EMPTY OVERCAST SKY

1563 4D

They stayed at Engram that night, in narrow high rooms on one of two long halls above the bar. Andrew and Martin shared a room, with Ezzar and Grendel next door. Cellstone walls, pale gray with marbling striations wandering between seams, ate up echoes, softening the room noise; two lamps in sconces just above eye level cast a peach-yellow dusk over the three-tiered bunk bracketed to the opposite wall.

“Shit, just look at you, lines all over like a City map. Why did you go up to ArCorp, anyway?” Martin asked Andrew as they washed their bodies with small wetvacs.

Andrew said, shaking off dampness, “I never did work it out. I guess the shit he stuck in my water wasn’t enough by itself. He wanted me out. I should’ve left. Oh, the star and the god, I should have left.” Andrew grabbed the vertical bunk posts, leaned back and forth, and squeezed, stretching tired muscles.

“Just like that time in Poly Town with the three miners at Gorbi’s. You couldn’t leave it alone. Raul got a broken leg out of that.”

“I know, I know. You have to remind me again — how could I forget?”

“Yeah, sure, you know, you know, but then what?”

“Ah, leave me alone. Just leave me alone.” Andrew climbed to the top bunk and rolled into the warm padsack to stare at the ceiling. He ached in every muscle and joint.

“Andrew. Look, I’m glad you’re back. And what happened to you is terrible.”

“And you push on me anyway, and I get mad, and guess what? It’s just like it used to be after Father died. We’re both worse off.” Andrew rolled to face the wall. “Drop the lights and let me sleep now.”

He dreamed of Leil and the children. Two or three times in the night, rhythmic noises through the wall brought him nearly awake. He lay and listened to them rise in volume and tempo, and fade again. Probably Ezzar and Grendel. So, back to the City, after all the work and struggle. The wall thumped once, then a moan. The dim light still in the room gave the ceiling the look of empty overcast sky.