Beyond Our Stars

by Marie Langager

  Legacy was on the first floor, in a cell at the end of the hallway. The only prisoner in a vast, empty jail. The guard next to Legacy’s cell got up from his small wooden stool and backed away as I approached. I took a seat on the stool, not ready to look at Legacy just yet. I didn’t want to feel that same anger I’d felt when I attacked him.

  “Hope,” a voice said, and then I had to open my eyes because it sounded so different than what I’d been expecting.

  “Legacy?” He looked different, too. Younger. His long black hair was swept from his face and tucked behind his ears. He wasn’t hanging his head with a sullen expression, and the black stuff around his eyes was gone.

  He was sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the bars of his cell. As I looked at him he brought his hands up to the bars and held them.

  “Hope I’m sorry,” he said.

  I looked down, fists clenched. Even knowing what I knew, what he’d done was…

  “Hope, I-I wasn’t thinking clearly,” he said, pleading in his voice. “I honestly didn’t think it through. I mean, I meant to kill him but I shouldn’t have done it. I just saw him and…I hate them.”

  “Well, now they all probably hate us, too, thanks to you,” I said, unable to hide my anger. But it was difficult. After everything we’d been through, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the Locals, either.

  “I know. I know that. And---” He stopped again, halting over his words, “I’m not saying the right things.” He swallowed. “Aren’t you tired of them testing us? Watching us?” he said quietly.

  “Yes. Of course I’m tired.”

  He nodded. Then he groaned and gripped the bars to his cell. “What I really want to say is, I don’t know if there’s a way to get us all out of here. I don’t know if there ever was. But, if you have a plan… then I’ll do anything I can to help you.”

  I couldn’t look at him. Now he’d help me?

  “I don’t know if there’s anything you can do to fix it, Legacy.”

  He nodded. “Maybe not. But I’m saying, if the time comes, I’ll offer myself up. I mean, if I was really the one to cost us everything then I can’t live with that. And if we’re all going to die anyway, I want to know that I tried. So, if you have a plan, count me in. They can have me.”

  I looked at him. He seemed sincere. If he would really do this…

  “I don’t even know if I can let that happen. Why now?”

  Legacy stood and took a few steps back from the bars, letting his hands fall down to his sides.

  He took a deep breath. “I don’t know. It was different when I was surrounded by people who agreed with me. I felt like they understood. I hated my dad for always switching sides, he does whatever he thinks will help him most. He doesn’t care about people, he cares about how people see him. How his son sees him never seems to matter.”

  He put his hands back up on the bars. “I needed to do something. I wanted someone to pay.” Legacy paused. “I’m sorry about the stuff I said to you. The truth is I think you’re amazing.”

  Quiet hung between us. The words stunned me. I couldn’t answer.

  “Chief’s been coming to see me,” he said.

  “He has?” I asked. I should have known.

  “Yeah. He didn’t really say much, he let me yell at him. But then I yelled so much… I started to think about things.”

  He stopped and I could see emotions warring on his face. “And now…” Legacy scrunched his eyebrows together. “You don’t always get the chance to save someone. Sometimes the choice isn’t up to you. But this time, I decide.”

  It was all too terrible, and I couldn’t help it, I turned my head away. I’d seen his love for his mother, his guilt, in his eyes.

  I couldn’t hate him.

  “Please, Hope,” he said.

  My mind swirled.

  “I have to go. I’ll tell Chief what you said.”

  Legacy gave me another pleading look and I walked fast away from his cell, from his misery.

  Legacy wanted redemption.

  I didn’t want to make decisions like this.

  ***

  I ran back to Cairo’s quarters where the others were waiting for me.

  “You were gone so long!” Marseille said.

  “Where have you been?” came a low voice I was glad to hear. I buried my face in his shoulder.

  “Hang on, was Chief really that mad?” He asked.

  I stepped away from him, running my hands over my face, wanting to be strong but feeling like I couldn’t handle all of the conflicting thoughts clashing in my mind. I told them about my new plan, and also what Legacy had said.

  “He’d really give himself up like that?” Weeks sounded disbelieving.

  “I really think so,” I answered. “I think we need to acknowledge that we’re weaker than them, that we need help, so they’ll take us in. That’s all we are now. Refugees. Not conquerors.”

  “But we did kill one of them,” Marseille said.

  “Exactly,” I answered. “But one of ours died, too. If they wanted to kill us all why didn’t they do it already?”

  A voice over the intercom system of the ship broke through our conversation and a chill swept through me.

  “All Specimens aboard the ship please report to the Stacks.” There was a wavering in the voice this time.

  “They’re back?” Gaia asked, jumping from the bed. Chance’s arm slid around my waist and pulled me close as we walked.

  We were all tense as we made our way through the grass to the tunnels.

  A crowd had formed, masses of people gathering around the entrances to the Stacks.

  As we neared I could already see that something was out of the ordinary. There was only one Local. And he was standing inside the tunnel that bore the symbol for our group.

  Questioning faces watched us as we walked over to our entrance.

  As we neared, the Local lifted its arm and its hand outstretched. Toward me.

  I felt my heart stop and yet words came out of my mouth as though I’d known I was going to speak them.

  “They only want me.”

  “No, no way,” came the response I knew was going to come from Chance. I pulled from his arms. I wasn’t going to let any of them come this time.

  “Hope, I don’t care what you say, you’re not going in alone,” he insisted. He left me and started walking toward the tunnel by himself. The Local raised a hand.

  “Not you,” I said. I had no idea if their gestures were already like ours or if they’d learned from watching us, but either way the meaning was pretty clear. “They won’t let you this time. It’s only going to be me.”

  I grabbed his face and kissed him. “I can’t let you go in alone, I can’t,” he repeated, staring at the alien.

  “I’m going,” I said to him. “And I’ll be back soon.”

  He looked stunned as he watched me leave, and then he turned to the Local with a fixed, angry stare. Please, don’t hurt me or he’ll become the next Legacy, I thought.

  I looked the Local in the eyes as I approached and he returned my gaze. This one was younger. He seemed calm enough. I stepped in and the force field sealed immediately. I could almost feel it brushing against my back.

  I usually had company along for whatever rollercoaster ride of torment lay in store for us. This time was different. There wasn’t any shuffling or talking, only the sound of my own breathing and my soft footsteps as the Local and I advanced toward the slick white doors.

  My heart started to pound as I passed the Local and the doors to the Stack slid open for me to walk inside. Then they sucked shut and there was darkness. Every inch of me was on alert, waiting. My legs were going numb and at the same time my heart was racing, my face hot and cold, my fingers tips tingling with anticipation. I think I closed my eyes. The Stack didn’t illuminate. A minute went by in blackness.

  I heard a buzzing next to me. I reached out in the dark and felt a force field. And then I was pushed.

  I fell, un
able to stay upright and it kept pushing me to the back of the Stack like I was garbage under a broom. I struggled but couldn’t stay upright while the field was shoving me. It stopped.

  I stood and pounded against the invisible wall. I opened my mouth to start yelling but then across from me the doors to the Stack slid open and I heard familiar voices. My Specs.

  Chance ran in. “Hope!” I could just make them out from the light bleeding in through the open door. He ran across the Stack. I yelled his name but he couldn’t hear me or see me.

  He threw up his hands. “She’s not here, where do they have her?”

  The others were more nervous than I’d ever seen them. They stood in a huddled group, close together, several of them holding hands. Cairo stood in front of Marseille, holding her behind his back. Chance came over and put a hand on Pilgrim’s shoulder.

  Then the doors shut, sealing us in darkness and the simulation began. I caught my breath, wishing the others weren’t here.

  As soon as the session started the group was trapped in a cell, a round cage surrounding them.

  They gripped the bars and yelled, and I could hear their fear. They were in a cage inside a cage and I was nowhere to be seen.

  But then Chance called my name, “Hope?”

  My pulse thudded but he wasn’t even turned towards me.

  And I saw who he was calling for.

  It was me. Except it wasn’t me at the other end of the Stack. The pretend me was standing still, with fearful eyes.

  I stared at my hologram in awe. I started screaming again even though I knew no one could hear me. “It’s not me! It’s not me!” My throat felt raw but I kept screaming.

  When the shot rang out I ducked and sealed my eyes shut.

  I heard Chance roar like I’d never heard before. He was pulling on the bars with everything he had, banging on them and turning his fists bloody.

  “No!” Pilgrim cried in a small, terrified voice.

  They blocked my view, and I couldn’t see my hologram anymore. The others were screaming, too.

  Chance was furious. And then his face turned towards me as he looked away from what they all grouped around, and I saw tears streaming wildly down his cheeks.

  “Hope!” he screamed at the top of his lungs. His body began to rock with sobs and his head slammed against the bars of the cell. “Let me out of here!” He shouted, fury in every syllable.

  Faith sank down to the ground sobbing. Weeks pounded on the bars, staring at whatever was happening beyond my sightline.

  But I knew. I knew what Chance was seeing. And when he finally crumbled, choking on sobs and screaming as he bent down to put his face in his hands, I could see behind him. The image of me lay bleeding, probably dead already. Blood poured out of her side and into a large puddle on the ground.

  Chance screamed again, “I’ll kill every last one of you!” His tears continued to fall and I could see his shoulders shaking. “You’ll pay, every last one!”

  Pilgrim covered his eyes with his hands and cried quietly. Gaia and Faith held each other, and so did Cairo and Marseille. Weeks still stared in shock. Even Boston had tears slipping down his cheeks.

  Then silently, my image disappeared. The body was just…gone.

  Chance stood back up, staring at the empty spot.

  “What does that…” Faith started to ask.

  I pounded on the invisible wall in front of me and yelled, “Let me out!”

  The buzzing stopped as the field released me. I made a choked moaning sound and ran. Chance wheeled around and caught my eyes and I ran faster.

  “Hope!” He yelled. I threw myself toward him and he wrapped his hands over mine around the bars. I pressed my body as close as I could and he lowered his head, pressing his forehead to the metal where my skin would have touched his.

  “Hope,” he said weakly. Then, confused, he looked up. “Is this you?” a moment of fear raced through his eyes as he questioned which one of the girls he’d seen was the real one.

  “Yes, me,” I reassured him. I registered the happy cries of relief from the group but kept my eyes trained on Chance. The others gathered around us. I kissed Chance’s fingers that were around mine. But then I backed up a foot.

  “Why are you all still in there?” I asked warily. We all looked around, waiting for the next thing, except for Chance who couldn’t take his eyes off me.

  Then the bars of the cell began to rise from the ground. The Specs rolled underneath as the bars continued to rise into the ceiling, until they disappeared. Then suddenly we were thrown into complete darkness again. Chance felt for my hand.

  A light appeared. A dim white light in front of us. The small spot of light spun, shining a white light around on all of our faces. I realized I couldn’t feel a floor below us. We were floating. Tiny shimmering specks started to appear all around us.

  “Like stars,” Pilgrim said in a shaky voice.

  They were. It was like we were in space, stars all around us. The glowing spot of light began to grow, and I felt afraid.

  It spun and spun and grew larger, now bigger than all of us. But then the giant glowing shape began to change. Blue slowly seeped over its surface, and then there were some spots of green. It continued to grow, larger and larger.

  “What the…wait,” I heard Weeks say.

  He was watching the changing object as it grew, perplexed and mesmerized. But not afraid.

  I turned back to the object.

  The green began to take recognizable shape, and swirls of white appeared, and before the transformation was done I already knew what I was looking at.

  The painting Weeks had made was coming to life and we were inside it. The image of our Earth grew and grew, and homesick stabs filled my chest. The white clouds moved and spun over the ocean and land below. I was floating in space, watching an Earth that looked entirely real and alive.

  Then a second image began. A new globe that began in the same way the other had. With white and then blues and greens with patches of white.

  “It’s the same,” Pilgrim said, no longer frightened.

  “I had to start in the same way, so I could layer over it. I had to have it perfect first, so I could change it and destroy it,” Weeks answered. I glanced over at him and he looked like he was in pain. It was too much, being this close. You couldn’t hold it at arm’s length and then fold it up and tuck it away.

  Weeks was a true artist. This was like living what our world had gone through all over again. It was as though he were making the brushstrokes right now. I watched the Earth’s destruction recreated slowly, bit by bit, color by color. My eyes translated the glowing hues as fire, eruption, mudslide, drought, disease, decay, and death. All painted for me, so I could watch an artistic expression of the demise of my planet.

  The grotesque grayness and smoldering red was all that was left at the end. I had told the CR-3ans we were the only ones left. But I had also shown them what we had done to our own planet.

  I suddenly felt a solid surface under my feet and the two rotating images above us vanished. The session ended and the lights came on. The doors to the Stack slid open. No Local waited outside.

  “We can go?” Cairo asked as we all looked stupidly at the doors. Each of us was alive and unharmed. But now we knew that the Locals were paying close attention.

  “We leave,” I said.

  I don’t think we’d ever walked that slowly back out of that tunnel. We didn’t speak.

  There was a crowd waiting but none of us could find words. We didn’t have to explain because Chief had posted guards who were waiting for us and they quickly escorted us through the crowd to go and see him.

  I walked into Chief Up’s quarters holding Chance’s hand. He had yet to release it. I met his eyes. Let go, I told him. He released his grip.

  I told Chief about everything that had happened, glossing over the part about the representation of my death in place of the Local.

  “It was meant to make us experience how they fe
lt,” I told the Chief. He was watching my face carefully. “And it was very successful.”

  “One of ours died too,” Chief said.

  “Maybe they can understand that now. I’m hoping, at least, that there are some who are on our side.”

  “More than the one we killed?”

  I ran a hand through my hair. “I hope so. Either way I think I was right about surrendering. If the situations were reversed, if aliens had landed on Earth, wouldn’t we expect a peaceful race to ask us for help? Wouldn’t we keep them all confined until we were sure they weren’t a threat? Test them? Would we let them keep their weapons? What would we have done?”

  Chief considered me in silence. After a long moment Chief said with finality, “Maybe you’re right.”

  I let out a slow breath.

  Please let me be right.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Now all that the Chief had to do was convince what was left of human civilization. This had to be a gesture from all of us.

  “We’ve got him locked up on the second level,” an engineer said to Chief.

  “Casualties?”

  “One,” the engineer nodded.

  “Damn it. Alright, thank you, you’re dismissed,” Chief said.

  I pressed to a back wall in his quarters, watching everyone talk.

  “What about the others?” It was Abel. He thought Chief should jail more people, not just Morgan.

  “No. It’s done. I’m not locking anyone else up. I should never have threatened that.”

  “And we’re really going ahead with this plan?” Abel didn’t look at all convinced.

  “The people will decide.”

  For the next few days, all day long, Chief had meetings with small groups. He called them to his quarters randomly from the ship rosters. The people spoke of how he listened to every idea and calmed fears. He posed surrender as a strategy that would gain trust and get food. A peace offering, not a defeatist retreat.

  In contrast he offered every person who came to his quarters a gun. He told them they could start digging right now, he would provide the shovels. He gave them a choice.