Seeklight

“Then if we have to work on something during the day,” he continued, “you can help out. That’s about the only way you’ll learn how things go together down here.”

For the next several minutes the head mechanic scribbled down the proper gauge readings on the back on one of the clipboard’s bottom sheets. He tore off the paper and handed it to Daenek. “There’s the ’phone,” he said, pointing to a barely discernible lump on one wall. “Just pick it up, if anything happens on your shift—it’s direct into my sleeping quarters. Get you and your buddy down here about nine o’clock, OK?”

Folding the paper and slipping it into his pocket, Daenek nodded and turned to leave. Something caught his eye—a flat rectangular object propping up one corner of some kind of metal tank. The cylinder had a gaping hole in one side, obviously beyond use. He stepped over to the corner where it had been placed out of the way, then knelt down and examined the object that was being used to hold it upright…

It was a book, caked with years’ accumulated grease and dirt.

Daenek lifted up the tank’s bottom edge and slid out the book from beneath it. The covers were warped into a concave shape from the constant weight of the tank. He twisted it in his hands, straightening it a little, and opened it. The book’s spine cracked and split apart. Something in the grease had seeped into the paper, staining it a dark brown. He could make out enough of the words to tell that it was in English. When he turned the stiff pages to the front of the book, he found the name STEPKE written there.

“What’s that?” Benter had come up beside him.

The memory of that other mertzer’s face faded, leaving nothing but the filth-encrusted book in Daenek’s hands.

“Something I found under here.”

Benter walked a few steps away, then returned with a scrap of metal that he pushed under the corner of the tank with his foot.

Daenek stood up, still holding the book.

“I remember the guy that belonged to.” Benter pointed his blunt, grease-darkened finger at the book. “He was landed off the caravan—oh, a long time ago. He used to read us stuff from some of the books he had. Poetry and stuff.” The edge of a smile.

“Yeah, I remember that. But then—” A disturbed, suspicious expression crept over Ms features.

Daenek turned away from the mechanic, as if there were some secret in his own face that was about to be discovered by the other. “I’ll be back at nine for my shift,” he said without looking behind. Pressing the book to his chest, he squeezed his way through the maze of jumbled machinery, away from the space filled with dim yellow light.

Rennie wasn’t in the room when Daenek returned. He stretched himself out on his bed and examined the book. The title page was illegible. In fact, most of the book was unreadable due to the grease that had permeated it. Still, thought Daenek, maybe it’s a sign. From out of the depths and heart of this world so so foreign to me. A vision of Stepke slowly toiling through the sunlit fields up to the house in which he and his mother lived. The mertzer’s voice.

I was a stranger there, too, reflected Daenek. Just as much as he was. Maybe that’s what finding the book means. He dropped the book beside the bed. A tiny switch on the wall behind his head turned off the room’s overhead light. He closed his eyes in the darkness. Sleep was welcome now that he had come to a decision about what had to be done.

He awoke and thought he saw the dim beam of a flashlight moving about in the darkness at the foot of his bed. His hand found the light switch and quickly flicked it on.

Crouched in front of Daenek’s footlocker was Rennie, frozen in surprise for a fraction of a second. The lid of the footlocker had been thrown back, and the clothing inside thrown about in confusion. In one hand she held a small flashlight and in the other some type of little device Daenek didn’t recognize.

Rennie scrambled to her feet as Daenek sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of his bed. He felt a little irritated at the interruption of his sleep, but no great surprise at what he had found her doing. “Just what are you up to?” he asked.

“Nothing.” The flashlight and the other object had disappeared into her pockets.

He yawned and scratched himself. This was something that could be gone into later, he decided. There were more important things to be decided between himself and this strange girl.

“What time is it?”

“They just rang nine, I think.” She eyed him warily as she leaned against the door.

Her words brought him to full alertness. “Hey, we’re supposed to be down in the engine room right now. To start our shift.” He jumped up and picked his jacket from out of the jumble of clothing in his footlocker.