The Stars Blue Yonder

by Sandra McDonald

  But the wedding ring on her finger and the baby in her womb were more than enough proof that she had been that person, and was still Terry Myell’s wife wherever he was in time and space.

  The streets of Sydney unfolded around her. She’d become acclimated to the stink of it all, more or less, but the variety of people amazed her—sailors and laborers, Aboriginals and colonists, all of them wearing faces stamped by weather, illness, malnutrition, misadventure. On spaceships the population tended toward homogenous beauty. Everyone had access to vitamins and skin repair creams and cosmetic improvements, and hardly anyone was fool enough to turn raw skin to the sun. Even back on Providence, the crew and passengers of the Kamchatka had more soaps, gels, and dental resources than these people in this era ever would. And so she was surrounded by the toothless, the wrinkled, and the prematurely aged, or men missing their eyes or hands, and women without hair. Even the young were afflicted with acne or pox marks, and some were so painfully skinny that she was sure the idea of three square meals a day was as foreign to them as their strange accents were to her.

  Yet they were alive and vibrant, these strangers walking upright in the pages of history, and Jodenny understood for a moment why Osherman had come to embrace them as his own. For as long as this eddy lasted, they were more real and more important to him than sailors yet to be born on planets yet to be discovered. He had been imprisoned by the Roon and stranded on Providence, but here he could walk free and talk to people and be not a damaged military man but instead a man with opportunities ever unfolding.

  Jodenny was so busy studying faces and listening to the crowd that she almost walked past the Australian Museum. It was a solid, stately affair built of sandstone with two Greek columns flanking the front entrance. Farther down the street was the Hotel Victoria, a small exquisite building with a reception lounge decorated with marble, dark wood, and velvet-padded furniture. The interior was cool, dim, and muffled compared with the hot dustiness outside, and Jodenny was pleased that the clerk said Lady Darling was indeed in and receiving visitors.

  “I’ll send word of your arrival,” he said.

  Jodenny sat herself down in a chair and waited. She tried imagining what connection Lady Darling had with Homer, but her imagination failed her. Fifteen minutes passed before a woman in a white dress fetched Jodenny from the lobby and escorted her upstairs to a receiving parlor. The furniture there was even more luxurious, all dark and heavy wood carved by artisans. A tray of tea, tiny sandwiches, and fresh fruit had already been set out on a sideboard.

  “Her Ladyship will be with you in a moment,” the woman said before disappearing behind a set of pocket doors.

  The hotel was quiet around Jodenny but for the sounds of street traffic through the open window. She studied the artwork on the walls and mantelpiece. The paintings were all of Sydney in its infancy, or British ships meeting indigenous people in canoes, or lush tropical landscapes that looked nothing like the Australia that Jodenny had seen so far. They were full of color and detail and had obviously been done by a deft hand. She herself had no skill at artwork; she wondered if junior might be a latent artist or musician, in addition to her obvious gymnastic skills.

  The pocket doors opened behind Jodenny. Lady Darling asked, “Do you like the paintings?”

  “Very much,” Jodenny said. “Did you do them yourself?”

  Lady Darling smiled. She was dressed in a blue dress that was much more casual than the gown she’d worn at Government House, and her long hair was loose down her back. “You flatter me. The artist’s name is Conrad Martens. It used to be that you could commission his work rather inexpensively, but those years are over. Hundreds of years from now, those pieces will be in museums.”

  Jodenny wasn’t sure if Lady Darling’s words were meant to be a prediction or if Homer had told her about the artist’s future work. Before she could ask, Lady Darling motioned for her to sit and poured tea for both of them.

  “Does Sam know you came?” Lady Darling asked.

  “No.”

  “He wouldn’t be happy.” Lady Darling poured milk into her tea. “He thinks the less you know, the better.”

  Jodenny sniffed the fragrant tea. Lady Darling’s earlier smile had revealed straight white teeth that were a rarity in Sydney. Her skin was clear and luminous, and what little makeup she wore accentuated her good health. Perhaps it hadn’t been such a good idea to trust her. Maybe Jodenny should have given Osherman a chance to explain his relationship with her, or at least left word of where she was going today.

  No one knew she was here, after all. No one knew where to look for her if she didn’t return.

  “You look alarmed,” Lady Darling remarked.

  Jodenny kept her voice steady. “I think I’ve been misled.”

  “He means well.”

  “Not only by him,” Jodenny replied.

  A door closed somewhere with a soft click. A mantelpiece clock ticked past the hour and kept counting. Lady Darling put down her teacup and gazed at Jodenny with something soft in her eyes. Regret or resignation.

  “You’ve seen through me, Commander,” she said. “Before I was Lady Darling, I was Ensign Cassandra Darling of Team Space. And before I came here, I died in the arms of your husband, Chief Myell.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  One minute Myell was engulfed in the red-hot terror of the Roon ambush at Kultana. The next, he was waking in a soft bed under a yellow bedspread. The room was full of recycled furniture, and the smell of bad coffee hung in the air.

  He lurched to his feet and blacked out. The next time he opened his eyes, his adult daughter Lisa was bent over him.

  “Careful,” she said. “You hit your head when you fainted. How do you feel?”

  Behind him stood Jodenny, crooked and wrinkled and suspicious.

  Neither of them remembered him being there before, of course. Twig poked her head in later out of curiosity and it was clear she didn’t remember him either.

  He stayed in bed until the blue ring finally came and took him away.

  On the Yangtze they threw him in the brig, which was fine with him. No one could explain the embedded dog tag that said he was a chief or that Jodenny Scott was his wife. She came to visit, but he couldn’t look at her face or listen to her voice. Grief for the real Jodenny—for his Jodenny, seven months pregnant and happy to see him—kept him huddled in the corner, every breath like inhaling broken glass.

  On Fortune he avoided the academy, the Ithaca Café, and anyplace he might run into Jodenny. Instead he picked a fight in a bar and got tossed in jail. That was fine, too. Pain in his jaw and around his swelling right eye kept him distracted. He was throwing up into a urinal when the blue ring came for him.

  On the planet Kiwi he saw Jodenny and Osherman laughing and loving each other in the clear blue ocean. He thought about drowning himself, but the idea of them pulling him out of the surf for mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was too depressing to contemplate.

  Back to the Yangtze he went, and nothing ever changed. The ring took him to Jodenny and tore him away, took and tore, with no sign of Homer and no hope of rescue.

  Then he got mugged on Fortune, and everything changed.

  The thief wasn’t anyone he knew or had ever met before. He appeared in the back alley of the pub where Myell was puking up a day’s worth of beer.

  “Give me your yuros,” he said, brandishing a sharp knife.

  Myell heaved up more beer.

  “Don’t have any,” he said.

  For that he got a sharp crack on the head with the knife’s hilt. Sprawled on the ground, senses reeling, Myell felt the man rummage through his empty pockets and then wrench his wedding ring off his hand.

  “No,” he said. “Not the ring—”

  Feebly he tried to rise up to his knees, to give chase, but his head swam and he sank back into the muck of the alley.

  Staring up at the sky, thoroughly disgusted with himself, he cursed himself. And Homer, wherever the little bastard had
gotten to. Kultana. The orchid, the village in India, the god or goddess of Aboriginal Australia. Surely it was an honor to be chosen to save all mankind but was it too fucking much to ask for a little help and guidance now and then?

  He was still thinking of Kultana when the ring came for him.

  He didn’t remember the trip. When he woke, he saw gray metal bulkheads and dim emergency lighting. The place smelled stale and the cold air raised goosebumps on his skin. He had the distinct impression of weight bearing down on him from all sides—thick, immutable weight that blocked all light and sound and that counted centuries like he counted minutes. This small room resembled nothing but a large metal tomb. Only the trickle of air through a low vent and the hum of the doors opening indicated otherwise.

  One moment he was alone, and in the next two teenagers in military uniforms were aiming mazers down at his chest.

  “Who are you?” asked the taller of the two. She was blond and gaunt and maybe eighteen or nineteen years old. Ensign bars glinted on her collar but that was ridiculous. Team Space didn’t commission officers that young.

  The younger teen was maybe fifteen or sixteen, wearing a sergeant’s insignia and a scowl. He prodded Myell with his boot. “What’s your name?”

  He turned his head. What was this place? Nowhere he had ever been before. But Jodenny had to be around here somewhere—

  The sergeant teen kicked him in the shin.

  Myell jerked in pain on the cold metal deck.

  “What was that for?” he demanded.

  “Answer the question,” the sergeant said, his face red.

  Myell clutched his leg. The hot pain was subsiding, though not fast enough. “Who are you?”

  “Kick him again, Speed,” the ensign said.

  Myell caught Speed’s foot and brought him crashing downward. A mazer shot from the ensign zapped into him, ending the conversation.

  When he woke the next time he was in another small room, also dim and cool, and he was strapped down to a medical table at the wrists and ankles. Panic surged through him. He cranked up his head and saw that his boots and clothes were intact. “Hey!” he yelled, his voice hoarse. “Let me go!”

  No one answered. The room was empty but for the table, old medical equipment and useless supplies spilling out of dusty, half-opened crates. Myell banged his head back against the table and pulled at his wrists. The restraints held. The absence of his wedding ring felt like a missing tooth in his jaw. He kicked out both legs, hard, and that was more rewarding. Something creaked underneath him, and he realized if he pulled and kicked enough he might be able to crash the table, disentangle himself, fashion a weapon, and sneak off through this complex or ship or whatever it was until he found out where and when he was.

  The prospect was mildly entertaining, but it was easier to just stare at the ceiling and ignore the thirst in his throat and wait for the blue ring. Frankly, he didn’t have the energy to do much more. The energy or the interest.

  The hatch opened. He pretended to be asleep.

  “I know you’re awake,” the ensign said, her voice clear and hard. “If you want, I can yank a power cable out of the wall and stick it up your nose until you cooperate.”

  “Jesus,” he said, and squinted up at her. “What kind of person are you?”

  “The kind of person who’s in charge around here. How did you get in?

  “You won’t believe me,” he said.

  “Quit stalling.”

  “I’m not stalling.” Myell pulled futilely at the restraints. “Where’s Lieutenant Scott? Lieutenant Jodenny Scott?”

  “Never heard of her,” the ensign said.

  That was impossible. He’d never been in an eddy without her. But that was a problem he could deal with later.

  He said, “Read my dog tag. I’m military, just like you. Team Space.”

  She gave his civilian clothes a skeptical look. He couldn’t remember how many eddies ago he’d lost the uniform that Adryn Ling had given him on the Confident, but he supposed he didn’t look much like a Team Space sailor. Or maybe in this eddy, sailors died off once they were done with puberty.

  “How’d you get here?” she said. “Beam down here from some spaceship in orbit?”

  He was startled by the idea he was in a time and place when teleportation technology actually worked. Then he figured she was being sarcastic. She was good at being sarcastic.

  “Cassandra!” Speed came skidding into the room. “The scanners!”

  She said, “Ensign Darling, remember?”

  His face twisted up as he remembered military protocol. “Ensign Darling, ma’am. The scanners lit up like Christmas Day. There’s Roon in the tunnels! On their way here!”

  “Fuck it all,” Darling said. She and the sergeant dashed off without bothering to untie him.

  Myell swore and started rocking the table back and forth.

  The restraint around his left ankle gave way first, which let him kick at the restraint around his right ankle, and when both were free he swung his legs to the floor and rammed the table into the bulkhead. The noise was loud, too loud, but no one came to investigate. Finally the supports snapped and he was able to free his wrists. He was looking for something to use as a club or a knife when the dim lighting flickered and died, plunging everything into darkness.

  “Goddammit,” he said to himself, but not very loudly.

  A battery-operated light switched on in the passageway outside the room. Myell crept toward it, listening hard for weapons fire. He was half tempted to find a deep dark hole and wait out the arrival of the blue ring, but what if this was the one damn time the ouroboros didn’t come for him? He’d never been in this eddy before. The rules might be all different.

  He might actually die and stay dead this time.

  The passage led to a lift whose doors were frozen open and with a floor littered by debris.

  Near the lift was a ladder through the deck and overhead. Voices drifted down from somewhere up above, and another light shone from two or three decks overhead. Myell investigated the rest of the passage, which led to three locked doors and the room where he’d been prisoner.

  He returned to the ladder and considered going downward, but the pool of darkness there was complete.

  Up, then, quietly, one hand over the other, his knee throbbing from Speed’s kick. The next deck proved to be as empty as the one he’d left behind, but opened up more questions. In the absence of any engine noise and in light of their comments he concluded this was an underground military complex, not a spaceship, but the absence of an adult staff worried him. The equipment and space indicated that once the place had been home to more than just a skeleton crew, or had been planned for full staffing. Now it was just a shell.

  And the Roon were on their way.

  He climbed up one more level. The passage there led to what was some kind of makeshift control room. In the dim red light Myell could make out five kids. The main power was still out but they were monitoring cell-powered scanners and casting anxious looks toward a large hatch. The sergeant had said tunnels; Myell guessed that the labyrinth lay beyond that plated door.

  Ensign Darling was the only one standing and glaring at the hatch as if her resolve alone would keep it sealed. Speed was crouched under a console, fixing something. Three other children in ragtag clothes and dirty faces were huddled against the bulkhead. The two youngest were crying.

  “Bell, Ammy, stop that,” Darling ordered.

  One of the equipment scanners was giving off a low beep slowly increasing in tempo. A proximity alarm, Myell figured. His hands felt itchy without a weapon to hold. He might have been trained as a supply tech, but he was more than willing to shoot at any Roon that came through the door.

  “Shouldn’t we fall back?” he asked.

  His voice made the children jerk in alarm. Darling swung her mazer on him but didn’t fire. He wondered if the thing was even charged.

  “Shut up,” she said. “Falling back is the last thing we�
�re going to do.”

  “Who is he, Cassandra?” asked the boy sitting with Ammy and Bell. He was maybe ten years old or so, and incredibly filthy. None of them looked like they’d seen a bath in a long time.

  Speed crawled out from under his console. “Ignore him, Nelson. He’s nothing.”

  Myell didn’t make any sudden moves. “How many Roon?”

  “Hundreds,” Darling said.

  “You can’t evacuate?”

  Incredibly, she almost smiled. “There’s nowhere to go under a million tons of mountain.”

  That partially answered one of his questions. The beeping on the proximity alarm grew closer. Nelson pressed his fist against his teeth. The two little girls wept. Speed scooped up one of them and hugged her tight.

  “It’ll soon be over, Bell,” he said.

  Whoever these kids were, they had little illusion about what was going to happen in the next few minutes.

  “Where exactly are we?” Myell asked.

  “Why don’t you know?” Darling asked.

  “Because I’m not from here,” he said. “The last time I saw the Roon was at the battle of Kultana.”

  “Kultana!” Nelson said, past his fist.

  “Shut up,” Darling told her. The gaze she turned on Myell was cold and hard. “You’re lying.”

  Nelson said, “My dad died at Kultana. When I was a baby.”

  Myell didn’t have time to do the math before the scanner began to whine a steady annoying alarm. Something solid slammed into the other side of the hatch. The vibration rattled Myell’s teeth and made the littlest ones shriek. A circle of red appeared in the metal.

  “They’re burning their way in?” Myell demanded. “Why?”

  Darling didn’t deign to answer. Instead she slapped her hand down on the console in front of her and thumbed a series of switches jury-rigged to wires stretched across the floor and into a junction box.