Page 80 of Owned By Two

I stiffened, prepared for another slug in the face, when instead, he slapped a hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “Truly, I am. I believe what you told me. I know what it feels like to lose her. It feels like… a part of me… like a part of me has been ripped from my chest. I’m guessing that’s how you must be feeling too.”

I let out a deep breath and nodded my head, thankful he understood what I was saying, feeling — and was surprised his limited intellect would allow him to see so deeply into the Elkik soul.

Then he leaned forward and waved a finger under my nose. “But know this: Today is thelastday you will see her. I will let you touch her — discreetly — and kiss her on the cheek — once — and when the funeral is over, you will leave and never return. Do you understand me?”

I nodded. It was what I had assumed had to happen.

He leaned back and scratched his neck. “Now,” he said, “if you don’t mind… Can you tell me how to make this fujakin’ tie bearable?”

26

LIZZY

The funeral was being heldin space.

It seemed strange to me, that someone who had spent the majority of his time living on one planet or another would want to be jettisoned into space, bound for the nearest large sun still more than three lightyears away.

Someone had done the calculations and figured out that once he was released and began his journey in his reinforced coffin capsule, it would take him almost one hundred years to reach his final destination — the surface of the sun.

He had wanted this, so Uhti had told me, because he wanted to be out among the stars that had given him life and meaning, and to see the various colonies and planets that he had come to dominate with his empire, and say goodbye one last time as he sailed through the empty depths of space toward his final destination.

He always liked the idea of having people who loved and cared about him being able, for the rest of their lives, to be able to look up at the night sky and know he was out there, a tiny piece of cosmic lint, sailing through space and that, in some way, he could look down on them and watch them go about their lives too.

I guessed it saved a plot of land on Earth or elsewhere and was more environmentally friendly, and if it was what he wanted, then who was I to judge?

“We all came from the heart of a star,” he was apparently fond of saying, “and that is where we must all once again end up one day.”

I was surprisingly emotional when I saw my father’s dead, prostrate form in his casket capsule, his face betraying no emotion just as I had always — the few times I had ever met him in person — known him.

There were just a few dozen people at his funeral and they all wore black, respecting the human tradition, and nodded respectfully to me when they caught my eyes.

Some brought gifts that they placed in the casket alongside my father’s body, while others merely kissed their lips and touched him on the cheek or forehead.

I supposed each culture had their own unique relationship with death.

They were business partners, friends, and even a few of his employees — including Uhti who stood at my shoulder.

As for me, I approached his side and wasn’t quite sure how to act, and surprised myself when I leaned down and planted a kiss on his cheek.

His skin was cold as I expected it would be but it still came as a shock.

I wiped my cheek when a single tear fell and dotted the masterful makeup job the undertaken had performed on him.

I looked up at my father, my mind awash with questions — infinite questions — that I hadn’t even begun to answer.

And now that my father was dead, I supposed I would never know them.

The capsule lid shunted forward and locked.

Then it floated toward the airlock and waited there patiently as the airlock door slid into place.

An orange light flashed and, thankfully, the emergency alarm had been shut off.

I stood at the window, watching as the star that was his ultimate end point of his life journey blinked distantly.

I felt tears in my eyes and my breath shuddered in my throat.

---