Island Stars

by Elin Wyn

  She stared at him, the line of his cheekbones and his jaw, the intensity of his indigo and golden eyes, the blackness of his hair. She had trusted him, and now he seemed to be ready to trust her.

  Elissa nodded and slid her fingers into his hand. “I promise. No matter what.”

  He let go of breath she hadn’t realized he’d been holding and pressed his palm to the panel. The wall slid open and she stood in shock.

  It wasn’t that the room before her was vast, or filled with some sort of magical devices. It was that they were clearly inside something tethered to the bottom of the sea floor of the Atlantic. The room before her wasn’t that much bigger than her studio apartment back home. But her studio apartment didn’t have one large curved transparent wall, seemingly open to the endless sea. She stepped towards it, her hand outstretched, and then pulled back sharply.

  “Why doesn’t the water rush in?” Like in the sled, wonder and fear chased each other through her chest.

  “The skin of my research pod has been altered like that of the sled so that we can see out. And, like the sled it’s very difficult for anyone to see in, or even to know that we're here.”

  With effort she turned her back to the panorama and looked at the rest of the room. It was like a glass oval divided in half down the long axis by a sheet of grey steel. One side seemed to be arranged as a residence - a cot, a table and chair, a glass left out from earlier. The other side was almost featureless other than a large control panel jutting out from the wall. Green and gold screens rotated, lines of unreadable text scrolling down them, hovering around a chair. His lab, she realized.

  She looked around. “This is all you brought?”

  Krys pressed another panel at the foot of the cot, and another section of wall slid open. “Storage and supplies.”

  She glanced at the small room, several small metal crates of various sizes were all that it contained. The outer wall was rounded as well but opaque, and she realized that the entire space was one divided oval.

  She backed out, stared out the window for a few more minutes and then turned to face him. “There’s nothing like this on Earth,” she said quietly.

  “I know.”

  Elissa thought about his strange mannerisms, the odd conversation with Ethan, and the most worrying thing of all.

  “When you said you were looking for something, it really was a crash wasn’t it, not a wreck?”

  He held the chair by the console out for her and pulled over the one from by the cot. “Some things I told you were true,” he started. “I really am a researcher, I really would rather be doing this than going back and taking care of family matters. I really did have to argue with my mother about this last trip and yes, my father really did pass away recently.”

  “I don’t understand what all of that has to do with any of this.”

  “I know, I’m trying. I hadn’t really planned on explaining this to anyone, so it’s still a bit of a muddle in my mind. I’ve been thinking about it all the way here”

  “I had hoped you were thinking about piloting.”

  He grinned wryly. “The sled has autopilot, it’s easy enough for her to find her way home.”

  “Alright” she said, “why don’t you start from the beginning? What are you looking for?”

  He reached over and tapped the console. In the air between them hung a slowly rotating cluster of lights. Elissa reached out to touch it and her hand went through as a nothing was there.

  Krys tapped again and the image froze, one small section outlined in red. “There, there’s our home galaxy.” With a motion he expanded the section to fill the space between them.

  Elissa was certainly no astronomer, but that didn’t look like the Milky Way to her.

  “Thousands and thousands of years ago my people knew their sun was dying.”

  Elissa watched him, attention rapt. She would’ve thought him delusional, but then how else to explain all of this?

  “Several planets were found that would be suitable for recolonization.” He grabbed her hand, intent. “They sent surveys, they tested. There was no life on the worlds that we considered. This world was on the original list but once they realized that it was inhabited it was stricken from the list of options.”

  “That’s good, I suppose. But then, why are you here?”

  He closed his eyes, as if telling an old story. “A new world was selected and one by one the expedition ships transferred our people, our culture, as much as we could of the plants and animals that made our home our own. And one by one all of the ships arrived safely at our new home.”

  He ran his hands through his hair. “All except one. It was thought that they had been lost, or perhaps a fault in the engine wrecked them elsewhere. And in the early days of establishing the new world, there weren’t many resources available to go looking for one lost ship. Later generations wondered, mostly idly, about what happened, and every now and then someone would go back along the flight path to see if they could figure out what had gone wrong.”

  “I had wondered about the lost colony ship as a boy, we all knew about the migration and the importance of how the worlds were selected. But what if one ship decided that they didn’t want to spend the centuries terraforming a barren world to move into, didn’t want to live in domes until the planet was ready and welcoming for them.”

  “What if they wanted a shortcut,” he whispered.

  Elissa swallowed. “You mean what if they went to one of the inhabited worlds?”

  He nodded. “It would be a crime so great as to be almost unimaginable. But it gnawed at me, as a boy, then as a student. And then I got a look at the list of passengers assigned to that one ship. I couldn’t let it go.”

  “The passenger manifest for that one seemed carefully selected, all followers of a charismatic leader, and the records showed he had been one of the few to argue that reforming another planet would take too long, that we risked too much.”

  “But why do you think they came here?” Elissa whispered.

  “I have gone year-by-year looking at every planet that had been ruled out by the governing committee all those years ago. Every break I’ve had I’d visited and checked for warp signs tested to see where they might have ended up. This will have to be my last trip. I can’t put off my responsibilities anymore,” he trailed off.

  “But?” Elissa was almost afraid to hear the rest.

  “There are traces here, faint but definite traces of their propulsion unit.” He stood up walked away, stared into the past before them.

  “Definite enough that I launched an investigation into this world, that I looked for a place to call a base, that I forged research records and applications and left my ship on the dark of the moon and brought my pod down here to try to find anything more clearly. But I’m out of time.”

  Elissa came to stand beside him. “Why here?”

  “The signature markers are strongest in this area of the Atlantic, and I thought being based off of a private island would be easier than dealing with another country.”

  Elissa chuckled. “Obviously you hadn’t met Ethan yet.”

  She stared into the water and digested what he had said. Unbelievable as it was, it rang true. But there was still one more question, possibly more important.

  “Were you going to tell me? If I hadn’t forced your hand?”

  His head bowed. “I wanted to, almost from the beginning. It’s against every rule, and against my better sense. It puts you at risk. But I wanted you to know.”

  Elissa nodded. “Thank you for telling me now. Now, please take me home.”

  His eyes opened wide in surprise. “But, I thought…”

  “I told you I would give you a chance to tell me the truth. I didn’t say that it would make any difference. You gave me a lot to think about, and I need time.”

  The trip back in the sled was silent. Even aware of how naturally she fit against his body, how comfortably they sat together, the thoughts swirled through her head.
<
br />   Was this truth worse than a lie? Now that she knew, what on earth, or off of Earth, was she supposed to do about it? And when did her summer fling get so serious?

  And of course that bitter voice in the back of her head reminded her. It doesn’t really matter now, does it? Lies or the truth, he’s not staying anyway.

  Chapter 9

  Despite her best efforts, Elissa couldn’t sleep, her thoughts on an endless cycle, never making any progress, just the same worries over and over. She had wanted to be decisive, but what was the right choice?

  She sighed. Sleeping wasn’t going to work. She pulled on a fresh sundress, the long grey waves falling to mid-calf reflecting her mood. She pulled on her sandals and winced. Apparently nothing was going to be easy today. After changing the bandage she slipped the small tube of antibiotic cream in her pocket. The way things were going, she’d probably trip on the way to breakfast. May as well be prepared.

  In the predawn light she went down to the beach and perched on a rock. What did she know? What was important and what wasn’t?

  She took a deep breath. A research project, pretend this is a research project. She could do this.

  There were people living on other planets. This was true, but not completely relevant to right now. Put it aside for later.

  Some of those aliens may have come to earth, however long ago.

  Apparently also true, but also not totally relevant.

  Put it aside.

  Krys, and here her heart stuttered as she thought of him. His warmth and his kindness. Her Krys was an alien. True and one hundred percent relevant.

  This was too much to deal with without coffee. She glanced at the color of the sky, the faintest streaks of orange crossed the horizon. Maybe Kennedy would take pity on her and let her into Sweet Temptations a little early.

  Halfway there Brad moved out of the shadows, walking beside her. She tensed, but he didn’t make a move towards her, just kept pace with her.

  “A month ago, government monitoring stations picked up transmissions we couldn’t identify along with an odd gravitational anomaly. It all centered in this area. We had every available agent scouring for traces.

  “Nothing came up, and the rest of the team went home. But I believed. They’re here, aren’t they? I know I’m right. The man you’ve been seen with is part of our investigation. You know something.”

  His eyes turned predatory, feral, as he spun and grabbed her by the forearms. “I want to know what you know.”

  Shocked at the attack, Elissa dropped her weight down, breaking his hold on her. When he scrambled to catch her again, she lashed out, both hands fisted together and swinging from her shoulders as her grandfather had taught her. Her blow connected solidly against his jaw and she used the force to launch herself away from him and down the street.

  She turned randomly down a passage between two buildings, and then turned again and again, not caring where she ended up, only to shake him from her trail.

  Intent on any sounds coming from behind her, she made another turn and ran straight into a man’s back. She tensed, ready for another confrontation when she realized it wasn’t Brad. The man turned, and smiled down at her stuttering apologies. It wasn’t anyone she knew or had seen before. With a heart-sickening twist she realized he had indigo eyes.

  She scrambled away from him and he held his hands up. “Whoa, whoa. Are you okay? It looks like someone’s chasing you.”

  “They are. I mean, he was but I don’t know anymore. But,” she pointed a shaky finger at him. “I know what you are. Don’t come any closer.”

  His brow furrowed and Elissa realized just how incoherent she sounded. Violet eyes were rare, but Elizabeth Taylor had had them, right?

  And now she had accused this probably perfectly nice man of being a space invader. At least he wasn’t a little green man, or a tall grey one with big black eyes or … what were the other possibilities?

  She started giggling, a long night and a dawn filled with worries instead of sleep catching up to her.

  He stepped towards her, hand still raised. “Miss, I’m sorry but I really think you probably need to go somewhere and sit down. Do you have friends in the area?”

  She nodded, wiping tears of hysteria from her eyes. “You are entirely right.”

  “Do you still think I’m whatever you thought I was?”

  Elissa thought for a moment. “Honestly, I have no idea. But if you take me somewhere I can get a cup of coffee, I’m not sure I care right now.”

  His frowned deeper as he walked with her back down the side street. “So, who was chasing you?”

  Elissa thought about her answer. The man who may or may not be an agent of the government, chasing another man who may or may not be an alien explorer, who I may or may not be dating didn’t sound particularly coherent.

  “Just some weirdo,” she summarized. “I think it’s a case of mistaken identity.”

  “Well,” he shrugged, “it’s a strange universe. Mistakes happen all the time.”

  Elissa turned up to look at him. Easy-going and gorgeous. Why hadn’t she picked this guy for her summer fling?

  They reached the main street, and Kennedy’s bakery stood only a few feet away.

  “Thanks so much for the escort, I’m pretty sure I can make it from here.”

  A low roar came from the street and a dark blur sped past her.

  She spun to realize it was Krys, who had launched himself on her new escort. The two tussled for a moment but one crushing blow to the other man’s jaw had him stretched out at Krys’ feet.

  Elissa stared at him. “What is wrong with you? You’ve got what I think are government agents looking for you or some sort of aliens, you’re on a timetable for reasons I can’t figure out, and now you attack some random man in the street?”

  Krys didn’t look at her but stared at the man on the ground. “This isn’t some random man,” he growled. “This is my cousin. I know about your government agent, and I can’t do anything about the timetable.”

  He lifted the man’s limp body across his shoulders into a fireman’s carry and walked quickly away.

  Elissa followed at a jog. “Where are you going?”

  “Back to the pod to figure out what to do with him.” He sighed. “And probably wrap up the rest of my research. This is getting too complicated and now you’ve been put at risk.”

  “What you mean?”

  “It’s one thing for your government agents to try to find me. But obviously that man was harassing you.”

  “Okay, there’s that. But is this how cousins normally greet each other on your planet?” Elissa rubbed her temple. She could not believe she just said on your planet in a sentence and meant it.

  Krys stepped into the trees and moved towards the water. “No, but when his father is suspected of killing mine, it takes everything out of the realm of the usual.”

  There didn’t seem to be a good reply to that, so Elissa followed silently.

  They arrived at a sheltered cove a short distance from Sunset Beach, one so hidden from the main path she’d never noticed it. Elissa looked around. “So this is why you were late.”

  Krys dumped his cousin’s body into the space behind the seat of the sled as it surface.

  “It’s not like I could just dock at the main pier and stroll right into the Blue Moon. I misjudged the travel time the first day.”

  He stepped into the sled and Elissa grabbed his wrist. He froze.

  “I’m coming with you,” she stated. “We can’t leave it like this.”

  Krys turned towards her slowly. “Coming with me,” he repeated

  “I’m not inviting myself to your planet. But you and I have things to discuss. And if you’re going back to your pod, that’s where I’m going, too.”

  They slid into the water and soon were safely out of sight of the surface.

  She rested her head against his shoulder. “What happened? Why are your family and his family enemies?”

  He l
aughed, but it wasn’t the easy sound she was used to but something cold and bitter. “We weren’t, Staferan and I spent almost all of the days of our childhood in each other’s company. Our fathers were brothers and they often travelled together on business.”

  “When you say on business, what exactly do you mean? I’m sure other planets need management companies, or whatever you called it, but I get the feeling there’s something more to it.”

  Krys closed his eyes and Elissa realized he looked exhausted. “You’re right. Our families are part of the ruling Council. It never seems to stop. You can imagine that I’m not exactly keen to be a part of it all.”

  “I could imagine, but I’d rather you tell me the rest.” Elissa took her eyes from him to watch the fish swim by them, oblivious to the pod.

  “My father and uncle went on what should’ve been a perfectly routine trip. They went to speak to another delegation from a neighboring star system.”

  “You’re telling me that there are lots of other types of people out there,” Elissa said, trying to keep her voice even.

  “Lots,” he answered.

  She shrugged. She still hadn’t had her coffee, and after the knowledge that aliens were real, what difference did the number of species out there in the stars make?

  “His father came back. Mine didn’t. They’d been arguing about an upcoming vote, but no one thought it had gotten that serious. Not until the investigators realized the ship’s logs for that day had been wiped.”

  The sled docked into the pod and this time she heard the faint hum of the force field seal below them.

  Instead of taking the door to the left into the living quarters, Krys slapped a panel on the adjacent wall. Elissa saw what looked like the same storage room she had seen earlier, before he unceremoniously hoisted and tossed a mumbling Staferan in.

  He rummaged through a crate until he found a length of what looked like perfectly ordinary rope, and bound his cousin’s wrists and ankles before sealing the door behind him.

  “You’re just going to lock your cousin into a closet?” She followed him into the living quarters. “You may have much more advanced technology, but honestly I’m not sure I can say your method of conflict resolution has evolved much.”