There All Along

by Lauren Dane

In the bright light of morning, two of the three suns risen and the smallest one, Elaris, peeking over the horizon, it was time to put out the lamp. It was one of Teila’s favorite parts of the day, when everyone else was still sleeping but she could look out across the Sea of Sand and see the whales at play.

  As a girl, her father had often brought her up here when he wasn’t at sea, to point out to her the different whales and their young. He’d learned them so well he could tell exactly when they’d breach and for how long, though he never gave them names.

  “They’re not pets, Tee,” he’d always told her solemnly. “And we can’t ever own them. Never forget that. They give us something precious, but they don’t belong to us.”

  Her father had lost his life to one of those whales. A cow, threatened by the whaler’s proximity to her baby, had unexpectedly turned on him. Not even the whaler’s metal hull could stand against an angry whale. None of the bodies of the whalers had been recovered. Teila had already taken over the lamp by then. She’d spent her days looking out across the sea to see if her father’s ship was coming home. Instead, the Sheirran Battle Fleet had sent her a viddy message telling her the wreckage had been discovered and that the ship’s final moments were recorded by its security systems. It had been foolish of her to expect a message from her father, and yet she’d wept when the footage showed only the whale rising out of the sand to slam its body onto the ship’s deck, over and over again.

  Two cycles later, she’d been out on the sea in her scudder, netting a milka pellet, when a pleasure cruiser had appeared on the horizon. They weren’t as uncommon back then, before such ships became luxuries only the wealthiest could afford and this edge of the Sea of Sand too far and difficult to reach. So much had changed even in these past few years, she thought, shielding her eyes to look out across the sea.

  No whales this morning. No pleasure cruisers like the one that had brought Kason to her. No whalers. Just the seemingly unending expanse of rolling, golden sand and the hint of a storm coming closer.

  There’d been a storm that day, too. Rare clouds had made the sky dark, and the winds had tossed the sands high into the air. Without the sun, the solar panels on her small craft hadn’t been able to provide her with enough power, and she’d needed to use her sail. The pleasure cruiser, which was much larger, had been in a similar situation except that it had no sails. Boats like that required so much power they were more often equipped with solar cells. She’d find out later that he’d drained them without making sure they were full again before the storm hit, and that was why the cruiser had gone dark. But at the time, all she could do was fight the wind to get herself to shore.

  By the time she’d made it there, the sea had been whipped into writhing, boiling hills and valleys, and a fine choking dust had clouded the air. Teila had watched for a minute or so before realizing with sick horror that that the lamp had not been lit. She’d run, taking the stairs two at a time, reaching the top in a thick sweat and ready to faint from the effort. By the time she got everything working, the visibility outside had become nil. With no sight of the pleasure cruiser, all she could do was make sure the lamp was working and entertain Vikus and Billis, mere toddlers belonging to the women who’d kept house for her father—and who’d obviously shared his bed more than once or twice.

  She hadn’t been able to get the thought of the cruiser out of her mind. It had been far enough away when she first spotted it that it might not even be close to shore or the jagged rocks hidden under the deceptive layers of golden sand. It might’ve gone in another direction or found a place to anchor on one of the few islands out of her sight. But, pacing, trying to see through the storm, Teila had known that the cruiser was edging closer and closer to shore. She could only hope the light warned it.

  The lighthouse, as it turned out, was the only reason the pleasure cruiser had not ended up completely destroyed. The craft’s captain and only passenger had seen the light and been savvy enough to head for it, but the stormy sea had been too violent. Unable to fight the twisting sands, he’d aimed the craft for shore and initiated the escape sequence. However, without enough power, which ran out just before he crashed, he was unable to eject the metal pod that would’ve protected him from the sand and rocks and whales and anything else.

  Through the glass at the top of the lighthouse, Teila had watched the pleasure cruiser getting closer and closer, just a great dark shape in the shadows of swirling sand. She’d watched the interior lights gutter and go out. She’d held her breath, wondering if the passengers had managed to get out, or if they were going to be on board when it inevitably hit the reefs a few hundred septs from shore.

  The crack of the cruiser against the rocks now exposed by the shifting sands had been loud enough to vibrate the glass in the tower room. Though she had strained to see, all Teila had been able to make out was the dark shape a short distance off shore. When a swirling gust of wind parted the dust cloud long enough for her to catch a glimpse of the cruiser, broken and being sucked into the depths of the sea, she hadn’t thought twice.

  She’d run.

  At the base of the lighthouse, bored into the solid stone foundation, were two enormous platanium rings with several coiled lengths of rope made from the same metal hung between them. They each had hooks on the ends and were too heavy for her to lift. Luckily she didn’t have to. The rescue ropes were designed to be shot with an air gun toward a stranded ship and hooked onto it or whatever escape craft it had, then reeled in to pull the craft to shore. She’d never had to use the system, though when her father was home he had been fond of running practice rescue missions.

  The first shot had gone wild, taken by the wind. Heart in her throat, sand gritting her eyes to slits, Teila had set the trajectory for the second rope and hook. With a silent prayer to the Three Mothers, she’d let it fly. The hook hit. The rope had gone taut. She’d pushed the button that would reel it in.

  Halfway to shore, the rope had gone slack. There was no way to shoot it again without reeling it all the way in, a complicated process that required more attention than she could’ve spared in the middle of this storm. Already her throat and mouth had gone dry, caked with thick dust. She’d barely been able to see.

  The lamp, on its round-about flash, had illuminated something in the sea. Teila had forced her way through the wind and dust to the edge of the rocky grass to where the sea began. Something had floundered there, grabbing onto the rope but going under. Coming up and going under again.

  She hadn’t been able to toss out the hook, but she could hold on to the rope and wade out into the roiling, rolling sands. It had gone over her head in a minute, soft and loose and getting into every part of her. She’d pulled the hood of her robe over her face and could only feel along the metal rope, kicking her feet steadily and climbing the hillocks of fine sand that shifted endlessly all around her. Some planets had seas of water under which a person couldn’t breathe, but even covered with sand she could manage to sip a few breaths here and there. The hood’s filter had helped a bit with the dust, but not enough to keep her from getting dizzy.

  She’d been unable to yell out. All she’d been able to do was reach blindly into the clouds of dust, groping for what she’d seen clinging to the end of the rope. And then, just before she could go no further, a hand had gripped hers.

  And that had been Kason, the man she married.

  She turned at the sound behind her, knowing already it would be him. It was in the way the air moved around her when he was close. She said nothing, just watched as he entered the lamp room. He didn’t see her at first, and something broke a little inside her that he wasn’t as attuned to her. Once it had been the same for him.

  “It’s a storm,” she spoke up when he noticed her. “Out there. Far off, but it will be here by the afternoon, I think.”

  “Do we need to do anything to prepare for it?”

  It was an interesting question. She studi
ed him as she answered, wondering if any of this would trigger more memories. “No. Just be prepared for the solar panels to go dark, make sure all the backup cells are full so the lamp doesn’t lose power. That’s the most important thing.”

  He looked out the glass again. “Why do you do this, Teila?”

  She broke again a little at the way he said her name. “The lighthouse?”

  “No. The rest of it.” He kept his gaze focused outside, not on her.

  The truth was, his father had been the one to coerce her into opening the lighthouse to fallen soldiers who needed a place to recover and, in some cases, live out the rest of their lives. He’d convinced her the money she’d get from the SDF would be worth it, but what she’d discovered was that the satisfaction of giving people a safe haven had become more important than the financial security. But again, she was hampered by what she thought she might be able to reveal without forcing something into his mind. Not for the first time, she cursed the Rav Aluf. He’d returned her husband to her in a way that made it nearly impossible for her to ever get him back.

  “There are so many soldiers who come home from battle needing a place to rest, and not enough facilities to house them. I had this entire huge place just for myself and Stephin. Even with Densi and the boys, we didn’t need this much space. It seemed natural for me to offer it to those who needed it, when I was asked.”

  He looked at her then. “I think I’ve been gone a long time.”

  “Yes,” she said before she could stop herself. “I mean . . . yes, I think you’re probably right.”

  He pressed his fingertips to his temples. “There’s this constant stream of data. It’s in my mind, but I can see it.” He gestured just beyond his eyes. “I can’t describe it. Strings of information, pictures, and colors, but they make patterns. Like fitting together a puzzle, only too many of the pieces are missing. This must’ve been useful at some point, but now it only hurts. It’s distracting. I can’t seem to shut it off.”

  They’d both known he would be enhanced when he went into service. They’d talked about it every night in those last few hours before he’d gone into training, in between their sometimes frantic, sometimes leisurely lovemaking. There was no way to know in advance what would be done to him, but because of his father’s rank, they’d assumed he’d get the highest grade of enhancements.

  “It hurts?”

  He nodded with a grimace. “Like lights flashing in the corners of my vision, until I focus on it. Then I can see the data stream. If I ignore it too long, the pain starts up. Here.” He tapped his temples. The center of his forehead. Each inner eye socket.

  “I can give you pain relief—”

  “No,” he said sharply, then softer, “I’m tired of being unfocused.”

  “Then . . . I can still help you. Come.” She gestured, pulling out a chair from the small desk in front of the lamp control panels. Sometimes she’d penned letters to him there, the old-fashioned sort with quill and paper, because electronic communications could be intercepted. She’d never had an answer. Never knew if her letters had reached him.

  He hesitated, but came with dragging feet. He sat when she indicated the chair again. When she put her hands on his shoulders, he went instantly stiff.

  “This,” she told him gently, kneading at the tight muscles, “is probably a big part of the problem.”

  He’d always carried a lot of tension in his shoulders and neck, and she knew where to find the trigger spots. One on the left side from an old injury incurred before they’d met. There had to be others now. Many others. She worked at the muscles. Slowly, slowly he relaxed under her touch.

  She moved around to the front of him and, without thinking, straddled his lap. She took his face in her hands, meaning to use her thumbs to work at his temples, but both his hands came up to grab her wrists. Her heart leapt at the heat that rose between them. Her lips parted at once, ready for his kiss.

  It didn’t come.

  Instead, he put her from his lap firmly and without hesitation. He stood, moving the chair so he could get away from her. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  “If you need help getting ready for the storm, let me know,” he said.

  Stunned and embarrassed, Teila nodded. “Yes. Um, thank you. I think we’ll be fine. But I’ll let you know. Yes.”

  “I’ll be in my room. If you need help.”

  She nodded, turning her attention to the dials and switches of the control panel. Nothing there needed her to fiddle with it, but she did in order to keep herself focused on that and not on him. Only when he’d gone did she let herself sag a little, a hand over her mouth to hold back the sobs threatening to slip out.

  It had been better, she thought before she could stop herself, when he’d been convinced she was a dream.

  14

  The storm had teased the horizon for the full of the day, striking hard only as night fell. The others had gathered in the sitting room to watch a viddy program, but shortly into it the picture flickered and sputtered, turning to black as the rising dust outside blocked the signal. No amount of fussing with the tuner would bring in the picture, much to the grumbling Venga’s disdain.

  Thinking of himself as the Rav still felt more right than as Jodah, but it wasn’t quite natural. It was a name others were meant to call him. Not how he should think of himself. When someone said it though, it turned his head.

  “Rav,” Pera repeated. “Do you play cards? How about a game of golightly?”

  All soldiers did, of course. It was sometimes the only way to pass long hours in transit, when electronic entertainment units were forbidden because the transmissions they used could be picked up by enemy scanners. He’d perfected his shuffle, his deal, even the art of a few cheats that everyone knew and used so they couldn’t really be considered dishonest.

  He took the pack of cards from her, demonstrating until she grinned. “Don’t call me that. What are we playing for?”

  He supposed she could’ve asked him to play for money. Instead, she pulled a bin of colored marbles from a closet and put it on the table, separating them into colors and choosing one set for herself. The other to him. It made the game a challenge, but not a real risk. She won the first. He won the second.

  Outside, the winds began to howl. The lights flickered but came back on. Eventually Stephin came into the sitting room along with his amira, a bowl of milka pudding in her hands.

  Jodah’s stomach rumbled as the child settled in the chair next to him. “What do you have there?”

  Stephin showed him. “It’s good.”

  “I know it is.”

  Pera shuddered. “Disgusting. It’s the only way I won’t eat milka. How can you stand it that way?”

  He and the boy shared a smile. “If you let me eat some of your pudding, I’ll show you how to shuffle these cards.”

  The boy grinned, but gave his amira a look. The ancient Fenda waved a languid hand and ambled toward the long, low couch in the corner, where she promptly settled herself and fell asleep. Jodah took a bite of pudding and then handed Stephin the pack of cards.

  “Here. Like this.”

  They passed the time that way for a little longer as the storm began to lash the lighthouse. Pera, abandoning the game now that the boy was involved, got up to look out the windows. Venga grumbled some more about the viddy program he wasn’t able to watch. Adarey and Stimlin, who’d both been reading, went to bed without saying a word.

  Though he’d waited for her all evening, Teila hadn’t come into the sitting room. Now Densi woke and took the protesting Stephin by the hand to get ready for bed. The boy hung back.

  “Will you take me?” Stephin asked.

  “Don’t you bother him now,” said the amira with a shake of her head, though she gave Jodah a curious look. “He don’t need to be messing with the likes of you.”

  “I’m g
oing upstairs anyway,” Jodah said. “I’m tired, too. C’mon then. Let’s see if you can count how many stairs there are.”

  “Oh, I know how many,” the boy said importantly. “I’ve learned them!”

  In the boy’s room, Jodah tucked him into bed after making sure he brushed his teeth and changed into sleeping robes. Stephin’s eyes closed, his breathing soft almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  “You have a way with him,” Teila said quietly from the hallway when Jodah ducked out of the boy’s room and toward his own. “Thank you. Amira Densi is old and sometimes impatient with him at bedtime. And I needed to check the lamp.”

  Jodah had never considered before why he’d been put into the room in the quarters belonging to Teila and her son, but he was glad for it now. This high, with the lamp sweeping its circle of light out across the sea, he had the best view of the storm. Uneasily, he paced in front of the windows. The pain in his head that had subsided so nicely under Teila’s ministrations had crept back slowly over the course of the night. Playing cards had distracted him from the data stream, but now here in the dark, he was finding it hard to put it aside again.

  And then . . . there was the storm.

  The spatter of grit against the windows set him back a step, though there seemed little chance of anything breaking the glass. In the sweep of light, he looked out to the sea, catching sight of what he thought might be a pair of whales cavorting in the whirling sands. If not whales, perhaps two ships being tossed on the roiling sands.

  A ship in a storm.

  15

  You’re a fool and what’s more, an idiot.”

  The words are no surprise, coming from his father, though the tone is harsher than he feels is necessary. In front of him, shining in the bright sunslight, is the cruiser. He restored it himself, spent hours rebuilding and repairing. It was worth twiceten the amount he’d spent to pull it from the junkyard, even if you included what he’d paid to have it hauled to the docks and the rent to keep it there. He’d done all of this on his own, too. That’s probably what made the old man so mad.