Avalon

He walked silently past the closed cabin doors to sick bay. The moment he stepped inside, a familiar voice filled his ears. The sound cut into him like a dull knife, realization slow and painful.

Mom.

He hadn’t heard her voice in ages, yet he had no trouble recognizing it. How could he have ever thought he’d forgotten? For a moment, he just stood there, frozen in place as all his other senses slid away.

“I’ve tried and tried to get a message to Charles, but he hasn’t answered,” his mother was saying. “He was our only hope, but I don’t think he’s going to help me now, even though he said he would.” She sounded broken somehow, a woman standing on the edge.

Jeth walked farther into the room, his eyes moving automatically to the source of her voice. It came from the video screen on the wall above the operating table. Milton sat on a stool in front of it, his head bent back, the whiskey bottle half-empty in his hands.

“But there’s no one else I can turn to,” his mother went on. “Not now. We’ve come too far. He’s not the person I thought he was.”

Jeth stared at his mother, hardly believing it was her. She looked just like he remembered. Except there was something different about her, too. She looked impossibly young, her skin smooth and eyes bright. She seemed to exude an aura of vibrancy completely at odds with her broken, panicked tone. And yet gray hairs he couldn’t recall threaded through the auburn like silver streamers.

“Who’s Charles?” Jeth said.

Milton gave a little jump then looked over his shoulder. “I don’t know. Someone in the ITA, someone she trusted and thought could help her out of whatever situation she was in.” He turned around and paused the video. “She was always too trusting,” Milton muttered. “Always seeing what she wanted to in people. Just the good, rarely the bad.”

Sounds like Lizzie, Jeth thought, stepping closer. His eyes remained fixed on the image of his mother. He didn’t think he could look away even if he wanted to. “This is from the data crystal Lizzie found?”

“Yes.” Milton took a long drink from the whiskey bottle, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I knew it would hurt, seeing it, but I never guessed how much.”

Jeth didn’t say anything. He understood exactly. He had known how the content would make him feel. The way he did now—empty inside except for an angry, pain-pulsed hole where his heart used to be.

And terribly, utterly alone.

Milton set the bottle on the table and then picked up the video remote. “I wish I did know who this Charles was. Marian . . .” Milton paused, a hitch in his voice, as if speaking her name caused him physical pain. “In the next entry, she says that he betrayed her. Told the ITA their location.”

The floor seemed to drop out from Jeth’s feet. “What? What happened?”

Milton shook his head. “I don’t know. Looks like she and your dad knew the ITA were after them and tried to hide. She recorded a lot of this then, but she doesn’t say what’s happening. She doesn’t say much of anything. Half of it’s gibberish. Like she was suffering from some form of dementia.”

“How do you mean?”

In answer, Milton pressed a button on the remote. Marian’s face disappeared from the monitor, replaced by the main screen that listed the contents of the data crystal. Jeth saw the problem at once. His mother had always been extremely organized and logical about everything. She was fond of alphabetizing jars of food and folding towels with such precision they might’ve been on display in a store. But the contents on the crystal were a mess. Random letters and numbers comprised the file names, none of them comprehensible. It was the sort of thing that would’ve driven his mother mad.

“What is all that stuff?” Jeth said.

“Mostly the Belgrave star charts she and your dad mapped out. The rest are video journals and sensor readouts that are still in computer code. Looks like she did a straight data dump from the system to the crystal for most of them without bothering to run a translate analysis.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Who can say, given the state she was in?” Milton made a fist and slammed it on the table. “Why didn’t she come to me instead of this Charles? She might still be alive.”

Jeth gaped. Milton rarely lost his temper. Anger required too much effort. You had to care to get worked up, but Milton only cared about the next drink and living as undisturbed a life as possible.

That’s not true and you know it.

Jeth sighed, conceding the point. He knew the drinking and apathy were just an act, nothing but a self-defense mechanism. Trouble was Milton cared too much. Anybody could see that. Jeth took in his uncle’s appearance, dismayed at the ruination of old age and alcohol abuse on his face. Purpled flesh covered his cheeks and nose. Red hatch marks speckled the whites of his eyes.

“I’m sorry for shouting,” Milton said.

“It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not. Nothing about this is all right.” Milton stood, swaying a bit.

Jeth stepped forward and grabbed his arm to steady him.

Milton jerked away. “I’m fine.”

Sure you are, you stubborn old man.

Jeth moved aside as Milton walked past him. His uncle stopped at one of the supply cabinets and opened a drawer, pulling out another data crystal. Then he came back to the control unit and switched out Jeth’s mother’s crystal with the new one.