Eaters of the Light

by J. Edward Neill

  Alone, I pulled my cowl close to my face and slid into the hotel. Days ago, I’d been a hero.

  And quickly, I’d become nothing.

  Glass Houses

  At the edge of a tangled wood, in a field of tall, sword-like grass, I stood beneath the rising suns.

  No one remembers this place.

  No one but me.

  Nine-hundred years ago, Joff, his sister Aly, and I had landed our ship in the weeds and too-tall grass of a planet we hadn’t known. We’d drifted through space in hypo-sleep for decades, and our last hope of survival had come to fruition.

  We’d found Sumer—an inhabited world.

  Back then, Sumer had been but four cities and a few million people scattered across less than one-percent of the planet’s surface.

  And now…

  I waded into the grass. The blades sawed at my boots, and the reeds scraped my shoulders. The new day’s heat burnished my forehead, pulling out my sweat a dozen beads at a time.

  “Here,” I said to myself. “It’s here we landed. Joff’s house used to be two-hundred meters that way. The green river…a kilometer south.”

  I must’ve looked strange talking to myself while wearing my sleek black flight-suit. Although it’s not as if anyone saw me. Few people remained in the place we’d once called home. Almost everyone had moved to the cities.

  They didn’t have livestock back then.

  No way to replenish the nutrients in the soil after farming it.

  They had to leave.

  I smiled to myself for remembering most of Joff’s farming knowledge.

  In the field upon which his house had stood, I lingered for a time. Clouds gathered behind me, threatening rain, but I sought no shelter.

  Didn’t travel out here to hide.

  Came here to say goodbye.

  …forever.

  For longer than I intended, I stood in the shadowed fields. Joff’s house was gone, washed away by centuries of rain. No trace of it remained, not a single glass shard or polymer plank, and yet I knew I’d found the right place.

  I smelled the rain before it hit me.

  I sensed the wind before it moved the grass.

  When the clouds broke and the water tumbled down, I smiled. Anything was better than walking in the hot, hot sunlight.

  Dripping wet, I wandered through the storm. The hover-cab that had brought me was long departed, and so I had no choice but to head for the tiny village a few kilometers west.

  With my blue hair stuck to my face and my black suit shining in the rain, I found a lane between the fields and followed it to five glass dwellings beside a little green river. ‘Common Houses,’ the locals called them. With energized glass walls and lush interior gardens, each dwelling held up to thirty people.

  Anymore, only outcasts and hermits lived in the Common Houses.

  Outcasts and hermits.

  Like me.

  I approached an old woman standing beneath an awning. The rain shattered the earth all around her, the mist collecting on her skirt. Her simple grey dress and patterned kerchief looked so different than the garish Arcadian fashions. She seemed out of place, almost as if she’d been born on Earth, not Sumer.

  “Hello,” I said as I joined her beneath the awning. She looked at me, soaking wet with my blue hair, and she smiled.

  “These houses…they look same as they did nine-hundred years ago.” I touched the glass wall. “I don’t know why, but it makes me happy.”

  The old woman regarded the rain. She said something in a language I didn’t quite understand, and yet I grasped her meaning all the same.

  “You say you are happy, but you look sad.”

  Or at least that’s what I think she said.

  I waited with the old woman for a while, standing at peace beside her. I saw questions in her eyes, curiosity in her glances.

  Even though I knew my words made little sense to her, I talked.

  “Once, long ago, a man named Joff Armstrong lived here. For a year or two, he bunked in a house just like this one.” I gestured to the glass dwelling behind us. “He farmed the land south of the green river, and all the people loved him. I didn’t know it at the time, but I loved him, too. And then we left. And only one of us came back.”

  The rain fell harder, cratering the soft soil beyond the awning.

  It always rains on Sumer, I remembered. Every day for many hours.

  But at night, the stars come out.

  Every night.

  “Maybe…” I sighed. “Maybe if he hadn’t seen the stars, he wouldn’t have watched them. If the rain had come at night, the stars would’ve been hidden. And then maybe he wouldn’t have seen them begin to vanish. One by one, they winked out, just like on his farm back on Earth.”

  “Earth?” The old woman recognized the word.

  “Earth.” I nodded. “I never got to appreciate it. They kept me in a fortress, locked away in a hollow mountain. The winds were wild on Earth. The air was colder. There were birds, deer, and—”

  “Birds?” she asked.

  That’s right, I recalled. They didn’t bring any birds to Sumer.

  “No birds. No crickets, either,” I said.

  “Crickets?”

  “Chiiirp, chiiirp.” I mimicked the sound. Even after a thousand years, I remembered it.

  I’d only heard crickets a handful of times on Earth.

  But who could forget such wonderful songs?

  “I don’t know why I’m here.” I gazed with empty eyes into the rain. “I should’ve gone to my ship and left this place. Maybe the other planets would’ve helped me. Maybe they’d have understood. But…I don’t know…I had to be here. This is where he lived when he decided to fight. This is where he was when they tried to kill him. And who knows? They might try to kill me. It wouldn’t be hard.”

  She nodded as if she understood, and together we watched the rain.

  But…

  There is a reason I’m here.

  And it’s nothing to do with reminiscing.

  “There’s one other thing,” I said to the old woman. “I’m looking for someone.”

  She said nothing.

  “From Mercuria…a retired astronomer,” I continued. “They say he’s here in one of the houses. Ex-military scientist...one of the best. If you’ve lived here a while, you might know him. An older man. Very smart. Very quiet.”

  The old woman didn’t look at me, though I knew she listened.

  “Have you seen him?” I asked. “Do you know who I’m looking for?”

  Again she said nothing. Thunder cracked in the distance, and the wind caught the rain. I closed my eyes against the mist, and when I reopened them, the old woman had gone into the glass door behind us.

  She didn’t understand.

  I know what Joff would’ve said.

  Needle in a haystack.

  I had choices to make. I could’ve waited out the rain, summoned a hover-cab, and taken the short trip to the landing fields south of Venya. Just outside the old, bustling city, the Sabre awaited me. Assuming Hephast hadn’t sent men to kill me, I could’ve climbed into my ship, docked with my interstellar Ring in orbit, and journeyed to any one of six colonized worlds.

  One of them might’ve helped me. Reloaded my weapons. Given me soldiers with which to continue the fight.

  But then what? I asked myself. Then where to go?

  Or…

  I could’ve wandered into the Common Houses and knocked door-by-door until I found the old man Griff had told me about. My little blue friend had claimed the old scientist felt no love for Hephast’s regime.

  ‘He can help you,’ Griff had said. ‘Lead you to others who might be friendly. Or even…if you believe in such things…give you the coordinates to Hermes.’

  Hermes.

  The only human colony outside the Milky Way.

  Assuming the Strigoi haven’t found it by now.

  The only reason I didn’t walk away— the rain. It battered the fields beyond the a
wning without mercy. It turned the grasses into temporary swamps, falling into the soil like bombs dropped from orbit.

  The rain made me wait.

  And so, when the old woman returned, I stood exactly where she’d left me.

  “Pardon?” I said when she emerged from the glass door and rested her hand on my shoulder.

  “Follow.” She pointed into the Common House.

  And so I did.

  Inside, I didn’t know what to expect. The rest of Sumer, especially Arcadia, was obsessed with order. Everything on the planet was organized, perfected, and sterilized.

  The Common House was something else.

  A fountain burbled in its heart, surrounded by an overgrown garden.

  Vines crawled up the glass walls, somehow finding purchase on the smooth, sleek, polymer.

  And from the first floor to the fourth, every door lay open. The house wasn’t a cold Arcadian apartment.

  This place is a commune.

  The rain’s drumming fell silent the moment the door fell shut behind me. Inside the house, in the storm’s absence, I heard the warm echo of human voices, the thrum of soft music, and the sound of—

  “Birds?” I said aloud.

  I looked at the greenery growing in the house’s center. I gazed at the vines, the shrubs clinging to the walls, and the branches of the two sapling trees beside the fountain.

  “How can there be birds?”

  The old woman ambled away. She wasn’t listening.

  But the middle-aged man striding down the glass stairs looked me right in my eyes.

  “You understand, of course,” he called to me as he approached, “those aren’t real birds.”

  He came to me. He was a little man, his black hair slicked to one side. He didn’t look like most Sumerians. Like the old woman, he was pale, unassuming, and wore none of the absurd clothes beloved by everyone else on the planet.

  “Not real birds,” I said. “A sound projection?”

  “Yes.” He stopped to inspect a vine two meters away. “We pipe the sounds in each morning. It helps drown out the rain.”

  “Wait—how do you even know about birds?” I asked.

  He scratched his head. “Long story. Our grandparents’ grandparents thought it would be wise for us to remember where we came from. For animals from the old world, they gave us the gift of sound. Mornings, we play birds’ songs. Nights, we play insect noises. And for the plants…well…they don’t make much noise, but most of what you see is from Earth.”

  From Earth, I thought. The rest of Sumer doesn’t remember it existed.

  I looked up, still expecting to see wings fluttering in the vines high above.

  I saw nothing.

  “The old woman.” I gestured at the stairs she’d just climbed. “She looked at me like I was crazy. She said she didn’t know anything about birds or crickets.”

  “Oh, her.” The little man smiled. “She wouldn’t know a bird from a cloud or a star from a drop of rain. She’s older than dirt. Her mind’s all mushy.”

  Older than dirt, I thought.

  Like me.

  “I’m looking for someone,” I said. “But you can’t be him. He’d be older.”

  The little man looked at me.

  And I explained. About the things Griff had told me. About the old man who’d worked in Sumer’s most prestigious astronomy lab.

  Afterward, the little man with the slick black hair scratched his chin. He didn’t have a beard. His skin was as smooth as the glass walls.

  “Why do you want to find him?” he asked.

  “They say he’s been to Hermes,” I said. “It’s a far-off colony in the—”

  “I know what Hermes is,” he interrupted.

  “Well?” I said. “Can you bring me to him?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll ask again,” he said. “Why do you want to see him?”

  “My name is Callista.” I crossed my arms. “And I need to know how to get to Hermes. I know it’s illegal, and I know Hephast has ordered its location to be wiped from every archive. Even so, I must go there. A few trillion Strigoi await me, and I’ve promised someone I’d destroy them all.”

  The little man looked stunned. Of all the things he’d expected, I was last among them.

  “You thought I came to kill the old man?” I asked.

  “I…I don’t know what I thought,” he admitted.

  “Can you help me?” I asked.

  “Wait here.” He backed away.

  I waited. And I wandered. I paced the garden path in the house’s center courtyard. I smelled flowers I’d never seen before. I saw fruit not native to anywhere on the planet.

  I tried to imagine myself back on Earth.

  I couldn’t manage it.

  “Lady Callista.” The little man returned.

  “Callista will be fine. Or Cal,” I said.

  “Callista.” He nodded. “Please come with me.”

  We left the house and walked into the rain. He carried no umbrella, so we moved in the open storm. The wind whipped at our clothes, and yet we walked as if beneath the suns on a clear, calm day.

  “Which Common House are we going to?” I asked a few hundred meters down the muddy trail.

  “Common House?” He glanced back at me. “We don’t call them that anymore. They’re called hermit huts these days.”

  Makes sense.

  “Fine. Which one?”

  “We’re not going to a hermit hut.” He slowed. “We’re going there, to the house beneath those trees.”

  He pointed across a rain-lashed field. The wind blew the grass sideways, allowing us full view of the thicket beyond. The line of impossibly tall Sumerian oaks stood watch over everything below.

  I’d seen big trees before.

  But none like these.

  “Follow me.” The little man waved his hand.

  We waded into the grass.

  We pushed through the wind and stood in the mighty trees’ shadows.

  “There.” He pointed. “See it?”

  I peered into the gloom beneath the leaves. A glass house, not unlike the little two-story dwelling in which Joff had once lived, stood alone in the midst of several massive trees.

  “Is that where he lives?” I asked.

  “No. His great-granddaughter,” said the little man. “You’re just a little late. The astronomer died two years ago.”

  Damnit, Griff, I wanted to say. This is a waste of time.

  No. Wait.

  “She’ll speak to me?”

  “No idea,” he answered.

  I stepped out of the rain and into the leaf cover. Beneath the giant trees, the storm couldn’t touch me.

  I pushed my wet hair away from my eyes, thanked the little man, and made for the house.

  At the trail’s end, I halted at a glass door. I felt as though I’d left the day behind and entered the twilight. I liked the feeling. For the first time since landing on Sumer, I wasn’t sweating.

  I raised my palm and placed it against the door. The glass turned blue, indicating my presence was known.

  Even out here, everything is so…advanced.

  The door’s opaque blue faded to translucent white. I saw someone approach on the glass’s other side.

  Someone young.

  A woman.

  The door slid open without a sound. A pretty woman in ivory robes peered out at me. Her perfect dark hair framed her even darker eyes. I couldn’t tell whether she was annoyed…

  …or frightened.

  “You don’t know me, but—” I began.

  “Are you from Arcadia?” She glared at me.

  “No. I mean, not exactly. Hephast didn’t send me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Then who sent you?”

  “I sent myself.”

  Standing in the doorway, she looked me over. I wasn’t exactly at my best. In a sleek black suit, with tired, too-blue eyes, with my hair splashed across my cheeks, I must’ve seemed so very out of place.r />
  Thunder cracked in the distance.

  I glanced over my shoulder, and I saw the little man had gone.

  I felt alone.

  I was alone.

  “Wait,” said the girl. “I know you.”

  “Callista,” I offered. “I don’t know if you get holo-feeds out here, but if so, you might’ve seen me.”

  “I do,” she said. “And I have.”

  “Well then, maybe I can expl—”

  “Come inside,” she said. “I think I know why you’re here.”

  I hope so, I thought.

  She invited me in.

  Though she didn’t smile.

  The Hermit’s Daughter

  “Siraya, after my great-grandmother,” she told me her name.

  I sat in a solemn room with a cup of broth in my palms. The light filtering through the walls felt like moonlight, even though the hour was early.

  “It’s dark in here, Siraya,” I said.

  She sat across from me. Like the couch I had claimed, hers was black, its fabric smooth and pristine.

  As if no one has ever sat in here before.

  “I’m alone.” Siraya sat with her back straight and her knees together. “I like it dark. And quiet.”

  “You said you know why I’m here.” I sipped my broth. “I’m hoping you’re right.”

  She stared at me.

  “Two reasons are possible,” she said. “One: you’re here to confiscate my great-grandfather’s materials—his maps, his tools, and his research. Or two: you want to know how to get to Hermes. Someone in Arcadia told you he could help, and now you’re here.”

  All business, this woman.

  Strange for one so young.

  “There’s one thing I don’t understand,” I said. “If your grandfather’s been dead for a decade, why do people think he’s alive?”

  Siraya didn’t blink. She looked statuesque, her beauty hard and stoic.

  “I never reported his death,” she said. “Which means, if you so choose, you can get me into a lot of trouble.”

  “Why trouble?” I asked.

  “Hephast’s government records every event in every person’s life. Living off-the-grid like this...it’s not allowed. It’s illegal. The only reason Arcadia hasn’t already sent officials here is, well, they just don’t care about us.”