Nexus by Robert Boyczuk (best large ebook reader txt) 📕

“Hey!” Sav said, out of breath from his run. “Stop it!”

Binlosson turned, his face compressed in a sneer. “What are you going to do?”

Seeing his chance, Ruen leapt forward and brought down his cane. But Binlosson must have been warned by the expression on Sav’s face, for he spun around shooting up his arm, hand open, at the same time. The shaft of Ruen’s stick caught Binlosson’s palm with a loud, painful-sounding smack. Binlosson’s fingers instinctively snapped closed around it. The blood drained from his face.

The two stood, clutching either end of the cane; then Ruen released his grip and darted underneath Binlosson’s upraised arm. With surprising agility, the holy man bounded past Sav and sprinted down the corridor, his robes flapping behind him. Binlosson stood still, his arm still aloft. At first he seemed too surprised to be angry; then his face coloured and he began to shake with fury. Grabbing the other end of the cane, he brought it down over his knee; it snapped with a sharp report like a gunshot, echoing down the corridor. Binlosson hurled the pieces into the corner. The flesh of his left hand was bright red where the shaft had struck.

“I’ll kill you!” he shouted, stepping out into the main corridor. “The next time I see you, I’ll kill you!”

Ruen all but disappeared after this incident. Sav assumed the holy man had taken to the lower levels of the Facility to wait out the storm. Binlosson fumed for a few days, then seemed to shrug off the incident; he made no more open threats on the patrix‘s life. When Ruen finally emerged from hiding-he referred to it as a period of prayer and contemplation-he went to great lengths to avoid Binlosson. Not much help before, now the patrix refused to participate in their preparations at all, lest he come in contact with the other man. “He hasn’t had to do a lick of work in his life,” Binlosson had said with undisguised disdain while watching Sav unload the dropship from a perch atop a stack of crates. “Why should he start now?”

One other odd thing came out of Ruen’s absence: the holy man told them he had meditated on his role as their spiritual leader during his period of ‘contemplation’; he had decided to go with The Viracosa to the Nexus Hub-despite his dire warnings about missing the Dissolution. He claimed he’d had a vision. “My duty as your pastor became clear,” he declared loudly. “I have been forbidden to abandon your souls. Against my wishes I will accompany you until such time as you are enlightened.”

“More likely he fears abandoning our food,” Binlosson commented later when he heard of the holy man’s change of heart. For Mira, at least, Ruen’s partial turnaround seemed comforting. She embraced her work with an undisguised relief.

Throughout all of this, Liis continued to move like an automaton. She paid no more attention to Sav now than she had before. If anything she seemed more distant, averting her eyes when they passed in the corridor, mumbling terse responses to his comments and questions. It was as if she were making a point, trying to erase their encounter. Her indifference irritated Sav. It wasn’t that he expected anything from her; he was convinced Josua had sent her to his room that night. But it bothered him. Perhaps it wasn’t so much the way she treated him as the way in which she still doted on Josua, following his movements intently, like a protective mother would her child. Sav had wondered if his reaction might be jealousy, but dismissed the notion quickly, believing himself hardened against those sorts of feelings. A lifetime as a longhauler had seen to that. He told himself it was loneliness, pure and simple. He thought of her as his friend. Half a dozen times he and Liis had crewed together, and he supposed he knew her as well as he knew anyone else.

Which meant, he realised with an unexpected wave of sadness, that he didn’t really know her at all.

A walk, Sav thought, sitting up on his cot. I’ll take a walk.

It was late, and all night he’d faded in and out of an agitated half-sleep. He swung his legs over the edge of the cot and pushed himself to his feet. Slipping on his coveralls and boots, he stepped into the debris-filled corridor. The stasis facility was silent, all the lights, except for orange emergency lamps, extinguished to save power. He slouched down the hallway towards the dropshaft-then stopped in front of Liis’ room. The door was wide open, her cot empty.

There was only one place she could be at this time of night. With Josua, he thought.

Against the far wall of her room was the stained cot on which Josua had lain; rumpled sheets were piled on one end, undisturbed since the day he had abandoned them. The thin pallet on which Liis slept was shoved off to the side of the room. Sav recognized one of the dried out antiseptic pads they had used on Josua so long ago, curled and useless now, outside the door, pushed into the corridor by the rising tide of garbage. He kicked it back into the room; the pad caromed off an empty box and hit a pile of discarded food wrappers beneath the cot, scattering them. Sav stared into the deserted room, an image of Josua and Liis together suddenly forming in his mind’s eye.

Abruptly he turned and strode down the corridor to his own room. He sat on his cot. For a time he gazed blankly into the hall. The wash of the emergency lights painted it a garish orange. His thoughts were confused, jumbled. He tried to convince himself that Liis’ presence in Josua’s room didn’t matter. That none of it mattered.

Yet it did.

He cursed himself for being so foolish, caught by his desire. And by the recrimination he felt for experiencing this need. Liis wanted Josua. Not him. And until now, it hadn’t occurred to Sav that he wanted her. His unexpected desire was stupid and unrealistic. And in a month they’d be in different ships, heading for worlds light years apart. The odds of surviving Yilda’s demented mission were infinitesimal; the chance of seeing Liis again after their departure non-existent. But none of that seemed to change the way his mind insisted on veering back to the image of Liis and Josua together. He realised his hands were balled into fists. He forced them open, rubbed them on his knees, leaving dark streaks of sweat. He took several deep breaths.

Later-though how much later Sav couldn’t be certain-the elevator softly rumbled to a stop, the rollers on the bottom of its door squeaking as it slid open. He waited, listening for Liis’ footsteps. But there was only silence.

Rising from his cot, Sav stepped quietly down the corridor. The elevator doors were still open. Inside, in the harsh glare of the undimmed lights, Liis stood, leaning against the back wall of the car, her head bowed. When Sav stepped inside, the elevator bobbed slightly as the cables took his weight.

“Liis,” Sav said softly, reaching up to grip her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

Liis looked up, her face blank, eyes red, as if she’d been crying. She blinked, seemed confused by the question. “Nothing,” she answered, more to herself, it seemed, than to him. She lowered her gaze. “He isn’t Josua,” she said, like she was answering a question that hadn’t been asked.

“What?”

“He doesn’t want me.”

“What are you talking about?” He tightened his hold on her shoulders, aware suddenly of the movement of her bones and flesh beneath his fingers. Disconcerted, he let go and jammed his hands in his pockets. “Liis, what’s happened?”

When she spoke it was as if she were talking past Sav. “I went to his room every night. I listened patiently to his theories about Nexus. I sat with him while he spoke over and over about our betrayal. Our betrayal.” She paused, her eyes wavering, then settling on Sav’s chest. “Talk. We talked. But he wouldn’t come near me. Wouldn’t touch me.” In a voice so quiet Sav could barely hear it, she said, “So I asked. I begged him. Told him I’d do anything he wanted.”

Blood throbbed in Sav’s temples.

“He asked me to be Shiranda.” Liis’ expression hardened. “He wanted to lie there, with his eyes closed, while I-” her words abruptly fell off. “He had things he wanted me to say, sounds he wanted me to make.” She blanched. “It’s not him. It couldn’t be Josua.” Reaching out, she clutched Sav’s sleeve. “There’s someone else there, someone we don’t know at all. A person who’s hiding from us. He looks like Josua, but he’s only playing a role, a character he knows about but doesn’t feel.”

“I…I guess we’re all a little broken. After what we’ve been through.” Sav felt his words were stupid, inadequate, that they were there only to fill empty space. He lowered his gaze until it fell on the hand that still clutched his sleeve. And then he saw the finger-sized bruises purpling her wrist and forearm, disappearing underneath the cuff of her long-sleeved shirt. He looked up. Was it a trick of the shadows or were there dark smudges on her collarbone as well? Anger suffused Sav. “What’s he done to you!”

His outrage seemed to wake her; for the first time she looked directly at him. Blinking like she’d just woken, she followed his gaze to her own wrist and examined it dispassionately. She released Sav’s sleeve and crossed her arms over her chest, burying the bruises from sight. “It…it wasn’t Josua. He’s a good man.” She began rocking slowly, her shoulders hunched, arms wrapped tightly around her torso. “It’s not him,” she said with utter conviction. She looked pointedly at Sav; the pupils of her hard, grey eyes were small points. “Josua would never…hurt me.” She paused. “Would he?”

She’s still making excuses for him, Sav thought bitterly. She won’t let herself see what he’s become. It sickened him, heightened his infuriation-and drained him too. His legs felt weak, rubbery. He tried to come up with something to say. But all he could do was look away, stare at his feet as the cramped space of the elevator seemed to turn slowly.

“Would he?” Liis made no attempt to hide her desperation.

“I…I don’t know.”

A tear fell, ticked against the toe of Sav’s dusty boot, leaving a dark imprint. Liis shoved roughly past him.

Sav was paralyzed, incapable of movement.

In the silence, sounds came to him with an unnatural clarity: the soft, almost inaudible, hum of the elevator light; the rasp of air creaking in his lungs; the sound of Liis’ footsteps in the hallway; the click of her latch bolt falling into place; and then her muffled sobs echoing forlornly in the corridor.

The work ate away their remaining days. At least that was the way Sav thought about it, like time was a carnivore leisurely feeding on the carcass of its downed prey. Initially, he had refused to wear the start watch (as Binlosson had wryly dubbed it) Hebuiza and Yilda had made for them. The day they had been distributed he had tossed his on the highest shelf in his room; now, when the lights were extinguished and the door sealed, it cast a faint green penumbra around the box behind which it had fallen. But for the past week, Sav realised, he