Edge of Dark (6 page)

Two days later, Charlie slipped the skimmer under a copse of trees just as a downpour stole most of his visibility. He poured a cup of hot tea and curled his hands around it to warm them. Rain sheeted down on the clearing in front of him and ran in rivulets off the leaves above him.

He had planned the day to search for rakuls, but this weather had surely driven them into caves or under the thick forest canopy.

The ping of an incoming call caught his attention. “Who is it?” he asked.

His onboard computer said, “Satyana,” in his ear.

So she didn't even use her last name. He was just supposed to know her inside of a system of trillions of humans. He toyed with the idea of refusing her call, but surely Jean Paul had arranged it. “Hello?”

“Hello. This is Satyana Adams. Have I reached Charlie Windar?” At least she used both names in person. He recognized her face from news articles. Beautiful, with a long fall of dark hair and blazing blue eyes, almost neon and very intense. A strong woman.

“This is Charlie.”

“We have a problem. Your staff, Jean Paul, informed me that you insist on telling Nona that I'm hiring you.”

“Jean Paul's not staff.”

“Whatever.”

Satyana sounded like he expected her to—imperious and completely in control, as well as used to being obeyed and in a hurry. Traits he hated.

“Have you ever been here?” he asked her.

“Yes.”

“On the surface?”

Silence. He'd expected that—it matched Jean Paul's research on the woman. She had flown here as a pilot before she became famous, but she didn't land. Intersystem ships didn't casually drop down Lym's gravity well.

Rain continued to sluice down off the trees around him, fat drops escaping the leaves and landing on his face or in his cup of tea.

He let his silence hold for a while before he said, “It's dangerous here. The dangers are completely different than the dangers on a starship or an orbital, or at least that's what my clients tell me. If I squire this woman around, she's going to have to trust me.”

“Of course.”

“So why would I start with a lie?”

“I'm not asking you to tell her you weren't hired by me. You don't have to lie. Just don't tell her. She is almost certainly underestimating the dangers on Lym. I'm trying to be sure she's safe.”

“Would she consider it an omission or a lie?”

More silence, which was fine with Charlie. He was good at silence.

The entertainment queen continued, “Nona's special. She's also tender right now, and probably lonely. I don't want her taken advantage of.”

“I don't sleep with clients.” Anger started curling up his spine.

“I know that,” she said. “She's associated with me. That makes her a target, at least up here. That's part of why I'm hiring you. You've got the best safety rating, and you're close enough to the power structures there that you'll understand Nona.”

So Satyana thought Nona would do herself damage? She wasn't coming out and saying so, but it seemed to lie between the words she was using. “I won't lie to her. I'll go there, and I'll meet her, but I won't lie. You can hire me and let me say you did so, or you can let it go and assume she'll be all right, no matter what happens.”

More silence.

“Very little of the danger here is from the people. She is an adult, right?” He'd looked it up. She was fifty-five. Satyana was probably three-hundred, and he was seventy, but even if the only real measure of age left was emotional age, this Nona wasn't a child. Although he was beginning to suspect she had been treated like one, and might act like one. “What will it be?”

He could almost see her fuming. Damned spacers. “Have it your way. Don't lie. But keep her safe. It's now on your head to make sure she accepts you as a guide.”

“No. It's not. It's up to Nona.” With that he hung up. He could say he lost the signal if it ever came up.

CHAPTER FIVE

NONA

The
Lower Glory
had docked at one of Lym's two short-term Port Authority stations. Nona stood at the front of the station's observation deck, curiosity and awe pulling her as close to the window as she could get. Lym occupied most of the view. She had seen thousands of pictures of it, on walls and in history lessons at school. In spite of that, seeing it really, truly existing made her tremble. Ice covered each of the poles, more on the north than the south. At least six different continents appeared to float on the vast seas, islands hugging their coastlines. Clouds obscured some of the details.

It had all started here, the great glittering sky full of stations and ships and billions of people. This was where the first colony ship had landed in the long dark of history. What had the first people here thought all those years ago?

Loudspeakers blared. “Boarding for Gyr Island transport begins in ten minutes. Passengers should head to the boarding area.”

She gave the planet one last, long look. “I'll see a sky,” she whispered to her dad. She had no illusion that he heard her, or that he'd lived on in any way, but she had gotten into the habit of talking to him from time to time anyway. She had small vials of his ashes—and Marcelle's—tucked carefully into her coat pocket. They felt heavy, like tiny weights that hung between her and the rest of her life.

To her surprise, the transport was largely empty for the run down to Lym. Two other tourists chattered nonstop, both bound for a university group tour. They vibrated with the excitement of meeting other professors from other stations, as well as seeing Lym. Five people were on their way to relocate. One couple was doing graduate work together and the other three had been granted five-year work permits.

A loudspeaker commanded them to climb into crash couches. She felt the first twinges of fear and excitement rocket through her nerves like a glass of strong stim.

The transport shuddered and burned its way down through the atmosphere.

The vehicle and her stomach both calmed enough for her to look up at a screen with a real-time camera. The main spaceport was on Gyr Island, the one place on Lym where all technology was allowed. The island was a modified oval with fractal edges and a few deep inroads made by the sea. The spaceport was roughly in the middle, with a sprawl of buildings beside it. None of it looked at all like anything on the Deep.

Landing was a long, fast glide and an exercise in fast braking.

After they landed, an irritatingly earnest crew member stopped her at the door on the way out. “Have you ever been here before?”

“No. But I'll be all right.”

“Just let me walk down beside you.” He gave her a look that suggested that if she said no he'd feel rejected for life.

Nona hesitated, but shook her head. She wanted her first moment on a planet to be private.

There was a ramp down. She glanced up once and flinched, shifting her gaze back to the ramp and clutching the handrail.

Her peripheral vision showed her exactly nothing except the occasional movement of a human. No walls.

The air moved across her face and played with her hair.

Wind.

She hit the bottom of the ramp and walked ten steps, looking at her feet. The ground went on and on, in all directions, filling her peripheral vision. No markings or lights on it, no walls. The surface was pocked with holes and cracks that dust had blown into.

A male voice called out, “Hey. Watch where you're going. Look in front of you.”

Her eyes followed his voice, but before she found the source she stopped and tilted her head back and looked up and up, and up forever. She forgot what she had expected—probably a high blue ceiling. Instead there was nothing. A pale blue expanse of nothing, a few thin white clouds, and the sun Adiamo, too bright to look at. It stunned her, the beauty of nothing. “Sky,” she whispered. “Sky, daddy.” She blinked, unwilling to stop and cry like a tourist but wanting to let the tears fall down her face.

A hand touched her arm. “Wait until you see the stars.”

She hesitated, off-balance. “I bet they're magnificent.”

“I hear they're pretty magical from space, too.”

“Most ships don't have windows, and stations make too much light.” The act of simple conversation refocused her. She tore her eyes from infinity and looked at the man, who still touched her. Tall. A boxy face with strong features and grey-green eyes. He looked older than she was used to people looking, although to be fair it wasn't wrinkles or anything. His skin just looked more used than she was accustomed to—she couldn't have said why. “I'm Nona.”

“I know,” he said. “I'm Charlie. I came to greet you. Satyana sent me to look after you, like a guide.”

She almost spit out an expletive, but caught herself and simply stiffened so that he dropped his fingers from her arm. He gestured toward his right. “The bags are ready. Which one is yours?”

He didn't seem the bag-carrying type. “It's the only blue one.”

As he headed for the pile, she realized what else bothered her about him. He looked plain. No decoration, nothing particular done with his blonde hair except maybe a brushing, nothing unique about his eyes. She was used to remembering people by the ways they'd chosen to change themselves. How would she remember him?

Then the sky and the horizon caught her up again, and she forgot him and Satyana's meddling in her trip and even the loneliness that still clung to her insides. The Deep provided views of stars and the lights of other stations, but this was just so much . . . vaster. It had been made by something other than people. By time and evolution, by water and the light of Adiamo.

The sun hung nearer the ground than the middle of the sky. She knew it wasn't early in the day here, so it must be close to sunset. Another thing her father had wanted to see.

When Charlie came back she startled.

He indicated the case he held lightly in his hand. “Is this all you brought?”

“Yes.”

He looked pleased.

“Is that unusual?”

He looked like he thought so, but he just asked, “Are you hungry?”

She wanted to be alone. “I'd like to check into my hotel.”

“I'll take you.”

She reached to take the bag from him. “I can carry that.”

“Give yourself a day or so to get used to Lym before you do too much.” He turned and walked away, carrying her bag.

She followed, stumbling once and then jogging to catch up. “Hey! I'm in good shape. I feel good.”

“Trust me.”

“Why should I?” she asked him.

“Look me up after you get checked in. Then you can choose.”

She decided he was at least a little infuriating. And a little egotistical. And worse, hired by Satyana. He also seemed to be
walking
to their hotel. But he had her bag, so she followed and eventually managed—just—to catch up.

He was silent at first. Eventually she teased a few words out of him by asking questions. Yes, he had been born on Lym. No, he wasn't a guide. Sometimes. For people with permission to see the wilder lands. Usually he was a ranger. Yes, it was safe here as far as people went, but she needed a guide to leave the city.

That last bit perked her up. She'd been studying Lym on the way down. There were so many places she wanted to see. And animals. There were animals on the Deep, but nothing there was wild. On the Deep, water ran inside pipes. “Will you take me to Ollicle Falls?”

“Tomorrow. If you hire me.”

She startled at that. “I thought Satyana hired you.”

“She wanted to set it up like an accident and not tell you I was working for her.”

Why would he tell her that? She let silence come back up between them while she thought. Satyana hiring him made sense—she'd made Nona a personal project thirty years ago. She was probably going to be even more overbearing now that Marcelle was dead—she'd think it was her duty. The Nona project. But why would
Charlie
tell her this right away? “Do you know Satyana?”

“Never been off of Lym.”

“So—”

He cut her off. “I don't like being told what to do. And I don't like secrets.”

Well. Things must be much simpler down here. Nona had to take a few extra steps every so often to keep up with him. Her thighs and calves had started feeling sore. She didn't complain. “So I have to hire you?”

“You can hire whoever you want.”

“I'll hire you for tomorrow.”

“That would be telling me what to do. I'm not interested.”

“So why are you here?”

“It seemed like someone should greet you.”

“So can I hire you for tomorrow?”

“Are you asking?”

“Yes.”

“I'm not cheap.”

“Satyana can pay you.”

“Really?”

He was right. She should pay him. She fell silent, still dizzy with the space all around her. The ground changed from the hard concrete of landing pads to something softer but still man-made. They passed a man heading in toward the spaceport, and two runners passed them. Someone could run forever here, no stopping, no going around in circles. “So what are your rates?”

He told her, and she snorted. “I'll sort something out.”

He glanced at the sky. “Have you ever seen a sunset?”

“Of course not.”

“About two hours. You'll have time to eat first.”

“Where should I watch it?”

Just off the spaceport grounds, Charlie stopped for a moment and pointed. “That's the town, Manna Springs, and there's your hotel, the Spacer's Rest. On the far side, there's the main government buildings and the Port Authority offices—see the tall grey building?”

She nodded. The town fascinated her. Buildings stood up straight from the floor of the world, a myriad of colors and designs. At least that was like the Deep. Except there would be connections between the habitat bubbles at home; everything on a station connected to something else, even if the connections were locked. Manna Springs looked like building blocks, all square and rectangular; the Deep looked more like a collection of rings and rounds and cylinders and even arrows lashed together.