Penumbra Read Online Free PDF Page B

highway, trundled the final three kilometres along the rough track, and parked in the tropical garden that shaded his dome, patio and swimming pool.
     
    The habitat came to life as he climbed the interior steps to the main lounge. Lights turned themselves on; he was greeted by a selection of his favourite music - mood-jazz from one of the colony worlds. Beside the sliding door to the veranda, his com-screen flared into life.
     
    He took a beer from the cooler and sat in the swivel chair before the screen. One quarter of the screen displayed a head-and-shoulders shot of Julia, frozen mid-smile, another quarter someone Bennett had never seen before, a silver-haired man in his seventies. The upper half of the screen listed e-mail shots that had come in during his absence.
     
    He regarded the pix of Julia, short dark hair parenthesising a calm, oval ballerina’s face. She was attractive and intelligent, and he never ceased to be amazed that their relationship had lasted so long - coming up to a year, now. They had met when he’d hired her to redesign his garden, began talking and never stopped. He’d been attracted to her sophistication - an attribute rarely found among the women on Redwood Station - and he assumed that she had found appealing the fact that he was a pilot and well off.
     
    Their first rift, a couple of months later, had come about because Bennett had been fool enough to tell her this. She had been hectoring him for some declaration of commitment, a vow of his love for her. ‘Why?’ he had responded. ‘You don’t love me. I’m just a rich high-orbit pilot to show off to your friends.’ She had just stared at him, shocked. ‘You bastard, Josh. If that’s what you think I see in you . . .’ and, unable to go on, she had hurried from the dome. A day later she had downloaded a vis-link to his com-screen. She had cried and told him that she loved him despite the fact that he was a privileged, arrogant bastard and a pilot.
     
    Shame, mixed with something akin to fear that she might be telling the truth, had stopped him contacting her for a few days. Then he had left a message to say that he was sorry, he knew what a shallow fool he was, and could they meet for dinner somewhere?
     
    From then on things had never been the same. It seemed that his admission of blame gave Julia carte blanche to snipe away at his faults, psychologically reduce him to nothing more than a textbook example of adverse childhood conditioning. He wondered if it was the thought of being without her companionship that made him endure her hostility. Having someone, even someone who seemed to dislike him so much of the time, was preferable to being alone.
     
    He brushed the back of his hand against Julia’s face, and instantly the smile unfroze. ‘Josh. I’m calling Sunday - you’re due back Tuesday, aren’t you?’
     
    She moved away from the screen, touching her throat in the gesture he knew meant she was considering what to say next. She paused in the middle of her lounge, surrounded by baskets of hanging flowers. From there she looked back at the screen, as if to distance herself from what she had to say next.
     
    ‘Josh . . . I’ve been giving things serious consideration lately. I’ve been considering my life, where I am . . .’ This was typical of Julia, her tortured verbal circumlocutions and pained analysis. ‘I’ve been thinking about us, Josh. I wonder . . . when you get back Tuesday, could we meet for lunch? Say around one, at Nova Luna? Call if you can’t make it, okay?’ She gave a final, sad smile. ‘Bye, Josh.’
     
    The image froze, dissolved. Josh sat staring at the emptied quarter of the screen, sipping his beer and trying to work out his reaction to what Julia had said.
     
    It was over, at last, just as for months he had known it would be. He had never expected Julia to be the one to end it, and he had declined to do so because during the short periods he had spent on Earth he had enjoyed her