Page 60 of The Brightness Between Us

Change the world.Sure. Typical Fédération self-importance. I keep silent, using the towel to idly rub the surface of the stove. It gives me no advantage to confirm what Ambrose just said. He could be lying about being sent by Devon, to trap me into agreeing.

Ambrose tries again. “Can I ask why you’re here? Not why you left Dimokratía, but why you chose Old Scotland?There are four EMP-dusted regions to pick from.”

That’s fair. I stare out the newly cleaned window for a while, considering my words. “It’s five regions, after Newfoundland in 2470. But to answer your question. In training, when we had breaks, I wouldn’t go with the other boys into the city. I would trek out as far as I could, to camp and to remember the stars. The universe, the place I wanted to disappear into. When the cosmology academy shuttered, I knew I had to go somewhere else, fast. Somewhere I couldn’t be found. This isolated wooded location was perfect. I like the plants that grow here.”

“Isolated—until you’re found by me. And a sheep,” Ambrose says. “Then that all goes out the window.”

“Let us start there. Howdidyou find me?”

Ambrose shifts uncomfortably on the floor. I must have hurt his buttocks during our fight—the pressure of the wood beneath him is clearly bothering him. “Devon Mujaba gave me a name and location—yourname and location. I was up on the Cusk launch satellite, made the elevator trip down, and used the credits on my sister’s onyx card to secure myself a black-market craft up here. One-way, unfortunately.” He pauses, then his eyes light with excitement. “Kodiak, I saw theCoordinated Endeavor. The spaceship our clones will share.”

That makes me curious. But I tamp the feeling down, renew my resolve to stick to my course. “And DevonMujaba?” I ask. “Why isn’t he here with you?”

The excitement falls. “He was arrested. As I was leaving.”

“Arrested,” I say. This means I won’t see him again. Whatever plan he had is gone with him. Or far worse—is getting tortured out of him. Along with our location. Shazyt.

“Kodiak?” Ambrose says. “Judging by your face, I’m going to assume that Devon Mujabadidsend you here. And that his being arrested changes something for you.”

“Idiot,” I say. “He’s an idiot. He risked everything and lost.”

Ambrose sputters. “Your clones and my clones are going to spend lifetimes together. It seems reasonable for us to meet. Devon tried to make it happen, and he succeeded. It’s a kindness.”

“Kindness? Please. He did not do this out of kindness. He did it to use our sudden fame to try to burn the world down. What do you think is happening to Devon Mujaba at this very moment?” I ask. “He’s not lazing around on house arrest, eating grapes.”

“Well, they’re not torturing him, if that’s what you’re implying,” Ambrose says. “That’s against the Fédération accords.”

“No, you have other ways,” I say. “All they have to do is scan his brain, and then start databasing the synaptic datain his neural maps so it becomes searchable.”

Ambrose nods heavily. “I know. And eventually, out of all those billions of thoughts and memories, they’ll isolate the coordinates that led me here. It’s a heavy load of data, and indexing is far trickier than simply copying one-to-one, like they did for you and me... but it can be managed. Which means we don’t have a lot of time.”

A pained silence fills the room. I look at my cabin. My home. Maybe Cusk and Fédération won’t root the coordinates out of Devon. Maybe the shift in mission plans has distracted everyone enough that they won’t care anymore about finding me. Maybe Devon Mujaba has been released to go play some concert. Maybe all these strangers will let me live in peace. Maybe.

Ambrose continues. “Do I smell tea leaves? Is that what that tin on the shelf by my head contains?” His mouth curves into an impish smile. “What if you unbound me, and I boiled us some water? Wouldn’t a cup of tea be nice? We are in Scotland, after all.”

I mutter, not quite making words. At some point in the past few minutes my subconscious decided that I’ll be freeing him. I don’t have time to be his jailer, for starters, and by now I believe he doesn’t mean me harm. Easier to have him moving around and available to help defend us, if Fédération authorities or Cusk corporate police could be on their way to us at this very moment.

I could make my own pot of tea, of course, but it would be a nice treat to have someone else do it. As I untie his wrists, Ambrose chuckles. “I know how to make coffee, too. Just want you to know that, in case that inspires you to leave me unbound.”

He rolls his wrists, then starts into motion. Ambrose doesn’t ask another question, just sets about filling my iron kettle from the water pail and setting it on the woodstove before turning to the teapot, using my wooden spoon to sift the tea tin before carefully spooning out a quantity of loose leaves. I watch him quietly. There’s something mesmerizingly competent about the process.

“Orange pekoe,” I say.

“Yes,” Ambrose responds. “Good choice. One of my favorites.”

There was an unexpected quaver in my own voice when I saidpekoe. I decide to shut up for a while, in the hope that Ambrose didn’t notice. Something about being in sudden company after all this time has made me soft. Or maybe I’ve changed irrevocably in these weeks of recovering from having my spacefarer dreams ripped away, and now I’m facing the proof of it. Maybe it took being an island for a few months to realize I don’t want to be an island forever. Bah.

“Clearly I haven’t hidden myself away as cleverly as I thought I had,” I say, saying my words slowly to be surethat my voice doesn’t break. “Since you know my location and my name. But if Dimokratía hasn’t come after me yet, I guess they have better things to do. Fédération, though... or the Cusk Corporation itself... wouldn’t they want their princelet back? Why have they let you come here?”

Ambrose studies the warming kettle. The water droplets underneath it sizzle. He clearly knows something that I don’t. “What?” I ask.

“Do you not know?”

“Not knowwhat?”

“The war.”

“The cold war?”

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