Judas Unchained

Oscar simply couldn’t take his eyes off Tiger Pansy. She’d caught him staring quite a few times, and he’d managed to deflect her questioning gaze with a polite half smile. He knew it was getting close to rudeness now, but she was so out of place here her attraction was akin to a star’s gravity well. But then, would someone like her care about middle-class standards of rudeness? And what does that judgment say about me? Damn, was Adam right about what I’ve become?

“You’re going to have to stop that,” Anna said, and moved to stand in front of him.

“I know,” he mumbled awkwardly.

Her smile became evil. “If you’re a big fan, you should get over that shy streak and go ask her for an autograph.”

“Well, shucks, I guess I’m just too bashful.”

Wilson chuckled. “Stop letting her bully you, man.”

“Advice from the henpecked husband. Great, just what I need.”

Wilson’s tranquillity chilled rapidly. “Oh, hell,” he whispered. “Dudley Bose is on the way over. Both versions. The human one looks pissed.”

Oscar resisted the impulse to turn around. “Time to make a break for it?”

“Too late,” Anna said through gritted teeth and a broad false smile.

“Captain Monroe.” Dudley’s imperious voice cut right through Oscar’s residual good humor. He turned and summoned up a smile. “Dudley. I understand you’ve reacquired your memories.” His gaze flicked to the tall alien with its odd stalklike tentacles. It unnerved him to see something resembling an eye on the end of one bending around to return the gaze. This was worse than locking stares with Tiger Pansy.

“Yes, you bastard,” the human Dudley spat. “I got my memory back. So I know what you did to me.”

People nearest to them hushed up and stole some circumspect looks.

“Problem?” Wilson asked politely.

“Like you care,” Dudley sneered. “You who left me there to die.”

“You make it sound deliberate,” Anna said.

“Well, wasn’t it?” Dudley demanded. “You just kept telling us to go farther in. All the time: Just a little bit farther, Dudley. Go on, find out what’s around the next spiral. This is really interesting. And we trusted you.”

“I never said that,” Oscar insisted. He was racking his memories of those frantic last minutes by the Watchtower. “Your comrelay failed as soon as you entered the tunnel.”

“Liar! You knew MorningLightMountain’s ships were on their way. I’ve seen the official recordings; the whole ship was panicking. Yet you let us carry on. You dumped us like we were garbage.”

“If you’d really accessed the original recordings you’d know we busted our balls trying to reestablish contact,” Oscar said with tight anger. “Mac and Frances put their asses on the line to try to get you back. It was you that ignored protocol; you should have come back as soon as you lost contact. If you’d paid the slightest bit of attention to your training you’d have known that. But, oh no, you were too busy playing up for the unisphere media to bother with training like the rest of us. The Great Discoverer off to further the frontier of human knowledge. You’re as ignorant as you are arrogant, and that hideous little combination is what plunged us into this war.”

Wilson hurriedly stepped between them. Oscar was annoyed. He would have liked to have smacked Dudley right on the nose, and to hell with how bad it would make him look.

“Enough, the pair of you,” Wilson said. The tone of command was perfect. Oscar felt himself scowling at what he could see of Dudley, but still backed off. I’ll be damned, how did he do that?

“We clearly need to go over what happened to establish exactly where the communications failure occurred,” Wilson continued. “But this is not the time or the place.”

“Pha.” Dudley waved a hand in disgust. “Official inquiry by a navy already discredited. Did you prepare the whitewash answers before the President fired you?”

A now furious Oscar sidestepped around Wilson. “Part of the training you missed while you were mouthing off on talk shows was how to recognize impossible situations. You should have wiped your memorycell and suicided as soon as you were captured. Where did MorningLightMountain get the stellar coordinates for our planets, eh? Your mind! You’re not just a traitor, you’re a coward with it!”

Dudley went for him, fists raised. The Bose motile hooked a thick curving arm around his torso, preventing him from reaching Oscar.

Wilson pushed Oscar hard in the chest, shoving him back. A quick pushing match followed before Oscar’s heat withered in shame. “Sorry,” he mumbled, mortified to find that Anna was helping to restrain him as well. “He just gets to me.”

“I know,” Wilson said; his arm was still draped loosely over Oscar’s shoulder, muscles tensed in case he needed to push again.

It was an image mirrored by Dudley and the Bose motile, who were walking in the other direction. Dudley managed to look back, and screwed his face up in rage.

Oscar sucked in his lower lip, trying desperately to resist the temptation to start it all up again. Anna and Wilson were both pressing in close.