Bright of the Sky Read Online Free Page A

blue stare. “ Stefan Polich thought I’d be interested.”
    Of course Stefan Polich was behind all this. The president of Minerva Company would have to be. Lamar spoke through a mouthful of sandwich. “He’s said that he made a mistake. For a man like Stefan, that’s a big step.”
    Titus licked his fingers and wiped them on his wool pants. “Well, fine. We’re all settled then.” He stood up, carrying his plate to the sink. “Stefan Polich—”
    Lamar interrupted. “I know what you’re—”
    “ Stefan Polich ,” Titus repeated, somewhat louder, swinging around, his eyes glinting, “has decided to ask my pardon, eh? So sorry Titus, old man. So sorry you lost the one damn job you were any good at. So sorry I said you murdered your wife, that we put the word out that you went nuts and that you made up cock-and-bull stories about some flaming fantasy world.” Titus was still holding his lunch plate like he wanted to crack it on someone’s head. “So sorry that nutcases come traipsing onto your property, lurking about, hoping for a glimpse of the man who claims to have been the privileged visitor to another cosmos or what they’re secretly hoping for—their favorite gaming universe!”
    At the present volume of discourse, Lamar checked out escape options through the kitchen door, where two room-long trains were just passing over the bridge.
    “And now,” Titus continued, “if I don’t mind, he’d like me to be interested in his new interest in the little universe next door!” He stared at the plate, then turned to the sink, ran water over the plate, and left it on the counter, his movements precise, tense.
    Lamar had to get the whole story out now, before Titus got further worked up. “One thing more. He wants you to go back.”
    Titus stared at him with eyes like old pack ice. “Get out, Lamar.”
    Lamar gazed at Titus, thinking how much he looked like his father, Donnel, the old man—for Christ’s sake, Lamar’s contemporary—who used to be in business with Lamar, who’d asked Lamar to take care of his boys when he died too young and no one remained to care for them. Lamar had done his best. And now Titus was throwing him out of his house. Probably he deserved it. They all deserved it—Stefan Polich most of all—for not standing by Titus when he needed it.
    After the ship broke apart in the Kardashev tunnel, Titus put his wife and daughter in an escape capsule, and the forty other survivors in numerous small pods, and sent them off. Then, at the last moment, when he’d done all he could to save the ship, he found that Johanna had kept her own capsule attached to the ship. He boarded and they launched just in time to watch the Vesta blow apart. The next thing Minerva knew, six months later, after all hope of survivors had been abandoned, Titus showed up on the planet Lyra, disoriented and his memory gone. Hair gone white. Tales of a barely remembered world. Claims that wife and child were there. That he had been there for years, though he’d only been missing six months. No wonder Minerva distanced itself. But for some reason Lamar himself had believed Titus. That was one reason why he was no longer on the board of directors.
    Not that he expected any gratitude for that little act of faith.
    “Get out,” Titus repeated.
    Lamar looked around at the cottage stuffed with Titus’s old life and with his new hobby. “What have you got to lose? An expensive hobby that’s taken over your living room? What are you afraid of, anyway?” But he was backing up as Titus herded him around the sofa and toward the front door.
    Titus smiled, not necessarily a nice sight right now. “Not afraid, Lamar. Just tired of Minerva’s nervous twitches.”
    “Twitches?”
    “Yes, twitches. Makes you guys nervous, doesn’t it, all the attention I get, all the crazies coming by, sniffing for the real scoop on invisible worlds. You’re terrified that I’m finally going to give an interview on the global