“I do not see how moving will be of much benefit to either of us,” Greymouth said.
More systems faded from my faceplate. What remained was a litany of dire warnings, and even those were faint and flickering. It seemed warmer than only a few moments before. Had the thermal regulation already failed?
“It won’t be of any benefit to us,” I said. “Not at all. But I’m thinking of those who come after us–those who’ll find us.”
“If they find us.”
“They will. I believe it. Call it an act of faith, whatever you wish. But this system’s too useful for either side to be left alone for long. They’ll come, and they’ll probe this atmosphere again, and they’ll find the floating mountains, and they’ll find traces that don’t belong. Metallic echoes, technological signatures. Two bodies. Greymouth and Battle-Mother.”
“Next to each other. Dead and gone. They will know nothing of our thoughts, nothing of what has passed between us.”
“They won’t need to.”
I moved my arm. It was sluggish, my suit barely responsive. I felt as if I was using all my own strength to fight the metal prison in which I lay. Only a few faint symbols remained on my faceplate. An ominous silence now filled my suit, where before there had been the labouring of the overloaded life-support system. It was done, expired. Each breath I took would be staler and warmer than the last.
Still I reached. I stretched.
“Greymouth,” I breathed.
“I am reaching. It is hard, Battle-Mother. So hard.”
“I know. But do it anyway. For both of us.”
“They will wonder why we did this.”
“Let them.”
I had almost nothing left to give. I have almost nothing. For a few moments I can still hold the chain of events in my head, can still remember what it was that brought me to this moment. The war, the battle, the flight, the shield, the decimation, the loss of my squadron, my ship, my crew, all my glorious children. I think that if I hold these things with enough clarity, some trace of them may escape me, some part of Greymouth’s story as well, and between us we might leave some imprint of our memories in the living glow of the rock.
But I cannot be sure, only that it is better to die with a good thought in one’s head than a bad one.
That is what I am thinking when Greymouth touches my hand, and my fingers close.
And we holdfast.
Nancy Kress is the author of thirty-three books, including twenty-six novels, four collections of short stories, and three books on writing. Her work has won six Nebulas, two Hugos, a Sturgeon, and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. Her most recent work is Tomorrow’s Kin (Tor, 2017), which, like much of her work, concerns genetic engineering. Kress’s fiction has been translated into Swedish, Danish, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Polish, Croatian, Chinese, Lithuanian, Romanian, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Russian, and Klingon, none of which she can read. In addition to writing, Kress often teaches at various venues around the country and abroad, including a visiting lectureship at the University of Leipzig and a recent writing class in Beijing. Kress lives in Seattle with her husband, writer Jack Skillingstead, and Cosette, the world’s most spoiled toy poodle.
EVERY HOUR OF LIGHT AND DARK
Nancy Kress
1668
Delft, shrouded in rain, was uniformly gray. Hunched against the cold and wet, the artist walked from Oude Langendijk along the canal to his patron’s house. Much as he hated this sort of occasion, inside the house would be warmth, food, wine. And quiet. His own house, crowded with children, was never quiet.
“You are welcome,” said his patron’s wife shyly as a servant took his cloak. “Pieter will be glad to see you.”
Johannes doubted that. This celebration was not about him, nor one of his paintings, nor even the newly acquired Maes painting being shown for the first time. This celebration was about the patron: his wealth, his taste, his power. Johannes smiled at his pretty wife, another acquisition, and passed into the first of many lavishly furnished rooms, all warm from good fires.
In this room hung one of his own paintings. Johannes glanced at it in passing, then stopped abruptly. His eyes widened. He took a candle from a table and held it close to the picture. Lady Sewing a Child’s Bonnet—he had painted it four years ago. Catharina had been the model. She sat, heavily pregnant, on a wooden chair, the light from an unseen window illuminating the top of her fair hair as she bent over her work. A broken toy lay at her feet, and what could be seen of her expression was somber. On the table beside her were her work basket, a glass of wine, and a pearl necklace, tossed carelessly as if she had thrown it off in discomfort, or despair. On the wall behind her was a painting-within-a-painting, van Honthorst’s Lute Player. The painstaking detail in the smaller picture, the hint of underpainted blue in Catharina’s burgundy-colored dress, the warm light on the whitewashed walls—how long it took to get that right!—all shone in the glow from Johannes’s candle.
But he had not made this painting.
Inch by inch, he examined it, ignoring guests who passed him, spoke to him. Lady Sewing a Child’s Bonnet was the most skillful forgery he had ever seen, but forgery it was. Did Pieter know? Presumably not, or the picture would not still be on the patron’s walls. How had it come there? Who had painted it? And—
What should Johannes do about this?
The decision came swiftly—he should do nothing. He owed money all over the city. He had hopes of Pieter’s commissioning another painting from him soon, perhaps tonight. The original could not have been switched with the forgery without Pieter’s consent, not in this well-guarded house, and Pieter would not welcome attention drawn to whatever
