Starglass

by North, Phoebe

  “Well?” she said at last. I gestured to the book. She spun the volume around and opened it, eyebrows ticked up in annoyance.

  “Good . . . good . . . no, this isn’t right. Neither is this one. This is M. intermedia, not M. struthiopteris.”

  Mara pulled my clippings out, tossing them down at her desk. She scattered them over the mess of papers. Then she hefted the book in one hand and passed it to me. I extended a hesitant hand, taking it from her.

  “I’ll do better tomorrow . . .,” I said, my voice trembling; I almost instantly regretted how weak I sounded.

  “What you’ll do is go back out there and find them.” Mara’s voice was firm.

  “But the time . . .”

  She didn’t say anything. Instead she just stared me down, flaring her nostrils.

  I pressed my lips together, trying to stop my chin from trembling. Then I shuffled down the hall.

  Two hours later I was finally finished—each clipping carefully pressed between the rumpled pages. My back ached from crouching low all day in the bushes; my eyes felt heavy and watery. There was a long rake of scratches across my arm from where the thorns of one plant had dug in. I dragged my muddy boots against walkway floors, so tired that I could hardly lift my feet.

  But I straightened a little when the door opened and I found the once-bright lab dark. At the rear of the room, I found a torn scrap of paper taped to the dim computer monitor. I held it up to the light that spilled in from the corridor.

  Couldn’t wait any longer.

  it read in thin, jagged script.

  Will see you tomorrow.

  Promptly at nine.

  I clutched the heavy book in both hands, feeling rage swell my rib cage and crest in my throat. For a moment I considered slamming the field guide down against the desk, letting the legs shake, sending her papers and her precious slides flying.

  But I didn’t. I only stood there for a moment, breathing, shivering. My anger faded from a prickly mass of light within me to a dull, tired gray lump. I tossed the book down on Mara Stone’s desk and headed home.

  • • •

  There were two ways I could have walked home that night: I could have cut across the pastures, then through the commerce district. It was probably the way I should have gone—the most direct route and the safest.

  But it was late and I was tired. I knew the streets would be crowded with shoppers at this late hour—I’d see people I knew there, who would try to prod me into small talk about my new job.

  So I went the other way, past the greenhouses and labs and down the lift, then across the second deck of the ship. There forests edged the fields of purple and yellow. The overgrown dirt paths were practically empty now except for the crickets that called to one another, their song echoing beneath the ceiling.

  At the edge of a field, a scuffed wall rose up out of the soil. A single door was cut into it, and it formed an imposing rectangle of black. Inside were the engine rooms and the long corridors that looped around the now-silent machines. The dark hallways led to the large central lift, which went straight up into the districts. This section of the ship wasn’t off-limits, not exactly, but it was the type of place you didn’t venture off to alone except on a dare. For one thing, our parents always warned us that the engine rooms might be dangerous, all those skinny pathways suspended above the ship’s inner works. For another, the engine rooms were spooky. They seemed like the kind of place where you might stumble across a ghost—if you believed in ghosts.

  But I didn’t. I was almost sixteen. Soon I’d be earning a wage, finding a husband, living on my own. I had no reason to be afraid of the hollow, echoing corridors. So I stepped through the narrow doorway.

  When I was little, I’d been scared of the dark. I wasn’t anymore. Still, these hallways were so quiet. The only thing that I heard was my footsteps.

  Momma told me once about her great-grandmother who remembered the days when the main engine still ran. She’d hear the vibrations all the time, even at night, humming through the thin walls of her quarters.

  But now we only coasted to our destination. They’d shut the main engine off ages ago, when Great-Great-Grandma was still a girl. Someday soon they’d activate the reverse thrusters, stopping us completely. But that was months away. Now everything was quiet, and there were no workers left littering these rooms. Just me and my noisy boots, shedding mud against the hollow floor. Alone, or so I thought.

  Until I heard a scream.

  It came from the far end of the corridor. The lights here were dim, and they flickered, bathing whole sections of the hall yellow, then black. It looked like I was alone, but there was a scramble of movement in the distance, then a shout.

  “Grab him! Don’t let him get away!”

  I don’t know what made me run toward the distant voices, but I did, turning a corner and making my way down the narrowing corridors. At last I reached the end of the hall, then spilled down a step into a wide-open space. I barely managed to catch myself with my hands. Beneath my weight the metal grate swayed. I could see massive tubes spiraling down into the darkness through the gaps in the metal. They hugged the frozen engine tight, holding it aloft. There was the sound of wings fluttering from one end of the darkness to another. Apparently, bats had taken up residence there.

  “What was that?” A woman’s voice pulled me out of myself. I pushed my hands against the grate, scrambling to my feet.

  “Nothing!” A second voice—a man’s—answered. “It’s nothing! Hold him down!”

  The rail that bordered the walkway was thin and precarious, lit only by a series of amber lights. I took hesitant steps, following the curving pathway around the massive central column. And then I stopped, peering forward.

  In the flickering light stood Aleksandra Wolff. Her wool-clad shoulders faced me. She held her hand against the hilt of her knife like a silent threat, watching as two of her comrades wrestled a man to the floor.

  I crept forward. Past Aleksandra and the scuffling trio, there was another pair of men in the shadows—another guard who held a man against the ground. Long red locks hung in the citizen’s face. I noted the white cord on his shoulder. Academic class. A flash of recognition lit my mind. It was the librarian’s talmid. Vin or Van or something.

  That’s when I realized who his companion was. Benjamin Jacobi. The librarian, who’d spoken to me about my mother in kind tones only the day before.

  He was on his knees. One of the guards held the blade of a knife against the soft underside of his jaw.

  “The names! Give them to me!” the man on his left shouted.

  But it was Mar Jacobi’s student who answered.

  “Leave him alone!”

  I watched as he struggled toward his teacher, stepping into the feeble light. He was hardly even an adult. Though his compact body was covered in lean muscle, there was a curve of adolescent softness to his features.

  “Get back, Hofstadter!” Aleksandra snarled. “This isn’t your business!”

  And then I heard Mar Jacobi’s voice. It was soft, gentle. “Van, it’s all right.”

  The boy gave an uncertain nod. But then his gaze ambled up through the dark. His eyes were green, and they seemed to glow even in the dim light. He’d seen me watching in the shadows. He mouthed words to me, forming the syllables silently with his trembling lips: “Run. Now.”

  Before I could obey, I heard Mar Jacobi’s gentle voice rise up one last time.

  “Liberty on Earth,” he said. I saw the guard’s blade glint as it lifted. “Liberty on Zehava!”

  The knife came down.

  Red. Blood.

  I did my best to ignore the strange gargle of sound that followed me as I raced down the twisting hallway. When I reached the lift, I jammed my hand against the panel over and over again. But before the door could shudder open, I heard Van Hofstadter’s voice barrel toward me through the silent corridors.

  “Ben!” he sobbed. “Benjamin!”

  • • •

>   I was still shaking when I stumbled through the front door of my house. The sound of  Van’s anguished cries kept echoing through my head. I didn’t even see my father sitting stone-still at the table, waiting for me.

  “Terra. You’re late.”

  I jumped, nearly dropping my bag on Pepper. There was my father, hands flat on the tabletop, a series of covered dishes laid out before him. And he wasn’t alone. Koen Maxwell sat across from him, his brown eyes wide. He seemed afraid to speak or even breathe. I knew that feeling.

  “I know.” I shook my head. “Something happened—”

  “I don’t care what happened. I made supper for you so we could eat like a family for once. I expect you to come home at a reasonable time.”

  I was doing my best to keep my cool, but I could hear the emotion cresting in my voice already. “Mara kept me late, and then I came home through the engine rooms and—”

  “Don’t talk to me about Mara Stone. And the engine rooms are no place for a girl to go off walking alone!” He slammed the flat of his hand against the table. The dishes shook. Koen’s eyes got even bigger. I wondered if he regretted his vocation. But that wasn’t my problem.

  “I’m not a girl! I’m fifteen years old—”

  “I don’t care, Terra!” He pushed up from the table. As his chair came crashing to the floor behind him, Pepper darted up the stairs. My father towered over me. He was still so much taller than I was. “So long as you live in my quarters, what I say goes, and I won’t have you roaming the ship like some hooligan!”

  As if he didn’t roam the ship alone all the time!

  “Abba—” I clamped my hands over my mouth. The syllables had squeaked out like a baby’s cry. Beneath my fingers my face burned with shame. My gaze shifted to Koen, who was staring down at the tabletop, pretending he was somewhere else.

  My father didn’t notice my embarrassment. He was still caught up in our argument. “Don’t ‘Abba’ me! I won’t have you roaming the ship like some worthless little slut!”

  I’d heard those words before, of course. They always hit me just as hard as any blow. Between my clamped-down fingers I let out a small noise. A cry. I fought it. I didn’t want to cry in front of Koen. I didn’t want to let him see the way things were in our house.

  So I took off running for the stairs and locked my bedroom door behind me.

  I stood there for a moment, trembling. I wasn’t sure if I was angry, or hurt, or terrified, or all of those things; the only thing I knew for sure was that my heart was thrumming furiously in my throat. At last I threw myself face-first into my blankets. The bed was unmade, still rumpled from the morning. My father had given up trying to get me to straighten my sheets in the morning years ago. That used to be our old battle—my messy room, my twisted blankets. Momma had been my defender.

  “What’s it matter what her room looks like in the morning,” she asked, “so long as she gets to school on time?”

  Now there was no one to defend me. Just like there had been no one to defend Benjamin Jacobi.

  And now they’re both dead, I thought, weeping into my pillowcase.

  6

  Another dream.

  I was in the atrium again. I stood in a grove of pines, dressed in my plain cotton nightgown. The perfume of the air was sharp, the ground soft with needles as I padded across it. Barefoot. I should have been cold. The spring was too new for me to go around without boots on. But I didn’t shiver or tremble. The air felt hot against my face.

  “Terra!”

  I traced the line of trees to the ceiling lights. It was Silvan’s clear tenor, and it came from the treetops. I gazed up into the branches that were splayed out above me like long-fingered hands.

  He gazed down between the boughs. He was wearing dark wool—the same uniform coat that Captain Wolff wore, purple and gold gleaming on his shoulder. The brass buttons were unfastened, and the front hung open. But he’d forgotten his boots. Instead he was barefoot too. I could see the pink soles of his feet, clean against the scrubby branches.

  He smiled at me, then gestured for me to join him. I fixed my hands to the branches and began to shimmy up. The world bucked and swayed beneath me. But the higher I climbed, the higher the tree seemed to grow. And Silvan wasn’t getting any closer.

  “Wait!” I called. “Where are you going?”

  “To Zehava!” he shouted, his voice laced with laughter. I paused for a moment, looking up. It wasn’t right. We were on the second level of the atrium. I shouldn’t have been able to see the dome here or space beyond it. But there it was, gleaming black and pinpricked with light.

  “Do you see that?” I asked Silvan. Suddenly he sat beside me on my branch. I felt him there, his presence. A wave of warmth began to crest within me. But somehow I knew not to turn and look at him.

  Because he’d changed. He put his three smooth, soft fingers against my cheek, and I felt how weird they were, unmarred by the ridges of fingerprints.

  Who are you? he said. He didn’t speak through words. I couldn’t hear his voice at all. But I felt him, reaching out to me through the darkness.

  Bashert, I thought back. Bashert. Bashert. Bashert. Your heart’s twin. Your destiny.

  But when I answered him, he recoiled from me. Surprised or shocked. I don’t know. I felt it again, a hollow echo, as if he hadn’t heard me at all.

  Who are you? You’re not supposed to be here.

  I turned, but when I did, he was gone, the uncountable stars my only companions.

  • • •

  “Terra?”

  I woke with a gasp. My room was black, lit only by the sliver of light that fell through the open door. But then my eyes adjusted, and I saw my brother’s broad-shouldered silhouette against the door frame.

  “Ronen,” I mumbled, pulling myself up. “What are you doing here? What time is it?”

  “Five thirty in the morning. You need to get up.” His voice was grave. I peeled off my covers. The cold of morning hit me.

  I slid from bed, fumbling for the lights. When they came on, I had to blink away the brightness. But Ronen didn’t seem to notice the sudden glare. His mouth was an almost invisible line.

  “There’s been an accident. Benjamin Jacobi was found dead last night.”

  I froze in place, my feet glued to the cold metal floor. Ronen must have seen the blood drain from my face. “His talmid found him in the library,” he offered. “Underneath a stack of books. Seems he went for one on the top shelf and the whole bookcase toppled on him.”

  “Is that what they’re saying?” I blurted.

  “What do you mean?” he asked. Lines settled in on his forehead, underneath the line of his thinning hair. That frown made him look very much like my father.

  “Nothing,” I said. “Never mind.”

  “We have to hurry, Terra,” he said. “They’re doing the funeral before work hours today.”

  I squinted into the darkness. We always held funerals soon after death so that the body would have no time to decompose. But it was so early.

  “What if I don’t want to go?” I asked, but the set of his lips, so like Abba’s, silenced me.

  “Abba said you have to. It’s a mitzvah. He’s gone to ring the bells. He asked me and Hannah to walk you to the field.”

  “I can walk by myself,” I said, giving my head a firm shake. But Ronen only shrugged.

  “Abba said we should take you.”

  I was nearly old enough to earn a wage—old enough, almost, to be wed. But our father still didn’t trust me to walk from the districts out to the pastures under the cover of night. And I knew there would be no fighting with Ronen about it. He always lived just enough within our father’s rules to avoid scrutiny. After Momma died, they even stopped bickering, like her death had drafted a peace between them.

  But not between us. There was never any friendship between my brother and me.

  “Fine,” I said, gritting my teeth. I reached into the bottom of my dresser for my funerary clothes—a
n old set I’d inherited from Momma, but they would have to do—and huffed off toward the bathroom to change.

  • • •

  Another funeral, another white-wrapped body lowered into the ground. I stood at the back with Rachel, chewing my nails.

  We went together to the edge of the grave, knelt in the dirt, and threw handfuls of black soil down. When I rose up from the grass, a pair of bright green eyes caught mine. Van Hofstadter. He was standing at the other end of the unmarked grave, holding a child in his arms. It must have been his son—red hair curled up from his neck, a shock of color in the dim predawn light. But even though Van clutched the little boy to his chest and even though his wife leaned against him, his attention was fixed on me.

  Those eyes flared a wild warning.

  “Are you okay?” Rachel asked, leaning close. She went to grab my hand, but I didn’t want to let her see how mine was shaking. I pretended not to notice, wiping my palm against my trousers.

  “Last night,” I said, “I saw him, with Mar Jacobi, on the way home from work.”

  “Oh, that’s so sad,” she replied. “That must have been right before he died, right?”

  I turned to look at her. Her eyes were large and shining. Everything was so simple for Rachel—black and white.

  “Must have been,” I said quickly as I started off across the field.

  • • •

  After the funeral Rachel asked me to go with her to Mar Jacobi’s quarters to pay our respects.

  Normally, it wouldn’t have even been a question. No matter how many times my father had tried to force me to become a proper, respectful daughter, I just wasn’t that kind of person. I was bored at weddings, at parties, at harvest celebrations. At school I sighed and doodled in the margins of my notebooks. And funerals were even worse. Everyone always stared at me sidelong, waiting for some morsel of wisdom to spill from the mouth of the girl whose mother had died.

  But this funeral was different. I had business to attend to.

  As soon as we stepped through the door, Rachel rushed forward, kissing the wet cheeks of Giveret Jacobi. Rachel shoved a small box of homemade cookies into the woman’s hands. I don’t know when she’d had time to bake. The sun had just barely begun to rise.