Neptune's Tears

by Susan Waggoner

  Even with Rani’s parents, Zee didn’t cry. It was only later, alone with David in his hotel room that she felt the wires and strings that had held her together all day begin to loosen. What began as mere tears exploded into a torrent of wild, jagged sobs. If only Rani had turned down that invitation! If only, just this once, she hadn’t gone off with the exciting stranger! Where was she now, everything that was Rani? And how was Zee going to live without ever seeing her friend again? The anguish of it sent her to her knees.

  Zee would forever love the way David let her cry. It must have been terrible to watch, and just as bad to hear, but he didn’t try to coax her out of it. Finally, when she was completely spent, he gave her his hand and pulled her to her feet and held her close.

  ‘I think we need some dinner,’ he murmured gently.

  They ordered from the room service wall, an expensive luxury. The wall was a mosaic of screens, each depicting an item that could be delivered to your room within ten minutes, arriving on a little glassed-in conveyer belt embedded in the wall. There were so many items it took them forever to decide what they wanted, and they had a good time bargaining with each other. Okay, I’ll share a General Tso’s chicken with you if we can share a milkshake too. What do you mean milkshakes don’t go with Chinese food? Of course they do. Zee laughed in spite of herself, and while the distraction didn’t take away her grief, it did remind her of the day’s joy too. Twenty-four hours before, she thought she’d never see David again.

  It would have been easy to go to bed content with that, but she knew she couldn’t. The day had underscored the fact that life was unpredictable and could be surprisingly short. It was time to do what she had been telling herself she would do if she ever saw him again.

  ‘We have to talk.’

  ‘I know,’ he said with a sigh. ‘There are some things I have to tell you.’

  ‘Me first,’ Zee insisted. Not because she wanted centre stage but because she suspected much of what she was about to say would cancel anything he might have in mind. ‘You’re going to think this has something to do with today, but it’s something I decided a few weeks ago.’

  She touched the Neptune’s Tears that lay at the hollow of her throat, and heard again Mrs Hart’s admonition: Be bold with your life, Zee. She hadn’t taken the necklace off since that day, just as she hadn’t taken off the charm bracelet with the two Buddhas that David had given her.

  ‘When you go back to Omura, I want to go with you.’ The shock on his face was more than she’d bargained for. Clearly, he’d never considered the possibility. ‘It’s the only thing that makes sense. They won’t let you stay here. They’ve trained you, they need you there. So I’ll go back with you.’

  ‘But – but I’ve told you what Omura’s like. No art, no literature, nothing for the imagination. It’s my home and I belong to it, but you’d hate it.’

  ‘I’ll hate a lifetime without you more.’

  He stood up and began pacing back and forth. ‘You can’t, Zee. You can’t come with me.’

  She stood in front of him, blocking his path. He thought he’d never seen anyone made so beautiful by passion. His lovely Zee.

  ‘Why can’t I come with you?’ she questioned. ‘You said yourself that Omura’s underpopulated. They need people, families, lots of children. We could make a life there.’

  ‘No, we couldn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because there is no Omura! That’s what I have to tell you, Zee. The whole thing is a lie.’

  She was caught completely off guard. ‘I . . . I don’t understand. It’s on the galaxy maps. I’ve seen it.’

  ‘Yes, the planet you call Gliese 581 C exists, but as far as anyone knows, there’s no life there. We picked it as a likely spot. Omura and everything about it is invented.’

  ‘I still don’t understand,’ she said, ‘but I know that we were meant to be together, and if you can’t stay here, I’ll go with you when you’re sent back home, wherever home is.’

  ‘You can’t go with me, Zee,’ he said. ‘You can’t because you’re already there. The aliens – me, Mia, all of us – we aren’t aliens at all. We’re time travellers from a future Earth!’

  She was silent a long time. He watched waves of confusion break across her face as she tried to work out what he’d just told her. Finally she looked up at him. ‘If you’re from Earth, why are you here harvesting the art and literature? Or isn’t that true either?’

  ‘No, that’s true. We’re systematically copying it and sending back as much as we can.’

  ‘Why?’

  He took her by the shoulders and stared straight into her eyes. ‘If I tell you, Zee, you have to promise to tell no one. Not your family or your friends, not the Major – no one. It’s a terrible promise to ask of anyone. You’ll hate me for asking it of you, but I have no choice.’

  She leaned into him and felt his arms go around her. ‘Nothing could make me hate you, David. I promise to keep the secret, whatever it is.’

  ‘We’re here harvesting because some time soon there’s going to be a catastrophic meteor strike on the planet. Almost everything will be destroyed, and what isn’t destroyed will never be the same. In that sense, I do come from an alien planet. I was born on Earth fifteen-hundred years from now.’

  Zee closed her eyes. For the first time, she felt no wall of reserve. His soul flowed into hers as freely as water running to the sea.

  ‘How long?’ she asked. ‘How long until the meteor hits?’

  ‘We aren’t exactly sure. Time isn’t as reliable as you’d think. Sometime within your lifetime.’

  She understood now, why his feelings had always seemed to pull in two directions. But that understanding had come at a terrible price, and now she felt the full burden of knowing her world would be destroyed. Knowing, and not being able to do anything.

  ‘But you must know when the meteor will strike?’ she said.

  David’s brow furrowed. ‘No, we don’t know for certain. Pinpointing an event in time is difficult. When the meteor hit, it wiped out all our knowledge. Our computers can only make projections based on the new data we’ve collected and input and there are huge holes in our information.

  Zee clung to him fiercely. ‘I still want to go with you,’ she said. She remembered all the whispered reports of those said to be involved with aliens vanishing. ‘They’ve let others go there, haven’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then that’s what we’ll do.’

  ‘It’s not that easy, Zee.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The time leap is too great. Most emigrants can’t adapt. There’s a high rate of drug and alcohol problems. Not to mention suicide and unemployment.’ He looked intently into her eyes. ‘How could I let you take that risk?’’

  She saw the pain in his eyes, the torn feelings that had been there from the start. ‘That won’t happen to us, David.’

  ‘There’s something else. The Lists. Immigration from the past is tightly controlled because even small changes can alter the future. There are three lists that govern who can and who cannot immigrate. First, the Inconsequentials, those who died when the meteor struck, never had children, or produced little of value post-meteor. They can immigrate, at least theoretically, because they have no influence on the future. Second, the Researchables. This is the largest pool, people about whom nothing is known or no records survive. They are allowed to immigrate only if they can prove themselves irrelevant to the future. The final list is called the Essentials, people who will never be allowed to immigrate because they make key contributions after the meteor strike.’

  ‘Those sound like good odds.’

  ‘I started the research before I left Prambanan. I’ve already looked you up, Zee.’ He hesitated, his voice cracking with emotion. ‘So far, it looks like you’re on the Essentials list.’

  She felt a wave of desolation. Not to be with David, never to see him again . . . His arms tightened around her, holding h
er so close she could feel the necklace Mrs Hart had given her pressing against her neck, the trio of false diamonds, Neptune’s Tears, making a warm spot at the base of her throat. As if Mrs Hart herself were standing beside her, Zee heard again the last words the woman had said to her. No matter what happens, be bold with your life. Don’t settle for small. That was the true message of Neptune’s Tears. She pulled back just enough to look up at him.

  ‘Then we’ll find another way to be together,’ she said fiercely. ‘We’ve come too far to lose each other now.’

  ‘But, Zee, what if —’

  ‘We will find a way,’ she repeated. ‘We’re like orbiting pearls. No matter what pulls us apart, we’ll always find our way back to each other.’

  She lifted her face to his, and in their kiss Zee felt his thoughts, no longer hidden or withheld.

  Maybe you’re right, Zee. Maybe we’ll always find a way to be together.

  DISCOVER THE THRILLING CONCLUSION TO ZEE AND DAVID’S STORY IN

  STARLIGHT’S EDGE

  COMING 2013

  READ THE FIRST CHAPTER AT

  NEPTUNESTEARS.CO.UK

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