Wandering Star: A Zodiac Novel (24 page)

AS CHEERS ENGULF THE ROOM
once more, every muscle within me begins to relax. Here, at last, with the universe’s forgiveness, I can finally forgive myself. I may have taken Cancer off course for a moment, but I brought Her back. Our House has risen once more to its rightful role as caregiver of the Zodiac.

The Aquarian ambassador bangs the speaker’s staff to end the session, and I’m swarmed by people. Sirna reaches my side first, but soon an ocean of others surrounds me, and I’m swept up in the hall’s warmth and excitement and hope as delegates from all over the Zodiac approach to trade the hand touch with me.

“Mother.”

I hear the voice and spin around, Rubi and Brynda clasping either arm, and see a familiar pair of misty gray-green eyes. I free myself from the Geminin and Sagittarian Guardians so I can bow to mine. “Holy Mother.”

“No,” says Agatha, shaking her head of white hair and pulling me upright. “The stars bestowed that title on you.” We wrap each other in a long embrace. “I believe our House will soon remember that.”

“I’ve worn so many titles the past few months—Acolyte, Guardian, Coward, and now Wandering Star—but the truth is I’ve barely mastered being Rho.”

“It sounds as though the stars have been whispering to you,” she says with a smile. The saying is so Cancrian it hurts to hear it. Her eyes growing mistier, Agatha adds, “I can’t believe I once wondered whether you were really Chosen. Watching you now, it’s so clear: You’re the brightest point in this already brilliant room.”

When the tears subside and my vision refocuses, a blurry face sharpens before me. Arcadia.

“Chief Executive Purecell has summoned you for a private meeting in her chambers.” She must have just tunneled through the crowd to find me, because her silky, russet hair is tousled, and the fabric of her uniform has a few large snags. “If you wouldn’t mind,” she says breathlessly, “please come along.”

I part with Agatha and the others and follow Arcadia to the Taurian embassy, which is nearly as tall as the Libran embassy and surrounded by flashing lights and holographic advertisements for the planets’ twelve sponsoring corporations. It looks like a bustling business district.

“Where are my brother and friends?” I ask Arcadia as the Taurians at the entrance hand us free samples of candies, perfumes, and lipsticks.

“Ambassador Sirna offered everyone accommodations at the Cancrian embassy,” says the Taurian. “The Sagittarian is staying there as well, but the Librans respectfully declined.”

I picture Hysan alone in his penthouse, in his gray coveralls, making adjustments to one of his amazing inventions. I wish he were with me now. Not because I’m afraid or uncertain of myself, but because I love hearing his mind at work. There’s something Ferezian about his superhuman intelligence.

My thoughts are soon drowned out by the noise of the indoor city that is
the Taurian embassy. There are shops blaring holographic advertisements, entertainment centers where people can hologram themselves into the world of a virtual reality game, restaurants that float up thirty stories to the building’s glass ceiling, nightclubs, Bull Feeds, and more.

Arcadia swipes her Blotter on a door device, and almost as quickly as we entered it, we leave the bright and busy city lobby to slip into an office-like floor that’s just as bustling. Taurians in olive green uniforms are staring at a massive holographic representation of the rising and falling Star-Stock Market hovering over their heads. Everyone is soundlessly speaking through their Rings, reporting every minute change in the market to the Psy. It’s strange seeing so much activity but not hearing a word.

A few Promisaries pull away from the blinking data to peek at me, but most of them stay focused. Once we get past the crowd, Arcadia and I arrive at Chief Executive Purecell’s chambers.

“How may I help you?” asks a young, sharply dressed guy sitting at a desk outside her door.

“Wandering Star Rhoma Grace is here for her appointment,” says Arcadia.

“Great,” he says pleasantly. “May I see your Guest Blotter?” I pass it to him, and he swipes it on a portable screen, then hands it back to me. “Please go in. Chief Executive Purecell is waiting.”

“I’ll be here,” says Arcadia, pulling out a small mirror to fix her ruffled, boy-cut locks.

“Thanks.” Then I open the door and step into a room that’s missing a wall.

The office’s fourth side is completely open, and a gargantuan tree from the surrounding forest reaches its thick, snaking branches inside. The largest branch has been shaved down to a flat surface that ends in a burst of leaves and petals—that’s the Guardian’s desk. The next biggest branch has also been filed into a flat surface, and it’s smothered with feathery pillows—the
couch. Other branches form a table, a coat hanger, and a footstool. No limb touches the ground, but they’re so sturdy and solid that they don’t seem movable.

“Call me Fernanda.” A tall, middle-aged woman with fine, short hair sits at the tree-desk and extends her hand for mine. “I’m so pleased we could meet. Have a seat.”

“Thank you.” We shake hands, and I sit across from her on the tree-couch’s fluffy feather pillows.

She leans forward. “You were holding back today.”

“I will not disclose the hostages—”

“The Marad is all Risers.”

We stare at each other as though frozen in place. “How do you know that?” I finally venture.

“How much do you know about me?”

I know Fernanda has been Guardian nearly ten years. I know she’s the one who established the Taurian four-day weekend. But I don’t know much else because she came after Mom’s time. “Not much,” I admit.

“You must’ve been eight when the stars promoted me to Chief Executive, so you wouldn’t be aware of the scandal it caused.” She says
scandal
as if it’s something that’s good for business. “I’m the first Guardian of Riser parentage.”

The shock must show on my face, because she laughs. “My father was born a Geminin, and he was a Zodai University student when the changes began to manifest. Instead of sticking around and suffering inevitable prejudice, he moved to Taurus and tried starting over. His shift was so smooth that a few months after the changes began, he passed for a natural Taurian, and he stayed that way for the rest of his life.” She seems proud of the completeness of his transition. Of course, as Guardian, she can’t help but think of him as a true Taurian.

“Still,” she goes on, “everywhere he went, his astrological fingerprint
betrayed him as a Riser, so he struggled to find employment and worked harder than most parents do to provide for me. Even though the contemporary Zodiac is more accepting of Risers than it was in his day, I still had to fight incredibly hard to win over my detractors. However, I’m happy to report that my leadership has resulted in great progress toward the acceptance of Risers on Taurus and even across all the other Houses. That’s why they feel they can talk to me—
Risers
,” she explains when she sees my flicker of confusion.

“No one else listens to them, and they don’t have a true home in the Zodiac. When I ascended, I think they were happy to know there was someone in power who sympathized with them.” Her words remind me of Corinthe and the kind of world the master promised her and the other soldiers
.

“A couple of years ago,” says Fernanda, her voice now lower and more serious, as if to demonstrate that the pleasantries are over, “I had a troubling experience. My Riser correspondents confided in me that they’d been approached by an activist group. The organization seemed professional and well funded, and my correspondents were thinking of getting involved with them. Within weeks, most of them had cut ties with me.

“This was before the attack on Cancer, back when we thought the mudslides in the Hoof were caused by natural disasters, so I wasn’t suspicious. But a few months ago, one of my former Riser correspondents contacted me again. She told me, in confidence, that by the third activism meeting she attended, the tenor of the conversation had changed. The organization’s leaders were no longer discussing legal protections and equal pay for Risers. They were enlisting members into combat and weapons training.”

“Did you tell the other Guardians?”

She glares at me. “What do you think would have happened if I did? I’d be setting Risers’ rights back a thousand years, to the days before the Datsby Decree.”

“Datsby Decree?”
I can’t help my curiosity, even though I’m guessing Fernanda has little patience for tangents. “Is that named after Vecily Matador’s friend?”

Fernanda’s eyebrows shoot up in gratified delight. “The very same. You know your Taurian history! Before taking part in the Trinary Axis, Chief Executive Matador had been trying to pass the Datsby Decree, which would grant refuge and equal rights to all Risers who came to Taurus. It was only ratified forty years ago, after my predecessor pushed for it.” Fernanda’s features crinkle with concern. “You kept quiet about the army of Risers because you know as well as I do that those in power only look out for themselves. You did the right thing, and I asked you here to thank you.”

I open my mouth to argue, but I can’t. The word
Riser
never came out of my mouth, despite the fact that this emergency Plenum session was called due to an abundance of them. Even though Ferez warned me they’re the future. I didn’t mention them because of what Fernanda said—I wanted to protect that population from further humiliation.

“What about imbalanced Risers?” I ask.

“What about them?” she asks snippily. “The change is as much out of their control as it is for the balanced ones.”

“Of course . . . but I think they need more help than we’re giving them. I never met an imbalanced Riser until this attack, and though I agree they’re victims, many are still violent and unhinged—dangerous—and it doesn’t benefit the larger Riser population to ignore that.”

Fernanda’s small-picture approach to Risers’ rights reminds me of how I handled things last time around, when I obsessed over Ophiuchus and ignored the Marad. “There’s a saying on Libra,” I say. “
When we open our minds too wide, we risk closing them
. We have to look at the situation fairly—not just from the perspective we want. Don’t you think?”

I’m worried I’ve insulted her, but she looks at me almost pityingly. “Rho, your idealism is admirable, but you’ve seen what popular opinion is like. If
we give the masses more reasons to hate and fear Risers, most of them won’t pause to make a distinction between balanced and imbalanced—they’ll just hear
Riser
and dismiss the whole group.”

“Then we educate them,” I say, conviction making my voice grow firm. “We can’t give up on people anymore. Even if most react like you say,
some
won’t. So we start with the hearts we can change. That’s how we make a difference—we begin with a ripple to end with a wave.”

I LEAVE FERNANDA’S OFFICE THINKING
a lot about Vecily. Her name will forever be tainted in the Zodiac’s eyes for taking part in the Trinary Axis, just as mine will be stained by the blood spilled in the armada. Vecily and I suffered for the same mistake: trusting in others more than ourselves.

We gave control of our voices to older people who we thought were wiser. If I don’t want to end up like Vecily, I can’t keep relying on my friends’ trust to carry me when my strength wanes—I have to become my own biggest believer and start finding that strength within myself.

Candela was right: I can’t let
the
way things work
guide my behavior, because things aren’t working so well. Those
older
,
wiser
people Vecily and I trusted have already proven they don’t always know better. Because there is no better. The Zodiac has twelve worlds, all with unique cultures and governances. If one lifestyle were objectively superior to the others, we would all live by the same systems and sets of rules.

Ferez predicts the worlds of tomorrow will be the ones we choose, not the ones we’re born into, and even Hysan believes that’s what’s best for us.
We’ve been adhering for one thousand years to laws that applied to people living in primitive times with outdated technology and beliefs. Librans are legally required to update their wills every year of their adult lives—shouldn’t we be required to review our laws every century to make sure they’re still worth following?

When Arcadia walks me out of the embassy, I’m surprised to realize I’m not ready to go home yet. “I want to learn more about Vecily Matador,” I say.

“Then you’ll want to see her house,” says Arcadia. “Follow me.”

We hop back on the Bullet Express, zipping past the busy, triple-tiered downtown to what appears to be a quieter suburb. Here the highways unfurl in straight lines, and there are no starscrapers chomping up the horizon.

“Where are we?” I ask Arcadia, who is sitting in the back of the car with me.

“The heart of the Heart,” she says, and for the first time, her almond-shaped, sepia eyes grow gentler. “Everyone in each Section of Vitulus lives within a community; this one is called the Professional.”

The bullet-car pulls onto a ramp, and we exit the highway and cruise into a cluster of interconnected homes. Our speed has dramatically decreased now that we’re in a residential area, and I glue my face to the window to take everything in. The modest, two-story houses have super-thick walls, which they share with adjacent structures, so that the rows of homes appear as though links in one chain. I also don’t see any barriers between neighboring properties: Swing sets straddle lawns, tree branches in one yard jut into the next, balconies bump against each other, and so on.

Yet most striking of all is the technology that outfits each home, making every task more efficient. There are elevators waiting at front doors,
holographic sensors that trim the grass when it grows too high, roving litter catchers, sliding sidewalks, spinning driveways, and more.

It’s evening, and many families seem to be reuniting after a day apart. There are cars pulling into garages, returning home from work, and a collection of big blue buses depositing children done with their daily lessons and activities. “Adults work from morning to night three days a week on Taurus, so on those days kids participate in Selfless Service, which keeps them busy until about now,” explains Arcadia.

“Selfless Service is an after-school activity organized by the Education Department of each Section,” she adds, though I already know this from Mom’s lessons. “Big blue buses pick students up from every school and bring them to communities that could use a hand—the less fortunate, the elderly, the disabled.”

Our vehicle comes to a stop in front of a decrepit house that looks nothing like the perfectly manicured ones surrounding it. No modern technology or cars or people are milling around . . . it’s just a rough-hewn wooden structure that’s barely standing upright.

“This was Vecily’s childhood home,” says Arcadia when we’ve exited the car. We stand in front of the cabin, looking up at it somberly.

It looks like a rotting animal carcass, its lawn overgrown, the ceiling partly caved, the paint flaking off the walls. “Why hasn’t it been torn down?”

Arcadia runs a hand through her short, silky locks. “Then we would forget.”

I turn to her in curiosity, and in the dimming day, her complexion deepens to an even richer shade of brown. “Vecily didn’t stand with her House,” she explains. “She went astray. So now her home sits here as a relic, a reminder of what happens when you go against your people.”

I start walking toward it, but Arcadia yanks on my unbandaged arm. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going inside.”

“But it’s not safe in there! The structure is a millennium old; it could come down any moment—”

I free my arm from her grip. “I’ll be quick.” I didn’t come all this way to turn around now.

Arcadia hangs back as I walk up the overgrown, weedy garden and reach the creaky, rotting door of the ancient cabin. I recoil when I feel fuzzy moss on the handle, so instead I push the moldy wood with my shoulder. Immediately I have to cover my mouth from the stench that greets my nostrils; it’s like the smell of decay from the Marad torture chamber.

The cabin is smothered with dust and dirt and spiderwebs, so much debris that it muffles my footsteps and makes the air taste solid. Smears of mud and graffiti cover the walls, and shards of broken bottles gather like fangs in the room’s corners.

There’s an archway leading to the back of the house, where there are two bedrooms. I know which one is Vecily’s by the rotting
V
carved into the closed door. I have to shove it twice before it comes to life, and when the door finally swings open, the hinge cracks off, and the whole thing thumps down onto the dusty ground.

When the air clears, I look inside and see a moldy mattress, a three-legged chair, and a slanted wooden desk. I picture Vecily the teenager, perched at that desk on the day she was named Guardian, knowing her life would never be her own again. I think of her lying on the small bed, contemplating her childhood, probably remembering Datsby most of all.

I can see her resolving to make a difference in her friend’s name. To do whatever it takes to change the plight of Risers in our worlds.

But her Advisors didn’t take Vecily seriously when she came into power. Her own people didn’t listen to her. And then along came enigmatic Blazon and beautiful Brianella, and they invited Vecily to be an equal. They whispered to her of a future without divisions—no walls between Houses, no
hate toward Risers—and she saw her chance to have an impact. An opportunity to be a true leader of her people—and the Zodiac—and she seized it.

“I’m going to finish what you started,” I say out loud, so that maybe this dying house might finally find some peace.