Your Last Chance to Disco

The summer slipped fully into fall, and then winter settled over Yora with its characteristic thud, covering the sidewalks with such heavy snow that Yan considered investing in a pair of snowshoes for her walk between her apartment and Stonecourt in the mornings. But even the most brutal winter melted off into a drizzly and cold spring five months-- half a year-- into Yan’s apprenticeship.

Her life had settled into something approaching familiarity, if not routine. She didn’t feel like she was fully secure in her position, not like she saw Sid pretend to be, but she was less lost whenever she learned some new information, or followed Sandreas to some event or meeting. Faces and names, places, events, connections, all started tying together like a web in her mind. She could see, now, the way that members of the Imperial Council talked about each other, the factions that existed, the way that arguments played out, and the way that each side of any issue would try to court Sandreas, carefully picking their words and their battles.

Before her apprenticeship, Yan had thought of the running of the Empire in vague and indistinct ways. Taxes and transport laws and new colonies and the way that pirates were dealt with were all matters relevant to her as a spacer, so she had followed these things with mild interest, though had always considered them external to her life. After all, one of the exchanges that was made in the Guild’s charter was that, while they were able to operate very independently, they were offered no representation in the Council. So it was up to the Guild, if the Guild had any interests, to curry the favor of individual planets, and ask that their interests be represented. Even when Yan had technically been able to vote on Emerri, she hadn’t bothered exercising that right.

Now, though, she recognized who the power players were, and she understood some of how she was expected to speak with them as Sandreas’ apprentice. Although she had always had respect for him, watching the subtle way he played the political game, she was almost in awe. She was sure it was just accurate predictions based on gathered intelligence, but Sandreas always seemed to know exactly where the winds were blowing within the Imperial Council, and how to take aside one or two people-- and not even always the loudest voices on whatever issue-- and strike something that resembled a deal but wasn’t.

Although, in the end, Sandreas had ultimate authority within the Empire, he was always careful to make sure the Council operated as the primary law-making body, and not himself.

“It is vital,” he explained to Sid one day, “that the Council continues to think of itself as a valid entity.”

“Why?” Sid asked, putting his feet up on the coffee table in Sandreas’ office. Sandreas glared at him, and when Sid refused to move his legs, Kino reached over and pulled him sideways, so that his feet returned to the floor with a heavy thump.

“Because the whole system relies on their willing collaboration,” Sandreas said. “The system is fragile, in its way.”

Sid just narrowed his eyes at that.

In the five months of their apprenticeship, Yan only saw Sandreas truly exercise his powers as the Empire’s ultimate authority once. The Imperial Council, with its two chambers, had failed to certify the budget for the upcoming year. Sandreas had called both chambers of the Council together, not allowing them to go to their planned end-of-year recess, and had stood before them in what felt like a blaze of anger.

“If this legislative body refuses to perform its sacred task,” he had said, “I shall have no choice but to use the power vested in me by God and the Emperor to ensure that there is strong continuity of governance. Each of you have a duty towards your constituents; I have a duty to every citizen of this Empire. Even if you neglect your duty, I shall not neglect mine.”

Either the shame or the threat of losing their power had worked, and the budget had been presented to Sandreas to approve, which he had done with only minor edits.

Yan wasn’t sure if she would ever be able to perform this kind of delicate dance, and she certainly wasn’t sure she could summon to her face and voice the righteous fury that Sandreas could wield better than any weapon. Still, at least she took some comfort in the fact that Sid and Kino probably couldn’t do that, either.

She would consider herself friends with the both of them, though she wasn’t sure that Kino and Sid would have considered themselves anything approaching the same. At the very least, Yan liked them, and spending time with them, regardless of Sandreas’ presence, was pleasant.

Yan had gotten much better at sign, though she still wouldn’t consider herself anywhere near fluent. It was enough to casually converse with Sid without him needing to slowly spell out every fourth word, anyway. Kino hadn’t reached anywhere near that level of mastery, or at least she always seemed uncomfortable the few times she deigned to use sign, but she must have developed some kind of receptive bilingualism, because she watched Sid and would respond aloud to whatever he signed. This saved Yan the pain of having to awkwardly translate, whenever Sid got in a tetchy mood with her.

Life was good, in its own way. Yan was busy, but not so busy that she never saw Sylva. They typically had dinner together at least a few times during the tenday, and Yan often invited Sylva to Stonecourt itself to have lunch, when they could both get away from their duties for a second. She hadn’t yet introduced Sylva to Sandreas, and Sylva’s wrinkled nose whenever she saw Sid and Kino were enough for Yan to make a point of keeping them away from each other, but, once, Halen had stopped Yan in the hallway as she was bringing Sylva to the staff cafeteria.

Sylva tensed at his approach. Yan had told her all about Halen, and so she had inherited Yan’s distrust.

“Good afternoon, Yan. Who’s this with you?” Halen very obviously knew who Sylva was, since she had been coming and going with Yan for months, and nothing like that could have escaped his notice. His small smile could have indicated that he was feigning ignorance for Sylva’s sake, or that he was being obnoxious on purpose. Yan couldn’t tell.

She quickly made the introductions anyway, not wanting to cause a scene in the hallway. “Sylva, this is Halen; he works for First Sandreas. Halen, this is my friend from the Academy, Sylva Calor. She works in the IKRB.”

“I can tell,” Halen said. “Blue cape. Pleasure to meet you, Ms. Calor. I’m always happy to meet Yan’s friends.” He held out his hand to shake, and Sylva did, wary as ever.

“Pleasure.”

“Did you need me?” Yan asked.

“No,” Halen said, “Just passing through.” This was an obvious lie, and Yan narrowed her eyes. The way he was looking at Sylva made Yan slightly uncomfortable, as though he knew something that she didn’t, and Yan did not like that feeling in the least. There was a very awkward moment of silence in the hallway, the kind that Halen knew just how to draw out into true discomfort. Just before Yan was about to say something, anything, to let the both of them escape, Halen said, “Ms. Calor, perhaps Yan would like to invite you to dinner with herself and First Sandreas, sometime.”

“Oh,” Sylva squeaked. “I couldn’t.”

“Of course you could.” Halen smiled. “Aymon would like to meet you, I’m sure.”

“Maybe,” Yan said. She liked Sylva, and she liked Sandreas, but the thought of those two spheres of her life intersecting made something in her stomach turn. It was already almost too much to have Sylva and Halen meeting here in the hallway.

“Think about it, anyway,” Halen said. He patted Yan’s shoulder with his heavy hand, the gold ring on his finger glinting in the hallway light, then turned and headed back the way he had come, giving lie to his statement about only passing through.

“What was that about?” Sylva asked.

“I don’t know,” Yan said, but it had made her completely lose her appetite for lunch.

Yan’s usual routine involved waking up early in the mornings, getting breakfast on her walk to Stonecourt, then sitting down at her office desk to read the morning briefing that had been prepared for her. After that, there were any number of tasks that she could be assigned by Sandreas. Most often, she acted as Sandreas’ representative in minor functions where she would not be expected to provide any real input, like sitting in on meetings discussing Fleet strategy at the front, or colonization planning, or attending breakout sessions of the Imperial Council as an observer. Yan got the feeling that these types of things were more for her own education than they were for needing Sandreas’ representative to really be present. She found the colonization meetings the most interesting and she disliked all of the Fleet meetings. After a while, when she found her name penciled in on a meeting invite with Admiral Vaalks, Yan tried to trade away that duty to Sid or Kino.

The one time Sid had taken her up on that offer, Yan had been relieved, but the next day, Sandreas had summoned her into his office, alone. Yan knew she was in trouble from the first moment; when she knocked on the door, it opened with the touch of his power, and the wave of it washing over her felt colder than usual. She stood uncomfortably in front of his desk while he ignored her for a moment, shuffling some papers around. She was aware that this was a power play of his, but that didn’t stop it from working on her. She shifted her weight uncomfortably from foot to foot.

Without looking up at her, he said, “Do you know why you are assigned the duties you are given?”

“To learn,” Yan said.

“If you understand that, then I feel like I shouldn’t have to be having this conversation with you about abandoning them, Yan.”

“I’m sorry.” Even with just this minor telling off, the first one she had had in years, she felt truly wretched.

“Why did you trade assignments with Sid?”

“He is more interested in the Fleet than I am.” It was a half truth, at best.

Sandreas finally put down the papers he was fiddling with and looked up at her. “Sit, Yan.” She did, taking the seat in front of his desk in a hurry. “This would be an easier conversation to have if you had just been skiving off to go on a date with your girlfriend.”

“I-- What?”

“Shirking responsibilities out of laziness is easier to deal with. But you aren’t lazy. So why is it that you’re not doing the things that I need you to do?”

She looked down at her hands. “I just don’t enjoy the Fleet strategy meetings,” Yan said.

“Why?”

She debated lying. Halen wasn’t in the room, for which she was very grateful, so she might have been able to get away with it, but she wasn’t a particularly good liar, and Sandreas was waiting for her answer. Instead, she continued to look at her hands on her lap, twisting her fingers together. “The pictures of the Lionheart ,” she said. “I couldn’t watch that footage.”

The Lionheart was a Fleet ship that had been completely destroyed in an engagement en route to the Tyx starzone. Yan had seen the pictures of the destroyed ship, its rocky outer shell breached and trailing wreckage like guts spilling out of a body, and had needed to excuse herself from the meeting where the engagement had been discussed. She had sat in the bathroom with her head in her hands, trying to get the mental image of that happening to her family’s ship, the Iron Dreams , out of her mind.

Sandreas was silent for a moment. Yan shifted in her seat, not looking at him. “You understand,” he said, “that in the future, you will not have the luxury of looking away.” His voice was cold, stiflingly unpleasant.

“Yes, sir,” she said, falling back into formality that she had dropped with him long ago.

“You are lucky.” His voice changed slightly, and Yan looked up at him. Sandreas had turned, and was looking at the side of the room, where a photograph was hung, one Yan had seen many times before, of young Sandreas and his own master, First Herrault, along with two other people that Yan assumed were his fellow apprentices. “I learned from First Herrault’s mistakes, and I do not ever plan to send you, or Sid, or Kino, to actively direct a warzone. I don’t think it’s necessary.” Sandreas’ lips were pursed. “I think that had First Herrault not wanted to test us like that, Obra would be your master, instead of me.”

Yan nodded, not sure what to say.

“But just because I do not plan on sending you to the front does not mean that you can ignore what is happening there. You must understand what is at stake.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The adversary is an existential threat to every single person living within the Empire.”

“I know, sir.”

“I understand that it is unpleasant,” he said. “It is dirty, painful work. But choosing to remain ignorant because you do not like it means that you will be a less effective leader in the future. You cannot choose not to learn the operation of the Fleet, because someday, you may be at its head.”

“I know,” Yan said.

“When Obra was killed, I immediately had to take their place at the front, because First Herrault didn’t trust the Fleet leadership. It was one of her biggest weaknesses, wanting to do everything herself, trusting very few people to act as her proxies.” He shook his head. His tone was quieter, now. “I send you places in my stead already, because I need you to begin to form relationships with the rest of the Empire. You must trust the Fleet leadership; they must trust you. You must trust the Council; the Council must trust you. The same for the Guild, the same for the IKRB, the same for the governors. There’s a reason I introduced you at the Governors’ Dinner-- it was to offer them, and by proxy, all the Empire, a chance to know you first.”

“I understand, sir,” Yan said.

“If you make it clear through your actions that you do not like the Fleet, you will not be able to form those relationships of trust. If you flinch away from the sacrifices that the Fleet must make, you will not be seen as a leader who respects and understands those sacrifices.”

Yan nodded.

“I’m planning to take a trip to inspect the front, very soon. One of the three of you will come with me. I will not demand you come now, but think over what I’ve said.”

“I will,” Yan said. “I’m sorry, sir.”

Sandreas stood, and Yan hastily followed him up. He walked around the desk and put his hand on her arm, a gesture that Yan wasn’t sure if she should interpret as comforting or controlling. Perhaps it was both. He led her out of the room.

Yan kept thinking about Sandreas’s words over the next few weeks, mulling over the idea of visiting the front. She couldn’t make up her mind if she should ask to go or not. On one hand, she had absolutely no desire to go see it, even if it would be perfectly safe. On the other, Sandreas knew that she wouldn’t want to go, and so perhaps she should go against her nature and volunteer. She was playing mind games with herself, and still was, when Sandreas asked to meet the three apprentices in his office late one afternoon.

Halen let them into the office, and Yan paid him as little attention as possible as she sat down on the couch between Sid and Kino. There was no sign of Sandreas, and Sid elbowed Yan in the side, flashing her a sign asking where he was. Yan shrugged back.

Kino was more willing to ask Halen, who had silently gone to stand over by the window, looking out at the darkening sky. “Where’s Sandreas?” she asked.

“He just received an urgent message,” Halen said. “He should be back presently.”

“Urgent?” Yan asked. “What about?”

“It was from Guildmaster Vaneik. They’re speaking over the ansible now.”

Yan frowned. A thick silence fell over the group, though Yan thought she was the only one who was made uncomfortable by it. Kino kept picking at the sleeve of her cassock, thoroughly destroying the hem, while Halen stared out the window and Sid leaned back on the couch, a picture of relaxation.

Sandreas came back into his office about five very long minutes later, glancing at the three apprentices and saying, “Oh, good, you’re here.” He must have been fairly agitated, because he didn’t sit, and instead stood with one hand on the edge of his desk, the other on his chin. He looked at the apprentices for a moment, all three of them watching him for a hint at what they should be doing. “I was going to discuss my plans to visit the front with you,” he said, voice sharp, “but plans seem to have changed.”

“What did Vaneik want?” Sid asked.

Sandreas nodded slightly before speaking, as though he was running down some list in his head. “The Olar situation collapsed,” he said.

“What happened?”

“One of the ships that has a route to Olar, the Canticle of the Sun , was attacked by pirates in the Olar starzone.”

“Did they survive?” Yan asked.

“Yes,” Sandreas said. “They were able to hold out long enough to jump away.”

Yan relaxed back onto the couch. “Good,” she said.

“Unfortunately, however, Vaneik is making good on his promises. He’s temporarily rescinded all Guild charters for ships to trade with the planet.”

Sid and Kino were nonplussed at that, but Yan winced. “That’s not good.”

“No, it’s not,” Sandreas said. “Granted, this was his largest playing card, and he’s clearly hoping to have the situation resolved quickly. His own captains will be unhappy with him if he doesn’t give them their normal routes back.”

Disruption in routes meant disruption in schedules meant disruption in profits; Yan knew plenty about that, and was nodding slowly. “So is he going to just wait for Olar to capitulate?”

Sandreas leaned back against his desk. “Not precisely. Olar making assurances that they were solving their pirate problem has been going on for months now, but they clearly haven’t done enough. He wants us to step in, and put our own pressure on Olar.”

“Does he want you to put a Fleet ship in the system?” Sid asked.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“I think he’s accepted that won’t be happening, unless it’s our measure of last resort,” Sandreas said. “And nobody wants things to go that far. No, he’s probably just hoping we mobilize the forces on the planet with sub-light ships, to chase down anybody who’s trying to land shuttles crammed with contraband.”

“Seems reasonable,” Sid said.

“It’s not ideal. Olar would probably balk at it still, but they’re going to have some time to sit and stew, so by the time that we propose that, or something similar, they’ll probably agree.”

“You’re not going to right away?” Yan asked.

“It takes time to travel to Olar,” he said.

“You’re going?” Kino asked.

“No.” Sandreas’ smile was thin. “Two of you are.”

Sid leaned forward in interest. “Who?”

“I told Yan a while ago that she would have a choice. One of you will be coming with me to the front, to Tyx-III. The other two will head to Olar as my representatives. It should be a relatively easy task, to get Olar and the Guild to come to an agreement. You may decide who’s going where.”

Yan looked at Sid and Kino on either side of her. Although she was still wondering if Sandreas wanted her to go to the front, she had the thought that putting Sid and Kino on some sort of task where they had to work together was asking for trouble. She would wait for them to volunteer themselves. She didn’t have to wait long.

“I want to go to the front,” Kino said.

Halen seemed startled by that, turning away from the window where he had been silently listening to look at Kino. Sandreas just nodded. “Good. Then Yan, Sid, you’ll be heading to Olar. Kino, you and I will be taking my ship, the First Star , which means that you two will be hitching a ride with the Guild. I trust that’s not a problem?”

“Which ship will we be on?” Yan asked.

“Vaneik told me that the Sky Boat is willing to take you to Olar. Do you know them?”

“Vaguely,” Yan said, trying to wrack her memory for if any member of her family had married into that ship, or the other way around. She was coming up blank, though.

Sandreas nodded. “Well, I’m sure you’ll get along with them just fine. And Sid, I’m sure you’ll be on your best behavior.”

“It’s not like I’ve never been on a Guild ship before,” Sid huffed. “I went back and forth to Galena every summer for ten years.”

“Slightly different when you’re a VIP,” Halen intoned from the back of the room.

“When are we leaving?” Yan asked.

“The Sky Boat will be here in five days,” Sandreas said. “I’m releasing you from all duties aside from briefings until then, so make whatever preparations you need to. And, Kino, you and I will be heading out in two weeks.”

“Why aren’t you going to Olar?” Sid asked, as though the thought had just crossed his mind. “Won’t the Guild see it as a snub?”

“Vaneik will also be sending one of his apprentices to deal with the problem. If it’s a snub to anyone, it’s a snub to Olar, and they’re the ones causing the problem, so they don’t have room to complain,” Sandreas said. “And you’re going, because I think you can handle this. You have to be independent eventually, and this is an easy task, as far as things go. All the pressure is coming from the Guild. You just have to offer a way to relieve it, which I will give to you.”

“What do you think?” Sid asked, turning to Yan and elbowing her again. “Think we can handle it?”

She felt less sure than she sounded when she smiled and said, “Yes, of course.”

“Excellent,” Sandreas said.

----------------------------------------

One thing that Yan wasn’t entirely looking forward to was telling Sylva that she was leaving on an extended trip, because she knew that Sylva would not take the news well. The journey to Olar and back, given travel time and how long they would probably need to stay on the planet, would likely take at least a thirtyday, probably even closer to a month. Yan and Sylva hadn’t gone that long without seeing each other since-- Yan did the mental math-- their seventh year at the Academy, when Sylva’s parents refused to let Sylva spend her summer vacation on the Iron Dreams.

Yan had texted Sylva the next morning, asking if she wanted to get dinner, because there was something that she needed to tell her, and Sylva had texted back immediately.

> yes, I’d love to

> tbh there’s something that I need to tell you too.

Yan didn’t think that she had ever received a less encouraging message, and so she spent the whole day when she should have been studying or packing for her upcoming trip alternating between meditating and watching mindless television.

She had agreed to meet Sylva at a nearby, very nice restaurant. Yan arrived before Sylva did, and sat at their small table near the back, nervously twirling the water around in her glass and watching the other patrons of the restaurant. The place was dim, so she couldn’t see their faces, but the muted sounds of sparkling conversation washed over her with the soft music, and took her out of her own head, at least a little.

Sylva appeared at the door, about ten minutes late. It was the kind of thing that regularly happened, so Yan had been expecting it. Sylva locked eyes with Yan from across the room as she came over, a weird smile on her face.

“Hey,” Yan said as Sylva sat. “Glad you could make it.”

“Sorry for being a little late.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Yan said, smiling. “I didn’t think you’d abandon me.”

Sylva laughed a little. “I’m glad.”

Although both had told the other that they had something to talk about, it was abundantly clear that neither of them really wanted to mention whatever they were thinking about, at least not immediately. Yan ordered some wine, and when it came, they both raised their glasses to each other.

“Cheers,” Yan said.

Sylva smiled at her, though there was something uncomfortable about her posture. “Cheers.” She took a sip. “How has your day been?”

“I don’t know, to be honest,” Yan said. “I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed.”

“Really?” Sylva asked. “You look fine to me.”

“Thanks.” Yan fiddled with her glass some more.

“What’s whelming you?”

“A lot of things, I guess. First Sandreas has started putting more responsibility on me, I think. Or, it feels like responsibility, even though maybe some of it doesn’t actually have to be done by anyone.” She wasn’t sure she was making sense.

“More Fleet meetings?”

“Haven’t had one of those in a couple days,” Yan said. “I’m glad about that, at least.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you been following the whole Olar thing?”

“Only as much as you’ve told me,” Sylva said.

Yan explained the developments of the situation, though she omitted the fact that she and Sid were going to be travelling to Olar. Although telling Sylva that she was leaving had been the reason she had asked to meet, she suddenly didn’t want to spoil the mood by bringing it up. She was sure that Sylva would be unhappy, and she wanted to at least wait until they had enjoyed their meal. The food came, and Yan quickly wrapped up her drawn out explanation of the Guild’s politics.

“Well, Sandreas should just send a Fleet ship,” Sylva said dismissively. “No pirates would come anywhere nearby if they knew one of those was waiting for them to jump into the system.”

Yan shook her head. “I don’t think he can spare any.”

Sylva pursed her lips, then gestured with her fork. “I’m sure that he could, if he wanted to.”

“Maybe,” Yan said. “How have you been?”

Sylva heaved a bit of a dramatic sigh. “You know how it is.”

“Not really, no,” Yan said.

“My mentor refuses to acknowledge that I am terrible at meditating. Even though the amount of pain that we collectively go through every time she makes me is just so much.”

“You’re not as bad as you make it sound. I’ve seen you do it. You managed to graduate from the Academy, anyway.”

“Barely,” Sylva muttered, looking away.

“And your mentor wouldn’t do it with you if she really couldn’t bear it.”

“Yeah, she has God’s own patience for making me do it, for whatever reason, even if she can’t keep a thought straight about anything else.”

“Do you not like her?”

“No,” Sylva said. “I love her. She’s great. I just suck at my job.”

“You don’t.”

“You wouldn’t know,” Sylva said. “Since you’re good at yours.”

“I don’t know about that,” Yan said.

“Come on, you’re good at everything.”

“That’s definitely not true.”

“Name one thing you’re bad at.”

“Cooking,” Yan said.

“Yeah, that’s because you never do it. Name another.”

“Swimming.”

“Doesn’t count.”

“I nearly failed that painting class we took together.”

“You didn’t ‘nearly fail.’”

“It was a pity pass.”

Sylva laughed, some of the weird mood broken. “Well, maybe we’ll both get kicked out of our apprenticeships for being bad at them.”

“And then what would we do?” Yan asked, wanting to disagree that this would ever happen, but knowing that Sylva wasn’t likely to be dissuaded from her pessimism.

“Your family would take us in, right?”

“Oh, yeah, they would.”

“Perfect,” Sylva said. “That’s our fallback, then.”

“Sure,” Yan said with a smile. “Captain Pellon loves you, so that wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Even though I’m barely tolerable as a crew member.”

Yan chuckled. “I’m sure if we went to live there permanently, you’d be put to real work, and you’d catch on fast.”

“You know what? Maybe our fallback plan should be to go find an out of the way spot in the woods and just build a cabin there, and then nobody could make us do anything.”

“You’re just being lazy,” Yan said.

“And what if I am?” But Sylva was smiling.

They finished their meal and ordered dessert: strawberry shortcake for Sylva, fried ice cream for Yan. Yan ate hers slowly, tapping through the crisp shell with her spoon and then eating the ice cream tiny scoops at a time. She kept looking up at Sylva, wondering if she was going to say whatever she had wanted to talk to Yan about. Sylva, though she speared her delicately arranged dessert much more aggressively than Yan did hers, seemed to be making the same calculation, sneaking looks at Yan and half-opening her mouth to say something, though she never did, and would cram another bite in her mouth to cover the movement. They both knew that they would go their separate ways after dinner, so they were coming up on that unspoken, self-imposed deadline.

Yan couldn’t bear it any longer. Her ice cream was melting into sludge on her plate. “You mentioned that you had something you wanted to talk to me about?” she asked.

Sylva’s face flushed red, her freckles standing out on her cheeks. “You did, too.”

“You first,” Yan said. “Since you won’t like what I have to say.” Sylva looked at her with wide, alarmed eyes, and Yan backtracked a little. “It’s not that bad,” she said. “Just a stupid work thing.”

“Oh,” Sylva said. “Okay.”

There was a momentary silence. Sylva wasn’t meeting Yan’s eyes, looking just off to the side of her, and Yan looked down at her plate to avoid the uncomfortable gaze.

“Promise you won’t laugh at me, okay?” Sylva asked.

“Why would I laugh at you?”

“Because I’m really fucking stupid.”

“No--”

“Yan…”

“What is it?”

And then it all came out in a rush, the words spilling out from Sylva as though she couldn’t contain them. “I think I’m in love with you, and I have been for a really long time, and I just can’t keep pretending that I’m not anymore, and maybe you already knew that, I don’t know, and I know that you probably don’t feel the same way but I just have to say something, because I’m losing my mind, and because I feel like if I don’t you’re going to, I don’t know…” And then she trailed off, voice choked up, still not looking at Yan.

“Oh,” Yan said. “I didn’t know.”

She didn’t entirely know what to do with herself. Sylva kept looking at her, waiting for some sort of sign or signal, but the spoon was just dangling loosely from Yan’s fingers, and she couldn’t quite look at anything directly. The inside of the restaurant suddenly felt too warm, and Yan wanted to escape from the situation, get away from whatever feelings were churning around in her stomach, unidentifiable.

“I’ve fucked this up, haven’t I?” Sylva said, putting her beet-red face in her hands.

“No-- Sylva-- I just--” Yan tried to say anything to recover the situation, but that seemed impossible.

“I should go,” Sylva said. She fumbled around in her pockets for her wallet, accidentally dropped it on the floor, and by the time that she had finished retrieving it from the floor, Yan had already stuck cash to pay for both their meals on top of the bill.

“I’ve got it,” Yan said. “Don’t worry about it.”

Sylva just nodded, though she was clearly on the verge of tears. Still, she managed to ask, “What was it you were going to tell me?”

“Oh.” Yan still had no desire to admit to it, especially right at this moment, but she said, “First Sandreas is sending me to Olar. To handle negotiations. I’m leaving this week, and I probably won’t be back for a thirtyday.”

Sylva was silent for a moment, half turned away. “Maybe it’s for the best,” she said.

“I don’t want to go,” Yan offered.

Sylva just shrugged, shoulders hunched, then stood. “I’ll see you when you get back, right?”

“Yes, of course.” Yan tried to put reassurance into her tone. “And I’m sure I’ll ansible call you when I get to Olar.”

“I don’t have an ansible card.”

“I’ll get you one,” Yan said. “I promise.”

“Okay.” Sylva’s voice was flat. “Have a good trip, I guess.”

“I’ll try,” Yan said. Sylva started walking away, and Yan grabbed her arm, stopping her. “Hey, Sylva.”

“What?” She looked at Yan with an expression that perfectly balanced on the line between hope and shame.

“Thank you for telling me,” Yan said. She let go of Sylva’s arm.

“Yeah,” Sylva said. “I guess.” And then she ran out, dodging out of the way of the waiter who was coming to collect the bill.

----------------------------------------

Yan walked home to her apartment, feeling bad in a way that she couldn’t quite define. Sylva’s confession kept running through her brain, and while she could focus on those words, there was something stopping her from pulling her own feelings to the forefront of her mind. Every time she asked herself the important question, how did she feel about Sylva, she became so uncomfortable that she pushed it away.

Sylva was the best, and at times only, friend Yan had. They had lived together in the Academy dorms for ten years. They had spent practically all of their free time together for just as long. Until Yan had taken her apprenticeship, that was.

She thought back to how distraught Sylva had been over that, when Yan had told her that they wouldn’t be living together. And she thought, too, about how so many of the times that she had invited Sylva out to eat, or to hang out at her apartment, had been tinged with a kind of quiet desperation, especially when it came time for them to go their separate ways. Neither of them wanted the other to leave, but Sylva more so.

Maybe this was just Sylva’s way of asking Yan to reassure her of her place in her life. That must be it.

Yan took the stairs up to her apartment and encountered Sid standing out in the hallway in his shirtsleeves, eating a slice of pizza and staring out the window to the street. He jammed the pizza in his mouth so that he could sign hello to Yan as she approached.

“Did you see where Kino went?” Sid asked.

“What?”

“Kino. She just left. I wonder where she is going.”

“No, I didn’t see her on the street,” Yan signed.

“I saw the two of you pass each other.” Sid frowned.

“Are you sure? I would have said hello if I saw her.”

“Yes, I’m sure. I’m deaf, not blind.”

Yan rolled her eyes. “Why do you care where Kino went?”

“It’s not like she has any business going out.”

“She’s allowed to go on a walk.”

“Look,” Sid signed, pointing down the street. “There’s Kino’s minder.”

Indeed, the person who had been assigned to watch Kino, filling the same role as Iri did for Yan, had appeared on the dark street corner, looking both ways as though confused about where Kino had gone. It was strange, but this strangeness had temporarily distracted Yan from her thoughts about Sylva, so that was at least a blessing.

Sid looked at Yan eagerly. “Let’s follow her. See where she went.”

“Her minder lost her. Why would we be able to find her?”

Sid ignored her protest and grabbed her arm, tugging Yan at a run all the way back out onto the street. They headed in the direction Sid claimed that Kino had gone, and just stuck to the main street. Yan, who was not that invested in this, could nevertheless feel Sid using his power to search for Kino. She didn’t think he would find her; Kino was, for whatever reason, remarkably hard to find, in a way that Yan couldn’t quite put her finger on. Once she had caught hold of Kino’s presence in the power, Yan immediately recognized it, and would wonder why it had felt so hard to identify, but as soon as she let go of that feeling, even for just an instant, it went back to feeling as though Kino was invisible, some kind of weird blank spot in the universe.

Sid dragged Yan along, seeming to have more of an intuition about where Kino was than Yan did. He huffed aloud as they jogged down the street, “I followed her this way once, but then lost her a little ways from here. Maybe she went the same direction.”

Their speed and Sid’s random guesses paid off, because after a minute, they saw Kino cross the road at a busy intersection, neatly dodging in between cars just as they came to a stop at the light. When she reached the other side of the street, she paused, then turned and looked directly behind herself at Sid and Yan. They were too far away to see the expression on her face, but it was clear that Kino knew she was being followed, and when she began walking again, it was slower, allowing Yan and Sid to catch up. They did, running the rest of the way towards her, barely making it across the street before the light turned green again.

“Why are you following me?” Kino asked in her monotone voice, as soon as Yan and Sid were close enough to hear her. She didn’t turn around to look at them again, continuing to march straight ahead.

“You lost your minder,” Sid said.

“I know.”

“Didn’t think we were good enough trackers to find you when she couldn’t.”

“I let you find me,” Kino said.

Sid glanced at Yan, who shrugged. “Where are you headed?” Yan asked.

“Club Blackstar,” Kino said.

“Is that the club where all the Academy students go?” Sid asked. “Or was that the one on, uh, 28th Street?”

“No,” Kino said. “I don’t know where they go. This is where I go.”

“You dance?” Yan asked.

“No.”

Sid rolled his eyes, but they both followed Kino further and further away from the city center. It was a long walk. Kino was inexhaustible, and kept a steady, fast pace. Yan’s feet ached after a while, and she was cold in the spring night air. Kino, who wasn’t even wearing her cassock, seemed unaffected, though Yan couldn’t see how. Sid had jammed his hands into his pockets to stay warm.

The sound of the club was apparent even before they turned the corner. The music throbbed out in rhythmic thumps, accompanied by neon flashing lights, splashing out into the darkness of the street. There was a long line of people trying to get in, but Kino walked directly up to the bouncer, yelled, “I’m here for Mahmoud,” and was ushered in, along with Yan and Sid.

Although on the street, wearing their cassocks and capes, they had stood out like sore thumbs, the interior of the club was very dark, so they were hardly visible at all. The music was a hammer on Yan’s ears, so loud that she could barely register it as music, but Sid was grinning and stepping in time to the beat, following Kino through the shoulder to shoulder crowd. Kino walked right up to the huge speakers at the front of the room, then waved at the DJ, bathed in green light, who looked up, saw her, then made a “one moment” motion, and jerked his head behind him.

Clumsily, Kino signed, “Be right back.”

“Can I come?” Sid asked.

“No.”

Kino immediately turned and vanished into the crowd, leaving Yan and Sid by themselves. Sid was still grinning at Yan. “Want to dance?”

“I hate it here,” she signed back. “Too loud.”

“Let’s dance,” Sid insisted.

Yan didn’t have the mental presence to argue with him, so assaulted was she by the noise. Sid pulled her into the crowd, away from the speakers just enough that she could think. He put his hands up, dancing in a very naive, though not clumsy, way, urging her to move with him. They were mere inches apart, pressed together by the heavy crowd of anonymous bodies, pushed and pulled with the rhythm of the music.

Yan looked at Sid. She could feel his power reach out towards her, an invitation. There wasn’t enough space for Yan to sign to him and she didn’t want to try to yell over the music, so she was forced to grab his hand, speaking to him through that physical connection in the power. “What about Kino?” she asked mentally.

“Who cares? Come on, Yan.”

She thought briefly of Sylva as Sid was pushed against her, chest to chest, and maybe it was her desire to not think about that, or the fact that she couldn’t bear the noise in the club alone, but she nodded.

They moved in tandem, hands together. Yan closed her eyes against the flashing lights, and then it was just her and the throb of the music in her bones, and Sid right there next to her, hot and alive, his power touching hers, letting her in.

And then they were together, sharing that meditative space that Yan was only ever used to using in quiet contemplation with someone else, not here on the dance floor. Sid took some control of that mental space, and the sound of the club vanished, replaced by a blessed-- if strange-- dead silence. Yan was fixated on that for a second, and then noticed the way that Sid felt the music, the hum in the soles of his feet with the music’s bass, urging him to move, the visual rhythm of every dancer on the floor moving together.

Yan, the more experienced dancer, controlled their movements, totally synchronised. Sid was laughing, or maybe it was her who was laughing, the sound coming out of one of their mouths, or both, registering as a huff of breath out of their noses, Sid’s grin on both their faces.

I should have gone to those Academy parties, Sid said in their shared mental space, accompanied with an image of what he supposed they looked like. It was rather inappropriate. Yan pushed it back and offered a fear about getting in trouble, and he returned a mental shrug and wink.

You ever dance? Sid asked.

A memory rose to Yan’s mind, her whole family stomping and whirling in the Iron Dreams ’ mess hall, all the tables pushed to the side of the room, her uncle Maxes making his fiddle shriek and wail, Captain Pellon sounding out the verses with his authoritative voice, Yan tripping over her younger cousins as they rushed onto and off of the makeshift dance floor. It was a memory from the summer, and Sylva had been there, standing on the edge of the room, not quite sure how to join in the festivities, and Yan had grabbed her by both hands and spun her around and around and around.

The memory was a tender one, and, although it came from Yan, she tried to shy away from it once she realized exactly how tender it was, the way her mental gaze had lingered on Sylva standing uncomfortably at the edge of the party, how she had noticed her auburn braids catching the light.

What’s the matter? Sid asked.

Unbidden, the image of the dinner she had just left came to her head, along with the gnawing dread that she had destroyed something precious rose up within her.

You idiot, Sid said, but left it at that. Look, there’s Kino.

Indeed, he turned both their heads to look at her, emerging from a dark doorway near the stage. She pushed her way through the crowd, ducking under elbows and dodging knees, ignoring with a flat stare anyone who tried to touch her.

She recognized immediately that Yan and Sid were sharing a mental space, and Yan was moved to offer her a hand, not wanting her to feel left out, though she could feel Sid laughing at her.

She doesn’t care , Sid said.

“Join us?” Yan asked aloud, still holding out her hand to Kino, who was standing stiff as a board among the swaying mass of bodies.

“Do you want me?” she asked. Yan, for the first time, realized how Sid was able to understand spoken language. Seeing through his eyes, the words Kino had spoken appeared projected on his glasses: subtitles. She was momentarily distracted by this, and Sid offered her a diagram of how they worked, though Yan pushed it away in order to focus on answering Kino’s question.

“Yes,” she said.

Kino considered for a second, then took Yan’s hand, closing her eyes and moving ever so slightly to the rhythm of the music. She slipped into the meditation with them quickly, though it was odd-- it was as though she was there and not there at the same time. Yan could see through her eyes when she opened them, and Kino’s body moved in synch with her and Sid, but touching Kino’s mind was like attempting to look through the dark glass of a two way mirror. There was nothing there but Yan’s own curious intentions, until Kino noticed Yan trying to look, and a dark amusement flashed onto the surface of the glass, though it felt somehow as though it was coming from Yan herself, the foreign feeling rising up inside her, reflecting in the mirror what Kino wanted her to see.

There’s nothing to it at all, Kino thought, or Yan thought-- she couldn’t really tell.

Sid was unaffected by this strangeness. What did you come here for? he asked.

Sid’s hand reached into Kino’s pocket, and all three of them felt his fingers close around the bag of pills. Yan shivered with disgust and pulled Sid’s hand away so that she wouldn’t have to touch it anymore.

Let’s just dance, Yan thought. And, although the mental voice saying it hadn’t quite been hers, the mirror image’s lips moving without her speaking, she couldn’t help but agree.