Edge of Dark (10 page)

She took the stoppers out of the jars and turned them quickly. The surface of the sea swallowed the ashes nearly instantly, accepting and subsuming them.

A wave wet her belly, raised her a tiny bit so her feet flailed, and just as she grew scared it set her back down and went on to break against the shore.

She stared at the shifting surface. Grass or something floated near her. A small fish jumped from the top of a breaking wave and fell back to be swallowed by the sea. The roar of the waves enveloped her and she felt vulnerable and lossy and also free. “I'll do okay,” she said out loud. “I will.” It wasn't entirely clear to her whether she was talking to her parents or to the ocean or to herself. She turned and started back toward the beach, slightly startled to see that the sand seemed further away.

Another wave slammed her from behind so her knees buckled briefly and water splashed onto the back of her shirt.

Cricket howled and Nona looked up to see the tongat loping toward her on the beach.

She turned back to the sea and stood mesmerized as a wall of water as high as her head approached. Fish swam in the translucent top of the water where the sun speared it with orange light. The wave seized her and lifted her and tangled her in whitewater, dragging her limbs across sand. The vials fell from her hands and she reached out for them, and managed to snatch one. Then water took it from her, pulling it backward toward the ocean. She stood against the waves, barely managing her balance, squinting in the bright diamonds of sun on water, trying to find the vials or the ashes, or anything.

Cricket howled again, closer. Nona turned her head to look for the tongat.

Water slammed into her. She braced, but she wasn't strong enough to keep her feet. Water covered her face in wave-spray and yanked her toward the beach and then out, taking control. It slammed up her nose and she choked and the taste of salt filled her throat and mouth.

She struggled to get her feet under her, but there was no sand under them, nothing to stand on or push against. Only water.

CHAPTER NINE

CHARLIE

Charlie pelted down the beach toward Cricket, who danced and bayed at the edge of the water, her tail up like a flag. Waves and whitewater and, in the sounds of surf, nothing human. No Nona. She'd
just
been there, standing up, looking perfectly safe.

She had.

He was an idiot.

Cricket barked, high and sharp. He followed her gaze. A hand reached out and grasped at air, then disappeared. Nona's head bobbed up and then washed under whitewater.

He couldn't tell if she'd gotten a breath.

He checked the sets coming in. One more huge wave and then a short break. He forced himself to let the wave come in, watched Nona flail and struggle. Alive. At least she was alive. As the water rushed out he raced it, gaining ground on Nona even as the sea tried to haul her away from him. He pulled her up, choking.

She fit over his shoulder in a rescue carry and he turned fast, racing the next incoming wave for the beach. By the time it pounded against the back of his calves he had gotten far enough up the beach to stand against the water, although he had to stop and let the force pass him while he braced. Sand swirled away from under his feet and filled his wet, heavy shoes. Seawater reached his knees before he pulled out of the sand-hole and made the beach, the next wave kissing his ankles. Nona struggled and coughed against him, but he waited until they were well past the high tide line before he set her down. “Bend over.”

She did, which made her cough harder. Her breath came in high wheezes, like the gasping of a fish.

He watched her spit water, not touching her, letting her manage.

This shouldn't have happened. He'd been thinking about High Sweet Home and, worse, about what might happen next. He had been contemplating Nona's question about what the ice pirates could possibly want. They were machines. They didn't need the sun.

Cricket circled them, coming in close and keeping her ears up. She spent more time watching away from them, looking protective. He knew her body language well enough to say, “I think my beast likes you.”

Nona didn't answer, still coughing. Her cheeks had pinked.

Without Cricket, he might have been too late. He stepped a little away from Nona and called the tongat over to him, praising her. Cricket nuzzled his hand, her breath warm.

As soon as Nona stopped choking and wheezing well enough to hear, he said, “I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you not to breathe the sea.”

She laughed.

He felt lighter. She'd be all right. “Let's warm you up.”

He took off his wet shoes and walked beside her back to the skimmer, both of them wet and sandy and a little goose-pimply in spite of the late-afternoon sun. He glanced at the light. “We have an hour. Are you hungry?”

She shook her head. “Thirsty.”

“Okay—help me gather wood?”

“Wood?”

“For a fire. To warm you up, and to dry out our clothes.”

The look on her face made it his turn to laugh. He had forgotten most spacers' reaction to fire. “It's not dangerous. This isn't a ship. Fire started here, happens here all by itself. A beach fire is the best fire ever.”

She still looked doubtful, so he added, “Fire gave the first humans life and heat and cooked food way back on Earth.”

“Isn't Earth a myth?”

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “We came from somewhere.” He wanted to just wrap her in a blanket and have her sit in the skimmer. But he also wanted her close to him, and he liked to teach people about Lym by having them touch it. “Are your feet okay on the sand?” Spacers typically had baby feet, soft and easy to injure.

“I can walk in it.”

He filled her arms with driftwood, Cricket circling them and keeping watch.

She helped him scoop a fire pit out of the sand but stood away as he lit it, as if the thing might explode in her face. He handed her a spare coat he carried in the skimmer and had her strip down to her underwear and the coat, which covered her almost to her knees. Her legs were attractive, the muscle definition suggesting the full-body workouts of a station spacer.

He retrieved two chairs from the skimmer's belly storage and some food. He held half a sandwich out, but she shook her head. “My stomach's sour from the water.”

He handed her a canteen. “Drink this. It will help.”

She looked dubious but obeyed. At first, she sat far away from the fire, but then she inched closer, watching the flames. Not only did she deal with his silences, but she had her own aura of quiet. After a long while she said, “Thanks for saving me.”

“You're welcome.”

She held her hand out toward the tongat. “Will she come now?”

“That's up to her.”

Cricket did, crouching low and creeping toward the slight woman from the stars. She stood small for a tongat and Nona small for a woman, and they both looked like they were trying to make themselves even smaller in order not to scare the other one off. Nona smiled, and Cricket made low growling noises in her throat.

Charlie watched carefully. Cricket had always been standoffish to anyone other than him, although she'd eventually accepted Jean Paul in full and started to let Manny feed her without trying to eat his fingers.

Nona kept her hand out and didn't raise it above Cricket's head. She let the animal come to her and bump her hand. Only then did she scratch Cricket behind the ears.

Cricket's tail wagged, and Charlie let the breath he had been holding out. Yet another thing he hadn't expected. The sun had fallen far enough that the light looked gold and thick, and the tops of the waves were translucent.

“You only hired me for today so far,” he said, surprised that he was talking to her the way he used to talk to Cricket when she was wilder. “Shall I come back tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

The next morning, Charlie found himself looking forward to picking Nona up. “What do you think?” he asked Cricket. “About Nona?”

The tongat didn't answer.

“I thought she'd be a spoiled rotten rich girl, but she isn't.”

The tongat still didn't answer.

Nona waited for him on the hotel steps. She wore brown pants and a brown top and brown shoes. The outfit made her hair look darker than usual and gave her a slightly somber look. She carried a bag.

He nodded at it. “What did you bring?”

“Extra clothes.” She grinned. “In case I fall into anything again.”

Already she had him feeling lighthearted, in spite of the serious topics they had been discussing during the drive back last night. They had worried at the ice pirates as if they could somehow discern the hearts of the darkest machines.

“I've been doing research,” she said as she climbed into her seat. “Satyana thinks the Next—she hates the name ice pirates—may have stolen the station to harvest our technology, to re-engineer it so that they can come in and talk to us.” She stopped for a minute, her brow furrowed. “She also thinks they were sending us a message, something like ‘Don't mess with us.'”

“Has she heard if there are survivors?”

Worry pinched her face. “No.”

He stopped himself from reaching out a hand for her. “You said you knew someone on the station. Want to talk about it?”

“Not yet. Let's decide where to go.”

“What do you think of an overnight trip? What you've seen so far is part of the fully restored and safe part of the world. I'd like to show you Goland.”

Her eyes lit up, although she didn't answer.

“I've a place you can stay. In the ranger station. We have an extra bedroom.”

She chewed at her lower lip.

“I'm not trying to get too personal. I'll introduce you to my roommate and how we live as rangers, and show you some scars from our past and some pure wild places.”

She still didn't look convinced.

“If you'd rather, I can take you somewhere local today and head to Goland tomorrow.”

“I'll go.”

He hadn't really expected her to say yes, and it pleased him. “It's a three-hour flight. Shall I wait for you to get more things?”

“Okay.” She climbed back down and headed for the hotel.

While he waited, he called Manny and told him his plans.

“Don't be gone too long. I may need you here.”

“To do what?”

“The news about the station is getting out. People are scared.”

“You're the politician. I'm not responsible for the city. You are.”

“You're better at it than you admit. It makes people feel safe to have you around.”

“I hate it.”

He could almost hear Manny grin as he said, “I know.”

Nona came back and climbed in, tucking her blue bag behind the seat. “We'll have breakfast on the flight,” he told her.

“Over water, right? That'll work as long as I don't have to swim again just yet.”

He laughed. As soon as they were away from Gyr Island, he turned on the autopilot and broke out fresh cinnamon rolls and a thermos of stim. “Ready to talk about the people you know who were on the High Sweet Home?”

She hesitated. “My best friend, Chrystal Peterson, is up there. We grew up together. We both took diplomacy classes, and then we both realized there wasn't anything to do with that knowledge, at least until we get to be three or four hundred and have a few million credits. All those jobs go to people with real power.”

“Like Satyana Adams?”

Nona laughed. “There's people far richer than her. She's just really good at being in the spotlight.”

“So what did you do?”

“We went back to school and studied biology. She went to High Sweet Home because they were designing a low-light grain that works like a vitamin. She's been there a while. She's part of a quad marriage. They're working together on a new animal with a name I keep forgetting.”

Her voice caught, and she put a hand to the tattoo on her neck. A dragon. He'd glimpsed it yesterday when she changed into his shirt.

He wished he hadn't asked her. If he lost Jean Paul that way, he'd be frantic. They'd been friends for thirty years. He tried changing the subject. “So what do you do in biology?”

“I teach. College.” She went silent for a minute. “I hope she's okay.”

“Me, too,” Charlie said. “Maybe we'll hear something today. Surely there will be a rescue.”

Nona's jaw had tightened and her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “I doubt it. That station is almost past the Ring now. There's nothing there, no one to save her.”

“There's still hope. We don't really understand what they want.”

She watched the planet below her for a long moment. “We know a little. The Next made a bold, aggressive move. If we react in kind, they'll have an excuse to start a war. When they took the station, they showed us we might not be able to beat them a second time.”

“Why do you think that?” he asked her.