The Ariums of Earth by E.M. Rensing

Author:E.M. Rensing
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: E.M. Rensing

The dreams got vivid.

No longer just impressions.

A few sevendays after Christmas, when Bea had finally started sleeping longer stretches, the night before they were due into the Hawaiian Islands, Tharsis closed her eyes, only to find herself walking up that dock again.

Walking.

No.

Standing. On the yacht’s deck. Sun setting in front of her.

“Good to see you again,” the Flet said.

“Where are you?” she asked.

The deck fled.

In its place, a beach stretched out around her, tight and circular in a punch bowl of dark lava rock. It was just beginning to rain. There was a dog, howling.

She was on the deck, a pause in the snow revealing the inky black sky above.

Tharsis closed her eyes, willing the slips to stop.

The sound of the crashing surf was closer. She wondered if it was a storm, if the Vastitas Reach was sailing into rough seas again. She desperately tried to wake herself up.

The Flet, Tom, standing against the sunset, just smiled at her. Apologetic.

“I can’t control it,” he said. “That’s the entire problem.”

“So what the hell am I supposed to do about it?” she snapped back. “Tell me where you are, and I’ll get there.”

Ignoring the question, he nodded across the dark waters of the bay. “Do you hear it?” he asked. “The screaming?”

The next thing that made any sense was breakfast.

Bea, whining for her bottle.

Hash browns, growing cold on the table in front of her.

She was in the galley. And she had no idea how she’d gotten there.

Tharsis held on to the baby and clamped a hand over her heart. Anxiety was beating at her ribs. Anxiety, and fear, and not a little anger.

Unlike a Jovian, Tharsis hadn’t been raised to consider the members of Tenancy as demigods. Unlike a Cronuan, she hadn’t been raised to respect them. If anything, it was an Arran privilege to hate them.

Fucking Landlords.

But the Flet had saved her life. More than once, maybe.

After getting her bearings back, Bea in her arms, Tharsis walked up to the giant map of the ocean, plastered to the galley wall. Their route out of Singapore was mapped out there, little pins with paper flags attached to them, designating islands or important dive sites, the dates they were there. The last had just been put up this morning. December whalefall.

Between their present location and Hawaii, three weeks hence, there was almost nothing. A few volcanic islands. Something indicated as the Great Plastic Float. But not much beside that. And after Hawaii, she understood, their route would take them to the western shores of North America. Nothing at all between Hawaii and there.

She was running out of ocean, and she was running out of time.

It was beyond frustrating. Why wouldn’t the Flet just tell her where he was?

Bea made one of those soft little grunting noises of hers and settled into Tharsis’s shoulder. One little hand grabbed at the short hairs on the back of the Arran’s neck. It was sweet, artless.

Tharsis patted the girl’s back, swaying a little, eyes on the map.

A dangerous thought forming.

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