To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

by Christopher Paolini

  “No one is these days,” Falconi said gently.

  “I know, but this was from—” She checked the date on the file. “Almost two months ago. Two months. The Jellies hit Highstone with orbital bombardment about a month ago, and—and I don’t even know if they’re…” She trailed off. The surface of her arms prickled with tiny points as the Soft Blade mirrored her emotions. A tear fell onto her left forearm and was quickly absorbed by the fibers.

  Falconi knelt next to her. “Is there anything I can do?”

  Surprised, she considered for a moment. “No, but … thank you. Only thing you or I or anyone can do to help is find a way to end this damn war.”

  “That would certainly be nice.”

  She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “What about your family? Have you—”

  A flicker of pain darkened his eyes. “No, and they’re too far away to just call. I don’t know if they’d want to hear from me anyway.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Kira. “Not for sure. Look at what’s happening out there. We’re facing what could be the end of everything. You should touch base with your parents. If not now, when?”

  Falconi was silent for a while, and then he patted her on the shoulder and stood. “I’ll think about it.”

  It wasn’t much, but Kira didn’t think she could expect anything more from him. She got to her feet as well and said, “I’m going to my cabin. I want to answer them before we arrive at Orsted.”

  Falconi grunted, already lost in examination of the holo. “I wouldn’t count on the League letting you get a message out. Them or the Jellies. Bet you a bucket of bits Weyland is jammed up as bad as the toilet we had in the hold.”

  A moment of uncertainty shook Kira’s confidence. Then, accepting the situation as it was, she steadied herself and said, “Doesn’t matter. I have to try, you know?”

  “Family is that important to you, huh?”

  “Of course. Isn’t it to you?”

  He didn’t answer, but she saw the muscles in his shoulders bunch and tense.

  4.

  Seven hours.

  They passed faster than Kira expected. She recorded her response to her family—she told them what had happened at Bughunt, although as with Hawes, she avoided mentioning her role in creating the Maw—and she even showed them a little of what the Soft Blade was capable of by holding up her hand and forming the blossom of a Midnight Constellation from her palm. She hoped that would make her father smile. Most of what she said were general well-wishes and exhortations for them to stay safe, and she ended with, “Hopefully you get this in the next week or so. I don’t know what the League is going to have me doing, but I’m guessing they won’t let me communicate with you for a while.… Whatever’s happening there on Weyland, just hold on. We have a chance for peace with the Jellies, and I’m going to be working to make it happen as fast as possible. So don’t give up, you hear me? Don’t give up.… Love you all. Bye.”

  Afterward, Kira took a few minutes for herself in the dark of her cabin, eyes closed, lights off, while she allowed her breathing to slow and body to cool.

  Then she gathered herself and returned to Control. Vishal was there, talking in low tones with Falconi and Sparrow. The doctor stood bending at the neck to be closer to their heights.

  “—that’s too bad, Doc,” said Falconi. “Seriously. If you need to bail on us, I’d understand. We could pick up another—”

  Vishal was already shaking his head. “No, that will not be necessary, Captain, although I thank you. My uncle said he will let me know as soon as they find out.”

  Sparrow startled him with a slap on the shoulder. “You know we’ve got your back, Doc. Anything I can do to help, you just say the word, and”—she made a whistling sound—“wsipp, I’m there.”

  At first Vishal appeared offended by her familiarity, but then his posture softened and he said, “I appreciate that, Ms. Sparrow. Most truly I do.”

  As Kira took her seat, she gave Falconi an inquiring glance.

 

 

 

  As Vishal moved over to his crash chair near her own, Kira said, “Falconi just told me. I’m so sorry. That’s horrible.”

  Vishal lowered himself into the chair. A dark frown furrowed his brow, but his voice remained gentle as he said, “Thank you for your kindness, Ms. Kira. I’m sure everything will be fine, God willing.”

  Kira hoped he was right.

  She switched to her overlays and pulled up the feed from the Wallfish’s rear-facing cameras so she could watch their approach to the banded mass of Jupiter and the tiny, speckled disk that was Ganymede.

  The sight of Jupiter in all its orange-colored glory reminded her with painful strength of Zeus hanging in the sky of Adrasteia. No wonder: the similarities had been the reason the original survey team had given Zeus its name.

  Ganymede, by comparison, seemed so small as to be inconsequential, even though—as Kira’s overlays informed her—it was the largest moon in the system, larger even than the planet Mercury.

  As for their destination, Orsted Station, it was a fleck of dust floating high above the battered surface of Ganymede. Several sparkling motes, smaller still, accompanied it on its orbit, each mote marking the position of one of the many transports, cargo haulers, and drones clustered around the station.

  Kira shivered. She couldn’t help it. No matter how often she thought she understood the immensity of space, something would happen to drive home the fact that no, she really didn’t. The human brain was physically incapable of grasping the distances and scales involved. At least unaltered humans were. Maybe ship minds were different. All that empty vastness, and nothing humans had built (or would ever build) could compare.

  She shook herself and returned her gaze to the station. Even the most experienced spacers could go mad if they stared into the void long enough.

  It had always been a goal of Kira’s to visit Sol and, most particularly, Earth, that great treasure trove of biology. But she had never imagined that her visit would occur as it was: harried and hurried and in the shadow of war.

  Still, the sight of Jupiter filled her with a sense of wonder, and she wished Alan was there to share the experience with her. They’d talked about it a few times: making enough money so they could afford to vacation in Sol. Or else getting a research grant that would allow them to travel to the system on the company dime. It had been nothing more than wishful thinking, though. Idle speculations on a possible future.

  Kira forced her thoughts elsewhere.

  “Everything shipshape?” Falconi asked when Nielsen came floating through the doorway a few minutes later.

  “Shipshape as can be,” said Nielsen. “We shouldn’t have any problems with inspectors.”

  “Aside from Itari,” said Kira.

  The first officer smiled with a dry expression. “Yes, well, at least they can’t blame us for breaking quarantine. There hasn’t been proper biocontainment with the Jellies since day one.” Then she went and sat in the crash chair on the other side of Vishal.

  Sparrow made a disgusted noise and looked over at Nielsen. “You see what the Stellarists are up to?”

  “Mmm. No worse than the Expansion or Conservation Parties. They’d do the same if they were in charge.”

  Sparrow shook her head. “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. The Premier is using this whole state of emergency thing to really clamp down on the colonies.”

  “Ugh,” said Kira. Why was she not surprised? The Stellarists were always putting Sol first. Understandable to a point, but it didn’t mean she had to like it.

  Nielsen assumed a pleasantly blank face. “That’s a rather extreme point of view, Sparrow.”

  “Just you watch,” the short-haired woman said. “After this whole mess is over, if there even
is an after, you won’t be able to so much as spit without getting permission from Earth Central. Guarantee it.”

  “You’re overst—”

  “What am I saying? You’re from Venus. Of course you’re going to back Earth, just like everyone else who grew up with their heads in the clouds.”

  A frown settled on Nielsen’s face, and she started to answer when Falconi said, “Enough with the politics. Save it for when we’ve got enough drink to make it tolerable.”

  “Yessir,” said Sparrow in a surly voice.

  Kira returned her attention to her overlays. She never could keep track of the finer points of interstellar politics. Too many moving parts. But she did know she didn’t like the Stellarists (and most politicians, for that matter).

  As she watched, Orsted swelled in size until it dominated the aft view. The station looked heavy and brutal, like a gothic gyroscope, dark of hue and sharp of edge. The stationary shield ring appeared undamaged, but the rotating hab-ring mated to it had several large rents along one quadrant, as if a monster had raked Orsted with its claws. Explosive decompression had peeled the hull back along the edges of the holes, turning the plating into lines of jagged petals. Between the petals, rooms were visible, white and glittery with a layer of frost.

  The top face of Orsted’s central hub (where top meant pointing away from Ganymede) was a bristle of antennas, dishes, telescopes, and weapons, standing motionless on their frictionless bearings. Most of the equipment appeared broken or slagged. Fortunately, the attacks didn’t seem to have penetrated to the fusion reactor buried within the core of the hub.

  The spindly, cross-braced truss that extended for several hundred meters from the bottom face of Orsted’s hub appeared intact, but many of the transparent radiators that fringed it had holes punched through them or had been shattered, reducing them to knifelike shards that dribbled molten metal from their severed veins. Dozens of service bots were flitting about the damaged radiators, working to stanch the loss of coolant.

  The auxiliary communications and defense array mounted at the far end of the truss appeared scorched and mangled. Through some incredible stroke of luck, the containment chamber in the Markov generator (which powered the station’s FTL sensors) hadn’t been breached. The generator only held a minuscule amount of antimatter at any given time, but if it had lost containment, the whole array (and a good part of the truss) would have been annihilated.

  Four UMC cruisers hung off the port side of the station, a visible demonstration of the League’s military power.

  “Thule,” said Sparrow, taking a seat. “They really got the shit beaten out of them.”

  “Ever been to Orsted before?” Kira asked.

  Sparrow licked her lips. “Once. On leave. Wouldn’t care to repeat the experience.”

  “Better strap in,” said Falconi from across Control.

  “Yessir.”

  They secured themselves, and then the burn ended. Kira made a face at the return to zero-g. The Wallfish performed one last skewflip (so it was flying nose-first toward the station), and Gregorovich said, “ETA, fourteen minutes.”

  Kira tried to empty her mind.

  Hwa-jung joined them soon after, pulling herself into Control with the grace of a ballet dancer. An expression of disgust marred her face, and she seemed more surly than usual.

  “How are Runcible and Mr. Fuzzypants?” Falconi asked.

  The machine boss grimaced. “That cat had another accident. Yuck. There was poop everywhere. If I ever buy a ship myself, I won’t have a cat. Pigs are okay. Not cats.”

  “Thanks for cleaning up.”

  “Mmh. I deserve hazard pay.”

  For a time they were silent. Then Sparrow said, “You know, speaking of biocontainment, they really shouldn’t have been so angry with us on Ruslan.”

  “Why’s that?” Nielsen asked.

  “All those escaped animals were a great source of newtrition.”

  Kira groaned along with everyone else, but it was a token protest. Most of them, she thought, were just sorry Trig wasn’t there to make his usual jokes.

  “Thule be saving us from puns,” said Vishal.

  “Could be worse,” said Falconi.

  “Yeah? How?”

  “She could be a mime.”

  Sparrow threw a glove at him, and the captain laughed.

  5.

  Kira’s stomach tightened as the Wallfish slowed and, with a faint shudder, coupled with their assigned docking port in Orsted’s shield ring.

  After a few seconds, the all-clear sounded.

  “Alright, listen up,” said Falconi, pulling off his harness. “Captain Akawe arranged pardons for us—” He gave Kira a look from under his brow. “All us miscreants, that is. The League should have them on file, but that doesn’t mean you should go making fools of yourself. No one say nothing until we have representation and we’re clear on the situation. That goes double for you, Gregorovich.”

  “As you say, Captain O my Captain,” the ship mind responded.

  Falconi grunted. “And don’t go blabbing about the Jelly neither. Kira and I will take care of that.”

  “Won’t Hawes and his men have already told the UMC?” Kira asked.

  A grim little smile from Falconi. “I’m sure they would have if I’d given them comms access. But I haven’t.”

  “Hawes is fighting mad about it too,” Nielsen said.

  Falconi kicked his way over to the pressure door. “Doesn’t matter. We’re going to talk with the UMC straightaway, and it’s going to take them some time to debrief our friendly neighborhood Marines.”

  “Do we all have to go?” said Hwa-jung. “The Wallfish still needs maintenance after that jump.”

  Falconi gestured toward the door. “You’ll have plenty of time to deal with the ship later, Hwa-jung. I promise. And yes, we all have to go.” Sparrow groaned, and Vishal rolled his eyes. “The liaison officer on Orsted specifically asked for everyone on the ship. I think they’re not sure what to make of us yet. They mentioned having to check for orders with Earth Central. Besides, we’re not letting Kira walk in there alone.”

  “… Thanks,” she said, and she meant it.

  “Of course. Wouldn’t let any of my crew go off by themselves.” Falconi grinned, and though it was a hard, dangerous grin, Kira found it reassuring. “If they don’t treat you right, we’ll kick up a ruckus until they do. Rest of you, you know the drill. Eyes peeled and mouths shut. Remember, this isn’t shore leave.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Of course, Captain.”

  Hwa-jung nodded.

  Falconi slapped the bulkhead. “Gregorovich, keep the ship on standby, case we have to leave in a hurry. And full monitoring of our overlays until we’re back.”

  “Of course,” said Gregorovich in a warbling tone. “I shall keep an ever-so-close watch upon the feeds from your peepers. Such delightful snooping. Such scrumptious snooping.”

  Kira snorted. Their long sleep certainly hadn’t changed him.

  “Are you expecting trouble?” asked Nielsen as they left Control.

  “No,” said Falconi. “But better safe than sorry.”

  “Second that,” said Sparrow.

  With Falconi at the lead, they went to the central shaft of the Wallfish and pulled themselves along the ladder until they reached the airlock mounted in the nose of the ship. The Entropists joined them there, the Questants’ robes billowing in free fall, like wind-blown sails. They dipped their heads and murmured, “Captain” as they slowed to a stop.

  “Welcome to the party,” said Falconi.

  The airlock was crowded with all nine of them crammed in—especially with Hwa-jung taking up nearly as much space as three of them combined—but with some pushing and shoving, they managed to fit.

  The airlock cycled with the usual assortment of clicks and hisses and other unidentifiable sounds. And when the outer door rolled open, Kira saw a loading dock identical to the one she’d ar
rived at on Vyyborg over a year ago. It gave her a strange feeling, not quite déjà vu, not quite nostalgia. What had once been familiar, even friendly, now seemed cold, stark, and—though she knew it was just nerves—out of joint.

  A small spherical drone was waiting for them, floating just to the left of the airlock. The yellow light next to its camera was on, and from a speaker came a man’s voice: “This way, please.”

  With puffs of compressed air, the drone turned and jetted away toward the pressure door at the other end of the long, metal-clad room.

  “Guess we follow,” said Falconi.

  “Guess so,” said Nielsen.

  “Don’t they realize we’re in a hurry?” said Kira.

  Sparrow clucked her tongue. “You should know better, Navárez. You can’t rush a bureaucracy. There’s time, and then there’s military time. Hurry up and wait is standard operating procedure.”

  Then Falconi launched himself off the lip of the airlock toward the pressure door. He spiraled slowly through the air, one arm above his head to catch himself when he landed.

  “Show-off,” said Nielsen as she crawled out of the airlock and grabbed the handholds in the nearby wall.

  One by one, they left the Wallfish and crossed the loading dock, with its gimbaled waldos and grooved strips for holding cargo containers in place. As they did, Kira knew that lasers and magnets and other pieces of equipment were checking their ID, scanning them for explosives and other weapons, looking for traces of contraband, and so on. It made her skin crawl, but there was nothing she could do about it.

  For a second she considered allowing the mask to cover her face … but then she dismissed the urge.

  She wasn’t going into battle, after all.

  Past the pressure door, the drone zipped into the wide hallway beyond. It was at least seven meters across, and after so long spent on the Wallfish, the amount of space seemed enormous.

  All the doors along the hallway were closed and locked, and aside from themselves, not one person was to be seen. Not there and not around the corners of the first dogleg. Nor the second.

  “Some welcoming committee,” Falconi said dryly.