Starbreak Page 5

  “I study predators on the ship,” he said. “Which ones are necessary for pest control, which ones are safe. Those marks. They look like the markings of felines. They’ll rake their claws on trees to sharpen them and spread their scent.”

  “Felines.” I smiled, thinking of the tomcat who still waited for me in my brother’s quarters on the ship. “So I was wrong. Maybe there are house cats here—”

  “Terra!” Jachin said, his voice suddenly as sharp as broken glass. “I don’t mean tabby cats. There are other felines, ones we’ve never seen fit to awaken. Panthers and mountain lions and tigers. Do you have a cat?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Pepper. He’s—”

  “Think of Pepper. Think of the way he acts when he smells a mouse, or when another tom walks by the window. Now imagine that he weighs, oh, say, three hundred fifty kilograms.”

  I swallowed hard, thinking of the way Pepper sometimes dug his claws into me when I stroked his stomach wrong—kicking out his back feet, leaving long marks raking my forearms.

  “Maybe the plants don’t move for pollination,” I said. “Or not only that. In the greenhouses we had a touch-me-not. Mimosa pudica. Mara showed me how if you let your fingers grace its leaves, it shrinks back, hiding. From animals who might eat it.”

  I was doing it again. Rambling, musing aloud. But this time Jachin only nodded his head in agreement.

  “There might not be pollinators here,” he said. “But I suspect there are predators.”

  • • •

  We didn’t tell the others about the dangers that lurked in the forests. Instead I kept my head down, watching my boots strike the earth as we made our way over the frozen ground. I was underdressed in my flight suit—the cold cut straight through, numbing my calves and thighs. But the rhythm of the walk kept me going, a straight line south toward the city.

  Toward my boy.

  We stopped near midday, when Epsilon Eridani was high in the sky. We’d reached an open plain coated with dense grass, gone blue from frost and trampled flat. I wondered if the others noticed as they set down their packs and squatted over the cold ground to eat, but apparently their attentions were elsewhere—Deklan trying to beg an extra handful of freeze-dried fruit off Laurel; Rebbe Davison arguing with Jachin about the place of religion in our colony to come. I was alone in my reflections, staring out into the forest with wary eyes. Or so I thought.

  Because halfway through our meal I heard a shout. A child’s voice, distant, punctuated with laughter.

  “Hey! Hey, look!”

  Ettie. I whipped my head around, searching for her. I found her at the edge of the clearing, her hair a dark veil down her back.

  Stay on the rocky pathway, the boy had said. Avoid the forests. But there she was, holding one hand out and open toward the darkness beyond. The others only watched at first, but I scrambled to my feet and raced toward her. When I reached the place where the grass grew spare and knotted with roots, I grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her skinny body around.

  “What are you doing?”

  She broke herself from my grip and staggered back. Her expression was pleasantly puzzled, not angry or upset.

  “I wanted to see the forest. Look!”

  She extended one hand again. I started to reach out to stop her, but by then the others had come to see what was the matter. I tamped down my fear until it was nothing but a slender lick of flame. And watched.

  There was a vine that had tangled its way around the nearest black-barked tree. The vines’ leaves were a deep violet lined with veins the color of heliotrope, and they flickered as the plant began to unfurl its tendrils. How did it know that Ettie stood there, arm outstretched, her brave smile showing crooked teeth? It didn’t have eyes or ears. I reached back in my mind, trying to recall what Mara had taught me about sensory systems in plants. Meanwhile the coiling vine slithered down the nearest branch, reaching and stretching, until its leaves graced Ettie’s smooth, small hand.

  “Ettie!” I cried. There was a chorus of murmurs from the others. Her impish grin grew wider and wider as the vine climbed her arm, knotting through her unbound hair. The movement was slow, strange—but beautiful. Like something from a dream.

  “See, Terra?” she said, smiling faintly. “It’s okay!”

  Beside me Rebbe Davison let out a chuckle. “The curiosity of a child,” he said. But Ettie wasn’t the only one who was curious. Deklan took a heavy step forward, reaching out his hand.

  “I guess you were wrong about the carnivorous plants,” he said, looking pointedly at me. But instead of climbing his palm, the vine shrank back. By the time he’d turned back to Ettie, it was already gone—retreating rapidly into the darkness of the forest.

  “That’s strange,” he said. Laurel leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

  “It’s because you smell bad.”

  “Hey!”

  Laughing, the pair made their way back toward our supplies. After a moment Ettie and Rebbe Davison followed. Not Jachin, though. He hung back, standing beside me, his hands on his hips.

  “It could be instinctual,” I offered. “Responses to stimuli.”

  But Jachin gave his head a shake. “A different response to the child’s touch than to Deklan’s? That implies a degree of judgment not typically seen in plants.”

  I stared at him. “And what would it mean in an animal?”

  “That it’s afraid,” he said. “HaShem help us, afraid of what?”

  • • •

  We walked, and walked. As the afternoon wore on, clouds began to crowd the sky. They seemed to skate across the golden expanse above, tinting everything gray. It was so different from the way that dark descended on our ship—evenly and predictably—that at first I didn’t even notice the wisps of smoke in the distance.

  “What’s that, Terra?” Ettie asked, tugging on the sleeve of my flight suit. I stopped, cupping my hands over my eyes. The smoke was dark and thick, a column that stretched into the clear sky.

  “Fire, it looks like.”

  “Does fire just happen like that?” Deklan asked.

  I pursed my lips uncertainly. “Wildfires. Mara told me about them. But it’s too cold here. And the fire’s just in one spot. It hasn’t spread.”

  “Like our campfire,” Rebbe Davison said. We all squinted into the distance.

  “Should we walk out toward it?” Laurel asked. I was surprised to find that she’d turned toward me. I lifted my shoulders. I wasn’t sure what to say—wasn’t used to even being asked anything. But Deklan cut in before I could answer.

  “We’re trying to find civilization, right?” he asked. I had to admit, it sounded good when he spoke. Like he was strong and sure, like he could keep us safe. “A campfire means people.”

  “But it means leaving the path,” I protested. And not only that—we’d have to head east into the forest, rather than south, away from Eps Eridani as it sank behind the mountains. Away from the city, too. I felt panic rise in my throat. “I don’t think we should. My dream—”

  “Aw,” Deklan said. He pawed at the back of his neck, looking sympathetically down at me. He was so tall and broad-shouldered. He must have felt invincible, even out here in the elements. I wondered what it was like to feel so strong and certain. “I know you had a dream, Terra. But if we’re trying to get out of the wilderness, it seems to me like finding someone is our best bet. Dream or no dream.”

  His smile was wide and charming. I wanted to believe him, but I couldn’t. It flew in the face of everything that I knew was true. My boy. His words.

  “I suspect there are animals in the forest,” Jachin finally declared. At that, they all started. Even Ettie. She snatched up my hand, and then pressed her face against my upper arm, hiding.

  “Animals?” she said. “Alien animals?”

  Jachin watched the girl as she peered out from behind me. His knitted eyebrows and thin mouth offered no comfort.

  “Alien animals,” he agreed.

  Her moon
eyes were huge. “What if they’re not nice? What if they’re monsters?”

  Jachin gazed at me, pressing his mouth into a line. When neither of us spoke, Laurel did instead.

  “We have weapons. We’ll be okay.” She clutched her rifle to her chest. When no one answered her, she looked to Deklan. “Right, Deck?”

  Her intended hefted his gun high onto his shoulder. He’d entertain no more protests, not from us. “That’s right. Come on. We can’t just keep wandering around the wilderness forever. Our rations won’t last half that long.”

  Jachin and Rebbe Davison shared a look. At last, reluctantly, Rebbe Davison nodded.

  “Maybe he’s right—”

  “Of course I am,” Deklan said. “Let’s go.”

  With that, he turned and walked into the forest, Laurel hot on his heels. After a moment Rebbe Davison followed. And Jachin, too, after giving his head a slow, fearful shake.

  “I hope this isn’t a mistake,” he said as he disappeared between the shifting black-bodied trees.

  I hesitated, Ettie’s clammy hand still tucked into mine.

  “Terra, I’m scared,” she said in a whisper. Her eyes were tightly closed, as if she could ward off any dangers she couldn’t see.

  The truth was, I was afraid too. Halfway to terrified, in fact. The boy had given us a path, and here we were straying from it—heading deeper and deeper into the undergrowth. I knew I had to follow; I’d never make it to the city alone. I wasn’t strong enough or knowledgeable enough. I needed the others, as much as I hated to admit it. And that only frightened me more.

  Still, I didn’t want to scare Ettie.

  “We’ll be okay,” I said, giving her hand a gentle tug. “I promise.”

  But as we headed into the forest, I wasn’t sure it was a promise I could keep.

  • • •

  But we didn’t find beasts in the forest. Not at all. Nor aliens like the boy, their bodies bending in the wind like reeds. What we found was even stranger: human voices, speaking Asheran, our native tongue. The low murmurs rose up from the forest behind a patch of shifting, snow-dotted trees.

  “Her shuttle crashed northwest of here.”

  “We’ll break camp after dinner and head that way.”

  “People!” Ettie cried. She began to run ahead, her dark hair tossing against her shoulders. Calling her name, Rebbe Davison took off after her. The others followed. But I just stood there, frozen on the path, the gun clutched in one fist and my pack a saggy lump low on my back. My hands were slick with sweat against the metal barrel of the rifle. My heart beat hard. One of the voices was strange, new. But one spoke with familiar clarity. It was a woman’s voice, strong, commanding, without a hint of doubt. It was a voice that hadn’t cracked even when she’d struck her mother down.

  Aleksandra Wolff. Aleksandra Wolff was here on Zehava. I cast my head back, as if the golden evening sky could offer me escape. It couldn’t, of course, though the trees reached their naked branches out like arms to embrace me. It was like they wanted to bolster me, keep me safe. Maybe I could have fled deeper into the forest. But the boy had said that there were animals there, animals that could harm me. Would they bring me greater harm than the people who sat in the grove ahead? My mind was spinning wildly; I couldn’t pin it down. I was still gaping up at the sky when Laurel appeared at the mouth of the clearing. The grin across her mouth was wide and toothy, like all her worries had been washed away.

  “Terra!” she called. “Aleksandra Wolff is here! She’s going to save us!”

  I stared at Laurel, at the gleeful smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. Of course. Laurel was a rebel—Aleksandra, the leader of the rebels. It was only natural that she’d be glad to see her. Not terrified that Aleksandra’s long, narrow blade would soon find itself buried in her belly.

  “Terra?”

  There was nothing else to do, nowhere else to go. I took staggered steps toward Laurel. As I walked, I held my gun against my chest, hoping that it would hide the way that my hands shook, and the way that I was unable to keep them still.

  6

  They’d set up their camp on the edge of a bubbling stream, where their shuttle sat, bobbing and bright, in the water. It looked like it had been a smooth landing. Aleksandra was unscathed, and not a scratch could be seen on either of her two guards, who were dressed, head to toe, in flight gear. They’d built a fire, a wide tower of freshly chopped logs that smoldered as they burned, unlike the fists of brittle detritus we’d gathered for our own fire the night before. I winced to think of it—one of those still-living trees struck down like it was nothing. But I suppose to the guard who had felled it, it was nothing. What did he care that the trees stretched and reached as if their branches were human arms? It was all the same to him. Now the guards’ motions were efficient, robotic as they doled out dinnertime rations.

  I stood at the mouth of the camp, unable to make my feet move. There was Aleksandra, knelt down beside the fire. Her helmet sat on the log beside her; her long, black braid snaked out to one side. She didn’t hold a knife, not anymore. Now she wore a gun in her belt, and while I had one too, I felt sure that she’d be better at using it than I was.

  She hadn’t noticed me, not yet. Maybe, I thought, if I just stay real still, she won’t.

  “I can’t believe she’s here.”

  I turned toward the familiar voice. Rebbe Davison leaned in close, holding his bowl of rehydrated stew against his chest.

  “We were in the same clutch, you know,” he said. “In school we passed notes back and forth, like you and Rachel Federman used to. After we found out about the Children of Abel, it was like a fire lit inside her. She wrote so passionately about our cause.”

  “Our notes were always about boys,” I said dully. I was hardly listening to him. My eyes were fixed firmly on Aleksandra as she flicked her braid back over her shoulder to keep it away from the fire.

  “Ours were about rebellion,” Rebbe Davison said. “She decided she didn’t just want to fight for our liberty. She wanted to lead the cavalry. That was always our plan. I’d be the brains behind the outfit, and Aleksandra—she’d be the brawn. After all those years of wrestling with her mother for control, she should be up there on that ship. Not here. I was drunk when I left, but Aleksandra . . . I don’t know why she came.”

  For me, I thought. She came for me.

  At long last she lifted her brown eyes up. They shone like a pair of moons. When she saw me, she smiled hungrily. I felt the blood drain from my hands. I dropped my rifle; the metal clattered over the frozen ground. Rebbe Davison looked sharply at me. They all did, pausing over their meals to watch me tremble where I stood. She’d been there when they’d struck down Ben Jacobi. Then she’d been the one to draw the knife across her mother’s neck. I was surely next. When Aleksandra rose from the log, I thought I might wilt right there in the middle of the forest.

  I waited for her to take up her own rifle, cocking the safety back and pressing its barrel to my head. But she didn’t. Instead she only bent over, taking my gun in her free hand and passing it back to me.

  “Terra Fineberg,” she said, a smile cold on her lips. “I think you dropped this.”

  Then she turned to Rebbe Davison. Her finely plucked eyebrows were arched, as if he’d just told her the funniest joke in the world.

  “Mordecai,” she said. “My old friend. Come, break bread with me. We have a lot to talk about.”

  • • •

  I sat as far away from Aleksandra as I could, pressed on a log between her pair of guards. The others ate and ate—without any care for the supplies that might one day dwindle down to nothing. But I’d lost my appetite. Sitting beside Rebbe Davison, she looked so clean, so composed. Her hands made swift motions through the air as she spoke. The others were all enraptured. Laurel gazed up at her as Aleksandra described the rebel victory. Deklan wore a proud smirk. Even Ettie listened, one ear tilted up as Aleksandra told her story.

  “Once it was clear I ha
d unseated the Council,” Aleksandra was saying, “I knew we could no longer hesitate. We had listened to their lies about the probe results for too long. It was time to see the planet for myself, to assess the situation for my people.”

  Her smile didn’t falter one bit as she wove her words into a bright fabric. So urgent was their journey, she said, that they’d taken off that very night. She didn’t mention chasing me down through the fields and pastures, or riding the lift in hot pursuit of me. She didn’t mention that she’d been the one to kill her mother—even as Captain Wolff begged her for mercy—or that she’d followed me here to make sure I died too.

  “But, Alex,” Rebbe Davison said, massaging his fingers over his worried brow, “what about the Asherati? They need you—need a leader. Without your mother to lead them—”

  Her words came, too fast, too fierce. By the firelight I could see the emotion that flamed beneath her cool visage. “My mother was a traitor to all of us. Though I mourn the loss of her in the riots, you will never speak of her to me again. Do you understand, Mordecai?”

  I sucked in a breath. In our musty library meetings it had been common for the rebels to speak ill of Captain Wolff. They called her a cow, pinning all the ship’s woes on her. But I knew better. She’d done her best for our people, even when her best wasn’t good enough—sending out probe after probe to Zehava in the hopes that the planet would support us and be our home. Each probe had been lost, but it hadn’t been her fault. She’d been shocked when she’d discovered the truth of the missing probes; she hadn’t been hiding them from us at all. I remembered her face, gnarled and scarred, and the story Rebbe Davison used to tell about her. How she saved a boy from a thresher when she was young, the first of many noble acts she’d undertaken for us.

  Rebbe Davison swallowed hard. “Of course, Alex,” he said, still clinging to her childhood name. I wondered what it would take for Alex to die for him—for her to become Aleksandra. “I just can’t help but wonder what’s going on up there on the ship.”