My cousin said he was finished racing me. Then he borrowed the long board.
“You’ll need that,” I told him.
Jast looked at the board, then at me. “For going slowly.”
He was twenty-six, eight years older than me, and used to say that age would teach me patience. Age had mostly taught him to say things like that while checking his distance record on his wrist.
Outside the station window, the wave course shone blue. Three white buoys stood along it. Beyond them was the red fence, and far beyond that, a black hole darkened the middle of the stars.
We did not surf the hole. We surfed waves the station made from the energy it gathered nearby. They rolled inside a fenced track, with a quiet return lane beside it. Every advertisement preferred the black hole to the fence.
I had practiced for six weeks. Jast’s best run ended past the second buoy. I meant to reach the third.
Veck checked my suit seal and tapped the tow button on my wrist.
“One press. Keep the beacon on. Don’t cross red.”
“I know.”
“People say that before I have to fetch them.”
A tow ended a record run and cost more than I wanted to spend. The rental included an ordinary trip back along the quiet lane. It did not include dragging a board that couldn’t steer.
Jast glanced at the station clock.
“My wedding meal’s at seven. I need to be off the track by five.”
“You’re not married yet.”
“People like to eat before they agree to things.”
His partner had asked for one evening when he didn’t come home talking about somebody else’s race. I liked her. I also thought five gave him plenty of time to lose.
“You can stop early,” I said. “No shame.”
He grinned in a way that told me he had taken the bait. Before I finished fastening my gloves, he pushed through the gate.
The first wave rose under us like a road growing a hill. I bent my knees and let the board climb. For three breaths, Jast was ahead. His long board held a steady line, and his shoulders barely moved.
I took the inside crest. It rose faster. I tipped toward it, felt the pull beneath my feet, and went past him.
There is a moment in a good run when the board stops feeling rented. Its weight becomes part of your legs. The air in your suit is warm, the view huge, and you can feel the wave arriving before you see it.
I had that moment before the first buoy.
Then my arms began to ache.
I had been holding them out too hard, trying to look calm. I lowered one, wobbled, and nearly lost the crest. Jast slid by on my left.
“All right?” he asked over the suit radio.
“Enjoy the view while you’re ahead.”
“I’m enjoying the quiet.”
We passed the first buoy. The station grew small behind us. Its rings looked like handles on a cup.
Ahead, our wave divided. A white arrow marked the choice: take the long outer crest for more distance, or slide into the quiet return lane. Farther on, the outer crest met a second wave beside the second buoy. Another arrow marked the turn we had to make before those waves crossed. The red fence lay beyond both routes.
Jast took the quiet lane.
I laughed into the radio. “Finished?”
“Finished.”
“You could still—”
“I started because you dared me. That was stupid. I’m going in.”
He sounded tired, not defeated. That annoyed me more than a challenge would have.
I turned onto the outer crest. It would carry me toward the third buoy if I stayed ahead of the crossing wave.
Something dark fluttered beside the light.
At first I thought it was a piece of torn marker cloth. Then it divided into several shapes. Each was small against the wave, wide at one end and narrow at the other. They moved the wrong way, toward the oncoming glow.
I had never seen anything move there without a board beneath it.
My camera was recording. I twisted my wrist toward the shapes, then leaned farther so the bright crest wouldn’t hide them.
The second arrow, the one before the waves crossed, passed below me.
I saw it too late.
The waves met. My board jolted sideways, and the second buoy rushed up at my knee. I bent away, but the rear fin struck its padded base.
A hard knock ran through the board.
I spun into the quiet lane with my arms folded against my chest. The lane slowed me. The board stopped spinning, and I was still standing.
For a few seconds I thought that meant nothing serious had happened.
Then I tried to turn toward the return marks. The board slid sideways instead. I tried once more, gently. It answered with the same useless drift.
One fin hung loose behind me.
The third buoy was farther down the lane. Reaching it now would not count. The quiet lane wasn’t part of a distance run, and I couldn’t steer onto a crest even if I wanted to.
My beacon light was green. I pressed the tow button.
“Rental twenty-two,” I said. “In the quiet lane beyond second. Broken fin. Suit all right.”
Dispatch repeated my position. A tow was coming from the station side. They told me to remain on the board while it drifted inside the fence.
Jast called a moment later.
“Do you need me?”
“Tow’s coming.”
“I can see it leaving. I’m at the gate.”
“Then go eat.”
He paused. “I’ll wait until they reach you.”
“You’ll have plenty to talk about tonight.”
“I’m planning to discuss soup.”
I laughed, though my throat hurt. The dark shapes were gone.
The tow attached a line to the board and brought me home. Its driver asked where I’d hit. I pointed to the fin. He looked at it, looked at the second buoy behind us, and said nothing I could argue with.
Jast was waiting by the rental rack. He took my gloves while I unsealed the helmet.
“Did you get a good picture?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know that either.”
Veck brought the bill. The tow charge was printed beside the damaged fin charge. I had paid for the rental already. This was extra.
I told him about the moving shapes, as if that might alter the amount.
“Tell observation desk,” he said. “Pay rental desk.”
The record board showed Jast’s name where it had been that morning.
I had saved enough to enter the next station race. Now I used that money to settle the bill. Veck gave me a receipt and put the damaged board on a rack for repair.
“Want a lift to the inner stop?” Jast asked. “I’ve got to leave.”
“Not yet.”
His eyes went to the clock. He hugged me quickly, too hard around the ribs, then took his long board back to the rack.
“Soup,” I reminded him.
“Only soup.”
He left. I didn’t call him back.
At the observation desk, the recording showed a blue-white blur, my glove, then the buoy arriving far too quickly. In one frame, three dark marks appeared beside the crest.
The woman at the desk enlarged them.
“Could be debris,” she said. “Could be a fault in the picture.”
“I watched them move against the wave.”
She wrote that down as something I had seen. She did not label them animals. I asked whether an interesting recording earned a fee. This one didn’t, though they would keep it with my report.
I had hoped for a better answer.
The bus to my room would not reach the inner stop for another twenty minutes. It traveled through the station’s tunnels, well away from the track. I could have waited beside the vending machines.
Instead I walked up to the overlook.
The thick window kept the enormous view silent. A fresh wave came up from the station’s track mouth and ran toward the second buoy.
Near its edge, something dark turned across the light.
I put my hand against the window. It vanished behind the crest, then appeared a little farther on. I watched until the next wave hid it.
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