Penumbra

by Dan Ackerman

  “Every debt on Eden is cleared.”

  “Are you high?” Oggie demanded.

  Arden sighed. “This system of labor isn’t sustainable. Or ethical, for that matter, if you’re worried about ethics. Which I guess I sort of am these days.”

  “That what you and Rhys have been talking about?”

  “Uh. No. Mostly we talk about nothing. Which is nice.”

  After a long pause, Oggie asked, “Every debt?”

  “It’s a little rambunctious of me, isn’t it?”

  Oggie scooched in his direction. He took his hand. “It’s absolutely wild of you, sugar. I’m sorry I got worked up.”

  “It’s fine.”

  Oggie tightened his grip. “It’s just…I do like to have a say in these things. To be asked first.”

  “I understand,” Arden assured. He shifted his gaze to Terra. “The peers are going to riot.”

  “You all are too lazy to riot,” Oggie pointed out. “What are you going to do?”

  Arden shrugged. “Go on vacation.”

  “You can’t throw Eden something like this then leave.”

  “I can if I leave Rhys and the Council in charge with some provisionary notes, then hop my ass on a shuttle.”

  “Arden!”

  “I’m just saying.”

  Oggie’s grip tightened on his hand even more, crushing his fingers. “Are you leaving?”

  “Not for long. There’s something I need to do on Terra.” He looked at Oggie. “Come with me.”

  “I can’t come with you.”

  “Oggie, come with me.” Arden couldn’t stop staring at him. “I don’t want to be away from you.”

  “Sugar,” he whined.

  “I’m so scared but I have to go. Please, I need you.”

  Oggie sniffled, his eyes greener than they’d ever been with how red the whites had gotten. “People only talk to me like that when they’re jonesing or horny.”

  “I’m neither,” Arden assured.

  “Then what do you need me for?”

  Arden didn’t know, exactly. He pressed his lips together and thought. “I…”

  Oggie dug his fingers into Arden’s wrist, his nails cutting into his skin. He gazed at Arden. “What do you really want from me?”

  Arden didn’t pull his wrist back. “I…I want to go away. I want to come back to a place where there aren’t workers and peers anymore.”

  “Debt isn’t what made us workers.”

  “Generations of systematic oppression is, yes, I know,” Arden said. “Rhys likes to remind me.”

  “Why aren’t you asking him to go with you?”

  “Because I can’t leave anyone else in charge while I’m gone.”

  Oggie took his hand back.

  Arden rubbed his wrist.

  “You haven’t told me what you want.”

  He couldn’t say it.

  “Arden.”

  “What, Og? We’re friends. I want us to be friends somewhere outside of this room. I want to go places with you and do something other than hide in here and play board games. I want…”

  Oggie raised his eyebrows.

  “I want you to know that you’re not someone I’m going to throw away.”

  “And taking me to an empty planet proves that?”

  “It’s not empty. That’s why I’m going there. Come with me. Be part of what helps save Eden,” Arden insisted.

  “Sugar, I’m still not sure I follow, but it seems important to you. Like…maybe too important,” Oggie said, “And I’m a little worried what might happen if I say no. So I guess let’s go.”

  Arden couldn’t believe how thoroughly that had backfired. He’d turned an invitation into an obligation. “If you don’t want to—”

  “No, no, sugar, I might as well go, cause if you disappear and I’m still on Eden, they’ll probably kill me.”

  Arden sighed.

  “I’ll go pack. How long do you think we’ll be gone? I’ll have to tell Mara, too, or she’ll think we did some kind of suicide pact. She might anyway. She has a dark mind,” he rambled.

  Arden threw his arms around him and dragged him close. It shouldn’t have gone this way.

  Oggie squeaked. He gave Arden a pat on the back. “Alright, sugar. You go get packed, too.”

  Arden nodded.

  He shoved a few things into a bag, unsure of what to bring.

  Using service lifts and back stairways, he and Oggie snuck up to the shuttle bay on deck one. No one had come to work today.

  Judging by what they’d heard on the way up, every worker on the station was celebrating. The peers seemed to have locked themselves inside.

  Arden had never answered any of his messages. He’d sent a letter to Rhys and the Council members explaining what to do in his absence and his plans on Terra. He’d written another letter to Winslow to assure him he’d be back soon. He’d sent a third, very serious letter to the chief security officer about what to do if Morris Torre even mentioned that he should serve as Autarch in Arden’s absence.

  Once inside the shuttle, Arden sat at the controls and stared at them.

  “Do you know how to fly this?”

  “I read the manual.”

  “Sugar, this isn’t how I wanted to die.”

  “How did you want to die?” Arden asked.

  “Shug, I’m having serious reservations.”

  “No, it’s…we have drills, it’s fine, I can do this,” Arden assured. He’d done this before, at least, he’d done dry runs where the shuttle never left the bay.

  “Drills?”

  “In case of emergency.”

  Oggie made a face. “I’ve never been to a drill.”

  Arden glanced up. “Uh. The workers generally are…not invited to participate in the evacuation drills.”

  “Oh, I super hate that.”

  Arden scanned the controls for the ignition. He found it and pressed it.

  The shuttle vibrated.

  Oggie grabbed onto Arden’s shoulder.

  “Go sit.” That was the first thing the drills went over. Everyone seated and buckled in. Arden hoped that misstep wouldn’t set the tone for their trip.

  Oggie sat.

  Arden, from the control panel, opened the shuttle bay airlock and managed to direct the shuttle out of it. It took much longer than it should have, but he did it without harming the bay or the shuttle.

  He closed the airlock.

  “What the fuck,” Oggie breathed quietly and repeatedly for the entire first half-hour of their trip.

  The shuttle had an autopilot function and all Arden needed to do was put in their destination. The craft would do everything itself unless something happened that the AI couldn’t handle.

  “Og, you okay over there?”

  “Yeah, just…what the fuck?”

  “It takes about eighteen hours to reach the upper atmosphere.”

  “Fuck.”

  Arden spun the pilot’s chair around. “You sure you’re alright?”

  “Aren’t you scared!”

  Arden raised his hand to show that it shook. “I don’t think I could even spit right now.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Someone asked for help. I figured, might as well help them.”

  “More mouths to feed?”

  Arden shrugged. “More people to work. And who knows? It might just be a few people. Maybe only one.”

  Oggie unbuckled himself. He wandered around the cabin, reading the safety signs and looking out the window.

  Arden turned back around and watched Terra.

  He’d gone over this plan hypothetically with a few people.

  He’d listened to the call over and over. A soft, high voice, probably a youth or a woman, asking for anyone to help.

  All this time people had begged for help and Eden had ignored them. A day of travel and countless lives would have been saved.

  What had they ignored them for?

  “Og?”

  “Hmm?”


  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. I’m about ready to have a fit,” Oggie warned. “There’s nothing to drink.”

  “There’s water.”

  “No, Arden, there’s nothing to drink.”

  “Oh. Well.” He licked his lips. “Are we talking wants or needs when it comes to having a drink?”

  Oggie swallowed. “I’ll let you know if I get the shakes, I guess.” He looked at his hands, which were indeed shaking. “Nerves, probably.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Ah, that’s alright, sugar. I get through it fine. No seizures or anything.”

  Arden checked the first aid kit, as though it would help anything.

  “I’ve been scaling back anyway, it’s…I’ll be fine. Come here.”

  Arden hesitated.

  “Come here, get over here.”

  Arden went.

  Oggie folded his arms around Arden. “You look so worried, shug, I hate that. Aren’t we going on some big adventure?”

  “Historic.”

  “Historic. Arden and Oggie, historic adventurers. Saving Eden, overthrowing the indenture system, surviving withdrawal.” Oggie tightened his embrace. “Do you really think I’ll be in the history books with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not just as a terrible assassin, either.”

  “I’ll make sure of it.”

  “I know you said you wanted to do more than play board games, but this is an awfully long trip.”

  “I packed jumble,” Arden said.

  “We should play, then. Get our minds off things.”

  At a small table behind the cockpit, they played for hours. They ate a fairly tolerable meal of rehydrated food and watched a movie. Oggie slowly grew quieter and crankier as time went on. He rubbed at his temples, drank an intense amount of water, then announced, “I give up.”

  “Give what up?”

  Oggie rifled through his bags, then took a number of pills, which worried Arden, and said, “Wake me up when we get there.”

  “What did you just take?”

  “Something to help me sleep.”

  “What am I supposed to do for twelve hours by myself?” Arden asked.

  “Read a book, play solitaire, jerk off. I don’t know. I do know that you’d probably rather I be asleep for the next leg of this.” He settled onto the small Murphy bed across from the table where they’d sat together. His eyes flicked over Arden, something rotten and sultry in that glance. “I won’t wake up unless you do something really awful to me.”

  Bile hit the back of Arden’s throat. He swallowed. “Spare parts,” he accused weakly.

  He walked away, back to the pilot’s chair, trying not to think of what Oggie had implied. He didn’t go back there again except to use the bathroom and only when he couldn’t hold it any longer.

  Oggie didn’t look peaceful in this sleep. He looked dead.

  Arden wanted to shake him until he woke up.

  Instead, he dozed in the pilot’s chair, which reclined enough for a nap, and ate another rehydrated meal. He watched the planet grow slowly closer with one of the more intense senses of dread he’d felt in his lifetime.

  He cried once, quietly and curled up, glad Oggie was asleep.

  The shuttle passed through Terra’s atmosphere shakily enough that Oggie stumbled out and asked, “Are we dying?”

  “No.”

  He nodded, used the bathroom, and returned to hover awkwardly beside Arden. “I feel like shit.”

  “Food and water would probably help. You slept for thirteen hours straight.”

  “You look like shit, too.”

  “I’m just tired.”

  “Well, you go lay down. I’ll wake you up if anything starts beeping or flashing. How long before we land?”

  Arden glanced at the control panel. “About five hours until we get to the source of the signal.”

  Oggie smoothed his fingers through Arden’s hair, his nails running over his scalp.

  Arden’s back straightened.

  Oggie’s grip on his hair tightened, pulling his hair.

  Arden couldn’t quite breathe. He stared up at Oggie, no choice with the way Oggie had angled his head.

  Oggie shook his head, looking sad more than anything, then released Arden. “Get some sleep.”

  Arden went to lay down, his entire body tingling, but his scalp especially. He always felt empty in the places where Oggie had hurt him. He dropped into a dreamless sleep, exhausted physically and emotionally.

  He awoke sometime later because something had jolted the shuttle.

  Oggie appeared in the doorway. “Touch down,” he announced softly.

  Arden scrambled from under the covers. He hurried to a window and saw a flat, sparse expanse of land. Yellow grass and crooked trees. Crumbled remains of buildings.

  Smoke in the distance and a crooked metal tower.

  He couldn’t breathe. He swallowed, or tried, but his mouth was too dry.

  “There are people,” Oggie told him softly. “I could see their tents as we came in.”

  A chill ran through his whole body.

  “Arden, there’s people,” Oggie repeated.

  He hurried over to the control panel and checked the environmental readings as he struggled into his shoes.

  Oggie stood to the side, quiet, still.

  “Are you coming?”

  “I’d probably die if you left me on this thing alone.”

  Arden opened the shuttle door.

  Hot, dusty air swept into the cool interior.

  Oggie and Arden linked hands without a word or a glance.

  They stepped out on to Terra, both shaky, their palms sweaty.

  Arden checked three times to make sure he had the fob to open the shuttle doors before he closed them. He slipped the fob into a pocket on the inside of his vest, close to his ribs so he’d always be able to feel it.

  They headed toward the smoke.

  “What if they’re vicious?” Oggie asked.

  “I guess we’ll run.”

  “Oh, easy enough for you, Mr. Handball. What about me?”

  “I guess I’ll have to pull you.”

  “I don’t think you’re strong enough.”

  Arden wiggled his fingers more firmly into Oggie’s grip. “Then I guess we’ll die.”

  “Sugar,” he scolded.

  It took them about half an hour to walk close enough to the tower to see the tents clearly. A dozen or so brown domes clustered protectively around the tower.

  People stood in a huddle perpendicular to the path they had taken towards the settlement. More people than Arden anticipated based on the number of tents.

  Women of many ages, and children. One or two people that might have been men, or masculine women, or without a binary gender. They all wore loose clothing in pale colors with little skin exposed. Some wore scarves around their heads. Many had dark makeup smudged around their eyes. They had little else in the way of decoration.

  Arden felt silly wearing such tight, dark clothing. He’d started to sweat immediately, and the sun made his skin feel tight.

  Oggie shimmered with sweat.

  Arden and Oggie stopped about four yards away from the cluster of Terrans. Arden wiped his hand on his pants, then waved. He pointed to the tower. “That your tower?”

  No one answered him.

  They stood and stared a while longer.

  One child, maybe thirteen, demanded, “What tribe?”

  An older woman grabbed her shoulder and dragged her protectively back into the group.

  It took Arden a minute to unravel the child’s accent. The pronunciation of those two words revealed a languid drawl, all vowels and softened consonants. It made it seem like one long nonsense word.

  He pointed skyward. “We came from a space station.”

  “What’s that?” the child asked from the woman’s grasp.

  “It’s a big, uh, big station. Up in space,” Arden said.


  “Brilliantly explained,” Oggie whispered.

  “Eden is a man-made structure outside Terra’s orbit,” Arden tried. “One of my ancestors built it before Terra…” He looked around. “Before the environment became so hostile.”

  A few people leaned close to whisper to each other.

  Eventually, one woman with waist-length blonde hair stepped forward. She spoke in the same drawl, “Your tribe is peaceful?”

  Arden and Oggie glanced at each other.

  Arden shrugged. He hoped he’d understood her and replied, “Yeah. Pretty peaceful.”

  “I’d say so,” Oggie agreed.

  “Come in,” the blonde said.

  “Well, hang on,” Arden said. “Are you peaceful?”

  A giggle went through the group.

  The blonde woman said, “We look like raiders to you? Or warlords?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Come in,” she said again. “It’s been years since we’ve come across another peaceful tribe.”

  Arden headed toward them.

  Oggie trailed close behind.

  People stared openly at them.

  Children shied away when he looked at them.

  One or two cried.

  A woman with frizzy gray hair and deep brown skin joined Oggie, Arden, and the blonde on their walk deeper into the tents. She explained, “Don’t mind the littles. Most of them never seen a man before, at least not up close.”

  “No?” Arden asked.

  “Most men don’t come in peace. Been about six years since we last met a tribe with men and didn’t have to run.”

  “Really?” Arden’s eyes swept over the gathered people again. Children seemed to come in three ages: five, twelve, and fifteen. The women’s ages varied more normally.

  “Really,” the blonde confirmed.

  “I, uh. My name’s Arden, by the way. This is Oggie.”

  “Kineth,” the blonde said.

  “Tola,” said the gray-haired woman.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To see my mother,” Kineth said.

  “She in charge or something?”

  “No one’s in charge,” Tola said. “Mari tracks our lineages. She’ll know the best matches for you.”

  Arden and Oggie stopped walking.

  “Matches?” Oggie asked.

  The women looked at them.

  As though speaking to a child, Kineth said, “For the next generation.”

  “Oh, well, I wasn’t on planning on staying here long term or anything,” Oggie said.