Chains of Redemption (35 page)

But the present slapped her in the face, even as the tears ran down her checks.

This was how it was supposed to be. How awful. She could learn from her mistakes and experiences and live to use the knowledge. If she ever died it would be in the middle of some horrible blast, it would be quick and clean. Yet this fragile, almost dead creature had once saved her life. He'd fought at her side, would have given his short life for her. He'd loved her, and he'd loved these stupid-assed Abornies that she had no use for.

Now his body was eaten up with disease and very little of humanity remained, and yet still he clung to life.

"RJ?" he croaked out. She moved up where he could see her and forced herself to take his hand.

"I'm here, Levits."

He almost laughed, then coughed.

"Maybe you shouldn't try to talk," she suggested.

"Why, because I might die?" he smiled. "You don't understand, do you?" he asked.

"Understand what?"

"Why I care for them so much."

"No, I really don't. You were never one to suffer fools until we came here. You were basically selfish and self-centered, yet you opened your heart to them, and they didn't deserve a second thought from you."

"You never gave them a chance, RJ. They are flawed, just like humans are flawed, but they aren't the hopeless parasites you make them out to be. Quit separating yourself from them, become part of the community. They can be warm, loving, gracious."

"If you give away your life in service to them," RJ said, and didn't even try to keep the resentment from her voice.

"I didn't give away my life in service to them, RJ. They became my life, my reason to live."

She realized what he was doing. He was saying good-bye. So she didn't tell him that he had wasted his life. Instead she asked in a low tone. "What's your reason for living now?"

He laughed again and then coughed again. He shook his head. "Could you hand me that glass of water?" She let go of his hand, grabbed the water and held it to his lips, knowing he couldn't actually hold the glass himself anymore. He shook his head, indicating that he'd had enough, and she took the glass away and set it down. "To answer your question, my one true love, I'm afraid of dying. Scared to death of it, actually."

"Then why are you choosing to make it last?" she asked in a low sad voice.

"Because I love life, even this life. Every minute of it is precious."

RJ just didn't see it that way.
Perhaps his brain is just so far gone that he can't think clearly
.

"Do you remember the day we first made love? It was in the ship after David had pelted us with shit."

She nodded silently, thinking it was no wonder he was thinking of that, smell being such a strong trigger for memories. "Of course we did shower first," she clarified with a smile.

"I'm laying here thinking about that. About that and sticking your heart back in your chest and getting you out of Alsterase, because that was truly my finest hour. I'm thinking about all of the people I've known, Sandra and Whitey, and Mickey and even that idiot David Grant. I'm thinking about all the Abornie children I've played with over the years, and mostly I'm thinking about you. I'm thinking how all those people, everyone I've ever met, how each encounter changed my life, and I'm hoping that when I'm gone people are going to think about me and think about how I changed their lives."

"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you," RJ said quietly.

Levits frowned. "Ah, but I don't always get the feeling that you're glad that you're alive."

RJ laughed. "I'm not always, but I'll always remember you."

"Yes, but then you don't have much choice, do you?"

"I'd remember you anyway."

He was silent, struggling for the moment just to breathe. When he spoke again his voice came in gasps. "So, have you lost the last vestiges of respect you had for me?"

"No," she lied.

"But you won't miss me when I'm gone."

"I already miss you, because the man I knew is already gone. That's why I don't understand, Levits," RJ said sadly. "I've had to watch you die in stages over the years, and I understand that that's just the way it is for normal humans. I understand that just because your eyesight dims doesn't mean you want to die. Just because your legs hurt and don't want to work and you move more slowly . . . But this, I will never understand why anyone would want to hold on in this state. How many times can you play over memories of things you can never do again, people who are gone, places you'll never see again, and . . ."

"I am tired of it, RJ. Finally. Tired of fighting it," he said quietly. "It won't be long now. I can feel it. Please, RJ, take me out to your garden and let me die in that beautiful place, not in here in all this sterility, with the stink. Let me die looking at you. Listening to you talking about the old days."

She cradled him in her arms and carried him out to the garden. A group of Abornie tried to stop her at the door, but she easily shoved through them.

"Stop for a minute," Levits said in gasps. She did, and he said to the oldest Abornie man there, a man who Levits had been close to for years, "My friend, please, I wish to die outside and alone with my love."

The man nodded and started to cry like a baby. If she'd been the one on her way to die, they'd no doubt have created a dance of joy to do in celebration.

She set him down on a bench in the garden and sat down beside him. Without waiting, she started talking. "Remember when we first met?"

"Yes, I was all out of luck then, just like I'm out of time now."

She held his hand and kept talking to him till he interrupted her asking, "Why?"

"Huh?"

"Why did you stay?"

"Stay where?"

"I know, RJ. He told me."

She didn't have to ask which he. Topaz was never very good at keeping secrets. Unless of course they were his.

"I couldn't leave you here, and I couldn't take you with me," she said simply.

"Thank you," he said. He slumped against her then, silent. His breath came in three quick, shuddering breaths that moved his whole body, and then all was quiet.

The Abornie buried their dead as the humans did when there was no crematorium close by. Except that they had a strange habit of stuffing the dead person's mouth with food and taping it shut. No doubt some ritual left over from a long forgotten religion, because none of them seemed to know why it was done, just that it was proper.

She didn't go to see him put in the ground. She saw no reason to do so. She was walking through her garden one last time. With Levits gone she saw no reason to linger even one more day on the planet's surface. She'd already said good-bye to Alan, the only Abornie she gave one damn about, and as soon as Topaz got back, they would lift off. Poley was even now preparing the ship for takeoff. RJ sighed and leaned against a tree, listening to the small stream she had diverted to run through her garden. She would miss this, but of course she was taking as much of it as she could with her.

"It's beautiful here," Topaz said, walking up behind her.

"Yes it is."

"It was a wonderful service, quite colorful. Many people said very nice things about him."

"Uh huh," RJ said noncommittally.

"When I was a kid, way before I found the secret to ultimate rejuvenation and promptly lost it, there was this character called Superman. Ran around in tights and a cape doing good deeds. Saving the innocent from evil with his super powers. He could jump tall buildings with a single bound, he had x-ray vision, and he could fly and shoot laser beams out of his eyes . . ."

"That's ridiculous . . ."

"Shut up and listen for a minute. He wasn't real, he was a made-up character," Topaz said impatiently. "He could do all this really cool shit, and when I was a kid it was a big deal to watch him on TV or read the comic book, because no one had superhuman abilities. I, of course, lived to see the creation of people with super powers." He saw the incredulous look on her face, growled and said quickly, "Except for flying and shooting laser beams from their eyes. Anyway, once there were real super humans, once I was one myself, the shows and books lost all appeal to me. I had loved that character because he was so righteous, so perfect. When they created the first GSH's I realized how naïve I had been. Nothing could contain Superman, but the Reliance had easily harnessed the GSH's. I stopped believing in super heroes.

"Then you came along, and I believed again. You were better than any comic book hero I could have conjured up, because you weren't perfect, and you weren't perfect because you were real."

She turned around and smiled at him. "Where is this going, old man? It's time to go."

Topaz took a deep breath and let it out. "I'm not going with you."

She had felt doubt coming from him for weeks, but couldn't figure out to what it applied. She wished she could have said she'd seen this coming, but she just hadn't. "What the hell!"

"I want to stay here," he said.

"What on earth for?"

"I like it here, RJ. I have friends here, respect, purpose."

"Screw that. I know you, old man. You just want to continue to play god."

Topaz shrugged, seeming not to be concerned by her accusation or her anger in the slightest. "So what if I do? I'll make a good and decent god."

"By doing what? Continuing what you and Levits have started? Teaching them how to make bigger and better machines so that they can clear-cut, slash and burn the land? I know, you can help them get one of the old power plants working so that they can get in a fight over whose turn it is to drench the reactor core and blow the planet up? Or just make life so simple for them that they breed like flies and kill every other thing on the planet till they ultimately wind up killing even themselves off in a big cluster-fuck of stupidity?"

"You know, RJ, you have this doom-filled attitude about every civilization. Remember that you had similar qualms about the New Alliance before we left Earth. I know what you're worried about. That we'll start out very well meaning, and before you know it there will be pollution and war and people calling on the phone to sell you aluminum siding and life insurance, and you'll be like, 'No thank you, I'm not interested,' but they just won't ever stop talking, till you feel like your head is going to explode and you just rip the damn thing right out of the wall, and . . ."

"I have no clue what any of that last part even is or what it means. You are completely nuts, and yet you think you can actually help this planet full of rejects who are hell-bent on destruction. Get a woman to take with you. Get two if you need to, but get your crazy ass on the ship, we're going."

"No . . . I'm not going . . . Oh, I suppose you could make me go, but if you do I promise to make your life an absolute living tormentuous hell. Besides, Superman would never force someone to do something against his wishes."

"I'm not freaking Superman! I'm not any sort of man. Why? Why would you do this?" RJ pulled at her hair. "Why would you choose them over me? They're going to die, you know. They aren't like Poley and me. They're going to get old and die."

"That's what makes them so damned interesting. Just when I get bored with them they'll die and new ones will be born. That's what I learned from being here, don't you see? You are right, of course, because you always are. These people are stupid, and yes, they would destroy this world. I want to see if I can keep them from doing that. I want to see if I can make a difference. It's all about me, don't you see? Me, me, me. I'm not choosing them over you, I could never love anyone or anything the way that I love you, except of course me." He walked over and took her into his arms. She hugged him, and he could feel her tears wet on his shoulder as they soaked through his thin shirt. "I'm choosing to stay here instead of going with you because this world needs me and you don't."

"Yes I do, Topaz." She cried loudly then; no doubt these were in part tears she hadn't cried for Levits.

He let go and stepped away to look at her. She dried her eyes and held his gaze, and said again, "I do need you, Topaz, you're the only one who knows me, understands me."

He laughed then, his own tears spilling onto his checks. "But I'm a nut job, remember? Crazier than a shithouse rat."

"But you know me."

"And you know yourself. You have Poley. You have each other. You long for adventure. Gardening was nice and you enjoy it, but it's not enough for you. A simple, quiet life could never be enough for you, because it isn't what you were built for. You're Superman, kid. I've lived my great adventures and enjoyed them all, and now I want to live this adventure here with these people. It's not like it's forever. Eventually we'll meet again. Here or on some faraway world. What's a couple of hundred years to either of us?"

She hugged him again, this time so hard it was uncomfortable. "I'm going to miss you, old man."