Lifespan of Starlight (25 page)

After my longest jump, over a week, I find that I need to settle before leaving again.
So I head over to the rock-climbing centre to compare notes with the others, and
even do a few smaller skips with them while I’m there. The others have managed a
couple of long skips, too, using summer camp or visits to friends’ houses as excuses.
Amon and Boc have been working on a technique
where they skip from halfway up the
climbing wall, returning with sharp enough response to catch the handholds and stop
themselves from falling. Mason’s super accurate with his returns, almost able to
make it to the exact second. Echo is pretty much an all-rounder; as soon as someone
does something new she’s the first to match. And me? I’m not the best at anything,
but at least I’m able to keep up. That’s all I need to do.

Before we even know it, we’re a week away from the first day of school. No wonder
the time passed so quickly, we’ve skipped so many days.

‘You’re ready,’ Boc says when Amon returns from a clear five minutes after Mason
shot the gun at the rock-climbing centre.

‘Yeah.’ Amon keeps moving, breathing hard as he pulls on a shirt. ‘Yeah. I know.’

‘Well?’

‘He should wait until he wants to go,’ Mason calls from the other side of the room.

‘Nah, it’s okay.’ Amon glances towards Echo, halfway up the climbing wall. ‘I’m ready.
Let’s do this.’

Mason jumped on the freight tracks soon after I did, and Echo in a moment of exasperation,
I think, as a way to dampen Boc’s ego after he was first to skip longer than a week.
So Amon’s jump today isn’t just training, it’s also the final challenge left to us
before the holidays end.

We head out as a group, tracing the familiar path to the freight tracks.

‘That last jump was a bit of a shock, don’t you think?’ Echo
says once we’re all
through the gap in the fence. ‘We left in the middle of the heat wave, and then when
we came back there was all that smoke, people walking around with masks over their
mouths. Freaked me out. Didn’t know what was going on until we got home.’

‘Yeah, what did Dad call it?’ Amon calls from a few steps ahead.

‘Time lag,’ Echo says from beside me. ‘Like jet lag, but with no news reports when
you get there.’

‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘Your parents know?’

‘Yep.’ Echo pauses as the path narrows between two eucalypts, letting me through
first. ‘They’ve even managed a couple of short skips.’

‘Didn’t they lose the plot when you told them?’ I say over my shoulder, thinking
of Mum.

Echo jogs to catch up. ‘Yeah, at first. But they’re way obsessed with studying it
now. Practising any chance they can get.’

From a few steps ahead, Mason and Amon are still talking about longer jumps.

‘When you think about it, each new day has always been hidden til you get there,’
Mason is saying. ‘For everyone, I mean. Even without time skipping, you still have
no idea what’s waiting tomorrow. You just get there faster.’

‘Yeah, except you know how things are today at least,’ from Amon. ‘So you get … like,
clues about what’s about to change. It’s more gradual. So it’s not such a shock.’

‘The further we jump, the less we’ll know what’s waiting
when we land,’ says Mason.
‘And the longer we’re away the harder it will be to adjust once we arrive.’ He glances
back to me and I know what he’s thinking. The woman who died had jumped seventeen
years. What must that have been like?

‘That means with leaps of more than a few days there’s no way to know what’s coming,
no real way to prepare?’ says Amon.

‘So what?’ Boc’s been quiet, until now. ‘Most people don’t prepare for anything anyway.
The dinosaurs who still live day by day, most of them don’t realise that anything’s
changing. Not until it’s too late.’

‘Dinosaurs?’ I can’t help asking. ‘Like, your parents and most of your friends, you
mean?’

‘I’ve asked them if they want to learn but most of them think I’m crazy. The only
ones who seem to get it are Amon’s folks. So, like I said …’ Boc drifts off.

We’re quiet for a bit, walking through the scrub of the open parkland. The conversation
drops away as Boc and Amon organise some sort of catch-up tomorrow, an early-morning
climb I think. The only sound is the squawking of a flock of cockatoos in the distance.

‘How about five in the morning?’ asks Boc. ‘Before it’s too hot?’

Silence from Amon before he asks,‘How about six?’

‘Five thirty?’ says Boc. ‘We’ll see the sunrise and everything.’

A snort from Amon as we reach the fence line overlooking the freight tracks. ‘All
right, you win. Who needs sleep? Five thirty it is.’

It’s still dry, but not as hot as it has been. Amon drops his backpack and starts
circling his shoulders and neck as preparation. We all have our quirky ways to prepare,
clearing a throat or clicking knuckles, finding a way to focus.

‘See ya in a bit.’ Amon flicks Echo’s ponytail so that it hits her in the face.

She musses up his hair. ‘Likewise, boofhead.’

We send him off with claps and calls of good luck then watch as Amon makes his way
down to the tracks. It’s not long until the 3.17 train, so the conversation drops
away as he finds his place on the tracks. It will all happen so quickly when the
train finally arrives. We all understand how intense it is to have the massive bullet
shooting straight for you.

We’ve been watching for a while when Mason checks his compad. ‘Must be running late,’
he says. ‘It’s nineteen past.’

Amon must have checked the time as well because after another few minutes he starts
back up the slope towards us. Mason’s been busy on his compad, checking the situation.

‘It’s still coming,’ Mason calls once Amon is part way up the slope.‘Just running
late. About ten minutes from what I can tell.’

Amon nods and heads back to his place on the tracks. It must feel a bit like an anticlimax,
after psyching himself up for a skip.

The next few minutes pass in silence, agonisingly slowly.

‘How long now?’ mumbles Boc.

‘It’s hard to tell,’ Mason says, still busy with his compad, just as I hear the high
hum.

In the next instant it’s here, a series of silver and white.

We’re all at the fence. ‘Did anyone see?’ I ask.

‘He jumped,’ says Echo. ‘I saw him jump.’

Flashes of light and dark pass by, so many carriages moving so incredibly fast. It
must be at least three or four minutes before the last carriage disappears from sight
as suddenly as it appeared.

We watch in silence, relief waiting just a few moments from where we are now. Now
that the train’s gone, we can see the neat pile of Amon’s clothes in the middle of
the track. He made the jump, now all he has to do is return.

Time slips steadily past.

Boc’s the first to shift away from the fence, finding a place on the picnic table.
Each minute seems to slide slower than the last. I’m itching to check the time but
I don’t, not wanting to bring focus to this sense of him being away too long.

It must be about twenty minutes before any of us speaks. ‘When’s the next train?’
Boc asks finally.

Now that he’s broken the quiet, we all start at once.

‘… never stayed away this long unless he meant it.’

‘I saw him jump. He’s just slow to return –’

Mason lifts his head from his compad. ‘Next train is a few minutes past four.’

‘So, he just has to come back before then,’ Echo says, her voice faint. ‘No big deal.’

A minute later she starts climbing the fence. ‘I’m going down.’ If Amon comes back
in a daze she’ll be able to help him off the tracks.

‘I’ll come,’ Boc says.

I sit at the picnic table, watching Boc and Echo make their way towards the tracks.
Too many of us down there might attract attention.

‘Can you reconnect the safety sensors?’ I ask Mason.

‘Already done it.’ He’s leaning against the fence, hands in pockets. He turns from
the tracks to me. ‘Think this is what happened to you?’

‘Don’t know. Maybe.’ By now Boc and Echo have crouched behind a control box near
the tracks. ‘It’s like … you get lost or something. I don’t know.’

‘But you found your way back.’

‘Yeah.’ I check the tracks again and breathe in. ‘So, worst thing that can happen
is that he returns and triggers the safety sensor.’ But I can tell from the way Mason
keeps tapping the tips of his fingers together that he’s thought of worse things
that could happen.

We watch in numb silence as the train arrives and continues past. Echo goes to stand
while Boc holds her shoulders, sort of in a hug but also holding her back. If Amon
returns while the train’s passing, even the safety sensors won’t be enough to save
him.

Then it’s gone, and we’re left with the same empty space as before.

Echo refuses to leave even when it gets dark, so Mason and I head back to his place
for sleeping bags, food and water. Mum’s so used to me time skipping by now that she asks no questions when I message
her that I’ll be home the next day.

When we get back with the gear, we eat little and talk less, taking turns behind
the control box to watch the spot where Amon last stood.

The last train passes at about one in the morning. On the timetable there’s a break
of about five hours, I guess as loading bays shut down for the night. We could skip
ahead until the first train, or go home of course. But none of us do.

He’s about to come back any second, isn’t he? Until that happens we’re stuck together
in this strange limbo.

It’s one of those still summer nights with wisps of cloud lit up by the moon. I doze
a little, using my arm as a pillow on top of the picnic table. I don’t think the
others sleep at all. Boc sticks beside Echo the whole time, resting a hand on her
shoulder when he sees her staring into the distance, saying the same thing, over
and over. ‘It will be okay.’

Watching him with her through these long hours almost makes me forgive him for everything.
Only almost, though. Because I can’t help thinking that he’s the one who set up this
training exercise and talked Amon into it. It’s Boc who got us into this.

When first light breaks, we’re at the fence again. Mason’s down at the control box,
his legs stretched lazily at his front. There’s still another half hour before the
first train. My gaze is drawn to the spot in case Amon somehow returned while we
weren’t watching.

All I find is his pile of clothes.

The lid of the night lifts off the world and details sharpen around us. I crack a
can of water to drink and offer it to the others. Maybe the new dawn will be enough
to call Amon back.

It’s only when Echo gasps beside me that I turn to see some sort of maintenance trolley
clacking slowly along the tracks. A lone figure stands on it, near the front, his
torso lit with flickering blue from a control panel in front of him.

Mason’s body stiffens as he sees, and he sucks himself into a ball, hidden behind
the control box.

Already I’m on the grid, searching for access to the trolley coms, a way to override
perhaps, but all I find is the dot on the grid for the maintenance worker. The control
panel for the trolley is hidden behind a firewall.

With slow clacks, the trolley continues. It reaches Amon’s pile of clothes, slows,
then stops with a clunk. You can almost hear the maintenance worker wondering what
he’s found. For agonising seconds he cranes his neck, looking down at the pile of
clothes. I can sense his confusion from here.

Mason shifts behind the control box. Not sure what he should do. Why didn’t we hide
the clothes?

The maintenance worker swipes at the control pad. The trolley clicks, and begins
to move forwards. My eyes close with relief.

An inhale from Echo, and I open my eyes as she gasps,‘No.’

The trolley has again stopped, right above the pile of clothes. A red light flares underneath, starting at one side and moving towards the other.
Scanning.

We all start moving, but with no clear sense of purpose. Down near the tracks, Mason
stands. I grab for my compad; maybe I can find a workaround to get that trolley moving.
A change in the atmosphere makes me turn to see sunlight slip over the rooftops to
the east.

It’s only when Mason calls out that I turn back again. At first I don’t understand
the shape that has appeared at the base of the trolley.

It can’t be …

‘Jump NOW. Amon! You have to JUMP AGAIN!’ Mason’s voice is shrill, cracked with desperation,
lunging towards the trolley. He stumbles before finding his footing again.

The maintenance worker cries out in alarm, jumping off the trolley at Mason’s appearance,
but I barely notice him.

All I can do is watch, my mind sliding and falling, as Amon returns, his head and
torso emerging from the tray of the trolley in a way that doesn’t make sense. My
mouth falls open, brain can’t understand. Amon’s head drops back as his body slumps.

Still Mason screams, ‘JUMP! NOW!’ He reaches the trolley and pulls to a stop. Almost
as soon as he makes it there, he begins to retreat, his each step pushed back by
a creeping pool of red.