Authors: Brenda Cooper
Edge of Dark
Also by Brenda Cooper
The Creative Fire
The Diamond Deep
Published 2015 by Pyr®, an imprint of Prometheus Books
Edge of Dark
. Copyright © 2015 by Brenda Cooper. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopyÂing, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, exÂcept in the case of brief quotations emÂbodied in critical articles and reviews.
Cover design by Nicole Sommer-Lecht
Cover illustration by Stephan Martiniere
This is a work of fiction. Characters, organizations, products, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
Inquiries should be addressed to
Pyr
59 John Glenn Drive
Amherst, New York 14228
VOICE: 716â691â0133
FAX: 716â691â0137
19 18 17 16 15 Â Â Â Â 5 4 3 2 1
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Cooper, Brenda, 1960-
Edge of dark / Brenda Cooper.
pages cm. â (The glittering edge ; book 1)
ISBN 978-1-63388-050-4 (softcover) â ISBN 978-1-63388-051-1 (ebook)
1. Life on other planetsâFiction. 2. Interplanetary voyagesâFiction. I. Title.
PS3603.O5825E34 2015
813'.6âdc23
2014039322
Printed in the United States of America
Dedicated to:
Linda Gero Merkens
Gisele Peterson
This book is partly about friendship,
and these two women have been my friends for a very long time.
Contents
PART ONE
A PLANETARY DANGER
CHAPTER ONE
CHARLIE
Charlie Windar stood on his skimmer, knees slightly bent to absorb the small shocks of his speed. The pilot's seat acted like a brace. The engine fed silently on stored sunlight and pushed the craft so fast that the wind chapped Charlie's cheeks and stung water from his eyes. The forests of Goland went on and on below him, the first new leaves of spring opening out and shining bright yellow-green. Morning sun warmed his back and made diamond patterns on thin ribbons of water that tumbled over rocks and fell down the faces of cliffs.
A band on his wrist vibrated.
He slapped his arm, effectively turning on a whole universe of communication. “What is it?”
“Distress call.”
He sat down and flipped the skimmer to autopilot. “Give it to me.”
“Hold onto your anger.” Jean Paul Rosseau's familiar voice conveyed both worry and sarcasm in equal measures. “A family seems to have misplaced their teenagers.”
“Runaways?”
“Hard to tell. The parents smell like smugglers to me.”
Charlie pursed his lips, reflecting on the idiots who often ran through the way-too-loose planetary security on Lym to prove themselves against tooth and claw or hunt for treasure in some long-dead city. It did make him angryâit always made him angry. But Jean Paul was right. “Where are they?”
“The scared parents? About ten klicks from you. At the top of the Blue Canyons.”
“What do you know about the kids?”
“Three boys, red haired, all healthy. Twelve, fifteen, and sixteen.”
The worst ages of young male stupidity. “Used to gravity?”
“They say so.” Jean Paul sounded doubtful.
Charlie stood again and surveyed the trees below him, as if the kids would just pop up there and wave at him. “How long have they been missing?”
“A day and a half.”
“Shit.”
“Good luck. Be careful.”
“I'll let you know when I find the kids.” Sometimes he never even found bodies.
“I'll make myself a cup of stim,” Jean Paul promised. “Be right here for you, no matter how long it takes.”
“Thanks.” Charlie told the skimmer to fly lower and set up a search pattern. It would show him everything that was both breathing and bigger than a bird and even help him identify a human signature. Of course if the boys actually
had
died, it wouldn't help.
Raptors circled on rising columns of warming air. Two flocks of bright orange startles rose up just ahead of him. Charlie cursed when the skimmer hit one of the tiny birds, sending its body tumbling back into the thin canopy. Grazing angle-hops moved together, the big-eared herd looking up as the arrow-shaped shadow of the skimmer touched their clearing.
The computer showed him the bright heat of mammals and birds below the forest canopy as lights on his screen, color coded for species and movement. Tags embedded in larger animals declared that two were marsupials and one was a hunting cat stretched out on a tree-trunk as long as Charlie was tall. He catalogued the cat as interesting but kept his focus on looking for untagged humans.
The forest gave way to stony ground filled with short scrub trees and spiny grasses, a place where life depended on deep roots thrust into meager soil. The day heated, and life hid under rocks and roots. Sweat stuck his shirt to his back. The skimmer's trajectory turned again, still over the rocky plain. He admired the stark interplay of gray and black, shadow and rock, the occasional punctuation of pale green. Pale yellow flowers bloomed in the shade of rocks.
Twelve heat signatures blossomed onto the screen in front of him.
He drew his gun, started the familiar, fluid motion of his safety checks.
An audible beep signaled a living human. Then another. He listened for the third.
Nothing.
That left ten tongats: four-legged pack predators half the height of a man. He was close enough to see details. The hair on their spines stood up and their ears pricked forward and back. Most crouched low, shoulders hunched, ready to spring. The biggest and blackest of the beasts circled the pack at a lope. The pack surrounded a small hill of jumbled rocks just clear of a scraggly tree line.
One boy knelt on top of the highest rock. He held a gun pointed at the closest tongat, but he wasn't firing. A second boy stood behind him, scanning the horizon. Jean Paul hadn't been kidding about the red hairâthey might as well have worn fire for hats.
Only two.
Charlie glanced down and verified that his gun was fully charged: four lights blinking green for ready. His right foot signaled the skimmer to pick up speed. He stood again, searching for the third teen.
The kneeling boy fired and one of the tongats yelped. None fell.
The standing boy turned in circles, his attention so completely on the predators that he hadn't yet noticed Charlie. The bottom of his shirt had been torn off, and his exposed skin had brightened to a sunburnt red.
To frightened boys, the attacking beasts would be big and fast and scary, maybe the scariest thing they had ever seen. Other fears would plague them as well. The open sky above them, the horizon. Everything would look wrong. No one born in space came here prepared for a place with almost no walls.
Ships were big flying coffins and the pictures he'd seen of space stations looked like planets turned inside out and robbed of their horizons.
Charlie felt sorry for the boys, if not for the parents. He squeezed the gun handle, his palm print and the pressure of it identifying him to the weapon. He was ready.
He came in close, slowing the skimmer and starting a wide circle around the boy's location.
A few of the tongats looked up, recognizing him as a threat. He fired at the big black one first, grimacing as he hit it. The animal stumbled but kept going. He ignored it for the moment, using a single shot to bring down the one closest to the boys.
It took four slow revolutions of his skimmer before the last tongat fell.
The boy still pointed his weapon at them.
Charlie turned on his loudspeaker. “Put your gun down.”
The boy fired. The body of the animal closest to him jerked.
“Now.”
The boy glanced up and hesitated, and for a moment it appeared he wouldn't obey. Then he laid his weapon down and stood up. In a delayed reaction, he began to wave his hands above his head in a “look at me” gesture.