Page 27 of The Brightness Between Us

I pull my hand back, stung and trying not to show it. “I’m doing the best I can.”

That sets Sri off into a new round of laughter. “I know you are. And just because you’re leaving on a grand mission that I didn’t ever stand a chance of being considered for, because I don’t play compromise politics and I’m not a Cusk, you don’t need to suddenly treat me with kid gloves. I’m not going to be your ‘gal back home,’ pining away. Romantic relationships aren’t particularly interesting to me, either. We don’t have to pretend to be life partners.”

“Okay, good,” I say, relieved. This moment has got my blood rushing. Sri has told me I don’t need to pretend to be in love with them, and it’s made me go from ambivalent to loving them intensely. In a “for now” sort of way. There’s no denying it: just when I think I’ve got myself figured out, I find a new way that I’m a bit of a mess. Or a lot of a mess.

“If you’re willing to indulge me, Iwouldbe interested in seeing you outside of your academy suit one last time, though,” Sri says.

I prop myself up on one elbow. “What a funny coincidence. I was going to propose that very same thing.”

We’ve barely finished our usual rumble and tug when the hatch leading to the flexible-gravity training room slamsopen, sending up clouds of red and yellow dust with occasional glitters of pink Cusk grains. Sri and I stagger to our feet, and I’m grateful for the mag fasteners of my uniform that make me clothed as soon as I bring the two halves of the fabric near each other.

It’s my assistant—and she brought backup. Two armed landkeepers are behind her.

Sri takes in the sight of the landkeepers. “I thought your mission was to shoot at desperate refugees, not to work as private police.” Sri has this way of saying aggressive things with a smile, like they’re inviting you to be in on the joke of your own demise. One of my favorite Sri things. One of many, I’m realizing more and more.

The landkeepers clearly do not appreciate Sri’s mannerisms like I do. They just stand there, plasma rifles slung nonchalantly across backs made broad by armor.

I grab the railing, pull myself up, and dust off my suit. “I see you found me after all.”

“Maybe I didn’t make it clear before. Meeting with your mother was not an option,” my assistant says. Maybe she’s not really “my” assistant; maybe she never was, when it’s my mother’s corporation funding this whole base, along with half the public works of Fédération and Dimokratía.

“Don’t worry, it’s not the first time Mom’s sent armed guards to bring me to her,” I tell Sri. “You should have seen when I forgot her birthday.”

“I was there, you idiot,” Sri mutters.

“Come with us now,” the assistant says briskly. “We already had to rearrange your schedule and hers to make up for your lateness. We had to send out one apologetic press release on what ought to be a special day. Don’t make us send another.”

“Understood,” I say tersely. “That’s enough.”

As we make our way down to the hallway far below (using modular stairs this time instead of scrambling down training equipment), one of the landkeepers takes a position in front of me, the other in the back. I’m being herded, like a prize ram. Something about our formation raises the hairs on my body.

Once we’re at the bottom, the assistant gestures to the dormitory hallway, with a pointed glance to Sri. “Don’t need to ask me twice,” Sri says. “I’d rather not witness whatever’s about to happen.”

My assistant leads us through the warren of the academy’s underground passages and into the corporate area of the complex, the decor changing from printed white tiles to glossy dark rock. The Cusk-only elevator soon brings us hovering at the corporate floor. My assistant and I get off at my mother’s level—and, surprisingly, so do the landkeepers. “Am I inthatmuch trouble?” I ask.

I start toward my mother’s office, but realize I’m walking alone. I look back and see my assistant is gesturing menot toward my mother’s office, but to an unfamiliar accessway. She scans the lock, and the heavy doors grind open. I follow her in. The landkeepers and assistant take up positions outside, then seal the door behind me. It gives athunkand a suction sound, like I’ve been enclosed in a submarine.

It’s a completely plain room. The kind of plain I never see anywhere. No wall decs, no screens, no tinkling music with digitizations rising through the air, no projections whatsoever. I glance down at my bracelet and see that it’s stopped displaying the time, giving a sad wheeze as it deactivates. Signals are jammed here.

My mother stands at the window. From this height you can see the Euphrates. Cusk corporate offices are positioned on this side of the building so they don’t have to look at the debris-clogged roads, the wild dogs, the cities of tents. Mother turns around, her hands clasped tightly at her waist. I learned long ago that the more still she makes her body, the more worried I ought to be. I’m officially quite worried.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I say. My mother doesn’t react, so I go for the big guns right away. “I just don’t know if I’ll even be coming back alive from this voyage, so goodbyes with my classmates are taking longer than I’d have thought.” I put on a sheepish smile. “I guess it turns out I’m the spacefarer with a heart of gold.”

My mother is so nonreactive that for a moment I wonder whether she’s a projection that’s buffering. Then she breaksinto motion. Lips pressed, she gestures to two plain chairs at a simple table. It’s like we could be in a lawyer’s office somewhere, four centuries ago. Like in, what was it called, Ohio. “What is this place?” I ask as I sit in one of the vintage chairs.

My mother sits in the other, her back straight. “A powered-down room. No comms, not even any electricity. The walls are old construction, no fibers or tech embedded whatsoever.”

I look around in wonder. All the light we’re getting is from the windows. Extraordinary.

“Is this about the fly we shot to Titan?”

Mother snakes a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. It’s done in the popular look of the season, called the hieroglyph, hair slicked into rows that hang down to midback. With her features and complexion, she really looks like she could be on a Mesopotamian tomb somewhere. Except for the business suit, the crisp demeanor. That all makes me thinkI’mgoing to be the one entombed.

“Mother. The fly? The fly that contains the coding to help Minerva’s base’s OS troubleshoot its distress beacon?”

“No. My darling, I have to tell you something that’s going to be upsetting.”

I become aware of my breathing. I make it measured, place my hands against the tabletop. “Has Minerva’s signal changed?”

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