Glow

by Amy Kathleen Ryan

  The cabin remained silent. No one seemed to expect anything to happen, so it was a bodily shock when a human voice found its way through Sarek’s com link.

  “Mayday, Mayday, Empyrean, if you receive this signal, please respond. This is Waverly Marshall. Mayday, Mayday, Empyrean, if you—”

  “What is that?…” Arthur said, breathless.

  Other boys cried out. One boy in the corner sank to his knees. Kieran could only stare at Sarek as a tremor worked its way from the ends of his fingers into the deepest part of him. Her voice.

  The message looped end on end, many times, before Kieran could remember how to speak. “Answer it,” he said.

  Sarek picked up his microphone, matched the frequency of the message, and said, “This is the Empyrean, Waverly, where are you?… Hello?”

  They crowded around Sarek’s com station as Waverly’s thin voice echoed in that endlessly repeating message. Kieran strained his ears toward it, searching for some clue about her. She sounded small and shaky but calm, determined. She sounded brave.

  “Sarek,” Kieran said desperately, “loop your message back at—”

  “Hello?”

  It was a young girl’s voice, frail and tentative.

  Kieran grabbed the microphone from Sarek. “Get Waverly.”

  “Who is this?” the girl asked.

  “Get Waverly!” Kieran yelled, but already another voice was coming through the microphone.

  “Kieran?”

  Kieran’s heart felt rubbery. He was hearing her. He was hearing Waverly.

  “Waverly, where are you?” Tears streamed down his face, but he didn’t care what the other boys thought of him. In that moment, all he wanted was Waverly. Right now.

  “I don’t know. But we can’t be too far away. There’s hardly any delay in the transmission.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, we’re fine. Are you okay?” Kieran thought he heard tearfulness in her voice, too.

  “We’re okay!”

  “Can you tell Captain Jones he needs to come find us?”

  “Isn’t Harvard there? Or my dad?” Kieran asked shakily.

  There was a pause, and Waverly’s voice changed, a strain of bitterness in her throat. “No adults, Kieran. Just us girls.”

  Several of the boys cried out. Peter Stroub punched the metal wall repeatedly.

  Kieran’s heart sank. But he gathered himself, muted the microphone he held, and said to the room at large, “Then the adults are in the shuttles, and when they emerge from the nebula, we’ll make contact with them, too.”

  A few boys nodded, but most of them only stared at the floor in despondency.

  “Please, Kieran, can you get Captain Jones?” Waverly asked. There was an edge of hysteria in her voice. “Or a pilot? Someone who knows how to find us?”

  “The Captain … isn’t here right now. Let’s get you guys on board and we can talk about all that stuff later, okay?”

  Arthur went to the radar display and flipped through the screens until he found one that was flashing a red message, “Object in Motion.” He pointed at a moving dot. “This has to be them. They’re in front of us, coming toward us.”

  “Can you plot a course to intercept?” Kieran asked Arthur, who looked doubtfully at the navigation equipment.

  “I can try.”

  Rage flared in Kieran, and he had to fight to control it before he said quietly, “Do your best.”

  It seemed like such a difficult thing, but Arthur found that with the stars clearly visible, the navigation program was able to plot an intercepting course automatically. Kieran felt a weird sensation in the pit of his stomach as the ship veered to the starboard side.

  “How long?”

  Arthur looked at the screen in front of him. “A few hours.”

  He couldn’t wait that long. He wished he could clear out all the boys from Central Command so that he could talk to her privately over the link, but that seemed unfair. “How are you, Waverly? Are you healthy?”

  “Yes, I’m healthy. I think we all are.”

  “Who’s there!” yelled Sarek.

  “All the girls except Felicity Wiggam, and … and … Samantha Stapleton.”

  “How did you get away?”

  She was silent for a long time before she finally said, “I don’t want to talk about it over the com, Kieran.”

  Something very bad had happened. He could hear it in her voice.

  “I want to talk to my sister!” Alfie Moore reached for Kieran’s headset, a scowl on his face.

  Kieran wanted to keep the headset and talk endlessly to Waverly, but she quickly said, “Kieran, there are lots of girls here who want to talk to their families.”

  Kieran felt hurt. Why didn’t she want to talk to him?

  Alfie pulled at the cord on Kieran’s headset. He let the boy have it and sat down in the Captain’s chair.

  Waiting was agony. He could not stand to talk to anyone. He ignored questions as the boys pestered him and sat stiff as a brick, his fist crammed against his forehead, his jaw clenched, eyelids wedged shut, until they finally let him alone. He kept imagining Waverly crashing the shuttle into the hull of the Empyrean. She’d never flown a real craft before. What if she died just when she was almost home?

  Soon the crackle of the intercom sounded, and Waverly’s voice pierced through the speakers.

  “I can see you! I can see the Empyrean!” Waverly squealed. “Oh, my God!”

  Kieran bolted upright.

  “Ten minutes,” Arthur said. His fingers flew over the keyboard in front of him, and Kieran felt the Empyrean’s speed drop dramatically. He felt light in his seat as he watched Arthur’s vid screen and the darting speck of Waverly’s shuttle, circling around to aim for the port shuttle bay.

  Kieran leapt from his chair and ran full speed through the corridors. He couldn’t make his feet move fast enough. He punched the elevator button and kicked at the door while he waited. “Come on come on!” he shouted through his teeth. Once in the elevator, he thought that if he could cut the cables to make the car move faster, he would.

  When he finally reached the shuttle bay, he found almost all the boys had gathered there and were staring at the air lock doors in quiet expectancy. Kieran ran to the com station and shouted, “Sarek, patch me in to shuttle communications.”

  “She turned off her headset,” Sarek said.

  “What!”

  “She said I was distracting her.”

  “How close are they?” Kieran asked.

  “I’ve just opened the outer doors.”

  Kieran could feel veins in his face pulsing. He stared at the doors, his lips stretched tight over his teeth, and he waited, every muscle in his body tense and pulsing.

  “Please,” he whispered once, under his breath.

  The room was silent. Tobin Ames chewed on his upper lip, his hands tucked into his armpits as though to keep his fingers warm. Jeremy Pinto squatted, rocking back and forth, heel to toe, as he stared at the doors.

  Suddenly the sickening whine of metal scraping against metal sounded through the shuttle bay, and Kieran’s heart froze. But then he heard the hydraulics slamming the outer doors closed and then the rhythmic pumping of air into the air lock.

  The inner air lock doors opened. The boys scattered to make room as the shuttle drifted inside and eased its way to the floor like a giant, awkward bird.

  It stood before them, silent and still, but then the ramp lowered and dozens of little-girl feet appeared, hesitant at first, but then more quickly, as the girls saw brothers, friends, boyfriends. Suddenly the room was filled with voices, crying, laughing, shrieking, or simply talking together as the girls fell into the arms of the waiting boys.

  Waverly was last. Kieran knew she would be.

  She looked so thin and pale. She walked with a limp. Her hair was stringy and matted and hung flat against her head. Her cheeks were sunken and her eyes were gaunt. Kieran walked up to meet her, put his arms around her, and
as she fell against him, he lifted her off her feet and carried her down the ramp.

  “I can walk,” she said, the tip of her nose tucked into the cup of his ear.

  “I know,” he whispered back as he carried her across the bay and to the outer corridor.

  Once they were alone inside the elevator, Waverly wrapped her arms around Kieran’s neck as though fearful of being ripped away, and her body shook with sobs.

  She had not bathed in days, maybe weeks, but Kieran didn’t care.

  He wasn’t ever going to let her go.

  TOGETHER

  He pulled off her clothes and left her sitting naked on the edge of his bed while he ran a bath. The steam made a pattern on the mirror over the sink, and he ran his fingers in the hot water, watching her as she sat staring off, blinking her eyes as though she couldn’t believe where she was. Kieran dribbled essence of vanilla into her bath to make the steam fragrant, and then he went to get her.

  “Won’t the Captain be angry?” she asked, her voice small and vulnerable.

  Kieran knelt in front of her. Muscles twitched at the corners of her mouth, and she searched his face, seeming to hesitate between the need to understand and the fear of knowing.

  “No,” he finally said, as gently as he could. He waited to see if she asked another question, but she didn’t. He took hold of her thin arm and lifted, gently, until she wobbled to her feet, and he led her to the bath.

  As she lowered herself into the water, Kieran saw the scar on her leg. It was a jagged, angry red slash that seemed to dig at a hole in the muscle underneath. There was an ugly scab on her shoulder the size of his thumb, black and glistening. When she sat down, he saw the scars on her abdomen, one in the middle near the belly button and two lower down, just near her hip bones. They looked like surgical scars.

  “What did they do to you?”

  She looked at him with desolate eyes. “Everything.”

  He didn’t want to know any more right now. He picked up a sponge and drizzled castile soap onto it, squeezing until it lathered into a fragrant foam.

  He rubbed the sponge over her back, along the curve of her neck, down her thin arms, along the crevice of her armpits. With his thumbs he smoothed the skin between her vertebrae, he kneaded the muscles on her shoulders, he rubbed at the nape of her neck. Slowly he guided her back until she leaned into the bath, and he watched the water invade her hair, soaking it in rivulets that hovered between the curled strands on her brow. He poured soap into her hair, and he rubbed at her scalp, feeling the thick, ropy tendons of her hair between his fingers, committing this moment to memory. He never wanted to forget what she looked like in the water, lying back, trusting him.

  Next he ran the sponge down her rib cage, and with his fingers he pressed at the flesh between her ribs gently until he heard her sigh. He ran the sponge along her belly, across the small scars, and then down her legs to her feet, where he worked at the spaces between her toes with his fingers and then pushed his thumbs into the arches of her feet until she sighed again.

  When her eyelids drooped over her eyes, Kieran helped her stand so that he could enfold her in a cotton blanket. He guided her to the Captain’s bed, where she sank gratefully. She rested her head on his pillow and fell asleep immediately.

  He watched her in the dim lamplight, worrying over her, listening for each and every breath that escaped her lips. She was so lovely, so soft, still his Waverly, but changed. She seemed weary and disturbed. There was a fierceness to her sleep, and she turned over once, crying softly, “Mom … Mom.” But then she was still again.

  His stomach rumbled, and he realized he hadn’t eaten all day, but he couldn’t leave her. He was irrationally afraid that if he got up to go to the kitchen for some bread and fruit, when he came back she’d be gone, that he’d have dreamed all of this. So he waited, watching her, listening to her breathing, seated in his chair all night long.

  When finally she woke, Kieran started from a shallow doze and opened his eyes to find her sitting up in bed, hugging her knees to her chest, looking around the room. He rubbed at the sleep in his eyes.

  “So the Captain is gone,” she said, her voice low, reminding him again of how he loved hearing her speak.

  “That’s right.”

  “What about your parents? Are they here?”

  Kieran shook his head.

  Waverly watched him, her mind working behind her eyes, reading him, remembering. “There were no adults in the shuttle bay when we got here.”

  “That’s right.” It was painful letting her work her way toward the truth. Telling her directly would be worse, so Kieran waited for her to get there.

  “There are no adults aboard, are there, Kieran?” she finally said, the corners of her deep pink lips turned downward. Her hand was in her hair, holding up her head, and he longed to cross the room and touch her hair, too, stroke it.

  “There were only a few left behind, but there was a reactor leak, and they’re all very sick. Those that weren’t killed in the attack left to go after you guys.”

  She nodded slowly. She was so far away from him, and he was scared.

  “What happened to you, Waverly?”

  She lay back down on the bed, her eyes empty. “Is there anything to eat?”

  “I’ll be right back,” Kieran said. “Please don’t go anywhere, okay?”

  She nodded but turned away as he opened the door and left the room.

  Kieran ran through the corridors. The ship was eerily quiet, and Kieran guessed that all the boys were talking with their sisters, girlfriends, friends, catching up, learning awful truths. In the kitchen he grabbed a loaf of yesterday’s bread, a slab of goat cheese, some apricots and plums, and some cold chicken breast seasoned with sage and rosemary, Waverly’s favorites. He poured a small bowl of precious olive oil because he remembered Waverly liked to dip her bread in it.

  He put everything into a basket and ran back to the Captain’s quarters, where he found Waverly sitting at his desk, leafing through a portable reader, a scowl on her face. She was wearing his pants, which hung on her hips enticingly, and a thin hemp shirt of his that seemed to swallow her up. But now that she’d gotten out of bed, she looked more like herself. And he was heartened by the determined look on her face.

  “Here,” he said, and put the food in front of her. She tore the loaf in half and handed him the larger piece.

  “So I guess you’re the new Captain?” she said, one eyebrow raised.

  “Who else?”

  “No, it’s logical. It’s good. You’ll be good,” she said absently. She dipped a mouthful of bread into the olive oil and put it into her mouth, closed her eyes, savoring it.

  He sat down across from her, studying her. She seemed utterly traumatized, and he knew that she needed to talk. Maybe she would if he talked first.

  As she ate, he told her about losing contact with the shuttles, the reactor leak, and rescuing the parents with Seth. He told her how Seth betrayed and imprisoned him.

  “I can’t believe Seth did that.” Waverly bit her lip. “It doesn’t sound like him.”

  “Believe it, Waverly,” Kieran said, and he watched her face as she tried to take this in. “His dad died. I think that sent him over the edge.”

  He told her about how Seth had starved him and how he’d ultimately gotten a trial, which led to Seth’s overthrow, and that ever since he’d been learning how to be a leader. He almost told her about the services, which were his greatest achievement, but he wanted to surprise her. Besides, he couldn’t wait anymore.

  “Tell me what happened since you left, Waverly. Can’t you tell me?” Kieran put down the bread, though he was ravenous. He couldn’t eat until he understood what had happened to her and the rest of the girls. He needed to know everything.

  She nodded, seeming to accept there was no avoiding it.

  They talked for hours. She spoke of a woman named Amanda and the strange customs on the New Horizon. She told him about how she got that horrible s
car on the back of her thigh and why there were puncture marks on her abdomen. He learned that she was going to be the mother of more than a dozen babies on the New Horizon, and he was horrified. The last thing she told him was the worst, though. She had left behind all the adults on the New Horizon, and now they were trapped.

  “Did you see my mom or dad?” Kieran asked, frantic.

  “No, Kieran. I could only see my mom. We had no time to talk at all. I have no idea who else was with her.”

  “You didn’t ask about my parents?” Kieran demanded. He felt his face grow cold.

  Waverly’s features seemed to wilt, but her voice was strong when she spoke. “There’s a civil war going on right now, Kieran. I think if the opposition wins, they’ll let them out. They’ll be able to come back soon.”

  “But what if they don’t win? I can’t believe you left them behind!”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Waverly’s dark eyes rested on his face like heated stones. “They were shooting at me, Kieran. They would have killed me.”

  She watched him angrily, but her face seemed to dissolve before his eyes, and she dropped her head into her hands. “I should have tried harder.”

  “I’m sorry.” Kieran rushed to her side. He wrapped her in his arms. “Waverly, you did everything anybody could have done. You had to get the girls out of there.”

  She broke into sobs, leaned against him. Words escaped her like spikes. “I didn’t want to go. Mom made me. She said they’d get out. Kieran, what if they don’t? It’ll be my fault!”

  “You’re a hero,” he told her with absolute conviction. He realized again that this was the astounding woman he was meant to spend the rest of his life with.

  He took her face, wet with tears, between his hands, and he looked into her eyes. “Don’t blame yourself! Do you hear me? None of it was your fault. You saved the girls.”

  “Not all of them,” she whispered. She hid her face in his shirt and spoke with such a small voice, Kieran could hardly hear her. He realized that she didn’t really want to be heard as she told him about Samantha. How she’d been shot by a guard, how she’d crumpled into lifelessness before Waverly’s eyes.