Page 54 of The Brightness Between Us

“OS, I need you to disable the guns,” Dad calls.

“Yarrow, may I do that?” OS asks.

Dad gasps.

“No,” I say. “You may not.”

“Yarrow, what are you doing?” Dad shouts. “Just explain this to me, okay? I’m sure there’s some reason.”

“There is no reason,” I say. I reach behind me and pull the printed gun out from my waistband.

“What are you—” Dad starts to say.

But he can’t finish because I’ve shot him. Right in the gut.

He staggers backward, and I shoot him again. Two red blossoms on his tunic, spreading and merging.

Dad sits heavily, stares down at his own chest, shocked. Then he pitches into the dirt, striking it forehead first.

I told him the truth. There is no reason. I’m just doing what I’ve been told to do.

Part Four

EARTH

MARCH 4, 2473

KODIAK CELIUS

Chapter 1

From beside a ruined stone wall and under a pile of fallen thatch, a noise.

I crouch, hand reaching into my quiver before I’ve even processed what I’ve heard. The noise was a bleat. Bleats come from sheep. I don’t need to defend myself from a sheep.

For a long moment, all is still. The misting rain makes a hushed beating sound against the grass. Crows caw above an overgrown field. This farmstead is long ruined, chaotic old stone ceding to lichen and vines. Humans have been gone from this area for only three years, but this cottage must have been abandoned long before that. A victim of industrial agriculture rather than impending war.

Another bleat.

“Come, come, fallen one,” I say. I guess I’ve sung the words. They’re from a Dimokratía lullaby, and sprang to my mind after years of never hearing them. A long line of boys in the Celius orphanage, a nurse in starched gray walking down the row of cribs, singing to all of us, each of us happy to be sung to but longing to be held. I don’tremember any more of the lyrics, hum the music instead.

From the ruined doorway of the farmstead appear sweet and soft ears, a face and trembling black nostrils.

“Come, come, fallen one,” I repeat.

The sheep takes a step forward, evaluating me. It’s been raining all morning, the sort of Scottish rain that I don’t usually notice until my shirt is soaked through and clinging to my chest. I only realize it now because when the sheep winks one eye I see its long lashes are jeweled in water droplets.

My hand returns to my arrows. Not to shoot in self-defense anymore, but for the hunt. It has been months since I’ve eaten meat, and I ought not to let this opportunity pass. But, for the second time in so many minutes, my hand returns from the quiver without an arrow.

Last time I killed an animal, it was a mercy killing, a horse with a broken foreleg. I decided not to waste the meat, and still have a salted flank hanging beside my cabin, waiting for the harder times of winter. I’m relieved to see that this sheep has no blood matting its wool. There isn’t any pain in its bleat, just a longing for another being. I don’t need to kill it. Someday I’ll run out of canned lab protein out here. That day hasn’t come yet. I hold out my hand, empty. “Come, come, fallen one.”

With great effort, the sheep emerges from the thatch.

What she does have is wool. A lot of wool. Centuriesof artificial selection by humans have produced a creature that grows as much hair as possible as quickly as possible, counting on us to shear her before it’s an impediment. But now there are no farmers in this forbidden zone, and this sheep is fully twice as big as she should be, a sphere of wool trapped on the inside of the doorway.

She startles when I approach, and tries to back deeper into the ruined farmhouse. With the extra wool, though, she doesn’t have a chance. I’m upon her in two strides, then easily push her over. She rolls onto her puffy side, legs kicking. I lean hard on her. I’ve got a lot of body weight, but with all this substantial cushioning there is no risk of me injuring her. She might not even feel me.

There will be no using this wool. It reeks of rot and balled-up socks. She’s been growing this hair since Old Scotland was abandoned after the Fédération bombardment. It wriggles. There’s a whole ecosystem in there. I’ve seen the carcasses on the hillside. Her family succumbed to infestation long ago. Death by maggot is not a pleasant way to go.

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