Star's End by Cassandra Rose Clarke

Author:Cassandra Rose Clarke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Saga Press

NOW

Amana at night was like a fever dream of the inside of the human body. It was a circulatory system of light. Esme watched those veins of illumination from the window of the shuttle as it descended over Santos. She hadn’t been there in years. There wasn’t much Genetics work in Amana. It was almost all propaganda. Psychology. Actual Psych work, not the cover her father had used when he was doing his work on Isabel.

The shuttle touched down at the Coromina landing pad, just outside the city limits. Esme was the only person aboard aside from the flight staff, and they smiled at her as she disembarked, wishing her good business and congratulations on her promotion. They wouldn’t know about her shutting down weapons manufacture. That announcement hadn’t yet been made public.

A company car waited for her at the end of the landing pad, the driver standing beside it with his hands tucked behind his back. He greeted her with a bland, polite “Good morning, Ms. Coromina.” She had to do the calculations to see that he was right: it was three o’clock in the morning, Amanan time.

“Would you like to go straight to the enclave?” he asked, opening the door for her. “Your house has been prepared for you.”

Esme hesitated. As much as she wanted to get this whole awful business over with, she doubted it would do much for her cause if she showed up at Adrienne’s house so late—no, so early, here.

“Yes, that would be fine.”

She climbed into the car and they sped off into the brilliant darkness of Santos. Esme pressed her forehead against the window, the glass cold against her skin. Santos was farther north than the main Coromina Group campus, more temperate than tropical, and the night was cool and breezy.

The car moved so fast through the abandoned streets that all Esme could see of Amana was a blur of light. It made her motion sick. She closed her eyes and imagined tomorrow’s scene.

I chime the bell. Adrienne answers. She slams the door in my face.

I chime the bell. Adrienne answers. She reminds me that I betrayed our sister, and then she slams the door in my face.

Esme sighed. She couldn’t imagine any situation in which this would work.

The enclave loomed out of the darkness, the streets as twisted and confusing as the enclave on Ekkeko. The car had slowed enough that Esme could make out the houses in the pools of bone-colored streetlights. Squat and nondescript, just like the houses in her enclave at home, although these were built of brick and not teak and sea stone.

Her temporary house was just as squat and nondescript as all the others, low-slung and sunken into the ground. The driver led Esme up to the front door, dragging her suitcase behind him. He produced a key and handed it to her with a quick bow. “So you may come and go as you please, Ms. Coromina. A shuttle runs every fifteen minutes during the day to take you to the campus or into the shopping district, if you need anything.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.