Star's End

  Beside me, Isabel sat up. She shielded her eyes with one hand.

  “Rena,” she said. “Take Daphne and Adrienne inside, please.”

  Rena emerged from the shadow of the jacaranda tree, where she’d been watching in silence. “Of course, ma’am. Come along, girls.”

  The twins looked at Isabel with their luminous dark eyes. “Aww!” said Daphne. “Why do we have to go in?”

  “Go,” Isabel said to them, and her voice was sharp enough that they looked at each other and then gathered their lightboxes and ran over to Rena, who guided them through the door.

  “What’s wrong?” I felt dizzy and dry-mouthed. Isabel just stared straight ahead, and I looked where she was looking. One of the soldiers marched toward us. Isabel stared at her with a hard, fierce expression. The soldier had her gun out.

  “Can I help you?” Isabel said.

  “I just need to see Esme.” It was Private Abad. She stopped a few paces away from us. “Nothing to worry about, ma’am. But I have something for Esme.”

  Isabel frowned at me. I didn’t know what this was about, but that slamming fear of the flu trickled away, replaced with a tight sense of anxiety. Private Abad knelt down in the grass beside my chair and handed me a slim, disposable lightbox, the cheap kind you can buy in starports. I stared at it in my palm.

  “What is it?” Isabel asked, leaning over her chair’s armrests.

  “It’s a message from your mother,” Private Abad said to me, and then straightened up, smoothing the lines of her uniform. Isabel slumped back in her chair and pressed her hand into her forehead, looking exhausted.

  “My mother?”

  “The transmissions into the estate have been blocked.”

  Beside me, Isabel muttered something angry and unintelligible.

  “We’ve been monitoring them at Mr. Coromina’s request,” Private Abad said. “I picked up this one. It’s your mother. Thought you might like it.”

  “Are you supposed to do that?” I stared down at the lightbox and my heart warmed a little.

  “Nah. But I won’t tell if you won’t.” Private Abad winked at me. Then her face went serious and she said, “Mrs. May Coromina.”

  I turned to Isabel, who was staring up at Coromina I, her eyes glazed over. “You’re not going to tell, are you?”

  “Of course not, dear.” Isabel dropped her head to me. “But if that transmission has anything dangerous—”

  “It’s just my mom,” I said. “She sends me transmissions all the time.” Not exactly true, but close enough.

  Isabel didn’t seem to hear me.

  Private Abad leaned in close to me and said in a low voice, “Don’t worry about me getting in trouble. I thought it was worth the reprimand. The enemy won’t be coming through transmissions, anyway.” She slapped me on the shoulder. Isabel glanced at us, her face cloudy, but I knew what she was thinking: The enemy?

  Private Abad stood up again and nodded at both of us, and then walked back through the garden, her gun shining in the sunlight.

  “The fucking soldiers know more than we do,” Isabel said.

  I’d never heard her cuss before. She sighed and dropped one hand to the grass, toying with the ends.

  “Go on and listen to it,” she said. “I’m glad one of us can get a bit of hope in all this.”

  I wrapped my fingers around the lightbox, measuring the flimsy solidity of it against my palm. Isabel seemed strange to me, lethargic and disconsolate, as if the quarantine were draining her energy. I could understand, though: the quarantine had been draining my energy too, until now.

  I slid out of my chair and bounded into the house and into my room. I locked the door. Shoved the lightbox into my holoprojector. My mother’s voice filled the room like sunlight. No holo. No image. Just a voice and that staticky thumping interference some of her deep-space messages had.

  “Hey, kiddo. I’m on Roxani and had some free time. Thought I’d send you a note. Can’t tell you much about Roxani; all top-secret stuff and they’ll just static it anyway. But I can tell you I’m doing well, and I hope you’re doing well too. You’ll be sixteen this year, yeah? Last message said you were still in school. Still the case? I imagine your dad won’t let you join up, but I figure you’ve got some top-notch plans for the future. Hear Ekkeko’s nice this time of year. Not too much rain.”

  Silence. The recording buzzed but it wasn’t over yet. I listened to the patterns in the static like they could tell me something. I used to think they could. Now I knew that was just wishful thinking.

  Then: “Hell, looks like we’re shipping out early. Sorry, kiddo, I was hoping to make this a long one. Maybe I’ll have time once we land on Cyter.”

  The recording fizzed out and then restarted. I listened to it once more before switching it off. I stared at the empty light above the holoprojector. My mother had sent me twenty-seven messages over the years. I sent her responses, too, because I wanted to keep my promise even though I wasn’t military. Still, I didn’t send as many now that I was older. Any messages I sent had to be sent via the Andromeda Corps; mercenaries couldn’t give away their exact location. By the time my mother heard from me, weeks would have gone by. When I was a kid, I’d ask questions she could actually answer, like her favorite color or her favorite immersion. But then I started asking about her missions, like where she went, and whether or not she’d ever seen aliens, and that was when she had to tell me about the censors. Now all my questions would get pinged by the censors. But I kept my promise anyway, tell her about the mundanities of my life. And my mother still kept her promise, too.

  I yanked out the disposable lightbox and placed it in the lockbox with all the others. My mother hadn’t mentioned anything about the flu. They must not know about it on Roxani, which made sense, as I knew nothing about what was happening on Roxani other than vague rumors about a war, some group of insurgents trying to take over that planet’s government. Didn’t Roxani have an antiquated government, elected and everything? Not like the Coromina system, which was run by the Coromina Group. The business of civilization.

  And I hardly knew about the flu, and it was happening in Undirra City. It made sense that my mother wouldn’t know anything. It made sense, but it also made me sad.

  I walked over to my window and slid it open, letting in the warm sea breeze. The plumeria maze rippled in the distance. I sat down on the window seat and thought about the waves crashing over the beach and wondered when I would see the ocean again.

  • • •

  That night, I jarred awake in the dark, my heart pounding hard in my chest. A bad dream? I couldn’t remember any dreams at all, only an ocean of darkness.

  I rolled over onto my back and stared up at the ceiling, everything cast in the murky red light of Coromina I. My bedroom didn’t feel real in that light. I took a deep breath. My heart was still pounding. I couldn’t imagine going back to sleep. I wasn’t sure how I’d fallen asleep in the first place. The day had been so wrought with tension, even though nothing had actually happened. It was just this empty waiting. Dad spent the whole time locked in his home office. I didn’t see him once. Normally, it would annoy me, but today, it scared me.

  I stared up at the ceiling for a few moments before I became aware of a light blinking off to the side, not red like Coromina’s light but a bright, artificial white. My lightbox. There was a message waiting for me.

  It was only a message. Except we were in quarantine. Nothing was ever only a message.

  It could be from Laila.

  Or Paco, finally getting back to me.

  I was paralyzed with a cold sick fear, terrified of what it would say. The light blinked and blinked, looming larger with each second, until it was as huge as Coromina I itself.

  I pushed my blanket away. Kicked my legs over the bed. Just check it.

  Gunfire exploded outside my window.

  I slammed hard against the floor, shaking. The guns kept firing, that bright, mechanical buzzing of light rifles that I’d on
ly ever heard in immersions.

  The gunfire stopped. Voices shouted, farther away. There was a panicked urgency to them that made my stomach quake.

  More gunfire.

  Then: screaming. High-pitched. Sharp. Desperate.

  I felt like I was going to throw up. The screaming and the shouting and the gunfire were threading together and I couldn’t tell one from the other. Lights flashed outside my window and I let out a gasp of fear and started crawling toward the door. I kept hearing the screaming. I wasn’t sure if it was really happening or if it was echoing inside my head.

  I made it to the door and pushed myself up and shoved it open. The hallway was empty but the windows were closed, the curtains hanging limp and still. We never closed the windows this time of year. Not even now that we were in quarantine, apparently.

  “Esme!”

  I jumped. The voice was male and unfamiliar. I twisted my torso, looked over my shoulder—

  It was Mr. Whittaker. He never called me Esme; that was why I hadn’t recognized him. He came rushing down the hallway, clutching a little gray box. A butler’s jacket was tossed on over his sleeping clothes.

  “Get off the floor,” he said. “We have to get you to the landing pad.”

  “The what?” I blinked at him. Gunshots fired off in the distance.

  “You’re evacuating,” he said. “Now get up. We don’t have much time before they break through the barricade.” He stooped down and grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet. My head spun.

  “Who?” I said. “The barricade?”

  “The villagers,” he snapped. “Hurry up, Miss Coromina; your life is in danger.”

  My ears buzzed. No. The villagers. The voices beyond the gunshots. The screams—

  My lightbox blinking in the dark.

  “Oh God,” I whispered.

  “We have to get the family off the planet before the quarantine comes down.” He grabbed my arm and yanked me down the hallway. My head spun. We stumbled into the staff stairwell, narrow and lit with eerie emergency lights.

  “But that’s not fair,” I said, dazed.

  Mr. Whittaker didn’t respond. We clambered out of the staff stairs and into the kitchen. It was neat, untouched, everything put away for the night.

  “There’s an armored car waiting for us,” Mr. Whittaker said. “Hurry! Don’t drag your feet.”

  “You’re coming too,” I said.

  “Of course I’m bloody coming too. Your father can’t live without me. Now hurry up.”

  I’d never heard Mr. Whittaker speak this way before. Never heard this sort of strained bitterness in his voice. He led me outside, into the delivery courtyard. The night wind was sweet and hot, and I could still hear the screams carrying over through the woods. The car was a big blocky thing, polished black like stone. The door was hanging open. Rena’s head emerged, her hair whipping into her eyes.

  “Did you get everyone?” Mr. Whittaker asked.

  “Yes.” Rena’s voice was cold and hard. “We’re ready.”

  Mr. Whittaker shoved me in first. Isabel was there, clutching Daphne and Adrienne in each arm, and so was the obstetrician Dad had hired to help with her pregnancy. She looked stiff and worried. Daphne was crying, and although Isabel was silent, I could see that her face was pale and shining with tears.

  Dad sat beside her, hooked into a portable lightbox, murmuring in some unintelligible code.

  “You’re safe,” Isabel said when she saw me. She smiled weakly. Dad didn’t say anything.

  “Clear,” Mr. Whittaker said, slamming the door shut. The car shot off. There were no windows. Sound was muffled in there, too. I couldn’t hear the gunshots anymore. Or the screams.

  “Where are we going?” I said.

  “Space,” Isabel said. She squeezed Daphne closer to her. “The thermosphere.” Her voice sounded far away. The screaming was spinning around inside my head like a song.

  “It’s not fair,” I said softly, and I looked over at Rena. She was looking down at her hands. “It’s not fair. Not fair to leave—”

  “Of course it’s fucking fair.” Dad ripped his lightbox away from his face. His eyes flashed in the gloom. “If I die, this system’s leadership will default over to the board. Even if you survive, they’ll be scrabbling for power and you’ll never inherit your birthright. There will almost certainly be a war. So, shut your mouth and do as you’re told and don’t talk to me about what’s fair.”

  The silence in the car was heavy and thick. I wanted to throw up. The car was jostling around—we couldn’t be on one of the roads, then. We must be driving straight through the fields, the fastest path to the launching pad.

  I twisted my nightgown up in one fist. The message on my lightbox. I still didn’t know who it was from. I imagined the villagers breaking through the barricade of the soldiers and spilling into the estate. I wondered if Laila was with them. If she would find her way to my room and see it for the first time. If she would even recognize it as mine. Or if she would even care.

  The car slammed to a stop. Isabel let out a little gasp of fear and clutched Daphne tighter.

  Mr. Whittaker tilted his head, as if listening to a voice only he could hear. He probably was. Then he nodded once, entered a code into the car door, and pushed it open. White light and hot air swept in. It wasn’t the sultry air of the beach but a kind of incineration. A bonfire but bigger. The rocket engines.

  “Everyone out!” shouted a voice from outside. “Hurry, hurry!”

  Mr. Whittaker went out first and I followed, blinking against the engine-dried air. The glow from the rocket was as bright as day, and for a moment, I couldn’t see anything but shadows. Someone shoved me from behind.

  “Move!” said the voice. It was gruff and male and I didn’t recognize it, although as my eyes adjusted, I saw the dark gray of a Coromina Group security uniform.

  I was herded aboard the rocket, up the ramp, into the airlock, everything wide open because we were still planetside. My thoughts were in a blur. Star’s End, burning like the rocket engine. The pineapple garden trampled underfoot. My lockbox with all my mother’s messages—

  I paused on the steps, my heart pounding. My mother’s messages, the only piece I had of her, would burn away while I orbited the planet.

  “Go, Esme,” said Rena, her voice sharp in my ear. I jerked forward, my legs shaking, thinking of the lockbox tucked away inside my closet, wishing I could have said goodbye.

  Tears streaked down my cheeks. The doors were sliding shut, blotting out the brightness of the engine’s light.

  “Prepare for launch!” the security guard shouted, and I’d been on this rocket enough times that my body moved independent of my desires. I stumbled into the seating area and collapsed in the closest chair. The windows were all closed. The lights were still off. People were dying in the village, and we were running away.

  The engines roared, the end of a countdown I hadn’t heard. The floor rumbled beneath my feet. I felt dry and empty and I closed my eyes as we launched into space.

  • • •

  All my life, the space station had been a jewel twinkling in the left-hand corner of the sky. I used to look for it as a little girl, lying out in the yard, trying to distinguish the stars from the spacecraft.

  Now I was aboard it for the first time. I’d been given a cabin to myself, a little room with a bed and a closet and a minuscule bathroom off to the side. It was smaller than the main room of my suite back on Star’s End. There was a round window above the bed, but it faced away from Ekkeko, and right now, all I could see was the endless emptiness of space. No lightbox, no media screen. Just the empty walls, the white-noise roaring of the gravity generator tucked deep inside the station.

  The station was set to Star’s End time, and so it was early in the morning here too, but I was too jangled from the trip to fall asleep. That was what Rena had told me to do, in the exhausted aftermath of our arrival—we were no longer in danger but the adrenaline had worn down, and we mille
d around the station lobby, Coromina Group stationeers keeping their distance. It occurred to me now, finally, that they thought we were going to bring the disease on board.

  Maybe we had.

  The thought gave me a shiver. I swallowed twice, not certain if I felt roughness in the back of my throat or not. Surely, there was a way to take my temperature somewhere on the station—but I was afraid of what I’d find. I touched my cheek and my forehead. The skin felt a little warmer than usual, but then, I’d just finished fleeing my home in terror.

  I slumped against the wall. It rumbled a little against my back, a reminder that I was in a piece of machinery, that only a few layers of plastic and metal and energy were protecting me from the vacuum.

  I heard voices out in the hallway.

  Voices speaking in sharp, fervent whispers. Footsteps thumped against the floor, louder and louder, until they faded.

  We were in the guest arm, and the stationeers didn’t sleep there.

  Somewhere, a door slammed.

  I crawled forward on my bed. My heart pounded. Something was wrong. We’d only been here a few hours and something was wrong.

  We brought the flu with us.

  There were more voices out in the corridor. The same harried, panicked tone. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I pushed off my bed and flung my door open, and stuck my head out into the hallway.

  It was a pair of stationeers, their uniforms dull gray in the garish overhead lights.

  “Who the hell are you?” one of them, the woman, said to me.

  Before I could answer, the other said, “It’s one of the Corominas.” He looked over at me. He had a towel draped over the crook of his arm. Above the towel was a red band. Dread solidified inside my chest. I’d learned this in tutoring: out in the vacuum, the ones who wore red tended to the dead. “Go back into your cabin, sweetheart.”

  I stepped out into the hallway. “Did someone die?” My voice was shrill. “What’s happening?”

  The two stationeers exchanged glances.

  “Stop it!” I screeched. “Tell me what’s going on.”