Edge of Dark (36 page)

“More than before?” Nona asked.

“Yes.”

Charlie said, “If it comes down to it, they can outshoot us and we can outrun them.”

Nona felt her mouth fall open, and forced it shut. Surely it wouldn't come to that.

“Opening communication,” the ship's AI said.

Yi and Jason came in.

Nona looked up, expecting Henry James to be staring at her.

Gunnar's face filled the screen, a wide smile under cold eyes, “Glad you escaped. Shall we plan out our next steps?”

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHARLIE

Charlie tensed at the sight of Gunnar's face on the view screen. He must have been picked up by the
Savior
. That was probably what he'd planned for them, that they escape the Satwa in the tiny ship he'd given them access to, and then he'd planned to scoop them up in their own ship. The liar had tried to convince them he was off commanding his fleet.

And why wasn't he? Charlie grew cold at the thought. Why was Gunnar Ellensson focused on the five of them instead of spending time somewhere more fitting to his position in the world? Was it the robots? It wasn't love or altruism—Gunnar wasn't known for either.

Gunnar grinned at them as if he were ecstatic to find they were happy and well. He looked like a worried grandfather.

Charlie glanced at Nona. She smiled back at Gunnar, although her hands gripped the edges of her chair tightly. So she didn't buy it either, and she was learning not to show.

Good.

They had numerous contingency plans around Gunnar. Which one to use would be Nona's choice. Given his relationship with Satyana, the shipping magnate was near family to her even if there was no blood relationship.

“I'm glad to find you all well,” Gunnar said, still beaming. He looked at Nona. “And very happy to see that you brought your friend with you.” He seemed to be squinting into the room. “And more. That's fabulous. That's going to be important. It will help people put a human face on the Next.”

There was no noticeable communication lag; the
Savior
had to be close. Gunnar sounded so reasonable and warm that his voice raised hairs on Charlie's neck.

“Hello, Chrystal,” Gunnar said. “I haven't met the other two?”

Chrystal turned to introduce Jason and Yi, who displayed the bland and uninterested faces that typical humanoid bots often wore. They looked as unanimated and inhuman as possible given the human shapes of their faces.

Some instinct, or maybe some subtle clue from him or Nona, had driven them into a form of hiding. Maybe they should have included the bots deeper in their plans.

“I'm pleased to see you as well,” Nona said. “And surprised you're still around here. Isn't your fleet at war?”

“It's parked in a defensive position. Any actual fighting is on hold until the major stations make some choices.” He leaned back, looking relaxed. “We must help the Deep choose peace.”

A peace in Gunnar's favor?

Gunnar continued, “The best plan is for you to meet me at Ivorn station. It's about a week away from here, and not far out of your way.”

Right. Slowing and starting again would cost days.

Nona had gone silent, tapping the smart arm of her chair with her fingers, requesting information. She looked frustrated—the
Ghost
had different systems than the
Savior
. They didn't know them well even though they'd practiced. Neither he nor Nona was fast at finger commands yet.

Charlie interrupted to draw Gunnar's attention. “Did you pick up Amia?”

“Yes, she's fine. Thanks for asking.”

Nona was whispering to Chrystal. Charlie asked, “Two other Next ships came in. Is there any news?”

Gunnar sat back in his chair and looked like he was thinking. “One of the Next ships, the
Edge of Happiness
, delivered the same message. They picked their target well; the station Paul's Hope was skirting the edge of augmentation anyway—they live inside of what is essentially one huge wearable. Everyone connected to everyone even when they shit.”

Chrystal put her hand over Nona's, stilling it. A screen brightened beside the one with Gunnar's image on it, three dots with a few lines of description. The Ivorn was a small station, maybe twice as big as the tiny Satwa. Charlie was willing to bet Gunnar had a piece of that as well. Whichever of the robots had designed the image added the Deep, small and far away, and the words, “We lose three days.”

Charlie prompted Gunnar. “Which means?”

“That they've got a third of the people at Paul's Hope lined up and begging to become soulbots. I think the Next are hoping they can take the whole sector by convincing people how nice it is to give up flesh.”

Charlie shivered. “And the other Edge ship?”

“The
Edge of Night
chose a more conservative target, delivered its message, and was asked to leave.”

“Did it?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Except now there were three reactions and no decisions. No direction. Typical human behavior. Fight everybody instead of talking to a compromise.

Nona stared at the diagram beside Gunnar's face, her lips a tight line. Her free hand drummed a light staccato on her knee. “We're planning to meet you at the Deep. I'd rather not lose any time.”

“I have a faster ship at the Ivorn. We can make up the time and plan together. Besides, it's well armed.”

A nice trap.

Nona smiled and tried to talk her way out of it. “Thank you for the offer. It would be okay if you get to the Deep ahead of us to make sure that Chrystal, Yi, and Jason can dock safely so they won't be imprisoned because of some misunderstanding about the Deeping Rules. Maybe you could set up an opportunity for us to talk to the Council.”

Gunnar sat back in his chair. “Satyana has that covered. Surely you know that you're a target now, and that you and your friends should be on a ship with better defenses than either of these.”

“They let us go,” she pointed out.

“The Next aren't your problem. There are two human ships on trajectories that will intersect you.”

Nona stiffened and glanced at Yi.

Charlie asked, “Why humans?”

“One is from the Souls' Ease and probably wants you to come there instead of to the Deep. I suspect they will be willing to persuade you with force if they have to. It's a military grade cruiser. The other is the
Free Men
, a small ship from a mining company. Their captain, Vadim Justice, is particularly averse to the Next. He's destroyed two ships that were identified as smuggling raw materials out beyond the Ring. They even made an entertainment vid about him a few years ago.”

“I think I remember it.” If his memory was right, then they had a vigilante after them.

“How do they know we're on this ship?” Nona asked. “Or that Chrystal and her family are with us?”

Good question. Charlie wasn't sure he'd put it past Gunnar to have told them. Not if it drove them like prey into Gunnar's surround.

Gunnar grimaced. “Some people who left the Satwa right before you posted it on the news, and it got picked up in major channels. They claimed you fought them.”

Larkos. Charlie's mistakes on the Satwa were haunting them.

“Only after they started a fight about Chrystal!” Nona protested.

“I assumed it was something like that.”

The screen that had displayed the trajectories now showed the news articles and pictures of both Larkos and the red-headed woman. A slight movement of Yi's eyes convinced Charlie he was the one controlling it.

Charlie's mind raced. The
Star Ghost
had thrusters that could—in some very specific situations—be used as weapons. But in general she was meant for fast travel and comfort and couldn't do more than repel a much smaller invading ship.

The screen Yi was controlling cycled away from the news article and showed the two ships. It identified a third that might also be heading into the path they were on. Then the screen flashed, “Can we talk privately?”

Nona picked it up. “Gunnar—please excuse us for a few minutes. We'll re-open comms with you after we have a brief discussion.”

Gunnar appeared poised to object as the screen switched off.

“Can we keep him from hearing us?” Nona asked. “He'll have the best tech available.”

Yi smiled. “We can keep him out.”

Charlie felt both relieved and slightly afraid at once. Yi was uncanny. “We didn't account for other ships chasing us.”

“We'll
need
Gunnar's help.” Nona sounded bitter.

Yi spoke. “There is an alternative. We're closer to Ivorn than the
Savior
is. The
Ghost
can go faster if we assume we can refuel at Ivorn; we can get there at least a few hours before Gunnar. We can drop Nona and Chrystal off for Gunnar to pick up. The rest of us will stay on the
Ghost
and go to Lym. This leaves us free in case Chrystal gets in trouble on the Deep and needs help.”

Chrystal leaned toward Nona. “It is safest. I grew up on the Deep; they are not likely to reject me. Yi is from the High Sweet Home, and while I met Jason on the Deep, he only lived there for a few years before we left. He doesn't have family there like I do.”

Nona stared at her, round-eyed. “You'd split up?”

“Not if there was any better choice,” Yi said. “But we consider the Deep a risk.”

“You're probably right,” Charlie said. They had clearly been out-thinking Nona and him. It left him feeling backed into a corner, although the plan was good. He waited a while, thinking, before he turned to Yi. “You know I may be trying to create a resistance force?” he asked Yi. “Are you okay with that?”

“But you will not harm us?” Yi asked.

“Of course not.”

“Then I will have some time to try and convince you not to harm others, either.”

Charlie had planned to leave for Lym as soon as the others were back on the Deep. Yi's plan didn't leave Charlie in a worse place, except that he lost Nona sooner.

“None of the other ships will be near us in time to cause trouble?” Nona asked.

“Not unless a new threat shows up,” Yi said. “We can't rule out a ship from Ivorn itself, for example.”

Nona grinned. “So we just tell Gunnar we're heading for Ivorn, and leave it up to him to figure out if he can beat us?”

When Yi nodded, Nona looked at Charlie and grinned. “I like a race.”

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

CHRYSTAL

Chrystal curled naked in one of the many extra bedrooms on the
Star Ghost
. She dialed back most of her senses, creating the closest thing she could manage to a white world with almost no information coming into it. Her body didn't feel unless it was stressed or in pain, cold or hot, or touching something. So in this moment, she felt dreamy and unconnected, like a consciousness that had no actual home.

Jason and Yi had gone as far away as possible, to the far side of the ship, and turned themselves down into their own whitened world. The two of them were together; they would feel each other, touch each other. She would be alone.

Simulation.

She set a timer for two hours and let her mind drift. Memories surfaced, older memories of being a child in her own room after her parents had closed the door and gone away into other portions of their habitat or out for a late-night meal, leaving her with nothing but her minder-bot.

She no longer had a minder, unless she counted herself. She laughed, a little bitter, and the laugh made her feel the empty present, so she tried for the older times again, for the silent room and long slow minutes of awake time after she'd been put to bed.

She stretched, something the child in her had done as well.

As long as she left her eyes closed it was possible to feel time in that old way, ticking slowly by. Child's time. Alone time.

Torture.

She started to sing, beginning with her old childhood songs.

Eventually she forgot the chorus to one and her voice trailed off, and she sat in total silence until enough contentment crept over her that she felt better.

She checked and the time had only moved a quarter of the way. What other times had she been alone? There was a summer when Nona had gone into a special dance school with Satyana and Marcelle. They hadn't included Chrystal. Her other friends had done similar things, so she was alone with her parents, who worked. She had moped for a day, and then she had started drawing. Each day, she had spent a little more time drawing. By day five, she became fascinated with the use of color to create depth and dimension, and with the interplay of light and shadow. When Nona came back from dance school, Chrystal had a clever drawing of a still life—fruit bedecked with glittering jewelry.

The picture still hung in her mother's kitchen.

More importantly, she had liked being alone in that moment even though she'd gotten out of the habit of it again, become paired to Katherine and then to the two men.

She needed to relearn the mental tricks of living alone.

She would have Nona, but communicating with Jason and Yi was so much richer.

The thought jolted her.

The lesson was to learn to be without her other parts. That's what Jason and Yi had become, parts of her that she could talk to twenty-four hours a day.

The timer was halfway through. She'd made it this far. She was on the downhill, and her memories were sharper rather than duller. Such a strange artifact of losing her biological self, this resurgence of memories she'd long lost.

She relived walks she had taken by herself, a camp she had gone to, long conversations with Nona, the two of them giggling about clothes and body-mods and tats. She remembered when they had gotten the matching dragons, the way the needle had been sharp and then sharper and the pain, and how the pain had seemed like a bonding, the two of them lying together in the same shop and being worked on at the same time.