Release(63)

Gordic got up too, picking up a few more dishes. Keirth started to move as well, but Gordic put a finger in his face. “You stay put. You’re our guests. You don’t help clear the table.”

Another thing Ariana wasn’t used to. Servants served food and cleared the table in her world. But as she watched Gordic and Winda together, their devotion to each other clear on their faces, it made her feel a strange hunger for that shared intimacy. Actually seeing to one’s own primary needs together. Cleaning up after oneself, it suddenly seemed to her, was a symbol of being in touch with reality, being real. Everything about the culture at the sector was removed from reality. It was caught up in stupid rules and customs, but none of those things really mattered. The people of the sector pretended they mattered—maybe they even believed it. But without those rules, they would survive. Real work meant survival, and it was almost as if her family and the others on the sector had created false urgency to fill the need of doing something that ensured survival.

The table clear, Gordic and Winda sat back down at the table. Gordic had brought another bottle of wine, which he was opening.

“So, how did you two meet?” asked Keirth.

Winda and Gordic exchanged a look, smiling.

“Winda tells this story better than me,” said Gordic. He’d opened the wine, and he topped off his own glass and offered the bottle to everyone else. Keirth took some more, but Ariana’s glass was still quite full.

“There’s no story,” said Winda, sipping at her wine.

“Sure there’s a story,” said Keirth. “There’s got to be a story.”

“We met at a bar on Trill,” said Winda. She turned to Ariana. “That’s the biggest planet in the Pyrneth Sector.” She shrugged. “He was really arrogant, and I hated him, but he kept buying me drinks every time I saw him and telling me about the amazing space station he lived on. Eventually, he wore me down, and I came home with him. I pretty much never left.”

“I’m not arrogant,” said Gordic.

Winda sipped some wine, giggling. “You are arrogant.”

“No,” said Gordic. “I’m confident.” He slung his arm over the back of Winda’s chair.

“So,” said Keirth, “you gave up the smuggling business, then? Just like that?”

Winda and Gordic looked at each other again, as if they were deciding how to answer the question. They seemed to be able to communicate just by looking into each other’s eyes. Ariana had never seen anything like it before.

“You know, when I got into dealing illegal weapons, I had this idea that it would be a big adventure all the time.” Gordic ran a finger around the edge of his glass. “After I almost got myself killed the fifth time, I started feeling like the adventure aspect wasn’t exactly worth it, you know? It wasn’t what I’d expected it to be in the end.”

Keirth looked into his wine.

Ariana wondered what he was thinking.

“What are you going to do now?” Gordic asked. “Ever since I met you, Transman, you’ve been focused on your revenge. Now it’s done. So now what?”

Keirth laughed, but it was a kind of hollow sound. “I never thought beyond it, you know. I always figured they’d capture me, and I’d get killed. Oddly, I find I’m not quite ready to die.”

“Who is ready to die, mate?” Gordic took a drink of wine. “Well, you’ll have to stay off the radar for a bit, that’s no question. They certainly are looking for you.”

* * *

After the women had gone to bed, Keirth and Gordic sat in Gordic’s den smoking cigars. Keirth stared up at guns that Gordic had hanging on the wall, and the two reminisced for hours. Keirth had to admit that Gordic was the last man he would have expected to find in domestic bliss. When he’d known Gordic, he’d been a confirmed bachelor who seemed to live for danger. Keirth had never expected Gordic to settle down, but he couldn’t deny that Gordic seemed happier than he’d ever been. And he and Winda were comfortable in a way that he wasn’t really used to. Keirth supposed he hadn’t had much occasion in his life to witness happily married couples.

Still, it was strange. Keirth had spent enough time planetside with Gordic, watching him seduce random women on a host of planets. In the morning, Gordic had always been ready to leave. On to the next adventure. He’d always seemed content to leave women out of it. What had changed? Why had Gordic completely shifted his life to be with Winda?

Finally, as the conversation about their shared hijinks began to wane, Keirth had to ask about it. “You met Winda in a bar, then?”