by Ken Liu
He thought his future self was going to refuse to answer again, but the voice remained silent. All he could hear was the hissing of the winds of time through the empty valley of more than a century dividing them. Finally, he heard the answer.
“Never again.”
“What? I won’t love again for more than a hundred years?”
“No. A life is not unlike the history of all of humanity. The choice presented to you the first time may also be the best, but there’s no way to know without traveling down other timelines.”
“So I’ll be alone all my life?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t tell you…. Though loneliness is the human condition, still we must conduct our lives with grace and strive for joy. It’s time.”
Without another word, the call ended. His phone dinged, signaling a text. Attached to the message was a short video, which he copied to his computer to be able to see better.
A sea of flames dominated the screen. It took a while for him to understand that he was looking at the sky. The fiery lights weren’t from burning fire, but auroras that filled the firmament from horizon to horizon, generated by solar wind particles striking the atmosphere. Billowy red curtains convulsed across the vault of heaven like a mountain of snakes. The sky seemed to be made of some liquid, a terrifying sight.
There was a single building resembling a stack of spheres on the ground: the Oriental Pearl Tower. The mirrored surfaces reflected the fiery sea above, and the spheres themselves seemed to be made of flames. Closer to the camera stood a man dressed in a heavy protective suit whose surface was brightly reflective and smooth, like a man-shaped mirror. The heavenly fire was reflected in this man-mirror as well, and the flame snakes, distorted by the curved surfaces, appeared even more eerie. The entire scene flowed and shimmered as though the world had turned to molten lava. The man raised a hand toward the camera, saying hello and goodbye to the past at once.
The video ended.
Was that me?
Then he remembered that he had more important tasks. He deleted the emails and all attachments. Then, after a moment, he began to reformat the disk and zero out the sectors with multiple passes.
By the time the reformatting had completed, it was just another ordinary night. The man who had changed the course of human history three times in a single night but who in the end had changed nothing fell asleep in front of his computer.
Dawn brightened the eastern sky. The world began another ordinary day. Nothing had happened, at all.
TANG FEI
Tang Fei (a pen name that should be treated as an indivisible unit) is a speculative fiction writer whose work has been featured in magazines in China such as Science Fiction World, Jiuzhou Fantasy, and Fantasy Old and New. She has written fantasy, science fiction, fairy tales, and wuxia (martial arts fantasy), but prefers to write in a way that straddles or stretches genre boundaries. She is also a genre critic, and her critical essays have been published in The Economic Observer.
A photographer and an avid traveler, Tang Fei enjoys wandering through new cities and connecting with people on unplanned adventures. If you ever meet her, ask her about the time she fell into a river in Japan.
In translation, her fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Pathlight, Apex, and SQ Mag, among other places. More of her fiction can be found in Invisible Planets.
Like many of Tang Fei’s stories, “Broken Stars” isn’t easy to box into a genre. The world is uncanny and out-of-focus, and the characters inhabiting it have jagged edges and sharp spurs. At its heart is the darkness that is left after the stars have winked out.
BROKEN STARS
If I really think about it, the stars did not arrange such a fate.
But the stars are broken, and so the definitive proof is gone. This moment is a vertex where time caves in: to the left is the past, to the right—
To the right should have been the future.
But the stars are broken.
Also, I met Zhang Xiaobo.
1.
She didn’t bring an umbrella, though the weather forecast said it was going to rain. After dinner, as she passed by the shoe rack, she missed the umbrella that had been specifically set out for her.
A few other students were scattered along the sidewalk, gradually gathering into a trickle of school uniforms that crossed the road and entered the school. Tang Jiaming entered the lecture hall from the back, at the top of the tiered seats, just as the first bell for evening study hall rang.
Most of the seats under the fluorescent lamps were filled. It was the second semester of the year before graduation, and the high school had organized nightly cram sessions starting at seven for students who still had some potential of doing well on the college entrance examination. Out of the two hundred or so students in the class, only about thirty qualified for the cram sessions based on their mock exam scores. The rest went on with their regular classes during the day, and were packed into this lecture hall for self-directed study in the evenings.
Jiaming saw Zhu Yin waving at her from one of the back rows—she had saved Jiaming a seat by the window.
“So many people here tonight! I’m guessing they’re still renovating the pool hall?”
“It’s gonna rain,” Zhu Yin mumbled. She held a bunch of rubber bands between her teeth while her hands danced like butterflies flitting through her hair. Zhu Yin excelled at fancy braids, and her hands were rarely free for anything else.
“You’ll have to write out this problem for me.” Zhu Yin lifted her chin to indicate the two workbooks on the desk. “Your handwriting is so messy that I can’t even copy your solution.”
“It’s just adding two complex numbers.” Jiaming pushed the workbooks back to her.
Sometimes she helped Zhu Yin copy her homework, but not always.
Zhu Yin scowled as she continued to braid. She was still angry at Jiaming for what had happened.
“Jiaming, I’m your best friend, right? The best?” she asked.
“Uh-huh.” Jiaming’s gaze roamed around the lecture hall.
“Out of everybody in the world?”
“Sure.”
“Why?”
Jiaming laughed. She turned to look at Zhu Yin—she’s so pretty. “Because I want to be just like you,” she said.
“Liar!” But Zhu Yin was pleased. Her black eyes twinkled, and the scene in front of her was reflected in those dark mirrors, perfect in every detail. Jiaming really did like Zhu Yin, liked the ease with which she could be cheered up in an instant.
Jiaming yawned. It was going to rain, a big thundershower. The outside was unusually dark, but no one in the lecture hall seemed to have noticed.
Playing with phones, copying homework, reading comic books or gossip magazines, napping smoking giggling eating … Like the slips of paper being passed around the room, the students shuttled about, changing seats without cease. Those who preferred quiet were concentrated in the first two rows so they could focus on working out supplemental problem sets for three hours. It was the same every day. The mercury-vapor lights dulled the colors and outlines, while restless, bulging, youthful bodies agitated under their clothes. The chaotic, low-background white noise was interrupted occasionally by a shout or peal of laughter. Various aromas mixed together in harmony: Little Raccoon brand dry crispy noodle snacks, ham sausage, hair spray, rain boots. She enjoyed the sensation of being immersed in her surroundings, idle.
Her heart was filled with affection for everyone.
“Did you not sleep well?” Zhu Yin asked.
“Had too much to eat,” Jiaming replied.
“I’ll help you fix your hair later. How could you let it get so messy?”
“Sounds good.”
Bang! The door slammed open. Before anyone in the room had time to react, the sand and pebbles blown in by the gust of wind struck their bodies, accompanied by flapping workbook pages and screams. Chaos reigned in the lecture hall. The gale preceding the rain careened around violently, sweeping away ever
ything in its path. The windows creaked in their frames, the glass panes threatening to crack.
Jiaming got up to close the window; it would take but a moment.
She saw Zhang Xiaobo, even though she didn’t yet know his name.
He stood on top of the cement wall around the schoolyard, his footing uncertain in the howling wind. The wall was tall, and had grown taller every year. From where Jiaming stood it was hard to tell if he intended to jump. She thought he might. Maybe not now; maybe someday in the future.
She saw the boy bend down to sit on top of the wall and retrieve his lighter. He flicked it until it was lit but didn’t light anything; instead, he simply stared at the flickering tongue, shielding it from the wind with his hand. The tongue licked at his palm, painfully, and illuminated his face.
The windowpane before Jiaming’s face fogged up.
Strictly speaking, he wasn’t Jiaming’s type. He was too pale, too thin, with eyes that were too large and sunken in dark circles. However, he appeared serendipitously on the school wall that night.
The summer of 1998. The squall coming from over the sea brought the warm, moist scent of salt and fish. The shadows cast by the trees shifted—Jiaming had never seen the trees move so wildly, as though they craved to dance. She pressed her face against the glass and gazed at their dark outlines: perhaps someday they would uproot themselves and run madly away from here. Just then, perfectly timed, the boy had appeared on top of the only part of the wall not hidden by the shadows of the trees. The tongue of flame in his hand trembled wildly, illuminating the brown bloodstains on his white shirt. From a distance, the drumbeats of dense African jungle struck against Jiaming’s body, riding on the wet, violent blasts of the storm.
The fire went out.
Rain poured.
“What are you looking at?” She heard Zhu Yin’s voice behind her.
“The rain is so heavy.”
“I brought an umbrella. How about you come home with me first….”
*
“Where did you get that umbrella?”
“A friend.”
“You should go change.”
Jiaming went to her room and changed into fresh clothes, the wet bundle at her feet like shed snakeskin. The rain was so heavy that the umbrella hadn’t done much good.
She returned to the living room, where silent images danced on the TV screen. She picked up the remote and clicked through the channels, pausing at each briefly. In their home, no one ever unmuted the TV, but no one turned the TV off, either.
“Do you have any homework?” a voice asked from behind the piles of architectural plans.
“All finished.”
“I’ll get off work early the day after tomorrow. We can go out for dinner together.”
For a second, Jiaming was silent as she stared at dozens of Mk 82 bombs dropping from the sky on TV; the next scene showed burning fields. She remembered.
“Your birthday is in two days,” she said.
“What would you like as a gift?”
“Isn’t it a bit bizarre to give me gifts when it’s your birthday? Do you have something to tell me?”
The man ignored this.
“A Sarah Brightman CD then.”
“Write it down for me. It’s time for bed.” The man went into the kitchen and returned with a glass of milk; he handed it to Jiaming and watched as she drank it down.
Every night, before bed, her father gave her a glass of warm milk so that she could sleep soundly.
*
“So ugly!” The pale woman stared at the hairband in her hand, shocked. “Who would buy this?”
“They sell very well, in every color. Lots of girls at school wear them.”
They glanced at each other and laughed at the same time.
“Long hair is too much trouble.”
“But I like you with long hair. You look particularly well behaved.” The pale woman caressed Jiaming’s short hair. Her hand was so white that it looked like a beam of moonlight was shining on Jiaming.
“I prefer it like this.”
“How’s school?”
“Same old same old. It rained yesterday.” Her voice softened, but returned to normal almost immediately. “I didn’t bring an umbrella, so Zhu Yin lent me hers.”
She waited for the pale woman to ask her, Does Zhu Yin still act really petulant sometimes? Then she would know what to say next.
But the pale woman didn’t.
“It rained yesterday,” she repeated what Jiaming had said.
“The day after tomorrow is Dad’s birthday,” said Jiaming.
The pale woman was quiet.
The woman reached into her pocket. “Let’s look at the stars,” she said.
She retrieved a folded-up sheet of paper and began to spread it, infinitely patient and gentle. Each time she opened another fold, her skin grew brighter, as if lit from beneath with a pure white light, of which, like her joy, it was impossible to say whether it was warm or cold. The paper, which had appeared about the size of her palm at first, gradually expanded and spread out in every direction under her careful, repetitive movements until the edges could no longer be seen.
The symbols and lines on the paper coiled and extended, as strange as the first time she had seen them. A rapidly spinning disk.
ἀστρολάβος
astrolabos
The Star-Taker
“Look, these are your stars.” The pale woman laughed.
2.
For PE, they were supposed to do an 800-meter run. But after the first lap, few girls could be seen on the track.
From a distance, Jiaming saw the PE teacher chasing girls back onto the track who had been trying to get out of running by hiding in the shade of trees. Reluctantly, they minced their way down the track. As soon as girls hit puberty, they seemed to lose the ability to run properly; it wasn’t only because of their bouncing breasts—overall they became indolent, or perhaps they were learning that this was part of the art of being coy.
“You’re in a good mood today,” Zhu Yin said.
Jiaming looked at her, surprised. They were hiding among the girls on the basketball court, pretending to be practicing their shots.
Zhu Yin came closer, like a mouse who has scented cake. “I bet there’s something.”
Jiaming said nothing.
“Did you dream about her?”
When she was seven, Jiaming had told Zhu Yin that she dreamed of a woman who was so pale that her skin appeared pure white. Zhu Yin had never forgotten about her.
“What did you talk about last night?”
“I told her about my dad’s birthday.”
“Were you able to see her face clearly this time? Did she look like your mom?”
Jiaming had always been able to see the pale woman’s face clearly, but she couldn’t remember what her mom looked like. Her mother had died in an accident at sea when she was four.
“Hey, you two!” a male voice next to them interrupted. “Is that your teacher?”
The man coming toward them with the whistle in his mouth was indeed their PE teacher. Jiaming and Zhu Yin looked at each other and then slipped onto the track, hurrying to catch up with the group ahead of them.
“Thanks!” As they passed the boy who had warned them, Zhu Yin winked at him.
Jiaming and the boy locked eyes for a moment. She recognized him.
“You know the guy we just passed?” Jiaming asked.
“I know of him. He’s in the cram class. A bit of a freak.”
“What’s his name?”
“Zhang Xiaobo.”
Without the storm; without the trees thinking of escape; without the wild, mad fire; without him sitting on the wall he looked calm and friendly, perfectly normal. Jiaming told herself not to look back; there was no need for suspicion.
The pale woman had told her that the stars wished her luck.
She hadn’t even noticed her own smile.
“What are you so happy about?” asked
Zhu Yin.
“I was thinking of my dream from last night. I showed her the hairbands that are so popular right now, and she thought they’re really ugly, too.”
“Which kind?”
Jiaming looked at the girl sitting on the bench next to the track without speaking. Only someone who had gotten a note from the nurse could sit there so openly, excused from having to run up a sweat. As they crossed the finish line, the girl on the bench got up and walked toward them.
“You saw the ones she’s wearing?”
Zhu Yin laughed. “Yeah, pretty ugly.”
The new girl approached Jiaming but hesitated when she saw Zhu Yin.
Zhu Yin rolled her eyes. She turned to Jiaming. “I’ll wait for you back in the classroom.”
“Jiaming!” The bright sun made the new girl squint as she smiled.
“Lina.”
*
Lina was one of the first girls to attract the attention of the boys. Once she turned twelve, her body lost its baby fat and began to acquire curves and contours, giving off a warm scent and unconsciously attracting the gazes of the opposite sex onto the bulges in her school uniform. She was always surrounded by boys, and not only boys her age.
No one worried that Lina was going to do something improper. She was as decorous as a cow elephant slowly maneuvering her enormous body, unmoved by everything around her. Only when the need presented itself would she deign to notice the boys’ existence, and she knew how to make use of the gazes always trained on her.
For instance, that note from the nurse’s office.
She also knew how to take advantage in other ways.
For instance, now she was grabbing Jiaming by the hand to get a snack from the campus store.
Lina paid for both of them. Jiaming let her and asked for two ice creams.
“I’m getting one for Zhu Yin,” she said.
Lina smiled. “My doctor—he’s a traditional Chinese medicine specialist—won’t let me eat anything cold, not even sashimi….”
The best thing about conversing with Lina was that you could let her talk without listening. Unlike other girls their age, she knew that one didn’t have to take everything so seriously all the time. Jiaming had always felt relaxed around her.