The Shoreless Sea: Liminal Sky: Ariadne Cycle, #3

By J. Scott Coatsworth

The fight for the future isn't over yet. It could lead to a new beginning, or it might spell the end for the last vestiges of humankind.

The generation ship Forever has left Earth behind, but a piece of the old civilization lives on in the Inthworld—a virtual realm that retains memories of Earth's technological wonders and vices. Lilith leads the uprising, and if she sets its inhabitants free, they could destroy Forever.

But during the ship's long voyage, humanity has evolved. Liminals with the ability to connect with the world mind and the Inthworld provide a glimmer of hope as they face not only Lilith's minions, but the mistrust of their own kind as homotypicals fear what they can't understand.

The invasion must be stopped, the Inthworld healed, sothe people of Forever can let go of their past and embrace their future.

"WOW!... The Shoreless Sea is a very satisfying conclusion to an epic three novel series featuring good hard science fiction, realistic world building, credible character development and interactions, all woven together in a compelling story.." --Two Gay Geeks

• Language: English
• Publisher: Other Worlds Ink
• Release date: May 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201315535

J. Scott Coatsworth

Scott lives with his husband Mark in a yellow bungalow in Sacramento. He was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were.He decided that if there weren’t queer characters in his favorite genres, he would remake them to his own ends.A Rainbow Award winning author, he runs Queer Sci Fi, QueeRomance Ink, and Other Worlds Ink with Mark, sites that celebrate fiction reflecting queer reality, and is a full member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

Book preview

Principal Characters (Glossary at End)

Aine (varies): The combined consciousnesses of Andy and Shandra in the world mind

Andrissa Andy Hammond (she/her): Daughter of Aaron Hammond

Belynn Hammond-Clarke (she/her): Andy and Shandra’s daughter

Castillian Cast Drake (he/him): One of the ints in Fargo

Dax Weston (he/him): Latent Liminal who becomes Kiryn’s boyfriend

Destiny Sleet (se/ser): One of Eddy’s wards, nonbinary

Eddy Tremaine(he/him): Former military (NAU Marine Corps), formerly Evalyne

Gordon Gordy Mattson (Astin) (he/him): Kid who worked for the Red Badge in New York City

Kiryn Hammond-Clarke (he/him): Andy and Shandra’s son; deaf, has special abilities

Lilith Lott (Jerriah) (she/her): Head of the Red Badge in New York, later was transferred into a biomind

Marissa (she/her): One of the oldest of the Liminal kids

Matthew (Matt) Dale (he/him): Marissa’s husband

Santiago Ortiz (aka Santi) (he/him): Sherriff’s deputy in Micavery, son of Dana Ortiz

Sean Hammond (he/him): Aaron and Keera’s second child and Andy’s brother

Shandra Clarke (she/her): Andy’s wife

Skate (he/him): Thierry’s friend

Thierry Basel (he/him): Thief in Darlith with Liminal abilities

Part I

Signal

2207 AD

Micavery Map

Prologue

Can anyone hear me?

Gordon Mattson perched atop the tallest building in New York, once the pride of the city, and looked up at the stars.

Below, the streets belonged to the sea. Schools of tuna swam up Fifth Avenue, and sharks patrolled the dark waters where new reefs were taking root.

Is anyone out there?

There had to be more to life than this. The endless loops had been bad enough. He remembered when he’d first realized he was living the same life over. When Jacky had come….

But now the fires….

The flames burned endlessly on the horizon, sending up acrid smoke. Sometimes it would drift over the city, and those it touched would simply disappear.

The world was ending. He knew it in his bones. Even so, life in the drowned city went on, as dead as the old dame herself.

Above, the stars sparkled.

Up there, there was something more. Something greater than this sad little bit of Old Earth.

There had to be.

Halfway across the Old City, the roof of one of the superscrapers glowed with an eldritch green glow.

It grew in intensity until it burst with a great white light, bathing the whole city with the brightness of midday sunlight for an instant.

Then it was gone.

As his eyes adjusted once again to the darkness, something ascended toward the stars.

It meant something. He was sure of it. If he could only figure out what.

He knew one thing for sure. One day he, Gordon Hawk, would find his way off this desolate dirtball. He’d find a way to go up there.

He clambered down the side of the building, using the assortment of ropes and hand- and footholds added over the years by the city’s remaining denizens.

He’d marked in his mind where the glow had come from. He knew this city like the back of his hand.

He would get there before the next night and find out what it meant. Maybe it would offer him a way out.

A bigger destiny awaited him. He was sure of it.

---

Andy soared above her world on the wings of an albatross, riding the slipstream beneath the glowing light of the spindle.

Below, the curve of the world stretched up and around her, wrapping over the spindle to touch again somewhere above her head.

It was midafternoon, and the plants of Forever far below were aglow too—the golden light of the open plains and the greenish glow of copses of trees and orchards. She flew past the new sea being formed near the North Pole, purified water extracted from a snagged comet in the Kuiper Belt slowly filling it up. One day it would be both a resource and a formidable barrier to the human inhabitants of Forever, a small ocean that wrapped all the way around the world.

Barriers were a necessary part of any human society and ecosystem.

Past the lowlands, she flew over Thyre—formerly the Eyre—a small but bustling community that sat at the end of the highlands where the Rhyl dropped down a high black cliff to the lowlands and then out to sea.

She wondered for the thousandth time if Lanya had been right to limit access to the world mind. Somewhere far below, at the Eyre Estate, the human Andy knelt beside a red berry vine, laying in fertilizer to encourage the plant to keep producing the Estate’s prized berries.

Andy thought about reaching out to her doppelgänger, about having that conversation for the umpteenth time. But she decided to leave it alone.

Instead, she let the beautiful bird go on its way.

The albatross had been created with an affinity for her and her kind. Once called the Immortals, Andy and Shandra had instead taken to calling themselves the Caretakers. Events had proven how unimmortal their kind was, though in theory they could long outlive their human kin.

She’d had an uneasy feeling for weeks. A sense that something was off. Wrong.

She had tried to seek it out, in the world mind and in the world at large, but nothing had presented itself.

She returned to her own virtual garden, where the sun was always in the sky, the rain came every hour, and her red berry vines were the picture of perfection. The privileges of a virtual life.

Thought I’d find you here. Shandra sounded uncertain, as if she wasn’t welcome in Andy’s garden.

Yeah, I was just thinking about Andy.

"You’re Andy."

You know what I mean. Andy reached out to touch one of the velvety red leaves of the closest red berry vine. She and Shandra had avoided the trap of becoming too close—of literally becoming the same entity—as Ana and Lex had eventually done. Maybe it was because they had already spent so much time together in their previous lives and had developed a fine balance.

Sometimes, though, that balance felt more like a yawning chasm between them.

You okay?

I’m scared. Andy looked down at her hands. They were every bit as real as they had been—as they still were—for real Andy. But sometimes she felt counterfeit and lost.

Shandra put a hand on her shoulder. "Whatever it is—if it’s anything at all—we’ll face it together."

It was the first time Shandra had reached out to her in months, literally or figuratively.

Andy turned to her and held out her arms, and they merged.

They mingled their essences, sharing an intimacy that had never been possible for their Forever-bound counterparts, and their thoughts mingled too.

I’m scared don’t be I’m here what if things are never easy but we can handle them together sometimes I just need you I know.

They separated, and Andy took Shandra’s face in her hands and kissed her gently. I still need you.

I need you too.

Andy reached down to take Shandra’s hand. Walk with me for a few minutes?

I’d like that.

Andy sighed and let go of her anxious fear.

Together, they wandered through the vines, tasting the ripening berries.

For now, this was enough.

1

Voice

Kiryn Hammond-Clarke floated in the darkness of space, stars he’d never seen in person twinkling against the velvety black depths.

The voice came to him from out of nowhere. Can anyone hear me?

In his dreams, he could hear. Like when Belynn let him ride in her mind.

The voice repeated, sounding stretched and thin. Is anyone out there?

In the distance, a single star glowed brighter than all the others, though it was still just a small golden dot.

Kiryn reached out toward the light, his hand naked to the cold of the void.

Ice crystals formed on his arm, hardening it in place. The cold reached into his bones like knives of frozen glass. It raced up his bicep, the burning cold fire of the void.

He snatched back his arm, but he was too late. The freezing grip reached his heart, and he screamed silently—

Kiryn awoke with a start, sitting up in bed in his dorm room drenched with sweat. He ran his hands through his dark hair, letting them come to rest clasped behind his head.

First Light flashed past in the trees outside his window, brightening up the room.

The world was utterly silent.

The silence, his constant companion since birth, was particularly soothing after his rude awakening. It wrapped itself around him like a blanket, a suit of armor, a barrier between him and the hustle and bustle of the outside world.

Between him and emotion.

He held his arm out for inspection, half expecting it to be blackened by the void. Instead, it looked perfectly normal. Warm and tan, halfway between his mothers’ sepia and white skin tones.

He shivered at the memory.

The bed moved under him, and his date from the night before sat up, his mouth moving soundlessly.

The man was handsome, a Thyrean sent to the university at Micavery for his higher schooling—long limbs, blond hair shaved short, warm brown eyes.

His name was Dax. Or Zack. Or something.

Kiryn’s lipreading was decent, but he hadn’t bothered to spend too much time learning this one’s name. Dax or Zack hadn’t seemed to mind much.

Kiryn pointed at his ear and shook his head.

The man’s mouth closed, and he blushed. Sorry. I forgot.

That one was easy enough to read.

He grabbed the piece of cotton paper and a pencil Kiryn kept at his bedside just for that purpose and scribbled something out longhand, then handed it over to him.

It’s Dax. And are you okay?

Kiryn stared at him. Did you just read my mind? Maybe there was a little Liminal in him. He laughed, wondering not for the first time what it sounded like from the outside. It felt clunky and awkward on the inside.

He sighed and took the paper and pencil.

Dax’s hand lingered over his for an extra second before letting go.

Bad dream. Class in fifteen minutes. He hesitated, then scribbled, Dinner?

Dax took the paper, and a grin lit up his face. His eager nod needed no translation. I work at the hatchery until six. Meet me there?

Kiryn nodded and grinned.

Dax slipped out of bed and pulled on his trousers and white shirt, the V-neck showing off his chest to perfection.

Kiryn sat back with his hands behind his head, admiring the view.

He leaned over, kissed Kiryn on the cheek, and mouthed, See you.

When Dax left, Kiryn grabbed a change of clothes and headed down the hall to the dorm bathroom. He hopped into the shower, using the aromatic red berry soap bar his mom and mamma had sent him from the Estate. The smell transported him, and he closed his eyes and imagined himself standing among the long, even rows of red berry vines that arched across the hillsides.

His parents worried about him, out here alone, but it was Andy who had insisted he go.

When Kiryn had been born congenitally and profoundly deaf, Andy and Shandra had learned sign language from the world mind in vee.

There were so few other deaf people in Forever. So few like him.

The day before he was set to leave for university, to catch the public wagon headed for Darlith and then Micavery, he’d had a huge panic attack.

His parents had sat him down along with his sister, Belynn.

---

I’m scared. Why do I have to go away? He was fidgeting, nervous.

"You have to go. There’s nothing here for you." Andy indicated the Estate, where the family had built a thriving agricultural business on the backs of Trip’s and Colin’s earlier work.

"You’re here." His hands signed it while his knee bounced up and down.

Andy shook her head. This is our place. You need to go.

He flushed. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was such a burden.

"No." That was emphatic. That’s not what I meant. We don’t want you to get trapped here, working on the Estate for the rest of your life. There’s a whole world out there for you to explore. She looked up at Shandra, who nodded.

I’ll go with him, Belynn said and signed it at the same time, but he could hear her inside his head too.

Mom could do that, too, of course, but she had to touch him to do it.

You’re not ready. Shandra glared at Belynn and shook her head.

I’ve been with Kiryn in every vee class since I was born. I’m only two years younger than he is. Let me go with him to help.

Kiryn frowned. He wasn’t sure he wanted his little sister tagging along after him, cramping his style. If he decided to go.

Belynn’s hand found his, palm to palm, and he could feel her emotions. We can take care of each other. That thought was private, just for him, inside his head.

Maybe so.

Andy looked at Shandra. They could take care of each other. She echoed Belynn’s thought and touched Shandra’s hand. Something passed between them.

Shandra looked at him and then at Belynn, uncertainty clear on her face. We could… try it.

Belynn squeezed his hand. Yes!

For a semester. Andy kissed Shandra on the forehead.

Kiryn thought about it. It would be nice to have someone close by, just in case. Someone who really knew him. Okay. And it would be a lot less scary.

---

Now he was here, and Belynn wouldn’t be far behind.

Where are you, big brother? Belynn’s insistent voice.

I’ll be back in a minute. He pulled the towel from its wooden peg, dried off his hair and shoulders.

A couple of the other guys in the dorm, Stave and Trevor, waved on their way to their own showers. Cute as hell, but straighter than the old antenna on Micavery’s village green. Well, except when Stave got drunk on red berry wine….

Kiryn grinned. He pulled on his trousers and shirt and padded back to his room. Belynn was waiting for him on his bed. How did you get in? he signed.

They touched palms, the emotions flowing between them and synching.

Easy. Aric at the front desk is a sucker for a pretty girl.

"Like I said, how did you get in?"

She stuck out her tongue at him. Come on. We’re going to be late. She tugged him off the bed, and Kiryn barely had time to grab his carry sack before she had him out the door and down the hall.

---

Belynn pulled her brother out into the bright daylight. The golden light from the spindle high above filtered down to mingle with the light of the great mallowood trees that towered over the dormitory building. The dorms were some of the oldest structures in Micavery, originally erected to house the first colonists.

Her own grandfather, Aaron, had lived in one of them for a while.

She loved history. At least when her head wasn’t pounding like horse hooves along the cobblestone streets of Darlith. Damn you, apple wine. She’d only had a little. Just enough to take the edge off.

Kiryn pulled her to a halt. Why are we in such a hurry?

Belynn had learned to sign with her brother as soon as she could move her hands. It came to her as easily as breathing. Sending to him was harder. Although he was a Liminal like she was, he’d been born without the gifts that most Liminals took for granted, including the ability to talk with one another through the world mind, and her own ability was extremely limited. She could talk to him in his head, but it took some effort. Because Della Deveaux is going to be there, and I want a good seat.

He laughed. Why didn’t you just say so?

She loved his laugh. It was dorky and adorable.

They ran down the pathway to the Schoolhouse, a round three-story brick building surrounded by grass and trees. A steady stream of traffic was flowing toward the entrance. She’s going to talk about Old Earth.

Okay, okay. But you don’t need to…. The rest of whatever he said was lost in the press of the crowd.

They funneled under the stone archway, under the From Many, One inscription, and down the wide central hall that led to the auditorium. The crowd twittered, jostling elbows in the packed hallway.

Do you really think there was an Old Earth?

Mamma said she came from there.

My da says it’s all a myth. That we were born here. He says the whole thing’s a lie they made up to keep us from doing what we really want.

She funneled a little of the clamor and errant bits of conversation to Kiryn, and he grinned at her, though he frowned at that last one.

She’d asked him once what it was like to be deaf.

He’d looked up at her with his hazel eyes, inherited from Shandra. I don’t know. It’s just… me.

Still, she knew he enjoyed the occasional glimpses she passed on to him from the way she experienced things.

The pounding in her head had diminished, but she still winced as the heavy mallowood doors to the auditorium were thrown open to let the throng in.

She looked longingly at the empty places along the front of the audience and glanced back at Kiryn.

Go, he signed, and she grinned and bounded down the stairs and over a couple of seated students to reach them before anyone else.

Belynn sat and shrugged off her carry sack onto the space next to her to save it for Kiryn. He arrived a minute later and dropped onto the bench.

They sat together, and she watched the stage eagerly.

The Schoolhouse was only ten years old—more than half her lifetime, but still new enough to be imbued with a sense of hope and the future to come. It was a far cry from the Schoolhouse Mom and Mamma had described to them when they were little.

The auditorium took up the back half of the ground floor, dug into the ground to provide tiered bench seating. The walls were rough dark-stained mallowood, angled for the best acoustic affect, and the stage was planked with polished mallowood, its variegated red-and-gold tones marking a beautiful contrast to the somber black curtains that blocked off whatever lay behind at the moment.

Kiryn nudged her.

What?

Were you drinking again last night? He frowned, his brow furrowed.

Just a little. It’s college. Everybody drinks.

He shook his head. Not everyone.

Leave me alone. I know when to stop. You’re not my keeper.

No. You’re mine. He crossed his arms and turned away.

She knew there were times that Kiryn didn’t want her there. When he wished he could sleep his way through the whole college campus—at least the pan, bi, and gay parts—without having his little sister hanging around.

It was a bitter pill for her to swallow.

She started to apologize, but the curtains opened and the auditorium went silent.

She signed, Sorry, but he didn’t see, or maybe didn’t want to see.

Belynn sighed.

A woman dressed all in black strode onto the stage, wearing a cape with a wide hood covering her face.

She stood at center stage, her hands on her hips, and stared out at the crowd.

A hush spread through the auditorium as she made her presence felt.

An icy cold seized Belynn’s chest, and her heart beat faster, an adrenaline surge racing through her system.

Imagine. The figure’s hand rose, pointing toward the ceiling of the auditorium. A world where buildings rise higher than the tallest mountain on Forever.

Belynn closed her eyes. She could almost see it. Still, her heart raced. Something screamed danger in her head.

"A world where you can have anything you desire. Drugs. Sex. Pleasure. A world full of toys for adults. The figure swept back its hood to reveal a raven-haired woman, beautiful but cold. She looked older, but Belynn couldn’t tell how old. Ageless. I have seen it. I have walked its streets, sampled its wares. Her ice-blue eyes scanned the audience, coming to rest first on Belynn. Would you like to see it too?"

Belynn’s heart felt like it would burst, and then her world shifted.

---

Belynn stood in the middle of a wide boulevard, enormous buildings rising above her on either side, looming over the street like nightmares of silver and black and sharp metallic teeth.

Traffic zipped past her at unimaginable speeds, and craft of various shapes and colors flew overhead as well.

Belynn ran for the curb, dodging the flow of traffic, her heart truly racing now.

On the curbside, a woman lay flat on her back in a gray suit, foam coming from her mouth while pedestrians stepped over her, oblivious to her distress.

Wanna fluck? A young man close to her age, shirtless with skin a strange pale blue, held something out to her. A pipe?

No thanks. She had to get out of here. None of this was real. She was sure of that. Kiryn!

She reached out for her brother and felt his solid presence.

Here.

She followed his touch, and in seconds the strange city faded from sight.

---

She was seated on the bench in the auditorium, drenched in sweat. Everyone was staring at her.

You okay? Kiryn asked.

The sweat seemed to freeze on her skin. Yeah. Maybe. No. Let’s get out of here, please. She looked up to find Della’s eyes still latched on to her, the woman’s lips twisting up into a sideways grin. For a second, Belynn saw something else—a ghost of a face—leering at her from Della’s own, like an ethereal green mask.

Belynn shuddered. Now.

Are you okay? Della’s kind voice was entirely at odds with her face.

Yes. Sorry. Just felt light-headed. Get me out of here. That last bit she sent right to Kiryn’s mind.

He nodded. Sorry, he said out loud to Della, ducking his head, and ushered Belynn down to the aisle and out of the hall.

2

Dream Drunk

Andy’s awareness was spread across myriad points in Forever simultaneously. A part of her immense consciousness was handling conversations between her Liminal kids, who were one of the primary means of communications across the length of the world. Another part oversaw the worldbuilding as the ocean floor was laid down, piece by intricate piece.

Yet another part was drawn to a curious ping that a piece of her mechanical equipment, long unused, was sending across her bio network.

It was an antenna, the one pointed back at Earth.

It was picking up… something.

Some kind of signal.

Such things did occur from time to time. Usually it was a burst of radiation from a dying star that lay in the same direction as the solar system, or an unusually active solar flare cycle.

Sometimes it was an echo, a leftover piece of equipment broadcasting the same SOS message over and over for years and years.

This, though, seemed different. There was a regularity to it, a repetition to the pattern that had caught the attention of one of her monitor subroutines, and it didn’t match any of the previous false positives.

She listened to the signal, trying to make sense of it. It was unclear, interrupted again and again by bursts of static. But something about it made her curious.

She ran it once more against previous alerts, ruling out flares and supernovas as the likely cause.

The pattern of it suggested strongly that the signal was artificial.

She needed more information.

She shunted the signal to a memory store to collect it for a while. Perhaps if it was really repeating, she could gather enough of it to fill in the gaps.

It’s probably nothing.

She sighed and went back to the hundred other things demanding her attention.

---

Kiryn led his sister out of the school building and back down the cobblestone path toward the dorm, watching her with concern.

They’d talked about the drinking thing, and she’d promised to cut back.

She was pale, her normally tawny skin almost white.

Are you okay?

She didn’t respond.

He stopped her and tried again, right in front of her.

This time she looked up, and her face was ashen.

Those late-night parties are catching up to you.

She knew he disapproved of her drinking. She shook her head. It’s not that. It’s… I feel sick.

He sighed. Belynn, Belynn, Belynn. He kissed her cheek and put her arm over his shoulder, helping her make it the rest of the way back to his dorm.

No nonresidents allowed, Aric said from behind the desk. He frowned at Belynn’s hunched-over form.

Kiryn set her down gently on an empty chair and picked up a piece of paper from a stack left on the counter for that purpose. She ate something that made her sick, he wrote, and handed it to Aric.

Aric’s reply was too fast for him to catch, but he thought he read medic.

No. Just needs sleep.

Aric frowned.

Please?

Aric laughed. But only because you asked nice. He waved them up the stairs.

You owe me for this one, little sister. In truth, Kiryn was worried. Maybe he should take her to a medic. For now, he’d let her rest and see how she was a little later.

Kiryn heaved her onto his shoulder and carried her gently up the staircase to his small dorm room. He laid her on his bed and pulled off her boots and socks. Then he went to get a cloth and some cool water.

Cradling her head in one hand, he used the cloth to wash her face and gently pulled back her dark hair.

Her eyes opened a crack, and she managed a tiny smile. Taking care of me now?

Hearing her voice in his head made him feel better. He set the cloth in the bowl to free his hands to talk. "Now? More like all the spinning time."

Her smile broadened. Some of the color had returned to her face. I know. I love you, Kir.

He touched her forehead. She felt normal. You okay?

A little. When Della looked at me…. She reached her hand up with some effort to touch his cheek. I saw a city.

Suddenly he was there.

The city loomed above him like a mountain. He panted, trying to stay calm.

It was just like he imagined Old Earth would be, but it was so much bigger and faster. The superscrapers and skyrises made Micavery look like a provincial backwater.

She let go.

He stared at her. How?

She shook her head. I don’t know.

Rest. He pulled his hand-quilted blanket up over her shoulders, wishing he’d had time to wash it, but she was too tired to notice. Or care.

Okay. She closed her eyes, and he kissed her forehead.

Maybe it was a result of the drinking, but he’d never heard of getting drunk at night causing hallucinations the next day.

He sat back in his wooden chair at his desk. Not the most comfortable place but a good vantage point to watch over her.

Something had happened to her at the lecture.

He closed his eyes, thinking back. Della, the woman with the strange gaze. She’d looked at Belynn, and his sister had shivered. She’d looked at him, too, and it was as if her gaze was dissecting him.

He had homework to do for his history class, a paper his teacher had asked for involving the Collapse and the relations between the West and the Cino-African Syndicate in the final two years of the world.

He could at least get started on that while his sister slept off whatever had happened to her.

He got up and turned the chair around, hoping he wasn’t making any noise, and pulled out his notes and a blank page of cotton paper from the drawer.

It was the final days of the old world….

---

Belynn sank into a deep sleep, the world fading away.

Sometime later, something impinged on her awareness. She opened her eyes to find herself back in the auditorium, Della staring down at her, her black hood framing her head.

It was as if that moment were frozen in time.

That strange mask, like a ghost that hovered just in front of the woman, stared at Belynn too. It was green, pale as the sky glow, the eyes dark and hollow.

What are you?

She signed it without even thinking.

The strange mask tilted, expressing curiosity.

What are you? she said out loud.

"I am the intifada." The woman swept her black cape around, over Belynn, and the world fell into darkness once again.

---

Kiryn sat up with a start, shaking his head and rubbing his eyes.

He must have fallen asleep at his desk. He peeled a sheet of paper off his cheek and laid it on the desk, staring at the writing on it for a moment.

---

Can you hear me?

Can you hear me?

Can you hear me?

---

It repeated all the way down the page. That’s odd.

The strange dream from first thing that morning came back to him. Floating in the depths of space…. Must have stuck with me.

His neck was cramped and his back was sore. Sleeping at his desk had been a bad idea. He stretched his neck left and right, and the aching subsided a little.

He turned to check on Belynn.

She was still sleeping soundly, her chest rising and falling under the hand-quilted blanket from back home.

Kiryn looked out the window at the spindle. Going by the spindle glow, it was just after five. He’d worked on his paper for a couple of hours, but he must have been exhausted. He was supposed to meet Dax for dinner at six.

He watched his sister for a few minutes. She seemed no worse for wear.

He looked at the door, indecisive. He’d only be gone for a couple of hours. Besides, there was something special about Dax. He could feel it.

You’ll be okay. Decided now, he headed down to the communal bathroom to wash his face and hair and to brush his teeth. He checked himself in the mirror and dried off, excited about the evening to come.

He’d been on a few one-nighters since he’d come to Micavery with Belynn a month before, but being gay and deaf tended to limit the pool.

For just a moment, he wished that he were on Old Earth, with a couple trillion people to choose from. How many gay, deaf college students would there be?

Back in his room, he pulled on a clean white cotton shirt and a pair of blue pants he’d picked up in Darlith on a family trip the year before. He pulled on his socks and his boots made from synthetic leather and checked on Belynn once more.

She must have gone on quite a bender the night before. She was still asleep.

He considered waking her, but she might try to change his mind about going on this date. She always worried about him getting hurt.

I’m an adult, dammit.

Or worse, she might want to come along.

Decided, he scribbled out a quick note to her and left it on the nightstand. Then he pulled on his jacket and headed off to find Dax.

---

Dax examined the last red carp from the bucket. It looked normal, healthy, and ready to be conditioned for brood stock. He dropped it into the wide holding tank, and the fish quickly swam away into the depths.

Carp were one of the three fish species that the hatchery bred for consumption on Forever, along with black-stripe herring and finger-long ramies. Thirty open-air tanks lined this part of the lakeshore at the edge of Micavery, aerated with fresh water from one of the tributaries that ran down from the Anatov Mountains in the distance.

He glanced up at the clock.

Crap. It was already a quarter till six. If his date was on time, that only left him a few minutes to get cleaned up. He’d hoped to have time to take a shower—the hatchery was smelly work.

Their evening together the night before had been mind-blowing and revelatory. His lips still tingled.

He’d never dated a deaf guy before—there were so few on Forever—and he’d been worried when his friend Daria had suggested they go on a date. Well, more of a one-night kind of thing. But despite the hearing barrier, they’d made a real connection. He could feel it, and he hoped Kiryn did too.

He filed his daily report with his boss, Chuck, including the counts of the fish he’d handled and their overall health.

He shucked his work clothes, threw them into the cleaning bin in the modest bathroom that sat in one corner of the giant facility, and grabbed a washcloth from the sink to lather himself up. He washed his body as well as he could manage in under a minute.

He also scrubbed his short-cropped blond hair.

When he was satisfied that he had the worst of the fish-stink off, he rinsed with sink water and dried off quickly.

Hot date? Chuck entered one of the two stalls and closed the door behind him.

Something like that. Dax pulled on his pants and then his socks and boots, kneeling to lace them up. Do you think the fish know there’s a whole world above the surface?

Don’t know that I’ve ever given it any thought. The sound of streaming water came from Chuck’s stall. I suppose when they hit the plate, but by then it’s a bit late to do anything about it. He chuckled and came out of the stall, leaving the toilet to digest the waste. Why?

I don’t know. Just something that crossed my mind. He buttoned up his shirt.

Torry popped her head into the bathroom. Dax, you have a visitor. I think he’s a little funny….

He’s deaf. Don’t be a jerk. He opened his locker, pulled out his carry sack, and slammed the door shut.

She scowled at him. "Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it."

"No one ever means it." He pushed his way past his coworker. People like Torry would never understand.

His sister, Naveen, had been deaf. They’d developed their own special way of communicating. She’d been three years older than him. They’d been inseparable—always the two of them against the world.

When she had died in an accident on the streets of Thyre at the age of ten, it had almost killed him too.

Kiryn and his sister had their own language. He’d seen them talking on campus before, fingers forming words at a dizzying pace.

He’d have to learn how to speak it if this was going to be more than just a fling.

He really wanted it to be more.

Kiryn was waiting for him outside the hatchery, his back to the door, staring at Micavery. The city spread out from the waterside on the left up into the hills on its broad peninsula on the right. The lake’s waves lapped at the shore at a sideways angle as they followed the world’s rotation.

The central city and business district were almost dark, but up in the hills, luthiel lanterns lined the streets, lit each night by the Lamplighter’s Guild, and night ivy and red ferns provided a red and green counterpoint to the golden glow of the lamps.

He cleared his throat.

Kiryn didn’t respond.

Dax wanted to kick himself. He was out of practice.

Of course Kiryn couldn’t hear him.

He stepped forward so he’d be in Kiryn’s line of view.

Kiryn turned to him and smiled.

Damn, he was cute. Dax mimed, Hi. Then he pulled out a sheet of paper and handed it to Kiryn.

---

Kiryn took the paper from Dax’s hand. The poor guy looked nervous. It was sweet, really.

Kiryn was nervous too. He hadn’t done any real dating—just sex. It was his first month away from home, and he’d been determined to play the field, to see what would happen.

But there was something special about Dax. It was the little things he did and how he did them. The care to speak to Kiryn in a way he could understand. He read the note: Come with me?

He grinned. So it was going to be a mystery date. Sure.

Dax’s mouth dropped open. You can talk?

Kiryn laughed. I’m deaf, not mute. He knew his words weren’t perfect—soft u’s and s’s were a bastard—and neither was his lipreading. But he could get by.

Dax laughed too. Well, okay. He gestured for Kiryn to follow him.

Kiryn had so many questions for him.

Why did Dax work at the hatchery?

What was he studying in school?

Where did he come from?

What were his parents like?

They would have to wait until they could see each other face-to-face.

Nightfall had passed through Micavery a few moments earlier, the light swept away by a tide of darkness as the spindle above and the trees and bushes and grass lost their glow.

The hatchery was on the southeastern edge of the city, not far from town, positioned to allow the easy release of fish into Lake Jackson. They walked back into town past a couple of lakeside restaurants that were doing a booming business as diners enjoyed the nightfall.

Soon they were among the dark two-story wood-frame buildings of the city center.

Here and there, some of the bars were open.

At one of them, the Silver Moon, a man stumbled out in front of them and fell down in front of a planter before losing the contents of his stomach.

Dax frowned and pulled Kiryn onward, toward the village green.

When they reached the center of town, Kiryn stopped, his mouth dropping open.

He’d never been to the green at night.

The wide round lawn was dark, but the giant oak tree that stood at its center, wrapped in night ivy, glowed with dim silver light from the spindle above, turning the world an enchanting monochrome.

Lamp poles stood at regular intervals around the edges, burning luthiel, creating a golden circle.

It was beautiful.

He turned to Dax and grinned to show his approval.

Come on. Dax enunciated the words clearly for his benefit. He pulled Kiryn through the empty green, across the grass to the white tower that stood on the far side. It was surrounded by a low red fern bush, the night plant glowing with its namesake color.

The antenna had once been the main point of contact between Micavery and Transfer Station. His teachers had taught him all about it.

Now it stood abandoned, a relic of a time that seemed less and less relevant to the current day.

Sometimes Kiryn wondered why they had to learn such ancient history. There were so many more interesting things in the modern world.

Dax looked around. Seemingly satisfied that no one was watching, he slipped his fingers under a metal panel on the side of the antenna. He pried it open and beckoned for Kiryn to climb inside.

Snipping a piece of red fern, Dax followed and pulled the hatch closed behind them.

The little branch