Eric Brown: Penumbra

Bennett eased the Cobra between great mountain peaks, covered with blinding white snow at this altitude and whipped by raging winds. He slowed, banked around a clenched fist of rock, and planed down into the broad saddle of purple grassland.

“I can see buildings down there,” Rana reported. “And people, Josh. They’re leaving their houses and waving.”

Bennett felt a sudden tightness in his chest, an emotion he had not expected. He glanced down and saw a wide area of grassland beyond the last A-frame. Rana was right. Rebels, dozens of men and women, were streaming from the buildings and across the plain. He applied the vertical thrusters and brought the Cobra down slowly for the gentlest contact with the ground.

When they hit land he cut the engines, exhaled and lay back in the sudden and profound silence. Through the viewscreen he could see the A-frame and domes, and people running towards the ship. He hit the command to lower the ramp, then unbuckled himself from the couch and climbed unsteadily to his feet.

Hans Hupcka was the first aboard. He appeared at the top of the ramp and then burst into the flight-deck, more wild-looking and bearded than Bennett remembered. Others appeared behind him: Miriam James, and other rebel faces he recognised.

Hupcka halted before him, staring like a madman. “You have the softscreen, Josh?”

Bennett tapped the folded screen in the pouch of his flight-suit and Hupcka enveloped him in a fierce bear hug.

“Incredible! We never expected… We thought you’d take a year at least, not just eight months.”

Eight months… To Bennett it seemed just like yesterday that he had left Penumbra.

“How’s Mack?” he asked. “Ten Lee?”

“Ten Lee’s fine,” Hupcka said. “Her leg’s healed. She spends much of her time meditating. Mack…” He shrugged his huge shoulders. “Mack’s ill, but he’s stable.” Hupcka’s gaze slipped past Bennett to Rana, standing beside her couch. “You have a co-pilot this time?”

He smiled. “It’s a long story.” He passed Hupcka the softscreen. “I’d like to see Mack.”

Hupcka nodded. “I’ll take you straight to him. We’ll study the screen and plot the position of the entrance to the underground caverns. Also, Mack isn’t up to a trek. Can we make the journey in the ship?”

“If there’s somewhere reasonably level to land, I can’t see any problem.”

Hupcka nodded. “I’ll take you to Mack.”

Bennett turned and reached out for Rana. She took his hand and they hurried from the ship, past smiling faces, across the purple plain.

Hupcka indicated an A-frame. “Mack is in there. Ten Lee is nursing him. See you in a while.”

Bennett and Rana climbed the steps to the veranda of the A-frame. He turned to her. “Perhaps it’d be best if I saw Mack first, explain what happened. It’s likely to be one hell of a shock.”

Rana nodded, her expression worried and apprehensive. “Ah-cha,” she said. “Okay. I’ll wait out here.”

Bennett opened the door and ducked into the room. Ten Lee, tiny in her scarlet flight-suit, her skull cleanshaven, rose with fluid grace from a cross-legged position and hurried across to him. Her face showed no hint of emotion, but her embrace was greeting enough. He pressed her head to his chest, looking past her to the bed where Mackendrick lay, struggling to sit upright.

Ten Lee pulled herself away and looked up at him. “You have the softscreen, Joshua?”

“It’s with Hupcka. He’s studying it now.”

“I want to find the subterranean chamber,” she said, staring at him but seeing much more. “I want to find out if the Ancients are still in existence.”

He moved past Ten Lee and crossed to the bed, sat down and forced Mackendrick back into the stacked pillows. He seemed much older now, as if in the eight months he had aged a decade. The skin of his face was drawn tight and wax-like over prominent bones. In Bennett’s arms he seemed light, reduced physically if not in spirit.

“Well done, Josh,” he said. “You don’t know how damned proud I am.”

“It must’ve been a hell of a wait, Mack.”

He laughed. “Hell no! I assumed you’d be gone for ages. Times were when we even reconciled ourselves to the possibility that you’d never find the damned thing!” His voice, at least, was as strong as ever. “But I want to know all about it! Everything!”

Ten Lee came and sat on the bed across from Bennett. “How did you find the softscreen, Joshua?” she asked.

Bennett looked at Mack. “I... to be honest I don’t know where to begin. Mack… there’s someone I want you to meet. I think she’ll be able to explain about the screen better than I could.”

Mackendrick gave him a puzzled look. “What the hell are you talking about, Josh?”

Bennett glanced at Ten Lee. “Is he up to a surprise, Ten?”

She nodded and touched the old man’s hand. “He’s as strong as an ox.”

“Josh?” Mackendrick growled.

“One minute.”

Bennett stood and moved to the door. He slipped out, expecting to find Rana on the veranda, but there was no sign of her. Then he saw her, about ten metres away, standing alone on the purple plain, staring up at the lofty mountain peaks, at Tenebrae majestic overhead. He stepped from the veranda and crossed the grass, pausing beside her. He touched her arm.

“Rana…”

When she turned to him he saw that her eyes were glazed with tears. “It is all so sudden,” she said. “There are so many years, so many incidents that have made us both different people. We’ll be strangers to each other.”

“He’s your father,” Bennett said gently. “Now’s the time to get to know each other again.”

“We’ve so little time left, Josh.”

“All the more reason to meet him and say what you have to say.”

She smiled up at him. “I know. You’re right. It’s just so… so very difficult. Ah-cha.” She took a breath and nodded. “Okay, I’m coming.”

He walked with her back to the A-frame, up the steps and into the lounge. Rana was holding herself tensely, her small fists clenched. She paused across the room from the bed that contained her father. Mackendrick raised his head from the pillow, mystification in his eyes.

Rana stepped forward and approached the bed. She sat down on a chair and pulled it closer. Ten Lee stood and moved to Bennett, sensing their need to be alone.

Mackendrick was staring at the Indian woman. He glanced at Bennett, as if for confirmation. “Josh?”

Rana reached out and took her father’s hand. She lifted it and kissed the bony fingers. “Father, I have so much to say, and I don’t know how to say it.”

Sita?” For once, Mackendrick seemed at a loss for words. In barely a whisper he said, “Sita, is it really you?”

Rana held her father’s hand in hers and touched it to her forehead. “It is me,” she said. “Sita.”

Bennett looked at Ten Lee and they moved quietly from the A-frame and sat down on the steps of the veranda.

From the beginning, the time he left the valley with Hupcka and the rebels, Bennett told Ten everything that had happened.

The gas giant rolled overhead, filling the valley with its vast creamy underbelly and effulgent glow. Someone brought them cups of the excellent coffee substitute, and plates of bread and cheese, then quietly left them talking. Ten Lee listened without expression, this strange distant woman he had come to respect over the period they had been together, even if he could not honestly claim to know her.

At last, after a long silence, Ten Lee said, “There is a sense of perfection and closure to Sita Mackendrick’s reunion with her father, as if it were destined.”

Bennett smiled. “And you? Are you okay?”