Last of Her Name

by Jessica Khoury

  “I think I understand.” The other Leonovs resisted accepting Clio, knowing she wasn’t real. She was just a ghost to them, never a person. But I grew up believing she was real, and so I could love her in a way they never could. Our connection must be deeper than any Leonov has ever had with the Prismata. I wonder: If they had known her the way I do, if they could have heard her the way I’m hearing her now, would they have used her as a weapon? Would the course of history be totally different if my ancestors had just loved her the way I have?

  “Clio, there’s one thing I can’t make sense of. Why did you leave me on Amethyne? Why did you let me believe you’d been captured by Volkov? If I’ve been connected to the Prismata all this time, why couldn’t I just blink, and there you’d be?”

  She tilts her head, giving me a skeptical half smile that’s so familiar, so Clio, it aches to look at her. It’s the expression she always gave me when I asked a stupid question. Then she’d just wait, amused and patient, while I worked out the answer on my own.

  Like I do now.

  “You didn’t leave, did you?” I whisper. “I pushed you. I told you to get far away from me and you … you listened.”

  “I’ve always been as you believed me to be,” she says. “Your greatest fear was that I’d be captured by your enemies, and you feared it so much you began to believe it was true. And so it was.”

  “It was all in my head,” I murmur, feeling sick. “All the panic and dread I felt, thinking you were being tortured—that was me torturing myself.”

  She plants her hands on my shoulders, her eyes looking directly into mine. “I was always with you, stupid. Even though your own brain wouldn’t let you see me, I never left. You and me against the universe. Always.”

  “And …” I swallow, then ask impulsively, “Is that what you want? For us to be linked so inextricably? To feel yourself stretched across the light-years, woven through our silly human lives?” These aren’t at all the words I had planned to say, but they well up anyway, from the bottom of my soul. “Say the word, and I’ll fight to set you free from us. I don’t know how, but I’ll find a way. If that’s what you want.”

  “You’re done fighting, Stacia.” She smiles and raises a single finger. “Let me show you what I want.”

  Her finger presses to the center of my forehead, and I gasp as a flood of emotions pours into me.

  I feel what it’s like to be a billion years old, to burn in the darkness for eons. To feel the centuries turn while I never change. To be a being of light and love and sharp, brilliant lines, lost and alone in the cosmos, the last of a once innumerable species, mourning my lost kin through the millennia.

  Because, I realize, the Prismata was not always alone. There were others. Hundreds, maybe thousands of Prismatas once filled the galaxy, communing, connecting, sustaining one another. But then they began to die, their lights dimming and their songs fading, until at last, only one remained.

  She’s the last of her kind, just as I am the last of mine.

  But then—

  I feel the burst of excitement and curiosity when out of that infinite darkness, a lone voice calls out, the voice of a desperate, mortal human mind trying to connect. And I feel the joy of making that connection, of experiencing companionship after millions of years of solitude. I feel the pleasure the Prismata took in us frail humans, its immense affection for these ephemeral creatures that burned, lived, and faded like sparks from a fire. How pure her happiness was, to be joined again with others.

  How could I return her to that lonely dark?

  With a gasp, I open my eyes, and Clio lowers her finger. It takes me a moment to recover from the force of those emotions, so much deeper and stronger and older than anything I could ever experience in my own brief human lifetime. Already they begin to fade, but not before I capture their meaning.

  I stare at her, eyes watering. “I understand, but I’m frightened, Clio. Bad people are coming for you, and I don’t know how to stop them. I don’t know how to end this fighting. What do I do?”

  She smiles, like this is inconsequential. “Hope is born in darkness. Peace is born in trust.”

  “But what does that mean?”

  She pulls me close and whispers in my ear, “Who will you trust, heart of my heart?”

  Trust?

  “You don’t understand,” I say. “Volkov wants to destroy you. And if I use you to destroy him, this will never end. More will just come for you, and it’ll go on and on. Tell me what to do!”

  “I’ll tell you who I trust,” Clio says, with a sly sort of smile. She reaches up and frames my face with her hands, then tilts my head and kisses my brow. “I trust you. And I trust you will find the path. Now go. You must go.”

  All at once, she dissolves like a drop of wine into water.

  Clio? I call out, reach for her, but I’ve lost my hands. I’m formless, voiceless again, just a spark in the sun. Clio!

  Then the Prismata hurls me away.

  It throws me aside like a hurricane flinging a grain of sand, and I panic. But my fear is meaningless against the tide of the Prismata’s surging energy. It sweeps over me and carries me off, and then I feel it:

  A cluster of Prisms speeding through space, getting closer and closer.

  Missiles.

  Volkov is here. He has already opened fire.

  And the Prismata, Clio, does nothing. She could stop them. She could absorb them. I know how powerful she is now. If she wanted to, she could snap the Prisms powering those missiles or turn them around and blast Volkov out of the sky.

  But she doesn’t.

  She just waits.

  I rush backward, borne helplessly away from her, a scream trapped in my thoughts.

  One moment, Clio burns in the sky, ancient and golden and brilliant.

  Then the missiles strike her heart, and she shatters.

  I wake with a gasp, my heart knocking in my chest. The shock of being slammed back into my body leaves me blind for a moment, and I cast out for something to grab hold of. I’m completely weightless, I realize, drifting in zero gravity. Panic grips me; I imagine that I’m floating in space, untethered and alone. I grapple at the visor of my helmet, trying to rip it off, before my senses kick in. Whatever’s going on, my helmet may be the only thing keeping me alive.

  My vision begins to clear, but everything is tinted green. The lights must be out, and my space suit visor has activated its night vision. But it’s blurry and disorienting; I manage to get a grip on the wall, anchoring myself so I can make sense of my surroundings. Everything looks different in the grainy green haze of night vision. But I manage to make out the counters and cabinets of the old Leonova lab; I’m in the same place we were when Zhar found us. The room is a jumble of bodies and screams, figures in bulky space suits struggling in zero gravity. Someone collides with me, knocking my hand loose, and I careen through the air, crashing hard into the far wall. Rebounding back, spinning out of control, I find myself crushed by bodies. Everyone is shouting; someone’s elbow hits my helmet, and a crack splinters across my visor.

  “Stacia!” A hand reaches out; the night vision makes it impossible to distinguish between the limbs and torsos and bulging helmets around me, but I’d know that voice anywhere.

  “Dad?”

  I try to reach him, but someone pushes me aside and I crash into the wall. In the collision, the crack in my helmet’s visor branches out like a spiderweb. My night vision flickers and then returns.

  The soldiers are trying to make for the docks, but in the zero gravity and close confines, it’s sheer chaos. A space suit drifts past me, the visor shattered; inside, a pale face stares blankly, mouth stretched in a rictus of agony. I don’t know the soldier, but he died terribly.

  I grab an air vent and press myself against the wall to keep from being crushed like that poor soldier.

  “DAD!”

  My voice is lost in the current of shouting and screams. But someone pushes free of the soldiers and grabs my arm.

/>   “Stacia! This way!”

  “Pol!”

  He pulls me down the corridor toward the docks, shoving aside any soldiers who get in the way. Keeping our arms linked, we drift along, nudging the walls and floor to keep ourselves propelled in the right direction. The station is completely powerless; the walls groan and rattle around us, the way the Valentina did when Riyan took us through the Diamin Wall.

  “You okay?” he asks. I can’t make out his face; his visor is just a blank green screen on his helmet. If it weren’t for his voice, I’d have no way of recognizing him.

  “What happened?”

  “You passed out. Then Volkov fired on the Prismata. The power went out. Gravity, lights, everything is gone. Even my gun is dead. Stace, it’s bad.”

  My stomach sinks. I dare not look out the window, but I have to. I have to. Feeling nauseated, I push away from him and grab hold of the nearest porthole—and my heart drops.

  The Prismata is gone.

  Where it was, there’s only a cloud of sparkling dust expanding outward in the darkness. The sky is fuzzy and green. The night vision only makes the scene even more surreal.

  I would scream, if I could find the breath. But everything in me locks up, my body turning to ice. Horror opens in my stomach like a black hole.

  “We have to get out of there!” Pol says. “The debris will rip this place apart. Hey! Riyan!”

  A space suit drifts toward us, effortlessly graceful even in zero gravity. “There you are!” Riyan says. “We need to get away—”

  “I know,” Pol says. “Stace, come on. It’s gone. There’s nothing we can do.”

  He has to peel me away from the porthole.

  They destroyed Clio.

  The one thing I was meant to protect. A being far older and purer and more complex than we’ll ever know, and she’s gone.

  I shut my eyes. I’m shaking in my suit, my teeth chattering. Pain splits my head like an ax. Pol and Riyan pull me along, but I’m barely aware of them. Riyan is tessellating, moving aside soldiers who block our path; their bodies pinwheel past, arms and legs flailing, their screams burrowing in my skull. I feel frayed inside, like some essential wire has been cut, disconnecting me from my own body. I’m dead weight, towed behind my friends like a defunct ship.

  “My mom and dad,” I whisper. “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know,” says Pol. “But we have to keep moving.”

  “I can’t leave them behind again!”

  There’s a scuffle ahead. Some soldiers are fighting to get to the dock, but there’s too many of them to fit through the narrow doorway leading there. One turns and shoves another, and we hear a pained cry as the soldier crashes into the wall.

  “Mara,” I whisper. “That’s Mara.”

  “So?” Pol says harshly.

  I pull away from him and push myself to Mara’s side. She’s rolling in midair, clutching her leg.

  “Help,” she groans. “I think it’s broken.”

  Seeing her in pain, something stills within me. I can’t do anything about the Prismata, but here is someone I can help. I link arms with her and turn back to Pol and Riyan.

  “Someone’s got to fly us out of the field of debris,” I say. “And Mara trained in an asteroid belt. She’s the best chance we’ve got.”

  Pol hesitates, then nods. “We need to move faster. Brother?”

  Riyan flexes his hands. “On it.”

  My stomach sinks first, then the rest of me, as Riyan tessellates. It must take a monumental effort, but he manages to restore enough gravity to the corridor so that we can run. Mara leans on Pol and Me, and Riyan follows behind, our boots heavy on the floor. Startled shouts sound from the soldiers who find themselves suddenly gravity-bound again. When they try to intercept us, Riyan crushes them to the floor.

  “Have I ever told you,” Pol pants, “how freaking cool you are?”

  Riyan gives a short, dry laugh.

  Together we guide Mara down the corridor and into the docks. Similar to the palace’s configuration, the docks are a long, narrow chamber with round ports opening to the ships. Ahead, a group of soldiers is spilling into the dock—soldiers in Union red. They’re facing off against the white-suited Loyalists, but everyone seems to be hesitating. With all the Prismic energy dead, they can’t use their guns. They have no weapons to fight with, and hand-to-hand combat in space suits is just awkward and pointless.

  The vityazes must have attached to the station before firing on the Prismata, maybe in hopes of taking some of us alive.

  Pol curses, pulling us aside into an empty alcove. With the soldiers in the way, we can’t reach the Valentina.

  “Can you handle them?” he asks Riyan.

  “Wait!” Mara shakes her head. “It’s him! The direktor!”

  We peer around the corner and see two soldiers have stepped forward: one Unionist, one Loyalist. Their helmets nearly touch as they circle each other.

  “You fool,” Zhar says. “You’ve killed us all!”

  Volkov curses. “I do what is right, Lilyan. Why can’t you ever see that? You always took Pyotr’s side, in everything!”

  “There’s too many of them,” Riyan says, his voice strained. “If I were fresh, maybe, but I’ve been holding this stress field too long already. I can’t do it much more.”

  “Stacia!” calls a muffled voice.

  I turn automatically, looking back the way we came.

  My parents are gliding toward us, and with a sob of relief, I release Mara and meet them; we form a little circle, helmets pressed together.

  “We’ve been looking everywhere,” Mom sobs.

  “Are you all right?” asks Dad.

  “No, I’m not. The Prismata—”

  “We know. We saw it all.” Dad looks past me. “We have to get on a ship. Fast. That debris cloud will be here in less than a minute.”

  Riyan gasps. “I’m … losing it …”

  I can feel myself getting lighter, lifting until only my toes are on the floor. Even through his suit, I can see Riyan straining to maintain the stress field. The soldiers are starting to turn, feeling the change in pressure, and both Zhar’s and Volkov’s visors fix on me.

  “Kill her!” Volkov shouts, and the vityazes burst forward, taking Zhar’s Loyalists by surprise. Zhar slams her fist into Volkov’s helmet, shattering the visor, and then I lose sight of them as the soldiers charge at us.

  Mom, Dad, and Pol step in front of me. Mara screams. My gaze shifts, horrified, to the crack on my visor, which begins to splinter and branch, probably due to the shifting pressure of Riyan’s stress field. The thin wail of escaping oxygen fills my ears. I’m losing precious air by the moment. I can’t even call out for fear my voice will shatter the visor completely.

  Then, out of nowhere, Natalya Ayedi comes whirling like a red tornado. She’s wearing no space suit, only a black oxygen mask clamped over the lower half of her face. Her hands spread, her braids swirling around her head like black vipers.

  The vityazes stop in their tracks, just before they can clash with my parents and Pol. They hit the floor hard, screaming in pain as Natalya’s stress field pushes them into the ground. My feet sink down again, gravity restored for now. Farther down the docks, the Loyalists hang back, staring at the tensor girl with obvious fear.

  “Yes, Nat!” Riyan calls, his hands dropping to his sides. “Where have you been?”

  “Unconscious!” his sister shouts. “They got me with a stunner.”

  “Everyone always shoots the tensors first,” Riyan says.

  “Not always,” Pol mutters. “Let’s go!”

  We jump over the vityazes and run for the port to the Valentina, which Natalya’s left open. She’s suspended in the air, her toes several inches off the ground, her eyes burning as she stares at one vityaze in particular—Volkov. She’s got him and Zhar on their backs, their bodies twisted in agony, and I know the pressure on the direktor is probably ten times what she’s putting on the other soldiers.


  “Stace!” Pol’s holding out his hand to help me. The ship’s air lock is open, and the dark interior of the Valentina waits.

  Tearing my gaze away from Zhar and Volkov, I hand Mara to him.

  He pauses. “Her people are right there. We don’t have to take her. Let her go with them.”

  “I made a promise to her father,” I say. “She comes with us.”

  Pol shrugs, and he and Riyan pull Mara into the clipper’s air lock. Once she’s through, I follow, navigating clumsily in my space suit.

  I wonder what the point of all this is. If the Prism is down, there’s no power to the Takhdrive. No warping, no boosters, nothing. The Valentina has a solar backup supply, so we’ll have a bit of power, but even if there’s rudimentary life support, it won’t last us long.

  Halfway through the door, I pause, hearing an odd sound. It’s like hail on the metal roof of the winery back home, which seems like a totally wrong sound to hear in space.

  Until I realize it’s the Prismata’s debris starting to pummel the station.

  “Go, go, go!” Pol shouts.

  Natalya is in, gliding on her own little shimmering stress field. Riyan’s on the bridge above, tessellating Mara up beside him and strapping her into the pilot’s chair. The ship interior is lit by the Valentina’s pale blue auxiliary lighting.

  “The Prism’s dead!” Riyan reminds us.

  “Thrusters,” I murmur. “The solar backup should let us use the thrusters.”

  Pol catches my eye and nods.

  “If we undock,” he adds, “we can use the thrusters to generate enough force to break free of the station. If we stay attached, we die. We’ll have a better chance of surviving that way, making ourselves a smaller target, but we have to do it fast.”

  “No use,” Mara says, falling into the pilot’s seat. “The solar backup can’t power both the thrusters and the unmooring clamps. I can’t undock from this side.”

  “From this side?”

  “There are analog controls in the station, but there’s no time to make it back aboard—”