Janus’s Apartment, New Prometheus
Lumiara, Survivor’s Refuge
4454.2.5 Interstellar
The next two days passed like a dream. Janus was a stay-at-home dad while Callie went to work. He got up after dawn, later than he was used to, and either played with Xander or watched him play with Fury. The big animal could have crushed the kid with one paw, and she did knock him down from time to time, but she was gentle and surprisingly focused—surprising, at least, until he realized what Fury was doing.
She was raising Xander like he was her pup. Janus realized it when she knocked Xander down for the third time in a row, and the little man let out a frustrated little growl. Fury mimicked the growl, rumbling in her chest, and then gently laid her big head on Xander’s shoulder. Xander laughed and put his arms around her neck while Janus stared at the two of them in shock.
He had never had the chance to observe jungle dragon social behaviors in the wild. He didn’t know if they traveled in packs, got together during mating season, or if the females took care of their young, but he knew from experience Fury protected those she was attached to, and she’d taught his son to fight back when challenged.
It made his eyes water. He thought of all the times he’d just stayed quiet when he was mistreated on Irkalla, the times he’d taken the hits without protest, and he looked at his son and thought, That won’t be you. Either your mother, your godmother, or your den mother will knock their lights out, or you’ll do it yourself.
Lee came to take Xander around noon, which gave Janus time to get over to the aspirant training facility and run a few kilometers on the treadmills before sparring with one of the aspirants or aspirant candidates. He and Ivan acknowledged each other but didn’t socialize. Janus wasn’t sure if that was what he or Ivan wanted, but it was the rhythm they usually settled into.
Then, he stopped by the market, went home, and cooked in time for Lee to bring Xander back and Callie to get off her shift.
Play, exercise, shop, cook, play, exercise, sleep, and then again. It happened so fast. It lulled their little family into a false sense of normalcy.
“I don’t think you should go to the Core,” Callie said between mouthfuls.
Janus looked at her curiously. “Bug, we talked about this—”
“No one calls me ‘Bug’ anymore.”
Okay, fair enough. “I know you’re worried about me, but I’m going to be okay.”
Callie set her fork down. “That’s a lie, and it’s not even a good one. The trip to the Core is something Cult members do over the course of three alignments, and usually only once in a lifetime. Anything more than that would be an unnecessary risk.”
“Guess you traded for more than eggs.”
Callie threw her hands in the air. “I stole knowledge! Shocking!”
Janus grinned.
Callie didn’t. “I’m not afraid for you, Janus. I’m afraid for all of us. It’s not that I don’t think you should go to the Core. I don’t think any of us should.”
She waited for him to answer, and Janus’s face dropped as he realized this was not the conversation he thought they were having. “Callie, what are you talking about?”
“I think we should try to make peace with the compartmentalists,” she said.
Janus’s pulse throbbed in his temple. “You don’t mean that.”
“I do.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“They killed our parents.”
“‘They?’ Who is ‘they,’ Janus? Donnika’s dead, and so is the architect who ordered it! We don’t have to fight!”
Janus could feel the anger rising inside him as he rose from his chair and set his knuckles on the table. In his mind, he was dying on the floor of a shipping container, and he was finding their parents’ corpses twelve years later. He was staring at Donnika’s hateful face as she unleashed her hidden weapon. He was almost dying over and over on the ice because the comps and the purgationists wouldn’t let them trade.
Xander pelted him with peas and growled. Janus blinked in shock, then looked from his son to Callie and found she’d also risen to her feet.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, staring him down.
Janus felt instantly guilty. He did his best to hide it. “Of course, you’re not afraid of me. But Callie, you can’t say things like that. You don’t know what it was like.”
“Don’t I?” Callie said, raising her chin, and Janus kicked himself. “I started a rebellion over what they did to us!”
“You shouldn’t have had to!”
“I thought you were dead!” Callie snapped. “And now you think the only solution is to go on another insanely dangerous journey, and what? What are you going to do when you get to the Core, Janus?”
“We’re going to take it from them,” Janus said resolutely. “The compartmentalists’ hold on the Oracle is the only thing that keeps them in the majority on Consensus decisions. It’s what the others fear. The purgationists are violent madmen, but half the Cultists think the Survivor is somehow still alive down there, and the other half are afraid that, if they support us, the Consensus will break, and the factions will go to war.”
“You don’t have to solve everyone’s problems, Janus, and you shouldn’t have the arrogance to think you can.”
Her words scalded him. They hurt him worse than he knew how to express. Every time he’d almost died, every time he’d accepted this was how things had to be and pushed himself to go on, it had been because of her and their mother’s admonition to keep her safe.
“I’m going out,” Callie said, grabbing her jacket.
“We’re not done talking,” Janus said, but the words came out without conviction.
The door to the apartment slid shut.
***
“Janus?” Lee said, touching his shoulder, and he jumped. He looked around in confusion. Xander was asleep in his lap, drooling on his arm. The holo they’d been watching had long since finished.
“Sorry,” he said. “I must have zoned out.”
“Callie told me what happened,” Lee said.
Janus winced. “I suppose you agreed with her?”
Lee scoffed. “My people left the safety of the domes and lived on the roads to be free of the Cult, Janus. I not only disagreed with her, I called her a brat.” She smirked. “She didn’t take that too well.”
“Invarian temper,” Janus said automatically. “Did I get the schedule mixed up? I thought you were out hunting with the others.”
“I can still go if you’re all right.”
Janus looked at her in surprise. She’d come back because she was worried about him.
Xander frowned and shifted, half turning in Janus’s lap, and Janus saw the wet spot. He sighed, but then he smiled. “Looks like it’s time to change him.” Lee reached for the toddler, but Janus shook his head. “It’s okay, I can take care of it.”
He picked Xander up by the armpits, watchful for any kind of drip or leak, and he took the kid over to the little tub they used to get him clean. Xander was half awake by now, and he looked like he was trying to decide whether he wanted to laugh or cry. “It’s okay, big guy. We’ll have you cleaned up in no time.”
Janus stripped Xander of his synth-fiber sweats and unfastened the cloth diaper. The soiled clothing went into a small basket in the tub, including the diaper, and he sat the toddler down at the other end before fastening the skirt around Xander’s neck and flipping the switch on.
The tub whirred, cleaning Xander and his clothes at the same time.
“So, are you okay?” Lee asked.
Janus looked at her and thought before answering. Was he okay? The argument with Callie had taken the wind out of him, to be sure. He’d spent the last year preparing for the Core expedition, staying sharp, staying in motion. Callie’s words had stopped him in his tracks. “I think it just surprised me,” he lied. “Where did that come from, anyway? The comps almost killed the two of you.”
Lee looked at him for a moment, and for that moment, he thought she hadn’t believed him. “They did, and I’m not sure where ‘that’ came from. She’s been spending more time out trading for things in the Reef when she isn’t at work. She’s also a sixteen-year-old girl; being a jerk comes with the territory.”
Janus chuckled. Maybe that was it. Blaming it on Callie’s age was certainly easier to swallow than to believe everything he’d done in the last year, and the years before that, had been for someone who didn’t want his help and thought he was making things worse. Could he have been a better brother, more present for her—and for Xander—in the past year? Maybe. It felt crazy to be commiserating with Lee, the person he’d most tried to avoid, about feeling like he was losing the person he’d most tried to protect.
His comm chimed, and Ivan’s face appeared in his retinal display.
“Ivan,” Janus said. “You calling to console me about Callie, too?”
Ivan frowned—or, at least, he frowned more than usual. “No, but you can tell me about it when you get to the training center. I’ve sent four aspirants to get you and Xander. Is Lee with you?”
“She is,” Janus said, the tension in his uncle’s voice pulling him out of the fog he’d been in all afternoon. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know if I should call it unrest or a mutiny under the circumstances. A group of our people is protesting the Core expedition, and they’re heading your way.”