The Dark Places Read Online Free

tunic pocket to pay for our meal.
    His hand was warm and reassuring in
mine as he guided me up the fragile spiral staircase amidst long trellises
entwined with flowering vines hanging from the restaurant’s high ceiling. We
stepped out onto a fairly wide and very crowded balcony. He led me past the
occupied wrought metal tables and chairs without visible dismay upon his well-defined
features.
    Matt demonstrated he was a
resourceful, alternative thinker—a vital advantage for a spacer’s survival out
there in a hostile environment, I’m sure—by pulling me aside to sit near a tall
pedestal cornerstone on the low balcony wall’s flat, wide top. He guided me to
the snug spot between the cornerstone and himself. Everyone else seemed
reluctant to sit on such a precarious perch, so we had the entire wall to ourselves.
    He anchored me with an arm around
my back and his hand firmly clasping my waist. I didn’t protest. It was a long
drop to the pavement below.
    I couldn’t suppress a contented
sigh as I raised my head to study the black star-decked night skies open to
free viewing by all and sundry.
    “Which planet are you headed for next, Matt?” I asked.
    He placed a hand under my chin and
gently tilted my head to the left over my shoulder. “Rikin lies in that
direction, doll. It’s my next destination. And it’s in the Naris System…. Ruled
by a giant blue star and comforted by three pale moon maidens.”
    I turned to study him. The
flickering glow from tall, primitive-styled fire torches stuck straight up in
brackets set along the balcony’s perimeter at regular intervals clearly
delineated the strong bone structure of his tanned face. “Are you a poet,
Matt?” I asked, trying not to sound sarcastic.
    “Only when I’ve
downed several Crynishan Dawns, doll.” He smiled, and I couldn’t help
smiling back.
    I was about to ask him what it was
he was going to do on Rikin when a waiter approached with our cordials. I
watched with concern as Matt raised his thick-bottomed, silver-embossed glass
to his lips. I wondered if my stalwart imbiber was going to experience some
adverse effects from mixing this orthodox but potent fruit liqueur with the
other strange brews circulating in his system. But he looked unaffected as he
reached up to place the small empty glass upon the high corner stone’s flat
top.
    I finished the blue, spicy-sweet
contents that sizzled, then cooled my throat on the way down and warmed my
stomach.
    He took my drained glass and added
it next to his. Matt considered the murmuring, shifting crowd around us and
then focused on me. “Why are you working as a barmaid, Kailiri?”
    I might have laughed, except he was
unsmilingly serious. I turned my head and gazed out over the city’s jumble,
stacked with flitter tail lights trailing along streets, towering lurid signs,
and sky high illuminated establishments that made up Marnu’s nightscape. “ There’s not very many golden opportunities in Marnu for a
bohemian-type, Matt.” And even fewer ones
for junior assistant librarians. But there was no need for him to know my
former occupation on Dearleth.
    “Paint, theater, or words?” he
asked in a level, somber tone. I liked him even more for not laughing at my
lofty aspirations. What my family had called them back on Dearleth was
unrepeatable.
    “Paint… and words,” I absently
answered, thinking of the stack of microdisks containing various novels I’d
imperfectly imprinted on my battered, cheap protyper back in my hotel studio
room. None of the major planet-based publishing houses—or the innovative
traveling publishing ships—had wanted to touch any of them. Not enough romance , the publishers’
rejection messages had admonished.
    Then my thoughts flitted to the
stretched fabric canvases I’d covered with representations of Harnaru in the
rain season, Harnaru in the dry season, and Harnaru in general. No sane gallery
owner wanted to show paintings of the planet when no one living here