Edge of Dark

by Brenda Cooper

  The Jhailing said, “Must we stop?”

  “We need to sleep,” Charlie said.

  The representative of the Next didn’t reply.

  What about Jason and Yi? He shouldn’t tell them what to do. “Do you want to come?”

  Yi nodded slowly. “We may be needed.”

  Jason said, “Maybe they’ll tear me apart, too.” Then his eyes opened wider and Charlie assumed Jhailing was communicating with him just fine.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  NONA

  On the stage, Nona took her place on the left side between Winter Ohman and Gunnar Ellensson. The Councilors were arrayed on the right side of the stage and Satyana stood in the middle. She looked beautiful—part diva, part powerful hostess, part statesman, part ship’s captain. Her black dress clung to her chest and hips and purple lace flowers cascaded from one bare shoulder down across to waist to fall almost to the floor. She raised her head and clapped her hands for attention.

  The hot, bright lights made Nona crave sunshades. Only the first few rows of seats were visible: the rest faded to black beyond the spotlights. The people who came to listen to the Council were usually well-dressed, as if going to a party. Some of the people in the first few rows—all that she could see with the bright lights—were dressed up tonight as well. But others looked ragged, and tired. A few children were clutched in their mother’s arms.

  A screen hanging behind the stage displayed the diamond-faceted star of the station’s logo over a field of stars and the Deeping Rules:

  You must own yourself.

  You must harm no one.

  You must add to the collective.

  Nona realized someone had designed the opening view of the Shining Revolution broadcast to parody this traditional backdrop to the Court of the Deeping Rules. A streak of anger penetrated the fog of her loss and grief. The Rules contrasted with the Shining Revolution’s saying: “Humanity, Free and Clear.” The revolution hewed to a statement of specific value, an unwavering stickiness around a single idea that they were willing to kill for regardless of circumstance. Had killed for. Had killed her friend for. Maybe they would try to kill Nona as well after the vote.

  She took a deep, shuddering breath and then another, trying to look calm for the cameras.

  The Deeping Rules left room for growth. They let the station interpret the world in light of things that changed. A brief pride in the Deep and in her unexpected place in the Court drove her to sit up straighter.

  She had to stop seeing Chrystal’s face falling to the floor in pieces like severed parts of a doll. Again, she whispered to herself. “I am strong enough.”

  In the formal Court of the Deeping Rules, there would have been a speaker to introduce the proceedings.

  Satyana held her hands together as if praying. “Good evening. Thank you for attending, for watching remotely, or for viewing this in video. We are here on my stage in the Star Bear instead of in the courtroom for our security.” She sounded very formal, and stood straight, and Nona wondered if this might be as much of a stretch for her as being part of the Voice was for Nona.

  Satyana lifted her head higher. One tear fell, and no other came to take its place. “We gather to make the decision that the Next demanded of us. This is the last day to make that decision, and so we are meeting here and now. We have about an hour to get through this, so our remarks will be shorter than you are accustomed to. While there is not enough time for our traditional process, nothing will change the fact that we are the lawful decision makers and this decision must be made.”

  There was no note of defeat in Satyana’s voice, but Nona sat close enough to see how tightly she held herself. This was a surrender.

  She hadn’t been smart enough to see that, but now she understood the military’s desire to stop this meeting. The Council was giving up, yielding their ability to make choices on their own timeline to a threat larger than themselves. The people she stood with on the stage represented the biggest and best station in all of the vast Glittering, and they and the other two stations who had been driven to speak for all of the Glittering were dancing like puppets to the Next’s demands.

  “We apologize for the delay. Some of us were invited but unwilling guests at a party thrown by the Shining Revolution. Our military realized we might be late to this task, and helped.”

  Nona understood. Satyana could denounce the revolutionaries, but the station might need the military someday.

  “This is a crucial decision. One vote for each Council member. That’s five. One vote for each of the Voice, which is three. A final vote for the Headmistress, which will be handled uniquely. This allows for our usual voting traditions, in short form. The council will each speak very briefly from the position they represent before they vote.

  “The Voice will each speak to represent the people of the Deep in this matter. The Voice of this trial, this vote, includes Gunnar Ellensson because of his stake in Mammot and the economic benefits of that stake that accrue to this station and that the Next have said they want access to.” The audience gasped. Satyana lifted a hand for silence. “The second Voice is Winter Ohman. He will speak for the people of this station. The third Voice is Nona Hall, because her friend Chrystal encountered the Next and came back to us changed by them.”

  Once more, Nona felt awed. If she were in Satyana’s position, she would not have been as delicate of phrase, or as effective at reminding the audience of what they had just seen without saying it out loud.

  “At this point we will have heard from the formal leaders of the stations, and from the people most directly affected.” Satyana paused for a moment, and made a small bow toward the audience. “And instead of a vote for the Headmistress, who is being held in a safe and secret place by our military forces, we will use the methods that she herself set up. The people of the Diamond Deep will be the third class of vote, the last voice that we hear, and the loudest. This vote has been ceded to you the people via a social reckoning, which will be taken at the end of the other votes. Tallies will display on the screen behind us.”

  Satyana once more put her hands together as if in prayer, and then opened them wide. “Now we begin. We will vote on three options.

  “Option one is to enforce the Ring of Distance and uphold our existing laws. That will almost certainly require coordinated military force and alliances between stations. It will require investment. We will call this choice Uphold.”

  Nona fidgeted. This had been her first instinct. It had been Charlie’s first instinct and might still be his goal. There had been no time to call him. She had wanted it at first, in the heat of dismay. It would feel good to fight. Uphold represented the dreams of the people who had just carved her best friend into small metal pieces.

  “Option two is to allow the Next to come inside the Ring of Distance and use our resources, including Lym and Mammot. To stay as separate from the Next as we can, so that we are changed the least. We will have little to no influence on the choices that the Next make, and they will have the least opportunity to change us. We will call this option Allow.”

  “Option three is to assist the Next. To let them in, to work with them, possibly to work beside them. We have very few details of what this means, except that by this choice we will know them. We will be signing up to assist them with goals that are invisible to us so far. We will call this choice Help.”

  Help was a good word; it implied willing cooperation.

  In the background, music came up. Orchestral, riding from soft to louder and then falling again. Only a few moments of music, but it fit Satyana, who continued after the sound fell away. “We’ll start with the Architect.”

  The Architect oversaw the constant build-out and structural safety of the Deep, and so his answer seemed pre-ordained. He stepped into the circle of light on the stage and simply said, “Allow.”

  The Economist’s choice was nearly as obvious, but Leesha used the moment anyway, standing regally in the center of the stage and saying, “We
do not have the funds to Uphold at this moment, although I have started developing strategies to support a war should one occur. But it would be madness to start fighting. I find Help tempting because of what we might learn, but the risks are too great. I choose Allow.”

  At least Leesha hadn’t pulled her punches, and she’d called a war a war.

  Nona felt queasy when the biologist came up. If Jackie Bray chose Allow then the deed would be nearly done. Jackie looked far less at ease in the spotlight than Leesha had, and fidgeted a bit before she talked. “We are also speaking for Lym. If we choose Allow, we lose all of our ability to negotiate about Lym. Yet we need the planet’s biodiversity. I choose Help.”

  Nona breathed a sigh of surprised relief. That was two votes for Allow and one for Help.

  Satyana called on the Historian next. In spite of his small stature, he looked both important and brave. “I looked into our history. It appears that we may have had very good reasons to banish the Next when we did.” He paused. “That vote was close, as this vote appears to be.

  “The Next have become something different now. They are stronger than they were when we banished them: we may not be able to banish them again. History is rich with examples of people with better technology swamping those with less. It is a bitter truth, but history’s lessons are often bitter.

  “To Allow also had risks. We can’t be sure if the Next will actually leave us alone. Being surrounded by a powerful race that wants your resources often ends in annihilation.

  “There is also danger in working with the Next. Yet there are many sayings from history about keeping your enemy close, and understanding your enemy. So that is the path I recommend. I say that we Help.”

  The vote had split so far.

  She had no read on the Futurist. Hiram stood formally at the microphone, letting a few beats of silence pass. He surveyed the room, looking up toward the seats as if there were people in them that he could see. “The future is usually improved with risks. But sometimes it can be destroyed by them, as well. We should not fight the Next. They are more ruthless than we are, and than we ever will be, in spite of the atrocity that we saw the Shining Revolution perpetrate. We should not help the Next, because it creates a temptation to become the Next. We’ve already seen this at work, the perilous sweet call of even longer life, of stronger bodies. I say that we Allow.”

  Nona had expected the Futurist to be less conservative, and to choose Help.

  Satyana looked slightly dismayed, although Nona suspected that she was the only one who would see that, except maybe Gunnar. “I will call on the Voice.”

  Nona’s heart beat faster. She suddenly wished she weren’t here, and told herself that was ridiculous. She tapped her right foot against her left ankle hard enough to hurt until she felt focused again.

  Satyana surveyed the crowd and looked into the cameras. “I call on Gunnar Ellensson first.”

  He looked startled. Nona suspected he had wanted to be third so that his words could be the last influence on the social reckoning. In spite of that one look, he seemed comfortable and sounded convincing as he played his part. He was, of course, the most imposing figure on the stage. “If we help them, if we work with them, we may be able to mitigate the damage they do to Mammot and to Lym. Many of you know that I have interests in Mammot. But I would point out that you do, too. Ten percent of our trade—of our economy—comes from Mammot and through the Diamond Deep. A strong economy and a strong society require change and growth, and risk. I say we take this risk together. I say Help.”

  Nona wondered how many other people saw Gunnar’s response as disingenuous. He was almost certainly trying to protect his nearly infinite lease of land and mines on Mammot.

  Winter moved deliberatively during a time when they needed to hurry.

  Nona’s foot felt twitchy and she forced it to be still.

  Winter spoke slowly, but not very much. “I represent all of the social groups on the station, all of the people of the Deep. Most of them are workers, common people pursuing dignified lives. I vote to follow the Economist and choose Allow.”

  Four for Allow and three for Help. If she chose Allow, that would happen. If she chose Help, either could happen. The vote would be saved for the people. She took a deep breath. It seemed that Satyana called her name from a far distance, and that she had to walk through mud, trying not to trip, as she took her place as the speaker. The spotlight heated her face and stole her peripheral vision.

  Satyana had put her in this position when she called on Gunnar first, and Satyana never did anything important by accident.

  Nona blinked in the light, took a deep breath, and repeated her mantra quickly in her head. “I speak for my friend, Chrystal. Chrystal who was just murdered by the Shining Revolution. For that is what it was. Murder. Chrystal was still . . . Chrystal. There were some differences—how could there not have been? But her spirit was her own. She laughed at the same things and worried about the same things. The woman who was just taken apart in front of us all is the same woman who was born on the Deep and went to school with me on the Deep, and who I loved dearly all of my life.” She had to stop for a few big gasping breaths, and then she had to go on before she couldn’t. “Because of that linkage, I believe that there is more true and good in the Next than we know, and so even though I am frightened and angry, even though I can’t be sure of the right thing to do, and I don’t think any of us can, on stage or off, I am voting that we Help the Next.”

  Her legs shook as she walked back to her seat. She had used a lot more words than she meant to.

  She barely heard Satyana say, “Thank you.”

  She looked up, hoping to catch Satyana’s eye, but the other woman was looking out at the audience. “Now it is your turn. We will open the vote in a few moments. We will accept your votes for the next three minutes after that. I advise you to decide alone and uninfluenced. We have talked about this for months now, and it is time to decide each for each and thus reveal our collective wisdom.” She fell silent, bowed her head, and then lifted it again. Her voice rang out in a loud call. “The vote is open.”

  Someone handed Nona a glass of water and she downed it in one long sip. Fear made her thirsty.

  Leesha, who had voted differently than Nona, came over and put a hand on her shoulder and said, “You spoke well.”

  “Thanks.”

  Leesha whispered, “If I weren’t the Economist, I would have voted with you.”

  As odd as Leesha was, Nona relished the moment of intimacy between her and the tall woman with gems in her purple hair. So unexpected.

  Above them, numbers spun too fast to read, except for Uphold. Satyana came and leaned close to Chrystal and said, “At least most people don’t want a war.”

  “Good,” Nona and Leesha both said at once.

  A stray thought suddenly seemed important. “Do you know what the other two stations have decided?”

  “Not yet. I think everyone is waiting for the last minute.”

  Satyana glanced at the spinning counters. “Speaking of the last minute . . .” She returned to the spotlight and waited while the counters finished. “Thank you. We’ve had a good turnout. One hundred seventy five thousand for Uphold. Five hundred and sixty-four thousand for Allow, and six hundred and three thousand for Help.”

  Satyana waited, letting the numbers sink in before she spoke. “The Council, the Voice, and the Headmistress through the people of the Diamond Deep have chosen. They have said that we as a station will help the Next as they come into the light and live near the sun. This means that we set aside our previous interpretation of the Deeping Rules. We accept this new interpretation, born for this time and this moment. We will act as one station, together.”

  She dropped her hands.

  The house lights came up and Nona could see that the seats had in fact been over half full. A thousand people or so.

  Sporadic clapping and cheering floated toward them, punctuated by silence. With such a close vote i
t wasn’t surprising that some of the audience wasn’t happy.

  Satyana turned to Gunnar. “Tell the ambassadors.”

  “I will.”

  “Wait,” Nona said. “What ambassadors?”

  “The Next. There are some in a nearby ship. They’ve been waiting for our decision.”

  There were Next close by and they hadn’t helped Chrystal?

  Satyana turned to her. “You did a great job up there. You were poised and you had feeling.”

  Nona shook her head, dumbfounded. Angry. Betrayed. “Why didn’t the Next save Chrystal?”

  Gunnar narrowed his eyes. “What would that have done to the vote?”

  Nona fell silent. It would have started a war. It would have changed her vote. It still skewered her, sharpening the pain of Chrystal’s loss. She looked at Satyana and said, “This is so hard.”

  Satyana smiled sadly. “Diplomacy is the hardest job in the world.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  CHARLIE

  Charlie had to land in near dark, the bright colors of sunset painting the sky above him orange and red. Jean Paul waited to greet them. “I’ve put dinner on.”

  “Thanks.”

  While Jean Paul cooked, Charlie called Manny. He caught him sitting at his office desk reading the news, pictures of some of the parts of Lym that still needed the most restoration hanging behind his head. When he noticed Charlie’s face he looked both relieved and angry. “You should come here.”

  “I’ll be there soon. There’s something I need to warn you about. I have a Next with me.”

  “I know.”

  “Not the two I brought with me.”

  “I know that, too. What gave you the right?”

  Charlie stiffened. “Tell me what you’re talking about, and then I’ll tell you what I’m talking about.”

  For a moment, he didn’t think Manny was going to respond. Manny was used to calling the shots and certainly not at all accustomed to Charlie telling him what to do. Manny leaned back and chewed on his lip for a second. “There’s a Next ship landing here. Landing. They said you told them they could, and that they looked forward to meeting their neighbors. If I tell the people that, they’ll tear you apart.”