Edge of Dark

by Brenda Cooper

  Nona looked stricken, but now that she’d been asked, Chrystal wanted to keep talking. “I should be crying right now. I’m sad, thinking about Katherine. I miss her. But I don’t feel like I am crying, or like I could cry—I can’t. But I should be crying. I should be crying and screaming and wailing and mourning every day. It’s like everything that made me human is still there, only it’s a whisper inside me, a reminder that I’m not me and I’ll never be me again.”

  Nona put her arms around Chrystal. A tear dropped down onto Chrystal’s shoulder.

  Nona jerked a little, and wiped the tear away with a finger.

  “It’s okay,” Chrystal said. “I know that you can cry and I can’t. That’s why I want a path forward that doesn’t make any more of me.”

  “If we could defeat them, kill them all, would you?”

  “No. But I want them to leave the Glittering forever.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  NONA

  A month later, the Deep bulked huge in the view screens as they came in. Staring at it, Nona felt like a tiny woman with a huge task. She chewed on her lower lip so hard it hurt. “I am stronger now,” she whispered to herself. “I am strong enough to create change.” She did feel stronger, and she also felt different. She had been a captain and a lover and a diplomat since she left here, she had done things with more purpose and reason than she was used to, things that had scared her.

  She had become bigger. On the other hand, the Deep was so big she couldn’t see it all. And she had left it as the captain of the Sultry Savior and returned as a virtual prisoner on the same ship.

  Two bells sounded to warn them they were docking. She closed her eyes and said it one more time before she left to find Chrystal. “I am strong enough to create change. I am.”

  Satyana and a flock of reporters met her and Chrystal just inside the door between the docking facility and the station. Satyana had dressed in a power suit: a deep blue form-fitting coat with neon-blue trim that matched her eyes, tight black pants, and black boots. She had dyed her hair the color of the night sky on Lym. It hung in rings down her shoulders and chest, stopping at her waist. A single neon blue streak on the right framed her face and mirrored the coat, the colors blending.

  Nona swayed, apprehensive. What would Satyana think of how she’d done? What would she think of Chrystal?

  At least she and Chrystal were both dressed in clean and pressed ship’s uniforms and Nona wore her single civilian captain’s bar on her sleeve. Gunnar had stolen her ship, but she had never given up her insignia.

  Satyana kissed Nona on both cheeks and then played Chrystal exactly right, welcoming her home and apologizing for her losses.

  Maybe it would be okay.

  There was an unreasonable amount of picture-taking and a short interview where Chrystal stated that she was happy to be home and Nona echoed her. After ten minutes, Satyana shut the reporters and drones all down, murmuring that everyone needed to rest for the many meetings starting tomorrow.

  Britta bundled all three of them into a private flitter and took them to the Star Bear, a refurbished spaceship that was Satyana’s most common home on the Deep.

  Britta left them, and they wound their way past a vast cargo area which had long ago been converted to a series of stages for concerts and dances. In one room, a portrait of Ruby Martin dominated a whole wall, with Ruby in working clothes and holding a microphone shaped like a gun. As Nona walked through the room, the image of Ruby seemed to be watching them pass. Nona squared her shoulders.

  Deeper inside the Star Bear, they came to a small sitting room where wine, berries, crackers, and sweets had been set out on a round mosaic table surrounded by five chairs. Chrystal glanced at the food and sat in a soft chair near the table.

  Satyana frowned. “I’m sorry.”

  “Go ahead,” Chrystal said. “You have to eat. What should I expect tomorrow?”

  “Let me tell you about process first. You’ve been gone a while, but certainly you remember how much we love to dissect a thousand possibilities around our simple little laws?”

  “I do.” Chrystal smiled and looked truly interested. Nona poured a glass of chilled white wine and sat back to listen. After a month of Gunnar, Satyana seemed almost reasonable.

  “Well, there’s a timeline,” Satyana explained. “We’ve only got a few days to make this decision.”

  Nona sipped her wine. Heaven. “Is everyone deciding now? We’re not the only station in the solar system.”

  “We aren’t. But everyone else is watching us.”

  “Do you know what you want?” Chrystal asked Satyana.

  “For the Next to come in, take what they want, and not to kill anybody else. And even more, for this station not to do anything stupid.”

  “I noticed more defense bubbles on my way in,” Nona mentioned.

  Satyana almost spit out her words. “Twice as many. We already had enough guns to put down an attack by any single power in the system, and most alliances that seemed even vaguely possible. Now some people think we’re ready to defend ourselves against the Next.”

  Chrystal reacted first. “You can’t.”

  “I know that,” Satyana snapped. “But not everyone here understands how strong they are. It’s as if they’ve already forgotten the High Sweet Home.”

  “Or perhaps they haven’t,” Nona mused. Silence fell.

  Nona finished her wine and ate most of the berries. She’d never seen Satyana so openly tense. “Is the Deep using the court to decide?”

  “Well,” Satyana poured herself some wine, “Sheenan Bolla is Headmistress now. That happened right after you left. First time we’ve had a woman in three turns.”

  The Headman position—part ceremony and part ruler—had become a job that turned over every six years after the minor revolution that Ruby had unwittingly helped Winter Ohman start.

  “Sheenan should have one third of the vote.” Satyana was speaking toward Chrystal, as if checking to be sure that she understood. “One third for her, one third for the Councilors, and one third for the Voice. You remember the Voice?”

  Chrystal nodded. “Rich people selected to represent the people with interests.”

  Satyana frowned. “Not always rich people.”

  “Almost,” Nona said. “But you said Sheenan should have one third of the vote.”

  Satyana was still frowning. “Sheenan did something very brave, which I’m hoping was not also very stupid.” A note of slight disgust colored Satyana’s voice, undoubtedly on purpose. The woman was a born actor. “She gave her vote to the collective.”

  Nona put her glass down, surprised. “How will that be decided?”

  “Social vote. The main computer will read the social web in the same way it does for concerts.”

  Nona relaxed and poured a tiny bit more wine. “You manipulate the socweb all the time.”

  Satyana narrowed her eyes. “This will be harder.”

  Satyana would still try. Maybe she didn’t want to say so in front of Chrystal. The social web was generally an insubstantial and ephemeral force of ideas pulled one way and then another. But not always. Sometimes it coalesced and caused actual change—fashion, behavior, belief, adoption or destruction of a technology. Socweb opinions occasionally infected the whole station in waves. Satyana was a queen of public opinion, but there were other influencers.

  “Who is the Voice this time?” Nona asked.

  Satyana smiled broadly, a little secretively. There will be three this time. “Gunnar. Winter Ohman.” She fell silent.

  “And the third?”

  “You.”

  Nona sat back. No way. “I’m . . . I’ve never . . .”

  “Close your mouth. You’ll do fine. I spoke for you. After all, you met the Next. You’ve traveled back for weeks with Chrystal and her family. You’ve been on Lym lately and with its ambassador. What more perfect choice is there?”

  Chrystal was grinning widely. “And look—you’re not already a superpower
here.”

  Satyana choked back a laugh. “Exactly. Which means you’ll influence the social web more than anyone else could. Best friends, reunited after a disaster.”

  Nona and Chrystal shared a look that was part horror and part amusement.

  “Everything you say, everyone you meet—either of you—is going to be magnified a thousand times. I’ve had clothes ordered and we’re going to start rehearsing as soon as we finish eating.”

  Nona grinned. Satyana telling her what to do felt like truly being home.

  When she and Chrystal were finally alone in a shared suite of rooms deep inside the Star Bear, Nona flopped down on her bed. “How do you feel? Being here?”

  “Right here, inside Satyana’s world? Safe. Safer than on the Bleeding Edge.”

  “Did they threaten you?”

  “No. And I’m probably describing it wrong. It was safe. The Next had plans for us, after all. They made us. But they are busy and driven, and it felt like we were always being gently forced—but forced—to learn more about our new brains, our bodies, the Next, how to communicate, how to run, how to fight, anything. We were almost never alone with each other. That’s why we spent so much time together on the Star Ghost.” She giggled. “But now I’ve gone from the Star Ghost to the Star Bear.” She smiled. “I’m worried about seeing my family. I expected my mom to be right there, waiting for me.”

  Nona laughed. “That would have made our greeting too unscripted for Satyana’s taste. I’m sure you’ll see her tomorrow.”

  Chrystal looked away. “I’m afraid.”

  “Afraid of seeing your mom?”

  “I’m . . . uncertain . . . about seeing anyone.”

  Of course she was afraid. The Deep felt like a place where anything could happen, even something bad. Surely Chrystal felt it even more than she did. Nona took Chrystal’s hand in hers. “Coming here was brave. I’ll do everything I can to keep you safe.”

  “I’m glad you’re here with me,” Chrystal said.

  “Me, too.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHRYSTAL

  Being on the station would be so much easier if she had Jason’s arms to retreat to, and his soft touches and his sweet need for her. It would help to have Yi’s bright brain to argue with about what they had lost and what they were becoming and what they were now.

  Returning to the Deep didn’t feel like coming home. The creaks and groans of the Star Bear sounded less purposeful than a working spaceship and also different from her home hab. It would probably take her four hours by high-speed train to get home from here. Maybe less by air taxi. The Deep was flat and thick and long, with fractal edges that changed as it grew ship by ship, habitat bubble by habitat bubble, the growth always at the edges to maximize access to the sun. Light meant energy, and almost certainly light was the primary thing the Next wanted. Way out on the High Sweet Home, the thing she had missed the most was sunlight.

  She had heard that beyond the Ring it took effort to pick Adiamo out from background stars, that the gas giant Heroph loomed larger in the sky, and looked slightly brighter.

  Watching Nona sleep took a long time.

  Chrystal busied herself reading as much of the news as she could manage, trying to figure out who had what power these days. She’d been gone long enough that many positions had changed. She made mental notes about the councilors, paying special attention to the Historian, the Futurist, and the Economist.

  She had never imagined playing any part in the complex politics of the Deep.

  Nona moaned in her sleep and thrashed under the covers. She rolled to her stomach and stuck a foot out.

  Chrystal sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed Nona’s shoulders and upper back lightly, listening carefully as her breathing deepened and became more regular.

  Back at the table, she started working her way through the various banks and shippers, looking for any signs of trouble in major sectors. She noted plenty of it, most not quite understandable to her except as movements of money she planned to ask Satyana about. She also noticed a net loss in population—which had never happened before. The Deep accreted people and ships faster than any other location in the solar system. Yet, the station had lost a half a percent of its population. She looked closer at the numbers. They had lost two percent and gained one and a half. All since the High Sweet Home. That was a lot of churn.

  Given the travel times between locations in space, they might only be seeing the beginning of any exodus or influx. Another thing to ask about after Charlie and Nona woke up.

  She made a list of topics to research the next night.

  Anything not to think too much about Jason and Yi flying toward Lym. The Star Ghost would start slowing down soon, and be in orbit a day or two after that. She had set news alerts on the ship, but there had been no responses so far.

  The light started to come up, and the sounds of a forest slowly infiltrated the room. Virtual birds sang morning songs and a slight wind brushed branches against each other.

  Nona slammed her hand down on the controls and set the room to snooze for fifteen more minutes.

  Chrystal sighed and re-reviewed maps of the parts of the station they were near.

  The next time the lights and sound came on, Chrystal started talking. “The people here appear to be divided about what to do, with almost half wanting to co-operate with the Next in some way, a quarter or so wanting to fight, and whoever’s left either wanting to become like me or still in denial.”

  “Really? What do they think? That the Next are a hoax?”

  “Or that they aren’t coming in or that they’re a threat manufactured by the Council.”

  Nona pushed herself up to a sitting position. “I guess I do need to wake up,” she mumbled. Five minutes later she had pulled on comfortable pants and a white blouse and handed Chrystal a comb.

  Chrystal worked knots out of Nona’s hair. “I remember I used to do this for you when we were in college.”

  “I remember.” She looked up at Chrystal, her facial expression reminding Chrystal of hundreds of small, intimate times they had shared as teenagers. The moment lasted until Nona held her hand out for the comb. “Let’s go get me some breakfast.”

  The mere mention of something Nona needed and Chrystal would never need again broke the spell.

  Nona didn’t look at all surprised when they walked into the galley and Chrystal’s mom sat at the small table clutching a glass of stim and talking with Satyana in low tones.

  Her mom stared at her.

  Chrystal looked back, forcing a smile onto her face. Her mom looked like she remembered, maybe a tiny bit sadder. She had grown her hair longer and dyed it as black at Satyana’s. “Mom,” she whispered.

  “That’s Chrystal’s voice,” her mom said to Satyana.

  “Of course it’s my voice,” Chrystal said. “I’m me.”

  “How do I know?”

  “You’re my mother, you should just know.” A dumb thing to say, but it had come out. The only way to describe her mother’s face was frightened. She gentled her voice. “Ask me anything.”

  “Where’s Katherine?”

  Except that. What could she say that wouldn’t scare her mom more? “She died.” Chrystal felt awkward. “When they did what they did to put me in this body, it didn’t work for Katherine.”

  Her mother extended a hand toward her and then pulled it back. “Can I feel you?”

  “Of course.” She walked over to her mom.

  Satyana stood up to make room for Chrystal. “Eleanor, we’ll go get coffee somewhere else. I have some things to talk to Nona about anyway.”

  Eleanor nodded, her eyes still on Chrystal.

  Satyana quietly escorted Nona from the room. Chrystal sat down where Satyana had been and reached across the table and took her mom’s hand. “See, this is how I feel. I hear it’s almost like I used to feel, almost human.”

  “How can you be a real person if you don’t eat or breathe?”

  Chrystal
tried to speak as calmly as she could. “I don’t know. I don’t have DNA any more, I’m not biological. But the patterns of my brain are still here, and now I’m the old me plus the things that have happened since then. I feel like me.”

  Her mom’s voice shook. “But they killed you to do this to you?”

  “They did.”

  A tear fell down her mother’s face, and then another. Eleanor wiped them way, one of the tears clinging to her nail like a jewel. It matched the real jewels already affixed to her blue nail-paint.

  “I’m sorry,” Chrystal said. “I’m sorry that it happened. I know you told me not to go so far away.”

  “I never thought this would happen.”

  “I didn’t know this could happen. But I feel like me. I am me.”

  “How can you be you if it’s only your brain? What about your heart? What about your feelings?”

  Chrystal wished she could do something useful with her hands. Not eating felt awkward—she used to use food as a way to stop and think. “I don’t know,” she said. “The person I am now is different than I would have been if I hadn’t been uploaded into this body. But I have all of my memories.”

  “A computer could have those.” Eleanor stood up and turned away. Her shoulders shook.

  “I’m sorry,” Chrystal said to her back. “I don’t know how to tell you I’m me.”

  “You can’t be you. My daughter is dead.”

  The words pierced her, so she felt them deep inside whatever stood in for a heart now that her body no longer needed blood.

  Her mom had dissolved in a full cry. “I did not have a robot,” she sobbed. “I could hold my daughter and she was warm.”

  Chrystal put her arms around her mother. “My skin is still warm, mom. I’m not the same, but I’m still me.”

  Her mother stiffened and didn’t answer. They stood that way for what felt like a very long time to Chrystal, until her mom walked forward out of her embrace and fled the room.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHARLIE

  Charlie woke up with an epiphany. He’d been busy trying to understand Jason and Yi, and through them, to at least glimpse the Next. Which meant he’d missed the most important thing. Neither of them had ever been to Lym.