Page 53 of The Brightness Between Us

I close my eyes tight, take a long breath in and let a long breath out. “I don’t want to play this game. Can we be quiet for a while?”

“Of course, of course,” he says. “We can do that.”

Food passes through my lips without taste or texture. I swallow it. I feed the organism.

A breeze carries across the plain from the south, the direction of the malevor herd. It lifts the light hairs along the back of my neck, with a touch gentler than that from any human. Minerva will always be here for me, no matter what I do.

There’s a new star in the sky tonight, off to the far left of Sky Cat. It’s brighter than a star, actually. Almost brighter than a planet. I know what it means. I say nothing about it. OS will notice, too, once Rover is back.

Blurred days. Labor and lost self. Twice Dad has to go find me during the Scorch, bring me under cover so my skin doesn’tburn. I’d been marveling at the wonder of our sister suns.

Then, as sunset is just beginning, Father and Owl return. They’re right on time. Dad pauses his work to watch for them, and hollers when their silhouettes appear at the horizon.

I go to the gate to join him as they approach. Owl waves her spear in the air in greeting, shouts across the wide Minervan sky. “Hello, family!”

“Hi, Owl,” Dad shouts back. He puts his arms around me. I startle and then go still. It should be easy to accept an embrace.

Their silhouettes resolve into human figures plus the sphere of Rover, hauling a tarp piled high with scrap minerals. “Looks like a nice amount,” Dad calls.

“It is,” Father shouts back. “I think we should have enough to finish the bunker shaft!”

“Excellent news,” Dad says. “Isn’t it, Yarrow?”

“Yes,” I whisper. They’re nearly at the distance the malevor was when the pneumatic guns shot it dead. Maybe ten seconds, and they’ll reach it. That poor creature, slain for not knowing how to behave.

Nine, eight, seven.

“Dad, I love you,” I say.

He looks at me. “That’s sweet. I love you, too.”

Four, three, two.

“I love Father and Owl, too.”

Fear enters Dad’s eyes. Extra white around his brown irises. “What’s going on, Yarrow?”

One.

The pneumatic guns on the fence whir and pivot.

Father, being Father, reacts with near instant reflexes. He sees the movement and hurls out an arm to push Owl back, striking her so hard in the chest that she sprawls in the dirt. I hear her outraged shriek even as I hear thepingof a bullet hitting Rover’s polycarb casing. More pings as bullets spray into the dirt at Father’s and Owl’s feet. If Father hadn’t stopped her, Owl would have been riddled with bullet holes by now. He probably memorized the radius of the guns, and is on the alert whenever they cross it. Father will not be easy to kill.

“OS, stop the guns!” Dad yells. He runs toward the gate, then thinks better of it and stays on our side. He continues to yell meaninglessly until his voice resolves into words. “Stop them!”

“That contradicts my new programming,” OS says. “I must shoot at any living being that tries to approach.”

“No, that’s incorrect!” Dad says. “You are not to shoot at any ofus, do you understand? Not at any humans.”

OS doesn’t pursue the tack any further. The guns tick as they try to push past their physical limits, so they can strike Father and Owl where they’re huddled on the soilwith Rover. Bullets continue to send up plumes of soil.

Dad has his hands up to either side of his face. “I don’t understand what’s going on. Yarrow, do you understand why the guns are firing on Father and Owl?”

“I do,” I say. I know I’ve done this. I don’t remember doing it, but it had to have been me.

“Make it stop,” Dad says, his voice suddenly cold.

“I think they’re okay,” I say. “They seem like they’re okay.”

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