Dead.

"Dead ... dead..."

The word runs around the ship, travelling outwards in expanding circles of disbelief and horror.

How did this happen?

I am the Head of Security. It is my duty to investigate, for certainly such a thing merits the closest scrutiny. The safety of the ship and everyone aboard is my responsibility, and my report will be prominent in the accounts of how such a disaster could possibly come about.

I go immediately to the Chief Engineer's quarters. Captain Drennik meets me there, his face set and carved with grief.

Even before we go in, I can hear Calla. The sound makes my belly clench.

She is crouched in a corner, her face hidden. Tevar her husband kneels behind her, his arms around her, his face pressed against her back. He is silent but she cries out for both of them, rocking and wailing for the babe they have been denied.

The door to the cogenitor's room is open.

It takes me a moment to nerve myself to walk to it and look in. Drennik is behind me, silent in support. For the present, there is nothing either of us can usefully to say to either Tevar my cousin, or Calla his wife. I am not sure there ever will be.

Cogenitors are precious, and always kept in comfort. The room is clean and warm, and there is a tray on the sideboard with food on it: a good meal, with delicacies Calla had ordered from the galley as a treat. Although she did not understand – none of us understood! – she is a kind woman, and was doing her best to console the cogenitor for being so mistreated and deceived.

I was present when the Human captain returned xem to us. His face was grave and troubled. He apologised for the disruption and dismay his officer had caused, and hoped it would not cause serious damage to Human-Vissian relations. Drennik, in his turn, was gracious; thanked him for making the right decision, as difficult as it must have been for him, and assured him the cogenitor would be forgiven for xyr small folly. Calla and Tevar wept over xem and led xem straight back to the privacy and safety of their rooms.

Xe never left them again. And now xe will never fulfil xyr purpose and help Calla have a child, for xe lies dead on the floor, xyr open eyes staring at the ceiling in pain and reproach. Xe stripped the protective housing from the wiring behind a communication panel and plunged xyr hand into it, ripping live connections. The system malfunction sounded an alarm on the Science Station, and may the Sisters forgive me, I think I knew even then that the last act of the tragedy had come...

The voltage flung xem halfway across xyr room. Xe was most likely dead before xe hit the floor.

"They never foresaw this." Drennik speaks so softly I can hardly hear him. His voice is full of pain and anger. I do not know whether he is excusing the Humans or blaming them or both, and maybe he does not either.

We trusted the Humans.

May the Sisters forgive both of us, we even liked them.

(... Heat. Lust. Pleasure.)

Now we must turn back to Vissia and make our report. And somehow Calla and Tevar will have to rebuild their lives without dreams.

And somehow both Drennik and I will have to find a way to live with ourselves.

At this moment, I am not sure I can even begin to imagine how I will do it.

=/\=

The formalities have been got through somehow.

Tevar and Calla are under the doctor's care. Around us the whole ship is hushed, the air darkened with their grief.

It is time for me to rest.

This is the moment I have been dreading. If I can survive this, I can survive anything.

The door to my room hisses back.

My bed is neatly made. The clean sheets are not rumpled, the pillows not tossed in disorder.

I sit on the floor opposite, my back supported by the wall.

The room is completely silent, but still I hear the echoes off the walls: panting breaths, moans of pleasure, grunts of effort. My belly roils with nausea and appalled arousal.

I am moving before I know it.

The mattress is heavy, but I pull it from the bed as though it weighed nothing. Then I drag it out of the room and down the corridor. It is awkward to manage one-handed (the other arm is clamped around the pillows), but the strength of fury fuels me.

People step aside to let me pass. Some avert their eyes.

There is a cargo transporter near the ventral docking port. I do not look at the port door as I haul the mattress past it.

The transporter room is empty. I drag the mattress onto the pad and drop the pillows on top of it.

Someone has summoned Drennik. He comes into the room and watches while my trembling fingers set the co-ordinates.

The bedding vanishes in a long gleam of gold that blurs in my eyesight. Somewhere far out in the infinite cold, its atoms disperse.

Tears are no relief. They bring neither resolution nor absolution.

'They never foresaw this.' He does not say it, but it is in his embrace.

Should we have foreseen it? Should we have been more wary?

The safety of the ship is my responsibility. And while tragedy struck, I allowed myself to forget that. I am, at least in part, responsible – in omission, if not in commission. And I will never forgive myself.

In my heart of hearts I know that I share this burden of guilt with my partner in passion. If I know anything of Malcolm Reed other than his body, I know that somewhere he too blames himself for what we did, for forgetting our first sacred duty: the care of our ships and our comrades.

I must live with myself somehow. He must do the same. As must do all the victims of this tragedy of good intentions, save the one who escaped xyr destiny.

And if I ever meet Charles Tucker again, I will kill him.

With my bare hands.

The End.