To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

by Christopher Paolini

  When dinner was over, and people were dispersing, she contrived to get a moment alone with Falconi by the sink. “Is Nielsen alright?” she asked in a low tone.

  His hesitation confirmed her suspicions. “It’s nothing. She’ll be fine tomorrow.”

  “Really.” Kira gave him a look.

  “Really.”

  She wasn’t convinced. “Do you think she’d like it if I brought her some tea?”

  “That’s probably not a good id—” Falconi stopped himself as he dried off a plate. “You know what? I take it back. I think Audrey would appreciate the gesture.” He reached up into a cupboard and removed a packet. “This is the stuff she likes. Ginger.”

  For a moment Kira wondered if he was setting her up. Then she decided it didn’t matter.

  Upon fixing the tea, she followed Falconi’s directions to Nielsen’s cabin, trying to keep the liquid from sloshing too much in the two safety cups she carried.

  She knocked, and when there was no response, knocked again and said, “Ms. Nielsen? It’s me, Kira.”

  “… Go away.” The first officer’s voice was strained.

  “I brought you some ginger tea.”

  After a few seconds, the door creaked open to reveal Nielsen standing in burgundy pajamas and a pair of matching slippers. Her normally immaculate hair was tied back in a shoddy bun, dark rings surrounded her eyes, and her skin was pale and bloodless even beneath her spacer’s tan.

  “See?” said Kira, and held out a cup. “As promised. I thought you might like something hot to drink.”

  Nielsen stared at the cup as if it were a foreign artifact. Then her expression eased, if only slightly, and she accepted it and moved aside. “Guess you’d better come in.”

  The interior of her cabin was clean and tidy. The only personal effect was a holo on the desk—three children (two boys and a girl) in their early teens. On the walls, overlays created the illusion of oval, brass-framed windows looking out upon a vista of endless clouds: orange, brown, and pale cream.

  Kira sat on the lone chair while Nielsen sat on the bed. “I don’t know if you like honey, but…” Kira held out a small packet. The movement of the clouds kept catching her eyes, distracting her.

  “I do, actually.”

  While Nielsen stirred the honey into the tea, Kira studied her. She’d never seen the first officer so frail before. “If you want, I can get you some food from the galley. It won’t take more than—”

  Nielsen shook her head. “I wouldn’t be able to keep it down.”

  “Bad reaction to the cryo, huh?”

  “You could say that,” said Nielsen.

  “Can I get you something else? Maybe from the doctor?”

  Nielsen took a sip. “That’s very thoughtful, but no. I just need a good sleep, and I’ll be—” Her breath hitched, and a spasm of pain knotted her face. She bent forward, putting her head between her knees, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

  Alarmed, Kira darted to her side, but Nielsen held up a hand and Kira stopped, uncertain what to do.

  She was just about to call for Vishal when Nielsen straightened. Her eyes were watery, and her expression was tight. “Dammit,” she said in an undertone. Then, louder: “It’s okay. I’m fine.”

  “Like hell you are,” said Kira. “You couldn’t even move. That’s more than just cryo sickness.”

  “Yes.” Nielsen leaned back against the wall behind the bed.

  “What is it? Cramps?” Kira couldn’t imagine why the other woman would have her periods turned on, but if she did …

  Nielsen uttered a short laugh. “I wish.” She blew on her tea and took a long drink.

  Still on edge, Kira returned to the chair and studied the other woman. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Not particularly.”

  An uncomfortable silence developed between them. Kira took a drink of her own tea. She wanted to press Nielsen harder, but she knew it would be a mistake. “Have you seen all the stuff we’ve found in the system? It’s amazing. We’ll be studying it for centuries.”

  “As long as we don’t get wiped out.”

  “There is that small detail.”

  Nielsen peered at Kira over the top of her cup, eyes sharp and feverish. “Do you know why I agreed to this trip? I could have fought Falconi on it. If I’d tried hard enough, I could have even convinced him to refuse Akawe’s offer. He listens to me when it comes to things like this.”

  “No, I don’t know,” said Kira. “Why?”

  The first officer pointed at the holo of the kids on the desk. “Because of them.”

  “Is that you and your brothers?”

  “No. They’re my children.”

  “I didn’t know you had a family,” said Kira, surprised.

  “Grandchildren, even.”

  “You’re joking! Really?”

  Nielsen smiled a little. “I’m quite a bit older than I look.”

  “I never would have guessed you’d had STEM shots.”

  “You mean my nose and ears?” Nielsen touched them. “I had them fixed about ten years ago. It was the thing to do where I lived.” She looked out the window overlaid on the wall, and her gaze grew distant, as if she saw something other than the clouds of Venus. “Coming here to Bughunt was the only thing I could do to help protect my family. That’s why I agreed to it. I just wish … Well, it doesn’t matter now.”

  “What doesn’t?” said Kira, gentle.

  A sadness settled over Nielsen, and she sighed. “I just wish I could have talked with them before we left. Who knows what it’s going to be like when we get back.”

  Kira understood. “Do they live at Sol?”

  “Yes. Venus and Mars.” Nielsen picked at a spot on her palm. “My daughter is still on Venus. You might have seen, the Jellies attacked there a while back. Fortunately it wasn’t close to her, but…”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Yann.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be fine. Of all the places they could be, Sol is probably the safest.”

  Nielsen gave her a don’t bullshit me look. “You saw what happened on Earth. I don’t think anywhere is safe these days.”

  In an attempt to distract her, Kira said, “So how did you end up on the Wallfish, then—so far away from your family?”

  Nielsen studied the reflections in her cup. “Lots of reasons.… The publishing company I worked for declared bankruptcy. New management restructured, fired half the staff, canceled our pensions.” Nielsen shook her head. “Twenty-eight years spent working for them, all gone. The pension was bad enough, but I lost my health coverage, which was a problem given my, ah, particular challenges.”

  “But isn’t—”

  “Of course. Basic access is guaranteed, as long as you’re a citizen in good standing. Even sometimes if you’re not. But basic coverage isn’t what I needed.” Nielsen glanced at Kira from the corner of her eyes. “And now you’re wondering just how sick I am and whether it’s contagious.”

  Kira raised an eyebrow. “Well, I assume Falconi wouldn’t have let you on board if you were carrying some deadly, flesh-eating bacteria.”

  The other woman nearly laughed, and then she pressed a hand against her chest and made a pained face. “It’s not that dire. At least not for anyone else.”

  “Are you—I mean, is it terminal?”

  “Life is terminal,” said Nielsen dryly. “Even with STEM shots. Entropy always wins in the end.”

  Kira raised her cup. “To the Entropists, then. May they find a way to reverse the time-ordered decay of all things.”

  “Hear, hear.” And Nielsen clinked cups with her. “Although, I can’t say the prospect of life unending appeals to me.”

  “No. It would be nice to have some choice in the matter.”

  After another sip and another pause, Nielsen said, “My … condition was a gift from my parents, believe it or not.”

  “How so?”

  The first officer rubbed her face, and the true de
pths of her exhaustion became evident. “They were trying to do the right thing. People always are. They just forget the old adage regarding the problem with good intentions and the road to Hell.”

  “That’s a rather cynical view.”

  “I’m in a rather cynical mood.” Nielsen straightened her legs out on the bed. It seemed to hurt. “Before I was born, the laws on gene-hacking weren’t as strict as they are now. My parents wanted to give their child—me—every possible advantage. What parent wouldn’t?”

  Kira instantly grasped the problem. “Oh no.”

  “Oh yes. So they packed me full of every known gene sequence for intelligence, including a few artificial ones that had just been developed.”

  “Did it work?”

  “I’ve never needed to use a calculator, if that’s what you mean. There were unintended side effects, though. The doctors aren’t quite sure what happened, but some part of the alterations triggered my immune system—set it off like a pressure alarm in a dome that’s been ripped open.” Nielsen’s expression became sardonic. “So I can calculate how fast the air is rushing out without having to check my math, but there’s nothing I can do to keep myself from asphyxiating. Metaphorically speaking.”

  “Nothing?” Kira said.

  Nielsen shook her head. “The doctors tried fixing the conflicts with retroviral treatments, but … they can only do so much. The genes changed tissue up here,” she tapped the side of her head. “Delete them, remove them, or even just edit them and it could kill me or mess with my memories or my personality.” Her lips twisted. “Life is full of little ironies like that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It happens. I’m not the only one, although most of the others didn’t make it past thirty. As long as I take my pills, it isn’t too bad, but some days—” Nielsen winced. “Some days, the pills don’t do much of anything.” She picked up her pillow and wedged it behind her back. Her tone was bitter as arsenic: “When your body isn’t your own, it’s worse than any prison.” Her eyes flicked toward Kira. “You know.”

  She did know, and she also knew dwelling on it wouldn’t help. “So what happened after you got laid off?”

  Nielsen drained the last of her tea in a single gulp. She put the empty cup on the edge of the desk. “The bills started piling up, and … well, my husband, Sarros, left. I don’t blame him, not really, but there I was, having to start all over again at sixty-three.…” Her laugh could have cut glass. “I don’t recommend it.”

  Kira made a sympathetic noise, and the first officer said: “I couldn’t find a job that suited me on Venus, so I left.”

  “Just like that?”

  The steel inside Nielsen came to the fore again. “Exactly like that. I spent some time moving around Sol, trying to find a steady position. Eventually I ended up at Harcourt Station, out by Titan, and that’s where I met Falconi and talked him into bringing me on as first officer.”

  “Now there’s a conversation I would have liked to hear,” said Kira.

  Nielsen chuckled. “I may have been a bit pushy. I practically had to force my way onto the Wallfish. The ship was a bit of a mess when I arrived; it needed organizing and scheduling, and those have always been my strong points.”

  Kira toyed with the extra packet of honey she’d brought. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “It’s a little late to be asking for permission, don’t you think?”

  “About Falconi.”

  Nielsen’s expression grew more guarded. “Go ahead.”

  “What’s the story behind those scars on his arms? Why didn’t he get them fixed?”

  “Ah.” Nielsen shifted her legs, trying to find a more comfortable position. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

  “I wasn’t sure if it was a sensitive subject.”

  Nielsen stared at her with an overly direct gaze. Her eyes, Kira noticed for the first time, had flecks of green in them. “If Falconi feels like telling you, he will. Either way, it’s not really my story to share. I’m sure you understand.”

  Kira didn’t press the issue, but Nielsen’s reticence only increased her curiosity.

  After that, they spent a pleasant half hour chatting about the intricacies of living and working on Venus. To Kira, the planet seemed beautiful and exotic and dangerous in an alluring way. Nielsen’s time in the publishing industry there had been so different from Kira’s profession, it made her consider the vast array of personal experiences that existed throughout the League.

  At last, when Kira’s cup was empty and Nielsen seemed in relatively good cheer, Kira stood to leave. The first officer caught her by the wrist.

  “Thank you for the tea. It was very nice of you. I mean it.”

  The praise warmed Kira’s heart. “Any time. It was my pleasure.”

  Nielsen smiled then—a genuine smile—and Kira smiled in return.

  4.

  Back in her own cabin, Kira paused in front of the mirror by the sink. The dim, ship-night lighting cast heavy shadows across her face, which made the kink in her nose stand out in high relief.

  She felt the crooked flesh; it would be easy to fix. A hard jerk would return it to normal, and then the Soft Blade would heal her face the way it should have the first time.

  But she didn’t want that, and now she understood why. The xeno had erased every mark on her body, every bump and line and freckle and odd bit of jiggle. It had removed the physical record of her life and replaced it with the meaningless coating of fibers that retained no stamp of experience. So much it had taken from her, she didn’t want to lose more.

  Keeping a crooked nose was her choice, her way of reshaping the flesh they shared. It also served as a reminder of past sins, ones she was determined not to repeat.

  Flush with that determination, as well as a surfeit of images from the system they’d arrived at, Kira threw herself down and—even after three months of mostly hibernating—fell asleep.

  She and her joined flesh—not a grasper but a giver—walked as witness behind the Highmost among the field of ill-shaped growths: cancerous intentions that bore poisonous fruit. And the Highmost raised the Staff of Blue and said a single, cutting word: “No.”

  Down the staff then came, struck the heaving earth. A circle of grey expanded about the Highmost as each mutated cell tore itself apart. The stench of death and putrefaction smothered the field, and sorrow bent the Highmost.

  An earlier fracture: one of her siblings stood before the assembled Heptarchy in their high-arched presence chamber. The Highmost descended to the patterned floor and touched the Staff of Blue to the blood-smeared brow of her sibling.

  “You are no longer worthy.”

  Then flesh parted from flesh as the other Soft Blade flowed away from the staff, fleeing its power and leaving the body of its bonded mate exposed, vulnerable. For there was no denying the Staff of Blue.

  Another disjunction, and she found herself standing beside the Highmost, upon the observation deck of an enormous starship. Before and below them hung a rocky planet, green and red with swarms of life. There was a wrongness to it, though—a feel of threat that made her wish she was elsewhere—as if the planet itself were malevolent.

  The Highmost raised the Staff of Blue once again. “Enough.” The staff angled forward, a flash of sapphire light sent shadows streaming, and the planet vanished.

  In the distance, well past the planet’s previous location, a patch of starlight twisted, and with it twisted her stomach. For she knew what the distortion heralded.…

  * * *

  Kira woke with a pounding heart. She stayed under the blankets for several minutes, reviewing the memories from the Soft Blade. Then she rolled upright and put a call through to both Falconi and Akawe.

  As soon as they answered, she said, “We have to find the Staff of Blue.” Then she told them of her dream.

  Falconi said, “If even only part of that is true—”

  “Then it’s even more important we keep the Jellies from getting th
eir tentacles on this tech,” said Akawe.

  The call ended, and Kira checked their location: still on course for planet e. It needs a better name, she thought. At the current distance, and without magnification, the planet was still just a gleaming dot in the ship’s cameras, no different from the other, nearby dots that marked the rest of the system’s closely packed planets.

  During the night, the ship minds had found even more structures scattered about Bughunt. The system had clearly been a base for long-term settlement. Kira glanced over the newest discoveries but saw nothing immediately revelatory, so she put them aside for later study.

  Then she checked her messages. There were two waiting for her. The first—as she’d half expected—was from Gregorovich:

  The dust from your alien companion is clogging my filters again, meatbag. – Gregorovich

  She replied:

  Apologies. I didn’t have time to clean yesterday. I’ll see what I can do. – Kira

  No matter; you’ll likely just make a mess of it. Leave your door unlocked, and I shall send one of my tricksy little service bots to sweep up your leavings. Would you like your sheets turned down as well? Y/N – Gregorovich

  … No thank you. I can manage just fine myself. – Kira

  As you wish, meatbag. – Gregorovich

  The other message was from Sparrow:

  Let’s do this. Cargo hold; I’ll be waiting. – Sparrow

  Kira ran a hand over the back of her head. She’d been expecting to hear from Sparrow. Whatever the woman had in store for her, it wasn’t going to be easy, but Kira was okay with that. She was curious to find out if her efforts with the Soft Blade were going to pay off. If nothing else, interfacing with the xeno ought to be easier now that she was fully awake and properly fed.

  Kira fetched her morning chell from the galley and then headed down to the hold. The Marines were there, prepping their gear for the upcoming trip to the surface of planet e. The squad greeted her with nods and grunts and even a salute on the part of Sanchez. Whether it was their military augments or their natural constitutions, Kira didn’t know, but none of the men looked as drained from cryo as the crew of the Wallfish.