Page 3 of The Brightness Between Us

“Father is going to be furious,” Yarrow says. I notice that he hasn’t asked me not to go.

“What are they going to do, ground me?” That’s what the parents inPink Lagooncall arresting their children. It was weird back on Earth.

Yarrow’s eyes dart around my face, searching foranswers in my expression. I don’t think he’s finding any. “I don’t know how I’ll explain it to them.”

“You won’t have to. Let me deal with the consequences. Look, they’ll be so overjoyed by the fact that I’ve found a water source, and maybe a whale or a sea serpent or something, that they’ll forget that I’ve even broken the rules.”

Yarrow raises an eyebrow. “Really. That’s how this is going to go?”

“We’re happy enough here now, but our life could get bad. Hiding away isn’t the solution. It’s the problem. We have to find standing water we can use, more metals so we can build exploration drones. Maybe I’ll even find us some company. It’s going to take old-fashioned exploration. Me with a spear and my two feet, like some caveperson.”

My brother’s meaty body presses deeper into the soil than mine does, and the life-forms glow prettily around his bare feet. I think they like him more. “You’re crazy,” he says. “But I know better than to try to stop you.”

“Wise as ever,” I say.

“Go quickly,” he says. “I’ll try to keep the dads distracted so they don’t notice for a while. Also, I really don’t want Father to see me letting you go.”

“Thank you, Brothership,” I say, giving him a hug. “I really will be fine.”

He chuckles. “I think that’s probably true. If any one of us is going to survive whatever disaster you’re about tobring raining down on our heads, it’s the clone of Minerva Cusk.”

That’s who I am—my aunt. I’m the spitting likeness of the star spacefarer of twenty-fifth-century Earth, dead for over 30,000 years. Everyone avoids talking about it, but around when Yarrow’s face started breaking out in pimples he also got very touchy about the fact that I had a heroic spacefarer to compare myself to when he had no one. That I was related to Dad and he had no blood relations. Then he abruptly stopped talking about it.

I kiss Yarrow’s cheek and start off across the wide plains of Minerva, choosing a direction almost at random. When you’ve discovered as few landmarks as we have, every direction is basically the same—so long as I avoid malevor territory. “Think about what we can make the dads for their arrival anniversary while I’m gone!” I call behind me. “Maybe you can create a special reel? You’re so good at those.”

Here I go, assigning my brother to be the one to show our dads we care while I go satisfy my wanderlust. I dig my nails into my arm. Selfish Owl.

Yarrow gives one long wave in reply, then starts back toward the settlement, shoulders slumped. He’s the solid one who holds us all together, and he’s really good at it—but I’m asking a lot, even of him.

Chapter 2

The way I figure it, if advanced life here were land- or air-based, it would have wandered past us by now. But maybe there’s an aquatic civilization somewhere on Minerva. If I can discover a lake or even a sea, then it’s a double win, because I’ll have located a natural source of water if the rains stop—and we also might find out we’re not alone.

I imagine dinosaur-like creatures paddling their massive fins in a tropical sea, Yarrow and me riding on the back of one and whooping up into the salty sunshine. How could I not go search that out? The dads are crazy not to have prioritized exploration.

Already, just an hour’s walk from the settlement, I make a discovery. A minor one, but still: the soft, moist yellow green of the land rolls far in either direction, but there, in the lee of two hills, the old ethylamine pond has disappeared. The same one the dads mistakenly logged as methane when they first arrived. See? Something has happened. This expedition is already paying off.

Big Sister has shrunken almost to the size of Little Sister, which means I’m well into the day’s long twilight. I havetime to investigate this dried-up pond bed before I need to get back. Maybe. During the twilight, time stretches long and then snaps into night. It can surprise you.

The dads’ voices play in my mind: Father saying I’ll get no algal sugar for a week for sneaking away even as Dad quietly protests that I’m basically an adult now, that fifteen is plenty old enough to manage my own risks on a frontier exoplanet, Father replying that even at fifteen I need rules and consequences, even if I claim that I don’t. It makes me smile: they’ll fight bitterly, not because they’re upset but because it’s far more interesting to fight than to find something to say about another identical day tilling the soils of Minerva for hydrocarbons.

I’ve read books. I know people can die from boredom. I know versions of the dads did, back on theCoordinated Endeavor.They’re lucky I’m here to do interesting things.

I tie my straps tight over my shoes, cinch my belt over my long tunic. All my gear has been printed from elements we’ve extracted from Minerva’s soil. This newest tunic is OS’s best work yet, a fabric that’s slippery-smooth across my shoulders.

The ground turns loose as I approach the pond bed. I’ve been going at a fast walk, but now I slow. I don’t want to twist my ankle and make someone come rescue me.

The soil pitches downward, steep and crumbly. As soon as I’m heading down the slope, it becomes clear whathappened here. No big tentacled alien monster attacked from below and drained the fluid, unfortunately. The ethylamine boiled off. Minerva was cold when I was born, according to the dads, and its temperature has been rising ever since. It’s not exactly hot now, except for the daily Scorch, but who knows when this warming will end.

It all makes perfect scientific sense. No big story here. I should head back. I might already be too late to make it before dark.

But!

In the tumbled soil, something gleams. Something white. A few white things, actually, poking up out of the litter. Not a color we find in the wilds of Minerva.

I pretend to debate whether to investigate, I guess so I can tell the dads later that I did, but it’s not even a question in my mind. I use my spear like a staff, testing out the loose soil as I make my way down.

You’re doing fine, Owl. They’ll be grateful for what you’re discovering.

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