"I'm sorry, Mr. Tiberius, but I assure you that I am the captain of this ship."
The young Mr. Slader Tiberius, dressed to the nines in a sharply pressed uniform, slumped dazedly in his chair. It seemed like Marque's words were beginning to finally sink in.
"If it helps, you're not the first person to be under the illusion that they are in fact the captain."
"Indeed," First-Mate Lamott piped up from where he was plugged into the feed of the ship.
"You’d be the third one in two years, actually," Marque continued
"I don't remember what I had for breakfast this morning," Mr. Tiberius said quietly, not paying attention. "I was looking at my paperwork and I was eating... Or was I? Did I even eat this morning? The mess hall was serving... eggs?"
Marque indulged in resting his forehead in his palm.
"Don’t bother, Life-Captain," Lamott said in a clipped tone. "He's already gone."
"That was fast. Young people," Marque bemoaned, dragging his gloved hand down his face to scratch at his trim, graying beard. "I blame the rock music and the text messaging."
“KERES, get this thing out of here,” Lamott said to thin air.
“Y-yes sir,” a timid voice, high and feminine, rung through the cabin speakers and across the room, a door slid open. “This way, Mr. Tiberius.”
Mr. Tiberius didn’t seem to be fazed by being addressed by a disembodied voice. He just stood automatically and walked out the door.
“Be nice to KERES,” Marque scolded. Lamott just sniffed. He sat at his station and closed his eyes to review the notes he'd been transcribing. Marque ran a careful hand over his slicked-back hair and tugged at the lapels of his uniform briskly.
"What else is on the agenda today, Mr. Lamott?"
The man didn't even open his eyes.
"Um, you have a call, sir,” KERES said, all but stammering. Eight years of constant haranguing from Lamott had made the A.I. a little neurotic and buggy. Gave her personality, Marque liked to think.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” Marque crooned soothingly.
He didn't ask who would be calling.
"Ah, Mortimer, good to hear from you again," he said, pasting a hasty smile on his face as he brought up the call. Mortimer Angeu didn't even bother with the smile, but then he never did. Marque had made a joke about it once before, back in the beginning of their assignment together, and the other man's face had only gone more immobile.
"I am here to inform you that the collection period has nearly expired."
"Ah, that," Marque said, pointing a finger as if he had just been thinking of that subject himself. "I'm interested in applying for an extension."
"Sir, there are no extensions," Lamott informed him as the First-Mate disengaged from the grid. "The deadline is final. You have four weeks."
"Yes, thank you, Lamott," Angeu drawled. And then he was gone, the screen going dark.
"Four weeks," Marque breathed. "How times flies, eh, Lamott?"
"Indeed, sir."
"What are we at?"
"Forty-three thousand seventeen, sir."
“Out of fifty thousand. Mmm. This could be tight."
"Might I make some suggestions, sir? Again?"
"Lamott, there's a fine line between a short cut and overkill. You were trampling all over it.”
“If I may be so bold, if you do not act soon, I’ll be tap-dancing on your grave.”
“Was that a joke, Lamott?”
“Was it, sir?”
Marque peered at his First-Mate, who was carefully punching in a sequence of numbers into his wrist screen, not meeting the Life-Captain’s eye.
“What are your suggestions?”
Lamott didn’t get a chance to answer as KERES chimed in.
“Another one for you, sir.”
The sliding door into the bridge opened and a boy wandered in, looking about with wide eyes.
“So soon? Might not need those suggestions, Lamott,” Marque muttered, swiveling in his chair again so that he was behind his desk. “Hello there, boy.”
“Hi,” the boy said automatically. “What is this place? I was looking for my brother.”
“I imagine he’ll show up sooner or later,” Marque said soothingly. “Why don’t you have a seat?”
The boy sat down numbly. “I’m Ford,” he said as if he’d been asked.
“Mmm, Ford what?”
“Ford Hadid.”
“Ford Hadid,” Marque mused, watching Lamott jot notes and review data on the screens behind his eyelids. “Number forty-three thousand eighteen?”
“What?” The boy picked at his nose. Marque couldn’t help but wrinkle his own nose. The boy was practically a young man, not a toddler. Didn’t they teach any manners anymore?
“I’m sorry, talking to myself,” Marque said, wiping phantom dirt from his fingers onto his pant leg in an effort to feel cleaner.
“You know that’s the first sign you’re going crazy, right? My brother told me that. He told me I was crazy because I ate bugs when I was little and I threw his hamster out the window once. He was being an asshole though.”
“I see.”
“He’s not going to believe me when I tell him about this.”
“I imagine not.” Marque suddenly wished for Mr. Tiberius. The forgetful ones weren’t the best at conversation, but at least they went quickly. The talkative ones could take hours to run down. “How old are you, my boy?”
“Fourteen. Actually, I’m thirteen and two months, but I round up.”
“That’s rather a lot to round up.”
“My brother’s twenty and seven months. He rounds up to twenty-one all the time so he can buy beer.”
Marque frowned. Here’s where he would normally point out the importance of rules and strict following of them, but before this boy had walked in, he had been going to be asking Lamott for those suggestions of his. It would be rather hypocritical of him to lecture just now.
“And what’s your brother’s name?”
“Hector,” Ford answered quickly. Then he hesitated. “No, wait... Keith?”
It was a good twenty minutes before the boy had reached the drooling blankness that took everyone. He didn’t even blink anymore as he stumbled his way out the door held politely open by KERES’s motors. Marque raised a smug eyebrow at Lamott.
“See there, Lamott? I can do this without your cheats.”
“Expedient measures, not ‘cheats’, sir. And, if I can be allowed to speak freely, you spent twenty-three minutes on one candidate. Even allowing for your average time of eleven minutes and ignoring the need for sleep, that only gives you approximately three thousand, six hundred and sixty five in the next four weeks.”
“Well, what would you be doing differently?”
Lamott raised an eyebrow.
“It may seem a bit... drastic.”
“As you so truthfully pointed out, the consequences may be a bit... drastic if I end up failing this assignment, Lamott.”
“You know, sir, that I would inherit the responsibilities in the event of your failure.”
“Yes, so I imagine that you have nothing but the best of my interests in mind. Now out with it.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Lamott said carefully, the plugs in his neck sparking once. “It’s for your own good,” he continued, and then Marque felt a cold thump at his chest and his heart flip-flopped and rolled over.
o-o-o
There were times when a man needed to indulge. Just fingers to his forehead weren’t enough to quell the headache threatening just behind Marque’s eyes. He massaged his palm against his brow. He felt as if he were slogging through a pool of mud, every movement of his limbs heavy with the pull of nonexistent sludge.
“You’re the last person I thought to see here, Mort.”
“I could say the same, Life-Captain Marque.” The black uniform was as crisp as ever, but the man was missing his gloves. His hands had an odd gray hue about them.
“Oh, you know me. Always up for a little adventure. It’s how we met, remember?”
Angeu didn’t grace that with a response. Marque didn’t blame him. He was out of practice in conversation. Had been adrift for too long. Or something. That felt right, anyway. There was a strange sensation in his chest, as if there were some small animal chewing at the line connecting him to everything.
“You know, Captain, that your First-Mate has inherited the possession of your ship.”
“Yes, I imagine the fat bastard’s living it up right now.” Marque couldn’t remember the First-Mate’s name, or if he’d actually even been fat. He was sitting in a chair that he didn’t remember, in the bridge of a ship he didn’t recognize. “Is this what happens to everyone?” he asked, fuzzy memories teasing at his brain.
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t he kill me?”
“No. Your death would defeat the purpose of First-Mate Lamott’s mutiny.”
“Oh. Wait, what?”
“You were going to fail, Marque. There was no way you were going to succeed.”
“Now, hold on a minute -”
“No. There was no possibility.”
“C’mon, Mort. People die all the time. I had someone on the bridge all the time.”
“And you were particularly soft-hearted. It isn’t the job of the Life-Captain to counsel the dead, Marque.”
Marque shifted uncomfortably. Angeu had just used a contraction. He’d never heard the man use a contraction before, not in eight long years.
“You spent far too long with each soul,” Angeu continued. “The only thing necessary in ferrying is the name, Marque.”
“So why are you still talking to me?”
Angeu didn’t answer, just stared at Marque until Marque was forced to look away. It felt like he had invaded on something private with that question.
“So, what happens now?” he asked finally, a bit sheepishly.
“Lamott is a bit more ruthless than you. He intends to turn to piracy to make the quota.”
“Isn’t there anything I can do?”
“No.”
“Stupid bastard saved me, didn’t he?” Marque wished desperately that he could remember something about the man. He couldn’t even recall his ship’s name now. He wasn’t even sure how he felt about it being used for piracy. The gnawing sense of distance was growing stronger, and little rat-claws of anxiety were trying to scratch at the underside of his lungs.
“Indeed. He stands little chance of succeeding, but it is better than your non-existent chance.”
“You really know how to make me feel good about myself.”
“As I said, it’s not the Life-Captain’s task to counsel the dead.”
Marque blinked.
“Wait, I thought you said I wasn’t dead.”
“I said that Lamott didn’t kill you. He fully intended to save you from your fate.”
“So why am I dead? I’m dead, aren’t I?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I come for everyone,” Angeu said dryly.
“Yeah, but how?”
“Um, that was me, sir,” said a voice. Familiar, but not. It etched at the blurry smudges encroaching on Marque’s memories.
“This is my daughter, Keres. You’ve met.” Angeu indicated the woman who entered the bridge with a wave of his gray hand. She was dressed in black as well, her uniform just a bit more form-fitting than could have been legal by any regulatory standards.
“So, you killed me?”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
One brief shining flash of memory sparked through the gray matter. But before he could grasp it, it was gone.
“She’s in training. Observation, mostly. You were her first real assignment. Your time had come and she was closest and knew you best.”
“I’m honored.” Marque was having a hard time remembering what he was doing there in the first place.
“You were a good Life-Captain, Marque,” Keres said, patting him on the hand with fingers that were long and smooth. “There need to be more like you if I have anything to say about it.”
“Didn’t keep me from dying.”
“There isn’t anything to keep anyone from dying,” Angeu said wearily. If he’d been able to remember why, Marque might have been shocked at the almost-indulgent look that passed over the black-clad man’s face. “You really didn’t have any shot of succeeding, Marque.”
“So is this how it feels for everyone?” Words were getting hard to string together.
“Yes,” Keres said, crouching by his side, her hand still on his.
“Good. Wouldn’t want to be treated special or anything.”
“Lamott did the only thing he could to save you. Without him, you’d have died unfinished. As it is, you get to carry on as if you’d never been a Life-Captain.”
“Thanks?”
It was the last thing he remembered saying. The chewing was finished. The line snapped and the last bit of stirring in his chest went still.
Spoiler! :
I'm trying to squeeze in a couple more reviews before Review Day finishes, so sorry if this ends up seeming like its a little rushed, hehe. If you have any questions about this review when I'm done, be sure to let me know because I'll be more than happy to answer them.
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