The Dark Places

by D. Martin

  “No. It won’t, but it will keep you in charity with me.” Dry amusement warmed his voice.

  I moved my head and glanced up in time to detect dancing glints in his eyes from the cabin’s low lights. “Very well. Why do you go to Rikin?”

  “It’s a profitable stopover on my trade route. No one goes there much since it’s a zero-tech world in a far-rim quadrant, and no one wants to learn the locals’ language either. They don’t speak Alliance Basic. The inhabitant’s trade practices are also a bit reversed and archaic. It throws most traders. Rikin’s inhabitants mine a few valuable precious stones that they’re amenable to trading for nonnarcotic analgesics compatible with their physiology, and some nonmilitary articles, as approved by the Alliance Exobiology Trade Commission Edicts for a zero-tech society.” He answered as if quoting an official government document, and he laughed outright at my unimpressed expression. It was the first time I’d heard him do so, and found I liked the rich, intriguing sound of it.

  His amusement vanished. “The Alliance mandates that all intersystem travelers must be immunized. You indicated on your check-in at Marnu Port that you’d received all yours. So that means we shouldn’t have to worry about you catching anything on Rikin—or transferring something dangerous to the inhabitants. Correct?”

  He was right. I had withstood a battery of unpleasant inoculations before the Dearleth Port would let me depart for Harnaru. I nodded and maintained a chilly expression. Matt suppressed a smile, and one solitary deep dimple briefly appeared near his mouth.

  “Perhaps you would be interested to know that our next port of call will be Sanbourne in the Kaisin System, trader wife of mine?”

  I hoped my expression looked as unimpressed as I felt. Why does Interplex have only five years of data for him? I wasn’t exactly forthcoming about revealing my life before Harnaru to him, but at least identity records covering my life’s entire twenty-eight standard years existed. My identity hadn’t stopped five years ago, like his.

  “Sanbourne is noted for its fine, exotic flower fragrance extracts.” A half-teasing smile played on his lips as he watched me before adding, “Perfumers throughout the thirty charted systems fight viciously with one another to obtain those essences and synthetic formulations.”

  My unblinking stare stayed trained on him.

  “No interest, doll?” he asked half seriously. “You wish an answer to your first question still, I see.” He considered me.

  I maintained my neutral expression.

  “I’ll answer your question upon Rikin.”

  I stared with expectancy, but Matt said no more. He gently disentangled his arms and limbs from me, and slipped from the sheet that had come to serve as covering for us both against the cabin’s slight chill. He moved from the couch and retrieved his garments from the carpeted deck. I looked upon his well-formed body and manhood, and still couldn’t understand how he could be dying. There was no obvious physical weakness within him.

  Matt bent and laid a gentle kiss upon my throat. “I’m headed for a shower and then I’ll hunt up a meal for you. Stay alert for proximity warnings. If the navilog comp peals out an alarm, come get me fast if I’m not here by the end of the first chime. The alarms can get quite loud, so don’t let it rattle you.”

  I liked him as he was now: gentle and considerate, with quiet amusement lighting the sparks in his dark eyes so they seemed to dance along with the warm reassurance in his voice. Throwing my arms about his neck, I unreservedly planted a kiss upon his smiling lips.

  Matt laughed and firmly disengaged my arms, but he held them captive until after he’d plundered my mouth with his tongue. He ended the kiss with slow reluctance and a teasing smile. “Not content with merely imprinting yourself upon my awareness, are you, doll? You’ve got to show your full power over me by continually tempting and seducing me, I see. There are siren women like you in the Sarnon System who ensnare men unto themselves like this forever. Are you certain you’re not by chance from that place?”

  In that moment I tumbled over the precipice into love with Matt Lorins—or whoever he was before he assumed that name and identity. Something in my softening expression must have shown my emotional shift and helped him detect the yielding change, because his smile became sad and then faded.

  “Beware the dark places, dear heart,” he whispered and rose from my side, leaving me chilled without his body’s comforting heat. He left the cabin before I could speak his name.

  Chapter Six

  Rikin loomed large, sullen, and gloomy gray in our observation window, accompanied by only one pale moon maiden. Matt’s poetic description about this world still lingered in my mind. He looked introspective, and he was uncommunicative in these early morning standard hours of our arrival in the Naris System and our orbit about the planet. This was the Twenty-Ninth Standard Day of the Eight Standard Month of the New Empire Alliance Year 0192 A.I.C.

  Stardancer and I seemed to be the only ones who remained in perfect order. I was happy after fourteen almost endless ship days alone with Matt, slowly uncovering the complex layers in his personality. The Stardancer, whose functions Matt taught me with much repeated patience, since I was unfamiliar with ships, performed smoothly in the efficient manner she’d been designed and engineered for. But I managed to avoid the control panel and navilog comp as much as possible, unless Matt requested assistance with a simple single-button punch to activate something.

  Under his tutelage, I’d achieved mastery of operating the specialized equipment that made life bearable in space travel. The unfamiliar complexities involved with warming beverages, cooking foods, laundering garments, and cleaning up in a pressurized cabin no longer intimidated me as much now. The adherence to strict conservation—using the ship’s recycling systems that provided water, air, and power—didn’t prove as difficult as I’d feared. My sparse life scrabbling for every resource on frigid Dearleth had prepared me well. However, being encased in an interstellar ship meant one couldn’t just step outside once in a while for a change of scenery or to clear one’s mind, so accepting that part wasn’t quite as easy.

  Also, it was difficult at first to adjust to the ship’s day cycles and the way time evolved in one slow, dreamlike nonevent, without sunrise or sunset to mark the passing hours. Eventually I’d learned to rely on the ship’s chronometers, which were set to Standard Old Terran twenty-four-hour day tracking.

  With the chronometers’ help, I’d determined Matt seemed to have no real appetite in the last five ship days. Despite that, he appeared alert, continued monitoring his ship, and maintained a routine. I watched him with care and missed no opportunity to coax him into sipping or nibbling something from the small galley’s enticing food stock.

  Rikin glowered under its gray cloud cover. The Stardancer’s meteorology station sensors reported heavy, continuous rainfall across the surface. Matt frowned and grumbled that we might be in orbit for more than twenty-four hours before the weather pattern shifted and allowed us to land somewhere in our target area that wasn’t flooded.

  I was looking forward to his promise to reveal more about himself on Rikin, but I was in no hurry to land. Two things were mine that I’d always dreamed about—to be comfortable and cherished—but I had never been able to envision it actually happening. No sentimental longings existed for the Lilith, but I did miss Harry’s gruff kindness and Bilk, too, who kept the staff safe. Both Harry and Bilk had watched out for me and given pithy advice on how to survive in Marnu when I’d needed it. Other than that, I spared no thoughts for my Harnaru existence, and definitely none for Dearleth.

  I made tentative attempts at writing again in the long ship flight hours when Matt immersed himself in his inventory read outs, navilog comp, engineering diagnostics, and trade data. I tried not to make great demands upon his time or person during our flight hours, keeping firmly in mind that he had been accustomed to being alone, as was I.

  During the Stardancer’s twentieth orbit about Rikin, I sensed something wasn’t quite
right. Matt was too quiet. In our previous long ship days together, he would seek me out suddenly in the midst of whatever he was doing and hold me or talk for a while. Then he would abandon me with a brief caress or kiss and return to his previous occupation.

  There were bleak, mercifully brief periods also, in the passing day cycles, when green mists would cloud his eyes and he would withdraw inside himself with obvious pain in his expression and movements. He rebuffed all questions or attempts at soothing him then. Those distancing episodes had occurred more frequently in the past three ship days and filled me with helpless despair and sleeplessness during the ship’s night cycles.

  Matt hadn’t spoken to me for the past two standard hours, according to a nearby chronometer on the hull. And neither had I glanced up to check on him for almost half an hour.

  I stopped tugging at one long curl near my ear and put aside the bookcube loaded with a microdisk containing a popular author’s long, belabored novel that I’d been frowning over. I had discovered Matt was well read and his microdisk collection in the ship’s extensive library covered many topics. And it was also a nicely indexed and organized collection, so my fledgling librarian skills weren’t required here.

  My gaze darted across the living area to where Matt sat in his navicon chair in front of the console. He had leaned back with tightly closed eyes and clenched fists resting upon the metal plate shields that protected the auxiliary ship controls within the chair’s wide armrests.

  I jumped to my feet and rushed over. I anxiously touched his perspiring forehead. He was pale beneath his tan, and his skin felt icy. His eyes opened in slow degrees to reveal an unfocused stare suffused with shimmering green mists.

  “Matt, please tell me—what can I do to help you?” I asked, with fear clenching my heart.

  “Talk to me, Kailiri,” he whispered. “Tell me about Dearleth. Tell me about Harnaru and why you traveled there. Tell me about yourself.”

  What? At least it was a response. In recent days he wouldn’t respond to my panicked inquiries when he experienced bad spells, except to turn his head away. I wanted to wrap him in my arms, but remembered in time that he disliked me fussing over him whenever his unknown malady overcame him.

  I lifted his tight-knotted fist from the armrest near me on the right. The second chair was on his other side, leaving the deck unoccupied where I stood. I settled on the carpet, leaning against his knee while cradling his cold hand between my warm ones.

  I avoided mentioning Dearleth and how I’d left without my parents’ good wishes or permission after one too many loud, ugly arguments with them and our large extended family after they tried pressuring me into an arranged marriage. In truth, I’d decided it was time to leave after dodging a big hot bowl of curried dal—followed by naan bread—all flung by my mother during one heated row. Their prospective choice had wanted to buy a bride, and my family had their sights set on the bride price he’d offered. And besides, he’d staked out a claim that seemed promising for turning up some rare mineral deposits. My family calculated they’d also have claims on the proceeds—through me.

  Letting my memory cast back eight months ago, I talked instead about the early days of my arrival on Harnaru, with my few worldly possessions stuffed inside two flight cases and big dreams in my foolish heart.

  Then I told him how I’d lost hope in Marnu and had gone searching for work. There hadn’t been any until I’d shuffled past a bar called the Lilith and seen the hiring sign. I’d never bartended before, and big, blustery Harry gave me doubts. But he’d taken a chance and hired me on for the late-afternoon and evening shifts.

  I fell silent when his hand at last grew warm and relaxed in my hold. I glanced up to find his stare intent upon me.

  “You didn’t tell me why you left Dearleth, Kailiri,” he reminded me as he drew me up to settle on his lap. The strength in his arms belied the weakness he’d fought minutes before.

  Evasion tactics time again. Instead of my usual hostility about that subject, I gave him a cheeky grin. “You wish for me to talk of a past I have no desire to speak of either, Matt Lorins, but I’ll tell you: I left Dearleth because no one cared if I stayed or went. They wanted me out.”

  That part rankled the most. My parents’ other motive behind bargaining me off to that isolated miner was fueled by a plan to oust me from our underground city’s residence unit. They’d wanted an elderly aunt to take over my tiny bedroom. Occupancy space had been restricted and closely allotted in the mining colony’s environment-controlled communities, and old Aunt Agnes had a much bigger pension than my part-time librarian job paid.

  “My family wasn’t close-knit. No cozy, warm fuzzies there for one another. We despised one another in point. There was nothing on Dearleth except ice, frigid winds, dead hopes, and ice-hearted people. I’m not certain if it’s the ice of Dearleth that gets into people’s veins there, or if coldhearted people were naturally drawn to the planet. And everyone there is deadlocked into the cultural traditions that they brought with them from Old Terran….” I puffed out a sigh. “I had to leave before the same thing happened to me that was changing everyone around me. I wanted to keep my heart and hopes alive and warm for someone special.”

  My face heated as I realized what I’d just said. Although I’d fallen over love’s precipice with Matt fourteen days ago, he’d never revealed his true feelings regarding me, beyond that imprinting matter and our physical attraction. Hoping he hadn’t noticed, I covered over my embarrassment with bitter laughter. “Dearleth! The name’s all wrong. It should be Heartless,” I added in derision.

  My rueful laughter stopped when Matt’s arms tensed about me. I hoped he didn’t think I was unhinged, but I hadn’t realized so much bitterness lay bottled up in me toward the Dearleth Colonies and my dear, unloving, opportunistic family.

  “What would you do if you were free, Kailiri?” Matt quietly asked. “Unfettered to anyone, and free without the worry of finances or transport. Where would you go and what would you do?”

  I stared into his fascinating eyes. “First of all, I would be very lost without you.” My voice wavered. I took several long, deep breaths to keep back my threatening tears.

  His expression remained serious. “I’ll program a special navilog file for you.” Matt held my gaze with his. “If there comes a time when I’m no longer aware or too ill to help you, you will call up that navigation file from the Stardancer’s comp, and she will safely take you to any of the selected central system planets on the flight program. Our marriage records and a witness document on a microdisk are stored in the ship’s memory files. It will be released to you when you insert the ring I’m wearing into her ident plate. It’s encoded. Don’t lose it.”

  Matt removed the intricately engraved band from his finger and slipped it over one of mine, where it hung heavy, loose, and still warm from his hand. A curious emotion that I could only describe as awed reverence settled within my heart. The ring felt special—like a vital part of him. I would have to be careful or find a way to keep it more securely later.

  “The witness disk must be taken to the nearest Alliance Administration Complex. All my possessions and holdings, including this ship, which you can resell, will be released to you without legal challenge, Kai.”

  This was the first time he had ever shortened my name. I liked it upon his lips—far better than Harry’s bellowing rendition of it. But the things Matt is saying—it’s too much like his final will and testament.

  My eyes prickled, but I forced the tears to remain unshed. “Is it—are you feeling worse, Matt?”

  “I’ll show you Rikin, my lady,” he said quietly, “then we shall see.”

  “Have you been to a medicenter? Specialists? Have you been diagnosed—treated?”

  His eyes smiled, although his lips remained straight-lined with sternness. “I’ve visited medicenters, yes. Many times, five years ago, when I became alarmed at what was happening to me. Nothing could be done. I stopped seeking answers after I accepte
d that the changes were the consequences from my brash actions. There was a time allotment. That time is nearing its end.”

  “What is it? Why can’t you tell me what it is that’s affecting you?” I pleaded with earnest desperation.

  His lips curved in a smile that seemed to hold much rue and bitterness. “Beware the dark places, my lady,” he said cryptically.

  My heart ached for him and for the void he’d leave if he left my life. “You said we were imprinted on each other—you told me a little about it on Harnaru, but there’s more to it… right? What is it and what’s it really doing to us?” I whispered.

  “I’ll tell you on Rikin.”

  I sat silent then, with my arms wrapped about him as the ship reported torrential rains across the planet’s surface and began her twenty-first orbit about Rikin.

  Chapter Seven

  I was disappointed in Rikin’s general appearance when we’d landed, even allowing for the depressing aftermaths of a long, heavy rainstorm. Rikin was part rocky mountains and part dark forests with little meadows. The sullen, gray, mist-laden mountains towering over the meadows never showed their crowns. The sun didn’t peek out during our walk, and neither were Rikin’s daytime moons visible overhead, although Matt assured me two lurked up there, hidden by the clouds.

  Unafraid small gray birds huddled on the low shrubbery, watching us and emitting disgruntled, periodic chirps as we passed. The vegetation-covered ground underfoot was soggy, and I was grateful for the thick-soled boots on my feet. We both wore coveralls—Matt wore dark blue for his trade venture, while I’d opted to wear a pair of my old olive-greens for what promised to be a wet, muddy trek. The Stardancer didn’t have a wheeled terrain-rover or a land flitter on board, so we had to walk.

  Raging streams sloshed over their swollen riverbeds into the meadow, and large mud puddles lurked everywhere, making walking a challenge. Matt had said our destination was a nearby village where a friendly tribal clan called the Narharis dwelled. At first the sallow-skinned people seemed just as cheerless as their world when they watched us approach their village with guarded, unsmiling stares. Like Dearleth—but not quite.