Vinnet Vignette #2b

SPOILERS AHEAD: RIGHTS OF USE

Words You Can’t Take Back



Sarah Anderson, 2002

When we got into the kaxan, that’s when
Vinnet started to lose her cool. She set the destination then lay back,
intending to sleep. It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. She’d been excited
about going home for weeks. She wanted to show me everything. She wanted me to
meet everyone. She talked Maggie’s ears off and described even more to me.

But once we were on our way, it wasn’t just a celebration
anymore. She owed the Council her own report, and while she assured me that she
believed saving Maggie was “a” right thing to do, she didn’t think the Council
would. She spent hours trying to figure out how to justify it to them.

I spared the girl, because she was innocent. Then
what about the mission and billions of other innocent humans?

I scrubbed the mission, because Anjedet’s body double had
recognized me. Then why not kill her and stay?

I scrubbed the mission, because I killed queens to save
the girl. Evidence suggested the queens battled often. Surely, there were
occasional accidents.

I started off trying to figure out how to help her, but
nothing I came up with sounded good, either.

How do you expect us to be good guys if we’re killing
people we’re supposed to save? I’d read about collateral damage before.
Vinnet obviously thought the Council would find it acceptable.

Maggie was our friend. She trusted us. See above on
collateral damage.

Vinnet came up with more bad ideas faster than I could. It
was her report, after all.

Finally, she stared up at the ceiling, and a tear slid down
my cheek. I should have kept to the mission. It was a miracle that
opportunity came about and a miracle we made it in. No one has done that
before. There was too much riding on it to not risk everything.

Something seemed off. I didn’t think she was talking about
Maggie. But what was I supposed to do? Pat her back? She had control, and it
was my back.

And I didn’t want her to regret saving Maggie. Whatever she
thought or the Council thought, I thought it was the right thing to do.

Yeah, we could have maybe saved the galaxy, but I wasn’t the
Council. I didn’t believe in collateral damage. There’s no circumstance in which
you should have to kill your friend for a greater good. Then what kind of
person would you be?

Vinnet rolled over and nestled her face in her elbow,
letting the sleeve catch her tears. I’d just gotten you, and you were so
scared. You didn’t know what we were doing or why or how. It was too soon to do
any mission, let alone this one. You’re too young to understand.

Now, what a minute!

You’re not weighing this rationally. You can’t. It’s all
so new and clear to you, and you’re missing the bigger picture. Somewhere out
there, a girl just like you is getting taken to the queens or to the Empress
herself, and we could have stopped it. Next year, it’ll be someone else. And
the year after and the one after that. I am responsible for their deaths
instead.

I could barely think through the haze of anger. Too young‽ Was her whole
nurturing-friend demeanor just a way to manipulate me?

I failed you and the Council and the entire galaxy, all
because I couldn’t bear to risk you getting hurt.

I had gotten hurt. Anjedet’s body double was decent with a
sword. But that wasn’t the hurt Vinnet meant.

I don’t know why it surprised me that she thought the
biggest impediment to her mission was her drive to protect me. I knew she
missed her previous host (and the ones before her, too). I knew she’d gone half
mad in the months without one. It made sense that I’d be extra special to her,
especially in the first couple days.

But it was Vinnet.

For all I knew, if logic and wisdom were going to be
embodied in a person, they’d choose to be her.

I still think that.

It was an extra shock, because everything during the mission
and back on Earth had seemed so clear-cut to her. She had her objectives, and
she worked toward them. And she had objectives now, too: report honestly and thoroughly
and please the Council.

I didn’t get hurt, I tried to reassure her.

Exactly. She sat up and scrunched against the padded
kaxan wall, like I had after first hearing about her. I was supposed to
replace another king or queen with a Gertewet or die trying. I didn’t.

But now you know things no other Gertewet knew about
being a queen: about the swords and the fighting and the wardrobes. When the
next person tries, they’ll be better off because you lived.

You don’t understand. There will never be a next person.
We will never have another chance that like. It was a fluke.

We sat in miserable silence until we got there.

Vinnet had shown me her true colors, I thought. Sure, she
cared about me, but in hindsight, not as much as she cared about her mission. And
somehow, I had to live with her.

When we arrived, she trudged straight to the Council chambers without showing me anything. We were in luck: the permanent Council was at another base, leaving just the Plains Base Adjunct, Hartwin.

We crossed paths with him outside the Council chambers before Vinnet pulled herself together to decide to talk to him. He was a big man, or his host was. About a foot taller than me and heavyset. He froze when he saw me, his face set in concern.

My symbiont had control, but she didn’t meet his eyes. “It’s
Vinnet.”

His whole face lit in a smile, and he stepped closer. “And
who is this?”

“Sarah Anderson.” Forcing her own smile, Vinnet pulled his
right hand from his side and shook it. She told me later that while Hartwin
wanted to greet each host appropriately and familiarly, the variety of human
cultures within the Kemtewet Empire made it hard. Even if Hartwin knew which
planet a host was from, he might not have encountered their customs before, or
they could have changed. “From Earth.”

He nodded as if he already knew. If I’d been paying
attention, I’d have realized that he did. Then he looked me straight in the
eyes. “Welcome, Sarah Anderson. Thank you for hosting Vinnet. I hope you have a
long and productive time with us.”

I couldn’t answer. I didn’t have control. But it was the
nicest thing anyone ever said to me about my symbiont. Everyone at Black Book
talked to one of us at a time, and for the most part, pretended the other
didn’t exist.

Too bad she didn’t want me. I was too young.

I do want you.

But not the way I am.

“Come, sit down,” Hartwin insisted, brushing my shoulder to
steer Vinnet into his study. “How are you two getting along so far? It’s been,
what, a couple years? Nine months?”

My mind spun at his loose grasp of time.

The Sais year is four and a half months, and our months
are similar to yours. Vinnet settled into a padded chair. “Eight months or
so.”

Hartwin settled on a composite stool and politely glared.
“And?”

“Bien dans sa peau.”

He nodded. “And the two of you?”

I kid you not. Vinnet squirmed. “Nothing time won’t heal.”

Because I’m not old enough yet?

She swallowed.

Hartwin reached to a shelf behind him and passed her a plain
glass bottle. Then he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “Tell me
about it.”

Vinnet took the bottle, traced a thumb across its smooth
surface over golden liquid inside. “Sarah doesn’t drink alcohol.” She set it on
a side table. “Hartwin, it’s been a long process to get here. I’d prefer not to
have this conversation right now. I came to report in.”

“What are you going to tell me that Katorin, Donn, and
Teresh haven’t already pieced together? I know what happened.”

Vinnet tensed.

“What I want to know,” Hartwin insisted, “is what’s going on between you two.”

Previously in Vinnet Vignettes:

Reflections on Becoming a Host Vinnet Vignette #1: Memory Vandalism Vinnet Vignette #2a: Disclaimers and Context