Spinning Starlight (3 page)

“Liddi, are you well? Garrin says you were hurt. I assure you, Doctor, if she’s not receiving the absolute best possible care, you’ll—”

“I’m fine,” I cut in. “Or, fine enough.”

Ms. Blake stands right in front of me, her gaze cutting through. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

I’ve been resisting all morning, resisting the words that make it real. My brothers should be the first ones I tell, but with Ms. Blake here, there’s no choice. She needs to
know.

“Men with guns came to the house. I was outside, walking…thinking. When they realized I wasn’t in bed, they came looking, and I ran.”

The women are frozen, but Garrin takes a half step forward. “Did they hurt you? Did you get a good look at any of them?”

I shake my head, answering both questions at once. His concern reminds me of my father, which only strengthens my need to see the boys. “Ms. Blake, please, has anyone told my brothers?
They should be here. They might be in trouble, too.”

Garrin inhales sharply. “That’s just the thing,” Ms. Blake says. “Liddi, no one’s heard from your brothers in at least nine days. We can’t find
them.”

Some of the boys were roughhousing while the others vied for their father’s attention, showing him the little devices they’d tinkered together that day. Mrs.
Jantzen took Liddi’s hand and they slipped away, up to the roof of the townhouse.

The city surrounded them, the lights of each building reflecting off the next, the streets a distant memory below. A breeze cut through, lifting Liddi’s hair and blowing it across her
eyes. Her mother sat her down on one of the benches and twisted her hair into a braid to hold it in place.

“Those boys are so noisy sometimes,” she said. “It’s nice to get away once in a while.”

“Yeah, it’s nice,” Liddi agreed. She craned her neck up toward the sky. “Where are the stars, Mommy?”

“Right where they always are. We just can’t see them because there’s too much light in the city.”

“They should turn off the lights. I want the stars back like at the other house. They shouldn’t be gone.”

Mrs. Jantzen wrapped her arms around Liddi’s shoulders and pulled her close. “Sweetheart, they aren’t gone. Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it
isn’t there. The stars are always there.”

NINE DAYS AND NOT A BLIP
from my brothers, to anyone. “How is that possible?” I demand. “How do eight of
the most famous men in the Seven Points go comm-silent without anyone noticing? Without
you
noticing?”

“It’s possible it’s nothing,” says Ms. Blake. “They’ve all been traveling off-Point recently, and you know how they are when they’re away.”

True, I know how my brothers are. They keep busy, and when they go to other worlds—which, thanks to the interstellar conduits, they can do almost instantaneously—they like to stay
focused on their business. Sometimes that makes them a little fixated on a project, though, and they tune other things out. That’s why they have Ms. Blake in the first place, so they can
spend more time on their own work. They’re technologists to the core, and a lot like our father was in that way. At least, that’s what I’m told. It’s possible they’re
all busy and not paying attention to their messages. Possible.

But it doesn’t feel right. It’s normal enough for me to be out of the loop. Upper management at JTI, though? Not so much. The scowl tightening Garrin’s mouth says he agrees
with me.

I don’t want to ask the question out loud, but someone has to. “Could the same gunmen—Could my brothers be…”

Garrin shakes his head. “All eight of them, so quietly? Highly unlikely. I don’t care who these gunmen are. They’re not that good.”

“I agree,” Ms. Blake says. “Far more plausible that the two are unrelated, or that these men noted your brothers’ absence and seized the opportunity.”

The police officer finally speaks up. “Besides that, inter-Point communication can be awful spotty. I remember when I was in training, a bunch of us went cliff diving on Pramadam. Had a
wretch of a time contacting our commander when Freitag broke his leg.”

My estimation of the woman nudges down. Communication between the seven worlds may have been “spotty” in her youth, but Anton redesigned the interlocks himself just to make sure he
could reliably contact his then-girlfriend on Yishu. They’re so solid, you could whisper across the light-years. My brothers wouldn’t have any such trouble.

Ms. Blake cuts off my retort. “Liddi, this is Officer Svarta. I imagine she’ll need your report.”

She nods, tapping away on a com-tablet. “Indeed. And a patrol is heading out to your estate right now. We’ll get this sorted out quick enough.”

“Meanwhile, once the doctor and officer are finished, we should get you settled somewhere safe.”

“I can see to that, Ms. Blake,” Garrin says.

The upturn in the manager’s lips barely qualifies as a smile. “A kind offer, but under the circumstances, I prefer to see to those arrangements myself. You understand.”

I’m not sure how I feel about either of them making arrangements for me. But I do what I’m told. What’s expected. I tell Officer Svarta every detail I remember of the
attack, and she makes me repeat nearly everything. There were four teams? At least. None of them followed me across the river? Not that I know of. Did I see anyone else?

I hesitate at that last question. I was so sure I saw Vic, but if it were really him, he wouldn’t have run off again without seeing me to safety. The late hour, the shadows, the
adrenaline…it adds up to a trick of the light and my imagination. Maybe. I tell Svarta I saw no one, and the officer leaves to supervise the investigation.

The doctor finishes just as Ms. Blake’s assistant arrives with clothes and shoes for me. I wonder where they came from, and a glance at the tag emblem answers that. They’re from
Beyond, a boutique that’s always trying to get me to chat up their fashions in media-casts. I’ve never liked their pushiness, but it’s clothes, and that’s all I care about
right now.

“That’s much better,” Ms. Blake says after I clean up and change. I have to agree. She tries to usher me from the room, but I hold back.

“Garrin, thank you,” I say. “Thanks for finding me.”

“Of course,” he replies, his eyes steady on me despite Ms. Blake’s impatience. “When I saw the media-casts, I couldn’t leave you out there alone. If you need
anything, contact me right away.”

I nod, but Ms. Blake won’t wait for further sentimentality, nudging me into the hallway. “Come on, Liddi. Let’s get you out of here.”

Out of the hospital is fine, but it raises a question. “Where are we going?”

“Your parents’ townhouse has been prepared. It’s secure, and you’ll be able to get some rest. You should be safe here in the city—plenty of eyes keeping watch, of
course—but this security-cam will accompany you door-to-door if you need to go anywhere.”

The townhouse. Thinking about it distracts me from the hum of the heftier cam following us. I haven’t been there since Mom and Dad died. Someone held a reception there after the funeral,
and then the boys and I were sent out to the country. Durant and the twins were already grown—just barely—but they stayed for a few years until Fabin was old enough to keep an eye on
the rest of us. Eventually, Fabin left, and Anton, and finally the triplets, leaving just me. But no one went back to our home in the city. They got their own places, either here in Pinnacle
or somewhere else on Sampati.

I could tell Ms. Blake I refuse, that she’ll have to find another place for me to stay. But I don’t. A place where we were all once happy together might be exactly what I need. For a
little while.

“Ms. Blake?”

“Please, Liddi, you’re not a child anymore. You can call me Minali—your brothers do.”

I can, but it’s weird. Like calling Dom the Domestic Engineer and Itinerary Keeper, but in reverse. One too formal, the other too casual. But it’s true that my brothers have called
her by her first name for years, so I can try.

“Okay. Minali. Will I be able to go back to the estate eventually?”

She considers during the two seconds it takes to program the hovercar. “I certainly hope so, but there’s a lot we don’t know right now. Let’s wait and see what Officer
Svarta and her team find out. I know this must be frightening, but we’ll figure it out. I promise.”

Her promise lends some reassurance, but the fear lingers. She must see it in my eyes, as she offers a small smile.

“Meanwhile, maybe some distraction is in order. Are you working on something for the Tech Reveal? I can have it brought into the city for now.”

That thing again. Color heats my face, equal parts shame, frustration, and anger. “No, still in the idea stage.”

“Well, if you can come up with something we can preview before the Reveal, it will likely help the situation. Media-casts are running rampant with recordings of you entering the city on
foot. We could use a touch of spin.”

Spinning for media-casts…something I can definitely do. Parties and pretending I like expensive shoes that are barely anatomically possible to wear, that was always spin. In this situation,
though, it feels off. Men attacked my home and my brothers are missing. That’s a lot to overlook.

“What difference will spin make now?”

She tilts her head uncertainly. “It’s always important to show strength. You know how the worlds rely on this company, its technology. And, by extension, you.”

I can’t help but think if that’s true, the Seven Points are in more trouble than they know.

It turns out I remember more about the townhouse than I thought I did, because the moment I enter, I know nothing has changed. The wallscreens are set to the same
artwork—landscapes of the Seven Points, from the senatorial complex on Neta to a mountain range on Erkir—the windows have the same blue curtains, and the main room is full of the same
furniture to accommodate our large family. The edge of that chair in the corner cracked open my forehead when I tripped while chasing Ciro. He’d threatened to cut my hair.

One of Dad’s spare toolkits is on a small table against the wall.

Everything’s perfect, still in its place, and yet so wrong. Smaller, the walls closer together, but big with the emptiness that should be occupied by the rest of my family. The emptiness
that aches alongside my worry.