Nightborn by C.S. Friedman

Author:C.S. Friedman [S., C. Friedman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000 Fiction / General
Publisher: Astra Publishing House
Published: 2023-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

The girls wouldn’t let him help move his stuff. They said the colony commander had better things to do than carry boxes from one pod to another, and by the way, if he ever referred to them as “girls” again they’d stick his head on a spike to scare off the fae-monsters. Fair enough.

They said they were worried that if he returned to the place where “Julian” had appeared, his memory of that event might be traumatic enough to conjure a new visitation. But he didn’t think that would happen. Something about that confrontation had emptied him, not of sorrow but of obsession. He had seen his son. He had been able to say to his son all the things he had ached to say, and in return had heard the words he most hungered to hear: I forgive you. Yes, intellectually he knew it was just an illusion created by an alien predator, but knowing that didn’t diminish the power of the moment or its effect on him. As Angie would say, the doppelganger served as a symbol of absolution for him, and as such it had served a purpose independent of its lethal intent.

But the trade would get him a bigger office, so what the hell.

He did an inspection tour of the various workshops instead. Most seemed to be doing well enough—the team leaders were clearly on top of things—but the mood in the tech shop was gloomy. Little wonder, given that three more devices had failed that morning. They’d set up a canopy so they could work outside, but even the crisp spring breeze couldn’t dispel the lingering miasma of despair. The guts of numerous lamps, batteries, and solar panels were laid out for techs to peruse as they struggled to find a damaged cord or corroded contact or some other specific component to blame, but most devices had simply stopped working. Like the difference between a living body and a corpse, it was not a structural issue but a functional one, and humans lacked the power to return the spark of life once it had fled.

Angie was in a group disassembling batteries. She looked up as Leo entered, nodded a greeting, and watched in silence as he looked over the various projects and listened to reports. When he turned to leave, she got up from her work and followed him out of the work area.

When he saw her he raised an eyebrow. “Is there a problem I missed? Or something else?”

“I have a request.”

“All right.” He stopped walking and folded his arms across his chest. “Let’s hear it.”

“I’d like permission to hang some warding sigils inside the palisade.”

He frowned. “Which in English means . . . ?”

“Symbols of protection inscribed on a plaque. We hang them inside the palisade to foster a sense of safety. Not on a conscious level, of course. But I believe I can design something that will help.”

He knew her background, so he didn’t dismiss the request as quickly as he might have otherwise.

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