in the firelight. Laughter ebbed, silence again held sway, save crack of knot in firewood.
Her gaze was tangible as it swept through oranged visibility. He felt but did not look, could not look, wanted to look. That sound of mouth opening, liquid sound of mouth opening, and he looked, saw that smile.
“Thinking too much?”
“Maybe.”
“About what?”
A blush concealed by night. “The new book.”
“What’s the little girl’s name?”
“Who?”
“The chocolate milk girl. What’s her name?”
“Don’t know yet.”
Hope sat up in bed, playfully shook his shoulders as she leaned over him. “You know, you bastard.” Hair swaying back, hair swaying forth. She took left hand and smoothed hair behind her ear in reflex gesture. “What is it?”
“Hope.”
She laughed, snuggled back down beside him. “My mother loves that name.”
“She has good taste.”
“I like the name Arianna. Ariel. Erica. Something like that.”
Such stillness in that room…The stillness between them. Sound muted, vision obscured, the only sensation the warmth of her body snuggled down next to him on a bed that was probably more expensive than his car had been, the faint smell of herbal shampoo,
Hope turned toward him, eyes blinked, faint wetness flickered from iris as if those eyes were made of the fire, of the silver. Glint of silver in a room shimmering crimson.
He closed his eyes, placed his hands on either side of her face, verifying the smoothness of skin with rough and scarred hands, bridging the terror of the distance. Not a kiss, not yet…A kiss would ruin something so beautiful. A kiss would break a heart, break a possibility. No kiss. Stillness. Forehead to forehead, cheek to cheek, tip of nose to tip of nose.
“Hope…” A whisper into the between.
That smile, that liquid signal of parted lips, that distance between shattered. Fighting no longer.
Reynald?
Eyes open to white ceiling, nurses, soldiers. Early morning contrast in sterile room. Arms restrained. Chest restrained. Legs
“Reynald?”
“Yes?”
“You’ve been requested.”
Nurse unfastening restraints, not meeting resistance. Reynald was too tired to resist, too horrified of his near future. Nurses lifted him out of bed, placed him on stretcher.
An angel walked into the room, stood over the old man.
“This is your Reynald?”
“He’s your Reynald now.”
The angel leaned down, pulled Reynald’s eyelids apart.
“Silver progress on target. Time to descend.”
Jean Reynald lay motionless, unblinking.
descending, floating free, ejected from the vessel, crushed and liquid, phased into
genetic material, trace of humanity in that void, in the only void, blood crystallized and shattering and
broken globe falling, enemy force barely pausing to investigate contents before striking out at the Teller, chasing it to
scrape
Windham’s blood, his flesh, unrecognizable, detectable only as human pattern, ice and black, dissolution
into the night
into the
fighting starlight
fighting
against the urge to pick up a piece of that sharp gravel, dig it into her wrists, tear it upward to her elbows, as she would have years ago, a confused, lonely young girl with glasses and frizzy hair.
The weapon had fully retracted into the ocean, but apparently the threat had not been eliminated. Warships tore through the sky, dainty little blackbirds, single-pilot slithers, great awkward lifting-bodies of the destroyers. Something was coming. Somethings were coming.
Helen looked at Hunter, who calmly stared into the sky. No tears.
“Mommy, we need to go.”
Helen nodded.
Hunter took his mother’s hand as she stood up. She picked him up, pausing for a brief moment to squeeze him in a weak embrace, frail form embracing frail form.
“You know where we have to go.”
“Hunter, I—”
He looked directly into her eyes, silver eyes of the catalyzed woman, windows into the soul of a race robbed of the ability to create daughters. And now, Helen’s only son had to leave.
“Don’t cry, Mommy.”
She nodded, feigned a smile. Holding Hunter tightly, she walked over gravel that lacerated more than her feet. The sky was becoming fire.
No stars in that expanse, but pinpoints of light nonetheless as the combat began over the planet. The fighting
starlight always has this effect on me.”
“Yeah.”
Complete understanding conveyed in that one word. That was just the kind of relationship they had, the kind of finishing each other’s sentences relationship that was not a relationship but it was, and it was something, for sure, especially under starlight, fighting starlight, trying to make sense of the indescribable nothing, the enormity of their unimportance.
The sun threatened to taint the horizon with pink, but for now, the ether was black with the white pinpoints of other systems, other stars, other planets. The moon was hiding.
“Do you believe?”
“In what?”
“Other worlds, aliens?”
“No.”
Hope regarded him with some disbelief. “You’re a science fiction author who doesn’t believe in aliens?”
“Nope.”
“What do you believe in, then?”
