Hannu Rajaniemi - The New Voices of Science Fiction

Anton was the last, the one Sedgewick had pegged for alpha dog. He gripped his hand a beat longer and grinned with blocky white teeth that had never needed an orthosurgery.

“ Ho, extro , how are you this morning.” He looked over Sedgewick’s shoulder and flashed his eyebrows. “Who?”

“Fletcher,” Sedgewick said. “The little brother. Going to feed him to a frostwhale.”

“Your brother.”

Fletcher stuffed his long hands into the pockets of his thermal and met Anton’s gaze. Sedgewick and his brother had the same muddy post-racial melanin and lampblack hair, but from there they diverged. Sedgewick had always been slight-framed and small-boned, with any muscle slapped across his chest and arms fought for gram by gram in a gravity gym. His eyes were a bit sunk and he hated his bowed nose.

Fletcher was already broad in the shoulders and slim-hipped, every bit of him carved sinew, and Sedgewick knew it wouldn’t be long before he was taller, too. His face was all angles now that the baby fat was gone: sharp cheekbones, netstar jawline. And his eyes were still reflecting in the half-lit tunnel, throwing light like a cat’s.

Sedgewick could feel the tips of his ears heating up as Anton swung his stare from one brother to the other, nonverbalizing the big question, the always-there question, which was why are you freestyle if he’s modded?

“So how big are they?” Fletcher asked, with his grin coming back. “The frostwhales.”

“Big,” Anton said. “Ko gramme ko pujo.” He pointed over to Oxo-of-the-jaw-implant and snapped his fingers together for support.

“Fucking big,” Oxo supplied in a mumble.

“Fucking big,” Anton said.

The cold flensed Sedgewick to the bones the instant they stepped outside. Overhead, the sky was a void blacker and vaster than any holo could match. The ice stretched endless in all directions, interrupted only by the faint running lights of methane harvesters stitched through the dark.

Brume had a prehensile lantern from one of the work crews and he handed it to Anton to affix to the cowl of his coat. It flexed and arched over his head, blooming a sickly green light. Sedgewick felt Fletcher look at him, maybe an uneasy look because they’d never been outside the colony at night, maybe a cocky look because he was making a move, going to ruin something for Sedgewick all over again.

“Okay,” Anton said, exhaling a long plume of steam with relish. His voice sounded hollow in the flat air. “ Benga, benga , okay. Let’s go.”

“Right,” Sedgewick said, trying to smile with some kind of charm. “Benga.”

Brume gave his angry barking laugh and slapped him on the shoulder, then they set off over the ice. The pebbly gecko soles of Sedgewick’s gumboots kept him balanced and the heating coils in his clothes had already whispered to life, but every time he breathed the air seared his throat raw. Fletcher was a half-step behind the lot of them. Sedgewick resisted the urge to gledge back, knowing he’d see an unconcerned what are you staring for sneer.

Thinking back on it, he should’ve drugged Fletcher’s milk glass with their parents’ Dozr. Even his modded metabolism couldn’t have shaken off three tablets in time for him to play tag-along. Thinking even further back on it, he shouldn’t have had the conversation with Anton and Petro about the frostwhales where Fletcher could hear them.

Under his feet, the texture of the ice started to change, turning from smooth glossy black to scarred and rippled, broken and refrozen. He nearly caught his boot on a malformed spar of it.

“Okay, stop,” Anton announced, holding up both hands.

About a meter on, Sedgewick saw a squat iron pylon sunk into the ice. As he watched, the tip of it switched on, acid yellow. While Petro unloaded his vape and the other units circled up for a puff, Anton slung one arm around Sedgewick and the other around Fletcher.

“Benga, aki den glaso extrobengan minke,” he said.

The string of sounds was nothing like the lessons Sedgewick had stuck on his tab.

Anton shot a look over to Oxo-of-the-jaw-implant, but he was hunched over the vape, lips tinged purple. “Here,” Anton reiterated, gesturing past the pylon. “Here. Frostwhales up.”

He said it with a smile Sedgewick finally recognized as tight with amphetamine. He’d assumed they weren’t sucking down anything stronger than a party hash, but now that seemed like an idiot thing to assume. This was New fucking Greenland, so for all he knew these lads were already utterly panned.

Only one way to find out. Sedgewick gestured for the vape. “Hit me off that.”

Petro gave him a slow clap, either sarcastic or celebratory, while he held the stinging fog in his lungs for as long as he could, maybe because Fletcher was watching. There was only a bit of headspin, but it was enough to miss half of what Oxo-of-the-jaw-implant was saying to him.

“… is the area.” Oxo plucked the vape out of his slack hands and passed it on. “See. See there, see there, see there.” He pointed, and Sedgewick could pick out other pylons in the distance glowing to life. “Fucking danger, okay? Inside the area, frostwhales break ice for breathing. For break ice for breathing, frostwhales hit ice seven times. Den minuso , seven.”

“Minimum seven,” the other Oxo chimed in. Anton started counting aloud on his gloved fingers.

“Got it,” Fletcher muttered.

“So, so, so,” Oxo-of-the-jaw-implant went on. “When the frostwhales hit one, we go.”

“Thought you’d stay for the whole thing?” Sedgewick said, only halfway listening. The cold was killing off his toes one by one.

Anton gave up at twenty and sprang back to the conversation. “We go, extros ,” he beamed. “You run. You run. I run. He runs. He runs. He runs. He runs. Here…” He gave the pylon a dull clanging kick. “To here!”

Sedgewick followed Anton’s pointing finger. Far off across the scarred ice, he could barely make out the yellow glow of the pylon opposite them. His stomach dropped. Sedgewick looked at his brother, and for a nanosecond Fletcher looked like a little kid again, but then his mouth curled into a smile and his modded eyes flashed.

“All right,” he said. “I’m down.”

Sedgewick was a breath away from saying no you fucking aren’t , from saying we’re heading back now , from saying anything at all. But it all stuck on his ribs and instead he turned to Anton and shrugged.

“Benga,” he said. “Let’s go.”

The handshakes came back around, everyone hooting and pleased to have new recruits. Fletcher got the motion on his first try. When the vape made its final circle, Sedgewick gripped it hard and stared out over the black ice and tried to stop shivering.

Sedgewick knew Fletcher was faster than him. He’d known it like a stone in his belly since he was twelve and his brother was ten, and they’d raced on a pale gray beach back on Earth. Prickling fog and no witnesses. Fletcher took lead in the last third, pumping past him with a high clear incredulous laugh, and Sedgewick slacked off to a jog to let him win, because it was a nice thing, to let the younger brother win sometimes.

Occupied with the memory, Sedgewick was slow to notice that the eerie green pallor of the ice was no longer cast by Anton’s lantern. Something had lit it up from underneath. He stared down at the space between his boots and his gut gave a giddy helium lurch. Far below them, distorted by the ice, he could make out dim moving shapes. He remembered that frostwhales navigated by bioluminescence. He remembered that the methane sea was deeper than any Earth ocean.

Everyone tightened the straps of their thermals, tucked in their gloves, and formed themselves into a ragged line that Sedgewick found himself near the end of, Fletcher beside him.