Stone in the Sky

by Cecil Castellucci

  Ever since Caleb and Reza had come into my life, I had tried to shed my coldness and embrace my warmth. But now, with him standing in front of me acting so strange, I could not remember how to be Human. This reunion was not going anything the way that I had imagined. I felt myself shutting down and relying on the behaviors learned from Per, Nurloks, Loor, Brahar, and other aliens in complicated situations. Having longed for a Human in my life again, I was failing miserably even though the one that I cared most about stood in front of me.

  I had still not touched the pearls of pollen on the counter, and the aliens in the bar were now howling at me. They were shouting and laughing and pointing at me as though I were delirious for standing my ground. They all knew that I bartered for water, salts, and sweets, but here I would not budge. Not until I could sort out what I was feeling.

  I hadn’t lost my mind. I was as clear headed as ever and I was following Heckleck’s instruction for negotiation: When there is something that everyone will go crazy for, stick to the thing that you know is valuable. Keep a level head in an insane time. Always be fair, for few will be fair. Steadiness is the real worth and the truest measure.

  Currency would keep its value. I would stick to that.

  It did not take too many leaps of imagination to know that if Reza had that much alin pollen he was willing to part with, he must have more, and he must have gotten it from Quint. Everyone in this bar would be going down to Quint to get some. Soon after that, others would come. Everything I did now in this moment would dictate what the rules were when the alin pollen started arriving at my place. If I had learned anything in my years of bartering on the Yertina Feray, it’s that I knew I had to stand my ground now.

  “Where’s my water?” he asked.

  “I told you I only take currency chits.”

  “Give him what he wants!” the aliens around us yelled.

  If people wanted the hard stuff, to get intoxicated, or to find comfort in the arms of someone for the night, they went to Kitsch Rutsok’s. At my place, everyone had a clear head or they were thrown out. It would be the same with currency. There was going to be a rush on Quint, and if they wanted to spend pollen madly, let it be there, not here.

  “I know I don’t have a currency chit, but I had hoped you would exchange that pollen for a bottle of sweet water,” he grinned in a way that made every part of me flutter. “For old times sake.”

  “Can somebody buy this Human a drink?” I pulled my gaze from his face and turned to the aliens crowded around the bar. “This Human doesn’t have a currency chit.”

  It was strange to not say his name. Reza. Reza. Reza.

  I couldn’t say his name. As though to name him were to acknowledge that I was hurt. If he were a stranger I could cope.

  It took a moment for someone to speak up. They had to calculate the cost of the expensive water that Reza wanted and what it might be worth down the line. A small Per came up and put its chit down with one of its four arms and nodded to me. I put the most expensive, sweetest water I had onto the counter, and Reza snatched it up and slapped the Per on the back.

  “Your pollen,” I said as Reza was leaving, pushing it toward him.

  “Your tip,” he said, scooping up his bag of pollen but leaving the clump of dirt behind for me. He left to join the Per at their table without so much as a glance back at me.

  In that moment, my heart broke.

  I watched as the bar became full and crazed with action, but it was as though it were in slow motion or underwater. Sounds seemed far away, and my face felt hot.

  Finally, Tournour entered, and I felt myself breathe again. Instead of coming to me, he went directly to Reza with an angry look on his face. I had never seen this mood from Tournour, and it frightened me a bit.

  “There you are,” he said grabbing Reza roughly by his arm. “You have to go to the med bay first. You have to clear quarantine.”

  Then an unmistakable look passed between Tournour and I that made it clear that there was a bond between us.

  Reza stood up, knocking his chair over and coughing that awful cough.

  “I just wanted to see her first,” he said.

  “Now you have,” Tournour said.

  Reza was no longer looking at me. He was already heading out the door.

  The music changed back to Earth music. This time, instead of turning it off, I let it play.

  6

  I was in my favorite spot in the arboretum. Head leaning on the window. Bare feet in the dirt.

  Thado glided along the rows of vegetation, leaving me to stare into outer space in silence.

  I sometimes believed he considered me to be one of his plants or trees; something to be watered and nurtured, a thing that he could help to thrive in this harsh, artificial environment. In his arboretum, there was life. There was something about leafy greens, the way that the air in here was a little bit different. The way there were small sections with slightly different atmospheres that made this place almost holy to me. It was my sanctuary. I think the green in here thrived because Thado’s kindness ran so deep. He’d helped me more than once by providing me refuge. By trading fruits and vegetables with me so that I could keep living. And best of all, he never complained when I took my shoes off and stood in the dirt to look out the window.

  I heard voices in an intense conversation somewhere behind me. I only began to listen as the voices became louder. Thado was giving soil advice, and that interested me. Every alien heading down to Quint came to pry gardening secrets from him, and he always refused. I wondered who had managed to get him to talk.

  When I turned, I saw it was Reza punching Thado’s information into his datapad.

  I shook the dirt off of my feet and joined them. This was my chance to fix things.

  “Reza,” I said. “This is silly.”

  I did not have to elaborate. We were the only Humans here, and I knew that he must feel as I did, comfort in a face that could be understood. A face in a sea of alien faces looked more real than real because it was familiar.

  He turned to me. There were an unbearable few moments of silence that seemed to stretch into years. I reminded myself that this was like any other negotiation I had done in my life. If I waited, if I stood my ground, if I insisted, then we could possibly move forward. It didn’t always work, but when it did, the deal was all the sweeter.

  But there was nothing easy about confronting him. I had been brave and I had been a coward about many things in my young life, but this moment felt like I was standing on the edge of a cliff where I could lose my footing in an instant. Either things between Reza and me would ease up or they would worsen. There was no way to find out without pressing the issue, which felt like the most frightening thing I could do.

  I took another step toward him.

  “Reza,” I said, quietly this time. Like I was saying his name just for him.

  Thado had moved away, but over Reza’s shoulder I could see Thado looking at us, slowly pruning a plant that was pruned enough and checking to see that we were all right.

  I could tell by the way Thado was watching us that he liked something about both of us, as different as we were. It never occurred to me that he could be Reza’s friend, too. But of course he could be.

  The seconds ticked by, and I took another step forward. I got into Reza’s personal space—the zone that threatens some species and declares intent in others. I was an arm’s length away from him now.

  Reza took a deep labored breath and pulled at his long hair. For a moment he looked like the boy that I had known a year ago, but then he looked uncomfortable, and I could see him shutting himself off from me. His whole body tensed up. I was losing him.

  I took another step forward. I could pull him in for a hug. I could stand on my tippy toes and kiss him. The air around us felt alive.

  At last Reza spoke.

  “I have to go,” he said. “I just came here for some advice on a fungus that’s grown on some of my acreage.”

  “St
ay,” I said. I reached out and touched his arm. He pulled away but I didn’t let it confuse me. “I can explain everything if you just listen.”

  I could tell from his face, which was so easy to read, that he was caught between caring and wanting to know, and not caring and drawing his own conclusions.

  I realized that was a Human thing, to keep up a falsehood to justify your feelings and actions. Wasn’t that what I did with Brother Blue? Purposefully made him into a devil? He was a devil, but I kept him there. To so many others, Brother Blue was a savior.

  I tried to figure out how I could explain everything, every action I had done that had taken us from there to here, but I couldn’t find the words.

  “You have Trevor working as a glorified jukebox in your water bar,” Reza said. “Caleb would be angry.”

  “I can’t imagine Caleb getting angry at anything,” I said.

  “You wouldn’t recognize him if you met him now,” Reza said. “He’s angry all the time.”

  “Like you?”

  “I’m not angry all the time,” he said. “I’m just angry at you.”

  That stung, but it was fair. At least we were talking.

  “Trevor’s more than a jukebox,” I said. “He has a kill function.”

  “Of course he does,” Reza said, laughing and shaking his head.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Reza made a noise. A Human noise that I remembered meant disappointment, anger, and disbelief. It was a terrible noise made with tongue and teeth. A cluck or a tsk whose wordlessness made it sound worse.

  I had missed Reza and Caleb’s presence when they were gone. I had imagined what it would be like if and when I ever saw them again, and the reality was so different from what I could have possibly thought. I imagined Reza returning with Earth united, and Earth Gov in charge again instead of the Earth that collaborated with the Imperium. I saw him blazing a trail toward making Earth a force in the galaxy; as a planet and a species with real colonies, as a planet that welcomed its own back home. I had imagined Caleb heading a ragtag team of minor species to Bessen to eliminate the species caste system, taking down those in power.

  I imagined that they would become the leaders that I knew them to be. And that they would do so much good, not just for Humans, but for all life forms.

  “You don’t know what happened out there,” he said.

  “Tell me,” I said. “Tell me so that I can understand.”

  “When I joined the Imperium Youth, I had aliens as squad leaders. I mingled with them. When I came here, it was hard that the aliens didn’t like me because I was Human, but I thought it wasn’t so bad. But that was because of you. Out there, on the Outer Rim? There are aliens out there. And they are very strange. And most of them have never met a Human, and if they have, it’s been the Wanderers, whom they despise.”

  “But you all had the same cause,” I say. “Surely that got you somewhere.”

  “Most of them didn’t speak Universal Galactic. I couldn’t communicate with anyone.”

  Reza closed his eyes as though he were trying not to remember.

  “We were alone, and it was horrifying,” he said. “Everything out there was unfamiliar, disturbing, and full of horror.”

  I knew that the Outer Rim was at the very edge of explored space in the galaxy. It consisted of many suns and planets and species that had barely any contact with Bessen and the known spacefaring races. Of course, as the known galaxy grew, the Outer Rim pushed farther out. It’s how places like Earth were discovered.

  It struck me then about how hard it was for those explorers who made first contact with each other. How a person’s whole universal view could be altered from it. Reza was in crisis out there. There hadn’t been any salvation out there. I had sent them to hell.

  “Caleb wanted to be there,” he said. “I wanted to be home. Caleb figured out how to make it work for him. I couldn’t do it his way.”

  “You both never saw eye to eye,” I said.

  “You don’t understand,” Reza said. “The Outer Rim changed him.”

  There was a look in Reza’s eyes that was slightly wild. I recognized that look. It was the way I saw my eyes in the mirror right after I was left here. Back then when I couldn’t understand what was happening and couldn’t see how I could survive.

  I was wrong about everything, and I didn’t know how to make amends.

  “I have to go,” he said. “A ship is waiting.”

  “You’re going back to Quint now?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “You’re always welcome at my place,” I said. “Your next sweets or salts are on me.” I tried to smile. I tried to make it light, but I could hear myself and I sounded desperate. I was ashamed.

  These were the kinds of moments that I wished I still had a mother to turn to for advice, or a sister to sit and talk with. Instead, I fumbled along this path of trying to grow up and I didn’t know how to come of age.

  He looked down at his feet and mumbled something. I couldn’t tell if it was an acceptance of my invitation or a goodbye. He shrugged and turned away from me.

  I watched his retreating figure, heartbroken.

  Being Human was messy, but now I could own up to my confused feelings. And though I was not good at being Human, I was good at being messy.

  I hadn’t envisioned failure and silence, but now Reza was as close as Quint. That was something.

  Thado floated over to me. I could feel the hot air from his blowholes.

  “He’s very intelligent for a Human, as you are,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “He cares for you,” Thado said.

  “How can you tell?” I asked. I needed to have confirmation that Reza would somehow be in my life no matter how much I’d messed it up.

  “He angles himself toward you,” Thado said. “Creatures in conflict angle away. Like trees that hate shadow.”

  I put my hand on Thado’s smooth, rubbery skin.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I owe you one.”

  “Always glad to have a favor owed from you, Tula Bane,” Thado said.

  7

  Word about the alin blooming on Quint spread through the station like wildfire. The news brought with it an excitement I had never experienced on the Yertina Feray before.

  The whole station was coming alive in a way that it had only known in the past. I recognized it for what it was.

  Life.

  Eyes were wild. Fortunes yet to be made were being plotted. Alliances that would eventually strain and break were forming. It was there in every tip of the glass at the Tin Star Café. In every currency chit swiped. In every forced smile and heated conversation. Hope was in the air. Possibility abounded. It infected even me.

  Soon the ships came. Hundreds of them arrived at the Yertina Feray, and it was a sight to see them coming. Every day new ships docked full of eager fortune seekers. There were familiar species but also types of aliens that I had never seen before were arriving.

  “It’s madness,” I said to Tournour.

  “I am not going to be able to keep us off the Imperium’s radar,” he said anxiously.

  I could see how it was bothering Tournour, but there was nothing either of us could do. How can you stop a rush? You can’t. It’s relentless in its flow until it stops.

  The rabble had come first, but when the truth of it had spread out to other systems, more sophisticated types came to the Yertina Feray with dreams of making a fortune down on Quint. And with them, came the people who saw a fortune to be made in the supporting of those heartier types. Gigolos and whores. Seedy merchants. Con artists. False prophets. Robot vendors.

  Suddenly everyone wanted a Trevor unit to bring down to the planet with them to get whatever it was that they could find. Claims were only good as long as you could work the area and even though a robot could not do the delicate work, it helped to keep a claim open. Some people went for alin specifically. Others thought that there were additional things to be found there.<
br />
  In order to keep a slight peace, only authorized ships were allowed to go down to the planet below. If anyone else tried to land, they were shot with a pulse that burnt out their electronics, and their ship was quickly hauled back to the station. The rush to get planet-side immediately meant that most of the ships that docked were then abandoned. If they were not claimed within a week, they were uncoupled from the Yertina Feray and set adrift. It was chaos out there. Ships floating away, empty.

  Wherever there was a window, you could see them drifting.

  After decades of being a ghost town, the Yertina Feray was bulging beyond its capacity. Old wings long abandoned were reopened.

  I walked through the old parts of the station with wonder. The design in those wings, the styles were so different from what I was used to. I had explored some of these halls with Heckleck a few years ago, but to see them alive and bursting with population was a whole different thing. My world felt expanded. It was easy to imagine what the Yertina Feray had been like in its heyday. There were families who had come. There were adventurers.

  Reza led the prospecting. I learned that as soon as he was well, he moved out of the med bay and then went straight back to Quint once he’d gathered enough equipment. I couldn’t help but wonder about Reza and how he was doing down on the planet. No longer alone, but invaded by the desperate, greedy, and hopeful who crowded the planet, sifting for alin.

  He only left his claim to come back to the Yertina Feray for more supplies, to trade his collected pollen, to take on workers to help him expand, and to meet with Thado in the arboretum for agricultural advice.

  All of these new aliens arriving meant that it was harder to run into Reza, even though his name was on everyone’s lips. I felt frustrated and caged; it seemed that everyone was coming and going except me.

  He was always careful to avoid me. He lived in the underguts when he was on the station even though he could have stayed in the most luxurious quarters. He never came to see me, and it hurt.