Spinning Starlight

by R. C. Lewis

  Liddi Jantzen, dirty and bleeding, definitely qualifies as interesting.

  One vid-cam turns into two or three, then a swarm buzzing around me. I’m too tired to care, too tired to do anything but force one throbbing foot in front of the other. But not too tired to notice when the buzz turns into voices and the swarm becomes a crowd of people. As the media-casts go out, people backtrace my position and realize I’m in their neighborhood. People who are up early to get ready for work, or insomniacs who haven’t been to bed yet—I can tell them apart by whether their clothes are pressed or rumpled—all kinds gather around me. Talking, shouting, jostling…It’s too much to process when the white-hot fire of my feet demands all my attention. The only other things I feel are the eyes. My rules kick in: never make eye contact. Just keep going.

  “Look, I told you it’s her—it’s Liddi Jantzen!”

  “Liddi, what happened? You’re hurt.”

  “Get her off her feet.”

  “You need to see a doctor.”

  “More like she needs the police. Someone did this to her.”

  “She needs both. Get out of the way. Liddi, look at me. Do you remember me?”

  I turn, afraid the voice belongs to someone from one of dozens and dozens of parties and clubs I’ve been to in the past couple of years. Most of those faces disappear from my mind as soon as I leave, so the chance I’ll remember isn’t good.

  But I do recognize this one, and I find myself nodding. A man in his forties, his features slightly rounded and his hair graying. He’s familiar, but the name won’t come to me.

  He must read the question in my eyes. “It’s Garrin Walker. I was your father’s assistant before…well, before. Come on, let’s get you some help.”

  Of course. Walker-Man. That’s what I called him when I was little. He was younger, thinner, but his eyes were the same back when he’d let me play by his desk outside Dad’s office. Back when I was the boss’s daughter rather than the boss-to-be. Those eyes were sharp and intelligent, but also gentle. They still are. All I have to do is nod again, and he takes charge, guiding me through the crowd and into a waiting hovercar. The chatter and questions are sealed off outside the doors, and Garrin enters a destination in the hovercar’s computer before turning to me.

  “What did you do, Liddi? Walk all the way from the country estate?”

  “Ran, mostly.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  As much as Garrin was kind to me when I was five years old, I can’t make the answer form in my mouth. The men breaking into my house. The shouts. The guns. Images flood my eyes, making Garrin less real than the memory.

  “I need my brothers,” I murmur. I need to know they’re safe.

  He might restrain a sigh—hard to tell—and nods. “Of course, I’ll contact them. First, a doctor for you.”

  My head’s getting too heavy for my neck, and my gaze falls to the floor. “I’m bleeding on your car.”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  I don’t. Worrying takes too much strength, and I’m using it all thinking about the boys. How Marek would make me laugh, taking my mind off the pain, and how Luko would give me a hug. I need one. I need them.

  My vision blurs with a combination of tears and exhaustion. I end up in a hospital room, quiet except for the light rush of air sanitizers and the meticulous efforts of the doctor taking care of my feet. His ministrations sting, then cool, then numb, and that final effect seems to spread through most of my body. I break out of the fog when raised voices erupt in the hallway. Loud enough to know it’s an argument, but not loud enough to hear what it’s about.

  “Doctor, have any of my brothers arrived?” I ask.

  “I’m not sure, Miss Jantzen. If they haven’t, I’m sure they will shortly.” He finishes with my feet and raises a scanner to the scrapes on my hands and arms. “You say you got these injuries running to the city from the wilderness preserve?”

  It’s not a preserve, it’s my home, but there’s no point in arguing with him. Like everyone else on Sampati, he’s strictly a city-dweller, so I nod. “Well, and crossing a river.”

  His brows knit as he studies my expression. “A river. Why did you do that?”

  “To get to the other side.”

  The doctor doesn’t get to press further—thank the Sentinel—because the door to the hospital room bursts open. Two women stride in with Garrin trailing behind them. He’s saying something about talking to me alone, but the women ignore him. The younger one wears the dark green uniform of the Sampati Police Force, but with black sleeves. So she’s not just any cop—she’s here on assignment from the military divisions on Banak. Her tall, muscular build and sleek haircut reinforce that fact, but even her formidable presence can’t distract me from the other woman who entered with her.

  “Ms. Blake,” I greet, habit forcing me to sit up straighter. I may have played by Garrin’s desk as a child, but there’s no silliness with Ms. Blake, ever. The woman has been managing JTI for most of my life, running day-to-day operations for my brothers. Coordinating the various departments, evaluating which projects have the most promise…doing a lot of the things I’ll have to know how to do someday.

  “Liddi, are you well? Garrin says you were hurt. I assure you, Doctor, if she’s not receiving the absolute best possible care, you’ll—”

  “I’m fine,” I cut in. “Or, fine enough.”

  Ms. Blake stands right in front of me, her gaze cutting through. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  I’ve been resisting all morning, resisting the words that make it real. My brothers should be the first ones I tell, but with Ms. Blake here, there’s no choice. She needs to know.

  “Men with guns came to the house. I was outside, walking…thinking. When they realized I wasn’t in bed, they came looking, and I ran.”

  The women are frozen, but Garrin takes a half step forward. “Did they hurt you? Did you get a good look at any of them?”

  I shake my head, answering both questions at once. His concern reminds me of my father, which only strengthens my need to see the boys. “Ms. Blake, please, has anyone told my brothers? They should be here. They might be in trouble, too.”

  Garrin inhales sharply. “That’s just the thing,” Ms. Blake says. “Liddi, no one’s heard from your brothers in at least nine days. We can’t find them.”

  Some of the boys were roughhousing while the others vied for their father’s attention, showing him the little devices they’d tinkered together that day. Mrs. Jantzen took Liddi’s hand and they slipped away, up to the roof of the townhouse.

  The city surrounded them, the lights of each building reflecting off the next, the streets a distant memory below. A breeze cut through, lifting Liddi’s hair and blowing it across her eyes. Her mother sat her down on one of the benches and twisted her hair into a braid to hold it in place.

  “Those boys are so noisy sometimes,” she said. “It’s nice to get away once in a while.”

  “Yeah, it’s nice,” Liddi agreed. She craned her neck up toward the sky. “Where are the stars, Mommy?”

  “Right where they always are. We just can’t see them because there’s too much light in the city.”

  “They should turn off the lights. I want the stars back like at the other house. They shouldn’t be gone.”

  Mrs. Jantzen wrapped her arms around Liddi’s shoulders and pulled her close. “Sweetheart, they aren’t gone. Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there. The stars are always there.”

  NINE DAYS AND NOT A BLIP from my brothers, to anyone. “How is that possible?” I demand. “How do eight of the most famous men in the Seven Points go comm-silent without anyone noticing? Without you noticing?”

  “It’s possible it’s nothing,” says Ms. Blake. “They’ve all been traveling off-Point recently, and you know how they are when they’re away.”

  True, I know how my brothers are. They keep busy, and when they go to other worlds—which, thanks to the int
erstellar conduits, they can do almost instantaneously—they like to stay focused on their business. Sometimes that makes them a little fixated on a project, though, and they tune other things out. That’s why they have Ms. Blake in the first place, so they can spend more time on their own work. They’re technologists to the core, and a lot like our father was in that way. At least, that’s what I’m told. It’s possible they’re all busy and not paying attention to their messages. Possible.

  But it doesn’t feel right. It’s normal enough for me to be out of the loop. Upper management at JTI, though? Not so much. The scowl tightening Garrin’s mouth says he agrees with me.

  I don’t want to ask the question out loud, but someone has to. “Could the same gunmen—Could my brothers be…”

  Garrin shakes his head. “All eight of them, so quietly? Highly unlikely. I don’t care who these gunmen are. They’re not that good.”

  “I agree,” Ms. Blake says. “Far more plausible that the two are unrelated, or that these men noted your brothers’ absence and seized the opportunity.”

  The police officer finally speaks up. “Besides that, inter-Point communication can be awful spotty. I remember when I was in training, a bunch of us went cliff diving on Pramadam. Had a wretch of a time contacting our commander when Freitag broke his leg.”

  My estimation of the woman nudges down. Communication between the seven worlds may have been “spotty” in her youth, but Anton redesigned the interlocks himself just to make sure he could reliably contact his then-girlfriend on Yishu. They’re so solid, you could whisper across the light-years. My brothers wouldn’t have any such trouble.

  Ms. Blake cuts off my retort. “Liddi, this is Officer Svarta. I imagine she’ll need your report.”

  She nods, tapping away on a com-tablet. “Indeed. And a patrol is heading out to your estate right now. We’ll get this sorted out quick enough.”

  “Meanwhile, once the doctor and officer are finished, we should get you settled somewhere safe.”

  “I can see to that, Ms. Blake,” Garrin says.

  The upturn in the manager’s lips barely qualifies as a smile. “A kind offer, but under the circumstances, I prefer to see to those arrangements myself. You understand.”

  I’m not sure how I feel about either of them making arrangements for me. But I do what I’m told. What’s expected. I tell Officer Svarta every detail I remember of the attack, and she makes me repeat nearly everything. There were four teams? At least. None of them followed me across the river? Not that I know of. Did I see anyone else?

  I hesitate at that last question. I was so sure I saw Vic, but if it were really him, he wouldn’t have run off again without seeing me to safety. The late hour, the shadows, the adrenaline…it adds up to a trick of the light and my imagination. Maybe. I tell Svarta I saw no one, and the officer leaves to supervise the investigation.

  The doctor finishes just as Ms. Blake’s assistant arrives with clothes and shoes for me. I wonder where they came from, and a glance at the tag emblem answers that. They’re from Beyond, a boutique that’s always trying to get me to chat up their fashions in media-casts. I’ve never liked their pushiness, but it’s clothes, and that’s all I care about right now.

  “That’s much better,” Ms. Blake says after I clean up and change. I have to agree. She tries to usher me from the room, but I hold back.

  “Garrin, thank you,” I say. “Thanks for finding me.”

  “Of course,” he replies, his eyes steady on me despite Ms. Blake’s impatience. “When I saw the media-casts, I couldn’t leave you out there alone. If you need anything, contact me right away.”

  I nod, but Ms. Blake won’t wait for further sentimentality, nudging me into the hallway. “Come on, Liddi. Let’s get you out of here.”

  Out of the hospital is fine, but it raises a question. “Where are we going?”

  “Your parents’ townhouse has been prepared. It’s secure, and you’ll be able to get some rest. You should be safe here in the city—plenty of eyes keeping watch, of course—but this security-cam will accompany you door-to-door if you need to go anywhere.”

  The townhouse. Thinking about it distracts me from the hum of the heftier cam following us. I haven’t been there since Mom and Dad died. Someone held a reception there after the funeral, and then the boys and I were sent out to the country. Durant and the twins were already grown—just barely—but they stayed for a few years until Fabin was old enough to keep an eye on the rest of us. Eventually, Fabin left, and Anton, and finally the triplets, leaving just me. But no one went back to our home in the city. They got their own places, either here in Pinnacle or somewhere else on Sampati.

  I could tell Ms. Blake I refuse, that she’ll have to find another place for me to stay. But I don’t. A place where we were all once happy together might be exactly what I need. For a little while.

  “Ms. Blake?”

  “Please, Liddi, you’re not a child anymore. You can call me Minali—your brothers do.”

  I can, but it’s weird. Like calling Dom the Domestic Engineer and Itinerary Keeper, but in reverse. One too formal, the other too casual. But it’s true that my brothers have called her by her first name for years, so I can try.

  “Okay. Minali. Will I be able to go back to the estate eventually?”

  She considers during the two seconds it takes to program the hovercar. “I certainly hope so, but there’s a lot we don’t know right now. Let’s wait and see what Officer Svarta and her team find out. I know this must be frightening, but we’ll figure it out. I promise.”

  Her promise lends some reassurance, but the fear lingers. She must see it in my eyes, as she offers a small smile.

  “Meanwhile, maybe some distraction is in order. Are you working on something for the Tech Reveal? I can have it brought into the city for now.”

  That thing again. Color heats my face, equal parts shame, frustration, and anger. “No, still in the idea stage.”

  “Well, if you can come up with something we can preview before the Reveal, it will likely help the situation. Media-casts are running rampant with recordings of you entering the city on foot. We could use a touch of spin.”

  Spinning for media-casts…something I can definitely do. Parties and pretending I like expensive shoes that are barely anatomically possible to wear, that was always spin. In this situation, though, it feels off. Men attacked my home and my brothers are missing. That’s a lot to overlook.

  “What difference will spin make now?”

  She tilts her head uncertainly. “It’s always important to show strength. You know how the worlds rely on this company, its technology. And, by extension, you.”

  I can’t help but think if that’s true, the Seven Points are in more trouble than they know.

  It turns out I remember more about the townhouse than I thought I did, because the moment I enter, I know nothing has changed. The wallscreens are set to the same artwork—landscapes of the Seven Points, from the senatorial complex on Neta to a mountain range on Erkir—the windows have the same blue curtains, and the main room is full of the same furniture to accommodate our large family. The edge of that chair in the corner cracked open my forehead when I tripped while chasing Ciro. He’d threatened to cut my hair.

  One of Dad’s spare toolkits is on a small table against the wall.

  Everything’s perfect, still in its place, and yet so wrong. Smaller, the walls closer together, but big with the emptiness that should be occupied by the rest of my family. The emptiness that aches alongside my worry.

  I wander for a while, reacquainting myself with everything, climbing the stairs and testing my memory with which room was whose. When I get to mine, I realize I won’t be able to sleep there. The bed is tiny.

  Dad said at six years old I was getting big enough for a new one. Mom agreed and said she’d take care of it as soon as they finished trials on whatever they were working on. She never had the chance. One wrong move during a delicate experiment. One mistake. One acciden
t.

  One is such a deceptively small number.

  I could sleep in the master bedroom, but after a peek in there, I close the door. That won’t work. Durant and the twins, being oldest, were full-grown when we left, so their shared room will be fine. Everything smells a little sterile. Fitting for a place that’s been kept clean but unlived-in for ten years. Still, Durant’s bed is soft and his blankets warm, and I don’t care that it’s midmorning and the sun’s out. I curl up and try to keep the images of gunmen at bay when I close my eyes. To silence the questions of where my brothers could be. It doesn’t work very well at first, setting me into a fitful doze, but eventually my exhaustion decides it’s more powerful than my dread.

  When I wake up, it’s dark outside. Night again. And I’m not alone.

  Durant stands at the window, moonlight illuminating him.

  I grin and roll out of bed, ready to tackle him with a hug and demand to know where he’s been. I’ve only crossed half the room when he disappears. It’s impossible. He was right there, then faded, like an image being deleted.

  Except maybe he wasn’t right there. Something didn’t look quite right, just like Vic—or Luko—hadn’t looked quite right in the clearing. Less than solid. Ghostlike.

  Spirits pass on to Ferri, some damned to serve the Wraith in the Abyss, others sent to live with the Sentinel.

  A spike of pain jars me as my knees hit the floor and knocks sense back into my head. Everyone knows those ancient stories are superstitious nonsense. I know it. The names survive as meaningless words that make old ladies scold us for our lack of manners.

  But I saw Durant. I did. No confusion about my mind playing tricks on me this time—he was right there. Unless I’m having a full psychotic break, but I can’t let myself believe that. And if spirits aren’t an option, what does that leave? Things that look like ghosts, that people have mistaken for ghosts. Nothing to do with gunmen and their bullets.