A Fistful of Redemption

The hatch slid open. A booted foot brushed the metal walkway. Before, it was he coming through the door and stopping behind the man whose image showed in the plexiplasticon viewport. This time, their roles were reversed.

“Did you get the kids squared away?” Miles Sheffield spoke to his friend’s reflection.

“Jessica gave me a bit of trouble,” Aric kan Ingan answered, coming to stand beside him. “Didn’t want me to go. I convinced Michael to sit with her until she went to sleep. She sleeps a lot. Should I worry?”

Without waiting for an answer, he regarded the scene before them.

“You’re thinking about last time, aren’t you? When we went to Arcanis. I thought I was returning home to die…”

“…and I was as determined you wouldn’t.” Miles slapped his friend on the shoulder. “Shall we repeat the rest of that scenario and go to the lounge for a drink before we land?”

“Only if you promise we won’t have any of that abominable lemon soda poison you plied me with last time. I’m a father now. I can’t afford to let my offspring see me in the grip of Terran drink.” Laughing, Aric followed him to the door.

* * *

In the lounge, he made an exaggerated show of inspecting the drink tubes the waitress brought.

“Going to be certain this doesn’t contain any chocolate, aspirin, or other ingredient harmless to Milkies but embarrassingly intoxicating to Arcanians.”

He turned the container on its side, reading the ingredients and making dramatic expressions of horror and surprise before nodding.

“Looks harmless enough.” He flipped open the cap, pouring the liquid into his cup. “It says raspberry. Why is it colorless?’

“Give it a second.” Miles poured his own.

Together they watched as the soda changed color, transforming from completely transparent into a brilliant clear crimson. Little bubbles rose to the surface, bursting with a spatter sending tiny droplets onto the tabletop.

“Better not let the children see this,” Aric remarked. “They’ll bankrupt me ordering soda simply to see what color it becomes.” He shook his head. “Kids. Love ’em but sometimes…”

He looked up. Miles was regarding him with a half-smile.

“What?”

“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you refer to your children as kids.”

“Oh gods, have I finally been corrupted by my association with you? Perhaps there’s something in this drink? Do you suppose I’m going to end up drunk as a lord this time around, too, spilling secrets right and left?”

“Do you have any secrets left to spill?” Miles gave him a slightly jaundiced stare. “Besides, you haven’t had the first swallow so you can’t use that as an excuse.”

“In that case…” Aric lifted the cup, taking a long and very audible gulp. He set it down, grimacing. “You could’ve warned me it was so tart.” He shook his head, licking his lower lip. “Damn.”

“What is it?”

“I was thinking of the first time I heard that word…kids. The Terran ambassador was our guest. We introduced him to the children and he commented on how well-behaved they were, then said his own kids were little hellions.” Aric laughed but it was a sad sound. “I asked him why he was so concerned with the behavior of baby goats, and S-Susan…”

His expression wavered. He took a deep breath.

“…Susan told him, ‘His Majesty’s always had problems with Terran slang, even those having been incorporated into the language for several centuries…’” He bit his lip and looked down at his cup. “Susan…oh gods…”

One hand went to his eyes.

“Jessica wasn’t even born th-then…”

“Aric…don’t.” It was a plea made into a command.

“Don’t worry.” Aric’s hand dropped to the table. “I’m not going to shame myself by breaking down in public.” He didn’t look at Miles, as if in that moment he couldn’t meet his old friend’s eyes. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“Really?” Miles let exasperation tinge that one word, but only a little.

Since the former margrave’s present state of mind so closely mirrored his own, but for different reasons, he decided he couldn’t get too irritated with his friend’s behavior.

“Okay. What am I thinking?”

“That I should be over it by now. It’s been three years. I should’ve accepted what happened.”

Aric looked up and the bleakness in his eyes reflected exactly the expression Miles saw in his own mirror every morning since the day he came home to find his house empty and his wife and children gone.

“I can’t help it. Was it my fault?” Once again, Aric asked the question even now coming to him while he slept, waking him and preventing him from returning to sleep.

“It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” Miles made his answer short.

“If that’s true why do I feel so guilty? I loved Riven and Auric and I suppose I spoiled them. Was I wrong to be lenient? I didn’t want my boys to resent me. Should I have given more beatings and less affection?”

Aric fired the questions at Miles as if he truly expected answers. He’d asked them many times…of himself, his personal physician, his advisors, even the practitioner for the Treatment of Emotional Trauma Dr. Rion recommended. He still didn’t have an answer.

Not a satisfying one, at least.

“Would that have kept Riven from becoming a sociopath? Or Auric from dying?”

“What do you want me to say?” Though he understood perfectly what his friend was going through, Miles looked angry. “All I’ve gotten out of my particular part of this whole thing is more questions than answers and I’ve arrived at only one conclusion that’s keeping me halfway sane…I can’t blame myself.”

He’d said it before and he didn’t doubt he’d probably say it again, to both himself and Aric.

“I had to take Tam away from Arcanis. I had to help him, even if it meant losing Debra and the other children. We both made choices. You’re not to blame.”

He hadn’t lost two children and a wife to suicide, but Miles told himself if he were notified Debra had died, he wouldn’t care…not now. He mourned the break-up of his marriage, but he wasn’t going to disown his illegitimate son. Tam was in his life to stay.

“Anyway, if having a loving home life as a child made for a happy well-adjusted adult, I’d be the most contented human in the universe. Don’t know if you’re aware how lenient my parents were with me…”

“Oh?” Aric’s interruption was delivered with a quirking copper brow. Briefly there was a gleam in the golden eyes. “I seem to remember your father telling me he was going to make certain they didn’t spoil you as they did your sister.”

* * *

Miles’ father, Mark Sheffield, said that to a much younger Aric when he arrived on Arcanis for his daughter’s marriage to Aric’s uncle.

At that time, he’d felt a twinge of pity for the absent little boy, so much younger than his sister who was Aric’s age. Miles was an Afterthought Baby, born long unexpectedly after his parents realized what a monster they’d created in Elizabeth Sheffield.

No doubt about it, Elizabeth had been spoiled, to the detriment of anyone who met her. He knew that better than anyone. He’d been her lover for nearly a decade but she’d very easily condemned him to exile in order to ensure her child inherited the Arcanian throne.

In the wake of Elizabeth’s actions, all young Miles suffered was parental backlash.

* * *

“They definitely didn’t,” Miles replied, thinking back to all the times he considered his parents unreasonable.

After becoming a father himself, he better understood their actions.

“Nevertheless, they were fair. They always let me know why they did what they did, and that I was still loved in spite of any punishment I got. When they died, and my guardian took over, he was the same way. So you see, that old theory doesn’t hold water.”

He smiled as Aric frowned, trying to interpret that Terran cliché.

“Sometimes…” He dared reach across the table and place a hand on Aric’s, squeezing it gently. “Sometimes bad things just happen.”

“A few millennia ago we’d both have been declared cursed by the gods,” Aric said as Miles picked up his drink again.

“Well, there you are…god-accursed…abused as children…loved by both parents…disgustingly well-adjusted…pay your money and make your choice.” He swigged down a third of the soda before speaking again. His was bright green and tasted like apple juice. “Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Let’s face it, Your Former Majesty. Life, especially where children are concerned, is generally a crap-shoot.”

“Speaking of raising children…”

“Is that what we’ve been doing? I thought I was attempting to prevent you from mentally flailing yourself for what happened.”

“You’ve been momentarily successful.” In contrast to the way Miles was gulping down his drink, Aric cautiously sipped his own. “May I ask you something? About your own child-rearing methods?”

“If you do, I’ll have to back away with hands raised. Debra was the disciplinarian in our household. She felt I was too lenient. Maybe she was right, but I loved my kids too much to swat them for every little infraction.” Miles signaled to the waitress who brought over another drink tube. He popped the cap and splashed it into his cup. “Don’t get me started on the Naturals’ philosophy of child development…spare the rod and spoil the child, beat the fear of God and Man into your offspring, and all that shit…Oops, there I go. Shut up, Miles.”

He took another drink, drowning the coming tirade by taking a swallow of soda and nearly choking. He burst into a spasm of coughing.

“Let me reword that,” Aric continued, as Miles recovered. “Your sons are older than mine, so I’m wondering if this is normal behavior…”

“Good God, they haven’t been getting drunk and bringing home girls, or carrying concealed weapons, have they?” Miles pretend horror.

Older son Mark had done all three until his father threatened to stop his tuition payments.

“Not that I know of.”

Miles shook his head. Aric also had a little difficulty understanding Terran sarcasm. He got serious.

“Let’s see, Michael’s what…eighteen now? That makes Richard David sixteen…they giving you trouble about leaving the girls they have at the Pleasure Dome?”

It was an Arcanian custom for the nobility to send their sons to a brothel to be sexually initiated when they reached the age of thirteen. Their reasoning, especially among the ruling family, was to prevent any royal bastards by giving young men means of sexual release with women skilled in not becoming pregnant.

“We’d been at Lindenscraig for three years. There’s no pleasure dome there,” Aric reminded him patiently. “Besides, Susan…” As usual whenever he spoke his second wife’s name, his voice broke. “…Susan made me promise I wouldn’t send either Michael or Richard David there…at least not until they’re adults, and then they would go of their own volition.”

“You mean they’re both still…” Miles let his voice trail away.

“As far as I know, but that’s not what I’m talking about,” Aric hurried on. “Lately they’ve both turned into gutter-mouthed smart-asses. I’ve never struck my children in anger, Miles, but lately…I swear I find myself wanting to back-hand them as my uncle did me.”

“Spoken like a true parent, my old friend.”

“You’re not helping. I want my surviving children to love me.”

“You know what I think?”

“Does it matter? I’ve a feeling you’re going to tell me anyway. You always do.” Aric sighed. “Go ahead. I’m asking, aren’t I?”

“I think you’ve finally hit middle age. Don’t deny it,” Miles went on as Aric started to say something else. “Finally…at the age of…how old are you now…a hundred and five…a hundred and twenty?”

“I’m seventy-five…as you very well know.” Aric raised the cup again, shaking his head. He muttered, “A hundred…”

“Sorry. Guess it only seems like at least a century.” Miles grinned.

He studied his friend a moment, thinking Aric could easily pass for someone his own age if not younger. The copper hair at his temples had paled only slightly to a dark gold. He certainly hadn’t gained any of that middle-aged weight as so many Terrans did.

As for wrinkles? Miles thought he had more than Aric, in spite of everything he’d been through.

“Honest to God, Aric. I feel I’ve known you all my life.”

“You have. A good portion of it anyway.”

Aric studied the ring his cup made on the table, picking it up and setting it down again and again until there were rings within rings…circles within circles, the sign of Ildred Allfather, father of the gods, the mark he’d worn on his forehead so many years as an Exile.

Did I unconsciously make that symbol? Do I consider this trip another form of exile?

“I remember the first time I saw you…twenty-five years old and as wet behind the ears as a newborn puppy.”

That puppy was now the man sitting across from him, nearing sixty, a little graying perhaps, but there was a good portion of the youngster still showing in the trim body and bright blue eyes.

“It’s been a long haul, Miles, but even during the worst part of it, knowing you were my friend helped.”

Those words were so serious Miles didn’t answer for a moment. When he spoke, it was typical Miles Sheffield.

Shrugging, he said in mock insult, “If you’re planning to get all teary-eyed and emotional, I’m leaving. Right now. Nothing’s worse than a maudlin Arcanian.”

Pushing back his chair, he half-stood.

“In that case, I definitely won’t say how I value your friendship or you’re closer than a brother, and I certainly won’t thank you again for convincing me to leave Arcanis and come on this last adventure with you.”

“Last adventure? Who are you kidding?” Miles dropped back into his chair. “This is only another in a series of adventures we’re going to have. Two drifters out to see the galaxy…that’s us…footloose and fancy-free…starting right here, right now, today. To adventure, and plenty of it!” Miles chugged down his soda and slammed the cup against the tabletop. “If we were in some place a little less public, I’d smash this against the floor the way they used to and seal that promise.”

“Right.” Aric’s eyes twinkled as he raised his drink to the toast. “We’re definitely footloose, most certainly fancy-free…a man loaded down with one divorce and multiple child support payments, and one widower still reeling from his wife and two eldest sons’ suicides, now coping with three adolescents.” He nodded. “Oh yes, we’re going to have a hell of a lot of adventure all right. Adventures in Childrearing and How to Slowly Be Driven Insane By Offspring.”

“Shut up and finish your drink.” Miles got to his feet. “We need to start packing.”

* * *

Three years before, Aric kan Ingan had been margrave of Arcanis and the Lesser Galenic Galaxy, a hereditary position he’d lost thanks to his uncle’s marriage to Miles’ sister plus the machinations of the treasonous Council of Elders, then regained through marriage to his cousin. With his beloved Pallas, he became the father of twins Barbara and Riven.

There was a legend in the kan Ingan family warning that no one should ever be named after the two people considered founders of their bloodline because doing so would bring it to an end. To his everlasting sorrow, Aric didn’t heed that warning.

His heir, son of his dead first wife, was discovered to be a sociopath, a murderer and rapist who also plotted his father’s assassination. Riven kan Ingan escaped execution only by killing himself with his half-brother’s help while Auric, Aric’s oldest child with his second wife, Dr. Susan Moran, committed suicide. When Susan realized her admonitions to her stepson to convince his father to abdicate in the prince’s favor were misinterpreted as an order to kill him, she followed her son and stepson in death.

Within the space of a week, Aric was left a stunned widower, bereft of his wife and two of his children, finding himself parent to four youngsters who still didn’t understand what happened. His grief was mirrored by Miles’ loss of his own wife of twenty-five years.

Debra Sheffield was a Natural, member of an influential Terran cult living as their ancestors had centuries before. While on Arcanis, Miles learned he had a son born to a prostitute he’d visited years before his marriage. He gained custody of the boy, bringing him back to Terra where the Naturals’ prohibition against premarital sex made Debra denounce her husband and divorce him, taking away their two children still living at home.

In an attempt to start a new life and escape the memories of his old one, Miles obtained a research position at Terraformation’s colony on the planetoid Élysée. When he learned they needed someone to head their security department, he thought of his old friend.

Aric needed little convincing. Mired in grief, he’d attempted forgiveness from the Arcanian people by abdicating in favor of his daughter’s husband, then secluded himself at the kan Ingan family home for the next three years where he struggled to give his bereaved children some stability. Miles’ suggestion seemed a way to help both himself, as well as Michael, Richard David, Angelica, and baby Jessica return to a normal life, so he accepted.

Now here they were, about to land on Élysée.