Starbreak (2 page)

Without waiting for an answer, she turned and walked away from him. There was a panel built into the wall. Her hands moved breezily over it. As she worked, I glanced back over my shoulder. The crowd was pressing closer now, threatening to spill over the precipice of the air lock. I saw a cutting figure among them, her wool-wrapped shoulders square. Aleksandra, knife in her hand, parting the crowd like they were sheep to be herded. Coming close.

But then the air lock door began to slide back into place. Her eyes widened. She shouted something, but the words were lost beneath the shouts and songs of the rebels who surrounded her. They didn’t matter.
She
didn’t. The door sealed shut, and we were left alone in the darkness.

•  •  •

Laurel turned on the heel of her leather-soled shoe to make her way briskly through the air lock. At first I hesitated beside Rebbe Davison and his friend, watching as Deklan scrambled after her.

“You’re not going alone!” he cried, fixing a hand on her shoulder. She spun around, tossing her curls as she faced him.

“Then come with us.”

His eyes met mine, murky with confusion, as if he couldn’t believe what the rebellion had wrought: his love was ready to leap off the ship and into the void of space without him. Then he looked to the specialist and to Rebbe Davison.

“Are you going?”

At first our teacher looked wary, uncertain. But then he let his eyes slide shut. Behind us the sound of the rioting crowd could still be heard, a dozen muffled hands pounding on the air lock door again and again. When Rebbe Davison opened his eyes, they were filled with a new, razor-sharp certainty.

“Liberty on Zehava,” he said, softly at first, but then again, louder. “Liberty on Zehava! Terra’s right. The planet. The planet is
ours
.”

There was something strange, garbled about his words. In class this kindhearted man had always spoken with confidence. Even when someone misbehaved, he’d laughed it off easily, taking every disaster in stride. Now he seemed hazy.

Drunk. They were all drunk, I realized. I’d swallowed down a full skein of wine that evening myself, but now that I was driven by a single goal, the night had taken on an uncanny clarity. I could see the rust on the grating beneath us, every rivet on every shuttle, and the cobwebs that would soon be blasted away when the ship’s outer port opened. Anyone left behind in the air lock would be lost to the vacuum of space—and I wasn’t about to open up the door to the shuttle bay again. So even though I heard the slur in my teacher’s words, I nodded. I needed them to come with me, and fast.

“Good. Let’s board, then,” I said.

Rebbe Davison looked at the specialist, who considered for a
moment, mouth open. But soon he nodded too. We all turned toward the shuttles and made our way toward one at the back.

“I only have access to this one,” Laurel said as we neared shuttle number twenty-eight. But the door was blocked by a pair of figures. An old man with a fringe of white hair and a bulbous nose—and a dark-haired girl, no older than ten. The man was my neighbor, Mar Schneider. He’d been a part of our clandestine library meetings too, and when he saw us, he lifted two fingers to his heart.

“She wanted to see the shuttles,” he said, almost apologetically, holding the girl’s hand tight. I recognized her as his granddaughter, who sat on his stoop with him sometimes to watch the traffic of the afternoon, but in that moment I couldn’t remember her name. As Laurel shouldered them aside to punch in her access code, Rebbe Davison set a hand on the old man’s shoulder. He spoke just a few decibels louder than necessary.

“Abraham, we’re going to the planet! Would you like to join us?”

Mar Schneider lifted a hand to touch his scratchy white beard. He smacked his lips, considering. But his granddaughter didn’t need time to consider. She jumped up and down on the balls of her feet.

“Yes! Yes!
Zayde
, please?”

As if it were nothing more than a request for a box of candy, he sighed. My heart was pounding. Behind me the door to the shuttle bay was pounding too—a low, steady thunder.

“Oh, I suppose.”

One by one we climbed inside. The shuttle was small, meant to carry only a dozen people. That night we were half that. But our meager crew would have to do. As we boarded, Laurel turned toward a storage space in back.

“The flight suits are in there. Everybody suit up. And be sure to buckle up.” She pulled the heavy door closed behind us. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw a shadow of doubt in her pale eyes. I ignored it. I needed her if I was going to reach Zehava—if I was going to find my boy, waiting for me. She added, “It might be a bumpy ride.”

T
he suits were kept in hermetically sealed containers. They’d been removed only once a generation, to have their moth holes repaired by the best seamstresses on the
Asherah
. When we unfolded the garments, they resembled the threadbare quilts we all used to keep ourselves warm on cold winter nights—covered in stitches and patches, not at all like something that would keep us safe from the ravages of space.

Laurel and Deklan doled one out to each of us. I held the crinkly
suit for a moment, almost not believing that this day had finally come. After seventeen years trapped on this ship, I would finally set foot on Zehava, the place we’d sung songs about in school—the place I daydreamed about as I doodled in my notebook margins. Stepping into the suit’s long legs, I hiked up the pleats of my long dress. But I fumbled as I tried to pull the suit up over my waist. The dress was tightly laced from behind; I couldn’t reach the stays.

“Can you help me?” I asked Laurel, feeling my cheeks heat as the men glanced over at me. She was already zipped into her suit, her springy curls still tucked under the suit’s collar.

“Sure,” she said. She hurried over. Together we stepped into the dark shadows near the back of the shuttle. I felt her hands make quick work of the laces. Then my breath fully filled my lungs for the first time that night.

“It’s a beautiful dress,” she said, leaning close. “Did you and Silvan have a chance to say your vows?”

I lifted my arms, letting Laurel raise the reams of silk over my head. It came off in a stream of gold. I didn’t want to think of Silvan, not now—didn’t want to consider the wounded look he’d given me when I said I wouldn’t be his bride. This day was about me and the alien boy. Not about Silvan Rafferty.

“No,” I whispered. My voice came out hoarse, strange. “No, we didn’t.”

I hefted the suit’s sleeves up over my naked shoulders, then groped for the zipper. The synthetic material felt warm and clammy over my skin. When I turned, it was to see Laurel smiling sympathetically as she handed me back the bolts of golden silk.

“Good,” she said. “Who’d wanna be married to a Council member, anyway?”

She left me standing there in the shadows as she took the pilot’s seat. I clutched that fine, stupid dress against my belly, watching as the men sat down and strapped themselves in. Mar Schneider tightened his granddaughter’s straps. His old eyes twinkled.

“I never thought I’d see it,” he said. “A
planet
. Zehava. I’ve been dreaming about it since I was a child.”

“Me too,” the girl agreed cheerfully, kicking out her legs in excitement. Then she turned to look at me. I still stood in the back of the shuttle, hidden in the dark shadows. “Are
you
excited?”

I walked to the other side of the aisle, where an empty seat waited. I knew that it was crazy, this journey—and my choice of companions did little to calm my fears. A field-worker and a school teacher. An old man and a child. A specialist—who knew in
what
—and a pilot, too, but one who had never flown a shuttle before. Still, I had to hope that they’d get me to him, the boy whose skin smelled like flowers and tasted like ripe summer fruit.

“Of course I am,” I said as I pulled the straps down over my
shoulders. In the pilot’s seat Laurel reached up, flipping a switch. There was a roar, dull at first but growing. I gazed down at the silk that I still clutched. The dress was crumpled, stained from my race through the pastures. Ruined; it was ruined.

My brother had bought me that dress, scrimping and saving every piece of gelt he could. He said it was what our father would have wanted. But our father wasn’t here now. What did it matter what Abba wanted? I stuffed the dress beneath my seat, kicking at the wide skirt and petticoat until it was all out of sight.

The engine flared and our bodies were pressed back against the seats. I thought of Aleksandra, fumbling with the controls to the air lock doors. But I willed her memory away. Soon I would be free of her, of this ship, this life. The little girl looked over. Her smile was toothy, wide.

“Don’t be scared,” she said. But I didn’t feel scared, not one bit.

I felt exhilarated.

•  •  •

At first the trip was rocky. I shut my eyes, imagining our little shuttle bumping and bumbling down the intake port and leaving a white-hot trail behind it. Then the noise died down; the shuttle straightened. When I opened my eyes, I saw a black sky scattered with stars in the window past Laurel’s head. She moved her hands over the controls, lighting dials beneath her fingertips. I could see her face, gold and
flickering in the light. Her smile was tentative, uncertain. I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

“You know what you’re doing, right?” Deklan asked, setting his muddy boots up on the dash. He’d taken the copilot’s seat, but he didn’t seem to be helping her at all. He only frowned as she hesitated over the controls.

“Of course I do,” she said. “Get your feet down. This isn’t your bedroom.”

After a beat he did, letting them thump against the metal ground. Then he looked back over his shoulder, letting his eyebrow lift up as he turned to the men. I’d seen that look before, from Abba, from Ronen, from Silvan, too.
Crazy woman
, it meant, and it filled my belly with rage to see it. We were depending on Laurel—not just Deklan, but
all
of us. Who was he to fill her head with doubts?

But Laurel was unperturbed. She pressed a button, then sat back. She finally nodded her curly head in satisfaction.

“There. The course is set. We’ll arrive in eight point six hours.”

“That long?” Deklan asked.

Laurel glanced skyward. “How long did you think it would take?”

“Your intended never was one for listening in school,” Rebbe Davison said. Laurel jumped a little. I think she’d forgotten that there was anyone but the two of them in the shuttle. But she smiled gratefully.

“He’s not one for listening generally,” she agreed. Deklan glowered at her, but after a moment his hard mouth dissolved into a smile.

“You got me,
bashert
.”
Bashert
. The word made my heart lurch in my chest. Deklan had already met his heart’s match. Maybe soon
I
would too. “I’ll be good and let you drive. Just wake me when it’s over.”

He sat back in the seat, propping his arms up like he was getting ready for a nap. Laurel let out a bell of soft laughter.

“Sleep tight,” she said.

As Deklan closed his eyes, I looked at the black sky filling the window. There was a streak of white light in the distance, arcing toward the planet. But I thought perhaps I dreamed it—no one else seemed to notice. The others talked, making introductions, prattling on about the lives they’d just abandoned. The small-eyed specialist was called Jachin. A biologist, he’d left behind a wife who swore her allegiance to the Council even as chaos descended on the ship. But he wasn’t looking back. Instead he turned the discussion to the planet ahead. Who were the people who lived on it below? Would they welcome us?

I thought of the video I’d seen in the ship’s command center just before the revolt. Only hours had passed, but it felt like a lifetime already. The men who’d held the shuttle crew hadn’t been like any men I’d known in my waking life. They were too tall, too thin. Their bodies bent in ways that should have seemed unnatural to me.

But they didn’t. Every night for nearly six months now, I’d dreamed of a body like that—long and cool beside me, filling my nose and mouth and mind with the scent of a thousand different flowers. In my dreams I was naked, and when I wasn’t, he soon undressed me with his nimble, three-fingered hands. . . .

His eyes were black, a pair of obsidian lozenges without a shred of light inside them. The men in the transmission had black eyes, too. But their gazes didn’t welcome me. In fact, the men in the transmission snarled as they forced the lost shuttle crew to parrot officious words.

Mayday, Mayday. Zehava is inhabited. I repeat, Zehava is inhabited. . . .

And yet I knew in the pit of my belly that my boy was real. He waited on that planet somewhere—the one that, just now, had only barely begun to come into view. I saw the delicate, curving lip of her oceans against the horizon, swirled with white from above. I saw the lights, winking, glinting. It was too dark to see the purple vegetation, but I knew that if I wanted to see Zehava’s forests and her vines, all I had to do was shut my eyes. It had always worked before.

“Hey, lady,” the little girl said. I turned to look at her.

“Mmm?”

“What do
you
think the aliens are like?” she asked.

“Alien,”
I thought.
What a funny word. We’re the strangers. They were the ones who lived here first.

But I only smiled at the girl. “Real nice,” I told her. “They’ll be so happy to see you.”

It wasn’t a lie, not entirely. But it was a precious, fragile hope, one that flew in the face of my sister-in-law’s words. In the video Hannah had been terrified.
Send a recovery shuttle
, she’d said. But I couldn’t believe it. I needed the boy, his long arms; his bright body, rank with pollen. I needed to believe that I was traveling toward something, that I was doing more than running away.

•  •  •

The others prattled and joked while the white noise of the engine whirred on and on. It had been a long day, too long. I’d been drunk and sober; terrified, and then calm again. Now my eyelids felt impossibly heavy. My limbs felt heavy too. Soon I found myself nodding off, tumbling toward the forest of my dreams.