Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald

Author:Ian McDonald [McDonald, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781616146788
Google: PTEDuwAACAAJ
Amazon: 1616146788
Publisher: Pyr
Published: 2012-09-04T07:00:00+00:00

He woke, bolt upright, instantly awake. Gasping, staring. What, where? A glance at his surroundings did little to ease his disorientation. He was in his own hammock, swinging gently in his tiny latty as the wind moved Everness at her mooring, but something wasn't right. A scream. He'd been awakened by a sound that had started as low whimpering before erupting into a full-throated shriek of fear and horror. For a moment Everett thought it had come from his own throat. No, he could hear breathless, fearful panting. It came from the latty next to his. Everett pulled on warm layers and went to rap a knuckle on the door.

“Sen.”

“What?”

“Are you all right?’

“Go way.”

“You're awake.”

“I's all right”

“I thought I heard—”

“I said, I's all right.”

Everett stood, forehead pressed against the nanocarbon. He felt the door being unbolted.

“No I's not.”

Sen had wrapped herself in the quilts from her hammock. She looked very small and pale in the dim cabin lights. Her eyes were wide and scared. Sen's latty was the usual mess of dumped clothing, discarded equipment, ropes and lines and pieces of paper with ideas for tarot cards. She clutched the precious deck in a hand like a claw. Her beloved bare-chested rugby players looked down from the posters tacked to the walls. Everett smelled stale air, girl sweat, underwashed bed sheets, strange musks, and Sen scents.

“What is it?” She looked tiny in the faint glow of the nightlights. Everett wanted to hug her to him, but he knew she would have hated that. She was so fierce, so defiant, so independent.

“I had a dream, right? Meese dream.” Sen shivered. And not because of the winter cold stealing from Everness's huge empty spaces into the warm little latty. “I don't want to go back in there, no no. I don't want to go back to sleep, not ever again, no. Come with me, Everett Singh. Sit with me. Keep me from sleeping.” She swept her quilt around her like a monarch's robes. Everett ducked into his latty to gather quilts from his bed and a little paper bag of his latest batch of semolina halva. With his signature dish of hot chocolate with a hint of chili heat, it never failed to lift Captain Anastasia's mood. It might do the same with her adopted daughter.

Sen led him down to the cargo deck. Everett's breath steamed. Condensation dripped from every rail and upright. Sen turned the dial on her wrist control. The loading platform lurched, then descended smoothly. The cold almost took Everett's breath away. The night was absolute, pure dark without a single light. The sky was clear, and it seemed to Everett, riding the platform down, that he was surrounded by a halo of stars. Sen stopped the platform.

“Come on, Everett Singh.” She sat on the edge, her legs dangling into the dark. She pulled the quilts and sheets tight around her. “Does you have a place, Everett Singh?”

“What do you mean?”

Sen patted the deck beside her. Everett sat down. He gingerly extended his legs over the gulf.

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