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“I would rather not,” he says, lifting his hands up in a refusal.
“Why not?” I frown, immediately irritated.
He speaks softly, in a sorrowful gravel that on its own would warn me I have unintentionally hit a nerve.
“The last baby I held was my own.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“I will look after you and Nemo,” Kail says. “But I cannot be a father to him. I have had my chance at fatherhood, and I failed.”
“You didn’t fail,” I say softly. “It was taken from you.”
The heavy moment is broken by Nemo’s excited squeal. He has spotted the water and wants to swim. He has no time for the trauma of those who are acting as his guardians. He is dedicated solely to joy.
13
We spend most of our credits on the best ship we can find from an illicit dealer, and then most of the rest of them on a little corner of the universe where we can live simply, a small planet, lightly inhabited, with a great deal of open land for sale to settlers like ourselves. We buy a hundred-acre farm with a lake where Nemo can swim. Kail hunts in our forests and those adjoining our land, and I forage. We both farm what we can and raise Nemo as best we can. Kail still avoids the baby where he can, but he can’t help himself from time to time. I have caught him smiling at Nemo when he does not know I am watching, and he insists on making Nemo’s fish and vegetable mash.
We are wounded, inside and out, and just as we will always bear the physical scars of our exploits, the mental and emotional ones will similarly remain. Kail has lost more than I can fathom. I do not understand how he can look at me as a human and not be consumed with rage, but he manages to tolerate me.
We are happy.
It is the simple kind of happy, the kind none of us have ever experienced before, and truth be told we are not good at it. It takes many weeks for us to stop looking to the skies with suspicion.
“It’s okay,” I tell Kail after I find him posted as sentry outside the cabin for the umpteenth night in a row. He is watching the sky with determined eyes. “I think we got away.”
“That’s when they come,” he says. “When you least expect it. When you think you are safe. We can never afford to let our guard down.”
I don’t want to argue with him, largely because I think there’s a chance he’s not wrong. The Colony might forget about us or decide that we’re not worth the bother of tracking. But with the way the Colony works, that’s unlikely in the short term. The Department of Justice will have us on their radar, and they have no other function than to seek justice, or their twisted version of it.
“We have to rest. We cannot always look over our shoulders.”
He gives me a sad stare. “I’m sorry, Tarni, but that is not true. We will be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives. There is no way to avoid it. And the second we stop looking is the second we are dead.”
“Then let me take a shift,” I say. “You’re exhausted. You need sleep. I can watch the stars for a while.”
He must be absolutely exhausted, because he takes me up on the offer. I am left to the cool night and the thoughts that accompany it.
The two of us are alone out here, which we both thought would be a good thing. Safety in isolation. But that leaves the two of us to do absolutely everything, including keep a constant watch. It’s not going to be possible and one day, sooner or later, we will fail.
I don’t want to say that to Kail. He knows that already, and there’s no point in dwelling. Maybe my plan worked. Maybe our journey here was so stealthy and untraceable there’s no way we’ll ever be found. Maybe we’ll stay hidden for long enough that there are personnel changes at the Colony, and nobody left remembers, let alone cares about us. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. All lives are based on maybes. I used to be comfortable with that. Now I’m much less so.
* * *
Morning comes and the maybes evaporate into the hustle of handling a baby. Nemo is growing fast. He’s about six months old now, and twice the size he was when we first found him. Kail has clothed him in animal pelts harvested from around the countryside. He’s feeding him a fish mash made from fish caught in our lake. It’s so satisfying to be able to provide for a family this way, to not be beholden to anyone for anything.
It does, however, mean our resources are vanishingly limited. I stocked the ship with common medicines and long-lasting foodstuffs before we came here, and most of the stocks remain on the vessel. I don’t know why, but I’m not comfortable loading them into the house. Maybe it’s because a construction of wood, mud, and stone doesn’t feel as safe as a vessel with an alloy hull. Or maybe it’s because I’ve spent my life moving from one mark to another and I’m not really all that comfortable living in one place.
This style of life is natural to Kail but not to me.
“Dada,” Nemo says, pointing at Kail with one hand, his other hand wrapped around a spoon.
“Kail,” Kail says.
“Kaw,” Nemo says.
“Close enough,” Kail says approvingly.
