The Best Laid Plans: Children of Rost'aht, #2

By Thomas Watson

In the aftermath of the disastrous Godsend expedition, Paul Rost'aht-MacGregor leaves behind the life he's always known. He travels to the Human Republic, hoping to help the people there with their ongoing efforts to recover from the Faceless War. But what he finds instead is civil war, and the rise of a mysterious and powerful entity that threatens friend and foe alike, including those he loves most – and left behind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Watson
• Release date: Apr 1, 2025
• ISBN: 9798230748762

Thomas Watson

I am a writer, amateur astronomer, and long-time fan of science fiction living in Tucson, AZ. I'm a transplanted desert rat, having come to the Sonoran Desert of the American Southwest many years ago from my childhood home in Illinois. I have a B.S. in plant biology from the University of Arizona, and have in the past worked as a laboratory technician for that institution. Among many other things, I am also a student of history, natural history, and backyard horticulture.  I also cook a pretty good green chili pork stew. But most of all, I'm a writer. The art of writing is one of those matters that I find difficult to trace to a single source of inspiration in my life. Instead of an "Aha! This is it!" moment, I would say my desire to write is the cumulative effect of my life-long print addiction. My parents once teased me by claiming I learned to read before I could tie my own shoelaces. Whether or not that's true, I learned to read very early in life, and have as a reader always cast a very wide net. My bookshelves are crowded and eclectic, with fiction by C.J. Cherryh, Isaac Asimov, and Tony Hillerman, and nonfiction by Annie Dillard, Stephen Jay Gould, and Ron Chernow, among many others. It's no doubt due to my eclectic reading habits that I have an equal interest in writing both fiction and nonfiction. The experience of reading, of feeling what a writer could do to my head and my heart with their words, eventually moved me to see if I could do the same thing for others. I'm still trying to answer that question.

Book preview

Chapter One

THE TRIP BY SHUTTLE from the Bartram habitat to the grand star liner Alexander von Humboldt took less than an hour. In that brief time, Paul realized he was taking the longest step from home he could imagine. He didn’t need to think very hard to understand why he felt as he did. For the first time in his twenty-eight years, he was traveling alone. Paul was about to go walkabout. He was leaving everything and everybody he had ever known behind.

The sense of disconnect this act of departure created was both unpleasant and profound. Paul understood well enough the reason for this journey, the need for it. It was time to find his own way, his own life. It was most unlikely he would do so staying at home, not after all that had happened in the Godsend star system.

He boarded the Alexander von Humboldt and for a few hours adopted a passive mode of existence. The ship’s systems took care of baggage, directed him to the cabin he would occupy for the time he lived in the grand star liner, and downloaded the layout of the ship into his memory hoard. The shipmind recommended a pub, when he asked, that would give him the view he desired as he awaited departure from the Pr’pri star system. He didn’t linger in the spacious cabin. After removing and packing his es’ava, his clan sash, Paul went straight to that pub for a stiff drink. The departure he meant to witness would be a longer flight than the shuttle connection, passing between stars as it did, and yet would in a way be a smaller step. The greater one had already taken him to this moment in his life.

The Alexander von Humboldt was parked in a slow orbit around Pr’pri, the primary star of the system. The star was reduced by distance to a bright spark of white light, not quite painful to look at. Nearly in the same line of sight he could see the more distant, bright ruddy-gold star that was Pr’pri’s binary companion. The von Humboldt’s orbit matched that of the trans-spatial node the binary system created, a weak spot in the multi-dimensional matrix of the universe. Through this, the star liner would pass and come to its destination in less than the blink of an eye.

Paul sat alone at a table outside the pub, gazing out into the space beyond, waiting. The wait for that eye blink seemed interminable.

Gazing up through the invisible canopy of the star liner’s habitat ring he saw, a few degrees to his left of the binary system’s stars, two familiar sights. Gray and white shapes were suspended in the starry Void, shapes he knew well. There was the fat, multi-ringed nodal station, Serch’nach, built decades ago by the Leyra’an, when they had been the only inhabitants of Pr’pri. Beside it was a cylinder with rounded ends nearly the same size as the station. Paul knew this was an illusion, a trick of perspective. Bartram Habitat was actually large enough to hold Serch’nach twice over, but the habitat was much further away from the region of the trans-spatial node.

It was just the second time in his life Paul Rost’aht-MacGregor had seen his home from the vicinity of the node. On the first, he had been about to embark on an adventure, the expedition to Godsend, with every intention of returning soon to Bartram with knowledge that might lead to understanding the war that cast such long shadows across his childhood. That sight had been anything but poignant. It had been exciting. They had all assumed that mysteries would be resolved, lessons learned. And they had been there together, as they had always been since childhood. Another shared adventure, even as the fraying of their respective relationships had begun to show. But what he and his companions had found out at Godsend had been something entirely unexpected.

Death was there, waiting for them.

At the start of that expedition he would never have guessed just how near he would come to death himself. Now, seeing this view for a second time, Paul was afraid to speculate on what might be ahead. Afraid. Assumptions were such dangerous things. He knew that now.

Paul didn’t even dare assume he would return. He hoped. He wondered if his brother Vurn and their friend Jaxi shared that hope. It was hard to say whether or not this was even possible, thinking back on the manner of their parting, as he looked up and out, sipping whisky.

The transfer lounge of Bartram Habitat had been a busy place, on the morning of their joint departures. The bank of lifts a few meters away opened and closed, opened and closed. Travelers entered lifts and were gone, whisked away to the docks where they would board ships bound for elsewhere. Other lifts released travelers into the habitat, visitors, some of them, and also people coming home. There were tearful farewells and joyous greetings, largely ignored by other weary travelers around them who came and went without fanfare. Not all of those travelers were Human. A busy place, full of overlapping voices that spoke of hopes, promises, and regrets.

The traffic of the lounge hadn’t distracted him. He saw only the two he loved most in life, the same two who made it necessary to go away. There was only a vague awareness of their families standing nearby, watching.

The three of them stood just beyond arm’s reach, but the gap between them felt much wider. The distance wasn’t entirely physical. It seemed to Paul that their pain in this parting must surely be palpable to anyone who passed nearby. He imagined an echo of the ache in his heart surrounding him like an aura, there for all to see, though none of the many passers-by so much as glanced at him. It was a pain he could see clearly in the other two. It was hardest to see in his ari'erna, Rost’aht Vurn, his brother by another mother. Dressed all in gray and brown, Vurn had refused to wear the es’ava, the braided sash that crossed the chest and identified clan and family among the Leyra’an. Paul had donned the gold, green, and electric blue of Rost’aht-MacGregor, and wore it over a Leyra’an-style tunic of dark red. Vurn hadn’t reacted to this. Instead, he looked down and away from Paul’s gaze, the Leyra’an scales around his eyes, already nearly black, further darkened by the tears he refused to shed.

Not that it was much easier to endure in the other, his friend who should have always been as a sister to him, his eli’erna, but was now something more – whether she wanted to be or not. He could not deny it; would not – she deserved his honesty. Nol’ez Jaxi was anything but a sibling. That illusion had been shattered for good and all in recent weeks. What they had been for each other, what as children they had promised to be forever, now fell around the event horizon of memory.

A glance to the side revealed that the tears of his friend Jaxi were anything but unshed. The mask of scales around her eyes was dark, from tears that even then slid over her cheeks. Hers was a face partly Leyra’an, with scales the color of honey around her brown Human eyes and down each cheek. The casual Commonwealth style she affected suited her perfectly, and somehow her es’ava of crimson, aqua, and lavender managed not to clash with it. So typical of Jaxi and her impeccable sense of style. To look at her, the first-ever fusion child, was to see the best of both Human and Leyra’an beauty. And looking at her, his love was mingled with guilt, and then overridden by it. He knew how badly he and his brother had hurt her, without so much as a touch. Blows struck to the heart and the spirit. He also could not deny his part in that debacle.

Yes, he thought, taking a sip, back for a moment in the here-and-now. We need to be apart. Maybe we will always need to be apart. There are things that cannot be undone. And how he wished to not believe this.

The time came for them to depart. Shuttles were ready to take them to the ships that would scatter them among the star systems of the Grand Concordance and the Republic. In that last moment, Jaxi had reached out to them across the space that felt wider than could be seen, gathering them into one last embrace.

It was too much for his brother.

Vurn fled. There was no other way to look at it. He had briefly held them, and then run from them, never looking back. Paul had called his brother a fool for it. Now he wondered if it had simply been a breaking point reached, and flight had been the only thing left to the man.

Paul had managed it better, he thought. He’d paused to brush away her tears. And then he, too, was on his way. Somehow he managed a more moderate pace than that of his brother, who had moved as if fleeing the scene of a crime. The last Paul saw of Jaxi was the back of her head, as she looked away.

He sipped the whisky and felt the burn in the pit of his stomach. The nanomed system in his body allowed a mild buzz, if he drank enough. He would never become inebriated. Under the circumstances, Paul wasn’t sure that was for the best. He contemplated the pain of those partings, and the deeper pain that motivated their all too necessary scattering. Each time he did so, he was more certain than before that this journey was right. That it was truly necessary. Time, distance, and experience would change the three of them, and in ways none could predict. And just possibly, one day, because of those changes, they might be able to reunite and be friends again.

If nothing else, at least now they weren’t hurting each other. And that thought did give him some relief from guilt and anxiety. With another sip, he asked the Alexander von Humboldt’s shipmind – the Artificial that was the soul of the starship – for the time remaining until departure. They would be gone from Pr’pri system all too soon, it seemed. And not soon enough. Paul suddenly wanted this step over and done. He was briefly tempted to make his way to his cabin, rather than witness the transit that would utterly erase the view before him. But he remained at the table outside the pub, an establishment that was supposed to duplicate something from an Earth culture he had never heard of.

Not much of a view, is it? someone said.

Paul was aware that someone had come up behind him, so he wasn’t startled by the comment. Depends on what it means to you, he replied, without looking around. He found the comment annoying, considering how he felt about what he was looking at.

That’s true, context is everything, said his as yet unseen visitor. The voice of the person behind him seemed vaguely familiar. You’re Paul, if I remember correctly?

I am, he said, turning in his chair and recognizing the speaker. Hello, ah... A quick search of his memory hoard added rank to the name he recalled. First Lieutenant Hanlon.

Skip the rank and leave it at Hanlon. It’s quicker, and anyway, you’re a civilian. She gestured to the empty chair on the opposite side of the table. Mind if I join you?

Not at all. Actually, I could use some company.

A tall, slim woman with short pale hair that might once have been blonde, wearing the dark blue uniform of the Republic Defense Force, dropped into the empty chair with a low grunt. She unbuttoned her jacket and let it fall open. The shirt underneath was white and tight around her neck; she didn’t loosen the collar. Wild guess, you’re feeling a little homesick already?

More than a little, Paul confessed. This is a new thing for me.

I thought you were on that Godsend expedition? Hanlon asked.

I was, but that was a different sort of trip. I was part of a team, and many of them were people I knew well. He looked around at the few people seated at the other tables, all of them Human. So far, this trip, yours is the only familiar face.

That’s a stretch, Hanlon said with a short laugh. You just barely know me from that recruiting presentation a few weeks ago. I’m actually surprised you remembered my name at all. Ah, but then, you probably have one of those memory things planted in your brain.

Memory hoard, Paul replied, tapping the right side of his head. But to be honest, I remember you well enough.

I’m flattered. She looked and sounded bemused. All I did was stand there and decorate the stage with this uniform.

You did more than that, believe me, Paul said. You made volunteering for reconstruction duty sound attractive and vitally important at the same time. Just what I needed to hear at the time. I had a big decision to make. And, ah, you do wear the uniform well.

Flattery, indeed, she said with a grin.

My apologies. Paul had been embarrassed the moment the words left his mouth. He’d spoken on impulse, and he truly did not know this woman that well. Certainly not well enough to seem to flirt with her. That probably sounded, well...

She didn’t let him finish. Oh, don’t apologize. It’s been a very long time since a young man complimented me on my appearance.

Really? He was genuinely surprised.

Hardly a surprise, I should think.

Paul had no idea how to respond to that, but the feeling that he’d missed the point quickly faded as Hanlon returned to the topic of their first meeting.

I’m glad it caught your interest, she said. Drawing on the skills and knowledge of the Commonwealth certainly is important to the Republic. We need the help, and both sides need to understand each other better.

That came through crystal clear, Paul assured her. It’s why I decided to sign up. Your words made the difference.

When I’m given an assignment, I give it all I’ve got, she said. We really need people with the right skills if we’re to reclaim the abandoned star systems beyond the Rift, before the Separatists can establish themselves out there.

I’m rather surprised that your government doesn’t try harder to stop these Separatists.

The Worth administration does what it can to defang the movement, short of sparking a civil war, Hanlon replied. It’s a fine line the man walks. Has walked, for two decades and then some. I don’t envy him the task.

Emerson is a good man. The Republic is fortunate that he has been willing to stay in office, term after term.

Not like we don’t appreciate him. She finally unfastened her shirt collar, and did so with a sigh. We keep voting him back in. The last election wasn’t even close.

To Paul, it seemed Hanlon was a person who did not relax easily, or all at once. She had inspected her surroundings carefully before loosening her collar, as if to make sure no one was watching. Hands, throat, face, all of these displayed characteristics Paul had heard of, but never before seen in a living being – until Hanlon had stepped up for her part of the recruiting pitch he’d attended. Wrinkles around eyes and mouth, loose skin around her throat, hands that seemed short on flesh, the faded look of her hair – signs of the wear and tear of years that the people who raised him would never show, endowed as they were with the internal medical system of the Commonwealth. Humanity’s gift to the Sibling Species of the Grand Concordance, the nanomed, a gift also freely given to the people of the Republic.

But the Humans of the Republic had followed a very different path in their two hundred years of separation from the rest of the Human species. The gift was sometimes spurned by citizens of the Republic. Paul had heard of such, though he was bewildered by the thought that someone would refuse to remain in youthful good health far beyond what had once been a normal Human life span.

Hanlon was obviously one of those who refused nanomed. He found the signs of age she showed interesting, but in no way unattractive in themselves. After all, Paul had grown up surrounded by folk who were not at all Human. People who were in more general ways different from him. One childhood friend had been a T’lack. Hanlon was merely another variety of Human to his eyes.

A server came out and asked what she might want to drink. Hanlon looked at Paul and asked, What are you drinking?

Whisky.

More of the same, if you would, please, she said to the server, a male Human, who bowed and disappeared. I always raise a glass at the start of a journey. If you wouldn’t mind joining me?

Sounds like a fine idea, actually, Paul replied. And accepted a refill when the server brought the bottle. Shouldn’t be too long now. So, off somewhere to recruit more volunteers?

Hanlon sniffed her glass and raised an eyebrow. Ah, the real thing, she muttered. Actually, no. I’ve been reassigned. Probably my last assignment before I retire from the service, as a matter of fact.

Retire?

I’m getting a little old for the soldier business, she replied with a wry smile.

The Commonwealth Cure would fix that for you. Paul used the name people of the Republic applied to nanomed systems.

Hell, I haven’t even gone for the Worth Variant, she replied with a snort.

I’ve heard that there are people in the Republic who won’t use nanomed, Paul said. It would violate their beliefs, or something like that. Is that true?

It’s one motive. And a lot of people share it.

I know Emerson Worth only went with the version they’ve named for him to keep a cancer of some sort from killing him, years ago, when he was here as the ambassador from the Republic. Although, the last we heard he and his wife had finally gone full nanomed.

Brain cancer, Hanlon said. Just one of the many forms Founders’ disease can manifest. So, you know his story, then?

Well, actually, I was there, Paul said. But I was just a baby when my mother treated him.

Your mother?

Alicia Rost’aht-MacGregor.

Huh, you didn’t mention that at the recruiting session. To that comment, Paul could only shrug. I’ll be damned. I’m sitting here drinking with the son of the man who killed the Faceless. Had no idea you were part of that family.

Hanlon was clearly unaware of the final battle fought by Paul’s mother and the Artificial named Simone. He almost said something of the matter, but knowing the full story would soon be available, told by Peter Harrans, he left it alone. Not wishing to seem over-prideful, he replied with a Leyra’an phrase that humbly acknowledged his lineage. Ah yia’i fara. He was sure that the translation protocols would render it in the standard Human language as I am of that family. A modest response, just as he had been taught, for such a circumstance. Bragging about his parental exploits was simply not done.

"Honored to make your acquaintance. Phra’has im a ni’i’ hull off’ic," Hanlon replied, saluting him with her glass.

Paul knew the phrase well; the day of our meeting is blessed. You speak Leyra’an. Her accent and pronunciation had been nearly perfect.

Hanlon nodded and said, It was a requirement for officer training at the Academy. We were, ah, still at war with the Leyra’an when I enlisted. With a self-deprecating smirk she added, Yes, I’m that old.

"I think you’re the first person I’ve met from the Republic who hasn’t installed nanomed."

Nothing to do with religion, in my case. I haven’t been burdened by faith since the Faceless War.

Burdened? Paul asked. That seems a strange way of putting it.

You had to be there. Hanlon set the glass down, waiting for the proper moment for her traveler’s toast; her fingers were still curled around it. And I was, that’s for damned sure. Through some of the worst of it. Meaning the Faceless War. Made it out alive, but someone – the, ah, people I knew best didn’t. Maybe that’s why I haven’t taken the so-called Commonwealth Cure. They didn’t get the chance. Why should I be so lucky?

Survivor’s remorse. That’s what the shipmind of the Freya Stark had called it. His colleagues – his friends – had all died, their lives consumed in an instant of nuclear fire. Paul had been spared. And felt guilty about it. Guilty – a word that labeled but in no way described the depth of the pain he really felt when he contemplated those deaths. But for less than an hour’s flight time, he and Jaxi would have died with them. There were moments when it didn’t feel right, and moments of relief at having evaded that might-have-been. Conflicting emotions that added up to a guilty conscience. And so he nodded and said, I think I can understand that.

You think so? Her skepticism was obvious.

So he told her what had happened in Godsend System, and how close he had been to his own death. She listened with a grave expression on her face, and then saluted him with her glass. Yes, you know how I feel. And just what you needed right now, eh? To be sitting here listening to a maudlin old soldier, full of self-pity.

With an exaggerated shrug, Paul said, I was sitting here feeling sorry for myself when you stopped by.

Misery does love company, Hanlon agreed.

So what’s this possibly last assignment? he asked, thinking a change in subject would be a good idea.

Something I really should be celebrating, I suppose, Hanlon replied with a smile. I’m joining the personal guard of President Emerson Worth as chief of security, and taking on the full rank of Colonel.

Congratulations, Paul said, smiling. "So, why aren’t you celebrating?"

I was hoping for a quiet, mundane run-down to retirement. She laughed briefly, a low grunt lacking humor. But I got this one. You see, people keep trying to kill Worth.

Ah, so...

Potentially hazardous duty, she replied with another humorless laugh. Well, it’ll pay better, and keep me on my toes, more than likely.

It happens that often?

Well, no, not really, she replied with a shake of her head. But we’ve been increasing the pressure on the Separatist movement, with the result that desperation is making them bolder.

Unable to think of a cogent response to her explanation – the idea of assassination being as foreign to Paul as that of the aging process – he asked for a time check. Seeing that they were minutes away from the nodal transit, he asked for a countdown. A blue dataframe was projected in the air, a meter above the paving stones that surrounded the pub. He sighed and said, Very soon.

I remember when I reported for basic training, said Hanlon. "Such a long, long time ago, now. Leaving home behind was the hardest thing I’d ever done to that point in my life. God, how I wish it was the hardest thing I ever had to do."

Something my father said, when we held the first memorial for the people we lost to the war, Paul said. ‘Every time I think I’ve endured the hardest thing the universe can hand me, I find out I’m wrong.’ He was thinking again of the people recently killed in Godsend System, and of the rift that had opened between himself, his brother, and their childhood friend. So many and varied the losses; the possibility that life might hold harder things to face than what the three of them had just been through was not an encouraging thought.

Sounds like an accurate assessment of life, Hanlon muttered. Mine, anyway. With a humorless laugh and a slow shake of her head, she said, Out of life’s school of war—what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.

Sounds like Nietzsche, said Paul.

It is, and that’s the correct translation, not the aphorism you hear so often. She shook her head again and added, Might not kill you, but it sure wears you down. I doubt that man ever really saw combat.

They watched the final countdown to transit in companionable silence. As the final seconds ticked away, they raised their glasses. Paul held his so that he could sight Bartram Habitat over the rim. He remembered the trip back to Bartram at the end of the war, sitting in a ship much like the von Humboldt. He and Vurn, along with Jaxi, sat with his father, who had come to fetch the children home from safe haven. His father had admitted that, yes, there could be monsters out there in the Void. One had just been defeated, after all. Then he had challenged them to keep an eye on the transit, just in case they might catch a glimpse of something lurking out there.

Don’t blink, he’d told them. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it.

The count approached zero, and Hanlon tossed back her drink. Barely a second behind, Paul did the same. An aftertaste of smoke lingered. He refocused his gaze on the view above them.

A station drifted there, pale in the light of a distant star. The design was unfamiliar.

Bartram Habitat was gone.

Chapter Two

WHEN IT WAS ANNOUNCED that the von Humboldt had reached its destination, a star system named Webster, Hanlon sat with Paul Rost’aht-MacGregor for a while longer. They spoke of matters inconsequential, drinking whisky. After one long, awkward pause too many, First Lieutenant Juliette Hanlon of the Republic Defense Force wished Paul a restful night and a pleasant journey. In the morning, she told him, she would board an RDF transport and make a more rapid transit to her next assignment. She made her way to the nearest lift station. Behind her, Paul Rost’aht-MacGregor remained, sipping whisky and contemplating stars that were new to him. He seemed only vaguely aware that she had said good night, as she made her slightly unsteady way to the lift.

Damn. Booze didn’t used to hit me this way. Maybe I should have eaten something first.

She felt, at that moment, all of her sixty-five years like weights dragging her heart down. It took a while for her to realize why the edge of depression had crept over her. It had been far too many years since she’d relaxed in anyone’s company as she just had with Paul. He was easy to talk to – almost too easy – and she had managed to forget for a time just how old she was. How young he was. And attractive. Some men can wear a beard. And some men really should. Paul Rost’aht-MacGregor, she decided, was in the latter company.

It surely didn’t help that he reminded her so strongly, with his dark hair and fair complexion – of someone else. Someone from long ago, and long dead – lost to the Faceless. Taken by the enemy as they’d fought together.

Taken, while she was spared, and would she ever not feel guilty about that?

The lift capsule brought her to the sector containing her cabin, and she walked slowly down a corridor lined with regularly spaced doors. Hers was easy enough to find; the light over the door glowed when she came within range of the door sensor, programmed to recognize her appearance. The door opened and then closed behind her, and her dark blue uniform jacket landed in the nearest chair. Into the bathroom, then the bedroom, and out again in a loose brown robe. Hanlon summoned a glowing dataframe and placed a dinner order. She left it at an order for food; drinking when she felt her orbit decaying never ended well. Before she could wave away the blue dataframe, the shipmind announced that there were messages in the system addressed to her. Hanlon accepted them, flicked through them – most were of no consequence – pausing only to read confirmation of her reassignment and promotion.

Hanlon checked the time. It was official. She had achieved the highest rank she was ever likely to enjoy in the RDF. The time when she might have celebrated such a promotion was far behind her. She merely acknowledged the formal congratulations from the Admiralty, and closed the dataframe.

Colonel Juliette Hanlon of the Republic Defense Force ate her quiet dinner alone.

Chapter Three

PAUL EVENTUALLY DECIDED to call it a night, and made his way to the cabin he had visited so briefly that afternoon. But he couldn’t bring himself to go straight there. A restless anxiety grew in him, and so he wandered for an hour through the von Humboldt’s landscaped main ring. The sense of disconnect left by his departure, and the guilty recollection of the deaths that hadn’t included his own, made rest a moot point. The evening wore on, and as ship’s night fell, day flowers closed up, concealing their colors, while night flowers opened, white and fragrant. He diverted himself for a time by examining plants he did not know, requesting names and origins from the shipmind as he went. Paths were lit by widely spaced lamps on slender poles, bright enough to show the way, dialed back just enough to let the stars visible from the Webster system show through. The brightest of these was Webster Prime itself, a brilliant ruddy-gold star that outshone all others.

He followed a curving path around a thick hedge that blocked the light from the nearest lamp. And walked straight into someone, who rebounded and stumbled, and would have fallen had Paul not caught hold of an arm.

Sorry!

I’m sorry!

I should have...

I just wasn’t...

There was a brief pause, then the woman with whom he had collided laughed quietly. It’s okay. Um, I really need to be someplace. Late already, which is why I was hurrying.

No problem, as long as you’re not hurt.

Oh, I’m fine, she replied. Just a little embarrassed, that’s all.

Me, too, he admitted. Well, on you go, then. Have a nice evening.

You too. And she was gone.

Paul got a glimpse of her as she passed beneath a lamp. A woman dressed in a blue suit of the sort often worn by women in the Republic, with shoulder-length dark hair. She had worn a scent that reminded him – unfortunately – of Jaxi’s favorite perfume. The scent lingered a little while, and he felt his already low mood slide toward something closer to outright depression. Paul stopped where he was, midway between two lamps illuminating the path. He looked up and out, at stars he had never seen before.

Gods of all clans! What is wrong with me? I’m out here, now. Look ahead, think on tomorrow. Make this journey count for something other than a weird sort of self-flagellation!

Ba’esht etsa in far’seth. Nat’ash er silsa.

The Leyra’an phrase rose from his childhood memories of instruction in the Way of Leyra’an, by which he and Vurn had been raised. His Human parents had adopted that way of life when they’d become part of Rost’aht. Someone always seemed to have that phrase ready to recite when something went wrong.

Accept that no one can change what was. And then decide