The Dark Reaches

by Kristin Landon

  “Free but pinned flat,” he growled. “Even when you aren’t crushing me down. I liked eight percent better.”

  “So what will you think of full gee at home?” She smiled again at the thought. They were going home. No other ship could make the necessary jump; no other ship could carry this news. Pilang, and now it seemed Hana, would come with them; Pilang’s grief over Esayeh had not prevented her from seeing the need for someone expert in the deepsider nano to present the idea in the Hidden Worlds. It was going to be a long fight to get them to accept it.

  Iain yawned. “By the time we get to Terranova, I’ll have forgotten even half gee again.”

  “It won’t be so rough this time,” Linnea said. “We know where we’re going. And how far it is.”

  “And how long an argument we’re going to face when we get there,” Iain said.

  Linnea turned onto her back again and studied the pattern of lights across the sky from them. That dark patch was a lake, she was fairly sure she remembered that much from daytime. She wondered if there were fish in it. Probably. “Our people will want this place,” she said. “What’s in it. We lost so much, leaving so fast. This is like—like finding a living piece of Earth.”

  “Almost,” Iain said. He turned his head and looked toward the lights on the end cap, where a lift was rising toward the hub.

  Linnea had ridden that lift the day before, to see Pilang and Hana—and catch a glimpse of Mick. Most of the deepsiders were still living in the hub, or in the end caps, which did not rotate. “The deepsiders are crowded in those hubs.”

  “I’ve heard,” Iain said. “Do you think, once they start moving into the Hidden Worlds, that they’ll ever learn to live groundside?”

  “I think they’d feel even more crowded there,” Linnea said. “Held down, held in. . . . Anyway, why should they move groundside? We’ve got whole systems where we’re only using one world. Plenty of room for them to live where they like. How they like.”

  “If we win,” Iain said somberly.

  “If we don’t lose,” Linnea said. “That’s about the most we can hope for.” She turned to face him. “I wish Esayeh had lived to see his people safe.”

  Iain looked at her. “He made them safe. He died for the deepsiders.”

  “Not just for them.” Linnea looked up at the lights again, to hold the tears back. “He knew what I was going to do. He could have used the time he had to stop me. But instead he put himself between us and Hiso.”

  “I know,” Iain said quietly. “He saved Triton, too.”

  Linnea rested her head on his shoulder, and they lay quietly for a while. Then she said, slowly, “Do you regret this? If we hadn’t come, we’d still be at home, and maybe the deepsiders and Tritoners would still be where they’ve always been.”

  “With the raids, and the fear,” Iain said. “No. That was already ending. It had to end. Though it took a man from two worlds to see it.”

  “And a woman from no world at all to help him,” Linnea said.

  He caressed her cheek, kissed her gently. “That’s always been your gift. To hear what no one else will hear.”

  She sighed. “I wish we could have saved him.”

  “Hiso would only have killed you instead,” Iain said, his voice deep with anger.

  “It’s a price I’d have paid,” she said. “Ending those raids mattered to me. It still does.”

  “And you did,” Iain said. “Twice now you’ve helped patch together two halves of humanity—”

  “By wrecking all their peace,” she said glumly. “And you helped.”

  “So,” he said, “let’s go home and wreck our own people’s peace again. Maybe in the end we’ll be strong enough to win the war.”

  “Or at least to outlast it,” she said. “Yes. Let’s go home.”

  She lay there beside him in the cool, prickling grass, hearing the wind in the trees behind them, and faint music from the town over the hill. A home, built when the old one was lost. Made in necessity, in fear and danger. And yet it was no less a home for the people there because the human race had never been born to such a place. They made it theirs, as her own people had made the Hidden Worlds theirs: by building their lives there. By finding love there. And always, by holding on to hope.

  She slid her hand into Iain’s and felt his fingers tighten around hers. He had taught her hope, once; and she had taught him the same. And, always, love. The home she’d thought lost—maybe she’d been wrong to think to find it on any one world. Maybe parts of it were everywhere—in the people, and the places, she loved.

  And, always, the stars. The stars—and Iain by her side.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Kristin Landon lives in Oregon with her husband, a daughter, two occasionally present college-age sons, and a spaniel puppy. In addition to her writing, she works as a freelance copy editor of a wide range of nonfiction and technical books. Visit her website at www.kristinlandon.com.