Satisfied that he had a rudimentary idea of what straight-razor shaving was all about, he whipped up a lather upon the soapstone with his badgerite brush. Then he applied the lather to his face with the brush, marveling in the sensation and inhaling the earthen scent of the soap. He began his first stroke and sucked air through his teeth as he opened a small nick just above his chin. A small pin-drop of blood had just enough time to well up before the wound healed.

“Let’s try this again.”

****

Letho threw on a fresh pair of coveralls. The ones he had worn on the raid were a lost cause; he had deposited them and everything else he had been wearing down the disposal chute. He tied his hair back with a leather tie and stepped out into the hallway.

He stood outside Saul’s dormitory, about to hail him via commlink when he heard the deep murmur of voices inside. Letho felt a momentary pang of guilt; was he eavesdropping? Should he just turn around and head back to his bunk? What if Saul happened to open the door just as he was turning to walk away? He stood frozen, unable to un-hear the voices emanating from Saul’s room. One voice was clearly Saul’s; the other was an deep one, its rich boom having no trouble penetrating the uninsulated cinderblock walls of the dormitory room. Still, the exact words being spoken were indiscernible, much to Letho’s simultaneous relief and disappointment.

At last Letho decided to press the hail button on Saul’s doorway keypad. There were a few more murmured words, then silence.

“Who is it?” Saul’s own rich voice rattled the cheap, tattered speaker inside the intercom.

“Uh, it’s me, Letho.” There was a interminable pause; for some reason Letho’s heart was beating a heavy staccato in his chest.

“Come on in.”

There was a cloying sense of strangeness hanging about Saul’s room like dank swamp air. Letho attempted to act normal, but in doing so only increased his discomfort.

“Hey, bud, what can I do for you?” Saul said at last.

“Just wanted to say thanks for today,” Letho stammered. “I really needed it. Sorry if I was interrupting something.”

Saul locked his eyes on Letho’s, who shifted on his feet. “No, not all. I was just reviewing some footage from your Fulcrum station. That voice that you no doubt heard before you entered was our favorite Chief Station Inspector, Mr. Zedock Wartimer,” Saul said through a wry grin.

“Ah, cool. What did he have to say?”

“Not much. He was going on about policies regarding Tarsi slavery.”

“Sounds like him, ever the Tarsi advocate. Oh well, guess I’ll be going.”

“No, stay. Have a glass of whiskey with me. I need a little sauce to get over what happened today anyways. How about you? You doin’ all right?”

“More or less. A shower and shave does wonders for the soul.”

“Yes sir it does!” Saul said, standing to gather the accoutrements for a couple of glasses of whiskey.

“Hey, if it’s all the same, I think I’ll pass on the booze. I think I’m going to turn in early tonight.”

“Fair enough. Guess I’ll just have to drink your glass too. Listen, some new intel came in from my guy inside Hastrom City while we were gone. Meeting is at oh-eight-hundred. See you there?”

“You bet. See you tomorrow, Saul.”

NINE - Of Mice and Men

They met the next morning in the same conference room through which Zedock had led Letho the day before. Saul was already there, looking a little worse for wear, his eyes swollen and red, his head hanging low and one hand clapped to his forehead. He was having a heated discussion with a man Letho had seen around the compound. Johnny Zip, if Letho recalled correctly. The discussion appeared to be about the incident with the muties, and although Zip was arguing some point with passion, Saul looked like he just wanted to sit down and nurse his aching head.

And then Letho saw Deacon. His best friend, who had been in the grips of a detoxification that Letho himself had suffered and wouldn’t wish on his worst enemy. But here the man stood, hale and hearty, a slightly downturned expression on his face.

Letho’s own horrid behavior came rushing back to him in a shameful vignette and he was instantly filled with remorse. He remained frozen, the cogs in his brain grinding against one another as he tried to figure out what his first move should be. Thankfully Deacon began to head toward him, a pleasant expression on his face, his hand extended, welcoming.

“Deacon, listen, I’m sorry for—” But Letho didn’t have time to finish his sentence before Deacon wrapped him in a warm hug.

“It’s okay, I understand,” Deacon began. “Saul filled me in. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

It was one of those rare embraces between two people where no one is bothered with the notion of hugging for too long. The embrace simply is, just as the length of a breath is not measured by time but by the fullness of the lungs. The two men released one another from the embrace, and at that moment Bayorn and Maka entered the meeting room, filling the small space with their imposing presence.

“Maka, Bayorn!” Letho exclaimed. He hadn’t seen a Tarsi in days, and it had weighed upon him; he hadn’t realized just how much until he actually saw his two favorite and all-around shining representatives of the race. Their scent filled his nostrils, and the musical sound of their voices, even when they spoke Eursan, filled his ears.

“Letho!” Maka said, rushing toward him and almost bowling him over in his embrace. He released Letho, who then turned and embraced Bayorn as well.

“Where have you two been? I haven’t seen you in days!”

“We have spent many days with the Tarsi that dwell here. They had many stories to tell, as did we. They wish to meet you, Letho. They want to know that you are real, and not some legend created from thin air,” Bayorn said.

“I want to meet them as well,” Letho replied. He tried to hide his emotions from Bayorn, but it was a futile gesture that the Tarsi saw right through.

“Letho, what is wrong?” Bayorn asked. “Where is Thresha?”

“She’s gone.” Letho’s brief response was a broad truth, but it told them nothing. The rest of the story was written in the furrow of his brow and the empty gaze he favored Bayorn with.

“She is dead?” Maka asked quietly.

“No. She’s gone,” Letho said, making a gesture with his hand of a starship taking flight. “It all happened so fast. One minute she was fighting by my side, the next she was in a scout ship, making for Hastrom City.”

“What do you mean? She just left us? Just like that?” Deacon said.

Maka snarled, pressing his fists together. “She has returned to her master, just as we thought she might. We warned you, Letho. A Mendraga can never be trusted.”

“Now just hold on a minute,” Letho shouted, whipping around to face Maka. “Maybe she’s getting inside to help us. Did you ever think of that?”

“She didn’t even say goodbye,” Deacon said. “I can’t believe it.” The others favored him with a glance and then went back to their argument.

“Let’s all calm down,” Zedock said, appearing as if from thin air. In his anger and frustration Letho hadn’t even noticed the man enter the room. “Now I tend to side with this feller Macro, what’s your name? Did I say that right? But regardless, it’s too early to know what her intentions are, and there’s nothing to be done about it at this point anyway. Maybe Letho’s right and she’s infiltrating Abraxas’s inner circle as we speak.”

“Don’t you think Abraxas would have considered this possibility?” Saul asked. “If we’re sitting here talking about it, we can bet that he probably already thought of it too. Besides, can’t they all read each other’s damn minds? Even if she was trying to help us they’d see right through it.”