Starclimber

  “They don’t really twinkle, you know,” I said. “It only looks that way to us down here. It’s the atmosphere distorting the light.”

  “Is that right?” she said, looking over at me.

  I nodded. “It’s called stellar scintillation.”

  “What a wonderful phrase,” she said. “You seem to know a lot about stars.”

  “It comes from long hours in the crow’s nest,” I replied, pleased I’d impressed her. It felt good to be explaining things to her for a change. I did have a bit of a flare for celestial navigation; I seemed to have a good sense of where to find things in the night sky, given the time of year.

  Kate put her eye back to the telescope. “I wonder if there’s life out there.”

  “Who knows?” I said.

  “There’s a Bulgarian fellow, Dr. Ganev, who just last year published a pamphlet on lunar life.”

  The name sounded vaguely familiar. “Hold on—wasn’t he the fellow who spent some time in a lunatic asylum?”

  “No more than a year. They say he’s better now.”

  I laughed, and Kate looked at me severely. “You know, Matt, people talk about me this way. That poor lunatic Kate de Vries. Cloud cats, aerozoans—what will her diseased little mind think up next? What makes you think Dr. Ganev’s any different from me?”

  “Well, for starters, you never tried to eat a banana through your ear.”

  She blinked. “Did he really do that?”

  “No, but that’s the kind of thing that gets you tossed into a lunatic asylum.”

  Her nostrils narrowed, a unique skill of hers when she was deeply annoyed. It tended to have a withering effect on the person at the receiving end. “Considering all you’ve seen, Mr. Cruse, you’re not very open-minded about life beyond Earth.”

  “I’m sure you’re right,” I said apologetically. “You’ve never disappointed me yet. Twice I’ve nearly been eaten by new creatures you’ve discovered.”

  She looked back into the telescope. “We really don’t know anything at all about outer space. I suppose the French will be the first to find out next year, when they finish the tower. It’s quite something, isn’t it? A stairway to heaven.”

  “I think heaven’s just a bit higher up,” I said, “but I’m sure they’re already thinking ahead.”

  “Draco, the dragon constellation. So where’s the tail?”

  “Look for the big stars, slanting across the sky.”

  “Yes, I think I see it now!”

  “Now,” I said, “there’s something else I want to show you. Just off the dragon’s tail, on the lower right, there’s one star that has a blue twinkle to it.”

  “I see it! Which star is that?”

  “That,” I said, “is Kate de Vries.”

  She looked over, confused. “What do you mean?”

  I pulled the piece of paper from my pocket and showed her. “This is a document from the International Astronomical Union, verifying that this star will hereafter bear the name Kate de Vries.”

  “You did this for me?” she said in astonishment.

  “Happy birthday,” I said.

  Her few seconds of delighted silence were wonderful, I must admit. Then her arms were around me in a tight hug.

  “This is the best birthday present I’ve ever had,” she said decisively. “How did you know? How did you know I’d like this better than a visit to the opera, or a silly bit of jewelry?”

  “I know you pretty well.”

  “Better than anyone, I think.”

  I smiled. Her compliment was like a gift in itself, only more precious than anything that could be bought.

  She gazed in satisfaction at her star. “Mine’s the twinkliest.”

  “Well, I spared no expense.”

  She looked at me, concerned. “Was it awfully expensive?”

  “Surprisingly affordable. Apparently there’re billions of them.”

  She laughed, then frowned, her mind already busy again. “What if tonight had been cloudy? How would you have shown me?”

  “I suppose I’d have had to entertain you some other way,” I said, and kissed her.

  “What a perfect birthday,” she murmured happily against my lips, and pressed herself closer.

  By nature I was restless, but as I kissed her, there was nothing more I wanted, nowhere else I wanted to be. The world evaporated entirely; it was a bit of a surprise afterward to find it was still there, going on without me. I would have traded it all away for another kiss.

  “We lead a charmed life, you and I,” Kate said after a few minutes. “We both get to chase down our dreams. Me at the university, you at the Airship Academy. And thanks to Marjorie, we get to see each other all the time.”

  She was referring to Miss Marjorie Simpkins, her chaperone. Miss Simpkins didn’t really approve of Kate spending her time with a former cabin boy, but she and Kate had a little agreement. Marjorie had a new beau, and Kate let her see him whenever she wanted—as long as Marjorie let Kate see me whenever she wanted. Marjorie would never tell Mr. and Mrs. de Vries about me, and Kate would never tell her parents what a negligent chaperone Marjorie was.

  “I wish we could just stay in Paris forever,” Kate said.

  I nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. Back home in Lionsgate City we wouldn’t have had this kind of freedom. Kate’s family was extremely wealthy, and they’d never tolerate our romance. Romance: Only in my head did I dare use that word. Kate and I didn’t even dare utter it. We were both afraid, I think, that if we named it, others would try to stop it. We never talked of engagement or marriage.

  But in less than a year I’d be graduating from the Academy with my officer rating. My job would almost certainly take me away from Paris, and from Kate. And once she finished her own studies at the Sorbonne, she’d doubtless sail away from me. I worried very much what would happen then. I could no more be parted from Kate than from the sky.

  I hoped to one day wear a captain’s insignia on my collar, but if I didn’t have Kate, it would be small consolation. Secretly I’d decided that once I had my first position aboard a ship, I’d ask her to marry me—but part of me was terrified she’d say no. Or her parents would.

  I pressed my nose against the back of her neck and breathed in her scent.

  “We’ve got lots of Paris left,” I said. “And the summer’s hardly begun.”

  I heard her sigh. “I didn’t want to mention it tonight, but…my parents want me to go back home for the holidays.”

  “But what about our plan?” I said. “I took a job here so we could be together.”

  “I know. But my parents have been very insistent. You should’ve seen the letter. ‘Your father and I wish you to spend the summer among your family, and in the society that will be yours for life.’” Kate paused. “Sounds like a jail sentence, doesn’t it?”

  “Tell them you have to stay here!”

  “I did! Then I got a telegram from father that just said: ‘You sail June twenty-sixth.’”

  “That’s in less than a week!”

  Kate sighed. “They pay for everything, Matt. And they didn’t want me to come here in the first place. If I say no, they might call me home for good.”

  July and August, just hours ago, had seemed to stretch out with such promise. Now I felt all my happiness drift out through the open dome and evaporate in the night sky. Kate was going back to Lionsgate City. It sounded like her parents wanted her to start thinking about marrying. She’d attend society balls and galas and clink champagne glasses and dance with dashing men—and what if she met someone she liked better than me?

  I slumped back in my seat. “I hate this,” I said savagely.

  “Me too,” she said. “But what else could I do?”

  I shook my head, for there was no solution, which made it no easier to bear.

  Kate took my hand. “I love my star,” she said.

  “You can take it home with you,” I said feeling completely discouraged.

  “I’ll
watch it every night.” She put her eye to the telescope. “Matt?” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “I think someone’s stealing my star.”

  “What?”

  She leaned back so I could get to the eyepiece. I quickly found the bright blue light near the end of the dragon’s tail—and blinked in amazement. Slowly but surely, the star was moving to the left.

  “Can’t be right,” I mumbled.

  “But you do see it moving,” Kate said.

  “I see it! Maybe an airship or something…”

  But it was too high to be an airship.

  Suddenly the light disappeared altogether.

  “It just went out!” I said.

  “What do you mean, went out?” Kate demanded. “You paid good money for that star!”

  “No, wait, there it is again!”

  The intense blue light was back, still moving slowly across the heavens, though on a slightly different trajectory.

  Kate’s cheek was against mine, her shoulder shoving me off so she could get to the eyepiece.

  “It’s stopped moving, but it’s flashing now!” she said. “And there’s another one!”

  “There’s two?”

  “It’s moving toward the first one!”

  I craned my neck, looking out through the open dome. I wondered if some kind of fireworks display was playing tricks on us. But no pyrotechnics flared in the Paris skies.

  “They’re both flashing now!” Kate exclaimed.

  “Let me see!”

  Reluctantly she made room for me. I’d never seen anything like it. A second star, flashing green light every three seconds, was slowly gliding toward the first, which pulsed its own blue light like a beacon.

  “What’s happening?” Kate said, pounding on my arm.

  I described it to her as I watched. The flashing became more frenetic and irregular as the stars converged on each other. I stared, transfixed, as the two lights merged into one of even greater intensity. Then it simply disappeared. No interstellar flare, nothing. I stared for a little longer, but nothing reappeared.

  I sank back, letting out a big breath.

  “Gone,” I said. “Both of them.”

  She leaned in to check. “Stars aren’t supposed to carry on like that, are they?”

  I shook my head.

  “Some kind of shooting stars?” Kate suggested.

  “I don’t think they can change direction like that,” I said.

  “We’ll have to tell the astronomers.”

  I winced. “Difficult, without admitting we were playing with their telescope.”

  “But this might be important!”

  “We can send an anonymous note,” I said.

  This seemed to satisfy her. I looked back into the telescope. “Your star’s still there, by the way. What we saw was something else altogether. Here, look.”

  “Oh, good,” Kate said, smiling. “Yes, there she is.”

  “We should get going,” I said.

  “Thank you so much for a thrilling birthday,” she said.

  “I always get more than I bargain for when I’m with you,” I said.

  “Would you want it any other way?” she asked.

  A LITTLE SCHOOLING

  If I’d thought I was going to be famous the next morning, I was sadly mistaken. The Saturday newspapers didn’t even mention the Babelites’ bomb plot. After paging twice through the Global Tribune, I spotted a tiny story about an engine falling off an aerocrane and exploding in the park, but nothing about how the Celestial Tower had almost been destroyed—and saved by me and Hassan.

  “I can’t believe how mean they are,” Kate said angrily when I told her. “Your picture should be on the front page, with a big medal around your neck!”

  We were backstage in the lecture hall at the Sorbonne where she was about to give her talk.

  “They must be covering the whole thing up,” I said. “They don’t want anyone to know the Babelites nearly wrecked their tower.”

  “Well,” she said, “I know you’re a hero.”

  “I was kind of hoping for a medal,” I admitted.

  “I’ll have one made for you,” she said. “Now go find a seat. I’ll be starting soon.”

  “Good luck,” I said. “You’ll be fabulous.”

  Kate needn’t have worried about a poor turnout. The lecture theater was packed. Every seat was already occupied, and people were standing two deep at the rear. I wedged myself into a space against the wall. Near the front was a big group of gray-haired gentlemen in dark suits, hunched forward expectantly like a murder of crows. I wondered which one was Sir Hugh Snuffler.

  On the wood-paneled stage was a screen, and before it a table with a Lumière projector. The general noise in the room was considerable, but it dropped off quickly when the lights dimmed and Kate walked out and took her place beside the projector. She did not seem at all nervous before what must have been two hundred people. Her voice was calm and steady.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “thank you for coming. Last year I observed a new form of airborne life, which I hope you will find of interest.”

  She touched a switch on the Lumière projector, and the first image appeared on the screen: a detailed scientific drawing of the aerozoan. A great rumble of amazement swelled from the audience. Kate took a pointer from the table, stepped closer to the screen, and began to itemize the creature’s anatomical components. As she spoke, complete silence fell over the audience as they listened, rapt. Kate pointed out the balloon sac, the intestines, the beak.

  “And here,” Kate continued, “long whiplike tentacles, with eye spots for detecting light, and olfactory sensors for locating prey. Two of these tentacles can discharge a high-voltage current, enough to electrocute a full-grown man.”

  It was odd watching her onstage, bathed in the dusty shaft of light from the projector. It was both the Kate I knew so well and a complete stranger. She seemed a cool, highly intelligent woman, who’d never have anything to do with the likes of me.

  “Where’s your proof?” sniped one fellow from the audience.

  I looked over, trying to spot him, but the voice might have come from any number of gentlemen near the front.

  “During my expedition,” Kate said, “I managed to collect an aerozoan egg, which was in a state of anhydrobiosis.”

  “Nonsense!” came another voice from the front.

  Kate was a marvel of composure. When the audience grew too noisy, she simply paused and waited for the ruckus to abate.

  “Anhydrobiosis is a well-documented state,” Kate continued. “Without water, the organism goes into a torpor to conserve energy. It can survive like that for years. When it’s returned to a more hospitable environment, it revives itself. My companions and I saw several adult aerozoans do just that. We also witnessed the hatching of several eggs, which had been floating in wait for some forty years.”

  Her projector now showed a photograph of the aerozoan egg inside a large glass jar. Through its translucent shell you could see a tightly bundled coil of intestines and glimpse a beak. I felt the preternatural chill of the ghost ship shiver through me.

  “As you can see,” Kate said, “the egg contains enough hydrium to keep it aloft until it hatches.”

  “But where is your proof!” cried yet another crowlike gentleman.

  “There is no proof!” one of his cronies grumbled.

  I could see Kate give a sigh, bend down, and lift a large cage covered with a velvet cloth. She set it on the table.

  “I couldn’t decide whether to dissect the egg and study its embryonic anatomy or make it hatch. “Kate paused for a moment, and the audience fell attentively silent. I could now see that she was actually enjoying the drama of her presentation. She gazed calmly out into the audience. “I let it hatch.”

  She whisked the velvet cloth off the cage, and there, inside, was the aerozoan hatchling, flexing its small tentacles and jetting vigorously against the glass. It was larger than the
ones we’d seen, on the Hyperion, some eighteen inches in length.

  I smiled at the satisfying gasps and cries that gusted through the audience.

  Kate stood beside the case and beamed.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Aerozoania devriesus.”

  I couldn’t help chuckling at the name she’d given it. But really, I’d have expected no less from Kate. Even though I’d seen it before she did, and had nearly been electrocuted by the thing, she had taken the liberty of naming it after herself.

  “This specimen is only two weeks old but in time will grow to eight feet in length. It thrives on a mixed diet of insects and small rodents, which it can already lift with its tentacles to its beak. After electrocuting them first, of course.”

  “No! No, I won’t stand a moment more of this nonsense!” said a balding gentleman, standing up in front.

  “Sir Hugh,” said Kate calmly, “I’m happy to take questions when I’m finished.”

  So this was Sir Hugh! Usually when you hear a lot about someone, and then meet them for the very first time, they look quite different from what you expect. Amazingly, Sir Hugh looked exactly like I’d expected. He was large, fiftyish, with a big pompous head. What little hair he had started about halfway back on his skull and tufted out slightly at the sides. He looked immensely pleased with himself. He turned his back on Kate and faced the audience.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it wounds me that this fine institution even hosts such a carnival sideshow! But to have it passed off as science is too much.”

  “Sit down!” someone cried.

  “I can’t see!” another irritated viewer shouted.

  “Let her continue!” I called out.

  But the outraged Sir Hugh worked his way out to the aisle and strode up onto the stage.

  “Sir Hugh,” said Kate, “this is most inconsiderate. Please take your seat.”

  “Not a moment more!” Sir Hugh said, swishing his hands through the air. “I won’t stand for it—no, no.” He turned to address the audience. “This young lady is a distinguished charlatan. First, as you may remember, there were the so-called cloud cat bones, which she exhibited widely. More recently we learned she has a yeti skeleton to show us. What’s next? Perhaps a dragon? No, no, ladies and gentlemen, don’t be taken in! Some of you may think this creature genuine, but it’s little more than puppetry. You can pay a penny to see such things at the freak shows of Montmartre.”