She hadn’t been in their shared rooms since the day of the fake Chrystal’s death. Nevertheless, she led him in with confidence and shut the door behind them both.
He had made changes. The elaborate and colorful wall hangings she had painstakingly created had been replaced with pictures of fast starships and warriors. He’d moved the couch from the wall where she liked it to the other wall, where he would be able to see if anyone came in.
She bit her tongue; she had left him.
“I want to be angry with you,” he said.
“I’m sorry.” It wasn’t even hard to say. She had expected to choke on it, but it elevated her to say it, lightened her.
“It’s hard to be angry near the end of the world.”
“Why do you think that?” she asked.
“They can’t allow us to exist. It’s one thing to convince humans not to become Next and another thing entirely to convince the Next to act like humans.”
“We’re still here.”
“It takes time for missiles to travel through space.”
This was unlike him. He was fierce and dangerous and convicted.
“We’ll find a way,” she reminded him. “We always do.”
He stood so close she felt his heat, even though he wasn’t touching her yet. “Tell me you will not doubt again.”
“We cannot doubt,” she said. Perhaps her own misplaced doubt had infected him, perhaps he was weak in this one moment of his life because she had been weak and questioned the tenets that held them together. She kissed him deeply, showing him how little room she had left for doubt, how she would never again doubt their shared mission. Heat quivered in her until she thought she might burst.
He pushed her gently away and looked at her, his face soft. “Are you staying?”
Not, “Will you stay?” not, “I’d like you to stay,” but “Are you staying?”
The look in his eyes suggested she couldn’t hesitate. She stood on tiptoe and pulled him down to her. “I’m staying.”
He picked her up, unsteady on his feet. She stiffened and then relaxed into him, trusting him to make it to their bed. He pushed the door open with his leg, and she noticed the bed had been left unmade. She couldn’t remember ever seeing anything in any space of his that wasn’t orderly.
He whispered, “Wait.”
“Okay.” She still trembled, afraid and guilty and anticipatory all at once.
He took the covers off the bed and left them heaped at the foot. He set her down in the very middle and whispered, “I’ll be right back.”
He hadn’t changed as many things in here as in the living room. The picture on the wall was still of her home station, and the clothes she’d left behind still hung in the closet. She remembered coming in here full of anger and hatred and pulling out three outfits, her favorite slate, and her makeup and toiletries. She had only carried enough away to fill a small rucksack.
Maybe she had known even then that she would come back.
Water ran in the bathroom.
She stripped, leaving her boots close to the bed in case she needed them and folding her uniform neatly and stacking it on the bedside table. She sat on the bed, cross-legged and naked except for the beads and bones braided into her hair.
When he came out, he was naked. He had unbraided his hair and it flowed around him, falling in dark waves to his waist.
She was the only one who ever saw him this way. She brushed his cheek with her lips and crawled up from the bed and went into the bathroom, where she found her spare toothbrush right where she’d left it in the third drawer down.
Before she went out she hesitated, looking at her own long tight braid in the mirror. If she took it out she would match him in vulnerability. She hadn’t yet settled her thoughts about her lessons with the robot, and so she left her hair braided and walked out. She pushed him back on the bed and straddled him, leaning down to cover his face with kisses.
He lay still under her at first, and then reached a hand up and used the braid to hold her head, staring at her. He said nothing, but she saw the pain she had caused him in his eyes. She lowered herself onto him, nuzzling at his neck.
After a time he turned her over and took her, his hair falling across them both in a great curtain so that they might have been the only two people in the world, the force of his lovemaking more than she remembered, his need and his demands both as deep as she had ever seen them.
When they stopped to take a break and lie together, to breathe together, he clutched her close.
“You are my heart, my strength, my courage,” he said.
“And you are mine.” She rolled him over again and sat on top of him, a connected position rather than a sexual or dominant one, a statement of duality. “We are one.” She gazed into his eyes until they softened and allowed her in, until she was him and he was her, until they were both male and female, both warrior, both greater than either had ever been alone.
CHAPTER NINE
CHARLIE
Charlie clutched Amfi close to him. She smelled of water and fir, of fresh air and the cold bite of autumn. “I was so afraid you’d been killed.”
She laughed, the sound genuine and laced with anger at once. “The bastards.”
“What happened to your leg?”
“I twisted it running away. Right after you called. My ankle’s so big I can’t tighten my shoe.”
He echoed her. “Bastards.”
Amfi glanced back toward the skimmer. “The woman with you. That’s Nona Hall, right? Chrystal’s friend?”
It amused him that Amfi identified Nona that way instead of as rich or associated with Satyana the entertainment mogul or as the daughter of the colonists from The Creative Fire. “Yes. Chrystal’s friend.” Nona had bent over and was fiddling with the laces on her shoes, surrounded by dead robots. Yi and Jean Paul stood away from everyone else, talking in low tones. Forest crowded up the edge of the ravine behind them, the long spear-shaped shadows of trees obscuring their faces.
Charlie took Amfi’s hand. “Come on. I’ll introduce you.”
Even though people from the Glittering seldom saw old age, Nona didn’t flinch at Amfi’s wrinkles, but simply smiled warmly. “I’m glad to see you’re safe.”
Amfi took Nona’s hand in hers. “We don’t often see people from the stars way out here in the wilds.”
“The Glittering. Not the stars. We all live inside of the Edge, at least so far.”
Amfi nodded sagely, although Charlie was pretty sure she still considered Nona a gift from the stars and not a fellow human from a different, but related, part of the near solar system. But then, Nona glowed with medical-induced health, and Amfi glowed with the wisdom of time. They might be the same age.
He hated to interrupt their conversation to test for imminent danger. “Did you know your attackers?”
Amfi spat on the ground. “They were rangers.”
“Rangers?”
“Some of them. Also people from town. Angry. They would have killed me if they could.” She hesitated. “It was me they wanted, not Davis.” She looked so sorrowful that he hugged her close to him again, smelling her again, picturing the jovial Davis in his head.
“How did they get you out of the caves?”
“We were stupid. Careless. They caught us outside. They might have been watching for us.”
The wraith of a girl who had been walking with Amfi stood so quietly he’d hardly remembered she was there. Blond hair hung over her thin face and hid one of her blue eyes from him. She wore a thin dress over thin pants, and her belt looked like it was homemade from hand-tanned leather of some kind. Bright blue beads hung from a combination of chains and rawhide. “Hello,” he said. “I’m Charlie Windar.”
She eyed his uniform with distrust. “Yes.”
“It’s okay. I’ve been a friend of the gleaners for a long time.”
She hesitated, and then offered a first name. “Losianna.”
“That’s pretty.”
&n
bsp; “My name?”
He nodded. “Do you live in the cave, too?”
“Yes.” Her personality seemed as thin as her frame, a shy thing full of loss. Of course, she had probably just seen Davis gunned down. Gleaners usually lived a low-key life, hunting and gathering across the vast empty lands and abandoned cities of Lym.
Losianna was young for a gleaner, unless she’d been born to the life. Even though it was illegal, some gleaners never gave their children a chance at a normal life span.
He looked between Losianna and Amfi. “None of the them were Next? Not one?”
Amfi shook her head. “They were all human.”
Losianna glanced at Yi. “He’s not. I’d know. I saw him move.” Losianna glanced back at Charlie. “They were all human.”
He tensed at the idea of his own people hunting him. When he first heard about the Next coming back to claim space near the sun, he’d imagined he’d be part of a great army of avenging humans fighting the Next. In less than a year, he’d ended up negotiating with the Next, befriending the new soulbots, crying when the Shining Revolution murdered Chrystal. And now his own people wanted to kill him.
Yi came over, Jean Paul trailing close behind.
“Thanks again,” Charlie told Yi. “We’d be captives or dead.”
“You’re welcome.”
Nona practically bounced on her feet, waiting for Yi to glance at her. When he did, she folded him in her arms. “It’s so good to see you. I missed you! I’m so sorry about Chrystal.”
The robot’s smile was soft, almost tender. “I know. I missed you, too.”
Charlie touched Yi’s arm. “I hate to interrupt, but did you see anybody else on your way in?”
“No. Jason is watching.” Yi pointed silently toward the trees south of them, toward the wide lower edge of the valley. A soulbot with purple hair and a bouncer’s body looked toward them and gave a short wave, then faded back into the trees as if he had been a hologram.
“Jason. That’s good.” He gave a long sigh. “Although I’ll take the problem in return for my life, and Cricket’s, you do know what this will look like? What people in town will say?”
The soulbot grinned. “Like the evil robotic Next have invaded the planet Lym and killed the native robots dead?”
To think he had once wondered if Yi had a sense of humor. “Like that. I think you should avoid Manna Springs until we find out what happens there and how this gets spun.”
Nona came up and touched his arm. “Maybe I should go check on Manny.”
“I’ll go with you,” he said.
“You can’t. If you get caught they’ll kill you or lock you up or something.”
He stopped. Was she right? He had never felt anything other than safe in Manna Springs, but then again neither had Manny. Davis was dead, and Manny was under siege.
Amfi, still right next to him, looked up at him. “We could use you out here.”
They might need a real ranger. He didn’t want to be separated from Nona, but he had to do his job. “Jean Paul can go with you.”
“Okay.” She looked around at the Port Authority robots. None of them moved. She slowly walked toward the one that Jean Paul had destroyed. It was hard to see details, or to separate parts.
She stared down at it.
“Here!” Jean Paul called.
She turned and caught a holstered handgun. Charlie expected her to drop it, but instead she stared at it, felt the weight of it. “Maybe I need this.”
Jean Paul replied, “Maybe you do.”
“We should burn them.”
Charlie said, “It won’t work.”
“So then what? You need to get rid of them.”
“They could have a hundred body cams each. They’re probably recording us right now.”
Amfi sniffed. “There’s a lot more interesting stuff than this happening on Lym right now.”
Charlie stared at the robots. The one Jean Paul had destroyed probably didn’t have any electronics at all left. “If the Port used beacons to track them here, they might give away the location of the cave. It’s not very far away. We can dump them over the edge with the skimmer.” He had trouble believing he was actually suggesting that they litter the river with toxic technology.
Nona didn’t flinch at the idea. But then, she probably didn’t understand the damage that might do. “Jean Paul and I can do that.”
“That might make you a target.”
“I don’t think so.”
She would be in danger in Manna Springs or with him. Or in transit. He didn’t want her to go. But it was cold and almost dark, and Manny might be in trouble.
The robots were heavy, but not enough to unbalance the skimmer. “Jean Paul, is that okay with you?”
Jean Paul didn’t look happy about it, but he clearly understood. “Someone needs to check on Manny.”
He glanced at Cricket. “I’ll keep her.”
Jean Paul started toward the mess he’d made. “We’ll load the skimmer.”
Charlie headed for one of the broken Port robots, but Nona pulled him with her into the nearby trees, buying them some privacy. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his mouth and cheeks and nose and his mouth again, tasting of desire.
He almost forgot there were so many people near them.
She shivered in his arms.
He scooped her up and held her so close he could feel her heartbeat like a small bird against his chest. “I only just picked you up.”
“Bad first date lines,” she said.
“You know what I mean.”
He leaned down to kiss her. They didn’t speak for quite some time. Periodically he noticed a grunt or the rattle of someone hauling a robot into the cargo end of the skimmer. Yi could do this easily. He was free to enjoy these few moments. “I’ll meet you soon. Maybe as soon as later tonight.”
“I’d like that. But I’d hate to have flown all the way here from the Deep just to watch you get lynched.”
He stiffened. “I’m sorry it’s so . . . so different from when you came before.”
She offered him a brave smile. “You can still show me waterfalls.”
Maybe he’d see her again as early as tonight, but really, anything could happen. He felt the dark closing around them, and the cold. He also felt danger like an itch on the back of his neck. “You should go. Call me as soon as you know anything about Manny?”
“If we can find out anything. Call me if you find the . . . the men who killed Davis. Or if anything else happens.”
He smiled. “Let’s just call each other in a few hours. Period.”
As they walked back out of the forest, hand in hand, he again marveled that it felt so good and so easy to be beside her.
CHAPTER TEN
NONA
As Jean Paul piloted them down the valley, Nona watched the deep shadows of the forest below them, black on gray on black. They flew dark, both cabin lights and external lights off. The stars and their reflection on the scraps of river and stream below them were the only light available, pale and thin except for the occasional bright beacon of a station.
Jean Paul wasn’t talkative. In fact, he said nothing at all until they came to the end of the ravine, to the place where the great waterfall of the wide river spilled into what was now a dark pool of shadows.
He tilted the nose of skimmer up and opened the doors. She couldn’t see the robotic parts that spilled out of the back compartment, but she felt the skimmer rise as they lost the weight. She imagined the metal pieces falling and twisting through the sky, a whole line of metal parts. Maybe the cameras were taking pictures of the fall and someone would come look for them someday, if civilization didn’t fall apart first.
Jean Paul shook the skimmer with a quick twist right and back left before he closed the doors. One more piece of something banged against the side of the cargo bay before falling free. “I hope we got them all.”
“Because they’d be evidence of a crime?” she asked.
; “Yeah, that.” His voice had calmed so much that he didn’t even vaguely resemble the man who had been methodically shooting at a dead robot not long before. He seemed to be someplace far inside himself.
She curled up as comfortably as she could, pillowing her head on an old blanket she found behind her seat and pulling her coat tight around her. “Jean Paul?”
“Yes?”
“What do you think is happening in town?”
“I think Manny’s about to get kicked out. I think there’s a bunch of people that would rather have a fight than order, even when they can’t win. The damned Next are dismantling generations worth of work in weeks.” He fell silent, looking in front of them rather than at her. “Who would have thought we were so fragile?”
“Civilization?”
“Yeah.”
“The Deep went crazy at first.” She looked up, as if she could see it. “Factions we didn’t even know were there started protesting. Fights broke out over nothing. People started hoarding. Not everyone, of course. Some were great, looked after everyone else, tried to stop the craziness.”
She couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but his voice sounded grateful. “Thank you.”
“It’s a scary time. It’s getting better up there now, calmer.”
When he didn’t say anything else, she asked him, “What else can we do except check on Manny?”
“Who knows.”
She gave up. He clearly didn’t want to talk to her.
It had grown even darker, the sky now clearly punctuated here and there with the bright lights of stations. The Glittering. She wondered if the Deep was someplace where she could see it, but she didn’t disturb their night vision by pulling out a slate to check.
Jean Paul called Gerry and told her they were going into town. “Do you have any more information?” he asked her.
“Nothing good. Manny’s not answering. Two of the other rangers were conscripted by the Port Authority. They declared a state of emergency.”
Jean Paul grunted. “Has anyone found Manny?”
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