Rising Son by S. D. Perry

Author:S. D. Perry [Perry, S. D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Space Opera, Adventure, Fiction
ISBN: 9780743448383
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2003-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

Day 71, night. The Giani’aga box sold today, for 7500 Klon paegs (I’ll do the latinum exchange math later, thank you), though that’s not why I’m writing. Just had dinner with Dez, and got back here, and read my last couple of entries—and I felt a need to put something after them, to soften them somehow, particularly after the talk we just had. Dez continues to surprise me, and I keep surprising myself, too…but I think I’m finally starting to understand both of us a little better.

For weeks now, I’ve been building up to a self-righteous snit over certain financial aspects of the retrieval business, and I can see now that I’ve been way too quick to jump to conclusions, to make assumptions about how important the money is. Today, after the announcement about the box being sold, Dez pulled me aside and told me that he didn’t feel right about profiting off the war anymore. He wants to skip the last couple of Dominion sites(!), because of last week—it was like he suddenly realized how terrible it was, to understand we were at the site of a slaughter, looking for leftovers. I knew he was a strong, solid person, and all this time, I’ve been struggling to come around to his point of view, but I’ve felt so awkward about it…and it turns out, he’s been feeling awkward with his viewpoint. I know it’s stupid, I mean, there are a lot of people in the universe who don’t feel the way I do about money, who actually care deeply about it (all of Ferenginar, for example), but I feel so much better, anyway, to hear him say it’s not so all-important. He really only sees it as a means to an end—he didn’t say it outright, I think he’s even a little shy about it (it’s so unfortune-hunter-like), but over dinner he implied that as the business continues to grow financially, someday he’ll be able to help people like the Yaron for free.

We could have talked about this weeks ago, if I’d actually made the effort to look past his wishful reasoning. Over dinner, he told me that he’s just gotten so used to needing the salvage, struggling to keep the Even running…but it’s only because he loves the retrieval part so much. He loves the excitement, the thrill…all those clichés, about feeling truly alive…it’s true, I know that now, looking back at Drang. My entire focus was on the situation we were in; I wasn’t worrying about trivial matters, my mind wasn’t wandering, I didn’t care about anything beyond what was happening in the moment, in the second. Of course Dez loves it, and I’m embarrassed now, thinking of how sanctimonious I’ve been over him trying to support himself and the crew.

The crew of the Even Odds , my friends. Dez hasn’t asked outright, but I know he wants me to stay, and part of me wants to. So much time has passed, it’s weird…there was Drang, right after I got here, and all of a sudden, I’ve been on board for over two months.

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