46. The White Parasol

Academy Hill, Vidako

Imperium Stellarum

November 6, 2847

Saturday dawned a clear, hot day without rain. After a jog, a shower, and breakfast in the dining hall, Arc and Pika walked downhill on the sidewalk of the Camino del Soldado, just as he’d done with Cassie a bit over a month before. They were both dressed in their cadet uniforms, caps and gray tunics included, and Arc found himself lengthening his stride and hurrying to keep up with his friend’s long legs. Halfway down the hill to The Valley, Pika realized what was happening and deliberately slowed his pace.

“I am happy to spend the day with you,” Arc’s big friend said. “But I am not entirely certain what help I can be. Human religious traditions –”

“The Church of Christ the Universal Redeemer isn’t entirely human, anymore,” Arc pointed out. It felt a bit strange, to defend a religion that wasn’t even his, but he still felt the obligation. Of the thousands of religions which had begun on humanity’s common homeworld, only two had truly adapted during the successive waves of colonization, and found a new life among the stars.

“Mmmm,” Pika rumbled. “Perhaps so; but it is rooted on Terra. I cannot think of anyone I know back on Stellar Abyss who follows this faith. I do not think I had ever seen a cathedral in person, until I left the ringworld.” He considered for a moment. “I had a friend whose family worshipped at the Church of the Progenitors, but that is not considered so odd among my people.”

“Alright, so putting that aside for a moment,” Arc said, in an attempt to regain control of the conversation—or, at least, to focus it once again on what they’d left campus for. “You know the imperial family is Christian, right? I mean, I don’t really pay attention to the tabloids, and even I know that.”

Pika nodded. “Yes. Our ringnets spend more time on their visits to the sacred terrace-pools of Alu, however. The matriarchs say it is a sign of great respect that they honor the progenitors in this way.”

Their steps carried them past the street where Arc and Cassie had seen three gangers beating a cadet, and Arc couldn’t help but keep his eyes about him. There was no reason to think that he’d have any trouble, especially with Pika at his side. All the same, he didn’t relax until they’d left the intersection behind and gotten into the Valley proper, with its streetside cafes, small shops, and family restaurants bustling to either side of the road.

Arc made a shrugging motion with his hand. “I’m sure. But the point is, she’s been raised Christian, which means she’s going to expect a present over the winter break. Which means I need to find something.”

“And this is because you wish to mate with her,” Pika declared, just a bit too loudly for Arc’s comfort.

He couldn’t help but flinch, and look around to see whether any of the other groups of people on the sidewalk had overheard. Arc didn’t think his friend was purposefully trying to embarrass him, but with a booming voice like that it wouldn’t take much for Pika to make a spectacle of things entirely by accident.

“We’re still a ways off from… mating…” Arc said, lowering his own voice. “Humans don’t usually have children until after they’re married, Pika.”

“You make this all very complicated,” Pika said, with a shake of his head. “I feel bad for you, Arc. My mother will choose a fine woman for me.”

“And you just trust her to do that?” Arc asked, scanning the nearby shops. He’d visited many of them with Cassie already, when she was shopping for a dress, for shoes, for jewelry. He knew some of the things she had paused over, so he led his friend into one storefront, which specialized in using indigenous shells and pearls to make bracelets, rings, and necklaces. The moment he stepped inside, he felt out of place. Was it his imagination, or were the clerks staring at him as if he was a piece of dirt?

“Of course,” Pika answered. “She is my mother. If anyone knows what I need, it is her.”

“And you don’t –” Arc hesitated. “Humans usually kind of try out a few different people, while we’re young. To get an idea of what we’re looking for.” He approached a glass-topped counter where he recalled Cassie lingering, and looked down. The black pearls would match her hair, once it had grown back. But the prices!

“Ah, I see what you mean,” Pika said, nodding sagely. “Usually, while the young men are waiting to be mated, we experiment sexually with each other. That ring is nice. I think that Cassie would like it.”

The store employees were definitely staring at them, now. Arc was absolutely certain of it. “No rings,” he told Pika. “If a girl opens up a box that has a ring in it, that’s the kind of thing that could be really misunderstood. Come on, let’s look somewhere else.” Somewhere less expensive, he hoped, as he led his friend back out the door and onto the street.

“But you do like girls,” he asked, once they were in the open air again.

“Of course!” Pika assured him. “Come in this shop for a moment.”

Arc followed him into a beach-shop, and toward racks of men’s swimwear. He watched as Pika lifted a truly immense pair of swimming shorts off a rack, and checked the size. “But you don’t have a problem just waiting for your mother to choose someone? You never meet an Alu’kan girl, and want to get to know her better?”

Pika hesitated. It was a small thing, but living in the same room as the other cadet had taught Arc what to look for. “Sometimes,” he admitted. His thick fingers patted the swimsuit absently, and he looked away from Arc, toward the far wall of the store, where portable umbrellas hung, wrapped in plastic.

“I worry about Rain,” he said, after a moment.

“You do?” Arc asked. “I actually feel like she’s been getting a lot better since the beginning of the term. She talks more, she doesn’t flinch away from men she knows…”

“Did you know that she has never been to a single one of the ringworlds?” Pika asked, turning back to Arc and meeting his eyes. “I asked her. I understand not Alu. It is difficult for many of us to visit the homeworld. But she has never really lived among her own people at all. I worry that –” he sighed. “She should not even be at the academy. She should be with the matriarchs, learning from them. Her mother should be finding a mate for her, fine and strong, someone who will protect her –”

The big man’s fists clenched, bunching up the swim shorts he was holding, and in that moment Arc understood. “You like her,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

With a heavy sigh, Pika nodded his head. “Some of the things she says about her past,” he muttered. “She will not tell me the story. But here and there, she lets pieces slip.”

“The marines from the Nerva,” Arc recalled.

“They took her away from the—the place –” Pika made the words sound like a curse. “—where she was born. If I could find those men, I would embrace each in turn and tell them of the debt my people owe. Every time I think of it, it makes me want to take her away to someplace where no one will ever hurt her again. And I think that I would rip to pieces anyone who tried.”

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“Yeah, you’ve got it bad, buddy,” Arc said, reaching up to pat his friend on one shoulder.

Pika looked down at him, eyes wide and vulnerable. “This is how you feel about Cassie?”

Arc thought of the crowd of reporters who had waited for them in New Toledo, and the pain in her voice, the bitterness, when Cassie admitted how she’d been fooled by Radecki. How she’d thought, just once, that someone might just respect her as a pilot, and not simply be looking for political advantage.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Yeah it is.”

Pika straightened. “Then we will find you a good gift to show her how you feel,” he promised. “I already have an idea. But first, find yourself swimming clothes. Shopping will not take us the entire day, and I have yet to taste the water of Vidako’s oceans.”