Page 10 of Remmen

“What brought you here?” he asked.

I’d known that one was coming. I had the answer ready, smooth from use.

“The Agency was hiring and the passage was free.” I shrugged, like that covered it. “I was on a mining colony before this. A nowhere rock called Perren. If you think this place is rough, Perren would’ve eaten it for breakfast and then asked for more.”

The description didn’t scare him off. “What was it like?”

Why did I bring up Perren? My throat got scratchy thinking about it. “No sky. It smelled like metal and other people’s far—um, and other people, and the budget was less a budget than a rumor somebody kept repeating.” I settled back. “When a posting came up somewhere with actual weather, I grabbed it.” No reason to mention any emotional breakdowns or life explosions in between the two events.

“Does a mining colony have much use for counselors?”

I shrugged. “People break the same everywhere. Miners break faster. Work a few hundred of them too hard, pay them too little, stack them under a dome, and sooner or later some of them can’t get out of bed in the morning.”

It came out a bit harsher than I meant. One of the perils of the trade: even the breeziest of stories was gut-wrenching.

He didn’t rush to fill the quiet. He didn’t tell me how hard that must have been, or make a noise about all the good I must have done. He just listened, all of his attention on me.

It’s a good trick. I’d know. I use it on people all the damn time.

The worst part was that it worked on me anyway. I wanted to keep talking. I wanted to tell him whose bed I’d been describing. I wanted to tell him about the contract I’d walked out on, and how you don’t do that, and how you beg, borrow, and steal for another chance at a job.

I didn’t.

I refused to carry my mess with me. It was back in my room, shoved under a pile of socks with the wedding invitation I still hadn’t managed to toss. I keep the proof of my worst decisions close. Maybe a better counselor could say why.

“Your turn,” I said. “How does a person end up mayor of a town like this?”

“They pulled my name out of a hat.”

“Be serious.”

His hands tightened on the wheel. I waited. I wasn’t going to pry. He wasn’t my client, and more than that, I wanted him to tell me because he wanted to, not because I knew how to wait a man out.

“No one else would take it,” he said finally. “We got free, and there were things that had to be decided. Who lived where. Who did what. Someone had to say it, and everyone looked at me.” The road curved between two hills and he took most of the jolt on his side. “I did the first term and the place didn’t burn down. Then I waited for someone to stand for election when it was time.”

“And nobody stepped up?”

“No.”

He said it flat. No pride in it, no complaint either.

Which meant, of course, that I found it attractive.

“I’m asking as a friend, by the way,” I said. “Not a counselor. Off the clock. I’m not going to trap you in a truck and start poking around your childhood.”

He looked over at me. “Is that what we are? Friends?”

My stomach flipped. “I’d like to be.” It came out more honest than I’d meant it to, so I kept talking. “You’re about the only person in this town who talks to me in whole sentences. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

The corner of his mouth moved. On Remmen that was a whole speech.

“Friends, then.”

Friends. Good. That was a thing I could manage. Friends went for drives and asked each other polite questions about work. Friends did not spend the whole ride taking inventory of the other one’s forearms.

I was going to be a disaster at this.

He pulled the truck off the track where the hills dropped away and cut the engine. Without it the whole cab went quiet, and about half its size.