You owe us a great debt and we are in your debt for what you have taken. I am Delmac. She is Tremon. We will see more of each other.” They turned and went back to their group. The group went off through one of the side doors. The surly woman paused to give them one more distrustful look. “The furniture,” she reminded. “Keep off it.”

Miss Bestrow came back at just that moment. Her eyes turned hard when she saw the woman’s retreating back. “I see you have met Assemblywoman Sporlain,” she said. “I advise you to stay clear of her. That one is never happy unless she is making trouble. She is also one of the forces behind this drive to circumvent our agreement. Come along. People are waiting for you.”

“Those two knew of you,” Amanda said to Aaron. “What did they mean? There’s nothing you could have done to them. Nothing. I know of all your dealings. I know everything about your entire life since you came to Isabella.”

Aaron stopped to look at the closed door the group had gone through. He stared at the wood, wishing his eyes could bore through it, wishing his vision could penetrate wood and wall, wishing he could get one more look at the two who knew him. He wanted to throw off the guilt and the hate suffusing his body so he could see them as people, as human beings. He could not, but he knew them. He had once looked into the hard eyes of the man over the barrel of his shotgun.

“You don’t know everything,” Aaron murmured while guilt battled with the unreasoning hatred he felt for anyone associated with Haarod Beech. The thought of Beech brought forth the visage of Sarah and Earnest burning in the Talent Master’s fire.

Gods, he missed them.

He turned his eyes back on Amanda, not caring that she could see the water in his eyes. “I once helped them lose a war,” he said, “then I murdered their Messiah.”

He looked back to the closed door and thought on all the deaths his weapons had caused to those people. He thought on the numbers of their fallen, and he remembered the feel of Sarah’s sword slicing down through Beech’s body. He closed his eyes and remembered his son’s dying screams.

“I don’t regret any of it,” he said thickly as he raised a quick hand and swiped at the moisture in his eyes. “Not for a single moment.”

“I understand they are both important leaders in the Thirty Clans,” Bestrow said. She frowned unhappily. “I’m afraid they are here only to further determine how we are going to subjugate them. We don’t have a very good record when it comes to dealing with the native peoples. Treaties are something we often hold them to while we ignore our own obligations.” Her frown straightened into its customary thin line. “Come along. There are important people waiting to meet you.”

Aaron nodded and pulled himself together. “Let’s go.”

“Fill us in while we walk,” Amanda said.

“Of course,” Miss Bestrow said, leading the way. “You know Mistress Catlow, of course, Minister of the Interior. She supports your arguments because she was the force behind the government’s original deal with you. Probably the person you most have to beware of is Mister Alfred Harrington. He started this entire procedure. For some reason beyond my ken he has formed an intense hatred for you. Some of the others are unswervingly on his side, but a few are definitely fence riders. You might be able to persuade some to slip over to your side. The leader of the biggest combined and hostile contingent is Miss Wanda Andrews. Now that I think of it, she might be more dangerous to you than Harrison. Her power in the Assembly is not so great as his, but she does represent a tremendous amount of personal power due to her position in her family. I think that if you--”

Aaron let her voice drone on while he thought back to the two who had confronted him. They were natives, leading members of the Thirty Clans, representatives not only of their people but also of many others who lived on the other side of the mountains. They had been supporters of Beech, but in a way, they had been his victims too. They had brought war, had killed settlers and soldiers, but they killed in the name of their own freedom and at the beckoning of an egocentric madman. Now the war was lost. Any freedom they sought was lost. For them, freedom was nothing more than a distant and unreachable dream.

He frowned. Guilt washed through him. Maybe he had lied. Maybe he did have some regrets. Not all the Clanspeople could be such monsters as Beech. Maybe one or two were decent.

Men and women, the young leaders of these people, died beneath the pounding force of .375 bullets fired from guns he gave to the Isabellan Guard.

The man was right. By their lights Aaron owed them. He had helped steal their freedom, had helped in their subjugation.

Aaron’s stomach knotted. He had a strange feeling Delmac expected him to give their freedom back.

Damn.







Chapter 2





She slid into the chair across from him.

“What are you drinking?”

“Hmmm?”

“I said what are you drinking? I’ll buy you one.”

Aaron lifted his eyes from his glass and rested them on her. The woman filled the exact description of an Amazon. She was huge. If she stood less than six feet three inches he was a bigger fool than he had realized. She had broad shoulders and a thick neck. Her arms were enormous, pushing out the material of her shirt with their bulk. Despite it all, her face was absolutely beautiful. It was soft sculpted plains and angled facets fitted together to make something exotic and exciting. It was a fascinating face, made even more fascinating because it was placed on top of such a monstrous body.

“I’m married,” Aaron told her. His head felt thick.

She shrugged. “Isn’t every man once he gets past twenty? Look sweets, I didn’t come here because I thought you would be an easy lay. I just looked over here and saw what I thought was a fellow having a difficult time. Now I ain’t no do gooder, but I’ve been up against it a time or two myself so I have some idea of what it’s like. I thought I might come over here and see if there was something I could do to help.”

Aaron lifted his glass and tried to take another drink. He was thwarted. The glass had somehow become empty. Bemusedly, he studied the situation for a while before a solution came to him. He turned his eyes back to the woman.

“Runeburg White,” he said. “I am drinking Runeburg White.” He gave her a sloppy smile. “I think I’m a little drunk.” He spoke very carefully so he would not slur his words.

“I think you are a little more than a little drunk,” she smiled back. “Why don’t we skip the drink and you can just get on with telling me your problems.”

Aaron raised his hands theatrically. “I am surrounded by thieves,” he said. “Everywhere I go people have their hands out asking more, more, more. The more I give, the more people show up asking for other pieces. Now there are people out there who want everything.” He lowered his hands, leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially. “I don’t know how much thinner I can get. I’ve been counting myself for years and I keep coming up with the same number. I’m only one man.”

She gestured a waitress over to the table. The waitress arrived in her own good time, ambling over only after she made sure her shoes were tied tight, that she had no wrinkles in her dress, and her hair was perfect. The woman across from Aaron spent this time staring at him. Her eyebrows were creased. Three wrinkled lines had formed between them. Aaron saw the beginnings of crow’s feet at the outside corner of her eyes.

The waitress finally arrived. She sidled up to Aaron, leaned her hip up against his arm, and gave him her best sultry look. “What can I give you?” she asked suggestively.

Even drunk, Aaron found her clumsy and obvious.

Aaron’s companion cocked her head to the side and studied the woman. “Space, child. He wants you to give him some space.” She reached into her front pocket, pulled out a card, and handed it to the waitress. “If you insist on playing the game you better learn how to do it effectively. Go here between ten and four. You’ll find some people you can talk to. If you like them, and if they like you, they will train you on how to attract a man. Now, if you are ready to take our order we would both like lemon tea.” She clapped her hands. “Get on with it girl.”

Flouncing indignation, the waitress left. Aaron laughed, and his laughter surprised him. It wasn’t something he did much anymore. “What was the card?” he asked.

“Hmmm. The card?” The woman shrugged. “That was nothing. It’s the address to a modeling agency. It fell out of the pocket of one of the people I work out with at my favorite gym.” Her eyes rested on his face. “Tell me, my friend, it’s been a long time since you’ve been happy, has it not?”

Aaron’s laughter died. “Does it show?”

“It shows to those who look for the signs. It shows better to those of us who have a bit of Talent for these things. I look at you and I see someone tired of living. I see someone who is conflicted and twisted and unsure of what he wants to be or of where he is going. I see someone who is teetering on the edge of fatal depression.”

The waitress came back and rattled two teacups of hot water down on the table. She plunked two brass tea balls into the water and left. Aaron stared at his tea ball, mesmerized by the thin stream of bubbles rising from the small holes. The ball was brass. Everything metal in this world was made of brass or bronze or copper or a few other basic metals. In his home world, iron was the king of metals. In this world, iron and all its alloys were almost unheard of. Few people ever saw a chunk of iron ore within the span of their lifetimes. Fewer still could conceive of a use for it beyond those rare pieces that happened to be naturally magnetized. Those were the Talent Stones the lucky ones got to carry. Lodestone. It was called lodestone or magnetite in the world of his birth.

Copper, tin, zinc, how many other metals were out there that could also be found in Jefferson. There was magnesium of course, but that was a difficult metal to find too. Now that he thought of it, there had to be some iron in the soil because iron was a required component of the blood, wasn’t it? Didn’t a lack of iron lead to anemia? Maybe iron wasn’t necessary for these people, or maybe there was some other form of iron. Then again, maybe people who grew up in an iron poor world did not need as much iron in their diets.

No, that argument was easily defeated. He was not from this world and he did not suffer from iron deficiency. Then again, perhaps when his Talent transferred him between worlds, it did more than move him from one place to another. Perhaps it tore his body completely apart and reconstituted it at its final destination. Maybe that remaking changed the makeup of his body so it matched the requirements of the world he now lived in.

Maybe he was drunk.

Nah, he really was drunk. No maybe about it.

“You’re drifting.”

Aaron pulled himself together. “Sorry. I was thinking about something.”

“No, I mean you are really drifting. You haven’t found a place to settle down. You haven’t found a purpose that challenges.”

Aaron gave her his best drunken scowl. “I don’t want a purpose. I want a total and complete lack of stress in any and all of its many forms. I want peace and,” he turned his scowl back on the waitress, “ I want to be left alone. I don’t want to feel like I’m a piece of meat in a butcher’s shop while all you women stand around and decide who gets a piece of me.”

She laughed gently. “You have to expect that. You are a man in an man poor world. Women don’t want to make and raise babies by themselves. They want to be a part of a formalized family that will help support their children because a woman has no guarantee she will live long enough to see them raised properly.”

Aaron snorted. By the rules of this place, every man was available. There was no limit to the number of wives he could have. In theory, a man could have a hundred wives, or even more. In fact, few men took more than four. Most men had only one or two.

“Is that what you’re doing?” he asked. “Are you trying to grab me too?”

“Oh no. No.” She shook her head emphatically. “I’m a complete abnormality. I don’t want a man. I don’t even want a woman. No, dear, I have no interest in children or personal intimacy at all. That part of my equation seems to have been forgotten, so I sit back and watch and laugh at the rest of you.”

“Laugh away,” Aaron said. He lifted his tea and took a sip. It tasted strong enough so he removed the tea ball and set it on his saucer. The lemon had a slightly bitter bite to it. “You won’t laugh at me,” he continued. “I have one wife and no intention of cheating on her. That type of thing just isn’t done where I come from.”

“A strange place then. My name is Felicity Stromburg. You’ve probably gathered from this conversation that I’m a Miss.”

“Aaron Turner.”

“Well then, Aaron Turner, perhaps I really can help you, unlike the help I gave our panting waitress.” She pulled her purse up to the tabletop and rummaged through it for a few moments. Her search finally produced a pencil and a small sheet of paper. She wrote on the paper and handed it to him.

“What’s this?”

“That, my dear sir, is my address. I may not be interested in gaining a lover, but I do enjoy having friends. If you feel the same way we might get together sometime and discover whether there is a potential for friendship between us. We can watch some plays or maybe we can just go for walks, and if you feel the need, you might open up and talk to me about some of your problems. Talking about things with somebody can do a person a world of good.”

“You sound a bit like a head shrink,” Aaron told her.

She laughed and reached out to rest her hand on his arm. “Trust me, I don’t want to shrink your head. I do want to discover how it works though. See, I am honest with you. My Talent is strong enough to let me sense some things. It lets me know when there is something bothering people. Something inside wants me to help make things right.” She smiled ruefully. “I don’t know the rules on how to do that yet, but I’m working on them. I think most people’s heads work in a similar manner. I think we have many of the same basic drives and desires and fears, and I think that sometimes a lot of our insides get knotted up to the point where they need some help to get unknotted.”

Aaron stared at her bemusedly. His head felt heavy; his thoughts thick. “Have you ever taken psychology?”

“I’ve never heard of psychology.”

“If you keep on the path you’re following you’ll probably invent it.” Aaron reluctantly shook his arm out from under her hand. “I like you, Miss Stromburg, I really do. I just don’t think I want to become part of your experiment.”

She nodded understanding. “Your reaction is not uncommon. Why don’t you take my address anyway? You won’t be the first person who changed his mind. If things get too tough you can always look me up.”

Aaron pushed back his chair and stood up. He thought about the matter in a fuzzy way for a moment and then accepted the paper she held out to him. It never hurt to be polite. “I’ll buy the tea,” he said.

“But I offered.”

His smile felt crooked. “That doesn’t matter. I pay for everything. It’s a habit I’ve gotten into. Paying. For everything.”

He turned and left her sitting at his table. He reached the counter and tossed the girl at the register a few coins. He did not know what the coins were. He did not care. At the least, they equaled the price of two teas. It was possible they equaled the girl’s weekly take home pay.

Felicity Stromsburg's voice came to him across the restaurant's floor. “Why do I get the impression that you’re not speaking of paying with money? Why do I think that you feel you owe the entire world for your existence?”

He turned to look at her. Her expression was intense, longing. She wanted him. She wanted a piece of his head and Aaron was damned if he would give it to her. He nodded toward her once, turned away, and pushed through the open door. He looked back once more to see her speaking to the waitress. She no longer watched him.

He pressed his lips straight, opened his mouth, drew in a deep breath, and released it with a sigh.

“Because I do,” he finally answered her question with a whisper. “Because I do.”



It was a long walk to his apartment. He wanted to transfer, but his head swam in an alcoholic haze. The images he could form had too many waves and not enough details. The evening light was failing as he started his journey. A woman across the street opened the cover over the controls for one of the city’s gaslights. Limelights, Aaron remembered they had once been called. That had been two centuries back and in a different world. People had died when those lights went out inside buildings. The unburned gas killed them with its poison.

Sometimes he missed his birth world. Sometimes he missed being the crippled little boy and then the weird little man who was a mainstay or the jackass of Field’s Everlasting Life Militia. His role had been set in stone there. He had been the mascot and the burden. They never expected him to make a decision on his own. He never had the chance to ruin anyone else’s life. That burden only happened when General Field released him to become a spy. It was only when he was on his own, when he made his own decisions, that he had become a monster.

He thought back to the meeting. It had been he and Miss Bivins and Mistress Catlow against a hoard of prepared vultures wanting to bring him down. The only thing in his favor was a signed sheath of papers granting him all the rights of a citizen, if not citizenship itself. The papers were an admission of his ownership of the books and they gave him strong privileges, stronger than he had any right to expect.

The problem was that those papers could be declared null and void. Such a declaration would have to be defended in court after the Assembly voted to rescind them. The emerging court case would become ugly. The end result would entail a new amendment to the constitution and widespread knowledge that the books existed. The last thing the Assembly wanted was for its neighbors to discover the source of the Isabellan Federation’s new knowledge and future prosperity. The books Aaron had brought over were enough to ensure that Isabella would become the economic and military powerhouse of the entire world. Some of the knowledge was only a few decades ahead of what was known by this world’s scientists. Some was centuries ahead of anything this world had ever seen. The new farming methods were making a tremendous change in the few places they had been tried. New crops were coming in thicker, richer, and with a much smaller percentage of loss. Of course, those results were nothing compared to the farms Kara Perkins had seeded. The seeds she brought from Jefferson outstripped anything grown in Isabella. The entire crop she had planted the year before had been saved strictly for new seed. Aaron doubted any of the old crop seeds would be in use in a few years. The farmer who refused to switch over would be bankrupt.

Now there was a change he should have thought of making. With that one single contribution Perk assured the eventual end of starvation in this country. Her place was assured. She was the new grower and unarmed trainer of government forces. She was strong and sure and the things she claimed ownership of were no threat to the security of Isabella. Isabella wanted to keep her. She also wanted to keep Aaron’s books, but she wanted to throw him out. Well, the Assembly did anyway--some of them.

He had to give them a ironclad reason to keep him around. If he was kicked out of Isabella he had no place to go but Chin, and he did not know exactly where that backward and war torn place was. Over on the other side of the ocean somewhere. Someday he would have to look it up on a map.

Creee Creee Creee

He blinked and took note of his location. His home was still a long way from where he stood, and his mind was still too fogged with drink for him to transfer there. An axel squeaking cab had just passed. That was one thing this world needed. It needed a good grease and tight seals. Brass bushings did not sound sweet once their lubricants were forced past their seals. Aaron doubted he had ever encountered one wagon, cart, or cab that had not squeaked at him eventually. Noise pollution. That was all it was, noise pollution. Nothing more.

“Hey Mister,”

“What?” He looked around, confused.

“Down here.”

A tug on his shirt. Aaron looked down to see a man smaller than he was. Aaron would have called the person a boy if it were not for the heavy beard decorating his face. The fellow could not have stood higher than three feet. As best Aaron could recall, this was the first fully adult male he had encountered in this world who had the misfortune of actually owning fewer inches than Aaron did himself.

The man held a flyer in one hand, a stack of flyers cradled beneath his arm. “Take a look at this. It might interest you. Acts start at noon and three-thirty.” He handed the flyer over and then sidled up to a woman who had paused to observe the traffic before she crossed over. “Hey lady.”

Aaron looked at the flyer and grunted. There was a circus in town. The circus bragged of trapeze artists and oddities and animal acts. The flyer claimed the shows were like nothing ever before seen. There were games and feats of skills and dozens of different acts. There was mind reading and a House of Earthly Delights known as The Mystery, whatever that was. He folded up the flyer and put it in his pocket. It might be something to do on a slow day. The show promised to be in town for the next couple weeks. The Gods knew he needed something to take his mind off his boredom and troubles.

Creee Creee Creee

A taxi. “Hey!”

The driver pulled to a stop. She looked pretty enough, though there was a certain off-setting cast to her face. She looked somehow familiar, as if he might have seen her before. Then again, she drove a cab. He most likely had seen her before.

“What can I do for you?”

“You can take me home is what you can do. I need to get to Harbough House.“

“And where exactly might that be?

“Do you know where Vine and Marbeth come together?”

She frowned in thought. “I know Marbeth. I’m not really sure where Vine is located though. I’ve only been driving for a month so I don’t have it all up here.” She tapped her skull heavily with the knuckles of one hand. “If you climb up front with me you can show me where it is. I’ll only charge you half fare since you’ll be teaching me the route.”

“You got a deal.” Aaron scrambled onto the high seat as quickly as his still spinning head would allow. The cab driver waited until he was almost seated before she geed the horse along. The sudden motion threw Aaron awkwardly into his seat. His butt landed with a hard thump and he was thrown sideways into the driver. She snickered at his clumsiness. “Don’t you mind me, love. I’ve had a few right handsome bundles throwing themselves at me a time or two. Names Miss Clarice. Miss Saundra Clarice. What moniker do you go by?”

“Aaron Turner.”

“Aaron Turner, huh. Tell me Mr. Turner, how many times you been married?”

Oh Gods. Not again.

“Six times so far. I went and got myself hitched six times and I swear to the Gods that I’m going to keep it up until I get it right.” He gave her a sloppy smile and released an alcohol-laden belch. “You don’t happen to have a flask on you, do ya? That’s one of the problems with the ones I married. There aint a one of them what has a proper appreciation for a man’s drink. Don’t matter how many times I hit them when they don’t have my drink ready.”

She gave him a long, slow look. “Okay, I get the message. I’ll lay off if you quit lying. I have to tell you, Mister Aaron Turner, you can’t tell a lie for nothing. One of the first rules is to keep it simple. The next rule is to make sure some element of your lie is believable.” She paused as Aaron started chortling to himself. “What did I say?”

“Nothing,” he answered through drunken gasps. “I just remember thinking almost those same words once.”

“Well it doesn’t matter who said ‘em. They’re just as true as if they came right out of the Sphinx's mouth. Speaking of the Sphinx, I knew a man once who claimed to have seen the real thing. Now I aint claiming this is an actual true tale, but I am telling you now that I believe every single word of it because I do know the fellow and a more sober and unimaginative sort you will have a most difficult time finding. This is the way of it. He happened to be in a bar in Nefra one day when--.”

She went on to spin a minutes long lie that ended up with her hero sleeping in the same bed as a pig that thought it was a child. The pig became so convinced of its role that it even took up the task of learning to read because that was what children were expected to do.

Aaron laughed and then he retaliated by relating the antics of one of his favorite sit-coms he had enjoyed watching when he lived in Jefferson. He finished the tale to her confused silence. He shrugged his apology before she started in on a fresh tale. She was halfway finished when he interrupted her.

“Your turn.”

“What?”

“Your turn.”

“Well you ninny, I am taking my turn. If you happened to be paying my tale the least amount of attention you would have noticed that I’m doing a better job of it than you ever did. At least some of my plot is believable.”

Aaron allowed himself to look confused. “What part of the plot would that be? I think I slept through it.”

“The part where I said once upon a time. Now what is this about my turn?”

“I just thought you might want to know that you missed it. The last street back there is Marbeth.”

She looked over her shoulder and then turned her gaze back to him. “Do you think I don’t know we passed it? I am the professional driver here. I knew I passed by Marbeth the moment you mentioned it to me. The thing is, I know a long cut. We have to take it if I’m ever going to get through this tale. Do you have any idea on how to turn these horses around?”

“I think you are supposed to use the reins,” Aaron helpfully supplied.

“I always wondered what those things were for. Yo Mule. Swing on around here.”

She eventually managed to get Aaron to his building. Despite their earlier discussion, he paid her the full fare, and then he gave her a twenty percent tip for the entertainment. Despite himself, he felt pulled toward her. A part of him wanted to lean forward and see what would happen if he tried to cage a kiss. He suspected she would be a more than willing participant. He was almost drunk enough to give it a try. Her expression said she half expected it.

Sarah’s face wavered before his vision. He closed his eyes in sudden pain and felt his features grow hard. He opened his eyes again to look dispassionately at Miss Saundra Clarice while deep inside he fought down residue grief. Her half parted lips whispered something, and then they clamped tight.

“Perhaps I will need another ride,” Aaron told her. “If so, we will meet again.”

“I suppose we will,” she replied coldly. “Good day to you, sir.

“Good evening.”

She clicked her tongue to her horse and the cab rolled off. Aaron watched her go with some misgiving. She had been a joyful companion. She had been bright and vivacious, and she had shown a genuine interest in him. With one look, with one break in the conversation, he had destroyed the tenuous connection they shared for their short time together. He had broken the connection and hurt her with the breaking.

Saddened, he went into his apartment building and slowly climbed the steps to his rooms. He fumbled with his keys, finally found the right one, and allowed himself in. Walking over to his table, he pulled the cork from a half empty bottle and filled a wineglass that already had a few swallows of last night’s dregs in it. He took the glass and made his way to his reading chair. He set the wineglass down on the end table and lifted up the book he was trying to make his way through. He leafed through the pages for half an hour, emptied his glass, got up to refill it, and tried reading some more.

It was no good. He couldn’t read. He couldn’t even remember the last paragraphs that had just crossed his eyes. There had been a time when reading was a mainstay of his life. There had been a time when it had been one of his treasured pleasures. That time was past. He had not been able to work his way through a book since Sarah and Earnest had died. Nothing he picked up was more than meaningless black words on white paper. None of the words had weight or significance. They were just images that struck his eyes and refused to release meaning.

Gods, he was just so tired of it all. His life had become a pointless empty morass. He was turning in ineffective circles, revolving round and around, watching other people get on with their lives, build their careers, love their partners, and play with their children. They were doing all the things that seemed impossible for him.

He wanted another drink.