The Home of the Past - Part Three

> "The voice of God is my love's voice. My love's voice carries God's commands. Just as I am loved, and I love my love, so too does God carry all our hearts."

>

> -from 'Seventh Song: Love'

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Aymon ordered the remaining shuttles to surround that little pirate vessel and escort it back to the Whitewater. It was docile and silent, taking orders and saying nothing. Perhaps he should have had his people board the shuttle, but it seemed far less dangerous to all to simply allow it to land in the Whitewater's bay. The pilot seemed competent enough and compliant enough.

Aymon himself returned to the Whitewater first, meeting the captain to talk.

The Whitewater's captain seemed to be going through all the stages of feeling at once, face turning red then pale in alternating shifts, contemplating the fate that had befallen so much of his crew and the way that Aymon had resolved the situation. It was unfortunate, Aymon considered, that he was forced to remain with the Whitewater until First Herrault called him back to civilization. He doubted that he was a welcome guest any longer, and he doubted that his prisoner would be any more of one.

"He will be drugged at all times," the captain said. "I will not be letting someone that dangerous around here remain in full control of his facilities."

Aymon shrugged. He wasn't stupid. So along with the doctor and a full security compliment, he met the shuttle holding their captive in one of the bays.

Aymon stood on the floor of the bay, with the magnetic soles of his shoes engaging with the floor enough to keep him down, and watched as the door of the shuttle cracked open. The air that came out of it smelled stale, with a lingering odor of fear. It took a moment more for the man to emerge, and when he did, all the guns of the Whitewater's security were trained on him. Aymon had his power ready at his fingertips, but he was calm, and he suspected that this man wasn't going to try anything dangerous.

The man, Halen, his name was, drifted into the light of the bay, blinking. He was larger in person than Aymon had imagined, and quite possibly the ugliest man he had ever seen. His hair was short and brown, and his face was pale but for a rose of red splotches that covered his cheeks. Aymon had glimpsed that on the video that they had received, so he supposed that this was just a permanent feature of this hulk of a man. Halen looked around at the assembly, and his eyes settled on Aymon immediately. Aymon didn't know how or why, as he was dressed the same as any other member of the Whitewater's crew. He had given up his cassock temporarily in favor of the practicality of the classic spacer jumpsuit.

"You're Aymon," Halen said. He kept one hand on the side of his shuttle, perhaps for the ability it would give him to push off into the bay if he needed to, but other than that did not move. Aymon took a few steps forward, awkward in the lack of gravity, and held out his hand to shake. Halen towered over him, but Aymon was not particularly afraid.

"I am," Aymon said. "And you are Halen."

Halen's face twisted fractionally, and considered him for a second before stretching out his hand. When their hands met, there was a spark of recognition between them, the ease of communication through the power. It was surprisingly easy, with none of the muffled feeling he sometimes got from trying to talk to his master, or to Obra, his fellow apprentice.

"I will not allow any harm to come to you," Aymon said in the power. "But you need to cooperate for your own sake."

Halen was silent and did not respond, simply looked around at the guards circling them. Halen brought his power up, and pressed it lightly against Aymon's being, testing him somehow, feeling him out. Aymon let him, though he would have stopped immediately had there been any sign that he was in danger. All the while, they had not let go of the handshake.

Halen was the one to drop it. "I am your prisoner," he said, clearly resigned. "What are you going to do with me?"

"You are a pirate," Aymon said.

"Yes."

"The punishment for piracy is death, is it not?"

Halen stared into Aymon's eyes without blinking, and Aymon couldn't suppress a slight shiver that ran through him. "Are you a liar, Aymon?" Halen asked.

Aymon relented and smiled. "There are so few sensitives in the universe, fewer still since you killed the two who were part of the crew of this ship. It would be a shame for you to die at the hands of a tribunal. We'll find something to do with you. For now, though, you are indeed our prisoner."

Halen continued staring at Aymon. "And what does that entail?" Halen's voice was soft and deep, surprisingly quiet.

"I'm sorry for the indignity of it, but you understand that we will have to drug you," Aymon said. "And you will be confined."

"Vena?"

"We're not so uncivilized as that," Aymon said, and he pulled from his pocket the two pills wrapped in paper that had been given to him by the ship's doctor. He held them out to Halen, who unwrapped them with stiff and thick fingers. They drifted in the air, small white capsules. Halen had a solemn look on his face.

"And you swear that you are not simply going to kill me?"

Aymon pursed his lips. How many assurances would he need to give? "Just take it. We can discuss the future when it comes closer."

The way that Halen didn't take his eyes off of Aymon's face was disconcerting, but Halen took the pills and swallowed them both, splaying his hands out at his sides when he was done. "And you will confine me," he said.

Aymon nodded to the security force and they came shuffling forward. They handcuffed Halen and began leading him away. He offered no resistance, but glanced over his shoulder toward Aymon. "Don't touch my shuttle, please."

Aymon looked between him and the shuttle, figured that there wouldn't be any harm in leaving it alone. "I promise we won't destroy it," Aymon said, though he certainly would be checking it over to ensure that there wasn't some sort of bomb inside it.

Halen seemed to accept this, and silently left.

Now was as good of a time as any to check over the shuttle, making sure that it didn't have anything dangerous going on. Aymon climbed inside the open door, again catching that smell of contained air that even the best air filters couldn't quite escape. The interior of the shuttle was small, as most were, and it appeared lived in and well used, with scratches all over the plastic parts from people constantly bumping against them, and an outdated console. He was wary, keeping his power up, just in case this thing was booby trapped, but he didn't think that Halen was the type for that.

He came to the back of the shuttle, and there he saw it. The stardrive. That was the only thing it could be, as the giant tangle of wires and tubes and metal sheeting were so incongruous with the rest of the interior of the shuttle. It was hooked up to the shuttle's engines, taking power from them, and he reached out with his mind, investigating. The stardrive was quiescent, as most were, in that odd half slumber that they only roused from when it was time to jump. Mostly machine, but a dreaming machine.

He certainly hadn't expected to find this here. In fact, the Whitewater's sensors were still furiously scanning the local space for any ship that this shuttle may have come off of. With the discovery of the stardrive, Aymon knew that there was no ship. It seemed impossible, but it was clearly true. It only made him feel more curiosity towards that man, his prisoner, who was being escorted to a secure room in the Whitewater.

It might be dangerous to keep this stardrive, Aymon thought. After all, stardrives were, in a way, sensitives. If this one, which was already capable of behaving oddly by virtue of being in a shuttle, decided that it wanted to jump, Aymon didn't know if there was any recourse, any stopping it. It could rip a hole in the Whitewater's hull and kill them all.

He probed with the power again. The stardrive made no indication of being aware of his presence at all. Aymon weighed his options. Clearly Halen was attached to the stardrive, even if just for its monetary value. That could be a bargaining chip. It was as dangerous as keeping Halen himself, perhaps. No more or less so.

Aymon climbed out of the shuttle, closed the door.

"We'll leave this alone," he said to the guards. "It's not booby trapped."

"As you say, Apprentice."

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Aymon brought Halen a breakfast from the officer's mess. Aymon didn't particularly like eating there, especially after the disaster (Halen) that had befallen a good chunk of the Whitewater's crew. The crew, which had already seen him as an outsider, now blamed him, at least in part, for what had happened. Aymon had a nagging worry that someone would try to kill Halen, but Fleet soldiers could generally be counted on to follow orders. Their orders, relayed via their captain by Aymon, were that no harm should come to their prisoner. Aymon still wasn't sure what he was going to do with Halen in general, but that was something that would be figured out in fine detail when he returned to Emerri. He was beginning to have some smidgens of ideas, though.

So he carried two meals down to Halen's little prison, finding that he was the only person on board the ship who was not contractually obligated to look at him with a combination of indifference, deference, scorn, and anger. Certainly the way that Halen looked at him was not pleasant, but it was a change.

He knocked on the door, nodding to the two guards posted outside. They shared a glance at each other, which Aymon saw but couldn't interpret.

"Come in," Halen said

Aymon keyed in the door passcode and opened the door, keeping his power at the ready, just in case. There was no need, of course. Halen was seated on his bed reading something on the tablet that had been granted to him. He was wearing a Fleet jumpsuit, though it had been a challenge to find one that fit him (he was truly massive), and he had it pulled halfway down, with the arms tied around the waist, leaving him with just an undershirt on the top, exposing his thick cords of muscle. Aymon had always thought of pirates as being heavily tattooed, but Halen, as far as Aymon could tell, had none. He looked up at Aymon as he came in and shut the door behind him, but didn't say anything.

"What are you reading?" Aymon asked, setting down the food on the desk and pulling out the chair with his foot to have a seat.

"The Coercion of the Songbird," Halen said.

Aymon laughed. That was a famous novel that came off his own homeworld, Lonn.

"You've read it?" Halen asked.

"I escaped reading it," Aymon said. "I'm from Lonn. It's required reading in all the upper schools there, but I went to the Academy, so I avoided having it in my curriculum."

"It's good," Halen said. "My mother said it was her favorite novel. I see why, now." Halen put the tablet down and sat up straight, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. There was very little room, so this action brought the two men uncomfortably close.

"I brought some breakfast," Aymon said, handing a tray over to Halen.

"I see. I assume you're not here to talk about literature." Halen pulled the container open, revealing some steaming but limp pancakes, and balanced the tray on his lap.

"I'm simply here to talk," Aymon said, opening his own breakfast and generously dousing his pancakes with syrup. "We both find ourselves as outcasts from the crew, you know."

"But only one of us is a prisoner," Halen said. He ripped a pancake apart with his hands and ate it plain.

Aymon shrugged. "It is the way of things. How are you holding up?"

"I would like to not be drugged," Halen said.

"It's not supposed to impact your mental or physical functioning in any way," Aymon said.

Halen laughed at that, his mouth half full of food. "I'd like you to try it and then tell me that."

"What does it feel like?"

"Like a constant buzz in my head," he said. "If the power works on attention, it feels like it's constantly trying to rip that attention away from me."

"I am hopeful that this will be a temporary measure."

"Until what, you can get someone to put one of those Fleet chips in my head?"

Aymon looked up, startled. "You know about that?"

"Perhaps the Empire's secrets might be common knowledge among pirates." He took a drink of coffee. "By the way, you never did tell me who you are."

"I'm not going to put a Fleet chip in your head, unless I'm planning to ship you off to the Fleet," Aymon said. "I'm surprised you haven't guessed yet."

"You can't be the captain of the ship," Halen said. "I don't know. I have never found it necessary to pay attention to Imperial goings on. Not enough to name everyone with a name, anyway."

"You might want to change that," Aymon said. "We're going to Emerri, by the way. Have you ever been there?"

"Why in God's universe would I have been to Emerri?" Halen asked. "I've never set foot on a planet."

The idea of that shocked Aymon a little bit, and he twitched ever so slightly. "Well, I'm sorry that your first visit to a planet will be under such circumstances, then."

Halen shrugged. "How is my shuttle?" he asked.

"I have ordered your stardrive to be left alone," Aymon said. Halen didn't seem surprised to learn that Aymon had investigated the stardrive. "Attached to it, are you?"

"Yes," Halen said.

"Well, I'm sure that there will be no problems with keeping it around," Aymon said.

"You still haven't told me who you are, or what you plan to do with me," Halen said.

Aymon took a couple bites of food before responding. "Aymon Sandreas," he said. "Sensitive. Apprentice to First Herrault, Voice of the Empire."

Halen stared at him, with that piercing soft stare of his. "It's funny. Usually I would be able to tell if you were lying to me."

"I have no reason to lie," Aymon said. "We're going back to Emerri. I'm sure you will see the truth for yourself then."

"Perhaps," Halen said. "But it's a well known tactic to lie to prisoners, in order to get them to do what you want."

"And what would I gain by lying?" Aymon asked. "Are you more inclined to listen to me if I say that I'm Apprentice Sandreas, rather than if I claimed to be, say, 2nd Lieutenant Sandreas of the Fleet ship Whitewater, or Stardrive Maker Sandreas, or Sandreas, literature expert?" He was attempting to lighten the mood, but Halen's eyes never left his face.

"I can't know unless you tell me what you want from me." Halen's voice was still so soft. Looking at the size of Halen's chest, Aymon would have expected anything he said to fill the whole tiny room, but his own speech was louder, and it felt shrill in his own ears. If he hadn't known Halen to be a quite capable opponent, dangerous and fierce, he might have mistaken the slow quietness of Halen for stupidity. Certainly the image he bore was one of a brute. "I owe you my life, in some twisted way. You must have a reason for keeping me alive. It isn't pity. It certainly isn't simple value for human life. I'm useful to you."

Aymon leaned back in his seat, met Halen's stare. "Yes. Perhaps."

"So tell me what you want."

"I didn't lie to you, when I said that I am Apprentice to First Herrault. There is one other apprentice, Obra Zacks, and First Herrault's daughter, Frae, who work with me. We all live dangerous lives, you know. There used to be a third apprentice, but..." Aymon trailed off. The death of Jalena was fresh in his mind, even though it had been over a year. "Only one of us will survive to become Second, then First."

Halen stared at him without speaking. It was disconcerting, the way he did that.

"Herrault wants Frae to be her successor. It isn't going to happen. I don't have to be able to see the future to know that," Aymon continued.

"Why not?"

"She's not a sensitive," Aymon said, waving his hand. "Even if she survives, the Emperor would never allow it."

"So why would First Herrault have that desire?" Halen asked. It was a natural question.

"Because she looked at the way that Treygar Vaneik--" He paused, looked at Halen.

"Yes, I know who Vaneik is. I'm not stupid."

"Treygar Vaneik wants his own son, Ungarti, to become Guildmaster, and that will happen. We can all see the signs."

"Guildmasters operate in a different world than the Voice does," Halen said.

"Precisely. And Herrault is deluding herself thinking that she could live in that world."

"What's your point?"

"One of us, though certainly not Frae, is going to be Herrault's successor. The others will die. When Frae dies, well, Herrault will remove herself from the equation."

Halen remained silent, even though Aymon kept looking at him for a trace of acknowledgement.

"I would like to ensure that I am the one who survives," Aymon said finally. "I don't want to find myself alone at the wrong end of a dangerous game."

"You want me to kill the others?" Halen asked. He was very, very quiet.

"You have a low opinion of me," Aymon said. "No."

"Then what?"

"I would like to hire you as protection. Assistant, perhaps. You could accompany me in my work, and be a set of eyes looking where I cannot."

Halen folded his arms across his chest. "It seems eminently stupid to hire an enemy of the state to protect a possible future head of the state."

"Oh, we can give you fake records. No one ever has to know that you were once a pirate."

"Are you really so stupid as to not consider what would happen if I used the kind of closeness you are describing to simply kill you? Wouldn't that be the most likely outcome?"

"I was under the impression that there was a certain type of honor among pirates."

Halen was silent.

"Think of this as enlisting onto a new ship," Aymon said. "I will be your captain."

Halen tore a piece of pancake apart. "That's not how anything works."

Aymon laughed. "Of course it's not. But I have reason to believe that you won't kill me, or anyone else for that matter. I don't look at you and see a man who enjoys killing. Am I wrong about that?"

"No. Though I may be a man who decides to take revenge, since you did kill my family."

"If you were going to do that, you would have already."

"Perhaps I'm letting it fester until I find the opportune moment."

"You could kill me now," Aymon said. "Why don't you try?"

"I'm not stupid." But his tone indicated that it was more than just a lack of stupidity stopping him.

"There is a certain honor among pirates, and you owe me your life," Aymon said with a quick nod.

"Only because you decided to take it from me in the first place."

"The punishment for piracy is death. You may still have that, if you prefer."

"So, in other words, I have no choice."

Aymon shrugged. "Not really, no."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Halen's face twisted in an unreadable expression. "I assume I will be allowed to have the power back."

"Once we get back to Emerri."

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Aymon's arrival back on Emerri was unpleasantly like a wounded animal returning to its cave to sulk. After all, he had not been invited back, and he highly doubted that he was actually going to be welcome. But the Whitewater couldn't continue without either a purpose or a significant fraction of its crew, so it was coming in to port, and Aymon was taking the chance to disembark. Better to ask his master's forgiveness than permission.

And besides, he had been away for so long. He was hopeful that everyone had calmed down sufficiently as to allow him back into normal society.

He had told the Whitewater's captain of his plans, and he had seemed quite eager to divest himself of responsibility towards Aymon. Aymon had also said that he was taking Halen into his own, personal, care and that the Fleet need no longer trouble themselves with him. It was a questionable arrangement, but it had been questionable to let Halen live in the first place, and so the Whitewater's captain washed his hands of the whole thing. Aymon had the authority to do as he liked, especially concerning relative non-persons, such as pirates.

The elevator ride down to the planet was the first test of his new arrangement with Halen. The man was not cuffed, though he was still drugged, and he stood and sat near Aymon, looking for all the world like any other unremarkable Fleet officer. Except for his size, that was. Still, Aymon was impressed at the way that Halen managed to blend in. He didn't make any alarming moves, barely spoke, and barely acknowledged anyone's presence. He just stared out the window at the blue globe below, enraptured as the planet came into clearer and clearer focus beneath them.

Aymon would have asked what he was thinking, on this first occasion of visiting a planet, but they were not friends, or anything even resembling friends, so it didn't feel quite appropriate.

All the legitimate Fleet soldiers looked at the pair of them with confusion and distrust in their eyes, but Aymon simply smiled a thin smile. This would blow over quickly. He hoped, anyway.

After the long journey down, they emerged from the conditioned air into the thick and humid equatorial atmosphere at the bottom of the elevator. It was night, and there was a layer of clouds covering the sky. It smelled like rain; from the slick damp sheen on the railings it probably had rained already and it would rain again. Aymon breathed it in, spreading his fingers out as though to grab the air like a warm blanket. He forgot how much he missed being on a planet when he was out travelling. It was such an almost inconsequential thing, the loamy smell of the ground, but it was something that tied him to the universe.

Next to him, it seemed as though Halen was staggering under the weight of the air above them. Every chirp of a night bird, every touch of breeze, every car that streaked past with its dim embers of headlights leaving trails in the darkness, they caused Halen to turn his head, whipping his body around as though there were enemies hiding out of sight, in the gloom that stretched on and on, punctured only by streetlights and ended by... nothing.

What was it like, Aymon wondered, to have the only experience of the outside world be what one could experience while clothed in a spacesuit? To have spent one's entire life perpetually enclosed by walls close enough to see? To only be experiencing the fullness of a planet for the first time as an adult? He felt some sympathy for Halen then, and he laid his hand on his arm.

"Are you alright?"

"Fine," Halen said.

"The car is this way." Aymon led him down towards the area where all the cars were lined up and waiting to gather passengers. They would be staying overnight at a hotel nearby; Aymon had booked a flight on the way down, but he had no desire to continue to travel now.

Halen stumbled a bit as they walked, unfamiliar with the way that the ground could be uneven, and Aymon kept his hand on his arm. He was lucky, he supposed, that it was nighttime, and that no one had known he was going to be arriving back, otherwise there might have been photographs and talk. That had been one of the good things about being on the Whitewater, and maybe what his master had been trying to teach him-- he didn't always need to be shaping other people's perceptions of himself.

Even in the car, when they both slid into the back seat of the taxi, Aymon noticed that Halen had difficulty with the parts of life that seemed so simple and second nature. The seatbelt was nothing like the straps that held someone down in a shuttle, and the back and forth stop and go of the car was nothing like the heavy and smooth acceleration that one would find in space. Halen stared out the window and watched all the streaking lights go by. Aymon opened his window, letting in the rush of thick air. Their car was trailed by a few Fleet vehicles, as a few soldiers would be accompanying Aymon back to Yora as part of their own business.

At the hotel, Aymon checked in and retrieved the keys to the two rooms.

"Sorry for the indignity," he said to Halen when they had left the desk and marched up the carpeted hallway to where they were staying. "I'm going to lock you in."

"I wasn't going to try to escape," Halen said. "Where would I go?"

"I'd say it's easier to escape when you're on a planet than it is when you're out in space. Atmosphere at least gives you a chance for survival," Aymon said.

"It's not my world," Halen replied. And perhaps it was true that Halen would have had an easier time running away when they were still in space, if he had been able to break himself out of his room, and take back his shuttle, and jump away into the vast darkness of space.

Inside Halen's room, Aymon inspected all the windows and exits, and put a power structure on them. He wasn't actually preventing Halen from escaping-- the power structure didn't do that-- but what it would do was alert him if Halen did try to exit. It was an exercise in trust, but if that trust was broken, Aymon would know and would find Halen again.

Halen watched him do this without speaking or questioning.

"Get some sleep," Aymon said. "Our flight to Yora is early."

Halen nodded and sat on the bed. He had a small bag beside him, all of his worldly possessions, really anything that had been on that shuttle with him. It struck Aymon, as he looked at the other man, perhaps how much he had taken away from him. If Halen's family's ship had not been completely destroyed, maybe it would be worth retrieving the rest of Halen's personal effects from, at some point in the future. Well, that was a problem for another day.

"Goodnight," Aymon said, then left the hotel room, keeping the key for himself and heading to his own suite.

He was woken in the middle of the night by the feeling of his power structure setting off an alarm. One of the windows in Halen's room had been opened. His vision blurred with sleep, but with a racing pulse, Aymon lept out of bed and ran down the hallway in bare feet and underwear, remembering barely to grab the sidearm that he always wore, keeping the gun in his hand as he forewent the keycard and opened Halen's door with the power. He held his gun out in front of him, wary and alert, searching the darkness of the room to see what was going on.

He needn't have been so worried, and it was with a hot flush of embarrassment that he took in the scene.

Halen had dragged the desk chair over to the window, along with a lamp, and was calmly sitting in front of it, reading something on his tablet again. He had the window open, and the hot breeze fluttered in, setting the curtains wiggling. He was also only in an undershirt and underwear, and he looked up at Aymon when he burst into the room with an unreadable expression.

"You could at least knock before you come in here to kill me," Halen said.

Aymon let his arm holding the gun drop to his side, shook his head. "The fuck are you doing?"

"Reading. I thought you said you were locking me in here," Halen said.

"It was a test," Aymon snapped, walking over to close the window. Halen frowned slightly. "Go to sleep."

"I can't sleep," Halen said.

"Why not?"

"Too heavy." Most ships ran their rings at somewhere between eighty and ninety percent of normal gravity, so it wasn't that surprising that Halen was having difficulty adjusting to the full weight of being on Emerri.

"You're going to have to figure it out eventually," Aymon said. "You can't just not sleep. We're leaving early in the morning."

Halen looked down at the tablet he was holding, shrugged heavily. "Do you have any sleeping pills?"

"I'm not going to go out in the night to put you on more drugs," Aymon said. "I thought you didn't want to be drugged, anyway."

"I want to cooperate with you, so that you put the gun away," Halen said. "I don't want to find myself shot in the middle of the night because you're panicking."

Aymon sighed, laid the gun on the desk, and used the power to scoot it out of arms reach for both of them. He wasn't dumb enough to put a lethal weapon that close to where the currently powerless Halen could grab it.

"Happy now?"

Halen stood, laid the tablet down on his chair, and went over to sit on the bed. Aymon tensed up a little as he passed, but Halen paid him no mind.

"If you want me to lay here for the next six hours, I'll do that," Halen said.

"Don't be a baby about it. Lay anywhere long enough and you'll fall asleep."

Halen shrugged. "Not in my experience."

"For the love of God," Aymon said.

Halen had a slight smile on his face now, almost imperceptible. Was he teasing Aymon? Was this some sort of power move? It frustrated him. He, unlike Halen apparently, was tired, and had just been roused from sleep because of, well, bad reasons. Maybe the situation would have been funnier if he hadn't been standing here with crusts on his eyes, and in nothing but his red underwear. Aymon was fed up with it.

"Lay down," he snapped. Halen did, crossing his legs. He was long enough that his feet hung comically off the end of the bed. Aymon stalked over to him.

"Going to smother me with a pillow?"

"Shut up." Aymon sat down on the edge of the bed, and found himself almost slipping off of it by virtue of the dent that Halen's body made in the mattress. "Close your eyes."

Halen stared at him for a second, seemingly judging the situation, then did. Aymon stretched out his hand, reaching towards Halen's forehead. Perhaps through the shifting of Aymon's weight on the mattress, or through feeling the currents of air, Halen anticipated the movement and reached up with his own hand, grabbing Aymon's wrist in a tight but delicate grasp.

"What are you doing?" Halen asked, keeping his eyes closed.

"I'm going to put you to sleep."

Halen's mouth moved again in an approximation of a smile. He kept holding Aymon's hand at bay. "You know," he said. "It would be nice if I had my power back, so that I could know if you meant that you were going to kill me or not."

"I'm not going to kill you," Aymon said, again tired and frustrated.

"On the other hand," Halen said, "it's somewhat funny to be able to frustrate people without feeling it myself, for once."

"What do you mean?"

"My God-gift," Halen said. "I feel what everyone else is feeling, all the time, forever. Except now." He laughed, a soft thing. "When it would most help me survive."

"What will help you survive is shutting your mouth," Aymon said. It came out far harsher than he had intended, and Halen immediately stopped talking and dropped his hand from Aymon's wrist.

He felt a little bad about it and hesitated before he moved again, holding his hand just above the surface of Halen's forehead. In the dim light, he could see the faint sheen of sweat, and the fine hairs that covered his face. Aymon had to look away when he did put his hand down on Halen's head, a slight shiver going up his arm at the feeling of skin-on-skin.

He called the power up to himself, and let it travel down his arm. He bit his tongue to fight the wave of revulsion and horror that always came when he used the power on another person, but this wasn't intended to hurt. Methodically, slowly, Aymon sent his power through Halen's body, relaxing every muscle with a deliberate twist of power.

"Oh," Halen said.

Aymon would have responded, but Halen was asleep before Aymon took his hand off his head. Aymon slipped quietly out of the room and shut the door behind him.

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Aymon's feeling of having gotten away with his return to the planet ended approximately as soon as their plane touched down in Yora and he and Halen walked through the airport.

Obra Zacks was there waiting for him, their long black hair shining in the harsh airport lights.

"Look who the cat dragged in," Obra said, crossing their arms as Aymon approached, doing his best not to attract the attention of all the other people in the airport. "You're not supposed to be here."

"It's good to see you too, Obra," Aymon said, voice full of resignation.

"Hey, it could be Frae coming here to pick up your sorry ass," Obra said. "Come on. I've got a car waiting."

Obra hadn't seemed to have noticed Halen at first, but they looked him over as Halen followed Aymon. "Who's the tall drink of water?" Obra asked.

"We can talk about it in the car," Aymon said.

The weather had turned while he had been away, and the crisp air was dry and smelled like the deepest part of fall. Halen studied it intently; Aymon watched him lick his lips as though he were tasting the air itself.

Though Obra had said they had a car waiting, it was more accurate to say that Obra had driven a car to the airport, and thus forced a Stonecourt security team to follow behind. Obra enjoyed driving, possibly a little too much. Aymon had remarked several times, before Jalena died, that if Obra died in a car crash, it would be poetic justice. After Jalena, of course, he had stopped being able to joke like that. There was some kind of ticking clock over one of their heads, and Aymon didn't like the thought of it.

Aymon sat in the passenger seat, and Halen crammed himself into the back of the car. They sped out of the airport parking lot and began to take the most meandering possible route back to the city proper. Plenty of time for Obra to interrogate him as they drove, then.

"So, I know you're back because the Whitewater insisted on returning to port," Obra said. "Good on you for taking the opportunity to jump ship. In the most literal of senses."

"Do people know I'm back?"

"I take the, shall we say, liberty of screening Herrault's morning briefings. She'll know by this afternoon, but I've kept the news off her desk since the Whitewater ansible'd in."

"Thank you?"

"Eh, you're going to catch her in a mood whether she knew about it in advance or not."

"Was she ever planning to summon me back? Have I been sufficiently chastised?"

"I am not privy to her innermost thoughts. I have to suspect that every time Frae asks for you back, she mentally added another three weeks to your sentence."

"Will Frae ever learn to keep her mouth shut?"

"I literally do not understand what she sees in you."

"It's my charming personality and my outstanding good looks."

"I see no evidence of either."

Aymon resisted nudging Obra, as any interference might cause them to send the car swerving off the road.

"Maybe it's true that girls do like it when guys are jerks and ignore them," Aymon said.

"Then maybe you should try being nice to her when you see her, and she'll hopefully forget you."

"I don't want to accidentally encourage her."

"Suit yourself. How was your vacation?"

"Not a vacation."

"Exile, then."

Aymon shrugged, staring out the window at the tree lined highway as they sped past. "It could have been worse. How have things been here?"

"Same old, same old. I missed you."

"Aw, you're getting sentimental in your old age."

"Just nervous," Obra said. "I swear, when I read the captain's report from the Whitewater, I though you were dead."

"I'm tougher than that."

"I see. Anyway, you said you were going to tell me who that," Obra jerked their head to indicate Halen, "is."

"His name is Halen. I'm surprised the captain's report didn't mention him."

"Oh, he's not Fleet?"

Aymon caught a glimpse of Halen's face in the rearview mirror, listening passively as they discussed him, as though he were not present. "The uniform fooled you," Aymon said. "No, he's not."

"The curiosity is killing me."

"He's our troublesome stardrive maker," Aymon said. Obra did jerk the wheel slightly at that, and their knuckles were white.

"Don't fuck with me, Aymon."

"I'm not," he said.

"You're fucking crazy. I can't believe you'd..." Obra grumbled something indistinguishable. Catching another glimpse of Halen in the mirror, Aymon saw that he was smiling ever so slightly. When Halen noticed his attention, their eyes meeting in the glass, Halen wiped the expression off his face.

"He's not dangerous," Aymon said. "He's drugged, and I'm going to bring him to the Emperor as soon as I get in."

"You know the Emperor is just going to kill him, right? Like, that's the only sane thing to do." Obra craned their neck, taking their eyes off the road for an uncomfortable second in the car. "No offense," they said to Halen before returning their attention to the road.

"None taken," Halen said, speaking for the first time.

"I won't let the Emperor kill him," Aymon said, trying to sound patient.

"Ah yes, the disgraced apprentice, returning home under cover of night, with a criminal and a murderer in tow, is going to convince the Emperor that he should be allowed to... What do you even want with him anyway? He's not a fucking pet."

"Technically I wouldn't describe it as murder," Aymon said. "It was self defense."

"Answer the question," Obra said.

"I don't know. I figured it would be a shame to kill him. It would be good to have an assistant and a bodyguard."

"That's what Stonecourt staff are for."

"No offense, but Stonecourt staff works for Herrault. I want someone who works for me."

"Oh you're paranoid that Herrault has it out for you now?"

"Not exactly," Aymon said.

"You're literally impossible," Obra said. "Whatever. The Emperor can figure out what to do with you. Both of you."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, or whatever this is."

"I keep my nose clean so that I don't have to risk getting in trouble with our higher ups. But I am trying to help you," Obra said. "I'll even take one for the team by breaking the news of your return to Herrault while you're having a fun little chat with the Emperor."

"It will be fun, I'm sure."

They pulled in to the Stonecourt driveway, and Obra checked them through security, then drove down to the garage underneath the building. The three of them got out and stood in the dim artificial light under there for a second. As if possessed by some force greater than themself, Obra reached out and pulled Aymon into a tight hug.

"I did really miss you."

He awkwardly patted their back. "I'll try not to have the Emperor kick me out immediately," he said. "I missed you too."

"And you," Obra said, turning to Halen and planting their hands on their hips. "Thank you for not garrotting me while you sat behind me in the car, even though someone neglected to warn me that you were a criminal. I'd feel kinda bad now if the Emperor does kill you, so, you know," Obra shrugged, "hope they don't."

"Thanks?" Halen said, seeming unsure as to what exactly Obra's deal was. Aymon shot him a look, trying to communicate 'don't worry about it.'

"You'd better get going," Obra said, pulling out their phone to check the time. "I'm going to go intercept Herrault right after she gets out of her meeting and break the news to her. If you're with the Emperor already, that's basically the only place where she won't dare come and start trying to kill you."

"Yeah. See you in a bit."

Obra nodded and headed away, taking the stairs out of the garage two at a time. Aymon and Halen remained for a second.

"Are you a liar, Aymon?" Halen asked, repeating one of the first questions he had asked.

"I'm more likely to get the brunt of this than you are," he said. "And I'm going to plead your case. I'd give it, hm, seventy five percent chance that you live."

"That is not very good odds."

"Better than you'd get anywhere else."

"I don't exactly have the best case to plead."

"I'll plead my case, then."

"You should have just killed me before."

"Don't be such a pessimist. This way."

And so Aymon took Halen to see the Emperor.

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

Aymon didn't like the Emperor, but he didn't hate the Emperor either. The Emperor simply was. It was, in some respects, like how he had felt when he was punished by some of the masters at the Academy, that same sense of a higher authority. Perhaps the Emperor was as close as one could get to the highest authority, which was to say, the closest one could get to divine.

The Emperor was not heretical enough to act divine, or to claim divinity, but the feeling of power in the Emperor's presence was the closest Aymon would get to God in this lifetime. He had hope that the Emperor's presence was the closest he would get to God ever-- joining the Emperor meant, on some level, a freedom from death. There was an appeal to that thought.

So it was with a mingled sense of anticipation and fear, feeling rather like he was telling on himself, that Aymon stood in the Emperor's antechamber, waiting to be let in. The Emperor let him and Halen stew for a moment.

Aymon was almost jealous of Halen, who, while on the drug that blocked his use of the power, probably couldn't feel the Emperor's overwhelming presence, even from here.

"I'll go in first," Aymon said. "You just wait here. Don't do anything stupid."

Halen nodded without speaking.

The Emperor summoned Aymon in with a silent tug on his heart and a slow opening of the door. It shut behind him when he passed through and into the dark, standing in the singular spotlight that was kept.

"So, my little Caron's wayward apprentice has returned," the Emperor said. "I wondered when you would decide to come back." The Emperor's mental tone was dulcet and amused, which was a good sign, Aymon thought.

"I was going to wait until First Herrault summoned me," Aymon said, trying to keep the whine out of his voice.

"But?"

"I don't have a good reason for disobeying. I wanted to come back and do my job. I had accomplished what I was sent to do."

"It's no matter," the Emperor said. "The council moves quickly to forget. There's always a new scandal on the horizon; yours was a tiny dot on the greater radar."

"Oh. Okay."

"You are still wondering about my little Caron?" the Emperor asked. "You want to know the interior of her heart?"

Aymon couldn't stop the thread of curiosity that the Emperor's words awoke, and the Emperor laughed. "She missed you," that mental voice said. "She would never admit it."

Aymon laughed nervously. He didn't know why he was nervous, but it felt like a transgression for the Emperor to be telling him about the mind of someone else.

"Someday I may tell your own apprentices of your mind, little Aymon," the Emperor said. "And if you think that I do not tell my Caron of your mind now, you are mistaken."

So, the lack of privacy went both ways.

"It would behoove you both to be more open with each other. That way I would not be forced to play this game. It bores me."

"I would be able to be more open with her if she weren't pushing me aside for--"

"Yes, yes, yes," the Emperor drawled. "There's no need to talk about that mistake."

"If it wasn't for that, maybe we wouldn't be having this talk," Aymon said.

"Oh, I have had this talk with every single one of my selves," the Emperor said. "Look."

The Emperor planted a vision in Aymon's head. Standing before him in the spotlight, craning her neck up into the darkness before them both, was an image of a young Caron Herrault, a few years older than Aymon, with her arms wrapped tightly around her own chest, and a frown on her face. Aymon could hear the Emperor's voice still, though the words were words being spoken to this phantom.

"You should give this up," the Emperor said. "There's no place for a child in our line of work."

"Treygar Vaneik has a child."

"And Treygar Vaneik is a spacer with a legacy that he wishes to uphold. We are different."

She shook her head. "It's my body."

"And the Empire's future," the Emperor said, voice quite cold. "We are not so crass as to pass down leadership through something as fragile as a bloodline. Don't fool yourself into thinking that a child of yours is worthy of power or title."

"She may be," Caron said.

"I can see inside you, far better than your own eyes can. Your child will not have the power. Your child will never be able to stand here before me."

Caron shook her head again, petulant, insistent. "Things can change."

"This will not."

"Is it really so wrong to want a child?" she asked, and her voice was choked. "Why are you so cruel?"

The Emperor's voice was quieter now. "We have all had attachments. This may be yours. Attachments hurt to break."

"I don't care," Caron said. "You can't stop me."

"You know that I could," the Emperor said. "As easily as you breathe, I could stop you."

Caron let out a little half sob. "Please don't."

The mental pressure in the room abated a hair. "I will not. But you will understand that disobeying me is its own punishment," the Emperor said.

The vision faded, and Aymon was alone in the room.

"Why did you show that to me?" he asked. He felt as though he had witnessed something intimate, something he never should have seen about his master and her daughter, Frae.

"Attachments, my little Aymon, and disobeying me, are both dangerous."

"I'm not attached."

The Emperor ignored the question. "You understand already what will happen when my Caron's daughter dies."

Aymon did understand-- he had said it to Halen not that long ago while explaining his half baked plan. She would be broken beyond repair.

"She will join me," the Emperor said. "And she will be deeply unhappy."

"Frae doesn't have to die," Aymon said, feeling compelled to be contrarian and defend a girl he could barely even stand.

"She will. It is the way of things."

"And why are you telling me all this?"

"Because you have chosen to disobey, and the same danger lies down that path for you."

"What? No." Aymon couldn't picture it. He had thought that he would need to stand here presenting rational arguments for why he should be allowed to have a bodyguard when Obra did not, especially one who was possibly dangerous. He did not expect to have his personal motivations brought under such strange scrutiny.

"I know your heart better than you know it yourself, it seems," the Emperor said. "Your trust in this man may kill you."

"I don't think he's going to betray me."

"We shall see," the Emperor said. "At this stage, who knows?"

"So you're not going to kill him?"

"Oh, if he puts one toe out of line, he will die," the Emperor said. "But I will allow you to have your amusements and your paranoias."

This had been far easier than Aymon had ever hoped.

"But that comes with risks, my little Aymon. And transgressions do come with punishments."

His stomach turned. He didn't like the sound of that.

"Let me in your head, little one," the Emperor said. Aymon had no choice but to allow it.

There was the crawling feeling of the Emperor working fingers through his brain, and then, abruptly, nothing. The room was cold and empty.

"You may have your power back when you have earned it," the Emperor said. "You are dismissed. And I have no need to speak to your Halen. Not now, anyway. Go."

The door opened, and Aymon stumbled out, feeling more weak and vulnerable than he had since he was a child.