The Black Stars

by Dan Krokos

  “The trees are alive!” Tom yelled.

  “You don’t say!”

  Mason skidded to a stop, and a vine took the opportunity to curl around his neck. Little barbs on the vine dug into his skin, drawing beads of blood. Tom was suspended in the air, two vines holding him up by the arms. Mason growled in defiance, but it turned into a choking sound when the vine constricted and tugged, trying to lift him off the ground. He closed his eyes, let his gloves slide over his hands, then he clapped them together; a blade of pure electricity appeared. The lightning sword shone brightly in the darkness, crackling in his hands. Mason flicked his wrist, severing the vine around his neck. He dropped back to his feet as the severed length slipped from his shoulders. Then he leapt forward, swinging the sword in an overhand slash. The blade bit through Tom’s vine with a sizzle, and the tree actually screamed. The scream wasn’t just a reaction: it sounded angry. Spinning leaves began to drift down from above, but Mason ignored them, until one spun toward his neck and drew another bit of blood.

  Mason grabbed Tom’s ankle just as the second vine pulled them higher toward the canopy.

  “Just let me go!” Tom said.

  Mason didn’t bother with a response. He opened his right hand, and the blade snapped out of existence. Then he shot a bolt of electricity from the same palm. It hit the vine a few inches above Tom’s hand, and together they fell hard to the forest floor.

  Tom groaned. “I think a root just impaled my kidney.”

  “You’re fine,” Mason said, pulling him up, batting away a few razor-sharp leaves. More vines were snaking down from the canopy. “Let’s move!”

  They started to run again, but the vines weren’t giving up. Mason shocked the ones that came too close, but he couldn’t get them all at once. A vine grabbed his ankle, and he fell to one knee. The other vines seemed to sense his vulnerability, and they turned away from Tom and shot toward him.

  Mason felt something in his gloves, a kind of yearning, an urge to break free. The material was humming against his hands. He lifted them up, palms out, and released the pressure. A crackling dome of electricity snapped into place around him, severing all the vines within its radius. The veins of light curled and wove together, making the dome more and more opaque, until the dome solidified into pure violet light with a deep metallic sound, like plucking the galaxy’s biggest guitar string. But just as soon as it formed, it disappeared, leaving the ground around him smoking and scorched. His head felt swimmy and his hands were buzzing with energy. He held them up to his face and stared. Around them, the vines were retreating slowly, almost respectfully.

  Tom was staring at him, mouth agape. “Um…”

  “Well, that’s new,” Mason said.

  “How…?”

  “I have no idea.” Mason swallowed, then stood up on shaky feet. He shook his head to clear it and almost fell over. “We’re too far behind.”

  Tom was still staring at Mason, not with shock now but concern. “Are you okay?”

  Mason shrugged. “Okay enough to get out of this place.” He thought he saw something then, a large shadowy form through the tree trunks. It had the shape of a man but was much taller and wider than any man could be. He blinked and it was gone, more shadows in its place. Just nerves, and creepy trees, he thought.

  They broke into an easier jog in the direction the Rhadgast had gone. No more vines came near them. They ran for fifteen more minutes, until light appeared through the trees ahead. It grew brighter and brighter, until they stepped out of the forest. The Rhadgast school was just ahead.

  Chapter Seven

  The school was one enormous dome in a perfectly circular area clear of forest. It rose so high, Mason had to crane his head back to see the top. The dome was halved by a black line right down the middle, from top to bottom. To the left of the line, the dome was painted a deep crimson. To the right, the brightest violet. The dome was on the edge of a cliff: beyond it, the ground dropped away completely, and didn’t rise again for many miles. In the hazy distance, an enormous mountain range was visible.

  Mason suspected the dome was one half of a sphere, the other half hidden underground.

  “I can’t believe we’re actually here,” Tom said, echoing Mason’s thoughts. He reminded himself of their mission: It’s not to learn the ways of the Rhadgast. There is something happening in this school that has the ESC scared, and you’re going to find out what it is.

  He would also find the truth about his parents. No order would dim that desire or keep him from pursuing it.

  The king’s Hawk was parked next to the sphere, by a row of Sparrows, which were the needlelike fighters the Tremist deployed in space battles.

  “They made us take the long way on purpose,” Mason said.

  “Of course. If we couldn’t make it through the forest, I guess we have no business being a Rhadgast, right?”

  Tom had a point. Mason still felt weak from creating the electric dome. The gloves had taken something out of him to do that, and he couldn’t help but wonder what else the gloves were capable of.

  At the base of the dome, Mason saw the four Rhadgast waiting for them, so he just rolled his shoulders to loosen them up, then marched forward with his head held high. He might be here to train, at least officially, but Mason Stark was ESC first and always, and he would make them proud. If he couldn’t live up to his impossible legend, he would still try his hardest.

  Reckful began to clap as Mason and Tom approached. The four had removed their masks again, and Reckful was smiling. “How does it go? You clap your hands together, yes? To show approval?”

  “You got it,” Mason said.

  Reckful clapped a final time. “Wonderful! See, I’m learning.”

  A huge door in the dome slid into the ceiling. Mason started toward it, but Reckful held up a hand. “I’m afraid we’ll need those back, for the moment at least.” He was pointing at Mason’s forearms, which hid his gloves.

  Mason didn’t want to give them up, but there wasn’t much choice. He pulled them off and handed them to Reckful, who tossed them to one of the purple Rhadgast. “Perhaps you’ll get them back soon,” Reckful said. “Though I’m hoping you have blood.”

  Mason had no idea what that meant.

  The closest purple Rhadgast made a rude sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sigh, but full of contempt; he kicked at the dirt.

  “He cheated!” the other purple one said. “I have his gloves right here!”

  “Not my fault you didn’t take my extra pair,” Mason said. Reckful winked at him.

  The open door was waiting. Together they walked through.

  * * *

  The next hour was a blur. Mason and Tom were ushered through a series of hallways, where they were scanned by lasers of every color. Their possessions, including their boots, which held their hidden communicators, were taken to another room. Mason didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t just say, Um, actually, can I have my boots back? There’s a device I need in there so I can spy on you guys. They’d figure something out; they always did.

  Mason and Tom put their uniforms in a bin reluctantly. Tom rubbed his thumb over the ESC insignia, staring down at it wistfully.

  “We’ll wear it again,” Mason said, before they walked into the next chamber, this one with hoses hanging from the ceiling. Here they were sprayed down with a sticky liquid that smelled a lot like pine sap. Once Mason and Tom were covered head to toe, they were doused in a second liquid that washed away the first.

  The Tremist who decontaminated them (Mason assumed that’s what they were doing, since they were definitely carrying germs alien to Skars on their skin) wore masks and never spoke to them, even when Mason tried to greet them.

  “They must think we’re dirty humans,” Tom quipped, and got a face full of spray for it.

  The whole time, Mason wondered what would happen if they couldn’t recover their com devices. Would the grand admiral send in a small team of Reynolds to retrieve them? Would he think Mason
and Tom were dead, and declare all-out war? No, you didn’t get to the head of the ESC by being an idiot, of that Mason was sure, or at least partially sure.

  Toward the end, Mason and Tom were fitted with thin belts that had silvery discs embedded on the surface. A Tremist technician, speaking to them for the first time, explained, “These belts will allow you to control your movements in zero gravity, and they are never to be taken off. Do not try to remove them.”

  So that’s how they fly around! Mason almost wanted to laugh, having guessed belts the first time, when he and his crew fought their first Rhadgast in the gravity-free bay. Mason winced as the weird plastic heated up and fused around his abdomen. He picked at the edge, but the belt was firmly in place, like it had melted to the skin. The silvery discs began to glow with a soft blue light.

  Tom was picking at his, too.

  “Try not to break it, Renner.”

  Tom gave him a look; he was clearly not amused by all the poking and prodding.

  The implants came last. Another Tremist, this one a tad friendlier than the one before, said, “This implant will allow you to understand the Tremist language as if it were your native tongue. Everyone in the school is not going to speak human just for your benefit, understand? This will be the last time anyone speaks your language here.”

  Mason never saw the implant, but he felt the Tremist probing the base of his skull. “There is a two percent chance you will reject the implant and die immediately.”

  Mason was about to protest, but something punched him in the back of his head, and then a cool liquid sensation spread throughout his brain. It was a different feeling than when he downloaded the history of the People on Nori-Blue. He’d unpacked that knowledge while he was unconscious aboard the Egypt, and now it was always waiting in his head, a part of him. He didn’t have to study it. As part of his mission to spread the truth, he’d shared his knowledge with hundreds of ESC, and the king had done the same with his people. Scribes on both sides were re-creating the book from memory, and soon everyone would be able to read the history.

  The sensation faded to nothing, and he could actually feel the knowledge, a new weight in his brain. He thought of the Tremist word for “sky” and realized there were many different languages on Skars. Not just different dialects, but different languages entirely.

  “Implant successful.” The technician spoke now in the Tremist tongue.

  “Whoa whoa whoa,” Tom said, holding up his hands. “What did he say? About dying? Could you understand him just now?”

  The technician held a cylinder to the back of Tom’s head, and then Tom flinched, blinking rapidly.

  “Congratulations,” the technician said. “You have survived.”

  “Thank you.” Mason used the Tremist dialect preferred by the school (which he also inherently knew; the dialect was called Mhenlo dai Cross, which roughly meant “People of the Fields”). Mason had to stop and think about it to realize the words for “thank you” came out sounding like pelly vos. That’s how natural the language now felt. What Mason really wanted to say was: Don’t ever operate on us again without our consent, but he didn’t.

  “There are two chickens in the garden,” Tom said in the correct dialect. He caught Mason’s eye. “What? Just testing it out.”

  “If you’re quite finished,” the technician said, “you’re late for the address.” He held two folded sets of clothes in each hand. Mason took his and unfolded them. There were simple fitted pants, an undershirt, and a jacket that buttoned up the front, with a high collar and a long, rounded tail in the back. It was almost a robe but not quite. All of it was gray, he noted, not purple and not red. His gray boots were softer than his ESC boots and ended mid-shin.

  “What address?” Mason said, putting on his new uniform. I need to find my boots.

  The technician was blank-faced for a moment, and then his upper lip peeled back in the loose translation of a grin. “All students must choose on their first nights.”

  “Choose what?” Tom asked.

  But Mason already knew. Four Rhadgast had brought them here, two purple and two red. The dome itself showed them the divide between the Rhadgast. Mason had no idea what the divide meant, but clearly one existed.

  “Between Blood and Stone,” the technician said.

  Chapter Eight

  Mason and Tom were told to follow a line on the floor. The line was yellow, and it pulsed as they moved along, fading behind them and growing in front of them. It showed them the way to the Inner Chamber, which was located in the exact middle of the sphere. It was there the rhadjen met once a week to discuss the current state of the school.

  Mason kept opening and closing his hands, missing the comfortable snugness of his gloves, the protection they provided. His skin felt fragile without them.

  Tom was just as jittery as they walked. “I don’t feel prepared for this. At all.”

  “We can speak all the Tremist languages, so that should help,” Mason said, though he knew what Tom meant. Mason didn’t feel prepared either. Only a few months ago they were trying to take back the Egypt from Tremist hands.… Now they were here to learn from them? All the while executing a secret mission that Mason didn’t know how to begin.

  They followed the line through turn after turn. The walls in each section were made from different materials: some walls were polished metal, some were stone, some were glass, many of them glowed softly, providing dim ambient light. It was comfortable, warm, and inviting. Mason took that as a good sign.

  Soon the line on the floor began to pulse faster, which probably meant they were getting closer. Mason’s heart rate began to rise along with the line; thankfully he no longer wore the mechanism that so helpfully warned him to keep his vitals in check. The tail of his jacket touched against the back of his thighs weirdly, distracting him. Focus, Stark. You’re behind enemy lines.

  The line ended at a large set of double doors carved from dark alien wood, with whorls and spirals in the grain. If he unfocused his eyes slightly, he could just make out the details of some ancient battlefield depicted in the whorls, but as soon as he thought he saw something, his eyes would refocus.

  Mason and Tom stopped in unison.

  “Uh … do we knock?” Tom asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mason replied. He lifted his fist to knock, then lowered it.

  “Well we can’t just stand here.”

  “I’m thinking—”

  The doors opened under their own power, cutting him off. Before them was an enormous hall, with rows of benches to the left and right of a central aisle, almost like in an ancient church. A very wide ancient church.

  The rows were filled with rhadjen, Tremist around his age, some younger and some older. On the left side of the room, some wore their hair in high ponytails, like Reckful did. Over half of them had dark red hair, and their black robes had crimson accents on the collars and wrists. To the right of the aisle, the rhadjen were like the familiar Rhadgast he already knew, like Merrin and the king—mostly purple or violet hair, with purple accents on their robes. As far as Mason could tell, the hair colors were natural, and having purple hair did not necessarily mean you were Stone, especially since Merrin had purple hair; she was not a Stone, or even a rhadjen. Maybe once you chose a side, some were more likely to dye their hair to fit their new identity.

  At the other end of the hall, a Tremist stood on an elevated platform. He wore neither red nor purple, but gray, like Mason and Tom. Two more Tremist were with him on the platform: the red one sat near his right, the other on his left. They were clearly the heads of each group of Rhadgast and wore the colors of their side.

  The rhadjen all turned in their seats at once, staring at Mason and Tom, who were frozen just past the doorway. Then the room exploded into chatter.

  The rhadjen were talking to each other loudly, but Mason could only hear snippets: That’s them, the humans are here, why are humans here, they saved the Will, I don’t care, they’ve met the king, they know the ki
ng, Mason Stark, he doesn’t look tough.

  The chatter seemed to go on for hours, but it was really only seconds. The gray Tremist on the platform suddenly lifted one booted foot, then stomped it on the floor. Mason could see the shock wave spread out from the boot as it rippled the dust in the air. Mason’s ears popped and wind buffeted his face. The doors slammed shut behind him.

  “What a wonderful impression you’ve made on our two new brothers tonight, students.” The gray Rhadgast did not have gray hair: his hair was a mix of red and purple. If the colors were any indication, and unnatural like Mason assumed, then he was the leader of the school and could therefore not take a side.

  “Such discipline,” he added.

  No one spoke. It was so quiet Mason could hear himself breathing. His eyes roamed over the students, who were now facing forward, completely still.

  “Welcome!” the gray Rhadgast said to them. “I am Master Zin, leader of our humble school.” He gestured grandly at the Tremist—no, people. They were all people here, and Mason had to start thinking that way. Tremist were not really aliens so much as cousins.

  Master Zin swept his hand toward the Rhadgast on his right. “This is Master Shem, leader of the Bloods.” He made the same gesture to the man on his left. “And this is Master Rayasu, leader of the Stones.”

  Master Rayasu, a man paler than any Tremist Mason had seen so far, was drilling holes in Mason with his eyes. He had a vertical blue scar on his forehead, which matched his bluish hair.

  “Thank—” Mason’s throat was so dry the syllable turned to dust. He swallowed hard. “Thanks.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Tom added, elbowing Mason in the side.

  Master Zin nodded, seeming pleased, though his smile was hard to see across the room. He spoke to everyone now: “These two humans have come to train at our school. They have been afforded all the rights … and responsibilities … of a normal student. Is that understood?”