The Star Mother

by J D Huffman

  She gave him a disapproving stare. “Dev, I love you, but you can’t do this. Not to me. Not to yourself. You need help. You seem a little better—you aren’t freaking me out like you were—but you’re sitting here telling me things still aren’t right and yet you won’t take your meds or see your counselor? Did she tell you you could take this week off?”

  “It’s not like I asked. I just canceled this week’s session.”

  “But you didn’t ask me. You made these decisions without consulting me. Am I not important enough to bother talking to?”

  He could sense this exchange developing into an argument, and that would surely impact his ability to concentrate later. I need to get down into Mr. Brown’s files after Meghan goes to work. I’m not going to be able to pay attention if I’m all upset about a fight with her. I can’t deal with this right now. “Look, honey, I promise I just need this week, okay? I have a big new project at work and I’m trying to do that without being fogged by the tranquilizers. I’ll start everything up against next week. Does that satisfy you?”

  Her expression told him it didn’t, not entirely, but she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Fine. For now. But if you start acting strangely next week, we might have to talk about you going inpatient for a while.”

  He found that threat horrifying, and no doubt she intended it that way. What will that guy do to me if I get carted off to the hospital? He’ll think I’m telling them everything and then he’ll have to kill me, or wipe my memory, or who knows what. I can’t mess around past this week. I just can’t. “Okay, it’s a deal,” he agreed. If I screw this up, I’ll have a lot more to worry about than Meghan being pissed at me.

  She finished her food, got up, and kissed him on the cheek as she went by, dragging her hand along his shoulder and upper back. She threw her packaging into the recycling bin and said, “I need to get ready for work. Don’t stay up too late working, got it? Sleep deprivation is bad for your brain, and you need to rest yours as much as you can.”

  “I know, I know,” he mumbled.

  He put the rest of his food away and, once Meghan had left for work, he settled down with the computer in the corner of their living room and started going through those files again. He knew what to look for this time, at least, but everything he found about Project Mu only led him to more questions. After spending hours examining Mr. Brown’s communiques, he didn’t know much more than he’d learned earlier in the day.

  The time slipped past him unnoticed, until he felt a hand on his shoulder. That almost made him fall backwards in his desk chair. He spun and needed a moment for his eyes to adjust—he’d never bothered to turn any other lights on, and it was dark except for the computer display.

  It was the man who’d confronted him at work and set him about this whole business in the first place. “How the hell did you get in here?” Devon blurted.

  “That seems like a silly question to me. I wanted to check on your progress.”

  “It hasn’t been a week yet,” Devon pointed out.

  “I know how long it’s been. What have you found?”

  “A lot, and somehow not much,” he smirked.

  The man peeked over his shoulder. “Project Mu, eh? What is it?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. All I can tell you is that it’s based out of the Seattle office, it’s a project involving both software and hardware—which could mean anything, really—and there is a ship, for some reason.”

  “A ship?”

  “You know. A boat. I’m reasonably confident it’s a boat. Director Clarke talked about Mu ending up on the bottom of the ocean, and I don’t think she was being metaphorical.”

  “Interesting. I want copies of the relevant files, and anything else you find. You have no indication that this project is underway in the Chicago office?”

  “No, from what I can tell, it’s all happening in Seattle. The CTO is keeping a close eye on it from here but it seems to be one of his top concerns, and I can tell you it’s not something that’s been mentioned to the rest of the company. They’re keeping it quiet, even though it’s costing a lot of money and is clearly very important to the executives.”

  “Then I think you know what you have to do next.”

  Devon suspected. He didn’t want it to be true, though. “What’s that?” he asked, afraid of the answer.

  “You need to find a way into SINAI’s Seattle office. Transfer your position there. Break in if you have to. But I suspect Project Mu is the smoking gun I’ve been looking for, so that’s where you—and I—need to be.”

  All Devon could think about was how much he wished he’d never gotten into that fucking car accident, or maybe that he’d never worked for SINAI in the first place, and then none of this would be happening and he could go back to his oblivious life with Meghan and do something boring for a living and die an old man without knowing about SINAI or Avalonians or Project Mu or anything like that. He’d have given anything to just make all of that go away.

  Instead, he would have to go away. Meghan’s never going to be okay with this. Not in a million years.

  Chapter 28

  Building Blocks

  William had trouble sleeping after dreaming about Devon again. He wondered, once more, where it was going—why he kept having these visions of another person in another place and time. He knew, of course, that Devon was still alive in the here and now, somehow different yet recognizable as the person from his dreams. If only he’d stuck around long enough for me to ask him what I need to know. He assumed Devon had his reasons or, if he didn’t, William was going to be really pissed.

  Arkady’s hospitality didn’t make William entirely comfortable, either. He and Sasha shared a small room with hammocks suspended from the ceiling. When accommodations were being made, Arkady asked which of them would be sharing a room, and Sasha opted to share with William, leaving Fred to another chamber by himself. William couldn’t pinpoint what motivated Sasha to such a decision. He imagined something was going on between her and Fred that he didn’t know about.

  As for the hammock, it was a strange thing to sleep on, and not a furnishing William had ever been exposed to in his life on Lexin. The idea of being suspended in the air by a thin agglomeration of fabric and wood fibers made him more than a little leery, yet everyone on this planet seemed to avail themselves of the hammock. After some time settling in and paying attention to the fact that every movement was magnified by the sling’s permissive swaying, he’d been able to sleep. And then the visions with Devon came, he woke up in the dead of night, and couldn’t relax again.

  Carefully and painfully rolling himself out of the hammock and planting his feet on the floor, he crept past Sasha. He didn’t creep quietly enough. She opened an eye and whispered his name, which stopped him immediately. “Where are you going?”

  “For a walk. Weird dreams. Can’t sleep.”

  “Mind if I come with you?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t think I could stop you.”

  He did his best not to laugh as he watched Sasha extricate herself from the unfamiliar sleeping device, almost getting her whole body wrapped up in it before she managed to escape. He knew he couldn’t have looked any less silly for his own efforts. They walked out of the room, illuminated by those blue-green stones, and onto the railed walkway that clung to the sides of the ravine. William dragged his hand along the sanded and polished wood of the rail, his eyes cast down at the darkness beyond, where he knew there was water but couldn’t see it.

  “What did you think of all that tonight?” he asked, making conversation.

  “Probably the same as you,” she deflected. “I’m not going to accept any of his excuses for what they do.”

  “Me neither. I think it’s like you said: he’s trying to justify their unethical behavior through a bunch of twisted logic. I knew guys on Lexin like that. They may ha
ve been smarter than me but I know right from wrong and I don’t think I’m that easy to fool.”

  They took slow steps together, Sasha’s strides longer than his owing to her shorter legs. Still, she had no trouble keeping up, as far as William could tell. She peered over the rail, too. “Do you miss Lexin?”

  That brought him to a stop while he thought about it. “I’m not sure. I miss the familiarity, I suppose. It’s strange to be out here with people I don’t know well, facing enemies I know so little about. And it’s been hard, obviously.” He didn’t mention the pain every step of their walk caused him, the legacy of his injuries on Actis. He did his best not to think about how each impact of his foot against the ground sent a shock of agony up his leg, through his spine, and into his head. Pinched nerves, Angel had told him. She acknowledged that surgery could fix the problem but she lacked the tools and expertise. And now she’s not even herself anymore, so who knows if we’ll ever have the chance. He turned away rather than let Sasha see him wince from a particularly painful step, and talked about Lexin some more. “It was such a dreary place, most of the time. Ruled by people you probably wouldn’t trust to sweep your kitchen, but who were born into the right family or had advantages in some other way. They got away with murder—literally, murder—and it was supposed to be my job to bring people like that to justice, but I wasn’t allowed. They were wealthy and powerful and, for the most part, they paid my salary. You don’t bite the hand that feeds you, right?”

  Sasha shook her head. “Sounds like an awful place. How did it get to be that bad?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t say I was ever a good student of history. If Zotz was here, he could tell you. He knows all about things like that. Or he did.”

  “He was one of your friends?”

  “Yeah. Got blown up along with the ship I was on. Linda and Andrew and Kina, too. Seems like a lifetime ago, now.”

  “We’ve all lost people close to us,” she reminded him. “So we have to hold closer to the people we have left.”

  That surprised William a little. He didn’t expect her to say something so… sentimental. He knew better than to make a show of it, however. “Well, I’m not that easy to get rid of,” he promised with an arrogant grin. “I still need to track down the Trepsis colonists, and following your group seems like the best means to that end.”

  “I think you’ve paid a higher price than most to be here,” she said. “I know you’re still in pain.”

  “It’s not that bad,” he lied, pausing to lean over the rail. She stepped up alongside him.

  “You don’t have to lie. Angel told me, anyway. How long have you been without medication?”

  The truth was, he stopped taking it once he was able to decide for himself to do so. He assumed others would need it more and didn’t feel right keeping it for himself. The consequence, however, was that he simply couldn’t move like he used to.

  Sasha didn’t shy away from pointing it out. “I’ve seen how you walk. You try to hide the limp now, like everything is back to normal, but you aren’t. I’m not going to leave you behind just because you can’t march with the troops, William.”

  “That’s reassuring,” he smirked. “You really don’t need to worry about me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That’s exactly what people who need worrying about always say. I just don’t want you to make a bad decision because you’re too distracted by pain. I know we still have some pain reducers on the ship. When we get back, I want you to start taking them.”

  “Is that an order?” The question was only half-serious.

  So was her response. “Do I need to make it one?”

  “No, Star Mother,” he said with a mocking tone.

  He swore he could hear her gritting her teeth. “Has that gotten around?”

  “Fred’s mentioned it a couple times. I don’t think anyone else takes it seriously.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t help spread it.”

  He genuinely felt some remorse over saying it. I didn’t realize she disliked it that much. “I won’t mention it again,” he vowed, more softly.

  “Don’t take it personally. I just don’t want people attaching labels to me like that. There’s something Fred assigns to it. I can’t quite find the words. It makes me very uneasy.”

  “Religious fervor?” William guessed.

  “Is that what it’s called? I don’t know. There’s this look in his eyes when he talks about me, and what we’re doing, as if he imagines the entire movement will rise or fall by my desires. I don’t want that to be true.”

  “No?”

  “Of course not. It has to be bigger than me, otherwise it’s hopeless. The Totality are too numerous and too powerful. I can’t beat them single-handedly, and anyone who thinks that’s a possibility is delusional.”

  “But movements need a figurehead,” William pointed out. “That seems unavoidable. On Lexin, political parties tend to organize around charismatic leaders. Seems to be human nature. We follow people who say the right things and make us feel a certain way.”

  “I don’t know the first thing about inspiring people’s feelings,” she admitted. “That’s obvious, isn’t it? I mean, have you seen me give a speech?” she chuckled, leaning her back against the rail. “It’s hideous. Fred coaches me but I have no idea what I’m doing. Put a rifle in my hand and throw me onto a battlefield. I’m okay with that. I know what’s happening there. I shoot them or they shoot me. Either way, it’s decisive. You know the price of mistakes, and you know what victory gets you. But with all this leadership business, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what will make people follow me, or not. I don’t know what they want. I assume they want to be free, but what are they willing to do for it? So many have died for that already. How many more can I ask?”

  “No wonder you have trouble sleeping,” was all William could offer. “Definitely a responsibility I wouldn’t want.”

  “Don’t think I was offering,” she snapped.

  “A midnight strategy session?” a new voice intruded. It was Arkady, who approached out of the darkness so abruptly it would have been frightening had it been anyone else. With Arkady, though, William just found it mildly puzzling.

  “We couldn’t sleep,” William said, peering at the black lake again.

  “Perhaps you’d like to accompany me to my chamber, then? We could continue our discussion from before, or talk about something else.”

  William shrugged. “Sure. I don’t think I’ll be getting any more sleep tonight.”

  Sasha agreed to come just for the sake of not making a fuss, William assumed.

  Arkady led them down the walkway to one of the alcoves that looked like all the others, only this one was his. He tapped the rocks embedded in the wall so they glowed brighter, letting them see each other more easily. He drew a curtain over the doorway so they could have a modicum of privacy, but William figured anyone who walked by would be able to hear what was said. Given how everyone here walks around naked, real privacy must be almost unheard of.

  Taking a look around, William vocalized the first thing he noticed. “This looks just like the other rooms.”

  “Indeed,” the man said. “I am their leader by consensus, not decree. I’m not entitled to anything beyond what everyone else has.”

  “That’s egalitarian of you,” William commented, uncertain whether he necessarily approved. Something didn’t sit well with him, the idea of everyone being exactly equal, as if they all had identical talents and capabilities. If no one can be better than anyone else, what’s the point in striving for anything?

  “That rather misses the point,” Arkady responded aloud. “But that isn’t why I brought you here.”

  Sasha folded her arms. “Then why did you bring us here? Have you made progress with Angel? Where is she right now?”

  “She is currently bein
g looked after by Elena, who is more than capable. If by ‘progress’ you mean removing the Totality entity from her body, then no. Such a thing cannot be done by force. I have tried to convince the being to leave, but it is frightened about what will happen to it.”

  “That’s not our concern,” Sasha said coldly. “It was Angel’s body first.”

  “I don’t believe rehashing our earlier debate will accomplish anything. I said we could continue it, not repeat ourselves. The fact is, once a body has been occupied by one of my kind, it cannot be removed forcibly without killing the host.”

  “Sounds like a nasty parasite,” William observed.

  “If you are accustomed to referring to thinking, feeling, intelligent creatures in such a way, I suppose,” Arkady retorted.

  William didn’t take to Arkady’s attempt at shaming him. “If you can’t do anything for Angel, what can you do for us?”

  “What do you want me to do for you? I can offer you our hospitality for as long as you’d like. No doubt you are tired of traveling through the stars on your decrepit transport ship. The rest of your people would be welcome here, provided they are peaceable and respectful.”

  “I don’t plan on telling them anything about you,” Sasha declared. “I didn’t think they would be understanding of the fact that, frankly, we’re dealing with our mortal enemies here. I only agreed to come here to help Angel, and now you’re telling me you can’t.”

  “I can help her, just not in the way you think. It might be best for her to remain here, with us.”

  William bristled at such a suggestion. “Is that how you operate? Someone gets infected with a Totality thing, they come to you, and you keep them? Is that how you grow your numbers?”

  Arkady scowled at the insinuation of subterfuge or manipulation. “I do no such thing. You are the first visitors we’ve had. Our world is known to be off-limits to the rest of the Totality, and yours is the first slave revolt I’ve ever heard of meeting any success. We grow our numbers just as I said—we have children.”