Chapter Four

You, you take away the world

And I don't even know myself now

So how can I know you?

And I don't wanna die

And I don't wanna leave this place yet

Just give me one more try.

-David Usher 'A Day in the Life'

It was hours before Sakin returned, limping and shivering. She had left her shoes and jacket behind in the circle, marking the mines so Harper wouldn’t blow himself up. The first place she had gone was Klint’s to get a spare jacket and boots, but he was asleep and had locked the place up pretty good. She hit the Sugar Free Jazz, but no one really helped her except to say that a big Nietzschean fellow had come looking for her new boyfriend earlier.

/God, Sakin, you’re useless/ she thought to herself as she went limping up and down the streets. Gunfire broke out when two gangs, middle-classers and some really destitute kids, came out of one of the alleys. They knocked Sakin down in the street and she almost got trampled. “Fucking…” She muttered and went barefoot to the police. Last ditch effort.

“I need a mine expert to help me.”

“Why?” The desk sergeant looked at her warily, well, looked at her chest at least.

“There’s two men trapped in the center of one of the minefields. One of them’s lying on a mine. You know. Bouncing mine.”

“What were they doing in a minefield? They should know better.”

“They’re off-worlders.”

“How’d they get there?”

Sakin knew he was playing with her. She glared at him, biting down a sarcastic comeback. “They woke up there. Someone was playing a joke.”

The desk sergeant smothered a grin. “I can’t help you.”

Sakin almost punched him, but then decided she liked freedom better.

So she trudged back to the center of the minefield, after pushing through a jeering crowd that was slowly dispersing after hours of nobody getting blown up. She tiptoed in Tyr’s old footprints, which were starting to shallow, on raw and bloodied feet. She had with her some food from the Sugar Free Jazz, all she could afford with what was on her, and a bottle of water.

Sakin got the circle of boots and jackets and looked at Tyr and Harper sleeping, snuggled up to each other, for a while. The sun had passed its peak and was going to set in a few hours. She sighed.

And to think she was going to sleep with him.

Well, Sakin, you sure can pick ‘em!

She sat down in the center of the circle. “Hey,” She nudged Harper with her foot. He bleared awake, looking cute and cuddly with his hair mussed. Tyr stirred-

“Don’t get up!”

“I wasn’t,” Tyr growled. He yawned, and it reminded Sakin vaguely of the tigers she’d seen caged in zoos. Yikes.

“I brought food and water. Here.” She handed the goods to Harper, who gently poured a few drops of water through Tyr’s lips. “But…they wouldn’t get a mine expert for me. It’s just a big joke for all of them, that’s all. They ignored me.” She started biting hew newly painted nails.

“So…no one’s coming to help us?”

Sakin didn’t answer right away. “No.”

“…so now what?” Harper looked at Sakin and then at Tyr. Neither of them answered him. He laid his head back on Tyr’s chest, the bigger man running his hands through his hair. “Tyr didn’t think you would come back,”

Sakin looked up from biting her nails. “Of course I came back. I’m not…well, I’m not a lot of things.”

The three were silent for a moment. Clouds raced across the sky, blotting out the sun and making it cold, the sort of cool that one experiences in the shadows of skyscrapers and cooled concrete. There was an explosion in the background. Harper and Sakin looked up to see a building go up in flames.

“Oh my god-” Harper started.

“Suicide bomber.” Sakin said, a little dully, a little sadly. “Happens all the time. They’ll never notice us now. And your captain will never hear about it.”

“That is stupid.” Tyr said, in the soft, deep patient voice that he had. “Why would you sacrifice yourself like that if it does not make a difference?”

Sakin shrugged. “They’re desperate. They’ve been ignored all their lives and nobody cares about their cause unless it’s violent and…entertaining. So they kill themselves. And others.”

Harper clutched Tyr’s hand in both of his smaller ones.

“Harper, Sakin, I want you both to leave. Go back to the Andromeda and be safe.”

“I told you, I’m not leaving you.” Harper didn’t loosen his grip.

“Listen to me. If Sakin leaves, go with her.”

“I’m not leaving you here either, man,” Sakin said defensively. “I told you, I’m not like that.”

“You don’t even know us. Why would you stay here?” Tyr narrowed his eyes at the strange girl who reminded him so much of Seamus.

“Because…I dunno, ‘cause you’re my responsibility. You’re both off worlders, I…I should’ve taken better care. I can’t leave you here. I’ll stay here until I can figure out a way to get the both of you out.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Harper settled in beside Tyr, wrapping the bigger man’s arm around him like a security blanket. “There’s no way you can save us. You go. I’ll stay here with Tyr,”

“Harper-”

“Shut up, Tyr, I’m staying.”

“I want you to survive-”

“It’s not worth it if you die. If you die, then…I want to die with you, and we can be together.”

Sakin stood up, making a face. “That’s stupid. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You’re going to throw away everything you’ve been through for…to die? Like those idiots?” She gestured at the burning buildings in the background. “So your death can mean nothing, and everything that’s happened to you before can mean nothing? Maybe your captain will be angry and he’ll cut the treaties and the only difference it’ll make is that maybe your ship will be a little dusty from our moon…” She trailed off, realizing she was no longer making any sense. She shivered and hugged herself. “You have to survive, Harper. You have to go on and free the slave planets and…people died before for you, you can’t let that be in vain. And Tyr, you have to survive, too, because…he…you…this is stupid. Get out of the way, Harper.”

“What? Why?” Sakin pushed Harper out of the way.

“I can take Tyr’s place. If I do it right. I think. I’ve seen it done before. It’s tricky.”

“No,” Tyr said firmly. “It’s too much of a risk. You could kill us all.”

Harper looked at Sakin, then Tyr, then back again.

“Well, Harper,” Tyr said, hands clasped on his chest. “It appears to be your decision.”

Oh, gods in heaven, this was not a decision Harper was capable of making. /Trust in the Harper, the Harper is good./ Why did his own genius have to come back and bite him in the ass? Here he had two people willing to sacrifice themselves for him, two gorgeous, wonderful people that he…god, why couldn’t one of them have been a Dragon, or Bobby? Things would be easier then.

There was Sakin, who was a relative stranger…but who had been so kind to him and had all the same goals as him and had done so much, or tried at least, to help those like him. And Tyr, who was a big bad Nietzschean who scared the hell out of him, and who would probably leave him as soon as she found a suitable female…but whom he loved. And who, apparently, loved him back. Or liked him back at least. Harper knew he wanted that even more than he wanted armies of beautiful girls.

“Choose, Harper,” Sakin said. “Before one of us changes our mind.”

So here he was, stuck between the death of the man he loved, or the woman he could love, and the risk involved with choosing the latter. They could all die. So there were really three possibilities- Tyr dies and so goes Harper, only Sakin dies, or all three.

Oh, he wished Trance was here. She’d know what to do.

/I’d rather save my friend than a stranger./

Oh. Well. Apparently she would.

“I…Tyr.” Harper found his voice. “Change places with him.”

Sakin nodded slowly. Tyr just closed his eyes; he had given this decision to Harper, and Harper had made it. Tyr knew, logically, that he had made the right decision, but he still felt the little bit of sickness that Harper must’ve felt as well.

“Don’t move,” Sakin told Tyr, as she held her hand flat out on the ground and slowly slid it underneath him, blowing dug-out sand away.

It took forever. The sun dipped low on the horizon and the fires died down. Harper watched apprehensively, his face sheeted with sweat, and realized that he had forgotten to breathe. He let out a puff of air when Sakin said, softly: “Got it,”

“Are you sure?” Tyr said.

“As sure as I’m going to get. That’s a risk you’re going to have to take. Is it worth it?”

Harper looked at Tyr.

“Yes,” Harper said.

“Harper says it is.” Tyr was the only one not shaking, possibly because he was too big to.

“Okay, then.” Sakin let out a deep, shaky breath, and bit her lower lip. “Get up.”

Tyr tensed, and in an instant that seemed like a lifetime, sat up.

Everyone winced. A moment later, Sakin opened her eyes and saw her arm weighting down on the landmine.

Harper started to breathe again. Tyr gathered him in his arms and held him close.

Sakin drew her other arm up over the first one and rested her head down there, ensuring that weight stayed on the button of the bouncing mine. She breathed heavily, sweating more in this cold than she ever had in the city’s heat.

“Oh, oh gods, Sakin, I’m sorry, I…oh god. Oh god.”

“Calm down, Harper,” Sakin rested her head on one side and looked up at him, purple dreadlocks beaded with sweat and sand. “It’s fine.”

“I…it’s not for me to decide, see. I don’t want to leave another person behind, what…what if Dylan can’t change your leaders or clean up any of the slave planets-”

“Harper, listen to me.” Sakin looked up at him serenely. Tyr still held him in his arms, his breath pressing against his neck port soothingly. “You only wanted to fuck me. And the feeling was mutual. But you love Tyr. And…and even if nothing else happens because of this, you’ll be together. I know that. It’s worth it.” She smiled at him, and he thought he could hear the strains of music floating up from the Sugar Free Jazz again. “You WILL talk to your captain, right?”

“Yes. Yes. I promise. I mean it.”

“Good. Get out of here. Before I change my mind.”

Harper was about to say something else, but whatever it was, was cut off when Tyr literally scooped him up and carried him across the minefield.

His old footprints had become much shallower, but the imprints were still there, and Tyr’s excellent, photographic memory allowed him to know where exactly to step.

“Wait, wait,” Harper struggled against him. “I can’t leave her behind, I can’t leave another person behind-”

“Harper, hush,” Tyr tried his best to be soothing as he carried his precious cargo back to the spaceport. “It was her decision to make. If she really didn’t want to do it, she wouldn’t have. The only thing you can do now is keep the promise you made to her. Then it wouldn’t have been in vain, and neither would Brendan, or whoever else you left behind on those slave ships.”

Harper stiffened at the thought of the New Yorker, but he stopped struggling and allowed Tyr to carry him off.

Try as he might, it would take him a lifetime to get the images of that little girl with the windswept hair, or Sakin’s expressive black eyes and purple dreadlocks out of his memory.

Epilogue

How many cans must I stack up?

To wash you out from my mind

Out of my consciousness?

-Soul Coughing ‘How Many Cans’

After night had fallen and Sakin lay there for what seemed and eternity, Klint walked slowly through the minefield, using footprints left behind by a certain Nietzschean, carrying a blanket and a bottle of water.

He sat by his friend silently. “I was looking for you at the Sugar Free Jazz. They told me I could find you here. You can’t keep out of trouble, can you?”

Sakin remained still as he pulled the blanket over her, tears spilling silently out of her black eyes. “How am I going to get out of this one, Klint?”

“I don’t know,” Klint said as he laid down beside her, draping his arm around her back comfortingly. “We’ll figure something out.”

They lay like that, in comforting silence.

“Klint?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t you have work right now?”

“I quit.”

--

“It was easier than I thought,” Harper said, disbelieving, lounging lazily in Tyr’s arms in the bigger man’s bed aboard the Andromeda.

“It wasn’t THAT easy,” Tyr disputed. “You weren’t there. Dylan was in that board room with those idiot leaders for weeks.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but…they’ve been trying to get that to happen for years, you know?”

“Mmm,” Tyr drew his human closer to him and breathed in his scent. After much pestering, Dylan had met with the Sardonic leaders at Harper’s request. He finally got the truth out of them about ballot stuffing, and the gang wars and the minefields and the industry trafficking with the Dragons. New legislations had been made and the Sabra-Jaguars agreed to allow relief work and aid stations to be set up on slave planets in their territory. Much good had come from their dangerous little escapade in central Tipiskaw, but it still made Tyr’s blood boil when he thought of how much danger he and his little human had been in.

It wasn’t in vain. Harper allowed himself a small smile when he thought back of Brendan, and the little girl from the New Yorker, and Sakin’s purple dreadlocks and black eyes and kisses.

“Hey, Tyr?”

“Yes, little one.”

“Would you ever consider getting a tongue stud?”

Big arms closed around his chest a little tighter. “If you wish. I may consider it.”

THE END

--

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