Dusk Read Free Page B

tear moved down her cheek slightly as she turned. She
opened her mouth to speak, but then turned back to the window,
squeezing his hand even tighter.
    Darius had been looking through the window of
the conveyance lev. “Dada,” he asked, continuing to look toward
their destination—it was endearing that his son, as eloquent as he
could be for an eight year-old, had never grown out of that
particular moniker.
    “Yes Dari?” Cyrus continued to look out of
the window as well as the Land Dock grew in the distance. The
Mercury Six was moored to the massive platform. It would take them
to the Eros Slingshot where they would rendezvous with the larger
Paracelsus that would take them to Asha.
    A tumbleweed rolled away from the lev as it
sped down the track. “Miss Hasabe says a long, long time ago they
used to land the first space ships here.”
    “That’s right Dari. Five hundred years ago,
they would land a space ship they called the space shuttle here. It
was a military base then too, but not for the Uni.”
    Darius looked up at his father, his eyes
wide. He began to say something, stopped, looked outside at the sky
for a moment, and finally turned back again. “Will they have the
Damocles next to the Paracelsus at the Eros station, Dada?”
    “They haven’t built the Damocles yet,” Cyrus
said as Darius turned to face him. Something moved over the boy’s
face and it was as if those words alone carried the pain of how
long it would be before he would see his father again. He didn’t
cry, but the look of horror on his face was worse than tears. Cyrus
wanted to comfort him, but he could only find the words, “I’m
sorry, Darius.”
    Dr. Kalem saw Cyrus and Darius and moved
closer to them. Cyrus shook his hand and then pulled him in,
hugging him brusquely, “Take care of my family, old friend.” The
lines on Kalem’s face deepened, and his lips parted as if to say
something, but he only smiled and gripped Cyrus’s shoulders
tightly. When Kalem released him, Feralynn stepped between them,
agape with tears. Cyrus pulled her close as she sobbed and suddenly
felt the heaviness between them lifted. In that moment, it was just
the two of them, as they had been during their years at the
Arcology. Someone more inclined to melodrama would have described
the feeling as warmth, but even in that moment where the entire
universe was a small space that included only them, Cyrus knew that
warmth was no longer a part of their equation. The raw emotion
between them had no name, and it was too humble to be overwhelming,
but it filled the expanse that had grown between them for the last
eight years. And for a moment that seemed longer than the trip
Cyrus would soon embark on, he coveted the feeling of every
sensation of every gram of flesh where their bodies touched.
    As they embraced, the conveyance lev reached
the Dock. Feralynn pulled away from Cyrus, punched him rather
abruptly on his shoulder, and then turned away lowering her head.
Cyrus backed away slowly. He understood more of her mixed emotions
than maybe she did herself—enough to know nothing he could say in
the time they had left would change them. But he paused anyway,
almost apologized, but saved his words, turning to hug Darius one
more time. Cyrus almost convulsed as he felt the warm moisture
between their cheeks. Then he set his son down, turned as quickly
as he could, and walked down the jetway with some other scientists.
It felt as if he were walking through a swamp as he trudged toward
the airlock. He wanted to turn to get one more glance at his
family, but he pressed himself to keep moving toward the ship.
    Suddenly, there was a commotion behind him.
He heard a shout and then a shuffling, and as he turned, he saw a
soldier trying to restrain Darius. Darius flailed his elbows to
squirm out of the soldier’s grasp. The soldier moved his hand to
get a better grip and Darius twisted. The man only managed to grab
the collar of his jacket, and Darius spun out of it,