Bright Star

by Nickie Anderson



  by Nickie Anderson

  Text copyright © 2012 Nickie Anderson

  https://www.nickieanderson.blogspot.com

  All Rights Reserved

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  For my grandmother, who always has a story to tell.

  Through the silence I heard a squeak, a groan of the floor. Was that a footstep?

  I waited for a moment. No, it was nothing. Papa still wasn’t home. He hadn’t come home last night for dinner, hadn’t come home last night when I went off to bed, and now, as it neared dawn, he still wasn’t home. I had been lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling for hours, perking my ears at every little noise.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. He worked late so often. He had promised to be back early yesterday, though.

  A special birthday for a special girl, he had said, tugging my braid like I was still a little girl. Of course I’ll be home for dinner.

  “Time,” I called out.

  “Oh seven hundred,” chimed my clock.

  I groaned. I hadn’t slept a wink, and I was supposed to get up for school in thirty minutes. Great. I rolled over again. Between Papa not being home and the crick in my neck, it was next to impossible to sleep. A catnap would be the best rest I could hope for. I fluffed my pillow and had just settled on a comfortable position, when a voice broke through the silence.

  “Sadira?”

  Amina, my best friend, called from the front door of my house. She hadn’t knocked. That formality had been dropped long ago.

  “Get up, birthday girl! My mom sent me over with food.”

  Amina’s voice pierced my tired ears. It might have been my fifteenth birthday, but I was sleep-deprived and not at all ready to get up, let alone celebrate. I slid out of bed and stretched my long arms, reaching toward the ceiling.

  “I’ll be downstairs in a second,” I called. “Lights.” My lamp turned on, and the sudden brightness made me wince.

  “Off.” I was plunged back in darkness. I rubbed my eyes and yawned until my face felt like it would split.

  Amina popped her head in my door. “No need to come down yet. Lights!” My lamp flicked back on. “Come on, sleepyhead. There’s two slices of chocolate cake waiting in the dining room.”

  “Cake for breakfast? You know I’m not allowed.”

  Amina shrugged. “Your dad’s not here, is he?”

  I shook my head. “I think he had to work late again.”

  A devilish grin crept across her face. “So who’s going to complain if we stuff ourselves with cake?”

  I sighed. Amina knew Papa would be upset if I had cake instead of muesli, but perhaps it couldn’t hurt to take one tiny bite. It was a special occasion, after all. I yanked a blue dress out of my closet and slipped it over my head, smoothing it over my slip. The dress had reached my ankles less than a year ago, but now a long stretch of calf peeked out beneath.

  Amina raised an eyebrow. “You’re wearing that?” She gestured to her tight gray pants and loose magenta t-shirt. Her eyes were covered in a matching magenta eye shadow that made her dark skin look even deeper and richer. She was always in some crazy skiff outfit with wild hair to match. “You look like an old woman.”

  “Maybe I am an old woman. Did you ever think about that?”

  “Next time, I’ll be sure to bring you a shawl,” Amina teased. “Then you’d be the best dressed little old lady ever.”

  I stuck my tongue out at her. “Make sure it matches my dress.” I tied on my leather sandals and glanced out the window. A sliver of sky peeked out above the gray concrete Wall. The sky was still the same sickly yellow-brown color it had been for days. The dust and sand choked out the sun. The Samalut outpost had been stuck in sandstorm after sandstorm for the last two weeks. I grabbed a long scarf. I would definitely need to cover my face. Maybe the sun will shine today. Maybe the skies will be blue. I scrunched my eyes closed and turned the wish into a prayer. God, it’s Sadira. Please, let these sandstorms end. Amen. I snagged a hat from my closet in case God wasn’t too busy to answer my prayer today.

  “You ready, old lady?” asked Amina.

  I twisted my long brown hair into a tidy braid. “All ready.” Amina ran out of my room and slid down the banister, careening wildly. I took the steps one by one—I was fifteen now, after all. That was practically grown up. Amina was already waiting for me in the dining room by the time I got downstairs.

  Our dining room was empty except for a round wooden table and two small chairs. The concrete floor and walls were both bare and unwelcoming. Papa always said that a dining room was a waste of space. Why dedicate a room to eating? I can eat anywhere, he would say. Sometimes I wished our house looked more like a home, like the Nagis’, my next-door neighbors, full of warmth and people and chairs and talk. But Papa was a busy man, and I was a grown girl. We didn’t need frivolous things.

  Amina set out the two plates of cake on the table and pulled a couple of glasses of sim-milk, a mixture of proteins and vitamins in a thin white liquid, from the dispenser in the kitchen.

  “Did you grab our pills?” I asked.

  She scrunched her nose.

  “You know we have to take them every morning.”

  “The pills prevent illness and disease, and encourage the growth of healthy bodies and minds.” Her voice was a perfect imitation of the dry Central videos we sometimes watched in school. She walked back to the kitchen, tapped the dispenser, and pulled out two small yellow pills. “You’re worse than my mom.”

  “Do you want to say the blessing?”

  Amina rolled her eyes. “Sadira, please. It’s cake. I think God will forgive us.” But she caved when my face fell.

  “Fine. I’ll say a blessing, but only because it’s your birthday.” She cleared her throat.

  “God, I know it’s been a long time since we’ve chatted. Sorry. It’s Sadira’s birthday today, and we have some cake to eat. Please bless it so that it tastes super delicious, and please don’t let Sadira’s papa find out she had cake for breakfast instead of muesli. Amen.”

  I giggled. “Amen.”

  “Now can we eat?”

  “Sure.” I sipped on my milk, staring cautiously at the cake. I wasn’t supposed to eat sweets for breakfast, but today could be an exception. I took one tiny bite and let the chocolate flavor spread over my tongue. Delicious. Before I knew it, I had wolfed down the whole thing. I swallowed back my yellow pill. I guessed it would balance out the chocolate. Amina licked the icing off her plate. I was tempted to lick my plate, too, but I remembered Papa’s stern voice—You are a girl, not an animal. I slid my plate, crumbs and all, into the autowasher instead. It whirred for a moment, then spat out a sparkling clean dish.

  “I guess we need to get to school,” I said, walking toward my knapsack at the door.

  “Not yet. I still have one more thing for you.” Amina pulled a small box out of her pocket. “Happy birthday!”

  I unwrapped the box and opened it. Inside was a silver necklace with a large, round pendant. I let the cool chain run through my fingers and rubbed the decorative engraving. A ring of gold roses was inlaid in the silver. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

  “You haven’t seen the best part!” Amina walked over to my chair, her dark curls falling out of her ponytail. “It’s one of those new holo-lockets. See? Click this button, and presto!”

  A beam of blue light shot from the front of the locket and projected an image of Amina and Timothy on the floor of the dining room. In the holo, Amina was her usual all-smiles self, her hair in a wild halo of curls around her face. Timothy stood next to her, his shy eyes hidden by a thick fringe of dark hair, a soft grin creeping
across his face. She grinned. “I figured you needed to remember who your best friends in the whole world were. I uploaded a few pictures. Scroll through them.”

  I tapped the side of the locket, and a new image appeared. It was Papa, long and lanky like me, and sporting his usual scruffy beard. I tapped it again and gasped. It was an image of Mama. Here, she looked very young and had long, wavy hair cascading down her shoulders. She was smiling, happy. I wished I could remember the details of her face without a picture.

  “How did you find this holo?” I only had one old holograph of Mama, from before she passed away. I had never seen this one before.

  “I had to sweet talk one of the soldiers in the records department to let me download it.”

  I threw my arms around Amina and squeezed her. “You’re the best!”

  “I know.” She laughed for a moment, then leaned in to me and whispered, “Can I tell you a secret?”

  I nodded.

  “Timothy didn’t want me to tell you, but he picked out the necklace.”

  “Really?” Usually Amina, Timothy, and I treated each other to ice creams or cakes for a birthday. I couldn’t imagine Timothy looking at necklaces, especially not for my birthday. The thought made my face flush, and I smiled.

  “Really,” said Amina. “Now move it, Sadira. We don’t want to be late today.”

  She was right. Even though we technically had class today, we were spending the day watching the test launch of a new ship. After the test flight ended and the ship was back on the ground, we would be allowed to climb aboard and talk to the pilots. Everyone was excited. Usually all of the experimental tech on Samalut was kept classified, which meant kids never got to see it up close. Since Papa was the chief engineer, I’d had a few peeks at the design on his tablet. He’d spent a lot of time away from home working on it, and now that it was finally finished, I couldn’t wait to see it up close. I clasped the locket around my neck and tucked the pendant under the collar of my dress. I grabbed my earpiece from the side table and shoved it into my ear, in case Papa called for me. I flung my knapsack over my shoulder on my way out the door.

  Amina dragged me by the hand. “Hurry up!” We ran out of the housing district, a maze of identical olive green townhouses. The dusty earth worked its way under my feet and clung to my toes and legs, coating my skin. I pulled my scarf up around my neck, holding it over my nose and mouth, but sand still hung suspended in the air, stinging my eyes. We sped through the center of town, dodging the morning hovercab traffic, racing past the bakery, past the church, and farther still past the antique store. The city opened up into a wide, sandy field, dotted here and there with scruffy trees. I could see the launch pad ahead. Hovercabs and transports lined up in front of the Wall.

  The rest of our class was already gathered at the launch pad, huddled around Ms. Ahmad. Their eyes peered over colorful scarves tied over their noses and mouths. The large concrete Wall surrounding the outpost loomed cold and imposing in the background, blocking any view of the badlands beyond. Amina wedged her way to the front of the group, elbowing people out of the way. I stayed toward the back, relying on my height to peer over everyone’s heads. I could see Timothy toward the front, his wavy brown hair sticking up above an orange scarf, joking with a few of the other boys. He saw Amina push forward, then peered over his shoulder. He grinned when he saw me and brushed a patch of long brown hair out of his eyes. I waved, but Timothy’s smile collapsed into an embarrassed flush. I readjusted the scarf over my face; my mouth was already filled with little bits of sand that crunched whenever I clenched my jaw. I turned my attention to Ms. Ahmad.

  “Today, as you know, is a special day,” announced Ms. Ahmad. “Our engineers will be launching the newest test ship, the first capable of M1000 speed.”

  The guys in my class whispered among themselves. “Wow! M1000! You think it’ll do that?” I knew the ship could make M1000. Papa had spent the last two years designing it. If he couldn’t make something work, no one could.

  I studied the ship. The hovercabs usually sat either two or four people, but the ships were lumbering black clouds in the sky, carrying dozens of people or heavy cargo between the outposts. Papa had talked about this newest hovership on the nights he came home from work early, about how the cabin was put together and how the thin sheets of metal alloy were stretched over the frame, and how robot-guided lasers welded the seams together. The ship’s sleek black shell glowed in the dusky yellow light as if lit from within. On the starboard side, the ship’s name, ‘CAS Bright Star’, shone silvery-blue. I could see why Papa spent so much time working on the ship. It was beautiful, dark and sleek and shimmering a thousands colors, like the shell of a scarab beetle. There were no windows that I could see, but I knew from Papa that there was a view-screen on board. The ship was much smaller than the transports that usually flew overhead. When Papa and I first moved to Samalut, the ship we flew on was so tall I couldn’t see the top of it, and it took a full ten minutes to walk around it. But that was a transport, designed for freight. This ship was not much larger than my house, but I was sure it would be fast.

  Papa stepped out from behind the ship with the two pilots. He was dressed in his work uniform—carefully pressed khaki pants, a sharply tucked white shirt, sleeves rolled precisely to the elbow. Only his scruffy beard, a black shadow covering his jaw and neck, betrayed the fact that he had been working all night again. Despite the scraggly beard, he still looked put together, even when placed next to the two clean-cut pilots in their freshly pressed uniforms. “That’s right, Ms. Ahmad!” he said. “She should hit M1000 with no problems. We designed a new decelerate cabin and all new coms and nav systems for this ship. She’ll almost fly herself.” Papa waved to me, but I frowned. What is he doing here? He spent his time in the labs. He was never around the flight crews. Usually a crew chief took responsibility for the maiden launch, not one of the engineers. I had assumed he’d spent the night in his office yet again because of work, but if not... he could’ve been home this morning for my birthday, at least.

  “I will be riding with the test pilots today to gather some readings about our ship’s performance,” he continued. “We hope to make this the fastest ship on the planet...” Papa’s voice droned on, but I didn’t listen. He was riding with the test pilots? He had never said anything about that. This was how he planned to let me know? The ship was probably safe, but it was the maiden voyage. I closed my eyes and sighed. Papa, what are you doing?

  “If everything works as planned, we should be able to get to any of the orbital colonies in less than an hour,” he said. “Of course, we won’t be taking her up to top speed today, but when we do... well, Ms. Ahmad, we’d like to invite your class back to see.”

  Ms. Ahmad smiled. “We’ll hold you to that promise, Mr. Pascal. Who would like to pass out headphones and glasses?” Timothy and Amina raised their hands and began handing out the protective gear. “Be sure your headphones are on snugly!” called Ms. Ahmad. “The ships are quite loud.”

  I pulled the headphones over my head, trying to keep them from snagging on my hair. I sealed the plastic discs around my ears and clipped the glasses to the frames. A ripple of static broke through my headphones.

  “Everyone got their headphones on?” It was Papa, giving instructions. “Raise your right hand if you can hear me loud and clear.” I raised my hand in unison with the rest of the class.

  “Good, good,” Papa said. “Now, we’ll need everyone to take a couple of steps backward. You’ll need to stay behind the red line there.” Timothy stumbled back a few steps, passing through the crowd, and bumped into me. He grabbed my arm reflexively to steady himself. My arm felt hot where he grasped me. I turned my head, and for a short moment, I stared at him. Yellow dust had settled on his eyelashes and eyebrows. He opened his mouth to speak to me, but then shut it into a thin line and turned away.

  “Is everyone in place?”

  Everyone crowded at the edge of the red line. Even though I was several
centimeters taller than the rest of my class, I kept pushing forward. I didn’t want to miss a moment of the launch, especially if Papa was going to be on board.

  “You may need to sit down for this,” Papa said. “We’ve adjusted for a minimal shockwave, but you should feel a large gust of air when we take off.” Papa turned to the two pilots. “Are you ready?”

  A deep voice resonated through the headphones. “Yes, Mr. Pascal. Preflight is complete, and all systems are go.”

  “Great.” Papa smiled, and I knew it was meant for me. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

  One wing of the ship’s shell raised, and Papa and the pilots walked on board. The door folded silently behind them. A few moments later, the bottom of the ship shimmered and a hot, heavy layer of steam began to rise around it. The ship lifted from the ground with a roar, shooting out a rush of air that sent everyone reeling. The ship quickly shrank smaller, smaller, and smaller still, until it was no more than a beetle glimmering and dancing in the dusky yellow sky. A cloud of steam billowed over the ground, engulfing us.

  The pilot’s baritone voice came through the headphones. “What do you all think? Was that a launch or what?” The class cheered.

  “We’re at about 80 kilometers,” the pilot continued. “It is beautiful up here. I’m sending the view-screen feed to your glasses.”

  My glasses lit up. The Earth glowed a soft blue color, and ribbons of clouds danced along the surface. Bits of green and brown earth peeked through the mist, surrounded by a moat of oceans and seas. The sun was still shinning, after all. I wished it would break through the layers of sand and dust to light up the outpost.

  “I’m going to hand you over to Mr. Pascal now,” the pilot said. “He’ll show you around the ship.”

  “Thanks, Ben,” said Papa. “Let me switch your feed over to the cockpit. Are we good?” The glowing ball of the Earth disappeared and in its place was the dimly lit interior of the ship.

  “First off, you can see that this ship is much smaller than most, and the cockpit is even disproportionally smaller. Since we wanted a ship capable of M1000, we had to make a few adjustments...” A siren blared in the background, and a red light blinked overhead. Papa froze.

  “What was that, Ben?”

  “I’m not sure, Mr. Pascal. Naeem, verify our altitude.”

  “I’m reading 60 kilometers, falling fast.”

  Ben ran through all systems. Beads of sweat glistened on his black skin. “Pressure is steady. Power is steady. Vectors are input correctly...”

  “Ben, we’re at 50 kilometers,” said Naeem quietly.

  “Mr. Pascal, shut off the feed. Shut it off!” Ben shouted.

  “I’m sorry, Sadira.” Papa looked pained for a moment, and the feed ended. The ship’s cabin disappeared from view, and in it’s place was my class, panicked and confused. Ms. Ahmad pulled off her headphones and motioned for everyone else to do the same. “We need to get inside. Follow me, please. Quickly!” She turned and headed toward the school, her walk almost breaking to a run. She began talking on her earpiece.

  “Get the Colonel, Danielle. There’s been a problem. Yes, Colonel Marwasi? It’s Ms. Ahmad. My class was at the launch, and...”

  My head spun. What was wrong with the ship? Papa had spent the last two years designing it. Were they crashing? It wasn’t possible. I walked in a daze, my class quickly outpacing me.

  “Colonel Marwasi? What? Of course, immediately.” Ms. Ahmad turned off her earpiece and yelled.

  “We need to head for the school basement right now!” She began rounding up the class, pushing them together in a group, urging them on from behind. Some of the boys began running, and she jogged with them, struggling to keep them in sight. Only I lingered, lost in thoughts of Papa.

  “I’m sorry, Sadira.”

  I felt like screaming and crying and hitting something all at once, but I balled the feeling up inside of me and tucked it away.

  I started running, but instead of heading to the school with the rest of my class, I raced back home.

  “Sadira! Sadira!” Ms. Ahmad called after me. “Come to the school. Follow me.” She paused, staring at me for a moment, then looked back at the rest of the class sprinting toward the school. I kept running back home.

  “Sadira!” She called one last time, before following the rest of the students toward the middle of the outpost.

  My direction never wavered. My feet led me home, cutting through yards and alleys between the blocks of town homes. I finally reached my house and threw open the door, letting it slam into the living room wall. I ran into Papa’s room and curled up in the corner. He’d be here any minute, as soon as he landed. He’d laugh at me for being so worried.

  A boom shook the house, knocking me on my face. The window, which had been filled with the dusky yellow light, became brighter, brighter, brighter than the sun. I covered my eyes, but the light still burned them. Then blackness...

  I opened my eyes, but I was no longer in Papa’s room. A face—Mrs. Nagi?—hovered over me.

  “Sadira, can you hear me?”

  I squinted my eyes shut and reopened them. Yes, it was Mrs. Nagi, my next-door neighbor. Her brow was drawn tight, her eyes filled with worry, and wrinkles splayed across her face. I was lying on her couch, tightly wrapped in thick woolen blankets. I peeled off the layers of throws.

  “I can hear you. I’m—I’m fine, I think.” I looked at my arms, my legs, and wiggled my fingers and toes.

  She sighed in relief. “I was so worried when I heard you weren’t at the school. I came to your house as soon as I could, and then I saw you lying on the floor...” her voice trailed off. “I’m glad you’re awake. I’ve called the doctor.”

  “You didn’t need to do that. I’m fine.” I began to stand up from the couch, but then the world started to spin, and I collapsed. Mrs. Nagi raced over.

  “I’m only a bit dizzy, Mrs. Nagi. Please, don’t worry about me.”

  “Everybody worries about you.”

  “What about Papa?”

  Her lips pressed into a thin line. “I don’t know, darling. I haven’t heard from anyone over at the Central office.”

  “He’s not dead,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “Of course not.”

  I nodded and lay back down on the couch. I tried to close my eyes again, but all I could see was that last vision of my father on the glasses. Why hadn’t he told me he was flying today? He knew I hated it. Maybe that was why he didn’t say anything. Maybe that was why he hadn’t been home much lately. I stared off at the walls of the living room. If my house was empty, the Nagis’ was the polar opposite. Lamps stood in each corner of the room. Curtains were draped over the windows, and all of the furniture had brightly colored pillows and throws. It was a warm, comforting place. I felt my body relax and my eyelids grow heavy.

  “Sadira? The doctor is here to see you,” Mrs. Nagi said. “Come on, sit up for him.” I jerked my eyes open again and forced myself upright. The doctor, a skeletal middle-aged man with a large gray mustache, shined a light into my eyes, checked my pulse and blood pressure, and then smiled.

  “You are the picture of health, my dear. Did you have some dizziness?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Why don’t you try getting up very slowly. Here,” he offered his hand, “get up halfway and tell me how you feel.”

  I put my hand into his and tried to stand, but my head started swimming again. I blinked a few times, then stood upright. The world straightened out.

  “Any dizziness now?” he asked.

  “No, but I do have a bit of a headache.”

  “Just grab an extra pill today. There’s a pain fighter built in.”

  “What about my father?” The doctor’s smile faded, disappearing behind his mustache.

  “I don’t know. But I am sure Mrs. Nagi will take good care of you until we find out, right?”

  Mrs. Nagi nodded emphatically. “Of course we will.”

&nb
sp; “Have a good evening. I’ll be in touch.” He grabbed his coat and his bag and slipped out the door.

  Mrs. Nagi curled up on the couch next to me. She readjusted her shawl, draping it back over her shoulders, and began stroking my hair. “Some of your friends called earlier. Amina and... Timothy. Timothy Rosen. Do you want to call them back?”

  I shook my head. It was hard enough to sit there with Mrs. Nagi, not knowing if Papa was safe. I didn’t want to talk, not unless Papa called, not unless his voice came over my earpiece. My hand went to my ear, feeling the familiar piece of metal tucked neatly inside. Papa will call me. I didn’t want pity. I wanted Papa home.

  “Try not to worry,” she said, mostly to herself. “Perhaps when Miquel comes home from work he’ll have some news about your papa.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. God, please let it be good news, I prayed.

  Mr. Nagi came back a little before six that evening. He slung the heavy wooden door open, his beefy frame filling the entrance. Dark circles hung under his eyes, and his shoulders sagged with defeat. He threw his old brown coat on the rack by the door and unwrapped a scarf from his face, then kicked off his sandy shoes on a mat by the entrance.

  “What a hell of a day.” He ran his hands through his thick, dark hair. “Thank God I wasn’t on flight duty. The whole control tower is going crazy! I left as soon as…”

  Mrs. Nagi cleared her throat and gestured to me. I was huddled on the couch, and it was clear Mr. Nagi hadn’t noticed me.

  “Oh, I, uh... good evening, Sadira.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Nagi.” Perhaps he did have some news of my papa after all. Why else would he stammer like that? “What happened at the control tower?”

  “Ah, well, we were trying to...” He cleared his throat. “I’m going to wash up. I’m covered in dust.” With that, he slipped out of the living room and slunk down the hallway.

  “Wait! Mr. Nagi!” I began to rise off of the couch to follow him, but Mrs. Nagi nudged me back down.

  “You need to rest, Sadira. I will go talk to him.” She followed her husband down the hallway, and I heard snippets of their conversation.

  “You know how it is,” came Mr. Nagi’s deep, creaky voice. “There are some things I can’t share.”

  “She’s worried sick! She deserves to know something.”

  “I took an oath...”

  “... she is practically our daughter…”

  Their voices grew quieter, and I shifted my position on the couch to hear better.

  “Is Henri alive?” asked Mrs. Nagi. Oh, please be alive, I prayed. Please.

  “I can tell her nothing!” whispered Mr. Nagi. “Now allow me to wash up.”

  “As you wish.” Mrs. Nagi walked back to the living room, her eyes cast down. “Sadira, come help me set the table for dinner. You know where the dishes are, yes?”

  “Yes.” Of course I knew where everything in their kitchen was. Since Papa often worked late, I ate with the Nagis almost as often as I ate at home. I grabbed a stack of plates and silverware and walked toward the dining room table, not thinking of dinner, not caring about food. It seemed like Mr. Nagi knew something, but why wouldn’t he share it? And what was that about an oath? I was still lost in my thoughts when Mrs. Nagi caught my arm.

  “I will speak to Miquel again, and he will tell me what happened at the control tower.”

  She was usually so soft spoken, but there was a sudden fierceness in her voice and a cold determination in her usually warm brown eyes. Her full, round face was pinched with anger and fear. I wanted to believe her. I had to believe her.

  “Thank you.”

  She gave my arm a quick, comforting squeeze. “You know we will care for you if we need to.” I nodded. I loved Mrs. Nagi, but if I had to live with her because my father… I hoped I would never have to stay with her.

  When Mr. Nagi entered the dining room, he was only slightly cleaner than before. His fingernails were still filled with dark smudges of grease and oil, but his hands were now shiny and red from scrubbing. He sat down immediately and bowed his head in prayer. After a few silent moments, he raised his head and cleared his throat.

  “I’m hungry, Cora.”

  Mrs. Nagi filled his plate with couscous, steamed carrots, and chicken. Though neither Mrs. Nagi nor I had grabbed a plate, Mr. Nagi eyed his food and began to eat. Each bite resounded through the room, echoing in the silence. I stared at him, but he turned his eyes back to his food. As soon as his plate was emptied, he stood up and walked out of the room without a word. His heavy footsteps echoed up the stairs, and a few moments later a door slammed.

  “I will talk to him,” said Mrs. Nagi. The same sharp fierceness grabbed her face, filling her eyes with an unfamiliar icy edge. She looked older, stronger. Mrs. Nagi pulled me close and planted a kiss on my forehead. “You’re welcome to stay here tonight, if you’d like.” She grabbed two plates and set them on the table, but I picked mine up and handed it to her.

  “If it’s all right with you, I think I’m going to go home to sleep.” I didn’t want to be alone, but I didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to eat dinner in awkward silence. I needed to be in my house in case Papa came home. He’ll be back at any moment. My skin felt creepy and tingly. Even in the Nagis’ familiar home, everything felt wrong and strange.

  “That’s fine,” she said. “Take some dinner with you, and be sure to eat tonight. And keep the doors locked and the windows shut.”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you need an extra blanket? It’s been so cold some nights. You can use one of ours.” She got up from the dining room, opened the chest in the living room, and began to pull out some quilts. I smiled. This was the usual Mrs. Nagi, worrying about everyone and everything.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “I know, I know.” She sighed, her face falling into a map of creases and lines. “You come here first thing tomorrow, all right? I will make you breakfast.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Nagi.” This time, I put my arms around her. She threw her thick, sturdy arms around my back.

  “Good girl,” she said, patting my back. “Everything will be fine.”

  .

  When I woke the next morning, clear, beautiful light streamed in through the windows. The sand and grit from the last dust storm had settled, and the sliver of sky I could see above the Wall was a glorious shade of blue. It was the first time the sun had shone in days.

  Very funny, God, I thought. Right after everything with Papa, you make the sun shine. That was what I got for praying for frivolous things.

  I struggled out of bed and slid my feet onto the cold tile floor. My neck was sore again this morning. It felt like there was a giant lump in the bed. I rolled my head to both sides, letting the aches work themselves out.

  I paused for a moment, and the silence was overwhelming. Even though Papa often worked late and I was used to being alone, the house felt emptier than ever before. There was a certain cloud of silence that hung in the air, dampening the normal squeaks and creaks of our house, crowding out the hum of morning traffic. Empty. Alone. I brushed the wetness from my eyes. Crying doesn’t solve problems, Papa always said. Action does.

  I took action and rummaged through my closet, trying to pick out a dress for school. Was I even supposed to go to school today? I didn’t know, and not having Papa to ask made his absence all the more real. I bit my tongue. Focus, Sadira. I took a deep breath. Crying didn’t solve anything. I had to be strong.

  I finally decided on an old yellow dress that barely fell below my knees. Papa always laughed when I wore it and said I looked like a little girl.

  “But I am a little girl,” I would answer.

  “No,” he always replied. “You are a fussy princess who couldn’t sleep on a pea.” That was his way of teasing me for being a light sleeper.

  I checked the mirror. Between the short dress and my hair hanging loosely around my shoulders, I did look like a little girl, but I decided that was fine. Today, I fel
t like a little girl who needed her papa. I clenched my fists to keep them from shaking.

  He is still alive. He was alive until I knew differently.

  I slipped on my sandals, grabbed my earpiece and hat, and headed next door to the Nagis’ townhouse. The roses in their small garden were twisted and withered from the days of sandstorms, but I knew Mrs. Nagi would bring it back to its usual splendor in no time. I knocked on the door, and Mrs. Nagi promptly threw it open.

  “Sadira! What a surprise!” Mrs. Nagi crushed me with a great squeeze, her rough black dress scratching my skin.

  “You asked me to come over, Mrs. Nagi.”

  “Oh, yes, yes I did. Of course. Well, breakfast is ready for you. Do you want to eat?”

  The house smelled delicious. She must have been baking because the warm, rich scent of hot bread filled the living room. I peered into the dining room and saw the table was already stacked with yogurt, tea, flat bread, and honey. My stomach growled.

  “Of course I want to eat,” I said. “It smells amazing.”

  “Good, good.” She sounded relieved. “There’s nothing like a full stomach to cure what ails you.” Grabbing my arm, she led me to the table. She pushed me gently down into one of the chairs and poured me a cup of tea.

  “Did you take your pill this morning?” she asked.

  “No. I came straight over here.”

  She tutted. “I’ll grab an extra from the dispenser for you. You can’t forget things like that. You’ll become anemic or catch a cold.”

  She went to the kitchen and returned with a small yellow pill. “Here you go.”

  I took the pill and kicked it back. It had a sweet coating on it and went down smoothly. “Thanks.”

  I grabbed a piece of bread from the table and started picking at it, ripping off bite-sized chunks. “Should I go to school today?”

  She looked surprised for a moment, then wrinkled her brow. “I hadn’t thought about that. I don’t know. Do you want to go to school today?”

  “Not really.” I tore a few more chunks off the bread. I didn’t think I was ready to see my classmates yet. If Amina or Timothy asked questions... I bit my tongue. Crying didn’t solve anything. Papa is still alive. I had to cling to that.

  Mrs. Nagi smiled. “There’s your answer, then. It should be fine if you take a couple of days off from school. Let me call Ms. Ahmad.” She flipped on her earpiece and waited for the operator’s chime. “Ms. Ahmad, please.” She paused another moment, waiting for an answer. “Ms. Ahmad, yes, it’s Mrs. Nagi. Sadira’s at my house. No, she wasn’t planning to go to school today.” She paused for a moment as Ms. Ahmad spoke. “I’m not sure when she wants to go back.” She turned to me. “Would next week be good?”

  I nodded. I could go today, if I had to, but I didn’t want to see anyone, not after they’d seen the ship crash.

  “Yes, she says next week is fine. Oh, thank you! That would be appreciated. Thank you, Ms. Ahmad.”

  Mrs. Nagi smiled. “Ms. Ahmad was fine with you taking a few days off of school. She said if you missed your math lessons for a year you’d still be ahead of her top-level students. You have your father’s head for numbers, you know.”

  I bit my cheek, trying to control the urge to cry at the mention of Papa. He’s alive.

  Mrs. Nagi was right, though. I did take after Papa when it came to math. He taught me algebra when I was eight and started teaching me calculus two years ago. Numbers came naturally to me, and having a father who was a math genius didn’t hurt, either. “She also said she would be sending someone over with the lessons for this week so you can keep up with everything else. Ms. Ahmad said to pay special attention to your history.” I sighed. If math came naturally, history was the opposite.

  “Since you’re not planning to go to school, what would you like to do today? I was thinking about going to buy some new fabric for a dress.” She stared at my short dress and tutted. “Perhaps I should buy some fabric for you, too. That dress is too short for a woman your age.”

  I was suddenly aware of the long stretches of my legs left uncovered, and I tugged the hem of my dress down. “I don’t need a new dress yet. And I’m not a woman. I’m barely fifteen.”

  “You’ll need one soon,” she said. “You’ve shot up this last year.”

  I didn’t feel like shopping, especially today. I wanted to be able to clear my head. “I was thinking about visiting Dr. DeWitt.”

  Mrs. Nagi scrunched her face. “Hmph. That odd duck?”

  “Papa gave me a math problem to work on earlier this week, and I can’t figure it out.”

  “And Dr. DeWitt is probably the only other person in Samalut who understands what you are working on, right?”

  “Right.” Papa had given me a new math proof that I had been working on for a week solid. Every time I thought I was close to a solution, the answer slipped away. But that wasn’t the real reason I wanted to talk to Dr. DeWitt. I needed to talk to someone who understood. Mrs. Nagi was warm and loving, but she worried about dinners and clothes and her garden. I had other thoughts rolling in my head, a jumble of Papa and hoverships and flying and crashing. Dr. DeWitt could help me sort through them.

  “Don’t stay out too late, and call me if you need anything. You have your earpiece?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Nagi.”

  “Oh, I’ll have food for lunch, too, if you want to come back over.”

  “Thank you.” I gave her a quick hug, and her soft, lemony smell wafted over me.

  This must be what having a mother feels like. Safe.

  I pulled away and slipped out the front door. I looped my long brown hair into a tidy knot on my head and pushed my hat down snugly. It was early, but the sun was already beating down on my face, stinging the bridge of my nose. It was days like this that I hated my pale skin. I pulled my hat brim down to shade my eyes and headed toward Dr. DeWitt’s shop.

  On the other side of the street, I could make out two figures staring at me—a short, dark girl in a bright green skiff outfit, and a lanky, slouching boy. It was Amina and Timothy, on their way to school. Not yet, God, I thought. I’m not ready yet. I chewed the inside of my cheek. The pain in my mouth dulled the wrenching feeling in my chest.

  “Sadira! How are you doing?” Amina ran over to me, her thick black curls falling in her face. She tucked them behind her ear, but the curls spilled back out. Timothy was a few steps behind her, his hands shoved into his pockets and his head hung low. “Did you hear anything about your papa?”

  My chest tightened up, and my lungs seized. I didn’t want to think about Papa, not yet. My eyes blurred, and I blinked back the tears.

  He’s still alive. He must be.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t heard anything yet. I … I’d rather not talk about it.”

  “OK,” Amina said. “I understand.” She threw her arms around me. “I’m here whenever you want to talk.”

  Timothy lifted his head for a moment and stared at me. He started to reach out for a hug, paused, and then offered a hand. I grabbed his hand and pulled him in for a hug, too. His eyes opened wide with surprise, but he put his arms around me and patted my back.

  “I hope they find him, Sadira,” he whispered. He pulled away for a moment, and then stared at my locket.

  “Do you like the necklace?” His olive cheeks turned red.

  “I love it,” I said. A wide, toothy grin spread across his face, making his brown eyes scrunch even smaller under his dark eyebrows.

  “We’ve got to go,” Amina said. “We’ll stop by and visit you after school. Promise.”

  “Thanks.” The clenching in my chest loosened, and I relaxed a bit. Everything will be fine. “See you.”

  I waved as Amina sprinted off toward school, but Timothy walked slowly, looking over his shoulder a couple of times. He smiled again, shoved his hands back in his pockets, and kept walking toward the school.

  I turned and continued toward Dr. DeWitt’s shop. The clusters of town home
s thinned out as I walked out of the housing district and into the Ag district. Ahead, in neat rows beneath the gray concrete Wall that surrounded the outpost, were the greenhouses and a water filtration plant. The Wall sat protectively behind the buildings, jutting upwards at least ten meters.

  Samalut was fairly small, yet somehow Dr. DeWitt managed to live in the most remote corner of it. I could see his shop, a dingy blue hovertech garage, up ahead, and his tiny apartment perched above the garage. Unlike most of the buildings in Samalut, the workshop didn’t have the sheen of synthetic wood covering the exterior. He had opted to keep the place painted, but it peeled in patches, exposing the gray concrete beneath. The small windows were nearly opaque with a film of dust, oil, and smoke. Dr. DeWitt had never been big on cleaning.

  He owned the hovertech repair shop and lived in the upstairs of the building. The garage bay was open, and as I neared the building I could see odd bits of metal stacked in unsteady towers, tools with no names, and bottles of mysterious chemicals. The whole shop looked like a wizard’s den.

  I slipped in through the garage bay and looked around. Onjali, one of Dr. DeWitt’s assistants, was hard at work. I watched her hands, mesmerized. Everything drew me in, from the acrid smell of oil and metal and the hiss of welding torches, to the fireworks of sparks that exploded in the air. She was attaching a new reactor coil to a small cab. This one was a bright blue, instead of the standard black. I puzzled on the color for a moment, but then was sucked right back in to watching Onjali’s work. My ancestors would’ve thought it was magic how man could make metal cars fly at will. Even though Papa and Dr. DeWitt had taught me the physics and chemistry behind hovertech, it was still magical to me as well.

  Onjali finished the weld, put down her torch and lifted her visor. Her mouth twitched upwards into her quiet version of a smile. “Sadira, I assume you’re looking for Dr. DeWitt?”

  “Yes.”

  She wiped the sweat off of her forehead with a rag, leaving dark streaks on her pale skin. “He’s in his office, last time I checked.”

  “Thanks!”

  I carefully navigated the stacks of scrap metal and spare parts, edging ever closer to Dr. DeWitt’s office. I knocked on the office door sharply three times, and it creaked open. Dr. DeWitt’s white face peered around the edge. His hair was such a pale blond that it may as well have been gray, and his eyes were barely blue, the color of a rag left to fade in the sun. Since his skin was pale as well, he always looked as though someone had picked him up and wrung all of the color out of him.

  Dr. DeWitt pulled the door open, knocking down a pile of inverters. They clunked and scattered on the floor, but Dr. DeWitt’s kind eyes smiled, oblivious to the mess. “Sadira, I thought you might come by today. Come here. Let me give you a hug.” I navigated the cluttered floor and walked up to Dr. DeWitt. He gave me a tight squeeze.

  “Now, I won’t ask you any silly questions about how you are feeling. I’m sure we’re both miserable.” I grinned in spite of myself. That was why I wanted to visit Dr. DeWitt. He understood me, understood that sometimes things don’t have be said to be known. He knew I was sad. I knew he was, too. But we didn’t have to talk about it.

  “Thanks. I actually have a math problem that I need some help with.” I pulled out my tablet and tapped the screen until my assignment popped up. He put on his reading glasses and peered down at the problem through narrowed eyes.

  “Ah! Yes! Intriguing, Sadira. You know, you could try using the corollary of this theorem... here.” He traced a few words on the tablet with his finger, adding notes to the problem. “Now try it out.”

  I read through his notes, and the answer was obvious. “Thanks! Papa gave me this problem a few days—” My voice stuck in my throat. He’s alive. Alive, alive, alive.

  Dr. DeWitt patted my shoulder. “You are quite welcome. Here, let’s give you a distraction. You’ve had too much on your mind. Come look what I am working on.”

  “You mean besides the hovercab out front?”

  His face reddened a moment. “We’re trying out some, uh, special modifications on that one. A prototype, if you will. But there’s something else I’ve been working on as well.” He motioned for me to follow him. “Back this way. It’s been quite the problem lately.”

  I walked farther in to Dr. DeWitt’s long, narrow office. On his desk, atop stacks of receipts, bolts, and screws, sat a small metal box. He held it up for me to examine.

  “Do you know what this is?” he asked. I shook my head. To my untrained eye, the box looked like every other scrap of metal in the shop.

  “This is the radio transceiver for Central’s hovercab systems. See, usually the routes are preset by Central and you give a voice command for your destination. But lately...” He frowned and whacked the box against the edge of the desk. “Damned things don’t seem to be working. I’ve had over a dozen complaints from the Colonel’s office about the cabs going off course. One even went over the Wall.”

  “Seriously?” A cab flying over the Wall seemed like something newsworthy, but I hadn’t heard about it. The hovercabs had a height restrictor to prevent them from going more than a meter or so off the ground. The Wall stood at least ten meters high. “Was anyone hurt?”

  “No,” he said. “Fortunately, this particular cab lost control after the operator disembarked.”

  “Why isn’t it working?”

  “I’m probably not supposed to tell you this, but I’m not sure yet.” Dr. DeWitt sighed. “At first I thought it was this blasted sandstorm interfering with signals, but we’ve never had this much trouble before. I do have one other theory. Here, open this.” He lay down a small wooden box. The lid was carved with an intricate geometric pattern. I opened the box, and inside was a small milky white rock, no bigger than my index finger. I stared at him.

  “It’s a rock.”

  “Pick it up.”

  I lifted the rock out of the box. It was strangely warm and much heavier than it appeared. I held it up to my eye. It was translucent, and the surface was very smooth. I could barely see through the snow-white swirls in the rock. I went to lay it down in the box, but it began to make a low humming noise.

  “Did you...?” I glanced at Dr. DeWitt.

  He grinned. “The crystal is making that noise.”

  “Huh.”

  “‘Huh’ is right, my dear. The first time it happened, I thought I had struck the rock some way to make it resonate. But I’ve heard it start to hum in the box when I was nowhere near it. This was your father’s pet project.”

  “Papa studied this? I never heard him talk about it at home.”

  Dr. DeWitt shrugged. “I think he didn’t get very far with his research. He came by here after work for several weeks to do some extra studies. He had some cockamamie ideas about ancient oracles using crystals to talk to God.”

  I shook my head. “What?”

  “It’s practically heresy, isn’t it? That’s your father for you—the crazier the idea, the better.”

  I held the crystal to my ear. The humming sound grew louder, and I could feel the crystal begin to vibrate in my hand. I started to place it back in the box, but a voice came from the crystal.

  Help.

  I jumped. “Did you hear that?”

  “Yes, yes I did.” Dr. DeWitt look puzzled. “That hasn’t happened before. Most unexpected. That sounded like a voice. Sadira, dear, I think I am going to be very busy for the rest of the day.” He shooed me toward the door. “I’ll see you later.”

  “I’ll come by again tomorrow,” I called.

  He grunted, still staring at the crystal. Dr. DeWitt was like Papa in that way. If something captured his interest, the rest of the world disappeared. I let myself out of the shop.

  The sun hung directly overhead, my shadow barely a dot on the sandy earth. It was nearly lunch time, and my stomach was starting to growl. I decided to go back to Mrs. Nagi’s for food. She always had something delicious on hand. I trudged back to her house, my leg
s sore from the long trip to Dr. DeWitt’s shop.

  I turned the crystal over in my mind. Had it spoken? No, that was ridiculous. It had made a noise, though. How? I chewed on my cheek again, this time to focus my thoughts on the rock. Dr. DeWitt said Papa had been studying it. It must have been important, then. Papa must have notes. I made a mental note to check Papa’s extra tablet at home when I got the chance.

  I was so preoccupied with the crystal that I almost walked past the Nagis’ home. All of the town homes looked the same, identical olive green units. If it weren’t for the delicious aroma of garlic and lentils surrounding the house, I would’ve missed it. I nudged open the front door and peered inside. Mrs. Nagi was in the kitchen fixing a large pot of soup.

  “Ah, Sadira! I’m glad you decided to drop by. Was Dr. DeWitt able to help you with your math?”

  “Yes, he explained it to me.”

  “Of course he did,” she said. “Did you hear anything about our cabs? Miquel told me they’d been having problems at Central with some of them.”

  “Dr. DeWitt said he was still working on them. He thought maybe the sandstorm had been interrupting the signals.”

  “Hmm. It’s not been a problem before, though, has it?” She held a bowl out for me. “Are you ready to eat?”

  “Of course.” She filled my bowl with soup and topped it with a dollop of plain yogurt. I sat down at the dining room table and started to dig in.

  Mrs. Nagi started to sit beside me, but jumped up. “Oh, I need to show you the new fabric I bought this morning. It’s very beautiful. Just a moment, it’s in my room.” She wandered off and came back with several yards of rich green cloth. She let the fabric unfurl and draped it around her shoulders.

  “What do you think? It is gorgeous, right?” She twirled a few times, the cloth spinning around her. “I already have a pattern picked out for this fabric. Perhaps we can make you a new dress, too? Yours is getting to be a bit too short.”

  I kept slurping on my soup. Hovertech was much more interesting than fabric. So were mysterious crystals that made noises. I knew I needed a new dress, but I didn’t much care for the idea of making one. “Maybe I’ll buy one.”

  Mrs. Nagi looked horrified. “Buy one? Why would you do that? No, next time I go shopping I will pick out some more fabric for you, and we will make you something new. Maybe a dark blue?” She looked at my face for a moment. “But blue makes your eyes look so yellow.”

  “That’s my eye color.” Papa always told me they were the same as my mother’s eyes, honey-brown. Sometimes I caught myself staring at my eyes in the mirror, wondering what it would be like to have Mama staring back at me.

  “Tut. Perhaps we’ll get something red or brown for you.” She folded the fabric neatly and placed it on the side table. She grabbed herself a bowl of soup and finally took a seat beside me at the table.

  There was a knock at the door. Mrs. Nagi frowned. “Who would be coming over at lunch?” She walked to the door. It was a young man in a khaki Central uniform. He was tall, imposing, and solemn. A blue name tag, labeled Private Haddad, adorned the pocket of his shirt. He pulled off his beret.

  “Is Sadira Pascal here?”

  “Yes,” I answered, my pulse rising. Why would a Central soldier show up at the door for me? Was it about Papa?

  “I’ve received orders to bring you with me. Colonel Marwasi wants to speak with you.” The Colonel? What would he have to say to me? My stomach did back flips, and my palms sweat. There was no need for the Colonel, the head of our outpost, to talk to a kid like me. Official notices were always sent as a blip via earpiece.

  “I should go with you...” Mrs. Nagi began, but Private Haddad waved his hand, cutting her off.

  “Not necessary. I’ll bring her back within the hour.”

  She lowered her eyes. “Of course.”

  “She’ll be fine, ma’am. Miss Pascal, this way.” I followed him outside, where his cab was waiting. He pressed his finger to the ID pad, and the top of the cab slid back. “Hop in.”

  I climbed into the backseat of the cab and fastened the shoulder harness. The soldier jumped into the front seat and pressed another button. The clear dome covering the cab clasped shut overhead. In a moment we were off, floating above the ground and racing along the streets to the Central office.

  I hadn’t been in a cab before. Central restricted their use to official military purposes only. Some of the more skiff kids, like Amina, had hoverscooters, but most people walked everywhere. The sandy ground sat less than a meter below us, and the buildings of downtown Samalut rushed past, blurring together in a brown-green smudge. My stomach had an odd sinking feeling, like I’d jumped out of a tree. We stopped abruptly in front of the Central office, a few minutes after we had taken off. Walking took at least fifteen minutes.

  Private Haddad tapped on the dash, and the dome over head opened with a whoosh. He stepped out of the cab, offering me his hand and a smile. “Here, Sadira.”

  I ignored his hand. I was perfectly capable of getting out of the cab on my own. I jumped out from the backseat and followed the soldier to the entrance of the Central office. It was the tallest building in Samalut, like a giant staring down at the town. Unlike the rest of the olive green buildings in the outpost, the walls of the Central office were bright red, broken up by vast swaths of mirrored windows. I had only been in the Central office a few times before. Even though Papa went to work there every day, the security guards rarely let me inside. They stared with hard eyes as Private Haddad walked me through the front doors.

  The soldier led me down a maze of hallways to a clear lift. I almost stumbled when it went up. Riding in a cab was one thing, but the lift was completely unsettling. As we zoomed upwards, I could see the ground below us fade from view.

  Private Haddad grabbed my arm. “Steady. This thing always throws me a bit off balance.”

  The lift paused, and we stepped off. We were on the top floor of the Central office in a small lobby, and there was only one door. Private Haddad knocked, and another soldier in an identical Central khaki uniform opened it.

  “Colonel Marwasi asked to speak with Miss Pascal,” Private Haddad said.

  The soldier bowed his head and motioned for me to go in. Private Haddad started to follow behind me, but the guard at the Colonel’s door stopped him.

  I stepped through the door, and the guard shut it firmly behind me. The entire upper floor appeared to be dedicated to the Colonel’s office. One wall was painted white and completely unadorned, so I assumed it was some sort of view-screen. The other walls were lined with shelves of memorabilia, maps, and small sculptures of animals I had only heard of. Swords with gold and ivory handles hung on the walls, and a thick, rich rug covered the floor. A huge metal desk sat solemnly at the far end of the room, and behind it, in a large leather wingback chair, sat the Colonel. His hair was graying at the temples, and his eyebrows were already stained silver. His face was all angles—a long, protruding nose, broad cheekbones, and a sharp jawline.

  He inspected me. “Sadira Pascal.” It wasn’t a question. I could feel dark eyes, hidden beneath bushy gray brows, studying me.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You must take after your mother. You don’t look much like Henri,” he said bluntly.

  “That’s what I’ve been told, sir.”

  “Sit.” He motioned with his hand to a small metal chair beside the desk. I sat down immediately, but wished I hadn’t. The chair was uncomfortably low to the ground, so I had to swing my legs to the side. The Colonel’s chair was raised, a throne on a dais, dwarfing me. I had to crane my neck from my where I sat to meet his eyes.

  “I wanted to speak to you about your father. Yesterday...”

  “What happened?”

  “Do not interrupt me.” He glared at me, tightening his jaw.

  I gulped. “Yes, sir.”

  “Yesterday, it appears there was some malfunction with the transceiver on the ship, which caused it to crash. Our
engineers had redesigned the whole nav system, and our testing had not been thorough enough. I am sorry, Miss Pascal.”

  “Does that mean...?”

  “Yes, Ms. Pascal, your father is dead.”

  I bit my cheek to choke back the tears. My fears had been confirmed, but I could not be weak now. Papa would have expected more from me. Crying doesn’t solve problems, he said. It might not solve problems, but the tears were there, waiting to burst forth.

  “When will I be able to bury his body?” I asked weakly.

  “Due to the nature of the incident, we will not be able to release the bodies to the families.”

  “How can we have a funeral without a body?” I screeched, bursting the dam of tears welling up in my eyes. I sobbed, gulping for air.

  “Do not interrupt me,” the Colonel said, coldly. “And stop crying.”

  I dried my watery eyes on the sleeve of my dress and tried to calm myself for a moment more.

  “Since you are a minor, we’ll need to make arrangements for your care,” he continued in his indifferent way.

  “My neighbor, she will—”

  “Yes. The Nagis already spoke to my office about it.” He stood up. “I am sorry. Your father was a good man.” The Colonel sounded sincere, but the quick moment of kindness faded. A simple apology was all I got for my father’s death.

  He cleared his throat. “You may go now.”

  He was throwing me out of his office? I couldn’t stand it, and all of the feeling pent up in my heart exploded. “But I can’t say goodbye to Papa! I can’t see anything of him ever again!”

  The Colonel motioned for the guard at the door. The soldier grabbed me by the arm and pushed me out the door, shutting it securely behind me. I slumped to the floor and hid my face in the hands. It was bad enough to lose Papa, but to not give his body the respect it deserved, to not be able to say my goodbyes and place him properly in the ground was too much.

  “How are you feeling?” asked Private Haddad.

  “I’m fantastic,” I replied between sobs. “Never better.”

  “What did the Colonel tell you?”

  “Nothing that matters to you,” I snapped.

  “Look.” He crouched down next to me. “I volunteered to bring you here today. Do you know why?”

  I raised my head a tiny bit and stared at him. This was usually the sort of task people pawned off on someone else. For the first time, I actually studied Private Haddad’s face. He wasn’t handsome—his nose was too big, his eyes too small—but the sincerity I saw there made the mismatched pieces fit together. “No,” I whispered. “Why?”

  “Because my brother was on that hovership with your father.”

  “I’m so sorry.” I dried my eyes. “I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s fine. Here, let me help you up.” He gave me his hand, warm and rough, and pulled me to my feet in one easy motion. “Here’s a handkerchief so you don’t keep smudging your dress.”

  I laughed for a moment, a gurgling noise that mixed with my tears. My dress was the least of my worries. The sleeves were already covered in streaks from where I had wiped my face. I took his handkerchief anyway and dried my face.

  “Thank you, Private Haddad.”

  “You can call me Baruj. Here, let’s get you back to your house.” We walked out of the Central office and hopped into his cab.

  Instead of heading directly back to Mrs. Nagi’s home, he went a bit off course. He veered off toward the Ag sector, rushing past the blocks of identical homes. I could see the rows of greenhouses in the distance. He pulled the cab up to a cluster of trees, and the cab’s reactor coils’ whining slowed, then silenced.

  “Where are we headed?”

  Baruj pointed to the small microphones on the dash of the cab and put his finger to his lips. “I wanted to give you a moment to calm down and collect yourself before I took you back.” He removed his name tag from his uniform and opened the top of the cab. He reached behind his chair and pulled my earpiece from my ear, before hopping out. “Come get some fresh air, Miss Pascal.”

  I stepped out of the cab and looked around. We were next to a grove of scruffy palm trees, the only green in this sandy field. The greenhouses sat a ways off, white tented structures springing from the ground. Behind that, the ever-present Wall stood, cold and quiet. The closest home or business was nearly two kilometers away. I could hear the hum of traffic from downtown Samalut, but it was muted here, a gentle buzz floating on the breeze. The silence was unsettling, seeming to swallow the very Earth.

  “This way.” Baruj stepped under the cluster of palms trees and sat down.

  “Why are we here?” I asked, sitting down beside him.

  “Because this is one of the only places in Samalut that isn’t wired.”

  “Wired?”

  “Central’s always listening to us.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not that ridiculous. Name tags have tracker and a mike in them. So do earpieces.”

  “Earpieces are tracked?” This soldier seemed a bit on the crazy side. There was no reason for us to be listened to or tracked. Central didn’t have a need for that.

  One of Baruj’s eyebrows shot up. “Of course. That’s why everyone on base is issued an earpiece, even the civilians. Didn’t you ever wonder about that? But I wanted to speak to you in private.”

  “About the crash?” My stomach tightened.

  “Yes. Right after it happened, I ran in to the Central office to try to get to the flight control. I wanted to see... I assumed they were all dead, but I had to be sure.” The words tumbled out, scared and confused. He stared at the sky for a moment, silent, then let out a deep breath.

  His next words were calmer. “As I’m sure you know, flight control is restricted, even to soldiers like me. You need some sort of special clearance to get in there. Yesterday everyone was in such a panic that I was able to slip in. When I stepped in to the office, the view-screen showed the inside of the cockpit. And—Sadira, they were all alive. Your father was shouting at somebody in control to get help. Ben was hurt pretty badly. And then the light came.”

  “The light wasn’t from the crash?”

  “No. But the light filled the view-screen. It was so bright they had to shut it off for a moment. When they pulled the screen back up, your father, Ben, and Naeem had all vanished.”

  I sputtered. “What! The Colonel said—”

  “I know. One of the flight control engineers spotted me, and I ran out before they could catch me. This morning, the Colonel called me in to his office to inform me that Naeem was dead. I asked for his body for burial—”

  “I asked for Papa, too!”

  “What did the Colonel say?”

  “He said that they couldn’t release the bodies.”

  “I think it’s because there are no bodies for them to release,” Baruj said.

  “Why would the Colonel lie to us?”

  “Why wouldn’t he? He can’t say that a bunch of people vanished, that Central can’t keep track of their own soldiers. Saying they’re dead is easier.”

  “I don’t understand why.” I wanted to believe Baruj, wanted to believe Papa was alive, but I couldn’t, especially not with all of the other nonsense he was saying. If the Colonel said Papa was dead, he was.

  “Look, Sadira, I know what I saw yesterday. Your father and my brother were still alive, then poof!” He mimed an explosion with his hands. “I’m going to go find him. Naeem, I mean.”

  “How? You’re not allowed a travel pass.”

  Baruj jutted out his chin. “I wasn’t planning to ask for permission. Naeem would come for me no matter what. Wouldn’t your Papa come for you? I’ll find them all and bring them back home.”

  Now he was being ridiculous. “Do you have your own personal hovership? How are you going to get over the Wall? You don’t even know what is outside of Samalut. And you don’t know where the ship is. And, even if they were alive, they might b
e dead by now.”

  “That’s why I came to you. I need help. I’ve heard that you have your father’s smarts. I also heard that you might have a personal radio.”

  “Who told you that?” I practically shouted.

  “Can’t say who.”

  I stiffened. “Personal radios aren’t allowed. Only Central has radios. Those can get you excluded.” If you were excluded, you were thrown out into the badlands and erased from the Central databases. No other outpost would take you in. It was basically a death sentence.

  Baruj leaned closer to me, his face centimeters from mine. His small dark eyes studied mine. “Someone told me that the Pascals might be an exception. Is it true?”

  Papa was many things—an eccentric genius, a work addict, a hermit. He would never break the law. I knew that for a fact. Papa was not a criminal. “I’m ready to go home now.” I stood up, wiping the sand from my dress and smoothing out the hem.

  “Sadira,” pleaded Baruj.

  I avoided his gaze as I walked to the cab and buckled up. Why would he even suggest I have a radio? Do I look like a crook? And Papa? My face and ears burned, and the ball of anger in my throat threatened to choke me. How dare he? Papa was a good man. The Colonel had said so himself.

  I slipped my earpiece back into my ear. Baruj is crazy. Yes, that was it. Grief made people do crazy things. He was insisting that the Colonel was a liar, that our earpieces were tracked by Central, that Papa was a bad person. Even though I knew his ideas were wild, the accusation stung, and the words burrowed under my skin.

  Baruj climbed into the cab a few moments later. He slumped onto the front seat, put his name tag back on, and punched in instructions for the Nagis’ house.

  When we pulled up in front of the house, I jumped out immediately and didn’t look back. I ran inside, slamming the front door behind me.

  Mrs. Nagi stepped in to the living room. “What did the Colonel want to talk to you about?”

  “Papa. He said Papa is dead.” My voice broke on the last word, on the idea of Papa being gone, gone away forever. I didn’t want it to be true.

  “Oh, Sadira,” said Mrs. Nagi softly. “Come here, come here.” She circled her arms around me, holding me tight. “I’m so sorry.” Her warm voice and hug melted me once again, and the tears began to flow. I finally dried my eyes and pulled away.

  “Let me set up our guest room for you, Sadira. Grab your clothes from your house. I’ll clear out the closets.”

  This time, I didn’t object.

  .

  I pushed open the front door of my house. It swung silently on its hinges. The house was pitch black and cool, like a mausoleum.

  “Lights.” The dim overhead lights flicked on and seemed to spotlight all of the empty spaces in the house. The usually bare living room now seemed downright stark.

  Papa was gone.

  I could smell stale coffee on the air mixed with the sim-tobacco Papa smoked when he was nervous. His gray coat hung by the door. His brown house shoes were thrown in the middle of the floor. I choked. How could Papa not be here? His things were here. His scent was here. I could almost see him pacing in the living room, tapping notes on his tablet, talking out whatever problems he was having in his designs.

  I fell to the floor, sobbing. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t true, but Papa’s absence was staring me in the face. I grabbed my locket and flipped it on. It projected a holograph of Papa on the floor. I could pretend he was here with me for a little while. He was so real, so near, but I knew that the holograph was only a projection that would disappear when I tapped my locket again.

  I could hear Papa chastising me. Crying doesn’t solve problems. It didn’t, but it was a relief to let the tears flow. After a few minutes, I shut off my locket, stood up, and dried my face. My feet carried me to the kitchen. Tea would be good. Yes, that would help. I put my mug under the dispenser, and it quickly filled with steaming chamomile tea.

  I stood for a moment, breathing in the scent of herbs and honey. I would be fine. I would be good. I took a few deep breaths. Papa was still here, in some way. He was with me, within me. I would be fine. A knock at the front door shook me loose of my thoughts.

  “Who is it?” I called, walking toward the entrance.

  “It’s me,” said Amina. She edged in the door, and Timothy followed behind her. “We wanted to drop by and see how you were doing.”

  I smiled, but the smile began to crack the pieces that were holding me back from crying. I pressed my lips together and took a sip of tea.

  “I think I’m fine. For right now, at least.”

  We stood in silence for a few minutes. Amina cleared her throat. “So, you’re staying with the Nagis?”

  “Yes. I came over to pack up some of my things.”

  “Oh,” Amina said. It was silent again, and the quiet was cold, thick, and uncomfortable.

  “Would you guys like something to drink? Water, tea, milk...?”

  “I’m fine,” Amina said.

  “Me, too,” Timothy quickly added.

  “We can sit, if you’d like.” I pulled up an extra chair to the dining room table, and the three of us sat.

  “It is true, then?” asked Amina. “About your father?”

  “Yes. Colonel Marwasi told me himself.” I meant to sound firm and steady, but my voice came out a creaky whisper.

  “I can’t believe it,” Timothy said. “I mean, Mr. Pascal, and the ship, and...” his voice trailed off. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, or bring up anything—” Timothy clamped his mouth shut and turned his head away from me, his dark brown hair flopping over his eyes.

  “Ms. Ahmad asked us to give you the lecture notes and the homework,” Amina said. “Hand me your tablet.” I stood and grabbed my tablet from my knapsack. She quickly tapped a few keys. “I’m sending you my notes. We missed you in class today.” Amina gave me a half grin. On her usually bright face, it might as well have been a frown. I forced myself to look cheered.

  “Thanks for the notes. I should be back in class next week.”

  “Oh, good!” Amina walked over to my seat and gave me a peck on the cheek. “Give me a call if you want to talk. I mean it.”

  “You know I will.”

  “Good. I have to head back. My mom wants me home for a family dinner.” She rolled her eyes. “Let’s see if my sister bothers to make it. I’ll come by again tomorrow with more class notes, OK?” She waved. “Bye, Timothy. See you, Sadira.”

  I walked her to the front door. “Bye. Thanks for coming over.” I shut the door and headed back to the dining room.

  Timothy fidgeted in his chair and tapped his knee against the table. “Could I still bother you for a drink?”

  “Of course. What would you like?”

  “Chocolate milk.”

  I let out a low laugh. “I should’ve guessed.” I grabbed a mug and punched his request into the dispenser. Timothy followed me into the kitchen, grabbed the mug, and downed it in one chug. I stared. I never understood how boys could do that.

  “Were you thirsty?”

  His eyes widened, and he blushed once more. He hunched his broad shoulders inward, making him seem much smaller. “No. I mean, yes, but not that thirsty. I was nervous.” His brown eyes darted back and forth between me and the floor.

  “Why be nervous?”

  “I want to say the right thing, but I don’t know what the right thing is. I can’t say anything or do anything to help, and I hate it. You know?”

  I nodded. I knew what he meant. That helpless feeling had been plaguing me all day.

  “And, the other thing,” he continued, “I—it’s—” He inhaled and let out a big sigh. He stared at me, and for the first time, I noticed his brown eyes had little flecks of green. I realized he was standing close, much too close, and then he pressed his lips against my cheek.

  I jumped back. Did he just kiss me? The tingles running down my spine told me he had. I shook my head. Timothy? We had been friends since I first mov
ed to Samalut, but the last year had been different. I finally understood why.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I think I need to go, too.”

  I grabbed his arm. “Wait.” He stared at me expectantly. “I’m not mad. I’m not ready for that, though.”

  He looked away. “Yeah. It was a stupid idea.”

  I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”

  Timothy looked disappointed for a moment, but then plastered on a small grin. Now he looked more like the friend I had known for years. “I’ll just forget it, then.”

  I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to forget it, but I didn’t want to think about things like that right now.

  “Can I tell you something?” I asked. “Something weird that happened today?”

  “Sure. Tell me anything.” Timothy leaned against the wall, his legs splayed out in front of him.

  “When Colonel Marwasi told me—you know, about Papa—one of the soldiers tried to talk to me afterward. He said everyone survived the crash. He said Papa was still alive.”

  Timothy’s eyes went wide with surprise. “Alive? But didn’t the Colonel tell you your father was dead?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and chewed his lower lip, thinking. “So the Colonel lied?”

  “That’s what the soldier thought.”

  Timothy paused for a moment, thinking. “Why would the Colonel lie? His whole job is to serve the outpost.”

  “I don’t know. What if my Papa is still alive?”

  He frowned. “If your Papa’s out there, I’m sure you’ll find him somehow.” He twisted his mouth, thinking for a moment. “Do you want to hear something weird, too?”

  “Sure.”

  “Last night I heard my parents up late talking about their work. I’m sure they thought I was already asleep, but I couldn’t sleep because of—” He looked at his feet for a moment. “Anyway, they were talking about their research and said something about our pills.”

  “Our daily pills?”

  He nodded. “They said that one of the immunizations in there isn’t working, and they have to fix it immediately. They both sounded worried about it.”

  “I thought the pills protected us against all viruses.”

  “I thought so, too, but since when do adults tell us everything? It was odd. I was going to ask them about it this morning, but I thought they might get angry if they knew I had been eavesdropping.” He cleared his throat. “I better run. I told my mom I’d be home by six.” He turned and walked toward the door.

  “Timothy?”

  He stopped and turned back toward me. “Hmm?”

  “I’m honestly not mad, you know.”

  He gave a small smile. “I know.”

  “Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  He stood in the doorway and stared at me for a long moment before finally letting himself out.

  I walked back to the kitchen and sipped on my tea. A warm feeling filled my chest.

  Timothy?

  I hadn’t imagined it before. I pushed the thought from my head. I could think about those things later. The warm feeling quickly faded, and I was left with a cold house, with cold walls, and a cold mug of tea in my hands. I had to pack. I had to empty an already empty home, pull out the last remnants of Papa and me.

  I grabbed my clothes and walked in to Papa’s room. I thought about all the times over the years I had tiptoed in there in the middle of the night, if a storm or a bad dream had woken me. When I was little, he would tell me stories of the old days before hovertech, stories of the ancient flying machines that tore through the clouds. He wasn’t there now, just a dark room and an empty bed.

  His tablet lay on a small table next to his bed, linked to his main computer in his office. I knew he kept all of his notes on there. Maybe there was something, no matter how small, that could let me know if he was still alive. I threw the tablet on top of my pile of dresses and scarves and headed downstairs. I edged carefully toward the front door, balancing the stacks of clothes in my arms.

  “Off.” The overhead lights dimmed to nothing. The house was a pit, a cave, a well of darkness. It was no longer a home.