Starbreak (37 page)

Vadix?
I asked, but no voice came thundering back inside my mind. My breath was suddenly shallow. Absent. I sat up in bed, tugging open the top button of my nightgown in a panic.
Vadix!

Nothing. Nothing. No flowers turning their faces to the light. No
vines to bolster me. When I closed my eyes, the only thing I saw was a dark cave wall streaked with limey water. I smelled metal and packed-down dirt where the perfume of life should have been. I heard silence where there should have been music. Felt pain where there should have been joy.

These were the funerary fields—underground caverns below even the winter caves, pungent with the odor of decay. Purple seedlings curled up from mounds. Some would swell into lavender flowers. Blossoms. Fruit.
People
. But the season was early, the light at the cave’s mouth feeble. There was no life there, not now.

He was down there somewhere, deep beneath the city. If I could have, I would have kicked back my covers, raced through Raza Ait with my hair unbound. I would have pulled him back toward the moonlight, to the place where the living still walked and worked, laughed and loved. But I was hours and hours away. There was nothing I could do. He was as good as gone if he wasn’t already. Swallowed by a darkness so much deeper than any I’d ever known, even on the ship.

I pulled Pepper against me. He let out a mewl of protest, but I didn’t care. I buried my face against his warm body, cried and cried and cried. It was my last night on the
Asherah
. The next day I’d take off for a new planet, a new life.

And I would be alone.

I
n the shuttle bay Hannah cried. She embraced her mother first, then her father, then her mother again, the tears streaming down her face. Even Ronen looked a little choked up as he bid them farewell, watching as they pressed kisses to Alyana’s fat baby cheeks. I stood off to the side, holding Pepper in his carrier. He scrambled and yowled, throwing his body against the bars.

I felt nothing.

As we made our way down through the air lock, my fingers were
ice cold; my heart, numb. I hardly heard the pair of voices that called out for me. But then they came again, louder, rising over the sound of the departing crowds. Lifting my eyebrows, I turned. Rachel and Silvan rushed down the narrow walkway, elbowing past the gathered crowd.

“Terra! Terra!”

I put the carrier down on the metal grate, raised my arms, and accepted Rachel’s embrace. Silvan stood off to the side, watching us. She was weeping already, her face shining with tears.

“I’ll miss you. Oh, I’ll miss you so much.”

I felt my chest squeeze. It was almost too much for me; I had to swallow down the lump in my throat. “I’ll miss you, too, Raych. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

She glanced over her shoulder to Silvan. He stood tall, proud. When their gazes locked, he gave a firm nod.

“Of course,” he said, answering for her. “This is what we want.”

But Rachel stayed frozen for a moment longer, squeezing my ice-cold fingers. “Silvan told me all about the planet,” she said. “I can’t wait to tell our children about it. About the green-gold skies and purple trees, and how they stole away the heart of my sister.”

“Didn’t I always tell you you’d be a great mother someday?” I said, my voice creaking coarsely out. She smiled through her tears, let out a bell of laughter.

“Yes,” she said. “You did.”

The line moved forward. I bent over to pick up Pepper’s carrier and shuffle it ahead. Rachel’s dark eyes were locked on me. There were words on her lips, but I could see that she didn’t know how to speak them.

“What is it, Rachel?”

“Well,” she began, picking up the pleat of her dress and worrying the fabric. “I wanted to ask. If your people want to worship, you’ll let them, right?”

I stopped, standing straight, and looked at her. The crease between my friend’s eyebrows was deep. I was still no believer, though I remembered too well what Jachin had said. In the distant past, before we’d lost our planet, religion had helped humanity thrive. The biologist had already boarded one of the shuttles with his family—probably speaking prayers to the darkness beyond, thanking God for changing his wife’s mind, asking God for a safe trip home. He was one of us, but faith was important to him. As it had been to Vadix, once.

“Of course, Rachel,” I said, watching as relief flooded her features. “That’s what ‘liberty’ means.”

Her smile was wide and bright. I watched as Silvan threw an arm over her shoulder and drew her in close. Though the line moved up again ahead of me, I hesitated beside the pair.

“Be good to your people,” I said at last. Silvan frowned, but not
Rachel. She only angled up her chin, listening. “No matter who they love or how they wish to live. Please. Be good to them.”

Rachel’s hand darted out and grabbed on to mine. She leaned up and pressed a kiss to the corner of my mouth. She smelled like perfume. Springtime. Freshly laundered clothes.

“I will, Terra,” she whispered, just before Silvan pulled her away. “I will.”

•  •  •

The others all jabbered the hours away on the shuttle ride over, fogging their flight helmets with their breath. Not me, though. I sat with the cat’s carrier on my knees, my eyes closed as I tried to reckon everything I’d lost.

Momma. Mar Jacobi. Abba. Captain Wolff. Mar Schneider. Deklan Levitt. Laurel Selberlicht. Aleksandra. A whole ship, and the people inside it. Silvan. And Rachel, my first, best friend.

I could recover from these losses, from the gap they left inside me, bright and raw. I’d done it before, and I’d do it again, just like I’d told Laurel. Day after day I’d put one foot in front of the other and pull myself slowly forward. I’d live so that our colony could live, so that our new city could burst forth with life and laughter. One day it wouldn’t hurt so much. I knew this because I’d done it before.

But I didn’t know how to reckon missing
him
. I couldn’t even wrap my mind around his absence. When I tried to imagine the days
ahead, they were gray with loss. I’d saved my people, achieved
tikkun olam
. And yet my heart was heavy.

We’d shared only two nights together, a scattered handful of conversations, a few caresses in the dark. Yet he’d become a part of me. Maybe I would love again. Maybe I would lead my people well. But I would only ever feel like half myself. A shadow. A shade, defined by his absence.

A
lousk
.

The rest of them cried out joyfully upon impact, throwing their arms into the air and laughing to one another. I just silently clutched the armrests. We pulled up to the dock. The door lifted, revealing a white space beyond. The others all shielded their faces from the light, but I unbuckled my harness and stood, removing my helmet, unzipping my suit. While they were still blinking back the brilliant light of day, I had already stepped past the threshold, cat carrier in hand.

The pier was crowded with Asherati. They squinted into the sunlight, pointing toward the white-licked sea and the expanse of sky high above. The weather had grown even more frigid in the weeks since my last visit. I hitched my wool coat tighter around me, my eyes scanning the pier for someone or something familiar.

And that’s when I felt it. That steady pull that began somewhere deep in my solar plexus and drew me out and out, past my body and into the world beyond. Here. He was here. I could feel it—
see
it, the whole pier laid out through his eyes.

I hefted the cat carrier high and pushed through the crowd. Families gathered, laughing and jostling, moving in slow waves toward the
ekku
who waited by the city’s walls. I shoved through the bodies, trying to let myself see what he saw. But it was all a jumble. People, hundreds of them, with their musty, animalistic smells, making their odd, beastlike noises. If he hadn’t known me, he would have thought them savages.

I heard Pepper’s cries. I heard someone calling for me. Mordecai. Waving me over. He stood beside his children and wife, all dressed in their flight suits. Their grins were broad, elated at the new world they’d found. They turned their eyes expectantly toward me.

“Come, Terra, give us a speech!”

But I shook my head and pressed forward. This was no time for speeches. He was here. He was
here
! Vadix was here!

That’s when I spotted him. That bald blue head, those eyes, as black as onyx. He stood, posture slumped, against the city’s outer wall. He was dressed in a robe of fine, pale gold. He smiled when he saw me, those soft lips full of teeth. Once, that mouth scared me a little. But now I found myself wake to life at the sight of it. His mouth. His grin.
Him.

“You’re here!” I said. I wanted to thrust myself into his arms. But I didn’t, not at first. Dead. I’d thought he was dead. And yet here he was, eyes wide at the sight of me in the white light of day, resting his
hands on his legs to better see the creature mewling in my carrier.

“What is this?” he asked. I set the carrier on the ground. Pepper sniffed at the chilly air.

“My cat,” I said. I felt the corners of my mouth lift, but forced them down. It shouldn’t have been this easy—for him, for me. He’d disappeared, left me to wander the evening alone. “You were
gone
! What are you doing here?”

Vadix stood straight. He tucked his hands into his robe, regarding me gravely. “I am here for you,” he said, and then he tilted his head to the side. “But for me as well. This city. I have dreamed all my life of it. Now I dream of sharing it with you.”

“With me,” I echoed. My cheeks warmed. I gazed down toward the toes of my boots. “But what about Velsa?”

“For days I deliberated. At last, yesterday evening, I went to the funerary fields. I bid her farewell. It is a sacred space, Terra. Ours. I could not speak to you there.” I thought of the dank cave I’d seen the night before. The new bodies, sprouting from the old. I remembered the sensation I’d felt, that he’d disappeared far beneath the planet’s edge. He’d been gone, surely. But apparently I hadn’t lost him. Not really. Not for good. He went on. “Always I shall miss her. But that does not mean I am not excited about Zeddak Alaz. That does not mean I am not excited about what lies ahead. We have a city. A place. And years and years and years.”

Reaching out, he interlaced his fingers in mine. His hand was cool against my hand. His body’s scent was fresh and fragrant on the winter air. He leaned in, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone.

“Besides, the senate asked me to join them with my
zeze
by my side. We are to be the first representatives for our new city. Over these weeks, I tried to convince myself this duty was one I could shirk. But I could not. In the end I realized this truth: there is no better way to keep you safe, Terra, than to serve at your side.”

I felt my heart beat in my mouth. I wanted him to taste it, to feel what I felt—my blood, coursing through my body; every corner of my mind illuminated. Our fingers were still intertwined. I drew him close, pressing his body to my body.

“Not safe,” I whispered, angling my face up to his. He brushed my hair back off my forehead, caressing the side of my face. “I never needed you to keep me safe. But strong. You make me feel strong. And strong might be enough.”

We kissed. Of course we did. Not a long kiss—just lips meeting lips for a few precious seconds. But we had a lifetime ahead of us for kissing. A world. A city of our very own. A future.

Early Spring, 1 Year and 2 Months After Landing

You know what happened after that. You were there, of course, through the grueling weeks of training, when I woke each day with muscles so stiff, I thought they might have been caked with rust. But we needed to work hard to prepare for the southern winter, when we would be alone for the first time in the face of the beasts and the cold. So we hunted, all of us, even the children, as the Xollu who would join us gathered supplies to break new ground. By the time we set sail for the south, we were both new creatures: me, as well-muscled as a field-worker; and you, your flesh as dark as blood. Fertile. No longer even a shadow of the lousk you once were.

By then it was truly winter in Raza Ait. Each night I felt desire rack your body. Not for me but for your long winter’s sleep. I felt how the cold seared your flesh, made it ache. But you were brave. You fought it off. It wasn’t until we reached the south, cool summer in full swing, that I saw you restored to life, energy. Which made me glad; we had so much work to do.

That first season we sowed the fields full of Mara’s wheat, and built a wall around them. A cupola, too, and the first enclave of houses. Nautilus houses, their white walls stuck full of shards of glass. A sentimental choice, maybe. But we’re a sentimental people.

Like the name of our city. Zarakk Ait. The golden city. We’ve taken
the dreams of our ancestors for a just-right home and found them here, on this stormy peninsula, thick with forests and full of beasts.

Of course, no one calls the planet “Zehava” anymore. We’ve adopted the local word for it. Aur Evez. Hannah once told me that it meant “the crowded land.” It wasn’t until weeks after landing that you told me that there are other translations for the phrase. Pronounce it a little differently, the words mean “promised home.” How could we resist that?

But you know all of that. So I suppose I should tell you what you’ve missed since winter set in and you went into the caves to sleep. Those Ahadizhi that you contacted this fall? They’ve joined us, Vadix! Not all of them. Only twenty-five young sprouts, intent on rejecting the lives of their parents. Rising up. Rebelling. As new generations do. They want to see how city dwelling suits them. So we’ve made room, gladly. They serve by our side during the hunt, help us make art and dance and music. The dream you once shared with Velsa has made our lives so much brighter. I can’t wait until you wake up to see it, until I can thank you for what you’ve done.