And All the Stars

by Andrea K Höst

  "Table for one?"

  Madeleine laughed, and then stopped because her laughter worked as well as the girl's smile. "I'm having to hold myself back from mugging you for your little pot of jam."

  "Ha." This time the smile worked, warm with wry edges. "I could tip you into the bay before you got so much as a spoonful. Sit down, I'll bring some more out."

  Hunger overrode any pretence of restraint, and Madeleine swallowed the remaining half-scone before the girl had taken two steps, then quickly emptied what was left of the little serving pot of jam and cream, running her finger around the interior to catch the last traces. The tea was sugarless, but Madeleine drank it anyway, and finished off the milk. Then she pulled off her backpack and sat down, embarrassed, staring at her sandals poking from beneath the hem of the green maxi-dress she'd liberated from Tyler's closet. Her toes glimmered back at her.

  "One Devonshire tea, special Blue serving," the girl said, putting down a tray holding a half-dozen scones, whipped cream, and a jar of plum jam. She picked up the teapot and left again, and by the time she was back, lugging a chair while balancing a tray, Madeleine had inhaled four still-warm scones and was spreading jam on the fifth.

  "Sorry." Madeleine had recovered enough to put down the jam and make room for a larger teapot and accompanying cups and milk. "Thanks."

  "No problem – it keeps hitting me like that. You've got to stay ahead of it." She surveyed Madeleine frankly, gaze lingering on her face and hands, and Madeleine, uncomfortable with the extent of her blueness, was glad she'd worn a long-sleeved shirt knotted over the dress. "I'm Noi."

  "Madeleine."

  They drank tea in silence. Madeleine, who constantly received report cards declaring "does not work well with others" and "does not participate in group activities", searched for the right thing to say. With a glance toward the restaurant, Nikosia, she tried: "Did you stay in there the entire time?"

  "No." Noi's voice dropped. "Once the stain started showing, everybody went home. I...there's no-one at my home now, so I came back to check on Niko."

  Madeleine awkwardly took another bite of scone, giving the girl time to take a few deep breaths. "Niko?"

  "My boss. I knew he lived alone, that no-one would be around to check on him." Her voice wavered again, then firmed, and a ghost of a smile emerged. "I've only been here a few months – first year of my apprenticeship – and he was a little tin-pot dictator who had me on prep and cleaning for forever. But he took me on, so I owed him for that, and, well. He was in his apartment."

  Madeleine didn't need to ask for details: television had fed her more than enough statistics. In the areas of heaviest dust exposure the first deaths had been recorded within twenty-four hours of the darkening of wrists, though for most the crisis point was after the two to three day point. Green stains were slower to regain strength, but so far had a much higher survival rate. Even among Greens it still took the very young, the sick and weak, the elderly – and a great many others who were none of these. Surviving Blues were rare. Noi had stayed at her home till everyone there died, and then returned to find this Niko dead as well. Making scones and drinking tea in the sun was a better response than Madeleine would likely have managed.

  "My parents haven't shown any signs yet," she said, glad and guilty to be able to say that. "They live at Leumeah, and had a little time to prepare."

  "That's southwest, right? Are you going to head out there?"

  "And risk letting in the dust – or infecting them if this is infectious?" Madeleine shook her head. "I'm borrowing my cousin's apartment. I'll stick there until–" She stopped, unsure what limit there was to 'until'. Tyler had sent her a text two days ago, letting her know he was still at Sydney Airport, no longer on the plane. Then, nothing.

  "Want to go look at it?"

  Noi was gazing up at the Spire, and Madeleine suddenly regretted not bringing her sketchpad, and then was overwhelmingly glad for that reaction. Since she'd woken she'd spent hours staring at Tyler's portrait, but had inexplicably lacked any urge to complete it. She'd thought she'd lost something, but with Noi her usual drive to capture people around her had revived.

  But Madeleine also wanted to see the Spire again up close, to compare skin to stone, so she finished off the last of the scones, and helped Noi put her table away and lock up. Noi had obviously been tidying earlier – Nikosia was the only restaurant where the outside tables had been cleared of dusted food. Then they started up the curving multi-flight stair to The Domain.

  Noi stopped abruptly, and Madeleine barely avoided running into her. Then she saw the reason: an ungainly tumble of school uniform and blue-patched limbs sprawled at the foot of the next flight of stairs. The second body Madeleine had seen in person.

  "He has stars," Noi said, fingers digging into Madeleine's arm.

  After a beat, Madeleine understood Noi's reaction. The stars developed after the cramps, at what the TV was calling the survival point for Blues.

  "Maybe there's a stage we haven't hit yet," she said, approaching the body reluctantly.

  He'd been around her own age, and what she thought of as half-made: someone who'd shot up in height recently, and was all bony wrists and coat-hanger shoulders, not yet fully filled out. Wide mouth, strong nose, and very straight, dark brows below a mop of black hair which didn't quite curl. Madeleine immediately wanted to draw him as well, which felt a wildly inappropriate thing to do with the body of some poor random boy who had died of being Blue.

  "I think he's breathing," Noi said.

  "Could he have fainted from hunger?" Madeleine reached down to press fingers to the boy's throat, and easily found a pulse.

  Noi joined the examination. "There's an enormous lump on the side of his head," she said, and showed Madeleine red-streaked fingers. "I guess we better take him back to the restaurant. This should be interesting."

  Madeleine rescued a pair of rimless glasses about to slide out the boy's pocket, then she and Noi carefully straightened him and tried to work out how to get someone taller than either of them down several unforgiving flights of stairs.

  "If I go first, with his knees hooked over my shoulders, and you lift him under the armpits?" Noi suggested.

  They experimented with this, and eventually managed to get enough of the boy off the ground to move down. The steep, lowest flight was hardest, both of them struggling, but not daring to stop. It wasn't that he was impossibly heavy, but they needed to keep pace with each other or be pulled off balance. The last few steps were particularly wobbly.

  "I don't think I've recovered as much as I thought," Madeleine panted, as they propped him against the end of the railing.

  "In future, I'm only rescuing people who faint at the bottom of stairs." Noi looked down at the boy doubtfully. "Maybe I should go find some sort of cart."

  "Hey! HEY!"

  The shout came from above, heralding three more boys stampeding down the stair.

  "If you're the cavalry, your timing sucks," Noi said, unimpressed by their rapid approach.

  "What happened?" asked the tallest boy, and Madeleine had to blink because he was movie-star handsome: precisely symmetrical features, flawless brown skin, silky black hair, athletic build. Even his voice was fantastic: a mix of Indian and plummy English accent which was candy to the ear.

  "We found him on the stair," she said, and felt silly for her defensive tone. "He's hit his head."

  "Told you Fish was pushing himself too hard," said the boy nearest Madeleine, a strawberry blonde well-furnished with freckles. His blue eyes sloped down at the corners, giving him a weary look, but his hands moved briskly over the unconscious boy's head, locating the lump as if he could learn something from it.

  The third boy was the shortest, his face fashioned from an imp template, with pointed chin and fly-away eyebrows which darted toward the sandy-blonde hair at his temples. He might as well have 'Mischief' stamped on his forehead.

  "You two carried him down the stair?" His grin took up half his face. "Da
mn, I'm sorry I missed that."

  "Yeah, yeah, the floor show's at eleven," Noi replied. "Maybe we should get your friend out of the sun. We were taking him to the wharf."

  "Lead the way. I'm Pan. This is Nash and Gav. Looks like you met Fish already."

  As Madeleine and Noi introduced themselves, the first two boys hoisted Fish up on linked arms.

  "Was there anyone nearby?" Nash, the tallest one, asked. "Could someone have attacked him?"

  "I haven't seen anyone but Madeleine," Noi said. "We were going up to look at the Spire."

  "We've just been." Pan glanced over his shoulder, and up. "Fish wanted to do some comparisons of our stars to the ones of the Spire. You seriously think someone hit him, Nash?"

  "It would be stupid to ignore the possibility. We still haven't the least idea what is going on."

  "Why compare your stars to the Spires'?" Noi also looked over her shoulder, craning back to sight the tip of the Spire.

  "To see if they matched in pattern, or even reacted." He glanced down at Fish, at the patches of blue on his exposed arms. "And to see if having stars would let us through the barrier around it."

  "Did it?" Madeleine asked, interested. "Did you touch it?"

  "No. The barrier remains. But it was only a first look."

  Unlocking the sliding entrance door of Nikosia, Noi led them into the small indoor dining area, pulling one of the tables aside to clear access to the long, padded seat which ran up the right wall.

  "There's a first aid kit somewhere. Be right back."

  "Have you been cooking?" Pan asked, sniffing the restaurant's fresh-baked aroma as his friends manoeuvred Fish onto the too-narrow seat. Then he laughed: "Man, you won't even have to look at people to tell which ones are Blues – just wave something edible and we'll come running."

  "Are you all–?" Madeleine asked, and Pan held his arms out, showing starry blue palms and a thick stripe disappearing under the sleeves of his jacket.

  Nash was more obviously Blue, with all of the back of his neck that shade, the stars rather faint, and Gav – wearing a black blazer over a school uniform similar to Fish's – stripped it off to reveal all of his left arm and most of his right was blazing with light against a midnight field.

  "Only Blues are out and about, I think," he said, hooking the blazer over a chair. "We fell over quickest, once the stain showed up, but the Greens at school can still barely get out of bed."

  "School? You stayed at your school?"

  "We're from Rushies," Pan explained, gesturing at an embroidered gold crest on the blazer. "Rushcutters Bay Grammar. It's one of the biggest boarding schools in Sydney. Two-thirds of the students are day boys, but the rest of us are either from out of town, or overseas. No way to get–"

  He broke off as Noi emerged from the kitchen, first aid kit in one hand, and a baking tray half-full of scones balanced on the other.

  "One of you grab the jam and butter I set out," she said. "There's drinks in the walk-in to the right."

  She handed the tray off to Nash and then began sorting through the first aid kit while everyone else attacked the scones. Even Madeleine had another, surprised at herself.

  "Is this extreme appetite thing going to keep up, do you think?" she asked Nash.

  "Who can tell?" He didn't seem as hungry as his friends, only eating one scone for the pile they'd inhaled. "BlueGreen – one of the data compilation sites – is suggesting that the stars indicate some level of stored energy, and that is why there's a need for increased food intake. Did both of you experience the surge after the stars developed?"

  "Surge?" Noi paused, holding a pad of antiseptic-soaked cotton wool. "The poltergeist imitation? Yeah, I sent our coffee table flying."

  Madeleine nodded, and rubbed her arm where her shirt hid a plaster-treated cut.

  "It may relate to the field which stops anyone from approaching the Spires," Nash said. "The Spire has stars. Blues have stars. The Spire has a shield. Blues experience the surge. And only Blues are so ridiculously hungry. So far." He sighed, and looked quickly at Noi's patient, who had shifted in response to her dabbing. "We went down to Circular Quay after trying the Spire, because someone had reported a Blue dog, and small animals surviving are so rare we wanted to document it."

  "An exercise in futility, with bonus rotting seagulls," Pan said. "Gav, you have a car, right? I don't think Fish is going to be up to a walk even if he does wake up."

  "Right." Gav grabbed his blazer and another scone and headed to the door. "See you soon."

  "I think he'll be okay," Noi said, as Pan hovered at her elbow. "He at least reacts to the antiseptic, and there wasn't that much bleeding. Is he a good friend of yours?"

  "Fish? Never even spoke to him before Friday. I think I might have seen him once or twice, but he's in year eleven – Nash and I are year ten – and Fish is a day boy."

  "Then why was he still at the school?" Madeleine asked, reasonably. School was the last place she would have wanted to hang out.

  "Microscopes. Rushies is big on Theatre and Science, so the school's all auditoriums and laboratories. Fish stayed up Thursday night studying himself. Then he moved on to everyone else. Did I tell you I went off at him, Nash?"

  "It does not surprise me, temper-boy," Nash said, brows lifting.

  "After he recovered from the surge, he divided everyone up," Pan explained. "So now we have Greens Dorm, Blues Dorm, and the big one for those who didn't make it. Fish broke the Greens up into groups and tried different things on them. Aspirin, heat packs, cold packs, sugary drinks, water only. Teddy – Teddy Rasmussen from 10B – he was doing so bad, and Fish told me to switch him from hot packs to cold packs and keep checking his pulse and writing down all the changes and I just started shouting. Told him I never knew anyone better suited to their name, that fish were warm in comparison. He just waited until I wound down and then asked me if I knew the best way to take out a zombie."

  "Head shot," Noi said promptly.

  Pan nodded at her. "And wooden stakes for vampires, and silver bullets for werewolves. And penicillin for bacteria. But we don't have the slightest idea what to do about dust and starry towers. Information is a weapon, a defence, a first step to everything according to Fish, and we need to gather as much as possible before the next wave of infections, so we can act rather than react. He and the other big contributors on BlueGreen even think they've found a way to increase Green survival rates. So I've wanted to punch him a few times, but I'm feeling a bit 'Oh, Captain! My Captain!' at the moment as well. All the teachers left, y'know? Had their own families to look after, though I guess some of them meant to come back. Fish stayed, and now he's gone and fallen down some stairs. Which is distinctly uncool of him, really."

  Nash reached out and put a calming hand on the shorter boy's shoulder, and Pan let out his breath.

  "End soliloquy," he muttered. "But, damn, it would be stupid to die from falling down, after all this."

  "Seriously, I don't think he's that bad," Noi said, snapping the kit shut. "His heart rate and breathing seem to be normal, anyway, and that's as far as my basic first aid is going to take us. We'll put some ice on the lump, see if that helps. How many are left at that school of yours? Do you need food to take back?"

  They moved to the kitchen, discussing the boarding school's catering resources, and perishable food which should be eaten first. Of the three hundred boarders at the school, sixty-two were still alive. Twelve Blues, and the rest Greens not ready to look after themselves. The Fish boy had probably collapsed from exhaustion, rather than hunger or mystery attacks.

  "Is your name really Pan?" Noi asked, hunting out a box to hold milk and meat while Madeleine wrapped ice in a cloth serviette.

  "Lee Rickard, at your service," Pan said, with a little bow.

  "Then why Pan?"

  "Can't you guess? Should I go find some green tights? I've played him three times – totally typecast." He mimed a quick sword fight, dancing around the cramped kitchen. "And this is Avinash Sha
rma. Gav is Gavin Wells, and sleeping beauty out there is Fisher Charteris."

  Madeleine glanced through the one-way panel set in the kitchen door and started, because 'sleeping beauty' was gone. She pushed the door open, and spotted him standing in the outdoor eating section. As she watched he lifted a shaky hand to his head, and sat down on the nearest chair.

  Fish – Fisher – didn't react as she approached, all his attention focused out, and up. Madeleine paused before speaking because she still didn't have her sketch pad and she badly wanted to draw all five of her new acquaintances, but this one most of all. With those dark, straight brows he must always appear a trifle severe, but right now, his light brown eyes fixed on the Spire, he looked positively murderous.

  "Plotting revenge?" Her attempt at lightness fell flat as he jumped, then clutched his head all the harder. "Sorry. Try this." She pressed the serviette against his head, then almost dropped it when he tried to bat it away. Once he'd realised what it was and took hold, she stepped back because now his glare was directed at her.

  "What are you talking about?" he asked.

  "I just – well, you looked angry."

  The glare faded, and he glanced back at the Spire. "Aren't you? All this useless death. Don't you want to tear that down and stamp on the pieces?"

  "I–" Madeleine felt off-balance, and wondered if there was something wrong with her for not feeling that way. "I guess I've been thinking of it as a natural disaster," she said. "Though I suppose 'natural' is entirely the wrong word for giant starry towers."

  "Fish!" Pan led the others out of the restaurant, and slid a box of food onto a nearby table. "Damn, you had us worried. What happened? Were you attacked?"

  The older boy stared at him blankly, then his mouth twisted with sudden amusement. "Did he fall or was he pushed?" he asked. "I wish I could pretend to something less feeble than feeling dizzy. Where's Gavin?"

  "Gone to get his car. Madeleine and Noi here found you."