Spinning Starlight

by R. C. Lewis

  As far as I know. That probably explains the improved mood, knowing the precious Khua have been left untouched in the “Lost” Points.

  Since I have nothing better to do, I halfheartedly indulge my curiosity. “Tock koo-ah how?”

  “I’m not sure ‘talk’ is the right word for it. The Agnac and Izim call what we Aelo do ‘communing’ with the Khua, but that never felt right to me, either—too rooted in the worshiping they do. It’s watching and listening to everything inside, keeping your mind quiet and focused on what you want to know, then trying to make sense of it. It’s still confusing—lately more than ever, like nothing even the oldest Aelo can remember. But we’re chosen because we have a knack for it.”

  The Aelo definitely have some special skills if they can make sense of the migraine-inducing mess I’ve been privy to twice. Or maybe they’re deluding themselves, convinced information comes from the Khua when it’s really their own subconscious.

  Maybe it doesn’t matter. Why should I care what the Ferinnes believe?

  Tiav studies me while I try to avoid looking at him. “Something’s wrong. Are you homesick?”

  Among other things. I shrug.

  He deactivates the com-tablet and tucks it into his pocket. “We keep telling you to be patient, but then we push you to work all day. A break might help loosen our brain cells a little. There’s a regular game of gedek over at the athletic park, should be starting soon. If we go, you won’t try to run off to a Khua, will you?”

  I shake my head. An empty space in my chest echoes my brothers’ words from last night. There’s no reason to go to the Khua.

  “Okay, then let’s get going.”

  The park is far enough to take a streamer—definitely not something I’m in the mood for, but a short enough ride to tolerate. Once there, I’m glad to have Tiav guiding me through. I’d get lost for sure. Several fields cover the space, each with different markings, some with equipment. A blend of mesh fences and energy fields keep the areas separate. A ball the size of my head crashes into one of the fences and bounces back, so it doesn’t interfere with the neighboring games.

  Vic would love this place. He’d want to try each game in turn. The empty space inside me manages to both grow and shrink at the same time.

  Tiav leads us to what I assume is a gedek field. A few Ferinnes and several Agnac are playing around and warming up, and watching them gives me some idea of the particulars. The field is arranged in a triangle, complete with painted lines, and a strange bit of framework draws my attention to one corner. Its base rests well behind the triangle, its body rising up and over, with a horizontal bar hanging above that corner.

  A Ferinne girl stands in the middle of the triangle with an eight-inch ball. She lobs it toward the main point, where an Agnac boy grabs the horizontal bar, swings with those ridiculously long arms, and kicks the ball to the outer edge of the field.

  “What do you think?” Tiav says. “Do you want to watch or play?”

  It’s a low-tech game and looks a lot like stickball, other than the number of corners and using feet in place of the stick. Probably an Agnacki game, judging by that swinging apparatus, but nothing I can’t manage, and I could use the distraction of something physical. Beating up the walls of my room last night wasn’t enough. I point to the field.

  Tiav smiles. More like the way he smiled before I ran off to the Khua two days ago. I think he’s forgiven me, at least mostly.

  The others spot him and stop what they’re doing to come over. They’re all around our age, but in two seconds, I can see the respect they have for Tiav. Kind of like how people look at me in clubs, emphasizing my separateness, but also kind of not. No one here wants to use Tiav to advance themselves, to take advantage. A twist of something almost like jealousy pinches me.

  “Everyone, this is Liddi,” he says. “She’s visiting from Sedro, so it’s her first time playing. Oh, and bizarre accident, long story, but she can’t talk. No big deal, right?”

  He carries off the lies more smoothly than I expected, but then I remember what he said about lying to almost everyone he knows since I arrived. The others nod or grunt their agreement that my muteness is immaterial. Except one person. I didn’t see Kalkig before, but here he is, glaring at me as usual. Tiav doesn’t seem to notice until we split into teams and his friend chooses the group opposite us. Then he looks both hurt and annoyed at the same time.

  While everyone gets situated, Tiav quickly tells me the essentials of scoring and penalties. Definitely enough like stickball for me to follow. I nod my understanding, but he lowers his voice for one more thing.

  “Kal plays rough,” he says. “So do all the Agnac, and so do we, but Kal especially. And you know he doesn’t like you, so watch out for him, okay?”

  His eyes say he’s worried about me. So does his hand on my arm, which is still as distracting as it was the day I came through the portal, but not the same way. It’s not the touch of a stranger anymore. Doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t need to worry. I’m not a delicate flower that can’t take a few bruises.

  Our team starts in the field while Kalkig’s is up to swing. I do all right, fielding the ball when it comes my way and throwing it back in to the corners. One of the Agnac girls on our team says, “Good arm.” Given the efficiency and power of her own arms, I’m pretty sure that’s a high compliment among her people.

  It feels nice to do something right.

  The opposing team scores a couple of points before we give them enough penalties to switch sides and it’s our turn to swing. During the first round, I noted a difference between the Ferinnes’ and Agnac’s techniques. While the long-armed aliens just reached up to the bar and swung themselves, the Ferinnes stood on a rung above the base and jumped forward to grab the bar. My team insists I take a couple of practice swings, which I do without any trouble.

  The first few players on our team get good kicks, including Tiav, and then it’s my turn. Before I can get to my place on the framework, Tiav touches my shoulder, startling me.

  “Don’t think too much,” he says. “Just follow your instincts.”

  Good advice, since overthinking has never done me much good.

  Then the other team changes up positions so Kalkig is lobbing. Great.

  Liddi Jantzen was knocked unconscious by a deliberately misthrown gedek ball, much to the amusement of the alien who hates her guts. One can only hope the head trauma knocked some of her neurons back into place.

  I’m definitely not letting that happen, with or without neuron-knocking.

  Kalkig’s first lob is high. Not enough to hit my head, but the ball slams at high speed into my chest, knocking the air out of me. I barely keep from making a sound.

  “Come on, Kal,” Tiav yells. “Since when do you lob like a yearling?”

  The Agnac grunts and glares as I drop down and take my position on the rung again. This time the ball comes straight to where I need it, and my timing is perfect as my feet make solid contact. I don’t wait to see where the ball goes. I hit the ground and run for the first corner. Judging by the cheers from my team, it’s a good kick, and I get to the corner safely.

  This feeling…it’s familiar, but old. Camaraderie with people who offer it without even knowing me. Like playing games with other kids when I was little enough that none of them knew or cared about the Jantzen family. When things were simple and obvious. A bright energy charges through me. I wonder how long it’ll last.

  Our next player kicks well, too, getting me to the second corner. If I get back to the start, I’ll score a point for our team. Next up is a Ferinne boy, and his kick is only okay. I’m already running, but Kalkig fields the ball quickly. He runs toward the same corner to go for the penalty.

  Tiav told me the rules. If Kalkig can’t stop me, I get the point. I see his confidence, and why not? He’s definitely bigger and undoubtedly stronger than I am. Faster, too. He’ll beat me to the corner, so my only chance is to knock him down.

  I know somet
hing he doesn’t. I’ve been knocking down my bigger, stronger brothers for years. They taught me how.

  Don’t break stride. Stay low. The arm holding the ball means he leans to the other side slightly—exploit the weak point in balance.

  Most important, what Vic always told me, again and again. Don’t be afraid of the hit.

  And in this case, do not make a sound.

  The impact jars from my shoulder to my toes, but it doesn’t stop me. I push through, using my legs to shove Kalkig up and back. A noise I have to assume shows surprise escapes from him as we both tumble down.

  Then it’s drowned out by cheers and laughter from my team.

  I reached the corner. I got the point.

  Some are asking if I’m okay. I untangle myself and get to my feet, but when my teammates try to pull me away and congratulate me, I shrug them off. Instead, I offer my hand to Kalkig, with no idea whether he’ll accept it or not.

  His eyes lock with mine for a long heartbeat, like he’s not sure whether to take it either. In the end, he does, his rough hand gripping mine to pull himself up. He also lets go as quickly as possible. One grunt, and he heads back to his position.

  The rest of my team pat my back and shoulder, telling me what a great hit it was. It takes a minute for things to settle down so the game can continue. When it does, Tiav pulls me aside.

  “You’re okay, right? I know for a fact how hard-boned Kal is.”

  I’m fine. Might have a few bruises, but nothing major.

  Tiav smiles. “Looks like you didn’t need that warning after all. And now Kalkig knows something. You may be a ‘Pointed heathen,’ but you’re also tough as any Agnac.”

  If I am, it’s because my brothers taught me to be. Always the youngest and the smallest, but I had eight people telling me not to let that stop me.

  Something clicks in my mind like I can feel my own synapses firing. It didn’t take a blow to the head to knock some neurons into place after all. Just a blow to every other part of my body. My brothers told me to leave things to them and stay out of it because they’re scared for me. They’ve never in my life told me I couldn’t do something because they thought I was incapable.

  They’re the ones always telling me I am capable.

  They might not like it, but those are the words I’m going to listen to. Because they can’t possibly be as scared for my safety as I am for theirs.

  I can’t sleep—again—so I go back up to the roof. My gut tells me I won’t see my brothers, but they’re not what I’m looking for. What I’m looking for is nearly as hard to find, it turns out. Some stars show themselves, but it’s not that much better than Sampati. Just too much ambient light. Still, I study the ones I can see, looking for familiar patterns. I know I won’t find any, but I look anyway, and make new patterns.

  “I didn’t realize there were stargazers on Sampati.”

  Tiav’s voice startles me as much as his statement irks me. It’s true, though. I got my stargazing from Mom and never met anyone else with the habit.

  “Then again, I don’t know much at all about Sampati,” he continues. “So that was probably rude. Sorry. Have something to say?”

  He offers me his com-tablet, and my posture slumps. I’m too tired, and writing takes too long. Every time I think I remember one of the primary symbols, I realize I’ve mixed up five of them. They’re all so similar.

  I need to talk. Each day, silence adds another weight to my heart.

  “Okay, we’ll try without,” Tiav says, replacing the device in his pocket. “The view here is awful. Want to see a better one?”

  After looking down at myself and at him, I pinch the material of the loose shirt and shorts I’m wearing to sleep in and raise an eyebrow.

  “It’s fine—no need to dress up for this. It means taking a streamer, though, which you hate. Right?” I shudder, which makes him smile. “See? I guess pretty well. So, do you want to?”

  I do. Streamer or no streamer, a better view of the stars sounds like what I need.

  As usual, I close my eyes for the length of the streamer ride, and it’s definitely lengthier than usual. Wherever Tiav is taking me, it’s farther from Podra than I’ve been since I arrived on the planet.

  “We’re here,” he says, signaling me to open my eyes.

  I’m not sure where “here” is. We’re in front of a circular building with a rounded dome. Nothing else is around for miles as far as I can tell. The sky is punctuated with several times more stars than I saw from the roof, far more than could be seen from anywhere on Sampati. Much better. But Tiav leads me to the door of the building. He runs his hand over some kind of lock-panel off to the side, and the door opens. I tap his arm and point to the lock.

  “Being an Aelo has advantages, including access to observatories anytime. Come on.”

  The interior is simple—beautiful stonework on the walls in swirling, organic patterns, and a staircase spiraling up toward the dome I saw outside. Tiav opens another door at the top, leads me up a set of stairs through the floor above, and shows me what he brought us here for.

  All the stars surround me, more of them than I’ve ever seen, even on Erkir where there are hardly any cities. I don’t know if the dome is some kind of special glass accentuating the night sky or if the whole thing’s a computer projection. Whichever it is doesn’t matter to me, because it’s perfect and it’s beautiful and it’s right there. Reclined chairs in the center of the room are arranged carefully to allow the best viewing, but they’re not all the same. Some are designed to accommodate the odd Agnac physiology, some are reinforced to support a Haleian’s mass, and some are smaller for a Crimna’s stature. Like everywhere else on Ferinne, there’s a place for everyone.

  Tiav leads me to an adjacent pair of normal-people-shaped chairs and we sit down. At first I’m happy to just stare at the whole sky, but then I get the feeling I should be looking for something in particular.

  “Here, I think you’ll want to see this,” Tiav says. He taps on his com-tablet, and a ring appears on the inside of the dome, highlighting a single star. “There’s your home. That’s Sampati’s star. You can see the others, too. Pramadam, Erkir, Yishu, Neta, Tarix, and Banak.”

  I stare. These stars belong to the Seven Points. In all the time I’ve spent looking at stars, even in some silliness of looking for Ferri as a child, it never occurred to me to wonder where the other Points were in the larger sky. Shiin was right. We stopped looking beyond our own borders ages ago. “Other worlds” meant the other Points, places just steps away through a conduit.

  With all of them highlighted, I see something else. The way they’re arranged in a large ring, spaced almost perfectly. Kind of like in the Seven Points’ icon.

  “Over there is Agnac, and Halei’s not far from it,” Tiav continues. “Crimna’s closer to us, and then there’s Izima—you can just barely see it.”

  After that, he starts pointing out constellations. The farmer. The swan. The three ships. I imagine the people who first named these pictures in the sky, wonder what made them see that shape in the stars instead of another. Then I start making up stories about each one. The farmer made a bargain with a sorcerer to save his crops, but the price was being frozen where he stood, watching over the Seven—the Eight Points. The three ships were the only ones left of a convoy that passed through a devastating storm. One called the frog met an unfortunate end thanks to the swan.

  “See how close the frog is to the swan’s beak?” Tiav says. “When I was little, I always said the swan was going to eat the frog someday.”

  The way he says the exact same thing I was thinking makes me laugh.

  Out loud.

  I clap a hand to my mouth, but I can’t force the sound back in. It was a tiny one, so brief, but it might have been enough.

  Tiav sits up, startled by the sound. “So you do have a voice?” Incredulity weaves through every word.

  He may be startled, but he has no idea that eight people might be dead because of that laug
h. I don’t have time to make him figure it out.

  “Hey, where are you going?”

  Where I’m going is outside. I get to the spiraling stairway before Tiav catches up, but I don’t let him stop me.

  “Liddi, wait. You have a voice but don’t talk because you don’t want to? Or something else? Just slow down and help me understand.”

  No, slowing down would mean taking longer to get outside, and outside is where it’s night, where the moonlight is.

  Where I might have a chance of seeing my brothers if I haven’t just killed them all.

  Nothing has changed outside the observatory. The streamer waits for us, and everything else is still and quiet. I move away from the building, searching the fields in every direction. All three moons are out, which helps, but I don’t see anyone. I do see something else—a sparkle in the distance. One of the Khua, maybe.

  My brothers have been at their strongest and easiest to see near portals. It’s worth a try, so I start running.

  “No, Liddi!”

  Tiav sees the Khua as well as I do—he probably knew it was there without seeing it. He’s fast enough to catch up, and he grabs my waist to stop me. Tries to, at least, as I keep pulling.

  “We talked about this—you can’t interfere with the Khua again. The Agnac won’t let it go anymore. You have to stop!”

  I twist to look up at him. His eyes are stern, but they also hesitate. He doesn’t want to be angry with me again, but he will if I force it. I plead with him to read my eyes back. To see that I don’t want to interfere with anything—not this time—that I just want to get closer.

  The sternness melds with confusion. “Is it something else?”

  I nod, encouraging him to follow the line of thought.

  “Is it something that will get us both in trouble?”

  No, not unless seeing a ghostlike version of one of my brothers is cause for trouble. Which it might be. Or it might be a good thing. If Tiav can see one of the boys, it would end my indecision on whether to tell him. He’d start to understand what’s going on, and maybe if he sees them, maybe if he could even talk to one of them just for a moment, he wouldn’t see them as defilers. He’d see they’re just trapped and need help.