Rogue Stars

by C Gockel et al.

  After a long moment, James said, “Which leads to a third reason why such fanaticism might be taking hold … maybe they really believe what they say?”

  Noa shook her head, bored with the mental exercise that took them nowhere. “Why does it matter why it is happening? At this point, it only matters that it is happening. Our job is to alert the Fleet. They can come here and straighten it out.”

  Taking a deep breath, James closed his eyes and rubbed his jaw. “If I understand why this is happening … ” He looked away. “There are so many things I do not understand. Things that should bother you too … like how I found you, and how I knew your name.”

  “Those things really do not concern me more than staying alive and not dying,” Noa said.

  “They should concern you more,” James said softly.

  There was a quiet that stretched too long. Taking his hand on impulse, Noa batted her eyelashes at him. “Is this the point where you tell me you’re an alien, James?”

  His gaze met hers, and his fingers tightened. “No.” She had a moment where she thought he might kiss her. She felt herself flush, realizing a part of her wanted that … but Noa told herself it was too much emotion, too fast, brought on by too extreme circumstances—that she had too much to do. The transport jostled and Noa felt it all the way to her bones. She was also just so tired. Leaning back against the wall, she pointedly looked straight ahead. James didn’t let go of her hand.

  So quietly that he was hard to hear above the rattle of the connections between cars, and the lowing of the cows, James said, “Something is wrong with my neural interface and my brain, Noa.”

  Noa thought of her nightmares, and her flashbacks, and nudged him again. “We’ve both got broken brains.”

  Flexing his fingers in hers, he whispered, “You say the most unreassuring things.”

  Noa stared down at their entwined hands, dark on light. It brought back so many memories, and she couldn’t bring herself to tear away. Instead she said, “James … will you put on a move-ee?” They’d been watching a lot of move-ees and tee-vee programs to pass the time when they weren’t eating or training. Noa had assigned herself a calisthenics routine to try and recover her strength. She should do that right now … she liked working out, the meditative quality of it … although lately it was exhausting in a way she wasn’t used to. Before her muscles ached, she felt inexplicably drained.

  James took his hand away as he pulled out the laptop. She put hers in her lap and out of reach. As music started to play, she had a moment of apprehension. “What is this?”

  “Schindler’s List,” James replied.

  “Is this about ISIS or North Korea?”

  “No.”

  “Is it happy?” Noa asked.

  That was met with silence.

  Curling her legs up, Noa banged her head against her knees. “James, I just escaped a ‘re-education camp.’ Have mercy!”

  James stopped the playback. “Would you like to continue the series we started before? You seemed to find that amusing.”

  Noa laughed, thinking of the space exploration “sitcom” he’d shown her before. “Yeah, that ship was hilarious. They would have flip-flopped through space.” She’d laughed until she’d cried watching the opening credits.

  “So—”

  She waved a hand. “Something new.”

  James used a finger to navigate through tiny icons on the archaic screen. A show came on, obviously set on old Earth. It was some sort of detective show, with some sort of psychopath type as the lead. He had nearly augment-like abilities of recall. It was entertaining enough, but confusing: little text boxes popped on the screen occasionally. “What are those?” Noa asked.

  “At that point in history, instead of thought-to-thought communication, humans used to send text messages on phones—the little black rectangles you occasionally see them speaking into—that were connected by satellite. Those squares of text superimposed on the frame reflect what he’d see on his phone.”

  Noa cocked her head. “Sort of like a prototype of thought-to-thought ethernet?”

  “That is when they say it began,” James said.

  And Noa could see that. Sure, texting was to thought-to-thought communication like paper and ink was to painting on cave walls, but it was a start. If she could have it now … what she wouldn’t give to be in contact with Kenji, her other siblings, parents, or her friends in Luddeccea Prime … Still, just to be contrary, or maybe just to talk, she tsked. “Poor, poor, primitive savages.”

  “Yes, they were practically chimpanzees,” James replied. And bless him for joking. Noa grinned, but her smile almost immediately began to fade. “I think I remember reading about ‘texting’ actually … the text messages facilitated some of the early democracy movements, right?”

  “Yes,” said James, gaze still on the screen.

  “The people of Luddeccea don’t even have access to that,” Noa said, her heart sinking.

  “No,” said James. He turned to her, his face blue in the laptop’s glare, his features as always too perfect. “Do you still want to continue to Prime?”

  Noa’s jaw hardened. She thought of the camp and Ashley. She thought of her brother—he had been in Luddeccea Prime when she arrived planet-side—was he now in a camp? Had they hurt him? In Prime they had to have some sort of computerized record-keeping. The same person who’d helped them access one of the shuttles to Time Gate 8 might be able to find Kenji.

  “I need to go there even more than before,” she whispered.

  She was dimly aware of James’s Adam’s apple bobbing. At last he said, “We will go there, then.”

  She closed her eyes at the word “we.” She was ridiculously grateful not to be alone in this, and she wanted to drape herself over him, but also to pull away. She sat perfectly still, instead, and let herself be distracted by the antics of a consulting detective.

  6

  From the top of the freight car, James watched the suburbs of Luddeccea Prime roll slowly by. Luddeccea Prime was closer to the equator, and the homes were built with heat reduction in mind. They were low-slung adobe creations with deep awnings. Lights burned inside the buildings, and shone through wide floor-to-ceiling windows open to the evening breezes. There was nothing to suggest that there was anything amiss on Luddeccea. But sometimes, marching down the quiet streets, James spotted men in uniform stopping pedestrians and ground transports.

  He had wondered many times, back when he was safe on Earth, what he would do if he were to find himself in one of the genocidal events he’d studied. He’d always fancied that he would choose to resist. But he didn’t feel like resisting now; he didn’t feel any sort of moral compulsion to help these people. He felt as though he was watching a bad play, and all he wanted to do was leave the theater.

  He gazed down at the ground rolling past them. It would be easy enough to jump from the roof. The train was traveling at only thirty kilometers per hour, and it had stopped occasionally for other trains, cars, and once a wheeled busload of children. He could easily disappear into the darkness of the early evening. He could catch the next freight train going in the opposite direction. It would be the logical, sane thing to do. He wanted to do it, he really did. But he couldn’t make himself leave Noa; she was the only thing in this nightmarish drama that felt real. He sighed. And he couldn’t make himself bind and gag her and drag her to some place safe, he thought ruefully.

  A pinprick of light falling in the sky caught his eye.

  “Another meteorite?” Noa whispered, so close he almost started. “That’s strange,” she continued in a hushed voice. “If there was going to be a meteor shower during my visit, Kenji would have told me. He would have wanted to go to the countryside away from all the light pollution to watch.”

  James shook his head. He had no idea if a meteor shower was expected. But they’d seen dozens of falling stars over the past few nights when they’d dared to peek out of the freight car, even some during the day.

 
Noa sighed, and then said, “Ready?” James turned to her. Like him, she was on hands and knees, and like him, she wore a pack on her back with the remains of their scant supplies. The white of her teeth flashed briefly in the gloom, and then the smile was gone. She was less than a meter from him, and that felt far away. He’d become accustomed to physical contact, or the promise of it, at all times. Not that there had been anything untoward … which was strange. His former self, the person he’d been before he woke up in the snow, had been confident. Overly confident, maybe. He had a faded memory of being called “a presumptuous ass.”

  “No, I’m not ready,” he said, predicting the straightforward observation would make her laugh. He was rewarded with another grin, but it disappeared too quickly. She took a long breath. Was it his imagination, or did her arms tremble slightly?

  “Let’s go,” she said, turning her focus to the back of the train. “Let the revolution begin.”

  James sighed; but his sigh did not provoke even a chuckle from Noa. His only hope at this point was that this first part of the mission would fail, that she’d reconsider, and that they could hop off this train while they still had time and head for the Northwest Province.

  Traveling on hands and knees, they reached the third to last car. In the caboose, there were four train operators who had fed the cows and occasionally checked the cars for stowaways. The cows were still alive, but they hadn’t done a very good job with the latter, obviously.

  Noa and James’s goal was to subdue the operators, steal their uniforms and their identification, and then hop off the moving train and make their way to the city proper by hover—hired or stolen—before the freight cars arrived at their destination. In the city, they’d find a programmer who could hack their retinal scans into the Luddeccean time gate mechanic crew’s database. Noa was sure they could find a retired Fleet officer to do it.

  Reaching the end of the car, Noa slipped down. James followed. The animals in the car beyond began to low. Noa went to the door between the cars. It had a simple latch mechanism, a vertical handle that only had to be lifted. Noa gripped it and gritted her teeth, and then gasped and dropped her hand. “What? Today they lock it?” she snapped.

  James blinked, remembering how easily they’d slipped into the car of cows, hay bales, and wooden crates a day ago. “Perhaps because we’ve been stopping more frequently?” he suggested, taking the handle and gently lifting. It was definitely locked … maybe she’d back down?

  “We’ll have to confront them in the caboose,” Noa said with a frustrated-sounding huff. “Not as ideal as our original plan.”

  Much more dangerous than their original plan is what she meant. James jiggled the handle. “I think it has a little give,” he said, not sure if he was lying or hoping.

  Noa held up her hands. “Don’t—”

  James yanked it up sharply. There was a loud crack, and the whole mechanism disengaged from the door.

  “—break it,” Noa finished.

  “Maybe it was rusty?” James said, turning it over in his hands. He didn’t see any rust; yet, he had broken it as easily as a toy. He felt a stab of inner panic and tossed the lock aside. It made him think of his tattoos, night vision, and ability to stay underwater without breathing.

  “Actually, this might work … ” Noa said, snapping James from his thoughts. She reached into the hole in the door and winked. “Yep.” There was a click. She swung the door open and disappeared within. James looked longingly at the ground rushing past. He could jump and survive with only a few scratches. His skin prickled with annoyance. But he wouldn’t do that, no matter how much he wanted to. He followed Noa into the car.

  He immediately hit a wall of the worst smell he’d ever encountered. Putting his arm over his face, he gasped, “Methane.”

  “You can’t smell methane, James,” Noa said, her voice barely audible over the sudden lowing of beasts.

  James dropped his arm. He was sure he smelled methane, along with animal smells, hay, the faint odor of rot, dampness, and a hint of Root, a popular native stimulant that was very addictive and illegal on both Luddeccea and Earth.

  “Although, there’s probably plenty of methane in here,” Noa said, looking around. “What you smell is cow. And what posh cows they are. These bovines are destined for the dinner plates of the high chancellors. Look at them, each with its own stall and feed bin, not packed like—”

  James put a finger to his lips. Noa raised an eyebrow in his direction and fell silent. James tilted his head to the far door. Over the lowing of the cows and the rattle of the car on the tracks he heard someone say, “Something is getting them excited.”

  Noa loped to the door with surprising stealth. The cows still lowed and stamped their hooves in her wake. They stamped more vigorously when James passed down the center aisle between them. His passage was not as quiet as Noa’s. He took his place beside her at the hinge side of the door.

  He heard the click of the lock. The door swung open and two men stepped in, both brandishing stunners.

  James shut the door—gently. Outside a remaining agent said, “Hey, Bart—what ‘cha doin’—you know I forgot my keys.” Noa stepped forward, wrapped one arm around the first man’s neck, and in one smooth motion she lifted the man’s own stunner and stunned his companion with it before either could call out. As soon as the stunned man went down, James dragged him into an empty stall. The man Noa was trying to choke struggled, and Noa stunned him as well. Lowering him to the ground, Noa nodded for James to pull him away. As James did so, she went swiftly to the door, opened it, and took shelter behind it.

  A man stumbled in. “Oh, thanks, Bart—”

  Noa hit him with the stunner an instant later.

  “Well done,” James said, stifling a sigh … it looked as though her plan might succeed, and they would not be going to the Northwest Province.

  Without acknowledging the compliment, Noa looked at the downed men and exhaled audibly. “Wasn’t hard, they’re just civilians.” She sat down on her heels and felt one man’s pulse. “They’ll all be fine. Nothing worse than a headache.” Noa closed her eyes briefly. “Thank you, random factors of the universe.”

  James didn’t comment. That was one of her goals, that civilians not be hurt. They were, in her words, “just caught up in events beyond their control.” Which was their own situation as well. James hadn’t argued with her assessment, even if the logical part of him said they’d be less likely to be identified if the train personnel were dead.

  Opening her eyes, she whispered, “There’s one more. I didn’t hear anyone while we were above. Did you?”

  James shook his head. Noa went to the door, pushed it barely ajar, and cautiously peered out the crack.

  And then James heard a piece of hay break behind him and a soft exhalation, and he knew without turning that there was a man behind him, approximately 1.8542 meters tall. He could smell Root on the man’s breath. He heard the soft brush of skin on hard plastic and knew the man had a stunner. Spinning counterclockwise, James kicked up and out with a leg and hit the man squarely in the chin. There was a sound he didn’t recognize, a sort of snap, as the man flew backward over the hay bales he must have been hiding behind. Spittle flew from the man’s mouth, and James caught a heady whiff of the drug.

  Noa gasped, ran over, and dropped beside the man. She was silent for one minute and forty-five seconds.

  “What’s wrong?” James asked.

  Noa looked up at him. For thirty-three seconds, she did not respond. And then she said in a hushed voice, “You broke his neck.”

  Gazing down at the man, James noticed the impossible angle of his head for the first time. “I acted on instinct.”

  “That was a mighty good instinctive roundhouse kick,” Noa said, and James could hear the tension in her jaw.

  James didn’t answer. He had a hazy memory from his life on Earth; he’d been behind the controls of a hover, with a woman sitting next to him. She’d been a colleague and a lover, though
he couldn’t remember feeling anything for her. She had said to him, “You drive very responsibly.” He had replied, “If I hit someone and they died or were injured, I’d never forgive myself.” He hadn’t been lying; but now, staring down at the man whose life he had ended, he felt nothing.

  “James … ” Noa said.

  James turned his gaze to her.

  “Really good instincts, for a history teacher,” Noa said. “What are you hiding from me?”

  James took a step back. For the first time, he felt something … terror, and the potential for failure of something he could not name. “Noa ... I don’t know.”

  Noa’s shoulders fell. For another ten seconds, she was silent. And then she shook her head. “Let’s tie these guys up, take their uniforms and identification, and get out of here.”

  James took a deep breath. The charge in his body dissipated; but, instead of relief, he felt grief. He stared down at the dead man. He remembered a time on Earth when he’d watched a stranger’s funeral procession from afar, and mourned in a vague existential way. James had that sensation now, but not for the dead man. He mourned for himself, the man he once had been.

  From the back of the hover cab, Noa handed the driver the identification she’d stolen from the two train operators who looked the most like James and herself.

  In the dim light of the cab, the driver looked down at the identification documents. They were primitive things, little booklets with a picture and relevant bio-data. The most high-tech thing about them was a two-dimensional holographic image of the Luddeccean emblem: a dove with a green branch in its mouth. She supposed that societies became paper bound when they had no ethernet.

  The driver rifled through the booklets, taking his time. He glanced up at her and James, and back down again.

  Her left thumb went to her rings—and found them gone. Her jaw tightened, and her eyes flitted to James. Like her, he was wearing the train uniform, complete with a brimmed cap pulled low to hide his blue eyes. Like her, his face was caked with dust from the gravel bed along the track. It made his pale skin darker, and her dark skin lighter. She’d added darker dirt to her jaw to give her the appearance of stubble. None of the train operators had been female.