More likely it had been the gunner himself, which wasn't the worst thing. At least the young man would present events accurately, as far as he knew the details.
Aiden sighed and strode over to slump down on the edge of his bed. He should've been half dozing while Ali worked her flawless technique on him right about now. “The issue's way too complex to simply say it's true or false, without at least some explanation,” he said.
Lana narrowed her lovely hazel eyes. “So complex that the Blank Slate doesn't know enough about the universe to understand it?”
Well, that would've been a convenient way to stop this conversation in its tracks. Although he supposed the young woman deserved better than that; not because she had any right to know his business, of course. But she was becoming good friends with the gunner, however that was even possible, and it was the young man's business too.
“No, I'm sure you can understand it just fine if you're willing to hear me out,” he replied grudgingly.
Lana continued to glower at him for a few seconds, then crossed her arms and leaned back against the door. “As a matter of fact, as a member of your crew, I would like to know why you'd let something like this happen aboard your ship.”
Aiden settled into a more comfortable position, bitter memories rushing back from the dusty corners of his mind where he'd shoved them years ago. Across the room Ali shifted in the seat she'd taken at his desk, as if she wanted to come and offer him comfort and moral support. But at his slight headshake, she reluctantly settled back into her place.
“I didn't know as much about the Ishivi when they first came aboard,” he started quietly. “Seven years ago I was losing a lot of crew, not just to deaths but to desertions. The other Preservationists who'd served with me were sick of fighting, sick of the futility of trying to wage a one ship war against the entire Deconstructionist controlled universe. So two of them just walked away without a word on one of our repair and resupply stops.”
He leaned back on his elbows, staring at the ceiling of his quarters and seeing through it to someplace far away and long ago. “The normal complement for a light combat cruiser is ten, if you include the boarding party. We were down to three. I was desperate for crew when the twins offered to sign up, referred my way through one of my contacts. They were highly recommended.
“I'm not sure what their story is, why they chose a life of piracy on a former Stag cruiser. My guess is they had some internal dispute with other Ishivi and were forced into exile, but good luck learning much about splicers unless you're one of them.”
“I don't want to learn more about those monsters,” Lana snapped. “I just want to know why you let them do what they did to Dax. To your son.”
Aiden flinched, jaw tightening with anger. “Don't call him that!” he snapped. “Not even he views himself that way. And anyway he's the consummate crewman, no room in his disciplined head for anything but his duties.”
“I can't believe you'd say something like that,” the young woman said, eyes wide with disbelief and outrage. “Have you ever even talked to him?” Her own jaw tightened, and before he could answer she kept going. “No, of course not. Easier to see him as pretty much a robot that way. Easier to treat him like one.”
That hit home. Void, for a girl who knew practically nothing she sure could cut to the truth of things.
“I don't enjoy talking about this, so I'll make it brief,” Aiden said through gritted teeth. “Belix was attractive and seemed receptive to a relationship when the twins came aboard, so I pursued her and we became lovers. We'd been together for a couple weeks when she and Barix came to me about the ship's crew shortage problem. They said they could create a construct for me, or even multiple constructs, that could serve any role I needed them for, or all of them. The perfect crewmen.”
He looked away, sighing. “Like I said, I didn't know as much about the Ishivi back then. I knew they had a bad reputation for stealing DNA and for human experimentation, and they'd sided with the Deeks in the war because the Stags disapproved of pretty much everything they did. But the war was over, my ship was on the verge of dying due to crew attrition, and so I agreed.”
Aiden didn't like to think back to that time, but under the circumstances, it was hard not to. Things had been going so right back then, before they went so wrong. Belix had seemed so young and full of life, beautiful and elegant and witty in a haughty, almost cruel sort of way. Then as they became closer she became playful and teasing and fun, and borderline uncontrollably wild in the sack; he still had a few thin scars on his back from her scratches, and some stupid part of him thought back to their lovemaking even now and tried to convince him it had been worth everything.
Might still be worth it, in spite of everything.
Maybe that's why he'd fooled himself into thinking the elfin woman had a deeply romantic worldview hiding behind her vain, aristocratic exterior. That she might actually view him as more than just something between a peasant manservant and a mouse being toyed with by a cat. That she might actually love him.
Looking back, it was hard to believe how naive he'd been.
He probably fell into his reveries for over a minute, lost in bittersweet memories. Lana waited stonily the entire time, obviously not willing to show sympathy for his pain. So he continued grimly, just to get this over
