AE in the Irish Theosophist | Page 6

but my implants have been torn from me so that there is no danger of my Id getting free again.
And I had to cover court costs. My starship was confiscated and auctioned off. The Riley government took its share of the court costs, Air Guard rescue fee, taxes, and handed me the rest.
"I never felt like I got to finish things," I say. "Or properly apologize."
She shakes her head sadly.
"And even if you do, so what? You're going to leave on your spaceship for any number of years while I wither away here again? You're wasting your time if you think there's anything to rescue with us."
"I sold it," I tell her. "I don't have a ship anymore." She starts walking away from the courthouse. The droid and I follow her.
"I would like to give you the money back, with interest." It's almost everything I have left.
"And then what are you going to do here, on Riley?"
"Buy an airship, offer some very hair-raising tours of this world. Famous tours that spacers will come to try from all over." It feels like something I'll be good at, the pit of my stomach agrees with this. Deep down, I've always liked airships.
We walk together a little further before she stops. "You don't just get forgiveness like that," she says. "It just doesn't happen like that."
Her sentence involved guided therapy and personality adjustment. That and a twenty-four hour police droid for a year until the therapy kicked in fully.
I reach over and grab her hand, softly, and place a diamond in it.
"A memento," I explain. "It was lodged in one of the spars when I got back."
She pockets it and suddenly laughs. It is a symbolic thing for me. Important. I want to try and undo some of the damage. I'm not sure how to take the laughter.
"Okay Vincent. I'm drugged up out of my mind right now, and it makes some sort of warped sense. At the very least," she smiles, "I'm no longer interested in killing you."
"Thank you," I say. It's a start.
We part.
I walk down a plastic city street, looking up at the great city guywires that lead to the superstructures of pressurized gas that hold us up.
I wonder how hard it would be to get an entire city down to the diamond sea far below my feet?

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