Dark Beyond the Stars

by Patrice Fitzgerald

  “It’s okay, babe.” I know it’s a programmed response. I know this simulation is just saying what the computer thinks Ryn would have said. The voice is even too loud. Ryn would have whispered.

  I don’t care. It’s the closest thing to comfort I have.

  He’s already at the comm when I open my eyes, shuffling through possible landing sites.

  Six hours later, I land the cloaked shuttle in the middle of a large enclosed field within walking distance of the Quantum Institute. It’s a sports field of some sort, and a quick check of the schedule shows that it’s rarely used this time of year.

  The sun is low on the horizon when I step out of the shuttle, and the air has a slight chill that I can feel even through the suit. I quickly secure the hatch behind me and head across the field in the direction of the lab building. The air on XE7 is within acceptable limits, and I’ve had the full gamut of inoculations. Unless some bug has morphed and mutated since our last scouting crew a few years back, I’ll be fine. My helmet has a translator, sensors that monitor my vital signs, a navigation device, and my remote comm. And the cloaking suit will definitely make getting around undetected a lot easier.

  I left the Ryn simulation running in the shuttle. He says he needs to know that I get back safe, but I think he’s a little worried that I won’t turn him back on again. Now that we both know he’s not real, it feels more awkward than before. But I don’t have the heart to refuse his request, and since he can interact with the shuttle, it might come in handy to have him active if I need information. If someone bumps into the ship and raises an alarm, he can relocate it to a nearby park. And in the worst case scenario, I can call in so that Ryn’s voice, even if it is a simulated voice, is the last sound I hear.

  The field is surrounded by a tall wire fence. I look around to be sure no one is nearby. The only thing I see, aside from a few flying creatures, is some vehicles off in the distance, so I pull the hand laser out of my pocket and brace my forearm with my other hand to minimize the shaking.

  I’ve worn these cloaking suits before, during training. It’s still strange to see the laser floating in front of me, with no sight of my hand or arm. I begin to slice an unsteady line through the metal enclosure.

  “Mila?”

  I’m so startled by the deep voice behind me that I nearly drop the laser. It’s a good thing my thumb slid off the trigger or I’d have sliced clean through my foot.

  I don’t answer, just slip the laser back into my pocket, glancing around as I move away from the fence. Someone is in the shadows beneath the benches that surround the field. XE7 residents are humanoid, but they’re large. This one is tall, at least two heads taller than Ryn. And I’d swear he wasn’t there a second ago.

  “Mila, I am… friend. Name… Matias.” He steps out of the shadows. The pauses in his speech are disconcerting. His mouth moves and I can hear the actual sounds he’s making a split second before this crappy portable translator catches up.

  From what I’ve seen on the newsfeeds, I think he’s a young one. Not a child, but maybe not fully adult, either. It’s something about the face. The skin is unlined. The hair on his head is thicker than most humanoids I’ve seen on other planets, and his eyes are small with unusually tiny irises, like those of all the others on this planet.

  The eyes seem kind, though, dark and shining. They’re more like Elisi eyes than the pale, watery orbs the news anchor had. His skin is the warm brown of well-toasted breakfast cakes, and both of his hands are raised slightly, as if to show me he’s not a threat. A thin, round disc of metal, a shade darker than his skin, hangs from his neck, and a pack of some sort is on his back.

  “You said… mention falls at… Briarche.” He can’t see me now that the hand laser is back in my pocket, so he looks at the spot near the fence where I was standing a moment ago. “On holiday you went with… Ryn, yes? Cabin near falls you had. Swam unclothed. Met another person… you—”

  “When? When did I tell you that?” I know what he’s about to say. I haven’t told anyone about that last bit. Not my friend from the Academy, not my children. Especially not my children. And Ryn wouldn’t have shared that encounter either.

  Matias shakes his head. “Not understand. In lab… swap your helmet to hear you speak me speak. Said you understand me speak you speak in shuttle.”

  The boy doesn’t look dangerous. Nor does he look as simple as the translator is making him sound. And I can’t see how he could know about the cabin at Briarche unless I told him willingly. If I’d been under duress, if they were torturing me, I’d have given him false information, right? Not something that only I could know.

  But I’m not taking any chances. I pull out the laser again and point it toward Matias, motioning toward the corner where I parked the shuttle, and he starts walking. He doesn’t seem the slightest bit nervous that I’m pointing the laser at him, even though he can’t have missed the way it ripped through the fence.

  “Alta 493,” I say as we approach the shuttle. “Prepare to open hatch.”

  “What?” Ryn’s voice rings inside my helmet. “You just left. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. We just have an unusual… development. I’m bringing back a guest.”

  Ryn is silent for a moment and then says, “Um… babe. I think you’re also bringing back the device. The pulse is right next to you and it’s moving toward my location.”

  When we reach the shuttle and the hatch swings up, the boy grins at me. “Wow… just…” Another grin, and then he steps inside, ducking low to avoid banging his head on the upper edge.

  I yank off my helmet as soon as we’re inside. That’s when I see Sim-Ryn. I have no real weapons on board, but he appears to be holding a much larger laser, the military variety, and I have a tough time holding back a laugh.

  The boy’s hands are raised. “Like I told Mila,” he says, clearly alarmed, “I’m a friend. My name is Matias Mora. Mila… she told me to jump back.”

  His speech is much clearer now that the ship’s system is handling translation. There’s barely a lag, and the vocal dampeners mask the sounds he’s actually making. The only difference is that the translated tone of voice is a little higher than his own.

  “It’s okay, Ryn,” I say. “Get rid of the weapon and close the hatch.”

  The hatch slides shut at about the same time the weapon vanishes from Ryn’s hands.

  Matias looks confused, staring first at Ryn and then back at me. “I thought you said Ryn was… dead?”

  “He is. This is a simulation.”

  The boy nods, but there’s a fleeting look on his face that I can’t read. Sympathy? Pity? His eyes are too strange to know for sure.

  “I’ve never made contact with another civilization,” I tell him. “I usually just analyze communications. I needed Ryn’s help setting things up, figuring out a plan.”

  I can hear the slight plea in my voice, as though I’m apologizing for having the simulation. For being weak. A small, embarrassed part of me wants to close it down, but what I said is still true. I need Ryn’s input on what this boy says.

  “That makes sense,” Matias says. “I used to do that too, when I was gaming. Easier to see all the angles when you have a sim assistant.”

  He’s still hunched over slightly, in order to keep his head from bumping the ceiling. I nod toward one of the chairs. “Sit,” I tell him. “And then start explaining. I don’t understand why you’re here. How could I have sent you? Why?”

  “Things… they didn’t go so well, Mila.” Matias glances over at Ryn, and then back at me as I strip off the rest of the suit. He seems a little relieved when he sees my body, more like he was concerned about me than that he was dreading seeing my too-short torso. That sends a shiver through me.

  “I mean, you got into the main section of the lab,” he continues. “Not sure how, since you’d need ID and all. I guess you piggybacked behind one of us. I think you were there all night. Most of us left early yesterday—although I guess it’s still
today, since I jumped back. I was tired after the Congressional hearings, and Professor Anderson had to go break the bad news that our program isn’t going to be funded. Well, bad news for her. I’m pretty happy about it actually. Anyway, I think you were in the lab with us this morning… tomorrow morning, I mean… because when you finally decided to make contact with me, you knew stuff about the keys. That I’m the one who can use it, not Professor Anderson. I have this gene…”

  His face grows somber, and then he continues, “My mom was part of a research program when she was pregnant with me. I had a heart defect. They spotted it a few months into the pregnancy. Offered to fix it, as long as she agreed to another genetic tweak and follow-up tests. She didn’t know what she was getting us into. Anyway, that second upgrade allows me to use this thing to… kind of… skip through time. Go back and forth. It’s called a CHRONOS key. I think it’s an acronym, although I have no idea what that stands for. Or where it came from.”

  “You told Mila that things didn’t go well,” Ryn says. “What do you mean?”

  The boy gives Ryn another nervous glance. Or maybe it’s curiosity. I get the feeling the simulations he uses in his gaming may not be quite at the same level as Sim-Ryn.

  “There were soldiers,” Matias says. “Three of them. They came in a few hours after Mila made contact with me. The professor was in the e-lab teaching a class, so we had a chance to talk. To get to know each other a bit before the troops stormed into the lab. They were dressed in those.” He nods toward the portable suit on the floor by the bunk.

  “Mila seemed like she was expecting them, but they were a little early, maybe? They seemed to know who she was, too. Professor Anderson came back into the lab and saw what was going on. She tried to call security and they…” His eyes meet mine. “They tore her clean in half with a gun that looked a lot like the fake one Ryn was carrying a minute ago. They were about to shoot me too, but you jumped in front and told them the key had a genetic component. That they’d need me to use it. And you told them the professor had the key in her pocket, even though you knew I had it. Then we made a run for the lab next door.”

  Matias looks down at my legs, and this time I can read his expression very clearly. He looks like he’s going to vomit.

  “One of them shot you. I think maybe you knew him, ’cause you called him by name. You were bleeding bad, and your legs…” He shakes his head. “When you put the helmet thing back on, you said your vitals weren’t good. That you wouldn’t make it. You told me to go back and find you, before you could reach the lab. Told me what to say to get you to trust me, so that you wouldn’t make the same mistakes again.”

  Ryn is sitting now, too. I wouldn’t have thought a simulation could look pale, but he does.

  “Those troops,” the boy says. “They were the ones you were telling me about, right? The Lor, the ones you’re fighting? The ones responsible for all the attacks on Earth in the past few days?”

  My eyes meet Ryn’s. I don’t want to lie to the boy. But if I tell him Stoll’s unit are Elisi…

  “They were the enemy,” I say.

  It’s the truth. Just not the whole truth.

  Matias nods. “Then I’m coming with you so we can stop them.”

  Chapter 5

  Elisi Shuttle Alar

  Date: 9023.27.10

  The boy is asleep in the lower bunk, the one I slept in on the trip to XE7. He didn’t want to take it at first, but he’s too tall to fit on the top comfortably.

  He sleeps a lot. I wonder if he’s sick? Or maybe it’s shock.

  I mention this when he wakes up.

  “No,” he says. “I feel fine. My mom says it’s adolescence. Body’s still growing.”

  “If you grow much more, you won’t fit in the shuttle,” I tell him.

  He laughs and tears the wrapper from one of the energy bars in the pack he brought on board. “We’ve got two days left, from what you said. I don’t think I’ll grow much during that time, so we’re safe.”

  I wish I could believe he’ll be safe once we land. Baydel called off Stoll’s unit when I told him I had the device and I understand how to use it. Stoll claimed his unit was still nearly a parsec away, but based on what Matias said happened at the lab, he must have been lying. Wouldn’t be the first time, but it’s still a kick in the head to think that Stoll would actually shoot me.

  Baydel doesn’t know about the boy or the attack on the lab. I was kind of vague on the whole “I understand how to use it” bit when we spoke, since we were on a public channel. I’ve tried twice to connect with his private comm, with no luck, probably because I used up my communications allowance talking to my children before I landed on XE7. Or Earth, as the boy calls it—a word the translator conveys as dirt or ground. Such a very prosaic name for what’s actually a pretty planet, based on what I’ve seen.

  I’ll have to tell Baydel something before we land. Otherwise all sorts of sensors are going to be tripped when I dock at Elisi Five.

  “What’s wrong?” Matias asks. He seems to be better at reading my facial expressions than I am at reading his.

  I start to say that nothing is wrong, but I don’t lie well. We’ve spent the last three cycles going through the specifics of how the key works. What it changes. The truth is, Matias doesn’t know. All he knows is that he inherited the gene to operate it. He can use it better than any of the others they’ve located. And a lot of people have spent a lot of time and money training him to “jump” with it.

  “It’s not that anything is really wrong,” I say. “I’m just worried about the ramifications of you using the device. What does it change?”

  He looks puzzled for a moment, probably trying to work through an awkwardly worded translation. They still happen, but it’s not as bad here in the shuttle as it was with the helmet.

  “I haven’t changed much,” he admits. “Nothing major. Moved some items around the lab. The thing is, anyone around me who isn’t touching this key will say nothing changed. That the book was always there on the desk. The door was already open. Then we figured out that we needed to change something I was holding. So that it would be under the field or whatever when I showed them. That’s what I did at the hearing on Capitol Hill, the one to request the funding. Half the representatives seem to think it’s a magic trick, and the other half think it’s too dangerous to screw around with it. I agree on the last part.”

  “How far back have you… jumped?”

  “As far as Professor Anderson and that committee knows, two hours.”

  “So you were taking a big risk when you intercepted me.”

  “Not really. I said as far as they know. I’ll admit I was curious. I’ve… been a few places. There were locations already on the key. I avoided that first one that pops up. Black, with a lot of static. It spooked me. But some of the others, you could see people moving around if you watched for a while. I’ve jumped back more than a hundred years. I was really careful, though, not to be seen and not to change anything… important. I mostly just looked around and came right back.”

  “But you think you could change things if you tried?”

  A flicker of something I can read passes across his face. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure about that.”

  “So… why didn’t you tell your teacher about those longer trips?”

  The boy shakes his head. “Anderson’s not my teacher. She’s more like my… boss. Or maybe warden is a better word. See, I’m wishing I’d never told them I could use it. I was a kid then, just fourteen. My mom had to sign a bunch of permission forms for them to even run the tests. I was thinking about the extra money it would bring in, maybe make things easier. I guess she was, too. Things are better now, though. We’d be fine without the money if I quit. So… let’s just say I didn’t do my best at that hearing. I wanted out from under Anderson’s thumb.” He sighs. “I didn’t like Anderson. But she didn’t deserve what they did to her.”

  “And that’s why you agreed to come with me?”

&nb
sp; He looks surprised. “Maybe a little. But more because of what you said. That the Lor couldn’t be allowed to get the key. And that if we didn’t change things, if we didn’t stop the war you’re in, the war that Earth was about to be pulled into, they’d keep right on taking what they wanted. Killing people who got in their way. If I ran, they’d find me. They find my family, too, my mom and sister.”

  “I told you all that?” My gut churns, and I’m glad I skipped my morning food ration. I’m also glad that Sim-Ryn isn’t running right now, because even without his presence in the shuttle, I can still feel Ryn’s eyes on me. Or maybe it’s just the eyes of my conscience. I don’t remember any of what the boy is saying, any of what happened in that lab, but it sounds like I really played things up to get him to cooperate. And I clearly didn’t bother to tell him that the Elisi might be the ones killing people.

  “No,” Matias says. “But I ain’t stupid. Anyone who would do what they did to Anderson… what they did to you, too… They won’t stop just because it’s my kid sister. Bunch of kids died in that shopping mall attack in Europe.”

  Now I’m wondering if Stoll was behind those attacks, too. I should have been honest with this boy. I should have told him Stoll’s unit works for the Elisi. He’s probably going to learn that when we reach the outpost anyway. Was Stoll’s ship really a half parsec away when I talked to Baydel? Did Wirth lie to Baydel? Or could he have been in on it?

  “You’re taking a lot of responsibility on yourself, Matias. Maybe it wasn’t fair of me to ask. Maybe you’re placing too much trust in me.”

  “Hmph. You don’t remember the lab, Mila. When that big guy yelled and turned the gun on me, you didn’t hesitate, you just—”

  “Wait. What did you say?”

  “You didn’t hesitate—”

  “No. Big guy. Did you say big guy? How big? Bigger than me?”

  Matias laughs. “Hell, one of them was bigger than me.”