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By Moonloon
Harper lay drowsing, Tyr’s arm curled around his waist. It felt good to just lie there: no worries about the larvae, no feeling sick, no impending torture hanging over his head. Just a full stomach, a warm bed and good company. Harper smiled in the darkness at the feel of Tyr’s breath on the back of his neck. If someone had asked him a year ago how he’d feel about a Nietzschean breathing down his neck, he’d have said ‘freaked’. This Nietzschean was different, Harper thought, then frowned. Tyr wasn’t really different at the core. Okay, so he didn’t torture people for fun but his goals were… Harper sat bolt upright, cold sliding down his spine. “What?” Tyr murmured, trying to pull Harper back down. “It wasn’t a bluff.” “What wasn’t?” Tyr said warily. “After we retrieved the bones you moved them again, didn’t you? You didn’t trust me enough to let me know where they were. They really are on the Maru.” “No they aren’t.” “I’ll bet they were when we got back here. You’ve moved them again, haven’t you?” Tyr rolled over onto his back and sighed. “Maybe.” “You weren’t coming to save me. I didn’t notice before with all the shooting and trying not to get blown up, but you weren’t heading to the slave pens or Cuatemoc’s quarters when we met up. You were on your way to where the Maru was berthed.” Tyr was silent for a moment too long. “Damn you Tyr! Were you planning on leaving me there?” “Not if I could possibly help it.” Harper climbed out of Tyr’s bed and pulled on his pants. He suddenly felt sick. “If I hadn’t jumped on you when I did, if I’d been even fifteen minutes later than I was, you’d have taken the Maru and my escape route.” “That didn’t happen.” “It could have though. You making a corpse your priority could have got me killed. God, I’m so stupid: I keep forgetting you’re a Niet.” Harper yanked his shirt over his head and glared at Tyr. “You don’t see anything wrong in putting a dead guy over your lover do you?” “The Progenitor is a symbol of Nietzschean power. The remains are mine, Kodiak Pride’s, they are more important than my feelings.” “Yeah, thought so.” Harper said sadly as he turned and left. <><><><><> “That’s my whisky.” Dylan said, sitting down in the access tunnel next to a morose Harper. “Yeah. Sorry.” “No you’re not.” “No, I’m not. I felt the need for some oblivion. Beer just wasn’t poisonous enough.” “So what’s up?” “Were in space; everything is ‘up’.” Dylan grinned. “Okay, what’s wrong?” “Nietzscheans suck.” “No arguments from me.” “Tyr’s a jerk.” “Quite frequently.” “He doesn’t trust me, and I don’t trust him.” “I said once I trust Tyr to be Tyr.” “Yeah, to do what’s best for him to get what he wants.” “And what does he want?” “The same things all the Ubers want: power, wives, kids…prestige, fear from the huddled masses, grinding the less ‘perfect’ out of existence.” Harper took another slug of whisky. “Fuckin’ Ubers.” “I’d agree that the first three are typical Nietzschean characteristics, but the last three…don’t sound like Tyr. Or many of the Nietzscheans I knew back in the Commonwealth.” “Yeah well, say you were a Niet. You get a choice: save your lover or save old Musoveni’s corpse. Which would you pick?” “So the bones are on the Maru?” “Not any more apparently. If you want to know where he hid them I’m sure I can hack any privacy protocols he used to disguise his movements.” Dylan thought about that for a moment. “It’s tempting, but I think that might cause more problems with the crew than we already have. Have you talked to Tyr about this?” “Sort of. I talked, he listened. He said the Progenitor was more important than his feelings. Which means me: a dead guy is more important to him than me. I know that’s just the way Niets are; and I know I should have thought about that before I got involved with Tyr, but I don’t think my head has been working right since Jay’s World.” “You’ve gone through a lot, maybe you need some space to sort out your feelings. I hear the waves on Infinity Atoll are nice this time of year.” Harper turned and grinned at Dylan. “Are you giving me shore leave?” Dylan nodded. “How long?” Dylan shrugged. “Until you want to come back.” “That might take a while.” “Ha!” Dylan laughed, “I don’t think you’ll be able to stay away from Rommie’s engines as long as you think you can.” “Hmm, you could be right about that. It would be great to just kick back and not have anything to worry about for a few weeks. No Magog, no Niets, just me and the waves…” Harper sighed and pictured himself basking in the sun, a fruity drink in one hand and a hot babe in the other. “Can I go now?” “Sober up first. And tell Tyr you’re going: I don’t want him tearing the ship apart when he finds out you’re gone.” “Done.” Harper handed the bottle to Dylan and jumped unsteadily out of the tunnel. “Sober up first I think. I’m going to need my brain working if I want to tell Tyr I’m leaving without him getting all Alpha on me.” Harper stopped for a moment. “I can’t go. I have to fix Rommie and the Maru.” “We’ll manage.” “No, I have to…” “We’ll manage, Harper.” <><><><><> “No.” Tyr glowered down at Harper. “I don’t recall giving you a say in the matter,” Harper said, stuffing an untidy handful of shirts into a bag. “In fact I don’t think you have any authority over me at all. I need a holiday away from all this shit and I’m taking one” “The presence of the Progenitor on Andromeda gives us a huge advantage when dealing with the other Nietzschean prides. It’s probably the primary reason the Sabra-Jaguar Pride joined. Every time the Drago-Kasov Pride fail to retrieve the remains we are perceived as stronger and their power base diminishes.” “True, but that’s not why you did it. All these benefits to the Commonwealth are just incidental. You got the bones because you wanted them, not because it would benefit anyone except yourself.” “The ends justify the means.” Harper sat down and sighed. “I’m not leaving because of this. It has nothing to do with you…Well, not much anyway. I haven’t been able to catch a breath since the freak out at Jay’s. Magog, viruses, Dragan attacks, repairs, the tesseract generator, Hohne’s death, getting rid of the larvae, withdrawal, kidnapping, Cuatemoc and his goons, sleeping with you…I just need to get away. To try to work out how to feel normal again.” “What’s normal?” “For me? Who knows? Let me go find out…please?” Tyr growled and strode out of the room. Harper picked up another shirt, swore softly to himself and continued packing <><><><><> Three weeks! Tyr paced the length of his quarters like a caged lion; it had been three weeks since Harper had taken off for who knew where. Tyr wasn’t taking the separation well. The first week he’d read, the second, he’d worked out in the gym to near exhaustion every day. Week three…pacing, swearing, and an urge to kill Dylan for approving an open-ended shore leave. The sexual frustration was just adding to Tyr’s temper. His nights were full of images of Harper: not just sex, but companionship, closeness, a feeling of joining. The door chime sounded. “Go away,” Tyr shouted at the door. “No.” Tyr heard Trance’s voice. Trance? Despite himself Tyr was curious; Trance had barely said two words to him since she came back gold. He opened the door. “What?” “Harper likes to surf you know.” “I know. Your point?” “If you wanted to see him I’m sure he wouldn’t be hard to find.” Trance smiled and turned away, walking off down the corridor and leaving a confused Tyr standing in her wake. <><><><><> The sun was setting when Tyr found Harper sitting on a sandy beach on Infinity Atoll. The light caught Harper’s hair, making it shine. Tyr stood and studied him for a few minutes before walking over. Harper’s hair was sun-bleached and his skin was tanned. Tyr realised how tense Harper must have been before now that he could see him relaxed. Suddenly he wasn’t sure if he should be here. If Harper needed more time… “Beer?” Harper asked without turning around. “How did you know I was here?” Tyr asked, sitting down on the sand next to Harper and taking the offered beer. Harper shrugged. “You pick up a sixth sense about approaching Nietzscheans when you grow up on Earth.” They sat in silence watching the sun slip below the waves. “So, how’s everything on Andromeda?” Harper finally asked. “We have a new member of the Commonwealth.” “Great. How are everyone?” “Beka has been in a bad mood since you left. She blames me.” Harper snorted. “Sounds like Beka.” “She mended the avatar almost as well as you would have. She didn’t change the hair though. I think the avatar decided to keep it as a reminder.” “Uhm.” Harper grimaced, the blue hair wasn’t popular with him. “She sent you a message.” “Rommie?” Tyr nodded and handed over a flexi. Harper activated it and Rommie’s face appeared. “Hello Harper. I hope you’re feeling better. I wanted to apologise about...everything that happened. Beka repaired the damage, and the anti-virus program you left cleaned out the last of the Dragan influences. I remember now how I felt and what I did to you. I’m so sorry Harper, please come home.” Harper turned off the flexi and asked Tyr, “Is she all right?” “She’s a machine. She appears to be functioning normally.” “Tyr.” Tyr sighed, “She had a few difficult days: I think the other two versions of her were annoyed with her, and she was…upset about knocking you unconscious. You didn’t tell me about that by the way.” “I wonder why?” Harper said wryly. “What about Trance and Dylan?” Trance is as enigmatic as usual. She told me to find you.” “Told you?” “Hinted, made cryptic comments.” “Hmmm, I guess she was right.” Dylan is…Dylan. He’s negotiating with a few of the smaller Nietzschean prides at the moment.” Harper turned and tried to make out Tyr’s expression in the darkness. “Shouldn’t you be there?” “I think Captain Hunt in all his regalia will be enough to impress them; particularly when he allows them to view the Progenitor’s remains.” Harper choked on his beer. “Dylan got the bones back? How?” “I returned them to his…safekeeping. They still belong to me, but since Kodiak Pride is a member of the Commonwealth, he has access to them.” “Oh boy. I think the universe shifted.” “If the Commonwealth is to succeed it needs the Nietzscheans. The Persieds have the technology and the knowledge, the FTA have the money, the resources and the connections throughout space. The Nietzscheans have warriors and battleships. We need all of these if we’re going to rebuild the Commonwealth. Particularly since the World Ship is on its way.” Harper shivered. “Yeah, I suppose so. Still feels like dealing with the Devil though.” They sat in silence for a little longer, their arms just brushing against each other. “Charlemagne Bolivar has contacted me; apparently his sisters want to meet me. If I am chosen to become a husband and father by one of them it won’t change what is between us.” “Yeah it will.” “It won’t change my feelings for you.” “I know. It won’t change mine either. I was probably a little insane when you and I got together y’know.” Harper dug his toes into the sand. “I’m going to want kids of my own someday, and human women don’t really like to share.” “Is it over?” “No. But it is…difficult. We’re very different people, with different values and goals. I don’t know what we’ll be to each other in the future.” “The future is fluid. It can be what we make it.” “Heh, the future is fluid. Like the sea: mysterious, unforgiving of mistakes and fatal if you spend too long in it.” “That’s very cynical.” “Too much beer.” “Do you want to find out what the future holds with me?” Tyr asked, reaching out to stroke the side of Harper’s face. “I live in the now. Always have. Right now I have a room in that hotel over there,” Harper said, standing up and brushing sand off himself. “Care to explore the now?” Tyr dropped his beer in the sand and followed Harper up
the beach. It might not be forever, it might not be what was best
for Kodiak Pride, but Tyr didn’t care. Living in the now had one
great advantage: it was living.
The End
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