The Dark Reaches

by Kristin Landon

  “The children that remain to her,” the priest said. “Marra and I have talked. I’m worried about her, and I feel that I must speak to you.”

  “Then I’ll listen,” Linnea said coldly. For Marra.

  He gave her a dark look. “Your sister is heartbroken that you lured away her oldest son to stay behind on Terranova. To study piloting—and who knows what else.”

  “He asked Marra’s permission, and she gave it to him,” Linnea said.

  The priest looked sorrowful. “But how much did Marra understand? How much did you tell her?” He shook his head. “Left on Terranova, his mother gone, a boy of fourteen in the hands of the Pilot Masters—”

  “He has the gift,” Linnea said. “He has the right to learn to use it.” To be one of us, a pilot, maybe to die with us— Oh, Marra had known.

  “And then you come to our world, traveling openly with your Pilot Master lover—”

  “I will not,” she said, “allow you to speak to me about that.”

  “I once asked you to marry me,” he said mildly.

  “And I said no.” She dug her hands deeper into the pockets of her borrowed coat and shivered. But she couldn’t seek shelter yet. She would outwait him, see which way he went, so she could take a different path.

  He showed no sign of turning to go. To make him angry, to drive him off, Linnea said, “They tell me you’re going to marry Pirie Stayart, now that she’s of age.” His head went back, indignation of course, and she pressed on. “She’ll make you happy. I never would have.” She shook her head. “It’s time for me to get back to my work. To my home.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “And where,” he asked, “is that?”

  She looked into his pale eyes, knew he would not understand, but answered honestly anyway. A debt to herself, not him; she had lied to these people when she was younger, when she’d pretended even to herself that she was one of them. Never again. “My home is where Iain sen Paolo is. And his, where I am.”

  “Sad and rootless,” Father Haveloe said, “with no future in it.” He looked at her searchingly. “I could have made you happy here on Santandru. If you had been willing to try.”

  She lifted her chin. I am happy, she wanted to say, but he would hear the doubt in it; he sensed any hint of weakness, it had always been what he saw best in everyone. “I’ll find my own happiness.”

  He looked at her for a long time. “No,” he said at last. “No, I don’t think so.” His voice was low. “It’s not your gift, Linny.”

  She jerked her gaze away from his, stared out to sea, into the wind and rain. He was wrong, wrong.

  He set his big hand on her arm and squeezed gently. “Good-bye.”

  She could not help herself; she jerked her arm away from his touch. He only shook his head again, gently, sadly, and left her there. She watched him pick his way down the path, waiting stubbornly for him to pass out of sight.

  She pulled the coat closer around her. His words had stung like a slap. No gift for happiness. Better to say she’d never had the gift of peace. Childhood here, poor and or phaned. Then servitude on Nexus, and torment from Rafael sen Fridric, who marooned her on a world infested by the Cold Minds. Then the war that began last year, salvaging the bitter loss the Pilot Masters had suffered in their attempt to retake Nexus from the Cold Minds. No rest, no home, never standing still.

  The only constant was Iain. A man, not a place; not a home. Not enough of a home. She remembered Ma’s words, years ago when she was dying: Only fools depend on feelings. Linnea’d had a place, here, years ago; and she’d thrown it away. For Marra and her children—because she’d loved them. For something better—the chance of something better—for all of them. It had come to very little in the end.

  But not to nothing. Iain was waiting for her in Middlehaven, waiting with the patient warmth he had shown for so long. And then, back in their jumpships, they would return to otherspace—to the freedom, the sense of power Linnea found only there, piloting her ship between the worlds.

  She closed her eyes against the failing light, and her heart raced. On the jump from Terranova to Santandru, she had felt the call of otherspace more strongly than ever: a yearning, a need, pulling her onward. And there were flashes, images, of strange, rich beauty—places she had never seen. Images that now filled her dreams—even here.

  Those dreams, that beauty were all that still fed her spirit, giving her strength for the fight that would certainly consume her life: against the Cold Minds, endemic now in the Hidden Worlds. Perhaps never to be defeated. Humans had overcome the Cold Minds’ first major attack, on Nexus, but the danger to every other one of the Hidden Worlds would never fade. Constant vigilance, constant work, patrols around every world to be maintained and inspected. A long, losing battle of attrition, Linnea foresaw it: falling back and back, surrendering bit by bit what she and Iain had once condemned the Line for refusing to defend. Maybe in one cruel way the Line had been right; maybe the few worlds they had proposed defending would be all that could, in the end, be saved.

  If that much.

  But Iain was waiting. Otherspace was waiting. That would be enough, for now. She started down the path toward shelter from the rain.

  Linny, I was afraid of this from the start,” Marra said. “I didn’t want to say anything. But I thought something like this might happen. Maybe not this bad, but—”

  “You thought they might turn on you, just because of me?” Linnea stood, leaning against the sill of the window in her tiny room in the guesthouse, the plastic pane cold against her back. Though it was past sunset, she had not lit the lamp, not even when Marra knocked and came in. There was nothing here that Linnea wanted to see. The room’s air oppressed her, stale and cold, even though she’d set the little heatbox going at midday. The greasy fish stew from supper sat like a lump in her stomach. “Then why didn’t you tell me to stay behind in Middlehaven?”

  Marra folded her arms across her chest. “I wish now I had. If you hadn’t come they—they might have left Ma’s house alone.”

  “I’m sorry for that,” Linnea said. “Iain and I will find a way to make it up to you. Pay you.”

  “No,” Marra said, her voice steady. “We—Asper and I don’t want any money from you. From him.” She took a deep breath. “But, Linny, it’s my fault, too. I was the one who talked you into coming here for the memorial service. I talked myself into hoping they’d welcome you back.”

  “Iain knew better,” Linnea said bitterly. “He was right to stay in Middlehaven.”

  “He stayed because I told him to,” Marra said.

  Linnea’s head jerked up.

  “I warned him,” Marra said. “If they—if the village saw you with him, there would be no chance they would forgive you.”

  “Forgive—” Linnea stared at her sister. “Forgive me for saving this village!”

  “Forgive you for how you saved it,” Marra said. Her voice was harsh, but Linnea knew there was compassion behind the words. Marra did understand; but Marra couldn’t, wouldn’t try to explain it to anyone else here.

  “They accepted my money,” Linnea said flatly. “They have no right to judge me. No right at all.” She looked down at the worn plastic floor. “I did feel ashamed. At first. But that was—that was this village, thinking and judging inside my head. Father Haveloe, thinking and judging. Not me.” She straightened. “I know who I am now, Marra. I know what I want.”

  Marra sighed. “And what is that, Linny?”

  Linnea looked away, into the gathering shadows. Freedom. The soaring joy of otherspace, of openness, beauty, possibility. There was danger, yes, but with Iain at her side . . . “Nothing I can explain. I’m sorry.” Her hands tightened on the windowsill.

  “You have changed,” Marra said, her voice hard. “I saw that on Terranova. This—life you’ve found for yourself. You don’t care, you don’t even understand what you threw away so you could have it.”

  “Yes, I do,” Linnea said. It had taken her half a minute to look
the room over when they got in last night: a narrow, sagging bed; a small table and two battered chairs; a basin on a low cupboard; a plastic tank of drinking water; the sharp, salty tang of mildew.

  This morning, in the chill gray light, she had read the handwritten list of rules tacked neatly to the wall. Please keep a tidy room. Blankets on the shelf. Clean linens in the cupboard. Wash them at the village laundry—see map. Meals in the refectory in the parish hall. Times for setup, for eating, for cleanup. Please be present for all three. No liquor. Please attend church on Sundays. Eucharist offered each morning, thirty minutes after dawn. For questions, please see the village priest. The placard was signed, in neat square printing, FR. HAVELOE.

  “I know what I threw away,” Linnea said. “And I’d throw it away again.”

  Marra sank down on Linnea’s bed. Its metal springs screeched. “Then you really have moved on,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “You and Iain, you took my son from me, my oldest, I’ll never see him again. Or if I do, he’ll be one of those people. Those pilots. Like you.”

  Linnea knew the next step in the old, familiar dance: She would go and sit beside Marra, hold her, comfort her for the pain of all the mistaken things Marra could not stop believing.

  Yet she could not make herself move from the window.

  No gift for happiness. Maybe that was true.

  Marra buried her face in her hands. “Linny—” She looked up. “I don’t know how to say this.”

  “Say it anyway.” Though she knew.

  “It’s—it’s best you go.”

  Linnea took a steadying breath. Another. Her chest felt cold, hollow. Don’t let her see. “All right,” she said after a moment. “We can leave in the morning, as soon as the children are ready.”

  Marra went still, staring down at the floor. Then she said, “I bought tickets for the children and me on the flatloader two days from now.”

  Linnea’s head went back. “You would pay money to spend three days in the back of a ’loader, when I could get you home to Asper in a few hours, for nothing?”

  “The flatloader is our way,” Marra said, her voice stronger. “The flyer is yours. I have to live on this world, you see.” She looked up at Linnea. “These are my people.”

  “So you don’t mean—” Linnea took a breath. Make her say it. “You don’t mean just, I should leave Moraine. You mean—”

  “I want you to leave Santandru,” Marra said. “And don’t come back. Unless you’re bringing my son home to me, to live the life his father would have wanted—don’t come back. It’s best.”

  Linnea stared at her. Then dug into the pocket of her tunic, brought out a few coins, slapped them down on the little table. “Give those to the priest,” she said. “It ought to be enough to cover the hospitality I’ve had.”

  “Linny—”

  She pulled the coat she’d borrowed from Marra off the peg, laid it on the bed beside Marra. “There’s nothing else of yours I have?”

  Marra took a shaking breath, clearly on the verge of tears. “That’s all,” she said.

  Cold black tremors filled the hollow place inside Linnea. But her hands were steady as she stuffed her few possessions into her travel bag. “I’m off, then.”

  “Tonight! But, Linny, the wind—”

  “I’m a pilot,” Linnea said. “I know how to handle a flyer in wind.” In the deepening dark, Marra’s face was a shadow. Through the age-scoured plastic windowpane beyond, Linnea could see that the rain had turned to wet snow. The promise of spring, broken again.

  Marra stood up, picked up the coat. “Won’t you even say good-bye to the children?”

  “Tell them—” Linnea broke off. “Tell them what you like. You will anyway.” She held out her hand. “Good-bye, Marra.”

  Marra hesitated, then took the offered hand. Her rough fingers closed tight over Linnea’s. “I didn’t mean—I’m only thinking of my children’s good. Of your good, Linny.” Linnea heard the despair in her voice.

  “My life’s no concern of yours anymore,” Linnea said. Then relented a little. “Look. I’ll message sometimes. Through the commnet, so no one will have to know you’ve heard from me.”

  “I have no right to ask it,” Marra said. Her voice broke. “But—tell me how Donie is. . . . And take care of yourself. Oh, be careful. Be careful. So much has hurt you, I wish you could just come home and be safe.”

  “But this isn’t my home,” Linnea said. As if through some stiff barrier, she took a step toward Marra. Kissed her cheek. “Good-bye, Marra.”

  Outside, coatless in the cold wind, the wet snow, in the blue dimness of almost-night, Linnea let herself shiver. The small landing field where her rented flyer stood was only a couple of hundred meters from the row of attached guesthouses. When she reached the flyer, she moved around it, hurriedly casting off the tie-downs as the little craft rocked in the stiff wind. Finished, she opened the hatch, tossed in her bag, climbed in after. Her hands moved over the board, lighting it, starting the engines warming. There was no one attending the field for her unexpected flight, so she’d have to risk lifting off without field lights—flying bare-eyed, without the intimate links she would have had with her jumpship, the visual interface that could turn night to day. No such thing in this little vessel.

  Rising into the sky, sensing and compensating for the pressure of the wind, she kept her hands tight on the controls. Below, the few dim lights of the village sank away into the haze of falling snow, then the flyer shuddered in buffeting wind as she rose into the low clouds. All ties to ground gone. Flying free.

  Rootless—No. The feeling of emptiness was freedom, that was all. Freedom at last.

  Above the clouds now. The sky overhead, unusually clear in the bitter wind, showed her the familiar hazy nebulae of the Hidden Worlds. They were calling to her, calling. . . . Her hands moved on the controls, and the flyer leaped forward toward Middlehaven. Toward Iain.

  Toward her jumpship, and the freedom for which she had paid . . . everything.

  TWO

  SANTANDRU: MIDDLEHAVEN

  I ain sen Paolo watched from the shelter of the control shed’s wall as Linnea’s flyer settled onto its pad, its jets sending up puffs of steam from the frozen slush. It was well past midnight and bleakly cold. Wind-driven snow made long slashes of white in the harsh beams of the field lights. His long coat, made for Terranova’s mild weather, swirled around him, barely keeping him warm.

  His apprehension held him back. He left it to the Middlehaven skyport ground man to secure the little vessel against the wind. Linnea’s voice had sounded—strange, remote in her communications with Control. She had sent him no private message. And she was arriving two days earlier than they’d planned.

  Iain grimaced and tugged the collar of his coat higher against the cold. On top of whatever her sudden arrival meant, he was not looking forward to telling Linnea the latest news from Terranova.

  The hatch of the flyer opened at last, and he saw Linnea scramble down, her old cloth travel bag slung over her shoulder. She turned and closed the hatch firmly.

  So Marra and the children had not returned with her. Now that was a very bad sign.

  Iain strode forward, into the wind, into the glare of the lights. She looked up, her eyes wide and dark, the wind streaming her black hair out behind her. Then she moved forward to meet him.

  He kissed her quickly, then set his arm around her shoulders as they turned toward the control shed. Inside, in the close, wavering heat from an iron stove, he waited near the door as she settled her account for hiring the flyer. She seemed steady enough. Too steady, maybe, counting out the coins to the attendant. And that was another little insult dealt out by this world: hard currency only, for pilots’ dealings with the port. Your credit’s no good here.

  Then it was back out into the bitter night, across half the field to the pilots’ barracks, the quarters for the squad of young Terranovan pilots who made up Santandru’s new orbital patrol. The building was new, made
with materials brought in by cargo ship: a linked string of prefabs, laid out and inflated, their double walls of thick plastic filled with spray foam cure-hardened into rigid strength. No time, no money to build anything better.

  Iain opened the door and waited while Linnea ducked through, then followed. Inside, the ceilings were low, the angles odd, but at least the thick, insulated walls cut off the howl of the wind.

  At this late hour there were no off-duty pilots in the tiny front lounge, but Iain still waited to speak until they had reached the small room they’d been assigned. As soon as he latched the door, Linnea dropped her bag on her bunk. And then she was in his arms.

  Her strong hold on him, her stubborn silence, made his heart turn over. He stroked her damp, wind-tangled hair. “Tell me.”

  Her face, turned away, was half-buried against his shoulder. “You were right,” she said, her voice low and hard.

  “They told you to leave,” Iain said.

  “No mistake about that,” Linnea said. She took a breath, and another, while Iain waited patiently. Then, in a rush, she said, “But I didn’t think that Marra would—” She broke off, and her arms tightened around him.

  Marra, too, then. “Oh, no,” he said. “Linnea. I’m so sorry.”

  She did not weep, of course; she wept far too rarely. But it was another four breaths, five, before she could speak again. “I want to leave tomorrow morning. Go on to our next stop. Get back to what we came out here to do.”

  Carefully, Iain released her, guided her to her bunk, sat down beside her. “About that,” he said.

  In the weak light of the little lantern, her face was stiff with distress, her dark eyes wild, trapped. “Iain, don’t tell me we can’t. I need—I need to get back to my ship. I need to move on. Get away from here.”

  “I see that,” he said. “I’ll get us clearance to leave tomorrow. But we can’t go on with the trip we planned. I’m sorry. We’re needed on Terranova.”

  He saw her expression shut down. “No. Please. We left Zhen and Torin and the new board in charge of training, and the Line was beginning to cooperate with setting the patrols. Surely together they can handle—”