The Space Between the Stars

by Anne Corlett

“Yes. No.” Jamie was already tugging the row of seats down. “It doesn’t matter right now.”

  They were leaving. There was someone out there and they were leaving them alone.

  She strapped Mila in and reached for Finn, but he twisted out of her grasp.

  “Finn, we need to go.”

  Mila was saying something, but her voice was high-pitched and frightened and it wasn’t soothing him this time. He flailed at Jamie, stiff-limbed and silent, backing away from the seats, until she swore at him through gritted teeth.

  Lowry stepped in, talking to the lad in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. Finn grew still, his head tilted as though he was listening, although he did not look at the old man. Lowry kept up his soothing patter and somehow managed to steer Finn toward the seats. As the engines leaped into life the lad stiffened, but Lowry kept talking, describing the takeoff process in his soothing tone until his voice was drowned out by the ship’s dull crescendo. By that time the edge of Finn’s panic had blunted and Lowry had been able to strap him into his seat, where he sat with his knees drawn up, as though the floor were dangerous, his fingers curling and uncurling where they rested on his shins.

  Jamie leaned back and closed her eyes as the ship carried them to the safety of space.

  • • •

  Once Callan’s voice had come over the speaker, giving terse permission for them to undo their straps, Lowry turned to Jamie.

  “What happened down there?”

  “I don’t know. There was a fire.” There’d been a panicked unreality about those moments when the flames were leaping into life. Jamie had a sudden image of fires springing up all over the settlement, licking closer and closer to the ship, as though someone would rather see the whole world burn than share it with others.

  Despite it all—the fire, the body—she felt a stab of guilt. Yes, that unknown presence had done everything in its power to ensure that they saw it as a threat, but whoever it was, did they deserve to be alone, perhaps for the rest of their days? Her head said yes, but she was conscious of a scratch of unease at how readily that answer came to her. Life was life. If she started making judgments about who was worth saving and who was not, then where did that end?

  She shook the thought away and gave the other passengers a quick, dispassionate account of the events that had led to their precipitous departure. Callan arrived just as she finished.

  “So there was someone there,” Mila said, shooting him an accusatory look.

  “Seems so,” he said, levelly.

  “Well, that’s a lesson learned, I suppose,” Lowry put in. “Not everyone who survived is going to welcome us with open arms. I thought . . .” He sighed and rubbed at his face. “Never mind. Did we get the fuel?”

  “Not enough,” Callan said. “We’ll have to make another stop at some point.”

  He was looking at Jamie as he spoke, and she felt a flicker of resentment. Was he blaming her?

  “Come on,” Lowry said. “Let’s get our new arrivals settled in.”

  • • •

  They set Mila up in the quarters next to Jamie’s and left her to settle in, while Lowry checked the cabins on the other side of the corridor. One had been commandeered for extra storage, but the second was empty, with a bed made up. Finn was tense, standing stock-still in the middle of the floor and shooting suspicious glances around the cabin. It was a few moments before Lowry could persuade him to unstrap his backpack and place it on the desk.

  “Do you want to unpack your things?” the preacher said.

  Finn gave a quick affirmative jerk of his head, coupled with another furtive recce of the cabin’s far corners.

  “Would you like us to help, or do you want to do it yourself?” Lowry asked.

  “Myself.”

  “Do you want us to leave you to it, or shall we stay?”

  Finn considered, frowning down at the floor. “Stay.”

  Lowry nodded and stepped back. Finn opened the rucksack and took out some neatly folded clothes.

  “Here.” Jamie opened one of the lockers so that he could place the clothes inside, tops on one shelf and trousers on another. Then he went back to his rucksack and took out a burlap drawstring bag, printed with the logo of a well-known dry-foods supplier. A comb poked out of the top and the contents clinked as he placed it carefully on the desk. A brown-covered notebook followed, along with a clutch of colored pencils, fastened together with two elastic bands. The final item was a cracked and faded cardboard box, with a picture of a beach on the cover, and 1000 pieces blazoned along one edge.

  “You like jigsaws?” Lowry asked.

  “Yes.” Finn was holding the box in both hands, his gaze fixed on the printed seascape.

  “Would you like to do it now?”

  “Yes.”

  “How about we go down to the galley? There’s a table there.”

  Finn hesitated, glancing first at Lowry and then at Jamie. After a moment he nodded. “Yes.” He blinked, a small frown puckering his face, as though he was trying to remember something. “Yes, please.”

  • • •

  When they reached the galley, the table was in use. Rena and Gracie were sitting on either side of it, drinking coffee and not talking. Finn shifted from foot to foot, his hands tight on the jigsaw box, and Jamie saw Rena shoot him a quick unsmiling look before turning away.

  Jamie looked around. There were a couple of pallets just to the side of the galley area, and some boards leaning against a nearby crate.

  “Here.” She slid one of the boards on top of the pallets. “We can use this.”

  Finn placed the box on the makeshift table and slid into the gap alongside, tucking his knees underneath him.

  Lowry looked down at the slatted floor with a grimace. “If I get down there, I may never get back up again. I’ll leave the two of you to it, if that’s okay.”

  Jamie wasn’t sure she would be as easy with the lad as Lowry, but the old preacher was looking tired and his hand kept going to the side of his chest.

  “Are you all right?”

  Lowry gave her a wry smile. “Just old age.”

  Jamie suddenly remembered his request back on Pangaea. “The Lycidine . . .”

  “I still have a few tablets left,” Lowry said. “I’ll take one and lie down for a bit. You carry on.”

  Finn had already tipped out the puzzle. He was carefully turning the pieces faceup to show scattered fragments of golden sand and blue sky. Jamie sat down opposite him, noting the neat, precise way he handled the puzzle. Was he as focused as he appeared to be, or was his fear and confusion playing out in a loop, like her tangle of statistics? If he was in turmoil, he gave no outward sign.

  “How do you like to do it?” Jamie kept her tone light and matter-of-fact, like Lowry’s. “Do you start with the edges?”

  “Corners first.” Finn picked up four pieces in quick succession, laying them out at a precisely judged distance.

  “You’ve done this before.” Jamie smiled at him, but his only response was a questioning look that made her feel stupid, talking about nothing at all when that kind of time-filling chatter was probably what he found most difficult. On Alegria, every social situation had been a seething mass of that sort of conversation. Even she’d sometimes found it hard to navigate. For Finn it was probably incomprehensible.

  Finn was picking up straight-edged pieces of blue, some clear and featureless, others brushed with the faint suggestion of clouds. Jamie couldn’t see anything to distinguish the pieces, but Finn laid them down without hesitation, leaving precise gaps. It wasn’t a puzzle for him, she realized. It was a meditation, something he could do without having to figure out the whys and the wherefores.

  The sofa scraped on the floor as Rena stood up, turning toward the galley. As she squeezed past, her skirt snagged the edge of the board, knocking a handful of pieces onto the floor.
Jamie snatched at them but only managed to save a couple before the others disappeared between the floor slats.

  “Shit.” She slid her fingers into the gap. “Sorry, Finn. I think we’ve lost them.”

  Rena muttered something and tugged her skirt free, almost dislodging another piece. Jamie put her hand out to steady the board.

  “Careful.”

  A dull red flush rose along Rena’s jaw. “You were in the way. Can’t he do this in his cabin?”

  Finn was gripping the edge of the board, staring at the space where the pieces had been. At Rena’s comment, he scrambled to his feet, grabbing at a crate for balance.

  “Finn.” Jamie stood up and put her arm out, not thinking. He shrank away, and she immediately snatched her hand back. “Sorry. Don’t go. We might be able to find the pieces.”

  Rena stalked away to the galley, where she slammed down her cup and busied herself with the hot-water machine.

  Jamie turned to Gracie, who was sitting in silence, watching the commotion. “Can we get under the floor?”

  “Not without moving the crates and unscrewing the whole panel.”

  Jamie looked back at Finn. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “Maybe we’ll be able to get them back when the crates are unloaded.”

  “That won’t be anytime soon,” Gracie said. “They belonged to a family relocating out to one of the Mercian colonies. I don’t suppose anyone’s still waiting for them.”

  Finn knelt back down and began shoveling pieces back into the box. There was a jaggedness to the movement, at odds with the deft way he’d been placing the pieces when the puzzle was whole. As Jamie watched the fragments of sea and sky disappear in a formless tumble into the box, an idea occurred to her.

  “Wait there. I’m just going to get something.”

  Up in her cabin she picked up the jar of sea glass and hurried back to the hold. Gracie was gone, but Rena was back on the sofa, her hands clasped tightly together. When she saw Jamie, she rose out of her seat with an awkward, stiff-limbed movement.

  “I’m sorry.” She made a vague gesture toward Finn. “I didn’t mean . . .” She stopped, her mouth working as though the words had suddenly become unpalatable. “It was in the way,” she went on, more aggressively. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “Okay.” Jamie knew she sounded short, but she didn’t want to get drawn into a postmortem, in which she’d have to navigate the uncharted waters of Rena’s changing moods.

  “It was in the way,” Rena said again. There was an odd, almost pleading note in her voice. “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Jamie turned away. “Just leave it.”

  As Rena muttered something incomprehensible and stalked out of the galley, Jamie sat down opposite Finn, who’d finished packing the jigsaw away and was sitting silently, knees tucked to chest. When she opened the jar, he lifted his head, watching as she emptied out the fragments of glass and pottery. One piece, aqua blue and almost perfectly spherical, skittered across the board toward him, and he picked it up between finger and thumb.

  “It’s sea glass,” Jamie said. “The pieces have been in the sea for years, so all the sharp bits have worn away.”

  Finn replaced the blue marble and reached for a curve of deep red, running his thumb along the frosted surface.

  “Pieces of what?” he asked.

  “All sorts of things. You find it all along the coast where I grew up.” She ran her palms over the fragments, spreading them out so that the colors and textures were apparent. “The clear pieces could be anything.” She picked up a green teardrop. “These are from old bottles. There was a glass factory just down the coast, and they used to throw their leftover glass into the sea.” She brushed through the pile until she found a smooth oval, shot through with lines of blue and amber. “They call these pieces end-of-day glass. They came from the glass the factory workers used at the end of each day, with all the leftover colors mixed together.”

  Finn reached into the center of the pile and picked up a piece of delft pottery, the faded sky-blue figures just visible against a crackle-gray background. He put it down in front of him and reached for another with a similar pattern but stained with speckles of rusty pigment. He pushed the two pieces close, turning them around, trying to butt their corners together. Frustration creased his brow.

  “They don’t fit.”

  Jamie put another piece down, dusty pink this time, with gray spider-thread lines across its smooth surface. “They won’t,” she said, adding a piece of terra-cotta tile with a worn floral pattern carved along its edge. “They’re all from different things. And they’ve been worn away. Even if you had all the pieces, you’d never be able to put them back together.”

  Finn reached for another piece of pink and gray. “These are the same.”

  “You do sometimes find pieces that look like they came from the same thing.” Jamie had always found that fascinating. All that great bulk of ocean and time, and some of the fragments had held together. She’d sometimes wondered, if you sat there long enough would you find the whole thing? And if you did, would there be a way to put it back together, so that it still held some vestige of what it had been before?

  Her grandfather used to take her up to the pebble beach north of Belsley, usually on a Sunday morning when her grandmother was in church. You only ever found pottery fragments in any great number on that particular stretch of coast. Boulmer and Craster were for clear glass, and some light blues and greens. You got the cobalt blues at North Sunderland and Seaham, and the latter was the sole repository of the reds and purples and mixed hues. But Belsley was pottery, and she and her grandfather would walk up there when the tide was low.

  They’d met a woman once, engrossed in the same activity. She wasn’t local, too smartly dressed for the beach, with damp sand clinging to her suede shoes. She had a whole handful of pieces of blue and white that looked as though they were from the same thing. A bowl most likely, from the way the pieces curved. She’d shown them, her face bright with discovery, and said that things like that were the reason she believed in God. Jamie’s grandfather had smiled at the woman and said it was why he didn’t.

  When they were alone, Jamie had scuffed the sand with her toes and asked him what he’d meant. He’d said that if there were a god he’d give you all of it, or he’d give you nothing. He’d test your faith, or he’d verify it. He wouldn’t leave it all so wide open that everything could be a pattern, or else nothing at all.

  Finn ran his fingers through the fragments again, picking up a handful of tiny beads of glass. Jamie had always gone after the bigger pieces, the ones that caught your eye from a long way away, but her grandfather sifted through the fine shingle for the tiny scraps of almost-nothing, the ones that had been in the sea for so long that they were close to disappearing.

  “What are they for?” Finn asked suddenly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you do with them? If they don’t go back together.”

  “They’re not for anything,” she said. “My grandfather used to make jewelry, but I just liked to look at them. Sometimes I used to make pictures.” She moved a few pieces of red and blue around until she had two concentric circles, like a double-layered flower, and then she added a stalk and leaves of small green nuggets. “Like that.”

  “You’re from Earth.” Finn brushed the glass petals with a careful fingertip.

  “Yes.”

  “The other lady said we’re going to Earth. She said we were going to start again.”

  “We want to go to Earth,” Jamie said. “I’m not sure if we’ll get there. And I’m not sure about the other bit.”

  Finn nodded and returned to his contemplation of the sea glass.

  Jamie looked up at the echo of footsteps and saw Callan approaching.

  “Can I borrow you for a minute?” he said.

 
; She glanced at Finn. “Can we talk here?”

  “No,” Callan said. “I need you to do me an inventory of those new medicines. I want to know what we’ve got, and whether there’s anything else we need.”

  “Won’t most places have stockpiled supplies?”

  “The remote settlements may, but places closer in will have relied on regular deliveries.”

  Jamie felt a brush of irritation and envy. What must it be like to see things as unemotionally as Callan did? They had no idea how many people had survived, or how any new society would function, but here he was, talking about stockpiles and inventories, as though they were on a run-of-the-mill trading trip rather than making their way to the heart of a broken world, not sure whether they’d find it still beating.

  “I don’t want to leave Finn on his own,” she said, lowering her voice.

  “He’ll be fine. Not much he can get up to.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Jamie glanced at Finn, who was studying a curve of green glass. “He’s . . . It must be hard for him.”

  “He survived on his own until Mila found him,” Callan said. “You don’t have to treat him like a child.”

  Once again Jamie felt a stirring of annoyance. What did he know about being vulnerable, and lost in a world you couldn’t understand?

  Callan leaned past her to address Finn directly. “Boy.”

  Finn didn’t respond.

  Callan raised his voice. “Finn.”

  Finn looked up.

  “I need Jamie to help me with something,” Callan said. He spoke clearly and precisely, with a note in his voice Jamie hadn’t heard there before. It sounded almost gentle. “Will you wait here till she comes back?”

  Finn tipped his head, considering this, and then nodded.

  Callan turned back to Jamie, his tone brisk once again. “See? He’s fine.” Then he turned and walked out of the galley, leaving her with a faint, lingering resentment.

  She turned to Finn. “You sure you’ll be okay?”

  He looked up at her, his brow creasing. “Yes. I told him.”

  “Okay.” Jamie hesitated, but she couldn’t think of any valid reason not to do as Callan had asked, and she wasn’t sure why she was looking for one.