Sing Down the Stars

by Nerine Dorman

  Every small sound, from the branches above clattering in the nippy breeze to the droplets of rain that dripped onto the ground, made her jerk in fright. Every shadow, every movement in the underbrush, had her turning, expecting a scout.

  Her progress was painfully slow now, as each step brought a fresh stab of agony from her ankle. She tried lacing her boots tighter, but that hurt more. If the others found her now, all her efforts would be wasted, and she’d look like an arrogant twit for having gone off on her own in the first place.

  “Stupid, stupid,” she mouthed to herself as she continued at a crippled pace.

  A murmur of voices reached her, so she pulled herself up against a pilaar trunk. Not the greatest hiding place – depending on where the patrol’s scouts were, she’d probably be visible. The best she could hope for was to move as they did and keep the trunk between her and any direct line of sight at all times.

  Straining her senses, she pushed her back against the tree. After the AR assistance, it felt odd to rely only on sight, smell and hearing. Her heart was beating so hard she feared it was louder than a bass drum the whole forest could hear. A trickle of perspiration ran down her temple and crossed her cheek, but she daren’t swipe it away.

  “Nuri,” someone whispered. A hand closed over her forearm.

  She bit back a shriek and stopped short of punching a grinning Byron.

  “I can’t believe I actually managed to sneak up on you!”

  “Don’t do that again!” Nuri kept her volume down, but she’d have dearly loved to both slap and hug him.

  “Came to see what was holding you up.”

  “Where are the others?”

  “They’ve moved on a bit, but we reckon it’s almost too late now.” He grimaced.

  “And if I gave you this, and told you to run like mad back to L’uul”? Nuri dug into her coveralls and withdrew the drone.

  He grasped it from her. “You’re insane!”

  “Go! I’ve sprained my ankle so I’m slow.”

  “You sure?”

  “Dude.” She punched him lightly.

  Byron was off, and not a moment too soon, because suddenly the bushes to her left crashed as two members of Patrol A came stumbling out – a human girl she knew as Neith and a Heran male who’d occasionally had lunch with them when F’Thr was still around. She couldn’t recall his name, and she supposed it wasn’t important right now.

  They saw her immediately, and Nuri didn’t bother to run. She merely gave a broad smile as she raised her hands.

  “Damn, you got me.”

  17

  Byron’s brow furrowed, and Nuri was surprised he hadn’t chewed right through his lip. She felt the same. Only Mei was unconcerned, effortlessly scribing notes with her stylus on her tablet while she scanned the study material on her AR.

  They were sitting in Nuri’s room, because it was warmer than the others. Outside, the spring rain rattled down, shrouding the grounds in a grey haze. Even the coral trees had thought better of blooming – their blossoms were still furled, the first green leaves holding back from sprouting.

  “I don’t see the point,” Byron said to Nuri. “I mean, after this, if I am avatar” – he rolled his eyes – “why would I need to know about the evolution of an extinct race of proto-humanoids on the third planet of the Deneb Algedi system?”

  “Are you stuck on the chapter about possible Progenitor seeding?” Nuri asked with a frown. Most of the history stuff went way over her head, yet it helped to know that Byron was also struggling to keep the facts straight.

  He nodded. “I mean, if I needed to know this stuff, I could just run a search on the Net.”

  Mei sighed heavily, blinked to minimise her AR, then turned to face them. “You need to at least show a basic understanding of how everything fits together so you can run the searches in the first place. It’s not so much about cramming knowledge into your brains as about building a frame of reference that can be supplemented by AI and AR searches.”

  “Now you sound like a facilitator.” Nuri stuck out her tongue.

  “Make that Mzzz Facilitator,” Byron added with a chuckle.

  “You two are impossible.”

  “Improbable is more what I’m thinking,” Byron quipped.

  “Guys, if we don’t do well during this exam, none of your acrobatics or marksmanship or stealth is going to matter. You’re out at the next winnowing. Only twenty will stand for the emergence.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to stand,” Nuri said.

  “I at least need to make an effort.” Mei rose and went to the window. “My mother and my aunts receive my reports, and they always have a lot to say in their video and voice messages.”

  Nuri didn’t have anything to say. There’d been more than one occasion when Mei had been reduced to sullen, quiet tears after communications from her family.

  “C’mon, let’s go get some hot chocolate,” Byron said. “Doesn’t look like we’ll be doing any agility training this afternoon.”

  * * *

  The exams were to take place in two weeks’ time, and they had access to old examinations to help them prepare. Mei helped by marking their papers and going over what they’d gotten wrong, but to Nuri it felt as if she was drowning in facts and figures. AI protocol was her least favourite subject – it made her head spin. Ethics threw around all sorts of terms that made zero sense. Even Byron agreed that it was pretty much gibberish. Basic physics and chemistry made her want to bash her head against a wall. Who cared if an apple would continue to roll forward if the plate it was on came to a sudden halt? Why was the plate even moving in the first place? And who carried around apples on plates, for ancestors’ sakes? The facilitators took aspects of Nuri’s lived reality – momentum, mass, gravity – and reduced it to dull, dry terms that oozed across the screen and meant nothing to her.

  History was a little better, as well as language studies. Nuri was already fluent in several dialects of Heran and J’Veth, as well as Neo-Mandarin and Common. She had Calan City barrens lingo on her tongue – to the uninitiated, a hopeless mash-up of Neo-Mandarin, Heran and J’Veth, with a side order of Common – but there was a music there. She loved it when she saw the bewildered expressions on Byron and Mei’s faces when she lapsed into the tongue of her childhood.

  As the exam date drew nearer, tempers grew shorter. Mei and Byron had a spectacular argument about AI protocol and for three days didn’t speak to each other, which left Nuri in the awkward position of go-between until they grudgingly made up. One of the other Chosen, a J’Veth female, ended up having seizures after not getting enough sleep, and from stress, Nuri supposed.

  Her stomach roiled when she thought of all the things she had to know, which wasn’t helped by the fact that she’d never done any sort of formal examination ever – the assignments they’d handed in during the past few months didn’t count. She slept maybe three or four hours a night, and more often than not found herself reading the same passage over and over, or listening to lectures and feeling as if the words and facts skipped right over her head.

  Only twenty of them would be selected. That was one out of five, Nuri figured as she surveyed the dining hall during mealtimes, trying to guess who’d make the cut. The mood had shifted. Whereas in the past, there’d been joking and laughter, most kept to themselves these days. Many had tablets on hand or were unashamedly scrolling through AR while eating, even though that was considered extremely rude.

  As if the coming exams weren’t enough, Nuri’s left ankle was still bothering her, despite the treatment she’d received at the medical centre. The AI had instructed her to take things easy, and she was excused from physical exercise that required running or agility for the time being. This sucked tremendously, precisely because these were the activities she lived for. Raphel told her she could make up for it by putting in extra study time, but there was only so much learning she could do in a day before she felt as if she was ready to crawl up the walls.

  Each mor
ning she’d get up, nearly sick with the dull knowledge that the exam was one day closer, and she didn’t feel any better prepared for the ordeal than she had the day before. She tried to still her mind using the psi-exercises Katha had taught her, but they did little to help. Nuri lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling, imagining black blobs crawling about above her. Like the giant arachnids she’d seen in the horror films.

  From time to time she’d replay that last wide game and try to puzzle what had actually happened on the day. She hadn’t wanted to say anything to Byron or Mei about her being able to access the AR during the exercise, but she’d found ways to muse on the subject enough to establish that she’d been the only Chosen who’d had access to the AR, albeit briefly.

  Yet Raphel hadn’t called her aside for a quiet chat about the game, nor had she been summoned to see Alda and the other senior facilitators. And she was still in the programme, hadn’t been unceremoniously booted out. So, either they were choosing to ignore the breach, or … Or someone had been surreptitiously trying to help her.

  Someone or something, like the star-jumper nymph that hadn’t given any indication yet that it was any closer to emerging.

  Why me? Nuri wanted to ask. What made her special? After all, she was a not-quite-human something or other. Genetic ID unknown, partially human. An anomaly. A freak. A random mutation at best. The authorities most likely had a special file on her now, and were no doubt monitoring her even more than they did the others.

  She hoped the star-jumper would reach out again, but it was silent on that front, and any attempt she’d made had either been ignored or hadn’t reached the intended receiver. If it wasn’t for those few other times she’d brushed up against the nymph’s awareness, she’d have considered the connection during the wide games a glitch combined with a heavy serving of wild imagination.

  * * *

  The day of the examination dawned bright and clear – the perfect weather to be outside rather than trooping with a hundred others into the assembly hall, where a hundred desks stood in five rows of twenty, each with a VR unit and gloves. There’d be no cheating of any sort.

  Mei, Nuri and Byron hung back, despite all of them having been allocated seat numbers.

  “This is it,” Mei said, her arms crossed across her stomach.

  “You’ll be okay,” Byron said, though judging by the dark rings around his eyes he hadn’t slept much the night before either.

  Nuri had packed things in at around eleven, when it became clear that any further studying was only going to make her more tense. She’d still had sleeping tabs left over, and had swallowed one. Inevitably, this morning she felt as if she had a bad case of zombie brain. Two cups of coffee had hardly touched sides.

  “We’ve come this far.” Nuri pulled both her friends to her for a quick hug. “We can make it past this. Surely.”

  Mei gave a sharp nod. “I guess …”

  “Do we have a choice?” Byron said.

  “We always have a choice.” Nuri turned to him. “That’s one of the first things you told me when we met. That we can choose to be victims or we can choose to kick life in the nads.”

  He gave a sheepish grin. “I don’t remember that.”

  “Right on the first day, when Stasja was being such a bitch.”

  “It does sound like something you’d say,” Mei chipped in.

  Byron shrugged. “Ah well. Let’s go kick that exam in the nads then, shall we?”

  “It’s better than rolling over and playing dead,” Mei said.

  For Nuri it felt as if she was walking to a chopping block, like how their neighbours back in the barrens would slaughter pandors for festivals. She’d always felt so sorry for those unfortunate, dumb beasts. Even if they tasted delicious grilled.

  Her desk was in the last row, number eighteen. Right by the window. Not that she’d see outside once she was wearing the VR goggles. She only hoped there wouldn’t be too much movement in the virtual environment. VR nausea was still a thing for her, embarrassing as that was to admit.

  The Chosen coughed, shuffled and shifted around in their chairs while the facilitators faffed at the front. At least it felt like faffing to Nuri, the five of them standing there, quietly conferring. The digital display of the clock up on the wall told her that they had another fifteen minutes before the examination was officially to start.

  Why make them sit in silence for so long?

  Nuri turned to see who was behind her. Stefan didn’t look so smug or pleased now. He looked as if he might lose his breakfast, and he didn’t make eye contact with her.

  Nuri started fiddling with her VR goggles until one of the facilitators walked past and shook her head at Nuri – a clear indication that she wasn’t supposed to touch the damned things until they were ready to begin the exam.

  Ten minutes to go.

  Nuri gazed out the window, at the lovely view across the grounds. No clouds today. At all. Warm, golden sunlight, and the trees had a shimmer of green on their bare branches. It was worth risking sunburn to spend even half an hour out there. She could just see a corner of the hangar where the star-jumper was housed.

  Wish me luck, Nuri sent at the being. No response.

  Go figure.

  Five minutes.

  One of the facilitators came to stand at the front of the hall. The Heran woman cleared her throat and a hundred faces turned to her.

  “By now you all know how important the examination is. Bear in mind that the marks you achieve today will be the deciding factor for whether you make the cut or return to your previous lives. An avatar, as you must realise by now, is a well-rounded being, not only because they represent the star-jumpers who trade with the sentient races of this galaxy, but also because they must be versatile. Dynamic. The mere fact that you have made it this far speaks volumes about your capabilities. Do not see failure to make it to the final line-up as a flaw. You represent the cream of Areadian society. No matter where you go, you will have the advantage of saying that you’ve passed through this facility. The time here will open doors for you. Always remember that.

  “For the lucky score of you who stand before the nymph at its emergence, this is an honour that is bestowed on few during a single lifetime.”

  She went on after that to explain how the examination would proceed. At her signal, they were to don the VR goggles and gloves, and begin. They had three hours. Those who finished first could get up and leave if they were confident that they didn’t want to revise any of the sections. Once the three hours were over, the rest had to stop, no matter what.

  Ancestors, this was it. Nuri’s hands shook as she raised the VR goggles to her face. They smelt of cleaning chemicals, and so did the gloves, and she feared she’d not get the stench off her skin afterwards. Three hours may as well be an eternity.

  The home screen that lit up wasn’t much different from the standard one for their multimedia study sessions, which was a good thing, and the tests began with multiple choice. Some were easy. Others Nuri had to guess. If only the rest were like that.

  For the next while, Nuri existed in a weird world where everything she saw and manipulated was in the examination app, but she could still hear her fellow Chosen in the hall around her, shifting and creaking in their chairs. Hisses of annoyance. Sudden thumps as hands struck table tops in poorly coordinated gestures.

  Nuri had moments when she wanted to cry, but she sucked in deep breaths. Predictably, the AI-protocol section was horrible. She tried, but ended up leaving as many answers blank as she tried to fill in. Ditto for Physical Science.

  She was about halfway through the exam when she heard the first chair legs scrape back and echoing footsteps as a few Chosen departed. Had they aced or flubbed entire sections like she was doing? Pressure built in Nuri’s chest, and she had to concentrate on keeping her breathing steady and even.

  A number of the questions were familiar to her, structured similarly to the examples Mei had worked through with her and Byron, and Nuri rec
koned she did well enough with that. Or so she hoped. Her grammar and punctuation were awful, she knew, but Mei had told her not to worry too much about that – the AIs would take into consideration her basic literacy.

  Nuri had pointed out that her lack of proficiency with the written word was a problem, but Mei had glared at her and told her that she had qualities that balanced out that weakness. Nuri was not convinced. Out of all the Chosen here, she was at a disadvantage precisely because she hadn’t had any formal education.

  Quite a few questions were odd – an entire section asked her about difficult decisions relating to people and situations. Perhaps it was Ethics, Nuri mused, and raced through that bit. It still didn’t make up for her having left out so much of the other parts. Ah well, couldn’t be helped.

  More mutters, and chair-leg scraping. Nuri tensed, checked the timer – ancestors, she had twenty-nine minutes left to work through four more sections. She wanted to scream, cry, protest, do something.

  Stay calm.

  Deep breaths.

  She couldn’t tell if this was her own thought, but Nuri blocked out the incidental sounds in the hall and focused on the next problem.

  The little numerals in the timer went from flashing green to amber, and Nuri knew this was the last run. The last ten minutes. Two more sections to go.

  No tears. She would do her best.

  Her fingers were clumsy on the virtual keypad as she tried to sort through problems about three-dimensional shapes that she had to fit together and match.

  Then the goggles went dark, and she gasped, sat back in her chair. The examination was over.

  “You can take off your ’wear,” said the facilitator. “Well done, all of you, even if you didn’t finish.”

  Nuri gave a little groan and complied, blinking at the sudden brightness of the hall. Around her, she reckoned, were about thirty or so of her fellow Chosen, so she didn’t feel too bad about not finishing. There was no way she was going to make it past the winnowing now. Who had she been fooling anyway?