Nemesis Games

“Don’t,” she said, conversationally. “Don’t bullshit me. No one just shows up at their ex-wife’s house out of the blue because they thought a cup of tea sounded nice.”

“Well, all right,” Alex said. “But I thought…”

Tali shook her head and turned back to digging through the black soil. “Thought what? That we’d get a drink together, talk about old times, get a little maudlin? Maybe fall into bed for nostalgia’s sake?”

“What? No. I’m not —”

“Please don’t make me be the bad guy here. I have a rich, full, complex life that you chose not to be a part of. I have a lot on my plate just now that I don’t actually want to share with you, and comforting the guy who walked out on me umpteen years ago because he’s… I don’t know, having his midlife crisis? It’s not my priority, and it’s not something that’s fair to expect of me.”

“Oh,” Alex said. His belly felt like he’d swallowed a tungsten slug. His face felt flushed. She sighed, looking up at him. Her expression wasn’t cruel. Wasn’t even unkind. Tired, maybe.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We’re a couple people who used to know each other. At this point, we’re maybe even a little less than that.”

“I understand. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t put you in this position. You put me in it. I was just working with my plants.”

“I know. I didn’t mean to discomfort you. Not now, and not before.”

“Not before? Before, when you walked out on me?”

“It wasn’t what I meant to have happen, and it wasn’t about you or —”

She shook her head sharply, grimacing as she did.

“No. Not going to do this. Alex? We’re talking about the past. That’s the conversation I just said I don’t want to have. All right?”

“All right.”

“Okay.”

“Sorry if things are… rough.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

He lifted his hand again, the same gesture he’d made walking up to her, but with a different meaning now. He turned. He walked away. The humiliation was like a weight on his chest. The urge to turn back, to have one last look in case maybe she was looking at him was almost too much to resist.

He resisted it.

She was right. It was why he’d appeared on her doorstep without warning. Because he’d known that if she said no, he had to respect that, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d thought that if they were there, breathing the same air, it would be harder for her to turn him away. And maybe it had been. Maybe what he’d done was actually make it worse for her.

The first bar he came to was named Los Compadres, and the air inside it smelled of hops and overheated cheese. The man behind the bar looked barely old enough to drink, his sallow skin set off by ruddy hair and a mustache that could generously be called aspirational. Alex took a high stool and ordered a whiskey.

“Little early in the day for celebration,” the barkeep said as he poured. “What’s the occasion?”

“It turns out,” Alex said, exaggerating his Mariner Valley drawl just a little for the effect, “that sometimes I’m an asshole.”

“Hard truth.”

“It is.”

“You expect drinking alone to improve that?”

“Nope. Just observing the traditions of alienated masculine pain.”

“Fair enough,” the barkeep said. “Want some food with it?”

“I’d look at a menu.”

Half an hour later, he was only halfway through the drink. The bar was starting to fill up, which meant maybe twenty people in a space that would have taken seventy. Ranchero music played from hidden speakers. The thought of going back to his cousin’s and pretending to be cheerful was only a half a degree worse than continuing to sit in the bar, waiting for his self-pity to fade. He kept trying to think about what he could have said or done differently that would have made any difference. So far the best he’d come up with was Don’t walk out on your wife, which was about the same as saying Be someone else.

His hand terminal buzzed. He pulled it up. A written message tagged from Bobbie Draper.

HEY, ALEX. SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO GET BACK TO YOU. THINGS ARE WEIRDLY BUSY. YES, IF YOU’RE IN TOWN, I’D LIKE TO MEET WITH YOU. MAY HAVE A FAVOR TO ASK, IF YOU’RE UP FOR IT. SWING BY ANYTIME.

Her address was in Londres Nova. Alex tapped it, and the screen shifted to a map. He wasn’t far from the express tube. He could be out there by supper. He touched the bar top with his hand terminal, paid for the drink, and stretched. In the corridor, a cart had broken down, and half a dozen maintenance workers were clumped around it. A woman with skin the color of milk walking past did a subtle double take when Alex nodded. Wondering, he guessed, whether he was the pilot for James Holden. He walked on before she could ask the question.

Yeah. It would be good to see Bobbie.

Chapter Seven: Amos