His skin looked ashy. His eyes were watery with exhaustion and stress. His smile was the same as it had ever been. She’d thought before it was because he wasn’t afraid of her. Now it just seemed well practiced.
“This may not help,” he said, “but part of what you’re feeling right now is normal. There’s a moment that everyone eventually experiences when they see that their parents are just people. That these mythic figures in their lives are also struggling and guessing. Doing their best without knowing for certain what their best is.”
The anger in Teresa’s chest was the first warm thing she’d felt in days.
“My father is the ruler of the human race,” she said.
Ilich chuckled. Had he always chuckled exactly that same way, and she was only noticing it now? “That does change some aspects of it, yes. But I don’t want you to feel alone.”
Have you considered not making me alone? she didn’t say. Or is it just the feeling that matters?
“I know it’s hard, having this secret,” he said. “The only reason we’re doing this is that your father and you are so important.”
“I understand,” she said, and pictured what he would look like if she drowned him in the fountain. “I’ll be okay.”
She didn’t sleep that night. The anger that had surprised her so much in Elsa Singh had infected her. As soon as she put her head on her pillow and closed her eyes, she was in a shouting match with Ilich. Or with Cortázar. Or with James Holden. Or with her father. Or Connor. Or Muriel. Or God. Even when she drifted just a little bit away from herself, she woke up minutes later with her back teeth aching from being clenched together. Seriously? You’re one of the angriest people I know, Tiny, Timothy said in her memory. Now it felt true.
After midnight, she gave up. Muskrat thumped her tail against the floor twice.
“What are you so fucking happy about?” Teresa snapped.
Muskrat stopped wagging, and her gray canine eyebrows rose in an expression of concern. Teresa turned on the state newsfeed and watched one of the professional voices of Laconia make reassuring mouth noises. The repair of the gate repeaters is already underway, and the communications network should be restored in a matter of weeks. Normal trade between worlds will resume very soon after that. Until then, the high consul is determining which supply ships are critical to the empire and approving transits on a case-by-case basis. The tragedy in the ring space which claimed the lives of so many loyal to the Laconian dream has shown no signs of recurring, according to the Science Directorate. Lies, half-truths, fictions, and bullshit.
Rage and grief fought in her heart, and behind them, looming larger than the sky, a sense of overwhelming betrayal that she couldn’t put a name to.
Muskrat chuffed once in concern. Teresa bared her teeth in a grin. “I’m not allowed to tell the truth. I’m not allowed to feel anything. I’m not allowed to leave the compound,” she said. “I can’t do anything. You know why? Because I’m so important.”
Teresa got up, stalked to her window, and opened it. Muskrat looked away nervously.
“Well?” Teresa said. “Are you coming or not?”
She had never been to the field outside the compound at night. In the darkness, it seemed larger. Swarms of tiny insectile animals crawling along the ground glowed in patterns of moving stripes as she walked past, like her footsteps were making dry rippl
es on the ground. A cold breeze hissed through the bare trees. In the distance, something called out, its voice like a flute. Two others answered, farther away. A smell like pepper and vanilla hung in the breeze. Ilich had told her once that the chemistry of Laconia was so different from the one humans had evolved with that people struggled to make sense of it, inventing smells that weren’t really there out of confusion. She had grown up here, though, and it seemed perfectly normal to her.
Muskrat trotted along at her side, glancing up every few steps as if to ask, Are you sure about this? Teresa knew the way to the mountain like it was the back of her hand. She didn’t worry at all about straying from the trail.
In her imagination, Ilich sputtered and scolded. He told her that the rules existed for good reasons. For her safety. That she couldn’t just go and do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. He’d know she was gone. That she’d ignored his rules. That was part of what made it worth doing. What could he do? Lock her in her room? When her father came back to himself, Ilich would have to answer for everything he’d done in the meantime. Her father had known she went off the compound. If he hadn’t stopped her, Ilich wouldn’t dare. He’d only make rules he couldn’t enforce. A law without consequences wasn’t a law. It wasn’t anything.
The first sign she was close was a shifting in the hedges and the bulbous false eyes of the repair drones peering apologetically out at her. They made their series of three falling clicks, an obvious query for which she didn’t have time or an answer. Muskrat usually barked and tried to play with the drones, but tonight, she only paid attention to Teresa.
The drones followed them to the canyon. In the deeper darkness, it was hard to make out the path, but she moved forward all the same. Now that she’d come this far, second thoughts started to haunt her. What if she picked the wrong cave and startled some local animal in its sleep? What if Timothy wasn’t there? High above, the orbital construction platforms rippled and glowed. If she looked out of the corner of her eye, she could even make out the Whirlwind, the third Magnetar-class ship. Only no. It was the second now. The flute-thing called out again, closer this time. She wished she’d brought a light with her. She hadn’t thought starlight would be so dark.
She found a deeper shadow that she thought was the sandstone shelf. She ducked under, her hand stretched in front of her. It only took a few steps more before she saw the cavern’s lights. The cavern was brighter than the night, and warmer too. The repair drones that walked with her had followed her in, or other ones had been there to begin with. She couldn’t tell them apart.
Her heart was beating faster. She was sure that she’d turn the last corner and find Timothy gone, his camp vanished.
“Timothy?” she called, her voice trembling. “Are you here?”
A slick metallic sound came from her right, and Timothy stepped out of the shadows, a gun in his hand. He shook his head. “You got to be more careful, Tiny,” he said. “My eyes ain’t what they used to be.”
Timothy’s expression and the casual way he held the gun were so comic, Teresa had to laugh. Once she started, it was hard to stop. The laughter seemed to have a life of its own, hilarity bursting out of her in a riot unstoppable and violent. Timothy’s confused expression only made it funnier. She howled, she buckled over, holding her sides, and at some point she noticed that it wasn’t laughter anymore. That she was crying.
Timothy watched her like she was giving birth and he wasn’t a doctor. The visible understanding that there was probably something he should be doing to help, but he didn’t know what it was. In the end it was Muskrat who came and put her thick, heavy, fur-covered head against Teresa. The violence of her emotions left her spent, and she rubbed the dog’s ears while the drones set up a little chorus of queries, aware that something was broken but not how it could be fixed.
“Yeah, okay,” Timothy said after a while. “Rough night. I get that. Come on back. You can… I don’t know what you can do, but I want to sit down, so let’s go back here.”
Her limbs felt heavier as she walked, but her heart felt lighter. As if she’d come all this way for someone to watch her break down, and even though nothing had changed, something was better.