The Dark Reaches Read Online Free PDF

it was larger than the expensive Line linker ship that had been Iain’s since boyhood, it was almost as fast and maneuverable. Torin had been justifiably pleased with the ship, the first of a new model come fresh off the yards on Terranova, and he had presented it to her with obvious pride.
    And yet the ship still felt like a new winter coat—a little stiff, a little strange.
    But it would take her where she needed to go.
    She had persuaded Iain to make one stop on the way back to Terranova, to check on the patrols at the little farming world of Paradais. That would give her two more jumps, not just one, before it all ended—before she and Iain were tied down again to Terranova orbit and the political wrangling groundside in Port Marie.
    Two more jumps. Two more chances to open herself to otherspace, to let herself listen.
    “Good morning, Pilot,” Iain said behind her. “Ship status?”
    She turned and forced a smile. “I could leave this moment.”
    He did not answer her smile. “I’ve scheduled us with the portmaster,” he said, “for launch at noon.”
    She looked at him for a moment, and clenched her jaw to keep from shivering again in the still, icy air. “That’s hours yet. Why the delay?”
    “Let’s go aboard,” he said.
    “You don’t need to check my boards, you know,” she said, flushing.
    “It’s not that. There’s something I don’t want to discuss in the barracks.”
    She turned and set her palm on the slightly duller oval of metal beside the hatch. The cold from the metal bit into her skin, but she felt the faint vibration as the hatch dilated in response to its pilot’s touch.
    Inside, through the tiny lock, the narrow passenger compartment was warm, silent, brightly lit. Three empty passenger shells hung closely stacked against the far bulkhead. Storage lockers crowded the rest of the space. But Iain had already moved through the door to the pilot’s compartment. It was comfortable, almost roomy for one person, with a tiny refresher compartment and a workstation and chair for use in port if the pilot chose to live aboard. Silently, Iain gestured Linnea into the chair.
    She sat with a feeling of dread. He leaned against the bulkhead opposite and folded his arms. The dark piloting shell loomed in the center of the space, a barrier between them, half-hiding him.
    “I’m worried about you,” he said. His voice was quiet, but she saw how rigidly he held his folded arms. Control with Iain, always control. Especially when he was afraid. “It’s these dreams.”
    “Everyone has dreams,” she said.
    “Tell me that they have only been troubling you since you came to Santandru,” he said. “Tell me that your urge to get back to otherspace, back to the jump, only came when you knew you had to leave here.”
    He was inviting her to lie to him. What could frighten him so much? “But that’s not how it is,” she said. “This has been coming over me since the jump from Nexus. It got worse when I had to make that run to the yards on Kattayar and back. Worse yet on the way here.”
    “Worse,” he said. His eyes were dark, unreadable. He looked down at his booted feet. “This can be—a difficulty. A danger, with new pilots.”
    “You mean other pilots have these dreams?”
    “Some,” he said reluctantly. “Images from otherspace, things they remember there, that come back to them in their dreams.”
    “Iain, these aren’t anything I remember ,” she said. “I’ve never seen them before. A canyon, red rock, bigger than any in the Hidden Worlds. A jungle that goes on all the way to the horizon. There’s nothing like that here.”
    “You may think you’ve never seen those images,” Iain said. His voice was tight. “But you have, you must have. Your mind supplies them out of your memories, to explain what you experience in otherspace. The emotion you talked about, too—that’s a response to the strangeness, when it threatens to be overwhelming. It’s a sign that