Was Once a Hero by Edward McKeown Page B

companionable silence for a few more
seconds.  
    “I
had a visitor two nights ago,” Fenaday began.   “He uses the name Mandela.”   He
glanced at the others.   Either they were
good poker players, or the species difference made their surprise
invisible.   “Does the name mean anything
to you?”
    “No,
Captain,” Duna replied.   “Does it concern
our business?”
    “Yes.   Mandela isn’t his real name.   He’s with the Confederate Government, one of
those nameless and faceless who wield the real power.”
    “If
he is trying to stop us—” Telisan began.
    “Quite
the opposite,” Shasti said, watching the Denlenn narrowly.   “He’s the reason we are going.”   This time the old professor and the ace pilot
did look surprised.
    “Yes,”
Fenaday said.   “He is most
persuasive.”   He repeated the speech he
had earlier given Rainhell.
    “This
Mandela is unknown to either of us,” Duna said after Fenaday finished, “but all
you relay is logical as to the Confederacy’s motivations.   I sorrow that this has happened to you.   I hoped this would be your free choice.”
    Fenaday
shrugged.   “The government would put me
out of business one way or another.   I’m
lucky to get as far as I did.”   For all
the sympathy, Fenaday noted that Duna didn’t offer to go to Mandela and get
them off the hook.   The Enshari was a
desperate being.   In his place, Fenaday
wouldn’t have let them off either.   Accustomed as he was to enlightened self-interest, Fenaday didn’t take
it personally.
    Waiters—actual
people, not servos—showed up with their meals.   Fortunately, Fenaday and his companions were all omnivores with
sufficiently similar tastes that nothing disgusted the others.   In his previous life as a merchant, Fenaday
had learned to have a strong stomach.   He
was glad not to need the skill tonight.  
    As he
looked at the others in the soft candlelight, a feeling of unreality gripped
Fenaday.   I used to live like this, he thought with a faint shock.   Evenings in good restaurants with
intelligent, decent people for company.   That life seemed so far away, as if it had happened to someone else.
    They
made an interesting sight at the table.   The tiny Enshari sat on an elevated chair, next to Fenaday, who wore his
best ship’s uniform.   Shasti wore what
Fenaday always referred to as her ‘vampire’ outfit: a black, V-necked,
form-fitting bodysuit with a gold sash under a red bolero jacket.   On her chest rested a ruby of eye-catching
proportions.   Her skin looked all the
more white and flawless against the clothes.   Telisan looked somewhat incongruous in a human-cut suit.   Handsome even by human standards, he still
bent in all the wrong places.   The
Denlenn waved his overlarge hands as he spoke with animation about flying in
the war against the Conchirri.
    Fenaday
asked everyone to hold off further discussion of their mission until after
dinner.   The hour gave him an appreciation
of why Duna and the Denlenn pilot were friends.   Belwin Duna was the image of a genial
grandfather; for all that he looked much like a large otter.   Over eight hundred years old, the Enshari’s
store of knowledge seemed endless.   It
complemented an empathy that crossed barriers of culture and species.   Duna drew out of Fenaday things he usually
tried not to think of: the family bankruptcy, the suicide of the chief
financial officer and his father’s best friend, other even more painful
things.   Duna listened sympathetically
until Fenaday pulled up short.
    “My
problems,” Fenaday said, “must seem trivial to you with all you have lost.”
    “One
can only feel so much pain,” Duna replied.   “If one cares passionately about a person, their death can weigh as
heavily as the death of a species.   After
a point, numbers become meaningless.   Is
not each person a unique universe, never to be seen again in all time?”
    Fenaday
thought briefly about the unique