Edge of Dark

by Brenda Cooper

Climbing back up the hill taxed her thighs so the muscles burned every time she lifted her foot. She stopped from time to time to take photos of plants.

  She fell twice on the way back up the water-splashed path. By the time she arrived back at the skimmer she wore mud on one knee and the opposite elbow, and she’d managed to put a streak of it on her cheek, which she left there. It felt like being smeared with the raw power of Lym.

  Cricket seemed to think more of her than she had before, the appraisal in her steady gaze a tiny bit less judgmental. But Charlie looked disturbed, his jaw tight and his eyes dark and angry. “Did I take too long?” she asked him.

  He blinked and his face changed to a mask of control. “No. I’m sorry. It’s something else.”

  She wanted to ask, but he seemed like the kind of man who offered himself more easily if you didn’t push. “It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. The falls. Lym.”

  He smiled briefly, his mood only partly broken. “I can show you even prettier places here. Some where there won’t be so many people.”

  “There were hardly any here.”

  He gave her a look that disagreed.

  “On a station, every public place is so close that people touch on accident. We smell each other’s breath and perfume and sweat. Even walking from place to place there’s people in front and behind and maybe on either side.”

  “I’d hate that,” he said.

  “I bet you would.”

  “Are you willing to go where there’s no one but us?” he asked.

  “Of course.” She felt awed by the waterfall and opened by the planet, almost flayed. This might be the perfect time to let Onor and Marcelle’s ashes go. “Can you find a place with water above a falls?”

  “This falls?”

  “Is there a place that’s even more empty?” She had never been in a place without other humans, and suddenly she craved it.

  “Strap in,” Charlie said. He stood up, still keeping himself between her and Cricket. He felt cold and distant.

  They flew in silence for twenty minutes, until she had to say something. “Your mood. It’s different.”

  “It’s not you,” he said. He dropped the skimmer closer to the surface and started pointing out springs and streams and grazing animals, his voice and movements controlled.

  She didn’t know him well enough to push harder, so she settled for being curious about the things he showed her and trying to draw him out with conversation. It worked a little, because he smiled as he took her up over a ridge near the base of mountains. Thin wisps of clouds lay against the bottom of the cliff like a veil. As they flew closer to it she realized it wasn’t fog at all, but the spray from waterfall after waterfall. “You pick,” he said.

  She leaned toward the cliff and watched carefully. The falls were a series of thin ribbons of water that sprung out from the top of the ridge and fell through clear air to land hard on a rocky base. She looked up at Charlie. “There’s no power like this on the Deep. Nothing.”

  He grunted. “Isn’t the Diamond Deep the most powerful place in the solar system?”

  “It is. But that’s a human power, a creation of laws and intent. This is . . . primal.”

  He looked approving. “Pick your waterfall.”

  She did, and the gently forested meadows toward the top of the falls turned out to be a fresh wonder. She had never imagined so many shades of green or such magical light and shadow.

  Charlie hovered to let her out, and she jumped down carefully. She found a flat rock and stood on it, listening to the stream and the birds. Nona took her parents’ ashes and held them in her hand, staring at the vials. They seemed to stick there, like glue.

  “Come on,” she whispered to herself. “You can do this.” But suddenly the place didn’t feel right. She turned and walked a little further away, being careful not to slip. She knelt and used her free hand to touch the water, which felt so cool that it sent shivers up her spine. If she put her parents here, they’d be cold.

  She’d thought she could do this.

  Maybe she wasn’t ready yet. She had another month down here. She could bury them on any day. At least her father’s ashes were warm here next to her skin; in real life Onor had hated the cold.

  She didn’t like hesitating. She should just do this.

  Charlie had brought the skimmer down close to her. “Ready?” he asked, his voice just under a shout to get over the steady engine noise.

  She bit her lip.

  “Do you need more time?” He seemed to be working to keep the skimmer close.

  “Is there someplace warmer?” she called. “With warmer water?”

  “Warmer?”

  She nodded, unwilling to explain just yet. He looked slightly annoyed, and glanced up at the sun which had started angling down already. But he dipped the skimmer slightly lower. She climbed on and sat down.

  “Strap in.”

  She did.

  He turned so that they flew between the two ridges, with the green and silver ribbons of waterfalls on their right side and rockier terrain on the left. They tended downward, coming out of the mountains they’d climbed into this morning on their way to Ollicle Falls. He stayed silent for a while, but then he asked, “Why do you need warmth?”

  “I’ll trade you. What changed between when we left this morning and now? Why are you so different?”

  By now the long wait for an answer seemed normal. He eventually said, “Okay. But you go first, so I can take you to the kind of place you want.”

  She swallowed. He was a stranger, but he was also the only human she knew at all here. She took a deep breath and started in. “My dad dreamed of Lym. He grew up inside a ship, and then lived on a station, but he dreamed of a sky. He always wanted to come here, but he and mom were always doing something else, and he died before he could get here. I brought some of his ashes.

  “The last year of his life, he constantly complained about being cold, so cold I piled three or four blankets on him. I don’t want to leave him in a cold place.”

  “Is an ocean okay? Taken as a whole it will be warm and cold, but here the current is warm enough to swim in.”

  “My dad wanted to see an ocean almost as much as he wanted to see a sky. His ashes will go everywhere, and touch every continent, won’t they?”

  He smiled. “They will.”

  “Your turn.”

  His lips twitched and he looked out over the horizon and fiddled with the skimmer some before he said, “Have you looked at the news today?”

  “No. I just barely woke up in time to eat and get ready.”

  “You don’t have a feed?”

  “It’s off.” It seemed like he was trying to put her on the defensive and she bristled at that. “Do I need to turn it on, or are you going to tell me?”

  He had the grace to apologize. “Sorry. You know about the High Sweet Home?”

  She froze. Chrystal lived there! “What happened?”

  “It’s gone. Just gone. The ice pirates came in and took it.”

  “Took it?”

  “Took it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They took it away.”

  “They didn’t blow it up?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She felt like she’d been hit. “Do you know anything?”

  “Every one of the military ships on the station got blown up, and the ship’s bays took a lot of damage.”

  “But the people? The ones inside? The ordinary people?”

  His mouth was a thin line, his eyes hard. “The pirates took the station with them.”

  “That’s . . . not possible.” It wasn’t. Possible. Stations didn’t change orbits.

  The valley they flew over began to open out and meadows appeared, dotted with shaggy, grazing animals. “I can show you the news story.”

  She understood his mood now. “It happened while I was at the waterfall?”

  “Before. I watched the news while you were there. I
heard about it last night, but I saw the footage today.”

  “What do they want? They have to want something. Satyana talked about this before I came down, saying they were getting restless. I just . . . I don’t know. I didn’t believe her. She’s a worrier.” Nona stopped. She was babbling and afraid, even though the distances between them and the ice pirates were huge. She should tell him about Chrystal, watch the footage herself. But she didn’t want to cry in front of him. “Do you want to go back?” she asked.

  “And do what?” For just a moment, he looked tender instead of angry. “You should do what you need to do. Go bury your dead.”

  Suddenly she wanted to hang on to the ashes. Silly. “Okay.”

  Rough sand warmed Nona’s bare toes. In front of her, a flat expanse of it extended all the way to kiss the horizon, the colors of blue and green and grey blending where sea touched sky. The sun hung low enough that its reflection made a fat bright line in the water. Near the shore, waves bunched, curled, and crashed. Birds hung in the tangy air, occasionally falling to the water and pulling wriggling fish from it.

  All of it looked so foreign. Water, birds, air, sky. So much water cowed her, such a vast horizon made her feel tiny, and the myriad miniature specks of sand made her feel big, as if she were the center of an infinity symbol.

  She shuffled close enough for the edge of the water to touch her feet. It seemed slightly warmer than the afternoon air. She felt some urgency now, as if Charlie’s news about the High Sweet Home made getting past her own losses more important. Here, her parents could join the myriad others who had died across all time like grains of sand, including the very first settlers.

  She took the vials of ashes out her pocket yet again, and held them up.

  She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and straightened her spine. She took three more steps, and then another, so the water washed in and out over her ankles but didn’t touch the bottom of her rolled-up pants. She opened her eyes and looked out over the waves, remembering that Charlie had told her not to turn her back to the ocean, but to watch it. She shuffled carefully, the waves slapping her knees and the sand pulling away from under her feet.

  That should be good enough.

  “Here you go, dad,” she whispered. “Here’s your sky. It’s really beautiful. There are birds outside of cages, and they’re beautiful, too. Stay warm.” She stopped for a breath. “Mom, I’ll miss you forever. I will. I’ll think of you both a lot, and try to keep you with me.”

  She took the stoppers out of the jars and turned them quickly. The surface of the sea swallowed the ashes nearly instantly, accepting and subsuming them.

  A wave wet her belly, raised her a tiny bit so her feet flailed, and just as she grew scared it set her back down and went on to break against the shore.

  She stared at the shifting surface. Grass or something floated near her. A small fish jumped from the top of a breaking wave and fell back to be swallowed by the sea. The roar of the waves enveloped her and she felt vulnerable and lossy and also free. “I’ll do okay,” she said out loud. “I will.” It wasn’t entirely clear to her whether she was talking to her parents or to the ocean or to herself. She turned and started back toward the beach, slightly startled to see that the sand seemed further away.

  Another wave slammed her from behind so her knees buckled briefly and water splashed onto the back of her shirt.

  Cricket howled and Nona looked up to see the tongat loping toward her on the beach.

  She turned back to the sea and stood mesmerized as a wall of water as high as her head approached. Fish swam in the translucent top of the water where the sun speared it with orange light. The wave seized her and lifted her and tangled her in whitewater, dragging her limbs across sand. The vials fell from her hands and she reached out for them, and managed to snatch one. Then water took it from her, pulling it backward toward the ocean. She stood against the waves, barely managing her balance, squinting in the bright diamonds of sun on water, trying to find the vials or the ashes, or anything.

  Cricket howled again, closer. Nona turned her head to look for the tongat.

  Water slammed into her. She braced, but she wasn’t strong enough to keep her feet. Water covered her face in wave-spray and yanked her toward the beach and then out, taking control. It slammed up her nose and she choked and the taste of salt filled her throat and mouth.

  She struggled to get her feet under her, but there was no sand under them, nothing to stand on or push against. Only water.

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHARLIE

  Charlie pelted down the beach toward Cricket, who danced and bayed at the edge of the water, her tail up like a flag. Waves and whitewater and, in the sounds of surf, nothing human. No Nona. She’d just been there, standing up, looking perfectly safe.

  She had.

  He was an idiot.

  Cricket barked, high and sharp. He followed her gaze. A hand reached out and grasped at air, then disappeared. Nona’s head bobbed up and then washed under whitewater.

  He couldn’t tell if she’d gotten a breath.

  He checked the sets coming in. One more huge wave and then a short break. He forced himself to let the wave come in, watched Nona flail and struggle. Alive. At least she was alive. As the water rushed out he raced it, gaining ground on Nona even as the sea tried to haul her away from him. He pulled her up, choking.

  She fit over his shoulder in a rescue carry and he turned fast, racing the next incoming wave for the beach. By the time it pounded against the back of his calves he had gotten far enough up the beach to stand against the water, although he had to stop and let the force pass him while he braced. Sand swirled away from under his feet and filled his wet, heavy shoes. Seawater reached his knees before he pulled out of the sand-hole and made the beach, the next wave kissing his ankles. Nona struggled and coughed against him, but he waited until they were well past the high tide line before he set her down. “Bend over.”

  She did, which made her cough harder. Her breath came in high wheezes, like the gasping of a fish.

  He watched her spit water, not touching her, letting her manage.

  This shouldn’t have happened. He’d been thinking about High Sweet Home and, worse, about what might happen next. He had been contemplating Nona’s question about what the ice pirates could possibly want. They were machines. They didn’t need the sun.

  Cricket circled them, coming in close and keeping her ears up. She spent more time watching away from them, looking protective. He knew her body language well enough to say, “I think my beast likes you.”

  Nona didn’t answer, still coughing. Her cheeks had pinked.

  Without Cricket, he might have been too late. He stepped a little away from Nona and called the tongat over to him, praising her. Cricket nuzzled his hand, her breath warm.

  As soon as Nona stopped choking and wheezing well enough to hear, he said, “I’m sorry. I forgot to tell you not to breathe the sea.”

  She laughed.

  He felt lighter. She’d be all right. “Let’s warm you up.”

  He took off his wet shoes and walked beside her back to the skimmer, both of them wet and sandy and a little goose-pimply in spite of the late-afternoon sun. He glanced at the light. “We have an hour. Are you hungry?”

  She shook her head. “Thirsty.”

  “Okay—help me gather wood?”

  “Wood?”

  “For a fire. To warm you up, and to dry out our clothes.”

  The look on her face made it his turn to laugh. He had forgotten most spacers’ reaction to fire. “It’s not dangerous. This isn’t a ship. Fire started here, happens here all by itself. A beach fire is the best fire ever.”

  She still looked doubtful, so he added, “Fire gave the first humans life and heat and cooked food way back on Earth.”

  “Isn’t Earth a myth?”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged. “We came from somewhere.” He wanted to just wrap her in a blanket and have her sit in the skimmer. But he also wa
nted her close to him, and he liked to teach people about Lym by having them touch it. “Are your feet okay on the sand?” Spacers typically had baby feet, soft and easy to injure.

  “I can walk in it.”

  He filled her arms with driftwood, Cricket circling them and keeping watch.

  She helped him scoop a fire pit out of the sand but stood away as he lit it, as if the thing might explode in her face. He handed her a spare coat he carried in the skimmer and had her strip down to her underwear and the coat, which covered her almost to her knees. Her legs were attractive, the muscle definition suggesting the full-body workouts of a station spacer.

  He retrieved two chairs from the skimmer’s belly storage and some food. He held half a sandwich out, but she shook her head. “My stomach’s sour from the water.”

  He handed her a canteen. “Drink this. It will help.”

  She looked dubious but obeyed. At first, she sat far away from the fire, but then she inched closer, watching the flames. Not only did she deal with his silences, but she had her own aura of quiet. After a long while she said, “Thanks for saving me.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She held her hand out toward the tongat. “Will she come now?”

  “That’s up to her.”

  Cricket did, crouching low and creeping toward the slight woman from the stars. She stood small for a tongat and Nona small for a woman, and they both looked like they were trying to make themselves even smaller in order not to scare the other one off. Nona smiled, and Cricket made low growling noises in her throat.

  Charlie watched carefully. Cricket had always been standoffish to anyone other than him, although she’d eventually accepted Jean Paul in full and started to let Manny feed her without trying to eat his fingers.

  Nona kept her hand out and didn’t raise it above Cricket’s head. She let the animal come to her and bump her hand. Only then did she scratch Cricket behind the ears.

  Cricket’s tail wagged, and Charlie let the breath he had been holding out. Yet another thing he hadn’t expected. The sun had fallen far enough that the light looked gold and thick, and the tops of the waves were translucent.

  “You only hired me for today so far,” he said, surprised that he was talking to her the way he used to talk to Cricket when she was wilder. “Shall I come back tomorrow?”