Andromeda Day and the Black Hole by Charlie Jackson Read Free Book Online Page B

table
towards a small door at the back of the hall. After a few paces she turned and
beckoned to them to follow her. Deneb did so, pulling Andi with him. When they
reached the door she opened it and stepped back to let them through.
    Deneb walked into the small room and Andi
followed. It was a store room, filled with boxes and junk, but here and there
she could see the odd statue, chipped and broken; books lying open, their
covers ripped at the spine; unidentifiable metal objects, bent out of shape.
    “It’s not much,” Clios said, “but you can
take what you like.” She and Deneb exchanged a look and she opened her mouth as
if she were about to add something, but then she turned on her heel and walked
off, back to the table of maps and plans.
    The two of them stood there for a moment,
silent, looking at the door. Then Deneb turned and looked around the room. “Let’s
see what’s worth taking,” he said. His voice was rough.
    Andi glanced around her. She couldn’t see
anything of the sort of quality that they had been hoping for. And somehow,
taking these broken things seemed wrong. They seemed pitiful, as if they had
been hoping to find a pedigree dog, but had instead come upon a dirty mongrel,
mangy and flea-ridden, that had been beaten by its owner. She didn’t want to
take any of these things that would remind her of the pile of bodies lying out
on the flagstones. She just wanted to leave this place.
    “Let’s go,” she said, not touching
anything.
    “I’m not leaving without something,” Deneb
said stubbornly. “I’m not going to waste our journey and come away with
nothing.” He began to fling aside boxes, looking for something, anything worth
taking back to the Antiquarian .
    Andi remained where she was, a little
frightened. She knew he felt exactly the same way as she did, and could tell by
the red patch on his cheeks that he was ashamed of his actions. “Is it bad?”
she asked suddenly. “The money, I mean.”
    He stopped what he was doing for a moment,
looking down at the large box he was rummaging through. Then he glanced over at
her. “What do you mean?”
    “I know there’s something wrong. I saw your
face when you asked Clios what we could have. You looked… desperate.” She could
see that he was struggling to deny her accusations. “Stop treating me like a
child!” she snapped. “You heard what Clios said. I’m fourteen now and nearly an
adult.”
    He stared at her, shocked. His eyes were
hard. “You’re not Ruvalian,” he said through gritted teeth, “and you’re my only
daughter, the only thing left in my life that I can protect. When I think you
need to know my business, I’ll tell you.” And he went back to rifling through
the box.
    Andi wanted to tell him that she didn’t
need protecting, that she wanted to share everything with him, but she kept
quiet, sensing that he wouldn’t listen, not now, anyway. Eventually, he became
uncomfortable with her silence, and he stood, cursing, holding a small chipped
statue in his hands that looked as if it could have been made of marble. “This
will do,” he said curtly, and made his way out of the room.
    Andi sighed and followed him out.
    *
    Later, after returning to the Antiquarian and spending some time alone in her rooms thinking about their trip to Thoume,
Andi went to Deneb’s quarters. They had joint access to each other’s rooms
unless they specifically coded the privacy as red, and although they usually
requested entry to each other, when Andi had pressed the button several times
to no effect, she opened the door and stood in the doorway, looking in.
    Deneb’s rooms reflected him very closely,
she thought—stylish, quite flamboyant with their bright colors, and decked out
with the occasional artifact that he couldn’t bear to be parted with: an old
book from the first press on the primary Mars colony; a piece of jewelry from
the Proximians; a beautiful ceramic pot from Old-Time England’s medieval
period. The