Page 8 of The Brightness Between Us

Worst part is that Yarrow’s right, of course. I’ll try out this “I’m sorry” thing. Even though I’mnotsorry. Even if I am, I don’tneedto be. I’m justchoosingto be. They should be apologizing to me!

Hmm. Maybe I’m the problem.

I sit up, gritting my teeth against the pain in my lower back.

“I don’t advise sitting up right now,” OS says. “You heard what your father said.”

“Yes, and we both know that I’m not doing anything too dangerous,” I say. “I’m old enough that you should weigh my opinions equally alongside my fathers’. You don’t want to serve as referee around here, anyway. That’s no fun.”

Rover makes a little hop, tapping the hard earth expressively. “It is true, I would rather be a compatriot than an arbiter,” OS says.

“Amen,” I say.

“Amen?” OS asks. “Where did you pick up that vernacular?”

“Pink Lagoon, OS. Obviously.”

“Ah yes, in season three alone it appears in seconds 391 and 1,208 of episode one, seconds 1,006 and 2,601 of episode two—”

By now I’m on my feet. I hobble to the doorway and throw open the polycarb curtain.

Sky Cat is up there, the constellation with her perky ears and twinkling eyes and five whiskers. With a face like that, I know she’d be just fine with my going on expeditions.

I look for Father, but I don’t see him anywhere. He’s probably in the room behind the gray portal, one of thefew parts of theEndeavorthat haven’t yet slipped into the muck.

Rover ticks behind me for a few moments, probably in case I fall, then buzzes away across the hard soil of the settlement, off to prep dinner.

Yarrow is near the southern gate. He’s kneeling in front of a large slumping corpse, the malevor’s remaining horn spiking into the starry sky. Yarrow places his hands on the dead creature’s bloody forehead, gives it a long stroke.

I hobble over to him. I can’t decide what to say. Luckily I have time to figure it out, since I’m not moving very fast at the moment.

Yarrow glances up at me as I approach. “Owl, you’re awake!”

I stop a meter shy of him. “Yeah, I guess I lost some blood. But now I’m alert and all sanitized and stitched up. I’ll be fine.”

Yarrow returns his attention to the dead malevor. His eyes aren’t sad, not exactly. More like he’s acknowledging some primal and basic unfairness that’s old news at this point. That the universe has always been sad and he’s made it his work to notice.

“I know. He wasn’t trying to kill me, just defend his young. I’m really sorry I got him killed,” I say.

This is when Yarrow is supposed to say it’s not my fault, but he misses his line. “He looks so peaceful,” he says.

I look at the dead malevor. Or yak. The pneumatic gun ripped his body right open, exposing a mass of gore in his abdomen. His eyes are dull. “He does look calm,” I say. “So... is Father mad?”

“Yes and no. Not really mad. More scared,” Yarrow says. “Even if you felt like it was your right to go venturing off on your own, he would have felt it was his fault if you’d died.”

“Well, that’s crazy,” I say. “I did this to myself. It wouldn’t have been his fault. Parents are nuts.”

Yarrow chuckles. “It’s more accurate to sayourparents are nuts. We have a pretty small sample size. But, Owl... you can’t expect them not to get worked up about their kids being in danger. Not with the survival rate of children around here. Two out of seven. Tough odds.”

I gingerly sit on the earth next to Yarrow. “Ow, ow, ow. Crishet.”

“Want to go play in the Museum of Earth Civ?” Yarrow asks. “Would that make you feel better?”

“We’re not kids anymore,” I say. “Thanks, though.”

He runs his hand through his thick black hair. “Someday Father will let us look at actual reels of Earth, not just the science fiction reels on the ship. Then we’ll have more data for the ‘are our dads nuts’ project. And we can complete our Museum of Earth Civ. Make it into something actually special.”

Yarrow’s almost a year older than me, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like it. “I don’t know that we’ll have time to work on that museum again. And there’s no chance Father would turn back from his whole ‘fresh start’ fixation.” I drop my voice. “Where is he, by the way?”

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