Beyond Our Stars

by Marie Langager

  “I, I don’t know if they’re okay,” she said in a quiet, muted voice I could barely hear. I glanced back at the other adult Specs. One, two …there were only eight of them.

  This had never happened before.

  “Celina, where are the rest of them? What happened? Tell me... Celina? Look at me, I need to know what happened, okay?”

  Her eyes finally focused on me. “They fell,” she said, sudden terror sweeping her face.

  And I knew. They’d had an identical session to ours. “Where are they?” I asked, my pitch elevating despite my best efforts. Whatever had happened to the two missing could happen to any of us.

  Celina was crying silently now, watching me. I suddenly remembered I was supposed to be one of the strong ones. An example. Many of the survivors had begun to notice we were back early and were gathering around us.

  “I’m so sick of these cruel games,” Celina murmured softly.

  I rubbed Celina’s hand soothingly and made sure I had total control over my emotions. We were standing inside the Site. If they wanted, they could lower the force field and we’d be cut off from the Stacks with our people left inside. If they were…no, of course they were alive.

  “I want us all in that tunnel, right now,” I said loudly and confidently. I motioned to the entrance to the Stacks for the adult group. I was met with surprised and fearful looks and no movement. I looked to Chance for support. He shook his head slightly, but gave me a questioning look. Okay, so some convincing was in order.

  “Listen, they’ve still got two Specs. If it were you, would you want us to leave you inside? I’m saying we make a stand right now. They can’t keep our people. We’ll wait right here until they bring them out.”

  “But Hope, a bunch of people with no way to fight isn’t a ‘stand’. I’m sure they can make us leave if they want,” Weeks said, in a surprisingly grown-up way.

  “You’re right, and if they do that, then they do. I’m saying we show them what we want. We care about our own, none of us is disposable. We’re staying, for as long as they let us.” I almost stomped my foot when I finished, but managed to hold back.

  I was getting nods accompanied by long sighs and groans. They’d listen, but they didn’t like it.

  “What if they make us go back in?” Grim asked. Then he stood up a little straighter, making him all of five feet, and said, “Not that I’m scared. But, I’m just saying, they might send us back in.” I could see him swallow.

  I wasn’t ready for another session either. The thought made my stomach twist in knots.

  “I don’t think they will. If they do…” I shook my head and waved my hand.

  “Okay, Hope. We’ll do what you say,” Chance said, and people turned to him. He looked at his feet for a second then walked back into the tunnel entrance. All the Specs followed, leaving people that were watching outside.

  We sat in the white tunnel, thirty-eight people silently reliving the last few minutes of their lives. I could hardly bear it. I needed to talk, to not think.

  I found Celina and sat down. She was leaning against the cool white wall of the tunnel, her short brown hair matted to her forehead, her eyes closed. She looked exhausted. One of the other adult Specimens, Demetri, sat next to her.

  “Celina?” I ventured quietly.

  She opened her eyes and gave me a weary look.

  “You said they fell,” I began, in a hushed voice, hoping it didn’t hurt her too much to talk about this. “How did that happen?”

  Celina turned her head away from me and winced.

  Demetri put his hand up to me and shook his head at Celina. “You don’t have to answer. It’s not your fault.” Demetri always tried not to complain about the sessions, but I could hear some anger in his voice. I wanted to know what happened.

  Celina opened her eyes and whispered, “There wasn’t enough room. And…people fought. They fought for a place.”

  I felt like someone was squeezing my heart. I let my head fall into my hands, my hair sweeping down over my face. I didn’t want anyone to see what I was feeling. They had fought to save themselves, but only because the Locals made them.

  I heard Celina say, “I pulled her down. I did. I pulled her down,” and I looked up to see the silent tears falling again.

  I gulped and gave Celina a pat on her hand.

  “Leave her alone now,” Demetri said to me. I got up and walked back to my group.

  “What’d she say?” Legacy asked me in his gravely voice.

  I shook my head.

  He raised his eyebrows at me. “I can go ask her myself,” he said.

  I sighed. Legacy’s black eyes glittered like he knew I was holding something back. “They fought over places,” I said. They didn’t need to know what Celina had done. They wouldn’t hear it from me, anyway.

  Legacy nodded like he’d been expecting me to say that.

  The rest of the group who’d heard me craned their necks and looked over at the adult Specimens. There would be talk of this among the people. There’d be judgment. As though an outsider could really judge. I’m sure it was easier to think of a better plan when you weren’t in the moment with a split second to act.

  We’d been waiting for maybe about half an hour when we heard some noises. The elevator at back opened and I heard coughing, and then two people collapsed into the tunnel.

  I ran, my pounding feet echoing against the walls.

  I reached out to the short, plump woman named Helen. She moaned, reaching for me. I crouched down next to her, realizing she was hurt. The other Specs started to gather around.

  “Are you okay? What happened?” I asked.

  Duggard, the man who was with Helen, sniffed at me loudly. He always exaggerated what happened in the Stacks. I wanted what the Specs said right now to stay between us until we knew how to deal with it, and the look in Duggard’s eyes told me he knew what I was thinking.

  “Can’t keep this quiet, girlie. The people are gonna want to know. And see this?” He pulled up his uniform shirt and then his sleeves to reveal deep purple bruises. “They put some weird blue tape on it, slapped me together and shoved me out like I meant nothin’, not a damn thing to them.”

  Duggard looked proud, and his gaze shifted quickly to listening Specs. He was excited.

  “Helen?” I asked, motioning to her body.

  She rolled up the sleeve of her uniform a little, to reveal an ultra-thin cast wrapped around the front of both of her arms. She had the tape over her elbows. She pointed to her thigh, and then pulled the collar of her shirt down to show me more bruises.

  “I don’t know how bad anything is. My arms are broken, I think. It hurt like hell when they put these things on.”

  “But they took care of you? Did they…” I wanted to know if they’d spoken, communicated, anything. Nothing like this had happened before.

  “It was all silence, from them, anyway,” she said, a tear rolling down her cheek. I pictured her screaming as the Locals patched her up. Helen’s shoulders shivered. “But to have them so close! And they touched me with their hands, Hope!”

  “Did you feel anything from them?” I asked her.

  Helen met my eyes. “Precise. Exacting. They moved fast.”

  I nodded.

  I ran my hand through my hair. “Okay. We have to get you back to the Site. Duggard…” I tried to think of what to say, “This affects more than just you.” I narrowed my eyes at him.

  The forty-year-old, pot-bellied, skinny man gave me a smirk. “I know full well of the ramifications of this, girl. Do you?”

  I took a step towards him where he stood held up by two other Specs. “Yes,” I said in a low voice, “and it’s more than politics with the people. We all are going to have to keep going back in there,” I pointed fiercely at the Stacks, “I know, and you know how bad it is that you got hurt. Everyone else will know it, too. But stress the fact that you got help, okay?”

  Duggard rolled his eyes, “We could’ve died. Maybe they only sa
ved us so they could watch it happen again. Now we know they want to hurt us, what part don’t you get?”

  I grabbed the sleeve of his shirt, “Listen,” I started. But I stopped and tried to calm myself down, “I’m reporting to Chief Upton the moment we return to the Site.” Chief wouldn’t like him making the people more afraid, either.

  Duggard pursed his lips, looking at the floor. “Fine, girl,” he said.

  I turned to leave. “For now,” he muttered to my back.

  I kept walking. I couldn’t control what Duggard was going to say once we got back to the Site, and I knew there was a slim chance he could resist for long. But I needed everyone to keep some calm until we figured out what to do. We walked back, two other Specs helping Celina as she limped.

  “Home sweet home,” Weeks said when we were out of the tunnel. He acted like it was all a joke, but no one smiled. The force field sealed immediately once the last person was out. People began to surround us, some ran to notify the medics.

  I stood back, watching everyone. The feeling of dying in the sessions is what had been so terrible in the beginning. Fear was living in all of us now. But now we’d have to add physical danger to the list as well, real physical damage. I wondered if there would be a session where the Locals wouldn’t save us at the last second. When I would fall into a sea of stars and never come back.

  Chapter Eight

  The crowd swelled in the flattened grass area in front of the tunnels. More people were coming through the high grass, and I knew more from the outskirts would be hearing about the session soon. The medics arrived to take Helen and Duggard away.

  Chief Upton emerged from shoulder-high foliage escorted by one of the ship engineers. He spotted me and came over.

  “Is it true, what they’re saying?” He asked me.

  I faced him, “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “Okay, people!” At the sound of his voice the crowd hushed. “Let’s move this into the main auditorium of the Reflection and your own ships, okay? We’ll broadcast the meeting and all talk about this.”

  The crowd instantly began filing over to their respective ships.

  “You’re not going to talk to them first?” I asked Chief Up, motioning to Helen and Duggard.

  He sighed, putting a hand on my shoulder. “No point. They’re going to say what they’re going to say to me, and then they’ll say what they want to the people. I might as well be part of the discussion that matters,” he said, sweeping his other arm across the crowd. I hadn’t thought about it that way.

  As the crowd left, I noticed Duggard staying behind. A man approached him. He whispered for a minute into the man’s ear. Something about the exchange made my stomach clench. I kept back, behind the passing crowd. Then the man took off through the grass and walked into the maze of crops.

  I took off after him.

  I trailed the slender bald man to another ship. There weren’t many people around, most had made their way inside their vessels, so I lagged as far behind as I could without losing him.

  I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to follow him through the maze of corridors inside the other ship without being spotted, but then he banged twice on the bay doors of the Talisman that led to the ship’s tanks.

  He was answered with another double knock, and the doors slid open.

  I cursed in my head. I was not going to be able to knock and get let in obviously. But I wanted to know what was going on in there.

  I quickly made my way to ramp at the front of the ship and entered through open doors the crowd had used. Then I used my slamming knowledge to locate the fastest route through the shafts down several decks to the tanks.

  “They want to know what our weaknesses are. It’s just smart on their part. Why use ammo when they could just suck the air out of the landing site?” A man was talking. I’d entered the tanks through the shaft at the ceiling and I clung to the ladder. I had a clear view of the group, there were ten of them. The man speaking was very tall and his thin frame looked sickly. Veins popped up all over his skin with one long one extending over his skull, giving him a strange bumpy appearance. His cheeks were sunken in between sharp, angular features.

  “What the aliens want is to take over our bodies. I don’t understand why no one will listen to me. It happens all the time. Those chosen ones, they’re not human anymore.” That was a woman I’d never seen before, and the group let her talk but then resumed as though she hadn’t spoken. She had frizzy whitish hair that seemed to have static in it and was sticking up I places.

  “Well, we gotta keep our guard up,” a familiar voice said. I hadn’t noticed Legacy and his little pal Boston until now. So now including Duggard there were thirteen of them. “We know for sure that they’re willing to hurt us. They probably even want to hurt us. That was just some breaks and bruises, what’s next? We should be trying to figure out a weakness of theirs, a way to fight back.”

  “The kid’s right,” the bald headed man stepped in front of Legacy, “And it’s high time we had some stronger leadership. Chief Upton is failing, waiting for the Locals to make each move. They’re testing our weaknesses, we need to figure out a way to test theirs…”

  This guy talking about Chief made me angry. And weaknesses of the Locals? What weakness? They were always protected by their technology.

  We couldn’t run, even if we had a way out, the ships were almost complete shit now after the landing. And we had nowhere to go. As far as we knew, CR-3 was the only truly hospitable climate for human life. I was starting to sweat as I held myself still in the shaft. I tightened my grip.

  “Morgan’s right,” Legacy said. Morgan looked back and glared at Legacy like he didn’t want the kid’s vote of approval. Or he didn’t think he needed it.

  “Above all we need to keep our plans off the radar for now,” Morgan said.

  My other hand suddenly slipped and I threw my foot against the side of the shaft so I wouldn’t fall through.

  I heard some muttering and climbed my way up fast. They’d heard me, definitely.

  I heard pounding footsteps as I pulled myself out. I ran through the corridor past locked quarters. A ship elevator beeped on my floor. I reached a bay and put my hand on the pad to open it, then ran inside, jamming the pad to close the doors and sprinting across to another shaft in the wall. I swung inside seconds before I heard the bay doors open again behind me but I didn’t turn back, I slammed my way through the ship faster than ever.

  I finally stopped when I was at the top deck of the Talisman. Then I carefully made my way back down, my heart hammering the entire time.

  I took off running to go talk to Chief.

  As the crowds dispersed from the auditoriums, I overheard people talk about the injured specimens. Apparently Chief had ordered a special feast tonight with some of the reserve Steves and harvest, in honor of them. We’d been conserving food since the Stacks appeared but I guessed he was trying to keep people from giving in to despair.

  Finally I was able to pull him away and into a small empty storage bay. As I told him what I’d overheard, he folded his arms across his chest, looking at the wall.

  When I was done he ran both hands through his silvery hair. “Doesn’t surprise me at all. Everyone’s scared. They’re not dangerous.”

  “I think you might be wrong.”

  Chief Up moved toward the door. I wanted him to say he would talk to them, do something about this. Chief was our leader, now was not the time for this guy to be angling to take over. “Hope, thank you for telling me. I’ll keep an eye on it. But don’t go spying on people again, okay? Don’t worry about anyone but yourself.” He patted my arm.

  He opened the doors and held his arm out for me to go first. I moved to go but he frowned and put his hand on my shoulder. “Do you hear me? This is not your job. It’s mine. I won’t be able to sleep at night if I know you’re lurking in dark corners of ships to overhear conversations. Keep your mind focused on the Stacks. You have enough problems there.”

&
nbsp; I was grateful for the almost fatherly affection that made him worry so much. But there was no way I was going to let this drop.

  “I’ll do my best to stay out of trouble,” I said. He sighed but pushed me lightly on the back and I ran off.

  Outside, the festivities were beginning. There were bonfires were being lit. But there was a tangible gloom, and whispers full of fear.

  I sat down in a circle where I spotted Faith and Gaia telling stories for the younger kids. They ran around, dancing and falling down comically for the kid’s enjoyment. It was rare to see them letting loose, and with the beautiful green and yellow lights above their heads in the night sky, it was a lovely sight.

  Cairo and Marseille were sitting together, both sipping cool water from our metal dishes. They seemed sad but were also trying to put on a brave face. For us, fresh water was as good a party drink as anything else. The purified water from the ship was fine, it was clean. But when we’d landed and then been held prisoner in this place, we’d tapped into the piping system that brought water to the crops and we were now siphoning off water from the Locals. It was cool and tasted like minerals and…freshness.

  Chance was in the circle, too, sitting with some friends of his. It was this way with us now. We were nearby but not together. I sat by myself, exchanging hesitant smiles with the people around me. I didn’t know them, but because I was a Spec they knew who I was.

  My eyes turned to Chance as I was handed a cup of hot water. They were boiling it with leaves over a fire now, to make tea. I held the steaming cup up to my nose and pressed it to my lips, inhaling the vapor.

  Chance let out a laugh at one of his friends who was relating some story. My heart started to pound in my chest. I suddenly felt very alone.

  Chapter Nine

  A few days of nothing. Both Helen and Duggard were recovering, and we were given a respite from the Stacks. Three days of total peace. I tried to rest but waiting for the Locals to make the next move kept me awake most nights.

  I was high up in one of the wide green trees picking a sour pink fruit we hadn’t named yet. I saw the occasional birds flying overhead, large jet-black ones with huge wingspans and long black beaks, and smaller, neon blue ones that twirled and somersaulted in the sky. I loved them both and wished I could hear their call. I lifted my leg to climb another branch, a burlap sack full of the fruit over my back.