Read Aurora for Free Online

forgot they were in there and locked them in, and the steam jetted into the big room to spin the turbines, and as they were being parboiled and cut to pieces Freya woke up, gasping and crying, and there in the doorway of her room stood a shadowy figure she could see through, a man looking at her with a wolfish little smile.
    Why did you wake up from that dream? he asked.
    She said, We were going to get killed!
    He shook his head. If the ship tries to kill you when you are dreaming, let it. Something more interesting than death will occur.
    It was obvious by his transparency that he ought to know.
    Freya nodded uneasily, then woke up again. But as she sat up, it seemed to her that she had never really been asleep. Later she tried to decide it was all a dream, but no other dream she had ever had had been quite like that one. So now, as Badim declares that the five ghosts would be better than ferals, she’s not so sure. How many dreams do you remember, not just the next day, but the rest of your life?

    Evenings at home are the best. Crèche is over and done, her time with all the kids she lives with so much, spending more time with them than she does with her parents, if you don’t count sleeping, so that it gets so tiresome to make it through all the boring hours, talking, arguing, fighting, reading alone, napping. All the kids are smaller than she is now, it’s embarrassing. It’s gone on so long. They make fun of her, if they think she isn’t listening to them. They take care with that, because once she heard them making those jokes and she ran over roaring and knocked one of them to the ground and beat on his raised arms. She got in trouble for it, and since then they are cautious around her, and a lot of the time she keeps to herself.
    But now she’s home, and all is well. Badim usually cooks dinner, and fairly often invites friends over for a drink after dinner. They compare the drinks they’ve made, Delwin’s white wine, and the red wines of Song and Melina, which are always declared excellent, especially by Song and Melina. These days Badim always invites their new next-door neighbor, Aram, to join them too. Aram is a tall man, older than the others, a widower they call him, because his wife died. He’s important not just in Nova Scotia but in the whole ship, being the leader of the math group, a small collection of people not well-known, but said by Badim to be important. Freya finds him forbidding, so silent and stern, but Badim likes him. Even Devi likes him. When they talk about their work, he can do it without making Devi tense, which is very unusual. He makes brandy instead of wine.
    After the tastings, they talk or play cards, or recite poems they have memorized, or even make up on the spot. Badim collects people he likes, Freya can see that. Devi mostly sits quietly in the corner and sips a glass of white wine without ever finishing it. She used to play cards with them, but one time Song asked her to read their tarot cards, and Devi refused. I don’t do that anymore, she said firmly. I was too good at it. Which caused a silence. Since that incident she doesn’t play any card games with them. She did still make card houses on the kitchen floor, however, when they were home alone.
    Now, on this evening, Aram says he has memorized a new poem, and he stands and closes his eyes to recite it:
    “How happy is the little stone
    That rambles in the road alone,
    And doesn’t care about careers
    And exigencies never fears—
    Whose coat of elemental brown
    A passing universe put on,
    And independent as the sun
    Associates or glows alone,
    Fulfilling absolute decree
    In casual simplicity—”
    “Isn’t that good?” he says.
    Badim says, “Yes,” at the same time that Devi says, “I don’t get it.”
    The others laugh at them. This combination of responses happens fairly often.
    “It’s us,” Aram says. “The ship. It’s always us, in Dickinson.”
    “If only!” Devi says. “Exigencies never