Legba Read online

  Shango nodded at Jelly Bean’s screen. “If those measurements are accurate, though, this thing is smaller than a moon. Could Legba actually survive on a planetary body that small?”

  Olofi approached the window, an expression of worry on his face. “Does it even have an atmosphere? It looks so small it doesn’t seem like it would even have a substantial gravitational pull…”

  Loco leaned back in his seat, absently swishing water around in a glass. “Yeah. What’s the point of having a hideout where you have to spend all your time and energy clinging to the ground so that you don’t just float out into space? Seems like a pretty big oversight. Especially for a tech mage. They’re supposed to be pretty smart.”

  Jelly Bean turned her gaze back to her screen. “I can assure you, you are indeed looking at the location of Legba’s hideout, coordinates QX849-LF. Or, rather the newest version of the coordinates QX849-LF. The location shifts, so it took me a few hours of brute force computations to determine the new coordinates.”

  She gestured to a holographic projection that covered one of the large screens that loomed over the bridge. The projection was so dense with layer upon layer of symbols that it was difficult to read. “However, you are perfectly welcome to check my work, if you have any lingering doubts.”

  Olofi stared blankly at the wall of dense calculations and nodded sheepishly. “That’s, uh, that’s okay. I trust you.” He glanced at the small floating mass and smiled to himself. “It’ll be nice to see Legba again.”

  Shango snorted and turned away from the large screen, crossing his arms. “I don’t know about that. It might be… illuminating, to hear why he needed to leave in such a hurry after dropping Bentley and Svend off at that android airfield. It’s not as though we had any outstanding questions that he might have been able to answer. Questions about, say, a certain amnesiac woman, who happens to have a certain special relationship to a certain powerful sword, which is capable of creating a portal to the Unseen World. A certain sword that could be incredibly useful to us, and perhaps apocalyptically useful to Malleghan. No. We did not have any questions like that.”

  Loco stood up from his seat and clapped slowly. “Wow. Sarcasm. Have you been practicing?”

  Shango averted his eyes, embarrassed. “I— No…”

  Loco sat down. “Well, it really shows. If I were you, I might stick with dignified stoicism. That seems like it’s more in your wheelhouse. But hey, that’s just my opinion.”

  Olofi turned to Shango. “Well, wait a second. Sure, Legba might have left quite suddenly, but you’ve got to admit, he did really help us out. Not only did he deliver Bentley and Svend back to us, safe and sound, but it was his guidance that allowed Bentley to open and close that portal. Had it not been for his intervention, Amroth and his fleet of LaPlacian battleships would have completely crushed the android forces. And us, for that matter. Legba saved us all.”

  Shango paced. “Well… maybe…”

  Olofi smiled. “Plus, killing Amroth was a pretty nice touch, wouldn’t you say?”

  Loco shrugged. “I wouldn’t give that point to Legba just yet. Amroth’s been dead, what, a couple of weeks now? Three, tops?”

  Jade sat to Jelly Bean’s left at the navigation console, staring at her own screen, and a confused look spread across her face. She glanced over at Loco. “Why does it matter if he’s been dead for three weeks, or three years, or three millennia? He’s dead. If someone’s dead aren’t they… just… dead?”

  Loco took a sip of water. “Not exactly. A more trustworthy, less god-like person, I’d be less worried about. If some upstanding Imperial citizen is coming home after, I don’t know, a day at work, or paying his taxes, or returning his library books on time, and he gets run over by a speeder, then sure, he’s dead for good. But that’s not Amroth. I don’t care if I saw his entire body get torn apart into 37 separate pieces, and then each of those pieces got sent to 37 different meat rendering plants in 37 different sectors. And even if I then visited each of those 37 meat rendering plants on an interstellar meat rendering plant tourism marathon, and watched a technician from each of those 37 meat rendering plants grind each of the 37 pieces into—”

  Jade’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “Okay, okay. We get it.”

  Loco smirked. “Look, if you don’t want to learn about the intricacies of meat rendering, that’s your loss. All I’m saying is, I don’t think he’s gone for good. Cockroaches have a way of coming back from the dead.”

  Jade twisted her mouth, a doubtful expression in her eyes. “I don’t think that’s true. Yes, it can be hard to eliminate a cockroach infestation, but it’s not because any of the cockroaches are coming back to life.”

  Olofi scratched his head. “Isn’t that an expression, though? You know, ‘Just because you step on a cockroach doesn’t mean it’s dead’? Something like that?”

  Jade arched her eyebrows. “Maybe if you’re really bad at stepping on cockroaches. You’ve just got to remember to put your heel into it.” She turned around in her seat and demonstrated, grinding her heel into the floor of the command deck. “Like this.”

  Loco stood up and waved dismissively at Jade. “All right, all right. Just because we made you head engineer doesn’t mean you’re also head of bug killing facts. There’s a series of exams you need to pass if you want to attain that designation.”

  He approached Shango and threw an arm over his shoulder as he peered at the mass of rock, which seemed to be getting ever closer. “Let’s not lose sight of what’s important: placing bets on how luxurious Legba’s hideout is.”

  Jade sighed and turned back to her screen. Shango delicately took hold of Loco’s arm, moved it off of his shoulder, and dropped it, letting it fall to Loco’s side.

  Loco smiled. “Oh, come on. What do you think? I should warn you, I’m giving a low payout on high-fidelity corteX links. A tech mage without some sort of wireless connectivity system, that seems pretty unlikely. Same for access to all the upper-tier entertainment streams. I imagine the signals are pretty weak out here, but Legba probably figured something out. Maybe he hollowed out a big rock to make a satellite dish, like some kind of high-tech caveman. And maybe he piled some other rocks into the shapes of other tech mages, so that he wouldn’t have to watch his favorite shows all alone. I’ll give you 100:1 odds that one of his rock buddies is named ‘Jeff.’ 200:1 that they’re all named ‘Jeff.’”

  Shango massaged his temples, his eyes closed. “Loco…”

  Loco elbowed Shango. “I know, I know. You don’t care about his entertainment options. Such things are too pedestrian for you. You’re an lwa of discerning tastes. What you’re most curious about are the dining options that are available in Legba’s luxurious domicile. Based on the rocky surface, I’m guessing he doesn’t have a lot of locally sourced produce. Unless he’s serving a very rock-based menu. And based on the size, I don’t think he’s got a huge kitchen staff. Unless you count his screening room full of rock Jeffs, but they’re probably not much help in the kitchen. We’ll be lucky if he even has a third-rate sommelier. I’d give 3:1 odds that all of the food is delivered. I imagine things probably do get a bit cold after a few light years of travel, though.”

  Shango opened his eyes. “Are you just mad that we ran out of your favorite booze? If you stop talking, I promise you, we’ll get more of it, as soon as that’s possible.”

  Loco took a deep breath, a look of resignation creeping over his face. “We didn’t run out of my favorite booze. We ran out of all the booze.” He peered into his glass of water. “Do you know how drunk this stuff gets me? None. None drunk. I would fucking kill for some red.”

  Shango walked towards the command deck. “Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. We need our entire crew more than you need a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon.”

  Loco covered his ears. “Please don’t be cruel. Specific names just make it easier to conjure up specific memories. I can almost imagine my last glass of Cabernet Sauvignon…”

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nbsp; He looked down at his glass of water. His eyebrows narrowed, and a smile slowly spread across his face. He closed his eyes and took a tentative sip of water. He let it sit in his mouth, and he furrowed his brow, deep in concentration. After a few seconds, he spat the water back into the glass, and sighed, deflated. “I really wish I had a better imagination. Or, actually, I guess if I’m wishing, I just wish I had some booze…”

  Shango watched Loco, shaking his head. “If you would like to continue your pretend wine tasting, you go right ahead, but the rest of us have important tasks to attend to. We’re getting close.”

  He glanced back at the tiny astronomical object on the main screen. It was close enough that he could now start to see the topography of its rocky surface. He saw depressions that had the distinct appearance of having been formed by erosion due to running water. He also saw the first signs of some sort of plant life, which stuck out on the non-planet’s mostly bare surface. This might actually be it, he thought to himself. Finally.

  Smiling despite himself, he turned to the command desk, and locked his eyes on Jade. “Head engineer?”

  Jade immediately leapt from her seat, turned to Shango, and stood at attention, saluting. “Yes, sir!”

  Shango stepped back, surprised. “Uh… Initiate the landing sequence.”

  Olofi turned to Jade. “Also, you don’t need to salute.”

  Jade nodded, still at attention. “Yes, sir.”

  Olofi smiled. “You can also do without the ‘Yes, sir’s. You’re a part of the team, not a subordinate.” Jade smiled and sat back down at her workstation.

  Loco returned to his seat. “Although you are still a sub-god.”

  Olofi and Shango frowned at him. Loco shrugged. “What? She is. Good luck giving her a title that changes that fact.”

  Olofi shook his head and turned back to the command deck. “Jelly Bean. Please wake Bentley and Svend.” Jelly Bean nodded and stood up from her seat.

  Loco snorted. “That seems redundant. If you wake up one, you’ll almost certainly wake up the other one, right?”

  Olofi looked puzzled. “I… I don’t think that follows. They’re sleeping in separate quarters, aren’t they?”

  Loco smirked. “I don’t know if you were paying attention, but when they got on the ship back in the Orion Sector, they didn’t exactly look like two individuals intent on staying in separate quarters.”

  Jelly Bean looked back and forth between Olofi and Loco, confused. “I am not sure I understand the directions. Should I go to wake Bentley and Svend, or is it now a higher priority to listen to Loco as he expresses various statements of innuendo about a possible sexual relationship between Bentley and Svend?”

  Loco waved at Jelly Bean. “Oh, go ahead and wake the love birds. I’ve already got an audience right here.”

  As Jelly Bean left the room, she heard a collective groan from the bridge.

  +++

  Bentley’s Quarters, Aboard the Chesed, Deep Space

  Bentley sat on her bed, strapping on her left boot, wearing the utilitarian overall outfit that she wore most days on the Chesed. If Jelly Bean’s forecasts were correct, they would be arriving at Legba’s rocky non-planet within the next few hours, and the overalls had been a very comfortable outfit the last time she stopped by his hideout. Besides, Legba’s not exactly in any position to judge people’s fashion choices, she thought to herself.

  She looked to her right, at Svend, who sat next to her on the bed, also fully clothed. This is not how I expected to be spending mornings with Svend, she thought. Fully clothed, and putting on even more clothes… She looked back down to her boot.

  Svend looked down at his hands, which he had placed on his knees. He tentatively moved his hands to his thighs, then immediately returned them to his knees. He looked over at Bentley. “Do you, uh, do you need a hand with that?”

  She looked up. “What?”

  Svend paused, hesitant. “With, uh, your boot? Do you need a hand with your boot?”

  Bentley’s brow furrowed. “I— No. I’m fine. I can put on my own boots.”

  Svend nodded. “Right. Of course you can. Sorry. C— Carry on…”

  Bentley grabbed her right boot, placed her foot inside, and began to strap on the boot. She sighed, and looked back at Svend. This probably isn’t the right time, she thought. But when would be?

  When Svend had come onto the ship with her, she’d nurtured a hope that they might be able to explore a romantic relationship together, that they’d fall for each other, somehow. Why, she couldn’t quite remember. She couldn’t remember a specific instance of having nurtured a similar hope before, with another man, but this feeling of things not really working, of a new relationship being stilted and disappointing, felt painfully familiar.

  She stared into Svend’s eyes. Fuck it. She took a deep breath. “Svend… Was… Was this all just a huge mistake?”

  Svend looked at her, confused. “You mean, wearing boots? It seems like a good call to me. From what I can remember, the path we took to Legba’s cave was fairly inhospitable, with lots of changes in elevation, so a good pair of boots seem like the perfect—”

  Bentley shook her head. “No. Not the boots. This.” She gestured to the room with her hands. “This whole thing we’re doing. You coming here, with me. I don’t think I should have asked you to come.”

  Svend straightened his back. “You didn’t ask me to come. I wanted to come.”

  Bentley crossed her arms. “Okay. Fine. But… maybe that wasn’t the healthiest impulse. Like, you came on this journey just days after the funerals for your people. And those funerals were taking place only days after one of the deadliest, most horrific attacks that your people have ever experienced.”

  Svend nodded slowly. “Yes. That all happens to be true. So what?”

  Bentley sighed. “So maybe you should have been grieving, with the love and support of your kind. Trying to make sense of this tragedy, this trauma, that was so new, and so fresh. And, well, not making decisions that would take you extremely far away from your people. That was a big enough decision to make under any set of circumstances, but with everything that must have been going on with you—”

  Svend’s face hardened. “I stand by my decisions. I knew what I was doing.”

  Bentley took another deep breath. “Okay. I’m sorry. I don’t want to make this about your judgment. Because it’s not. I guess I’m wondering, though… Are you thinking about what’s going on back in the Orion Sector? Because you’re not really talking about it.”

  Svend stared straight ahead at the bare wall in front of him, silent. After a few seconds, he stood up, and stalked towards the wall. His shoulders slackened, and he turned back to Bentley. “Yes. Yes, I’ve been thinking about my home, and my people. About the process of rebuilding. A process that, I’m deeply aware, I am not a part of. Because I’m here. With you.”

  Bentley looked up at him. “So why haven’t you mentioned it?”

  Svend’s face twisted into a grimace of pain. “I— I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t see much point of talking about it? I didn’t think it would make me feel better, and I couldn’t imagine how it would make you feel better. I didn’t want you to think that I, that I resented you, for taking me away from my people during such a difficult time.”

  Bentley twisted her mouth. “If I’m being completely honest, though, that does worry me. Even if you don’t resent me now, how are you going to feel in a few weeks? Or a few months?”

  Svend’s face hardened again. “I don’t know. I can’t tell you what I’m going to feel in the future. Isn’t it enough, though, that right now, I’m glad to be here with you and the sword?”

  An expression of surprise flashed across Bentley’s face. “I’m sorry, the sword? Where did that come from?”

  Svend’s eyes bulged, a look of exasperation exploding on his face. “Well. Look. I— I’m not saying that being with the sword is as important to me as being with you, but it— it is pretty important.�
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  Bentley furrowed her eyebrows accusingly. “Well, I guess I should thank you, for having the courtesy to mention me and the sword in the same sentence. You really are too kind. Such a gentleman.”

  Svend began to massage his forehead. “Are— Are we really fighting about this? You know as well as I do that this sword is one of the most powerful objects in the universe. Ensuring that it’s safe is one of the few things that I can actively do right now to protect my people. And I’m sorry if that’s important to me, and that it helps me sleep at night.”

  Bentley gazed up at him, sadness in her eyes. “I— I’m sorry. Come here.” She lay back on the bed, her arms open. Svend walked back to the bed and collapsed into her arms. He began to sob.

  Bentley gingerly patted Svend on the back and stared at the bare ceiling. Again, not quite how I pictured our mornings together, she thought. And I don’t really know what to do with the sword stuff. I didn’t quite realize that was so high on his mental list of priorities.

  Her forehead crinkled as a thought crossed her mind. He cares about me. And he cares about the sword. But does he care about me… because of my relationship to the sword? Am I just the sword lady to him? That doesn’t feel good…

  She shook her head lightly. No. That sounds like paranoia. Let’s focus on the here and now. Right now, you’re here, on your bed, with Svend in your arms. With the weight of his body on your body. With his face on your neck. And with his tears on your overalls. Or, in your overalls, I guess. They seem to be seeping through. That’s fine, though. They’re designed to take much worse than that.

  A knock came from outside the door. “Ahem,” said a voice. “That is what it would sound like, if I were clearing my throat, if I had a throat.”

  Svend rolled off of Bentley and sat on the edge of the bed. He stared at the wall, trying to compose himself. Bentley sat up and turned to the door. “Hey, Jelly Bean. Come on in.”

  There was a hesitant pause. “Are you decent? Specifically, in terms of your relative nudity?”