'Godwyn…'
'Get the hell out!' he yelled, smashing a shot glass against the far wall. He'd been drinking hard, which was unlike him, although everyone else on Hubris except me must have been in the same state.
Fireworks coughed and whizzed in the square under his windows.
Fischig glowered at me for a long time, and then disappeared into the suite's bathroom. He emerged with two more shot glasses and a dish of ice.
I stood in the doorway and watched as he slowly and carefully prepared two drinks. Anise, poured over smashed ice..
He placed one in front of himself and slid the other one towards the chair opposite.
To me, that was an act of diplomacy.
I sat down facing him and lifted the glass.
To all we've been together/ I said. We knocked back the shots.
1 slid the glass back across the table top towards him and he made two more.
He passed the second one back to me and caught my eyes for the first time. I stared into his face, saw the eye-fogging scar that had already marked him by the time we met, saw the faint mauve scar tissues where the side of his face had been rebuilt after our clash with the saruthi on the warped world orbiting KCX-1288.
'I never meant to run out on you/ he said.
'I didn't ever suppose so. When did Godwyn Fischig last run out on a fight?'
He laughed bitterly. We sank the second drink and he fixed a third.
'Whatever Medea told you. Whatever Aemos told you… it's true. But it's not what you think.'
'Yeah?'
'I'm no heretic, Godwyn/
'No?'
'I think I might have become what you'd call a radical. But I'm no heretic/
'Isn't that what a heretic would say?'
'Yes. I guess so. If you'd let me into your mind, you'd see../
'No thanks!' he shuddered, shoving his chair back with a squeak.
'Okay/ I sipped my glass. 'It won't be the same without you/
'I know. You and me. Bastards! The Eye of Terror itself was shy of us!'
Yes it was/
'We could do it again/ he said.
'We could?'
'We could work side by side like old times and hunt out the darkness/
Yes, we could. I'd like that/
'That's why I'm sorry I ran out like that. I should have stayed/
I nodded. Yes/
'I owe you that much. I should have tried harder. You're not gone. Not all the way. You're just slipping/
'Slipping?'
'Into the pit. The radical pit. The pit no one comes back from. But I can pull you out/
'Pull me out?'
Yes. It's not too late/
'Too late for what, Godwyn?'
'Salvation/ he said.
The crowds outside were screaming and clapping. Barrages of fireworks were being launched into the early evening air, scattering new stars in their wake like fireflies.