The Space Between the Stars

by Anne Corlett

  They stood in silence for a few seconds, until Gracie muttered something about the engines, pushing past Jamie to disappear into the service passage.

  Jamie waited until she was out of earshot before turning back to Callan.

  “She didn’t want to pick us up.” She wasn’t sure why it needed saying.

  “No.”

  Christ. Talking to him was like pulling teeth.

  She tripped over that thought. Daniel had once said those exact words to her.

  She looked away. “I should go and find Lowry.”

  “I came up from the galley a few minutes ago,” Callan said. “He’d only just started dinner. You can give me a hand first.”

  “With what?”

  “I loaded a crate of medicines from the Soltaire depot,” he said. “I need a rundown on what’s in there. I know the basics, but we always made sure we had a crew member with some med skills.”

  “I’m not a doctor,” she said.

  “No.” He sounded impatient. “But you’re a vet and that makes you better qualified than me, so I’d appreciate you taking a look. Okay?”

  She followed him to a small storage bay, where he dragged a plastic crate out into the hall and tore open the wrapping with a lock knife.

  The top layer was standard stuff. Ampicillin, Tetraclin, Levomycin.

  “Broad-spectrum antibiotics,” she said. “You know what they’re for?”

  “Pretty much anything.”

  “Anything bacterial,” she corrected. “Don’t overuse them.”

  She put them on the floor and reached down to the next layer. “Tryptine. That’s a prescription-strength painkiller.”

  She ran through a few more basic supplies, putting a couple of packages to one side to double-check.

  Callan leaned against the wall, watching her. “I guess the medicines for people and animals aren’t that different.”

  “They’re pretty different,” she said. “But I did a couple of years in med school before I swapped to veterinary science.”

  She wasn’t sure why she’d told him that. It made her earlier remark about not being a doctor seem deliberately obstructive.

  “Must be trickier with animals,” Callan said. “They can’t tell you what’s wrong.”

  Jamie didn’t tell him he’d hit on her precise reason for making the switch. People could and did tell you, not only what was wrong, but why it was wrong, and what else was wrong, and how that all made them feel. And they thought you should be able to make it all better. She’d tried to cultivate a detached, professional calm, but people always leaned too close and held on too tight.

  Callan nodded at the crate. “Anything in there that would have done any good against what just hit us?”

  Jamie sat back on her heels and looked at the little stack of medicines. The culmination of mankind’s long battle against disease, and it might as well have been a load of herbs and holy water for all the good it did when it came to it. Perhaps it had never been more than one great multifaceted placebo. They’d become used to thinking of themselves as invincible. Whatever happened, the human race would go on.

  “No,” she said. “Long incubation period, drug-resistant, and with the way it mutated we didn’t stand a chance.” She glanced in the crate. “That’s everything.”

  Once she’d repacked the medicines, Callan replaced the lid and pushed the crate back into the storage bay. As he stood up, he stretched a little, his hand going to his hip.

  “Bad back?”

  “Just an old injury.” He instantly straightened up, giving her the barest hint of a smile. “Or maybe just old age.”

  Jamie almost asked him how old he was, but the question felt too intimate. She’d guess late forties, but he could be a few years younger or older than that.

  He leaned back against the wall, folding his arms and considering her. “So what are you going to do? When we get to the central worlds, I mean.” He nodded toward her hand. “That’s an upper-echelon mark. There’ll be a place for you there, no doubt. Especially with medical skills.”

  “They’ll have better medics than me.”

  “Not if they did their job,” he said. “I’d be surprised if there’s a practicing doctor left alive on the central planets. They were right on the front line, and front lines aren’t usually left standing when it’s all over.” He tilted his head. “So what do you think you’ll do?”

  Daniel’s face rose in her mind. She’d have the chance to put things right.

  “I want to get to Earth,” she said. “Same as the others.”

  “You a believer too?”

  “A believer?”

  “The other woman was on about it. God’s will. A new world. A pilgrimage to some island.”

  “No, I don’t believe.” How did every conversation come back to this? “I’m from Earth. That’s all.”

  “What were you doing all the way out here?”

  “Working.”

  “Long way to go for a job.”

  “I was on Alegria for a few years first,” she said.

  “But you don’t want to head back there?”

  “No.” The exchange was circling closer to the thing she wasn’t saying, and she was sure he’d catch the shape of it, outlined in her half-truths and vague answers. “I just want to get back home.”

  “Fair enough.” Callan closed the storage bay doors. “You should go eat.”

  “Are you joining us?” she asked, on impulse.

  He shook his head. “I’ve already eaten,” he said, and walked away toward the far door. Just as he reached it, he glanced back and gave her a brief smile. “Thanks. For your help.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  When Jamie woke the next morning, the cabin was growing gradually lighter. The previous occupant must have set the lighting to simulate a natural dawn, although on board a ship like this, day and night were nothing more than a consensus.

  She washed as best she could in the sink before pulling on a blue T-shirt and the long denim skirt she used to wear on warm evenings back on Calgarth. There was a tiny mirror above the cabinet, and she brushed her hair and fastened it back. There were still shadows beneath her eyes, but her reflection didn’t look quite so drawn as the one she’d glimpsed in that bar window back on Soltaire.

  There was no one else down in the hold. She was conscious of an out-of-place feeling, like being a guest in someone’s home with no understanding of the unspoken rules.

  She made herself a coffee and stood at the counter to eat a bowl of cereal and rehydrated milk. She’d almost finished when footsteps clanged on the stairs. A few seconds later, Gracie stepped through the gap in the crates.

  She gave Jamie a cool nod. “Morning.” She paused, as though scratching around for how this sort of exchange should go. “Sleep all right?”

  “Fine, thanks.”

  Gracie opened the fridge, apparently satisfied that she’d met her conversational obligations. As Jamie hurried down the last few mouthfuls, not inclined to linger in awkward silence, there was a sharp crackle of sound, and Callan’s voice echoed through the hold, distorted by the comm.

  “Engineer to bridge immediately, please.”

  The message snapped off. Gracie didn’t show any reaction to the peremptory summons, throwing a hasty cup of coffee together and heading back to the stairs. There was a brief collision of voices as she reached the top, and after a few seconds Lowry appeared.

  “Good night’s sleep?” he said.

  She nodded. “You?”

  He smiled. “Not too bad. The engines take a bit of getting used to. Have you traveled much?”

  “Not that much. I went from Earth to Alegria when I was twenty-two, then Soltaire a few months ago. I did a couple of short trips when I was living on Alegria, but that’s about it.”

  “Not
back to Earth at all?”

  “Just once.”

  “Do you still have family there? I mean, did you have . . .” Lowry rubbed his brow. “Sorry. There’s no right way to talk about it, is there?”

  “It’s okay,” Jamie said. “My father died a few years ago, but my stepmother was still in Belsley. I’m not sure where my half sisters were living. We didn’t really keep in touch.”

  “And your mother?”

  “She died when I was fourteen.”

  “That must have been hard.”

  Jamie looked away. Twenty-four years ago and millions of miles away, and people still always wanted to know what had happened and how she’d felt about it. It was as though you weren’t allowed to leave anything behind.

  The clank of a door provided a welcome distraction, and she looked up to see Callan walking through the gap. He nodded at the pair of them before shoving his tin mug under the hot-water tap and tipping a large spoonful of instant coffee into it.

  “Morning,” Lowry said. “Everything all right?”

  Callan nodded. “We may be making another stop. We’ve picked up a signal.”

  Jamie’s heart gave a hopeful leap. More survivors. More proof that the statistics were wrong.

  “From where?” Lowry asked.

  “Mining colony on Pangaea.”

  “I haven’t heard of it,” Lowry said.

  “It’s in the Gemmel cluster,” Callan said. “Fairly wealthy, if I remember rightly. Small-scale platinum mining. Gracie’s trying to raise someone.”

  “Do we know who it is?” Jamie asked.

  “No,” Callan said. “It’s your basic distress beacon. Date-stamped a couple of days ago.”

  “So we’ll be landing,” Lowry said.

  Callan gave a noncommittal shrug. “Let’s see if Gracie gets any response. Then we’ll make a decision.”

  “What do you mean?” Jamie felt a sharp surge of adrenaline. “We can’t just leave someone down there.”

  Callan tipped powdered milk into his coffee and swirled it around. “Well, we can. If we can’t raise anyone, I’m not inclined to land on spec. We won’t know the fuel situation.”

  The memories were shoving for space inside Jamie’s head. Her cold stone floor, gritty and unyielding. Her arms wrapped tight around her body as she tried not to break into pieces, alone. And running through her mind, that relentless fugue—zero point zero zero zero . . .

  “No.” She wrenched her thoughts back.

  Callan’s eyebrows went up. “No?”

  “I didn’t mean . . .” She shook her head, trying to clear it. “I just . . . Whoever’s down there, they may think they’re the only one.”

  Callan was still looking at her, and she felt a flash of resentment. He’d never had to face that possibility. None of them had.

  “Like I said.” His tone was level. “If Gracie can raise someone, then we’ll see.”

  “What if they can’t get to the comm in time?” Jamie could hear her voice rising. “What if they’re injured?”

  “That’s a lot of what ifs.” Callan tapped his fingers on the scratched surface of the kitchen unit. “How about I add one? What if there’s no fuel?”

  “You stocked up on Soltaire,” Lowry put in, his tone neutral. “Do we have enough to take off again?”

  “Yes,” Callan said. “But it would mean another stop somewhere. That’s an unnecessary complication.”

  “Unnecessary?” Jamie gave a harsh laugh. “Saving someone’s life?”

  “It’s an established settlement,” Callan said. “It’s not like we’d be abandoning them on some backwater to chase their dinner with a homemade bow and arrow.”

  “But they’d be alone.” Jamie could feel a tremor trying to break through her. If she started shaking, she might not stop. “You don’t know . . .” She broke off. The memory of those first hours was too close, too personal. But she had to make them understand. They couldn’t just sail off into the void, never looking back. “I was alone,” she managed. “I thought I was alone.”

  Callan sipped his coffee, studying her over the rim of the mug. “You must have known you weren’t. The infomercials said . . .”

  “It doesn’t matter.” There was a panicked edge to her voice. “When you wake up and there’s no one . . .” She drew a deep breath. “If we just fly on, and leave whoever’s down there, we might as well have murdered them.”

  “There’ll be survivors all over the place,” Callan said. “We’re not responsible for every one of them.”

  “But we’re responsible for this one.”

  “How do you figure that?” Callan said. “If we’d never picked the signal up we’d never have known there was anyone there.”

  “But we do know,” Jamie said. “We can’t stop knowing it just because it’s not convenient for you.”

  A quick flash of anger crossed Callan’s face. “Is that what you think? That I just can’t be bothered?”

  “Looks like it from where I’m standing,” she shot back.

  “You’re standing on my ship,” Callan said. “And if I hadn’t picked the three of you up, you’d still be standing on Soltaire.”

  “And we’re grateful,” Lowry said. “But Jamie’s right. We can’t just leave someone behind.”

  Callan drained his coffee and put the mug down. “Let’s see what Gracie picks up.”

  As he walked away, Jamie stared after him, a whole plethora of furious responses running through her mind. She wanted to scream, or hit something. But she knew she wouldn’t. She never had. She’d always kept everything shoved down inside her, growing harder and denser, hidden away, but never forgotten.

  “Let it go.” Lowry stepped up to her side. “Let’s see what happens.”

  • • •

  Back upstairs, she’d just reached the door of her cabin when the comm crackled and Callan’s voice came on.

  “Commencing approach to Pangaea in five minutes. Strap in for landing.”

  The tight knot inside Jamie’s chest loosened. One of the other doors slid open and Rena appeared. Her hair was clumped at one side of her head, as though she’d been sleeping, but her eyes were suspiciously red.

  “What is it?”

  “Survivors,” Jamie said. “There was a signal.”

  “More survivors?” Rena’s hand went to her forehead, as though she were about to cross herself, but she caught herself on the edge of the movement and pressed her hands together in front of her chest instead. “How many?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Jamie turned and walked along the corridor. After a few seconds there was a patter of feet and Rena fell in beside her.

  She gave Jamie a quick, tremulous smile. “It’s starting. People will come together.”

  “We need to get strapped in,” Jamie said, before the other woman could get into her stride. “Come on.”

  • • •

  Callan’s skill in handling the ship had been apparent when the Phaeacian had set down on Soltaire, and this landing was no less deft. Jamie barely felt a jolt as they touched down.

  Callan appeared just as they were undoing their harnesses. “You three stay well back in the hold,” he said, walking toward the door.

  “Who’s out there?” Rena asked.

  “No idea.”

  Jamie stared at him. “Didn’t you speak to someone?”

  “No. So stay back.”

  “You expecting trouble?” Lowry said.

  “I don’t know what to expect. You never know how someone will react when they’re frightened, and stupid is hot-wired right into some people.”

  Sharp sunlight cut through the gap as the doors opened. Callan took a couple of steps outside, his hand resting on his gun, and then stopped. He stood still, looking at something out of Jamie’s view, before turning and
beckoning to them.

  As Lowry and Rena hurried forward, Jamie hung back, conscious of an echo of the same feeling she’d had on Soltaire. As long as they stayed safely sealed inside the walls of the ship, she didn’t have to think about what was out there. She could choose to believe anything at all; that they were alone in the universe, or surrounded by living worlds, full of living, breathing people.

  By the time she reached the entrance, the others were walking down the gangway. The port was bigger than the one on Soltaire, and they’d set down on one of three platforms around a central loading area. The sky was a darker blue than on any other planet she’d seen, giving the place a pregnant, storm-heavy look despite the white-gold glare of the sun.

  There were two people standing a few meters from the end of the gangway: a girl who looked to be in her early twenties, with a tall, thin lad of around eighteen or nineteen standing a few paces behind her, arms soldier-straight by his sides.

  The girl was small and fair-haired, dressed in a pale blue dress that looked like something a child might wear to a party. It floated down to just above her knees, and her arms and legs were bare. Her expression was wary, and as Callan reached the end of the gangway, she held up a warning hand, shooting a quick glance over her shoulder at the lad.

  “Sorry.” Her voice seemed too light and flimsy for the heavy, industrial surroundings. “Could you stop. Please.” The lad had risen up on his toes, shifting his weight back and forth, his gaze resting somewhere above the heads of the new arrivals. “He doesn’t . . . I mean, he finds people difficult. It was hours before he’d talk to me. But we get along fine now, don’t we, Finn?” She smiled over her shoulder. It looked forced, but the lad stopped his gentle rocking and nodded, a quick jerk of his head.

  “What’s your name?” Callan said.

  “Mila.”

  “You the only two here?”

  Something flickered across the girl’s face. “I haven’t seen anyone else.”

  “That’s not an answer.” Callan had picked up on the careful shape of her response. “Any sign of anyone else?”