The Shadows of the Damned

[Sprolf]

Twenty-One Years Previously...


Spaceport Hub,
Waterloo Station


The central hub of the Interspace Commerce base in New London was a towering room, with crowds and people milling all around, heading for terminals or conference rooms or the stock exchanges or the ship dealers or equipment mongers. All of them, single humans, one out of many, moving about, each with an individual purpose and objective - and all creating together with the spacestation that noise so peculiar to the heavily populated spacestations, a union of machine noises and human voices.

One had to speak almost at a yell to be heard at close quarters in this terminal.


"You have it, then. That's it." The forceful, whispered words came from the mouth of an older Kusarian woman, clad in rather plain clothes. So plain, in fact, she looked like some spacer who spent her years out on the edge of humanity, salvaging waste or exploring the wastes - rather than who she actually was.

The man standing in front of her nodded, gulping nervously. He was bald, wearing a suit and tie. Round glasses. He looked exceptionally academic, a stark contrast to the woman's rough edges. Yet, it was evident both had weapons on their person, at least to the trained eye.

"Yeah, yes, I have it, here." He slightly lifted up the titanium tube he held, looking down at it. The plain metal reflected his squashed face back at his glasses, which returned the favour to the tube.

The woman glanced down at the tube, and sighed. "Thank God for that."


She slowly took it out of his arms. "This nightmare's over."

He nodded, and adjusted his glasses as she took a step back from him. "For me, yes." he said slowly.


She started to walk away into the milling crowd.

"What about for you, Namazun?" he called loudly, cutting through the noise that already separated them.


She smiled a little bit at this title, but it somehow phased into a drawn expression showing her length of years, without any intermediary movement. Her feet halted, and she glanced over her shoulder at this man. "I'll bring it safely to where it belongs, Howard." she said loudly, flatly, forceful.


"You can't count on that." He moved back toward her. "You know what's happened to everyone else," he said more quietly, "we're the last ones. All for THAT." he pointed at the tube. "How do you know you'll be safe?"


The weary smile remained on her face. "They think we're all dead. Nobody expects us to be anywhere but dead, orbiting the Neutron Star with the rest of the Halberd. We're safe, finally." She glanced down at the floor.

He did too, breathing in. "Safe... that's so strange."


She shrugged, taking a slight step back. "You enjoy it, Howard. You've earned it...."
He nodded. "But so have you...." he sighed. "All right then."

She sighed, nodding. "Yeah, all right." She glanced back at where the mooring points would be. "My gunboat's waiting, Howard. I need to be fast."



Howard smiled, taking her hand. "Be careful out there, Namazun."

She smiled again, but it was a true smile. The first time he'd ever called her that had been twenty years ago, when they'd met on Kurile and she was only the structural engineer, and he the poor explorer. "I will, Howard." She pulled away, letting her smile fade as she did in the crowd.

"Kaisha!" Howard called. "I will see you again, Namazun." He had a smile on his face the size of New London.


She smiled bitterly, not acknowledging him as she continued through the sea of people, alone and isolated again, within her own mind... somehow knowing that it would only be in the next life.

"Sayounara, Walker-kun." she said quietly.


She lowered her head. "Domo arigato."

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