Starbreak Read online

  The Xollu. They walked two abreast, skirting the edges of the camp. Their eyes were black holes bored into their smooth-skinned faces. But there was a flash of curiosity there too. They seemed to be appraising us, looking us up and down like we were animals being judged fit for slaughter.

  The Xollu didn’t take everyone. One by one they appraised us, touching their smooth fingers to our chins. I saw them give Jachin’s scraggly beard a tug before they shoved him off with the other stubble-cheeked men. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Laurel and Hannah and Aleksandra, I watched as the Ahadizhi dragged the men forward and through the open gates. That’s when I spotted him. The translator. He stood at the gate’s edge, speaking in low tones to a Xollu pair beside him.

  He was tall and lean. Though his shoulders were broad beneath his tunic, his waist was narrow. He was a Xollu, most definitely, in body and eye and tooth. But his flesh was a deeper shade than the rest of them. Indigo. That had been the name of my favorite pencil in the set my momma had given me years and years before. He matched it perfectly, whereas the others were mulberry and carmine and poppy. He alone was bright, bright blue.

  I knew that color, knew how it would look over the pale slick of my belly. From a dozen meters away I knew how his body smelled, and even tasted. It was so strange to see him standing there, lips lifted to reveal a row of tiny needle teeth. The others were afraid, but not him. He put his hand on Rebbe Davison’s shoulder, stopping him. He said something I couldn’t hear, and Rebbe Davison responded meekly, tapping his hand against his own chest.

  I needed to stop the translator, needed to get him to draw those night-dark eyes to mine. There had to be words that would turn his head toward me, that would compel him to bridge the gap between our bodies—meters and meters, entirely too many. I groped for syllables, sounds, reaching back through dreams. My lips found the name almost without thinking. Vadix. Vadix. I whispered it twice, tasting it.

  Was that his name? He’d never told me, but somehow I knew. And now, having realized it, I couldn’t hold the knowledge in any longer. Maybe I should have plotted, waiting for the perfect moment to take him aside and whisper it into his earslits. But what if that chance never came? I had to stop him—and fast, before the moment passed.

  “Vadix! Vadix!” I called. “It’s me, Terra! Vadix!”

  I know he heard me—the long slits along the side of his face opened at the sound of my voice. But he was the last one to lift his head. When he did, his black eyes were less like glass and more like stone. Hard and solid, letting none of the day’s weak light through. What did he see when he glanced up? A dirty girl, dressed in someone else’s stained undershirt, waving her fingers through the open air? A fool? An animal?

  Whatever he saw, it didn’t matter. He put his three-fingered hand on Rebbe Davison’s shoulder and pushed him through the open gate. Then he turned his back on me. He walked out of our camp without a single glance back. I called his name out one final time, but the syllables died on the muggy air.

  In the awkward silence that followed, the Ahadizhi led the rest of the men out. The Xollu trailed after, their expressions grave as they clutched at one another. The gate slammed, and I fell down on one of the fire pit logs, my posture slumped, my shoulders sagging.

  But the others didn’t drift away. In fact, both Hannah and Aleksandra stood over me, looking equally perplexed. Maybe Aleksandra wanted to threaten me, to question my gall. But Hannah spoke first. There was weak laughter on her voice, but a question, too.

  “Terra,” she said, “I don’t understand. How did you know his name? I never told you . . .”

  Aleksandra stared at her, expression stony. Then she stomped off on her boot heels. I watched her go before I turned to Hannah again, lifting up my dirty hands.

  “I don’t know, Hannah,” I said, because it was true. “I have no idea.”

  Winter, 12 Months After Landing

  One night, when the path ahead was bleak, I sat with Rachel in the guest room of Ronen’s home. The room was the same as always—same floral bedspread; same painting, done by some long-dead bubbe of ours, pinned up on the wall. But Rachel had changed. I’d changed too.

  Once we’d talked only of boys, of jobs, of what the names of our children might be. We’d traded these dreams the way other children might trade marbles or jacks. We wove our futures together like an embroidered bracelet. But the path ahead was uncertain on that night, so Rachel’s thoughts had turned inward. As was always the case back then, she talked about her religion, her newfound faith. Her hands moved quickly through the air. She gave me advice based on her readings, offered me stories that weren’t often told on our ship. When I sat back on my heels, chewing my lip, she put her dark hand on mine.

  “You don’t believe, do you?”

  I didn’t. I wanted to be filled with the same passion and assuredness that she was, to feel my heart swell, safe and warm, in my chest. But it didn’t. I remained closed to the possibility. When I thought about life after death, the only thought I had was for the ground’s cold embrace. When I thought of a higher power watching over me, I felt only uneasy, not bolstered like Rachel did. No, I didn’t believe. I shook my head and said so.

  “It must be so sad for you,” she said, dropping her chin to her chest, “living a life without miracles. All alone in the world.”

  I didn’t know what to say. At the time, I didn’t say anything—just sat up straight and changed the subject.

  But I’ve thought a lot of those words in the year since. Turned them over and over in my mind, examining them. Because the truth is, Rachel was wrong. My life was hard, even then. And sure, I was lonely sometimes. Still am, on days when the winter feels endless, on the days when the storms are whiteout thick and the light feeble.

  And yet I’m never, ever alone.

  I’ve thought back on Rachel’s words and decided that the very fact of my being—the very fact of yours—is miracle enough for me. Of all the people who could have been hatched on that ship, all the genetic combinations that could have ever come to pass, mine was hardly likely. My ancestors could have just as easily perished on Earth, or on the journey over. I could have died in the shuttle crash, or on the long trek to Raza Ait. Dead, like Deklan Levitt, a beast horn through my chest.

  And you? Well, we know how unlikely you were. Yet there you are, and here I am. We found each other, even though the odds were stacked against us. I’m here writing you this journal, these words.

  It might not mean much to you. I know that, like Rachel, you have religion. I know there are times when you care for me despite and not because of my lack of belief.

  But I thought it might be good to tell you, at least, that because of you, I believe in miracles. The miracle of our meeting, however unlikely it might have been. Because of you, I have faith—faith that I am loved.

  Back then, though? Back then I wasn’t so certain. When the path ahead was dark, and we were so, so new . . .

  PART TWO

  THE BOY

  11

  We waited. The afternoon wore on with no sign of the men. We waited more. I could feel the sweat ring my armpits and stream in little rivers down my back. I sat beside Hannah by the fire pit’s edge, watching the coals shimmer, watching Ettie gather rocks and sticks from the outskirts of the camp and toss them in. Someone should have scolded her, telling her not to feed the meager flames. But no one did. We were all too spent.

  Except for Aleksandra. She stood at the far end of the ring of stones, shouting into her radio.

  “What do you mean, he has the life support systems? You were supposed to stop this from happening!” Her voice was filled with strange accents. I snapped my head up. Despite the heat of the day, my hands had gone cold.

  “What’s Silvan done now?” I asked. But she furrowed her brow and turned her shoulder away.

  “Don’t you worry about Silvan,” she said. “You had your chance to take care of him.”

  In her hand the radio spat static and white nois
e. A garbled voice came stuttering from the speaker. “He’s threatening . . . Wishes to return to Earth . . .”

  Beside me Hannah let out a low cough of laughter.

  “Return to Earth. That’s an idea if I ever heard one. Our ancestors fled for a reason.”

  I watched as Ettie flung another handful of packed dirt into the fire. The flames billowed, loosing sweet white smoke on the air. I thought of all the things we’d learned of Earth in school—how after the asteroid hit, the planet was plunged into an endless winter, the sky as black as night even in the middle of the afternoon. Crops would have died. Animals, too. Our planet had betrayed us. There was no way we could return to it now.

  “I never thought it would come down to this,” Hannah said. “Choosing between a dead planet and a hostile one.”

  Hostile. It certainly seemed true. Zehava’s frozen wilderness, with its strange living trees and bloodthirsty beasts, offered little sanctuary for my people. But still I wanted to believe that there was some hope left. Even if the aliens were strange, they were people, weren’t they? Speaking. Thinking. There had to be some way to reach them. I thought of the look on the boy’s face as I called his name. He didn’t seem angry. He seemed afraid.

  At last the gates were thrown open. I jumped at the rush of sound—alien, not human. Reedy, buzzing voices let out incomprehensible shouts. The Asherati men were jostled and pushed by Ahadizhi, but they themselves were strangely silent as they streamed into the quarantine camp. Ettie raced toward Rebbe Davison. Her little fingers grabbed at the thick ropes that bound his wrists, twisting and pulling until he was free. The Xollu at the back of the crowd watched this development, their heads cocked to the side as if they were jotting down mental notes. I didn’t have to search the line of alien visitors to know that my boy wasn’t among them. My heart was too still; my breath too calm. I rose from the log and went to help the other crewmen free of their bindings.

  “Thank you,” said the shuttle pilot, a middle-aged man by the name of Aben Hirsch. He rubbed his rope-worn wrists where the skin had turned pink beneath his thick arm hair.

  “What did they do to you?” I whispered. He flashed a small, unsteady smile.

  “No worse than Doctor Rafferty’s checkups. But their bedside manner leaves something to be desired.”

  Doctor Rafferty. My own hands fell against my thighs, limp and helpless. As the aliens left the camp, the gate slamming behind them, I found Aleksandra Wolff. She watched me, her delicate lips curled. Then she shoved a lock of hair behind her ear and lifted the radio to her mouth.

  “Tell them we’ll be returning soon,” she said, speaking into it. “Tell them that we don’t want any funny business until I’m back on the ship.”

  More static. At last a cough of words: “Aye, ma’am.”

  Aleksandra clipped her radio back onto her belt. She turned toward those of us who had gathered there, the men rubbing their wrists, the women squinting into the sun.

  “My operatives have received word that Rafferty wants to return to Earth.”

  There was a murmur of dismay. Rebbe Davison’s mouth fell open. “That’s impossible. We don’t have any fuel. And Earth is dead. The asteroid—”

  “Fuel isn’t an issue,” Aleksandra said, looking away from her old friend. There was something cloistered, almost shamed about her expression. Her narrow mouth tightened as she glanced down at the dusty ground.

  “Alex,” Rebbe Davison said sternly. He was using his teacher voice, the one that compelled you to obey even if you should know better. “What are you talking about?”

  “It was a fail-safe,” she said, in the voice of a chastened little girl. “A secret. They couldn’t tell the citizens, my mother said. Not unless we wanted to be diverted from our journey.”

  She lifted her head. Her voice hardened again, growing as chilly as the day outside the city’s walls. “A fail-safe, in case we arrived and the planet was uninhabitable. Or worse. In case it wasn’t there at all. Over the generations our captains told the people that we had impulse fuel enough for one trip, but that was a lie. We had enough for two. We could take off again if we needed. Take off for another planet. Take off for Earth.”

  “You lied to me?” Rebbe Davison asked. He stood not far from Aleksandra, shaking his head over and over again. “You lied?”

  “Not me,” Aleksandra said. “It was the Council. It was Mother. I knew only because I overheard her telling that boy—”

  “What boy?” Rebbe Davison prodded. Aleksandra’s lips tightened.

  “Rafferty! Her new captain. Who else?”

  “We can’t return to Earth,” Laurel said in a strange, dull voice. She’d been sapped of all passion, all energy. I wondered if this was one development too many for her. “It’s dead. We can’t—”

  “Of course we can’t,” Aleksandra agreed. “And we can’t reach an accord with the natives, either. Which is why we need to break out of this camp, return to the ship, and settle on the southern continent. There are no cities there. It’s uninhabited. Which means it’s as good as ours.”

  But the shuttle crew wasn’t so easily swayed.

  “What if it’s uninhabited for a reason?” Aben asked. “How do we know we can settle there?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’ll be safe in the dome. It’s what it was designed for. Not for crazy, blind journeys back to a ruined planet.”

  The dome. I thought of the honeycombed glass ceiling, the fields, so familiar, that now lay fallow in the winter cold. My heart hardened against the possibility. I couldn’t return there—not to fly off to Earth, and not to land beneath the Zehavan skies, either. I knew every blade of the Asherah’s grass, every single crack in the cobblestone. It was less a home to me now and more a prison. No matter how crowded, no matter how full of bloodthirsty hunters, even the walled, foreign city of Raza Ait was better than returning to the ship.

  Hostile was better than dead. New was better than old. Rebbe Davison seemed to think so too.

  “We overthrew the Council so that we could be rid of the dome, Alex. You can’t really be suggesting—”

  “We need to make do. This is our lot, Mordy.” His child’s nickname dripped from her lips with disdain. “Do you have a better idea?”

  Rebbe Davison didn’t answer. He only wrung his hands, hesitating. So I answered. I spun to face Aleksandra.

  “What if I do?” I asked, and then winced—my words surprising even me.

  “You?” she asked. Her lips lifted, revealing pale gums. I firmed my chin.

  “Yes, me. Who saved us when we were attacked by beasts?”

  “I would have taken care of that if you—”

  “But you didn’t. I know things, Aleksandra. Things about the planet that no one else knows.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Aleksandra said. She looked at the others, her dark eyes narrowed into slivers. “The dome is the only place where we’ll be safe.”

  “That’s not true! In my dreams . . .” I began, but my words puttered off. Suddenly I wasn’t certain what had made me so bold. I wanted to be strong—because my boy was here in the city, all fragrant flesh and smoldering eyes; because of the way that Ettie looked to me, desperate and afraid as she stood at the edge of the cluster of adults. But I didn’t feel it. Aleksandra’s hot gaze hadn’t left me for a second.

  “Dreams, Terra.” Laurel said at long last. Her eyes were filled to the brim with an apology. I knew, then, that she’d lost too much to ever put her faith in someone like me. “They were only dreams. And they didn’t stop Deklan from dying, did they? They didn’t help one bit.”

  It wasn’t fair. I’d tried to lead them away from the beasts—to keep them on the path to the city, to keep them safe. But that didn’t matter to Laurel. All that mattered was Deklan, gone. She would have thrown me into the fire if it would get him back. I lowered my eyes, unable to escape everyone’s stares.

  Aleksandra set her hands on her hips, and then let out a long, withering sigh. She turned away from me
as her voice rang out through the muggy air.

  “I think our best option is brute force. Tomorrow morning we launch a counterattack on the aliens. We rush through the city and return to my shuttle.”

  “Alex,” I heard Rebbe Davison say. He was shaking his head, his eyes as big as a pair of saucers. “That’s absurd. We’ll never make it through the city—”

  “It’s our best chance,” she said flatly. “Our only chance.”

  I heard mumbles of agreement, assent. I knew then that it was useless. She’d captured their hearts long ago; now she held them too tightly in her thrall for someone like me to shake them free. So I didn’t raise any objections.

  But that didn’t mean I wasn’t afraid as I stomped off toward the fire. Her plan wasn’t only dangerous for us—for my sister-in-law, for Rebbe Davison, for Laurel, and for Ettie. It might be dangerous for the translator, too. If Aleksandra had her way, he’d be tossed to the side like just another felled tree. The boy. My last, best hope.

  I needed to save him. I needed to save us all.

  • • •

  “Vadix.”

  Sitting in the tent alone, the light filtered in all yellow and white, I let myself say his name. Not for the first time, but for the first time intentionally. I pushed it out into the air like it was an amethyst sliver of truth, one that I had somehow missed for the first sixteen years of my life, one that I was only now awakening to.

  “Vadix.” I stretched out the vowels, let the consonants buzz and then stop short on the tip of my tongue. “Vadix. Vadix.”

  I couldn’t remember him speaking it. Not even in my dreams, as he wrapped his body around mine and drew his lips down the soft flesh of my neck. And yet still, I knew. He was Vadix, and he was real, and he was mine. How long had I lived in denial? Once I had told myself that they were only crazy, embarrassing dreams. Everyone had dreams, right? Rachel used to tell me about hers—she and Silvan, back in the alleyways behind her father’s store. Koen, too, had fallen victim to dreams that shamed him. Hot dreams, he’d said. Wild dreams.