Edge of Dark Read Free Page A

bet. I’m bringing the kids in.”
    It took thirty minutes to bundle the body and the two living kids into the skimmer. “I don’t have helmets that fit you,” he told them. “You’ll have to close your eyes when we go fast.”
    â€œOkay.”
    Even though they weren’t moving fast yet, Sam had his eyes closed when he said, “The rakuls might be big enough.”
    â€œBig enough for what?” Charlie asked him as he stepped on the gas a little, sending the skimmer lurching lightly forward.
    â€œBig enough to stop the ice pirates.”
    Charlie blinked. “Probably not. Hard for flesh to stand up to machines. But the ice pirates can’t get here. We’re way inside the Ring.”
    â€œPirates have been coming inside the Ring. More than usual.”
    Charlie stiffened. “Who told you that?”
    â€œMy dad.”
    â€œWas he trying to scare you?”
    Sam was quiet for a long time. Eventually he said, “No. I think he was scared.”

CHAPTER TWO
    NONA
    The room reeked of antiseptic and medication, the sharp scents fighting the thick flowery smell of lilies. It was enough to make someone sick. Nona coughed. The miasma of smells clotting her throat felt like death. Death was close—very close. Her mother Marcelle’s skin had gone the white of the nurse’s uniforms, so thin that spidery veins latticed her cheeks and ran in red threads along the pale line of her neck. Her body had thinned too; she could be a child huddled under the soft blue throw.
    Nona and her mom had spent so many years being confused one for the other that Marcelle’s fall into old age seemed impossible, like a bad dream Nona would wake from any moment. She checked the small mirror above the sink from time to time, as if she needed confirmation that the horror happening to her mother wasn’t happening to her. Her own skin was still taut with youth. Her blue eyes matched the blue streaks in her hair, which hung heavy and limp in the medical air.
    It hurt to see her mom so weak. Marcelle had been a warrior once, a lieutenant in Ruby Martin’s army. She had fought in an insurrection long before she came home here to the station the Diamond Deep. She had even fought ice pirates as The Creative Fire came home after generations in space. She had fought disease and illiteracy and every unfair thing she ever came across. But for Marcelle, for everyone who was born on the spaceship, the fucking unfair cheat of old age had stolen their lives. That was the only way she could think of it—all of the people she loved the most in the world, all of her family, gone or almost gone. Doddering. Forgetful. Trapped in robotic chairs.
    Old age sucked.
    Nona had been the first person from The Creative Fire to be born here on the Deep and given the cocktails of life. A month or two either way, a tiny change in the priorities of the returning crew from the Deep, a little less financial success on the part of Ruby the Red, and Nona would be age-spotted and weak by now.
    She hated death. Not only her own death, but all death. She’d lost her father the year before, and the pain of Onor’s passing was so deep that this loss—this final loss—couldn’t hurt her more. Not really. It couldn’t.
    A nurse brought in another vase full of flowers—blue roses this time. An impossible color that had to be engineered—so bright Nona thought they might glow if the lights of the medical monitors ever went off and let the room be truly dark. At least the roses didn’t smell as strong as the lilies. “From Satyana,” the nurse mumbled.
    â€œThanks.” After the door closed again, Nona whispered to her mom. “Are you awake?”
    No movement. Just the slightly rasping sounds of thin and labored breath.
    â€œSatyana sent you flowers. They’re exactly the color of her eyes.” She took her mother’s hand. “I’m going to miss