A Private Little War(100)

Eddie looked around. No one said a word.

“Writing letters to your families, describing the unfortunate circumstances of your deaths in our employment. Apologizing on behalf of the company for your tragic losses. Saying how brave and hardworking you all were and explaining how all benefits would be withheld until the conclusion of a standard investigation. But you know what the real kick was? I got to write my own, too. Addressed to my wife and daughter. You smart bastards killed me the same as you did yourselves.” He dropped his cigarette, crushed it under his heel. “Nice work. Any more questions? No? Good.” He shot to his feet, none too steadily. Neither Fenn nor Carter moved to help him. “I think I’m leaving now. Thanks for the hospitality, Captains. This was just what I needed, you know? Drinks with some friends. First time in two years you could be bothered to ask. Instead of me… you know… in my tent with everything.”

Eddie made no move to leave. Carter and Fenn made no moves at all.

“Okay,” Eddie said. “I’m going to sit back down for a minute.”

He did, and heavily.

“Jesus, that wine packs a punch.”

“Yeah,” said Fenn, approaching gingerly, like Eddie was a wounded animal, a ticking bomb. “It’ll get right up on you if you’re not careful.”

Carter quickly kicked off his boots and moved clear of the area of effect in case Mormon Eddie decided to blow. He stripped off his jumpsuit to the waist, pulled off the catheter and (empty) bag, reached beneath his bed for a filthy rollneck sweater and put it on.

“Sorry, guys,” Eddie said. “I’d leave if I could, but I can’t feel my legs. I just need a minute.”

Fenn looked at Carter behind Eddie’s head and Carter shrugged, wide-eyed. He didn’t know what to do with him. He certainly didn’t want Eddie puking in his bed. This night was turning into something quite different than what he’d expected.

“Uh, that’s fine, Eddie. Just…” Don’t puke; don’t puke; don’t puke. “Just take it easy, all right?” Carter looked up again and growled at Fenn, jerked his head in Eddie’s direction as if to say, Do something! What, he had no clue.

Fenn shook his head. He stepped close, laid a hand on Eddie’s shoulder, crouched down, asked if he could get him anything.

“You’re not going to hit me, are you?” Eddie asked.

“Why would I hit you?”

“Because of what I said?”

Fenn laughed. Carter laughed because Fenn laughed. Eddie looked up with unfocused eyes and an expression strung out somewhere between misery and mystification. “What’s funny?” he asked.

“Family secrets,” Fenn said, picking his words like he was choosing his steps through a minefield. “The thing with them is, they’re never really secret.” He looked across at Carter and motioned for him to speak, opening and closing his thumb and fingers like a duck quacking.

“Yeah,” Carter said, still looking at Fenn. “Right. I mean, I don’t know if I’ve ever had my worth spelled out for me quite that way, but I’ve heard that speech…”

“Or something like it,” Fenn added.

“Right. Something close. I don’t know, two or three times at least.”

“A half dozen easy.”

It came easier now, a flood of words—anything to delay the inevitable, to talk down and beg a moment of grace from Eddie vomiting, sure, but also from death, because Eddie had just killed them. Eddie had just drawn a hidden, secret gun and painted the stinking canvas walls with their brains.

“Worthless pilots. A bunch of drunks and fuckups. Doom and gloom from the company.”

“Heard it from Ted just yesterday.”

“Got the same thing on Proxima Three when things started going bad there.”

“Palas,” Fenn said. “Barson’s World. It’s always the same.”

But still, there was a moment. Between the snap of the hammer and the terrible impact. There was a moment when the bullet was in flight, and that moment could be forever. It could be extended, warped. Death came, but it was flexible. They were dead and they knew they were dead, but it hadn’t happened yet. The bullet was in flight. It was coming. Seven chances out of ten. They talked to expand the distance. To buy time because there were still things to say, stories to tell.

“Oh, but you were eloquent, Eddie. Don’t get me wrong. I mean, that was a good speech.”

“Top-notch.”

“But if you’ve been holding this in all this time?”

“Yeah, if you’ve been trying to, like, protect us or whatever?”