Penumbra

by Dan Ackerman

  Cathie let her wrap shimmy down her shoulders a little. “I wonder if this is what a beach felt like.”

  “I’ve read that beaches were windy,” Arden noted.

  “This place could use a bit of a breeze!” she said. “Are you going to be down here long?”

  He nodded.

  She fanned herself and looked around. “Not much to see,” she pointed out somewhat sulkily.

  “Go, then, Cath.”

  She blinked several times and her mouth sagged.

  “Thank you for walking me down,” he said, both to soothe his previous curtness and to make sure she left.

  She gave a warily happy smile. She put her hand on his back and kissed his cheek. “I meant it about those morning walks.”

  “Maybe.”

  Once she’d left, he turned to Raleigh and said, “I want to see your daily logs.”

  A quizzical look passed over Raleigh’s face, surely to ask, “Why?” but he thought better of it and said, “Of course, Your Eminence.”

  A thrall struggled past with an overladen crate of produce.

  Arden dismissed Raleigh to return to his actual work. As he skimmed through the bay’s daily logs for the past few months, he came to realize that Raleigh’s job consisted mostly of interrupting the thralls to tell them to do more.

  Arden hoped the show was for his benefit and not the usual way of things in Hydroponics Three. It seemed to disturb the flow of things in the worst way.

  The daily logs illuminated nothing.

  Arden drummed his fingers against the tablet, then closed the logs and flicked through the wider work logs to see where Rhys had been stationed today. When he wasn’t with Arden, he floated in and out of other jobs to supplement their current crew or as a substitute for someone sick or injured.

  Some thralls couldn’t hack it as a floater, but Rhys had the wits to pick up about any job that wasn’t highly specialized.

  Ah, there he was, cleaning the kitchens.

  Arden tapped in his password and had Rhys reassigned to Hydroponics Three for the rest of the week.

  He closed everything out and returned the tablet to Raleigh. “I sent you a bit of help. A floater. He’s got good reviews from his other assignments.”

  “Thank you, I appreciate that.”

  Arden gave a small nod, then left.

  The Twelve he’d taken with breakfast had started to wear off, bringing back the world’s jagged edges.

  He retreated to his chambers to go over a few other things.

  He itched for another shot of Twelve, but he knew better than to risk too much of that formula too close together. He’d spent almost all his later teens steeped in Twelve. Thralls had needed to literally carry him from place to place and prop him up in his chair. He didn’t think he’d learned a single thing for the last two years of school.

  Well.

  No.

  He’d learned a few very important things that had nothing to do with literature or mathematics.

  He read a few letters from Terra Four. Their planet thrived, their population happy and healthy. Supposedly, too far away to send aid of any sort to Terra One, the planet that died below Eden, the global leaders of Terra Four sometimes sent letters to Arden. They offered condolences, advice, and relevant bits of technological advancement.

  Arden thought they had to be disappointed with how Terra One had ended up. An asteroid had wiped out Terra Prime a thousand years ago, which made Terra One the oldest confirmed human settlement left.

  Some said that humans still lived on Earth, but most level-headed people knew Earth had never existed any more than Eden’s namesake had. One more ancient human myth, same as magic and monsters.

  This letter contained a few helpful hints about making a hyperspace engine. Apparently, different companies owned different parts of the actual engine design, which made it hard to get the actual schematics.

  Arden didn’t have an interest in space travel. Eden needed people to leave like Arden needed another hole in his head.

  He skipped dinner in favor of an early bedtime, aided by a bit of Nine mixed with a nutritional shake. Nine didn’t have the same warmth and calmness of Twelve, but it also had no risks or side effects. Nine provided sleep, instant, cold, and empty.

  Because of the Nine, he got a late start the next morning, which didn’t matter.

  He did get a pouty message from Cathie about walking the Solar Deck. He tapped out a meaningless apology, then wandered through his closet.

  He pulled on the first shirt and pair of slacks he could find. Everything he owned was black or gray, or something that might as well be black or gray. Dark, muted teal, or deep, dusted rose, colors like that.

  He shrugged on his favorite coat, a subtly shimmery silk smoking jacket.

  Not what a thrall would have picked out for him to wear. They always dressed him like the Autarch, regal, sumptuous, and imposing.

  Arden, though, in this jacket, just felt like Arden.

  He wiggled his feet into gray ankle boots and frowned at the laces. His fingers struggled with the slippery strings, but he managed.

  He walked through the nearly empty Goshawk Alley. Only a handful of shops remained open. A few tailors, one jeweler, a cobbler or two.

  Ten years ago, this street had bustled.

  It had positively swarmed when he’d come to find an outfit for his inauguration.

  He’d nearly shit his pants just looking at all those people. He’d spent just over two decades avoiding the peerage and he’d been thrust into it all at once.

  Mama had spoiled him. She had kept him safe and coddled in their private chambers. He’d cry then get to stay home, snuggled in her lap. She’d passed when he’d been thirteen and Mother hadn’t let things slide the way she had.

  Mama had balanced out the Autarch, warm and sweet where Mother had been different. Not unloving, but strict.

  She had wanted so much for him.

  He passed by the windows, peering at old displays. The shop he’d visited for his inaugural outfit had closed, one of the victims of redistributing thralls.

  Mother had dressed a lot like Arden, simple garments of quality in a limited variety of colors. She’d gravitated towards warmer tones, earthy neutrals.

  Mama, though, she had loved to dress up. She’d loved to glitter and shine, to drip with jewels and satin. She had dressed Arden like a little doll for years, matching outfits for the two of them. She’d been a lot younger than Mother, forty years or so. She’d only been a surrogate at first, just a means to the end of making an heir for the Autarch. Arden didn’t know when they’d fallen in love, but he remembered them that way his entire childhood.

  Maybe Arden could do that. Find a sweet, silly person who’d agree to raise his child. Someone who’d become something more to him.

  Except Arden suspected he’d need a lot more than familiarity and playing house to ever feel something about another person these days.

  He left the empty shop window. He visited the handful of remaining shops, offered encouragement to the managers.

  The shop keepers made their usual subtle complaints about being short-staffed.

  A lot of the peerage had lost money in the restructuring, but it was better to lose a little capital than go hungry. Everyone had more than one venture under their belt, anyway.

  Arden passed through the days.

  He scheduled for Rhys to come to his chambers after his last shift in Hydroponics Three. He reclined on the couch with a tablet in his hand. He flicked through a few reports, then indulged in a few episodes of This Endless Life, an old soap opera from Terra One.

  He glanced at the time halfway through the episode where Trisha revealed the father of her baby.

  Rhys was almost half an hour late.

  Unlike him.

  Arden closed the episode and doublechecked that he had scheduled the appointment and that Rhys had acknowledged it. Thralls didn’t, as a rule, have tablets, so Rhys would have had to used one of the cons
oles mounted to the walls in the Quarters. Sometimes those got crowded and messages went unseen.

  Rhys had responded to this summons in the affirmative, though.

  Arden went to the door and peered down the corridor. He spied a slow-moving figure in olive and brown. He almost didn’t recognize the figure as Rhys. It lacked his usual upright posture and self-assured stride.

  He watched for a bit, then got tired of waiting. He tied his robe and went out to meet Rhys.

  The thrall had a sizeable cut on his temple, already sealed with surgical glue.

  Rhys glanced up. He tottered unevenly and braced himself against the wall with one hand. “I’m sorry, Your Eminence,” he breathed before Arden could say anything.

  He looked like shit, his skin sallow under its usual brown.

  Arden watched, uncomfortable, as Rhys struggled to right himself. A weird, twisting discomfort settled into his gut. He put an arm around Rhys and shouldered the other man’s weight.

  Rhys stiffened.

  Arden’s stomach twisted even more. He practically had to drag Rhys for the first few steps until he got over himself and started to walk, letting Arden support him.

  In his room, Arden deposited Rhys on a couch. He sat on the far end of the couch and pulled up one leg. He rested his chin on his knee. “You look terrible.”

  Rhys pushed himself more upright. “It’s not so bad.” He pressed his lips together and swallowed.

  Arden preemptively forgave him for throwing up. It seemed inevitable. “It’s not like you to be late.”

  “I am sorry, Your Eminence—”

  Arden rolled his eyes. “How’d you get hurt?”

  “H-Three. It’s…” Rhys closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. He swallowed. “The way Raleigh runs things…”

  Arden shook his head. “Tell me in the morning. You went to a med center? What did they say?” He reached out and titled Rhys’s head to the side. Not exactly perfect work; he still had a bit of blood crusted in his hair.

  Rhys didn’t pull away from his touch, but he remained motionless until Arden withdrew his fingers. “No.”

  “No? Why not?”

  “The med center costs too much.”

  Arden frowned. “Didn’t you get hurt on shift?”

  “Yes.”

  “The cost is covered under worker’s compensation,” Arden reminded.

  “Under what?”

  “Worker’s compensation. Haven’t you ever gotten hurt at work before?”

  “A few times. I’ve never heard of that before. It covers med center bills?” Rhys asked.

  Arden smiled. “Yeah. You just tell your supervisor and they’ll write you up a little slip to take to the med center.”

  “There’s no way that’s real.”

  Arden covered his mouth to stifle a giggle. He’d never seen Rhys like this before, unpoised. He must have been too out of it to be careful with his words. Arden dragged over the tablet and went to the worker’s compensation reports for the month.

  Only four had been filed on all of Eden and all of them had been issued to peers. He checked a few months back. He checked a year back, and then three, and then four. Similarly low numbers came up for every month he checked. The only time a thrall filed for worker’s compensation was if they’d been badly injured, something that couldn’t go without medical attention. A broken arm, outright unconsciousness, and one grisly report of a thrall who’d fallen on a broken beam and skewered herself. “Hmm.”

  “What?”

  “Hmm, hmm, hmm,” Arden fussed as he scrolled through the reports.

  “What?” Rhys asked again.

  “We’ll talk about it in the morning.” Arden stood and called for a shot of Nine and one of Three.

  While he waited for them to arrive, he took some of the blankets and pillows from his bed and brought them out to Rhys.

  “I’d offer you the guest bed, but I haven’t had a guest since I was nineteen, so it’s not exactly set up. Everything in that room is under a sheet.”

  He dropped the blankets on Rhys’s lap and placed the pillows against the armrest.

  “I should go back to Walker's Rest.”

  “Where?”

  “Oh, it’s…it’s what we call Quarter Two.”

  “Mmm. Well. I’ve already made a gracious host of myself, so it’s a little rude that you’ve decided to spurn my hospitality.”

  “Oh, no, Your Eminence, I just, I don’t want—”

  “I do make jokes, Rhys. You know that. Sometimes you even laugh at them.”

  Rhys barely smiled. “Sometimes you’re funny.”

  Arden grinned. His stomach fluttered, a pleasant warm flutter, not at all like the hideous way it had twisted before. “Is that sass?”

  Rhys dropped his eyes. “Sass or not, I couldn’t give you anything in my present state.”

  Arden sighed. He wished Rhys would act a little less like a thrall sometimes. Holding a conversation got difficult if the other person kept deferring to him and dropping their eyes as soon as things got interesting.

  This was why Arden didn’t fuck thralls. They were either spineless or defiant. Stupid game. How had it even started?

  A thrall brought in the shots Arden had ordered.

  Arden presented them to Rhys. “You’ll be out like a light.”

  “I don’t know if I should.”

  “Your eyes look fine and you can hold a conversation. You’ll be okay to sleep. Take the shots.”

  Rhys took them, though Arden didn’t think it was because he trusted Arden’s medical advice.

  Within minutes, he fell asleep.

  Arden flicked the blanket over him, then went to bed.

  In the morning, he puttered around until Rhys woke and got the details of his head injury out of him.

  Apparently, Raleigh didn’t just boss around his thralls, he pushed the limits with safety regulations. Rhys had gotten hurt because Raleigh had ordered him to do a two-man job on his own.

  “If I were looking into things, as Your Eminence already is, I’d look into how the workers in Hydroponics Three died,” Rhys suggested mildly from beneath the blankets. “They were older but not old enough for that many to pass away so close together.”

  He looked sort of adorable nestled liked that.

  Arden smiled at him. “What else would you look into?”

  “Why I’ve never heard of worker’s compensation.”

  Arden did think that was fishy. “I’ll walk you to the med center. How is your head?”

  “I feel better, thank you, Your Eminence.”

  “Three is good like that, isn’t it? Still, the doctors will at least prescribe a few days’ rest.”

  Rhys straightened up. “I don’t think that’s necessary, Your Eminence. I’m alright to work.” A bruise had come up around the cut on his head, making it look worse than it had last night. He pushed his way out from beneath the borrowed blankets and straightened his clothing. “I’ll call for—”

  “I didn’t ask you to do that.”

  Rhys winced at Arden’s tone. Maybe because his head still hurt, or maybe because he worried that he’d displeased Arden.

  Arden took out his tablet and fiddled around to find a worker’s compensation form. He started to fill it out. “Go to a med center. Take the rest they give you. It’s not up for debate, Rhys.”

  His eyes trained on the floor, Rhys said, “Yes, Your Eminence, of course. I apologize, I…I only meant that you don’t need to concern yourself with things like this. You have so many other things—”

  “Don’t start simpering now. I have work for you to do but I need your mind to be sharp for it.” Arden printed the slip on a thin film of algae paper and handed it to Rhys.

  Rhys took it, eyes still downcast.

  “I’ll check in, too, to make sure you went.”

  “Yes, Your Eminence.” Rhys hesitated at the door. “Would you like me to send for someone?”

  Rhys sounded so sad and unsure of himself th
at Arden said, “Yes,” just so Rhys could feel like he’d accomplished something.

  The thralls who came might have well been animated washcloths and clothes hangers for all they said.

  Fuck. Maybe he did need to start walking with Cathie in the morning if he had started expecting the thralls to entertain him.

  Maybe Bull would get too pushy and she’d end things with him. He briefly entertained the idea of pursuing a relationship with Cathie if she became single. She had, in the nicest and subtlest ways over their long friendship, made it clear she would have sex with him if he made her, but felt no attraction towards him and that it would end their friendship.

  He didn’t know how she’d managed to say all that to his face without hurting his feelings. He’d certainly had feelings to hurt back then.

  Maybe her feelings had changed since then. He had certainly changed, maybe Cathie had too.

  Unlikely.

  He called for a shot of Twelve before he started to think about it too much.

  People milled around the Solar Deck in various states of undress. That was, after all, the point of going there. To feel the light of a star on your skin, to soak in the necessary vitamins, to get a bit of color.

  Arden shucked off his charcoal jacket, necessary for the constant coolness in other parts of Eden. He tossed it on a bench and rolled up his sleeves.

  Cathie bustled over and hugged him when she saw him. “Ardi! You made it.”

  He wanted to linger in her embrace but pulled back. “I was already awake when I got your message.”

  He’d been lying in bed watching This Endless Life, to be perfectly honest, but Cathie would tease him about watching it, so he kept that to himself.

  Bull gave an unnecessarily stoic nod and said, “Morning.”

  “Good morning, Jon.”

  Bull frowned at the use of his given name. Named after his father, who had regularly battered his mother, Bull had taken his mother’s maiden name as his main moniker as a child.

  A low blow on Arden’s part for sure, but he did what he could to hurt Bull.

  Even with Twelve to smooth things, Arden still felt uneasy with the man’s presence.

  Cathie put a hand on both of their arms, an attempt at peacemaking. “Let’s walk.”