Page 4 of The Brightness Between Us

I tumble on the last stretch, rolling down the slope, microscopic spores puffing into the air around me. Up close, it becomes clear what I’m seeing. Bones.

I’ve seen bones in my learning reels, and in real life from dead malevors and that one time when Dad fell from a habitat roof and sheared off half his pinkie finger. I’ve broken bones, too, but they never punctured the skin, so generallyI have to imagine what they look like, like teeth but encased in muscle and blood and skin.

Here’s a complete rib cage, almost intact. Could it be Crane, whose body my parents buried far from the settlement after she got sick? But this skeleton is not human, and it’s not malevor. Horror prickles the back of my neck as I push away the loose soil to expose more. A spinal column branches out into... arms? No, or at least they’re not like any arms I’ve ever seen. These are broader and finer, and they don’t end with hands. The skeleton has feet, too... but no legs. I shiver. Long-boned feet, fragile toes ending in narrow points. The skull is long, light, broad-planed, ending in a sort of spade where a mouth should be. The whole thing is small, the size of Rover.

If it’s not human, and it’s not malevor, then it’s some sort of alien we haven’t seen before. My breathing turns shallow. This might be the most important thing I’ve ever found. New alien life. That lived in a pond.

Proof that this scouting isn’t unnecessary. That reckless, impulsive Owl is useful to the family after all.

I gingerly tap one of my fingers against the creature’s dreadful spade-mouth, then snap back, ready for, I don’t know, for it to infect and devour me, spring into motion and... I guess I don’t really know what. But the skeleton remains a skeleton. Inanimate like skeletons should be. I work my hands under it and shake, so the dry flakes ofsoil tumble away. My sack is far too small to carry it—I was figuring I’d find water today, not proof of new alien life—but I wrap the skeleton in the hem of my tunic and roll it up and over so it’s bunched at my waist, where I can tuck the bundle in my arm as I run. It means exposing my whole bottom half to the microfauna of Minerva—and my family, once I’m home—but it’s not like there’s anything down there that all of them haven’t seen many times before.

The skeleton is light, so light that I can barely feel any weight. I can keep the bundled fabric of my tunic together with just a pinch of two fingers, which is the only reason I’m able to get out of the pond bed as easily as I do. Then I’m speeding back toward home, spear in one hand and bundle awkwardly pinched in the other while I check the sky for signs that twilight is ending.

Little Sister is already halfway down the horizon, flushing the sky’s edge to the color of my inner lip. If I return via the same route, it will be hours until I make it home, long after Big Sister has set. The dads will be beside themselves with worry. That’s if I don’t fall into a pit and fail to get there at all; even the glowing creatures in the soil aren’t enough to light my way once the long night arrives. Thistle died in a pit in the dark.

Without losing speed, I consider my options. The way I figure it, I have three: I can continue the way I am, and arrive at night; I can camp out alone away from home forthe first time in my life, here in this place where aliens once lived (currently live?), and finish the trip at first light; or I can take the most direct path, which would get me home before the twilight is over... but only by bringing me through malevor territory in the process.

My hand gripping the spear turns slick as I make my decision. Malevor territory it is.

The malevors roam the felty hills to the south of the settlement, where the liquid water from Minerva’s occasional rains puddles on the slopes and microorganisms cluster in edible mats. Maybe elsewhere on Minerva the malevors are healthy and thriving, but here they barely get by—the herd numbers only nine. Those nine are really irritable, though... the four adult males have long, sharp horns, and charge any of us who get close.

We have a tenuous sort of peace: the malevors have learned not to get near the perimeter fence anymore, with its pneumatic guns that maim and kill. In return, we leave the territory south of the settlement to them. But because of my arcing route to the dried pond, the only direct route home is from the south.

“All this to get you back,” I say to the alien skeleton bundled in my tunic. “You’d better be worth it.”

The moment they come into view, I find the malevors are already alert to me. Even though I’m still a few hundred meters away, the females and their two calves are inthe center, while the horned males circle them, each one facing me.

“I’m not coming for your young,” I shout to them, in Fédération and then Dimokratía. Not that malevors speak any language I know.

I stand motionless on the hilltop, fingers flexing so hard on the spear that one of my knuckles makes a popping sound. I’m just wasting time, because I’m scared. Which is stupid of me. The light is almost gone. I need to buck up and get moving.

There’s Father, at the gate that we used this morning. He’s pacing back and forth, looking out to the west, the direction Yarrow would have told him I left from. My poor distraught father.

“I’m here!” I yell as hard as I can.

The malevors feint toward me, stop and stamp their hooves. Father cocks his head, as if uncertain whether he heard something.

“I’m over here!” I yell.

He faces my direction, his eyes widening.

I begin down the hill.

“Owl! No, stop!” he yells back.

But what is he going to tell me, to sleep out here? Is he going to put himself in danger, too, by coming out to rescue me? I’m not going to let Father risk his own life because of my recklessness. “Open the fence when I get there!” I cry.

Then I’m tripping down the hillside. The horned malevors grunt and growl, shift their weight, their shaggy gray hair trembling with each agitated movement. Yarrow and I have been taught all our lives to fear them. But maybe the dads have been exaggerating. I haven’tseena malevor attack anyone, after all.

“I’m not here to hurt your young,” I call as I go. If I can somehow convince them of that, I think I’ll be okay. I mean, their favorite meal is green goop—there’s no sign that they’d be interested in eating human flesh. But those horns have to be used for something.

A horrible thought crosses my mind as I run. What if this ultralight skeleton is some ancient enemy of theirs that they thought had gone extinct, and now I’ve brought it into their midst? What if they sense it, and attack me for it? What do I really know of life on Minerva?

It’s too late to turn back. The Sisters have almost disappeared, the final rays of twilight highlighting the terrain in shades of gray, deepening the shadows in between.

As the slope shallows out into muckland, the malevors stamp toward me. “No, no,” I say, shifting my path so I’ll stay even farther from their young.

I thought that I could avoid them. But they’re moving toward me.

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