In Heaven and Earth by Amy Rae Durreson Page A

mean approximately thirteen centuries,” Vairya said, and
then his voice shifted, losing a little warmth and humour to
recite, “‘So all day long the noise of battle roll’d among the
mountains by the winter sea—’”
    “ Could you not
find anything less morbidly sentimental?” Reuben asked
acidly.
    “ Always a
critic. Would you like me to find something a little more jolly? I
have plenty of limericks in here.”
    “ Adventure,”
Meili said, “if you’re taking requests. Something with some good
fights. I need inspiration.”
    Vairya chuckled. “Fine.
‘Sing. O muse, of the wrath of Achilles—’”
    “ Fuck off,”
Reuben said mildly. “I’m not putting up with nine books worth of
chariots and tantrums.”
    “‘ This day is
called the feast of Crispian—’”
    “ No .”
    “ Stop
interrupting the man, Cooper,” Meili said. “He needs to
concentrate. Go back to the original, Vairya. I’ll shoot Cooper if
he keeps whining.”
    “ I hate
Tennyson,” Reuben muttered, but she was right, and he was being a
fool, demanding Vairya’s attention just because he wanted to hear
that wry tone turned at him.
    “‘ Until King
Arthur’s table, man by man, had fall’n in Lyonnesse about their
Lord…’” Vairya continued, and Reuben sat and listened as his vision
cleared, and the world around him filled with sunlight again. It
was bright today, pouring over them with a fury that made him glad
they were suited up. How much closer had the city carried them? How
soon would it be too hot for anything to survive?
    When the light changed,
he assumed it was his helmet again until Vairya paused in his
recitation to say, “Atmospheric shields up and secure. Working on
the air supply and gravity now.”
    “ Good,” Reuben
said. “Let us know as soon as we can get these helmets
off.”
    “ Will do.
Eskil’s got four more ships away. Now where was I? Ah, yes. ‘Such a
sleep they sleep— the men I loved. I think that we shall never
more, at any future time, delight our souls with talk of knightly
deeds, walking about the gardens and the halls…’”
    Meili sat down on the
cobbles, laying her gun aside. “Okay, you were right. Don’t you two
know any poetry which isn’t depressing and tedious?”
    “ Barbarian,”
Reuben said, but it lacked some of the venom he might have used a
few weeks ago.
    It could have been half
an hour later, or even an hour, when Meili held up her hand and
showed him the atmospheric scanner in her glove. It had changed
from red to amber, and was already green tinted.
    “ Good systems,”
she said.
    “ Gravity’s
about to come back on,” Vairya said. “Brace yourselves. Oh, and
Reuben, I’m about to start on Paradise
Lost .”
    “ Only ever read
extracts of that,” Reuben said, cheering up a little.
    He felt the lurch and
sudden drop of his stomach as the gravity kicked in, and swallowed
back the urge to vomit into his helmet.
    Meili checked her scanner
again, and said, “Seriously, Cooper, what is the appeal of all
this? You trying to read everything ever written?”
    “ Just the
highlights,” Reuben said, “and I never got much beyond one language
and two millennia.”
    “ Why?”
    “ Why
not?”
    “ Cooper.”
    He looked up at the
blazing sky. “Because they didn’t know anything. They didn’t know
what the stars were, or how planets circled the sun, or why our
hearts beat, and our bodies grew old. It didn’t stop them, though.
They loved, and they lived, and they never stopped wondering what
it meant to be—”
    It was more than he had
meant to say, and he stopped himself.
    “ To
be?”
    “ Human,” he
finished. “What it meant to be human.”
    She was quiet for a
moment. “Did they find an answer?”
    “ No. No one
ever has. That’s not the point.”
    “ Then what
is?”
    “ They never
stopped asking,” he said. “That’s the point.”
    She was quiet, and into
their silence, Vairya said, his voice soft, “You have breathable
atmosphere at