SWNOVELS Chapter 10: Shame
661 standard years after the signing of the Alliance treaty
“Miha, what are you doing?”
Mikhail’s eyes jumped up to Galor. He hadn’t sensed him coming.
“What are you doing?”
Mikhail squeezed his eyes shut and leaning down rested his forehead on the table. “I’m sorry.”
Galor lowered himself onto the bench across the table across from Mikhail. He ran his hand gently across the top of Mikhail’s head. Mikhail felt guilty over the amount of concern and fear radiating from Galor.
“What were you doing, Miha?”
Mikhail’s fingers tightened around the handle of the blade in his hand. “I hurt, Galor. So much. I used to feel her connected to me all the time and now that part of me is…empty. Like space. Cold, black, lifeless.”
“Does this,” Galor touched the blade lightly, “make you hurt less?”
Mikhail swallowed. “No.”
They sat in silence for a few moments. Mikhail turned his head so he could see Galor. “It seems wrong that everything else keeps going the way it did before when…the most important thing in my life is gone.”
“Hurting yourself isn’t going to change that.”
“Well, I can’t really hurt myself, can I? It heals away too fast to even bleed.” Mikhail grit his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut trying desperately to keep the tears inside.
“Are you angry that your heart doesn’t heal that fast?”
The sadness inside Mikhail welled up. He began to sob.
Galor moved to Mikhail’s side of the table and wrapped an arm around him. “I’m sorry, Miha.”
Mikhail turned and buried his face in Galor’s chest. Galor just sat with him, holding him till his sobbing quieted again.
“I don’t remember my mother.” Galor said quietly. “I was taken from her when I was a baby. Jurverian children are raised by Jurverian’s and my mother was Wen. My father was not an affectionate man, but he took care of my needs. He made sure I was clothed and fed and I developed the skills I needed to survive as a Jurverian.
“Every Jurverian is given a vial of Ir’Klahn venom when they come of age. It’s for the day we find ourselves facing an impossible situation, an unpleasant death, torture, whatever it is we think we can’t face. It’s our out.
“My first assignment was to assassinate a Wen merchant. He’d offended a local gang leader. I took the assignment because I wanted to prove that I was Jurverian, through and through; that I was worthy of the name and the loyalty of my Jurverian family.
“I arrived at the merchant’s home and found myself looking into eyes just like my own. He was expecting me. He’d sent his wife and children away so they wouldn’t have to be there when I came. They weren’t in any danger the bounty was only on his head, but Jurverian’s don’t let their prey die easily.”
Galor rubbed his face with his free hand and took a deep breath. “I couldn’t do it. I just kept wondering if we were related. Blue eyes are not common in Wen. For all I knew he could have been my brother.
“I was going to just leave, but he asked me to please kill him. He knew that another Jurverian would come, and they wouldn’t have any mercy on him. I knew he was right, so I shot him. A quick clean death.
“The gang leader was furious. He’d hired us because he wanted the merchant to suffer. He could have sent one of his own men to shoot the Wen if that was what he wanted. My father was humiliated. I’d betrayed my race and everything they stood for. But, being the dutiful man he was, my father told me that I had completed my first assignment and was now an adult. He presented me with my badge and a vial of Ir’Klahn venom. He told me that if I was ever tempted to humiliate my family again, I should take the poison instead.
“I was so ashamed. I tried for years to make up for who I am. I tried to be as ruthless and cruel as the other Jurverians, but I just don’t have that in me. When I finally realized I couldn’t change, I couldn’t be who my family said I was supposed to be, I decided to follow my father’s advice. I would end my father’s mistake. That’s when I met a stubborn old priest who told me I wasn’t a mistake.”
Galor ran a hand over his eyes. “No one had ever told me that before. He told me that the gods don’t make any mistakes. They put us where we’re needed. I didn’t know what to think, but I figured, what the hell, why not give the priest’s way of thinking a try. I stayed there with him at the temple for a few months, then he told me he’d gotten me a job.” Galor shook his head and chuckled. “One of the sentients who came to his temple was looking for someone to fly a cargo shuttle for him. I did that for a few months and found the work satisfying. So I bought a hauling ship and went into business for myself.
“A few years later, I got a message from old Febo, the priest. He had another job for me but he would only discuss it in person. I flew back, came to the temple and he introduced me to your mum. I knew who she was. Your mum had been in the Jurverian assignments for several years. I was furious with Febo. I felt like he was asking me to betray my people again. But he made me sit and listen to your mum’s story.
“The longer I listened the more amazed I became. She was a simple girl. She’d lived in luxury in a high security lab all her life, waited on hand and foot; but the moment she realized what her master had planned for her son, she somehow escaped the lab and then managed to evade the best trackers in the universe for years. She understood what she was giving up, what could happen to her, but she didn’t care, as long as her son was safe.”
Galor paused. He ran a finger along the edge of the table. “I realized that I wasn’t being asked to be a coward. I was being given an opportunity. I’d tried the Jurverian way of life and found that wasn’t who I was, now I was being given the chance to help this mother do what my mother couldn’t. Protect her son from the Jurverians. There couldn’t be a more ideal sentient for the job than me. So, I left the planet with a cargo hold full of grain, a mother and her little silver boy. You know what happened after that.
“I’ll tell you Miha, the shame I carry around for not being able to make my father proud, will never leave me. But the joy I get everyday from having you in my life is so much…bigger than the pain. My happiness doesn’t make the pain okay, it doesn’t make it go away, but if I had a chance to have a different father, a different life I wouldn’t do it. Without all that I wouldn’t have you in my life, I wouldn’t know how to keep you safe.
“I know my pain isn’t the same as yours, Miha, so maybe I shouldn’t say anything. Maybe old Febo is wrong, maybe the gods aren’t watching over us, making bad things turn into good. But I’ve seen it happen in my life. Every bad thing is just…it’s like a seed. It’s painful when it digs into you, but if you’re patient it grows into something beautiful or strengthening for your life. You just have to give it time.”