Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 44088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 147(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44088 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 147(@300wpm)
“That’s when they come,” he says. “When you least expect it. When you think you are safe. We can never afford to let our guard down.”
I don’t want to argue with him, largely because I think there’s a chance he’s not wrong. The Colony might forget about us or decide that we’re not worth the bother of tracking. But with the way the Colony works, that’s unlikely in the short term. The Department of Justice will have us on their radar, and they have no other function than to seek justice, or their twisted version of it.
“We have to rest. We cannot always look over our shoulders.”
He gives me a sad stare. “I’m sorry, Tarni, but that is not true. We will be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives. There is no way to avoid it. And the second we stop looking is the second we are dead.”
“Then let me take a shift,” I say. “You’re exhausted. You need sleep. I can watch the stars for a while.”
He must be absolutely exhausted, because he takes me up on the offer. I am left to the cool night and the thoughts that accompany it.
The two of us are alone out here, which we both thought would be a good thing. Safety in isolation. But that leaves the two of us to do absolutely everything, including keep a constant watch. It’s not going to be possible and one day, sooner or later, we will fail.
I don’t want to say that to Kail. He knows that already, and there’s no point in dwelling. Maybe my plan worked. Maybe our journey here was so stealthy and untraceable there’s no way we’ll ever be found. Maybe we’ll stay hidden for long enough that there are personnel changes at the Colony, and nobody left remembers, let alone cares about us. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. All lives are based on maybes. I used to be comfortable with that. Now I’m much less so.
Morning comes and the maybes evaporate into the hustle of handling a baby. Nemo is growing fast. He’s about six months old now, and twice the size he was when we first found him. Kail has clothed him in animal pelts harvested from around the countryside. He’s feeding him a fish mash made from fish caught in our lake. It’s so satisfying to be able to provide for a family this way, to not be beholden to anyone for anything.
It does, however, mean our resources are vanishingly limited. I stocked the ship with common medicines and long-lasting foodstuffs before we came here, and most of the stocks remain on the vessel. I don’t know why, but I’m not comfortable loading them into the house. Maybe it’s because a construction of wood, mud, and stone doesn’t feel as safe as a vessel with an alloy hull. Or maybe it’s because I’ve spent my life moving from one mark to another and I’m not really all that comfortable living in one place.
This style of life is natural to Kail but not to me.
“Dada,” Nemo says, pointing at Kail with one hand, his other hand wrapped around a spoon.
“Kail,” Kail says.
“Kaw,” Nemo says.
“Close enough,” Kail says approvingly.
“Kawkaw,” Nemo burbles happily.
I smile at the pair of them. Nemo is just a baby, but he shares life experience with us. He knows the loss of family, and he is currently learning to make a new one. There’s a part of me still afraid we won’t really be able to keep him, that Persinians will come and claim him, and that we will let him go because those are his people, and he is their king. He has a past, just the same as we all do. Sometimes, I feel that past creeping up behind us, sniffing over our shoulders.
But you can’t live in paranoia. You have to live in the moment. So that is what I do. I try to be happy with where I am, and what I have. And what I have is a family. Or at least, all the elements of a family.
Kail loves Nemo. That is clear. The joy in his eyes when he plays with him, the way he is already teaching Nemo how to hunt, strapping the baby to his body and explaining all the ways of the wild to him.
But he will not refer to Nemo as his son, which I understand. I wish I knew more about his family, the ones he lost when the Colony came, but he does not speak of them, and to ask him to do so feels like I would be intruding on the one part of his life that was not taken by them. I am a human, and a colonist. I am still in some way the enemy behind his greatest loss. The guilt I bear for being even some small part of it stays with me no matter how long we spend together, playing house in fresh alien wilds.