“This is what I’ve been trying to learn,” Hermes said, feeling bashful now that he was openly presenting his hobby in front of someone other than Dr. Wha.
“This is the coolest piano I’ve ever seen,” Cam said, voice awed.
To his credit, Cam didn’t look nearly as sick as Hermes was sure he felt. The only real sign of his hangover was the faintly purple half-moon discoloration beneath each eye and the fact he had a death grip on the bottle of water at his side. Hermes was hungover in his own way, truthfully. Every time he laid eyes on Cam, his hand felt warm again.
“Please, sit.” Hermes gestured to the chair and ottoman he had in the corner of his quarters, across from the piano.
“I like your room,” Cam said, dropping into the chair, feet landing on the ottoman with a quiet thump. “It’s big.”
Hermes couldn’t really argue with that after seeing Cam’s space. “It’s the standard quarters afforded to all of the medical personnel.”
“Yeah, y’all are spoiled.” Cam grinned playfully. “You’d think someone in your department was fucking the captain.”
Hermes nodded solemnly. “Dr. Wha is his long-term companion.”
Cameron threw his head back and barked a laugh. “I know. I’m teasing.”
“I see. Dr. Wha does that quite often, too.”
“Between the two of us, you’ll pick it up.”
Hermes was doubtful of that. He took a seat at the piano. “What would you like me to play?”
Cam leaned forward, looking at the keys and the smooth black lines of the instrument. He seemed to consider the question seriously, before humming to himself. “You said you were learning to compose music, right?”
“I am.”
“Play me something you’re working on.”
Hermes felt even more bashful now—more so than when Cameron first entered. “I am new to the art.”
“And I’m entirely untrained, so I won’t even know if you screw up.”
“Yes, but you have ears.”
Cam giggled. “Good point. I have a hard time imagining you being bad at anything you do, though.”
“Composing a good song requires more than technical knowledge. It requires—” Hermes searched his mind for the appropriate term. “—feelings.”
“What, and you don’t have those?”
Hermes looked back to Cam from over the piano, analyzing his beautiful face and the soft texture of his white-blond hair and his friendly, charming smile. Cameron was so full of emotion. Everything he did, he did with feeling. Hermes couldn’t compare to him; Cameron was a sunny day. Hermes was a starless night. “I do not think my expression of feelings is adequate for strong musical composition, no.”
Cam’s face fell. Hermes was concerned he’d offended him somehow—
“Your lessons are contributing greatly, however,” he tried to explain.
“You’re dumb as hell.”
Hermes blinked.
“Hermes, you feel things all the time.”
He looked down at his fingers, splayed across the smooth white keys.
“You’re just…careful. There’s nothing wrong with that.” Hermes peeked back at Cam and saw him smiling again. “Look, you can play something else, if you want. Like—” Cam made a few circular motions with his hands as he looked up, into the air, like there were names circling his head. “Debussy.”
“Claude Debussy?”
Cam shrugged.
“Serenade for the Doll?”
Cam tucked his hands into his lap and nodded enthusiastically. “Sure.”
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He could do this one. It was very easy. Did Cam know that? Was it an intentional mercy?
Hermes stroked the keys, straightening his back. He pressed the first note and the song fell from his fingertips like gentle water through a glassy pebble-lined riverbank. It wasn’t necessarily perfect, but it was passable and pretty in its own right. Hermes snuck a glance at Cam—
He was smiling. Hermes could feel his heart beating faster as he continued to play. And then, at the end, when he stroked the final note, Cam burst into applause.
Hermes ducked his head. His heart was galloping now.
“I knew you’d be amazing,” Cam said.
“It was not perfect.”
“Yeah, it was.” Cam stood and came over to lean against the corner of the piano. “Are you warmed up now?”
Hermes’ heart continued to pound. It was loud in his ears. Could Cam hear that? When he looked up, Cam was wearing that same charming look he wore all the time. “I am adequately warm, yes,” said Hermes.
“Try one of the pieces you’re composing.”
Looking up into Cam’s face gave Hermes an unexpected strength. Cam seemed earnestly supportive, and it overshadowed almost all of Hermes’ self-doubt. He swallowed and straightened his shoulders. “Okay. I will play my current piece. It is unfinished, however.”
“That’s fine. That’s perfect.” Cam slouched against the piano. “Let’s hear it.”
That s// ong. The one he had heard befor// e. He knew
This
// song
. //
He began writing this piece during his first night aboard Soter.
A distant spread of notes, reaching gently between each other, far, and quiet, and lonely. Uncertain.
And then something bright. Something bold. It reached out, the sound connecting to the isolated notes from before. They were brought together, beat after beat, a vibration that filled the silence—
It wasn’t as lone// ly
Lonely like this .//
Hermes’ fingers finished the last note with a hint of a tremor—he wanted to go on, but he hadn’t gotten that far. He stared at the keys for a minute, deep in thought about what would come next in the song.
“That was beautiful,” Cam said.
Hermes blinked up at him. “Oh. Did you like it?”
Cam watched Hermes with a silent, meaningful gaze that Hermes couldn’t quite translate. Eventually, he said, “Yes.”
Hermes gave a small, private smile.
From around hi // i m
He heard
music // .
----------------------------------------
Cameron read and reread the mission brief until it was perfectly memorized. The very first line of the document read, “Make contact with the peaceful inhabitants of the newly contacted planet, T-446.”
T — terrestrial, with a humanoid-safe atmosphere.
446 — the 4th planet in the 4th quadrant of the 6th sector outside the Milky Way.
The inhabitants were a combination of the alien races but seemed composed mostly of Earthlings. How long they had been on T-446 was unknown; this was the most important question outlined in the document. It could have been centuries.
“You are reading the brief,” Hermes pointed out as they buckled into the seats of the shuttle.
Everything was white and chrome and clean inside the small ship, just like the interiors of Soter itself. Hermes looked quite handsome in his white jumpsuit. Cam had only ever seen him in the gray scrubs of the medical personnel or the casual attire he wore to train. Cam tried not to stare at the way the mission suit stretched perfectly across his broad shoulders. There was something commanding about his presence with his slicked-back hair and his sweeping height—even the other three crewmen in the shuttle looked to him with deference, bowing as they entered.
Cam shook his head to clear it of that line of thought. “Yes, uh, I’m just rereading it one more time. I want to make sure I haven’t forgotten anything.” Which was stupid. He had it memorized. But—
“Are you nervous?” asked Hermes.
Cam slowly lowered the screen of the digipad and sighed. “Yeah.”
“The inhabitants are peaceful,” Hermes said, as if it were the simplest thing.
Cam couldn’t help a laugh. “I know. I’m worried for nothing. Just human things. Anxiety for no real reason.”
“I see.” Hermes offered him a smile, revealing his long sharp canines and straight teeth, and Cam found that he was a little less nervous.
It was a simple trip. They’d collect samples, talk with the inhabitants, and go home. It was supposed to be a mission that would take less than a day on a planet that was supposed to be as safe as home.
Supposed to be.
Cam heard a high-pitched whizz—and felt the boom before he heard it.
They were about fifteen minutes into the journey when the shuttle next to theirs was blown to screaming, fiery pieces; the debris rocked their own vessel off its course. Sudden wailing alarms and flashing of lights surrounded Cam on all sides and he felt his stomach turn over, mind gone blank in horror.
“Hostiles detected,” said the computerized voice of Soter’s vessel. “Please secure y—” Another exploding roar cut through the alarms and suddenly the world was silent. Cam was deafened by the volume of the explosion, and he heard only ringing—
Their shuttle was torn in half.
It was in free fall. Still strapped to the seat, Cam knew he was screaming. He could see nothing but thick black smoke and flashes of white as the sun overhead was now visible through the gaping hole where the rest of the shuttle should be.
He was going to die.
It took seconds for Cam to calculate the odds, numbers precise even in his panic. Chances of him surviving an impact with the planet from this height, in combination with the strength of gravity on T-446, were astoundingly low.
And he was scared.
His final thought, before the end, was that he wished he could have heard the end of Hermes’ song.
----------------------------------------
His vision was frac// tured . / .
Why was he seeing so man . y images// at once?
It was l// ike the connections were cut and he couldn//’t parse together what
was
happenin//g.
What was happening?
Wh//y did he hear…
Music.