Till Human Voices Wake Us by Mark Budz

Author:Mark Budz [MARK BUDZ]
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Science fiction, General, Fiction, Fiction - Science Fiction, Science Fiction - General, High Tech, Space Opera, Adventure, Space and time, American Science Fiction And Fantasy, Science Fiction - High Tech, Space travelers, Architects, Motorcycling accidents, Individual Architect, Architecture
ISBN: 9780553588514
Publisher: Spectra
Published: 2007-07-30T19:30:00+00:00

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It was late, after eleven. He hadn't seen Tenley in a while. Months. He couldn't remember exactly how many. For years they'd been more than friends, less than lovers. Perhaps they still were. That was the hope. That was what he needed to find out.

The one thing he wanted to know, more than anything else.

They'd had a fight. He couldn't remember about what.

Something stupid. It was always something small between them, some trivial quarrel about the garbage, unwashed plates in the sink, or dirty socks on the floor that intimated some deeper fault line. His pulse vibrated to the high-pitched whine of his Kawasaki. His underarms were oily, slick with fear that she wouldn't want to see him.

Not now. Not ever. Not after the way he had walked out. Did she still love him? Or had she moved on while he'd been scraping out the hopelessness that built up over time, like a heavy metal, in his system?

That was the question. He was racing to find out, taking the turns low and tight, a little too fast. Adrenaline-fueled. Trying to recapture lost time, make up for past mistakes, secure the future. Did he still care for her?

That was another fear. Another question he needed to confront and answer, head-on. Maybe he'd never loved her.

He must . . . he was going back. He needed her. Was that a kind of love? Or was it simply desperation?

Did she need him? Had she ever needed him? She must have, at one time. If he could convince her he was better, changed, she might again.

So many questions. Too many.

He had waited as long as he could, but agitation and uncertainty had finally caught up with him. He needed to know, one way or another, where they stood. And then he could rest. Then he could get better.

Trees rushed by. Sycamores, pine, and Chinese tallow reached for him with leafy fingers. Before they could touch him he was gone, one step ahead of the mounting dread that threatened to overtake him. Don't stop, he told himself. Don't think. Just go.

And keep going. Head down, knees clamped tight, eyes focused on the center line of the road. The pavement unfolded in front of him in waves, gullies and hills, peaks and valleys ripppling under the beam of the headlamp.

At some point, he no longer saw the road, or heard the scream of the engine, or felt the cool press of air against him. He was riding in a vacuum, cut free from space and time as he plummeted into the nebulous haze of the Opelika city lights a couple of miles ahead of him.

Falling. That's what he was doing. Into the gravity well of a diffuse sun. In the fall she would enter her first year of veterinary school at Auburn. She had always loved animals. Birds and cats were her favorite. She owned a parakeet named Campbell, and a cat named Ayane. Both hated him. He was better with dogs. But a dog needed more space than she had at the apartment.

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