The Oceans between Stars

by Kevin Emerson

  This time he was able to make it all the way inside the window and actually stand in his room. He looked around at the cluttered mess, the way it was before he’d packed everything up. Liam didn’t understand exactly how this was possible, but then again, he barely understood how he could be seeing his own past in the first place. He wondered if he was somehow leaving his own body, or if he was actually moving through his own past, as opposed to just revisiting it. Like, if the past version of himself turned, would he see something like a ghost? But Liam didn’t think so. After all, he had no memories of strange apparitions.

  His head began to ache, and he relaxed and returned to his original position in the memory, and then counted down from five while looking slowly around. When he reached one, with a sad pressure behind his throat, he let go of the button on the watch. There was a grinding stop, the flashing alien message, and a jolting reversal, and all the past time blurred by him in a gut-wrenching instant, until he was back inside himself on the cruiser, floating between his parents’ pods.

  He blinked, fresh sweat on his brow and a headache like lightning bolts across his mind. He breathed in deep, flexed his fingers, and clenched his gut against the nausea.

  “How’d it go?” Phoebe asked.

  “Always makes me a little sick.”

  “I never know if I feel better or worse after,” said Phoebe. She started to float out of the room.

  “Yeah,” Liam said, even though he was pretty sure that, once the physical symptoms passed, he always felt better. Grounded, even though there was no ground. He looked at his parents’ faces and managed to smile. See you guys soon. Then he pushed after Phoebe.

  “Wanna play Roid Wraiths for a bit?” she said over her shoulder.

  “Sure.” Liam floated past her to the galley, where he opened a drawer and got nutri-bars for both of them.

  Phoebe buckled into the couch and loaded Roid Wraiths IV. A holoscreen rippled to life. Liam joined her and got controllers out of the compartment that served as a coffee table. He handed one to Phoebe, along with the nutri-bar.

  As the system loaded, he pulled Mina’s beacon out from inside his shirt. It was a small silver rectangle on a chain. He pressed the dome-shaped button made of green glass at the top. He still needed the tap code key Mina had sent to make longer messages, but he had memorized a few basic ones.

  hi

  There was still no chance she’d see it, months to go still before she’d wake, and yet he watched the beacon for a few seconds anyway before stowing it back in his shirt. He felt an ache inside, even as the trip back to Mars had helped a little. He wondered if she remembered that afternoon, too.

  The airlock slid open and JEFF entered, ice melting off his plastic body and steam hissing out of his joints. He stepped into the holoscreen and the Roid Wraiths menu rippled over his smiling panda face. “I have patched the battery and it seems to be charging normally. I think it will hold, though I cannot be certain. Hopefully we will not need the drone again before we can get a replacement at Delphi.”

  “Nice work, JEFF,” said Liam.

  “Refueling is proceeding. If you need me I will be in the cockpit.”

  They sank into the game, currently on a level where they were stuck in a particularly intense wraith hive inside a derelict tanker.

  “We can definitely beat these guys before stasis,” Liam said right after they’d been ripped limb from limb by the wraith babies for the third consecutive time. And yet, there was another feeling that was urging him to postpone stasis a little longer.

  He looked over at Phoebe. When they woke next, they’d be at Delphi, back with everyone else on the Scorpius, back to their old life with their parents and friends around. It wouldn’t be just the two of them anymore, out here, doing their own thing. Not that being off in deep space on their own was anything he would have wished for, with all the danger, and the way it made him feel lonely and sick, but still . . .

  “What?” Phoebe was eyeing him eyeing her.

  “Nothing.” Liam turned away, his face burning.

  “You just got completely wrecked by those wingers again,” she said. “I told you: you have to use pulse cannons.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” Liam felt like his heart had started clawing its way up his throat, and he had a spinny upside-down feeling, and he sort of had to pee and now he wasn’t breathing and he’d been thinking about something now and then and wasn’t sure so ahhhh he leaned over and kissed Phoebe on the cheek.

  Phoebe flinched away. “Hey!”

  “Sorry,” said Liam, darting away himself. Her skin had been cool and tasted weird, sort of like salt and plastic . . . but—oh no. She hadn’t wanted him to do that and he was an idiot! Why had he even wanted to do that? “I didn’t mean to, I . . .”

  Phoebe paused the game. Her fingers traced slowly down her cheek, almost like she was checking to see if he’d given her a rash. She was staring straight ahead. Sort of grimacing, too. Then she slowly turned toward him with an odd expression. Except she was smiling, sort of? “Thank you.”

  Thank you? What could that possibly mean? “I’m sorry,” said Liam. “Uh, it’s all this zero gravity. I just—”

  “No, Liam. . . .” She reached out and patted his knee, probably like you did to someone you definitely didn’t want to kiss you ever again. “You’re the best.”

  “Okay.”

  “No, I mean, my best. Friend.” She touched her cheek again, running her finger up and down it. “I like that you did that. I was just surprised. You mean a lot to me, too.”

  What came next? If she liked that, did she want to do . . . more of that? Did he? This was horrible.

  “Don’t tell Shawn,” said Liam, looking at his hands.

  Phoebe laughed, but it almost seemed like she was fighting tears. “I won’t.” She stared across the room.

  “So . . .”

  Phoebe clicked her controller. “Let’s play one more level.”

  “Okay.”

  Was that it? Was everything fine between them? Liam had no idea.

  After that, they only really spoke to point out creatures and hazards to each other. Two levels later, JEFF told them to hang on, and their bodies strained against their buckles as the cruiser made its final burn for Delphi.

  “We should probably get into stasis,” said Phoebe.

  “Yeah.”

  They shut down the game and stowed the gear. Liam used the bathroom and floated to his stasis pod. Phoebe was perched on the edge of hers, her heels hooked beneath it.

  “Aren’t you getting in?” Liam asked. He realized he sounded sulky. He wasn’t, or was he? The memory of kissing her, but also of Mars and his parents and Mina—it all felt like a lot right now.

  Phoebe smiled. “I’ve got a couple things to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Just girl stuff.”

  “Oh. Um, okay, well . . . see you soon.”

  “May Ana wake you from pleasant dreams,” said Phoebe, as she always did before stasis.

  “You too.”

  “And I meant it. Thanks for the, you know . . .” She touched her cheek.

  Liam looked away. “Right.”

  “Thanks, too, for saving my life so many times.”

  “Well, you too. It’s been fun, you know, when it hasn’t been terrifying.”

  Phoebe nodded and smiled but also turned away quickly and floated out of the compartment.

  JEFF arrived to attach the muscle stimulators and the fluid line, and to connect Liam’s link, and then Liam lay back and buckled in. The clear panel lowered over him. As it clicked shut, he checked the beacon and the watch one more time—no flashing, no blinking—and then closed his eyes and breathed deep. The pod began to hiss and cool. His heart sped up for a moment, thinking of the months of dark to come, of Barro and the attackers stealthily pulling up to their ship while they were defenseless. It made this box feel too small, and the space around the ship too big again.

  He shook his head and tried to imagi
ne seeing Mina and Shawn on the starliner, or visiting his parents as they recuperated in a hospital compartment, and yet he kept picturing Phoebe instead—her smiling face through a helmet visor, or sitting next to him on the cruiser couch, just the two of them all these days. . . .

  I’m an idiot, he thought.

  Liam closed his eyes and settled on the memory of his balcony back home, the view of the distant canyons and mountains, and of the giant sun that had scared him daily, and that he now missed impossibly, as the stasis gas tugged him under.

  4

  DISTANCE TO DELPHI: 57,000 KM

  TIME TO ARRIVAL: 0H:43M

  Why would you run off like that?

  Mom loomed over him, taller than he ever remembered her. Liam sank into his bunk, but he was also wearing a pressure suit, the mask clouded by his breath. Rusted light filtered through the windows of the small, dome-shaped living quarters at the research station on Mars. We specifically told you not to leave, Mom went on, glaring down at him. She wore a pressure suit, too, but hers was scorched with burn marks. Black soot streaks covered half of her helmet’s clear mask.

  You never trust me! Liam shouted, which caused a tremor of guilt even in his dreaming mind. You’re the ones who sent us out to the air vents. We were trying to help you!

  Mom laughed in a way she never did, a sort of cackle. Meanwhile, the floor had become the molten surface of the sun.

  Why would we ever send you to the air vents? That doesn’t make any sense. Don’t be stupid. Mom had become Mina now. No pressure suit, one fist on her hip, wearing her favorite retro Moon Junkies T-shirt, black hair hanging down across half her face. Come on, already.

  Something flashed. With her other hand, Mina was tapping her necklace with her thumb. Liam, hurry!

  “Welcome back, Liam.”

  Icy gray, a damp pressure in his chest . . . Liam’s eyes fluttered open. He squinted in the overhead lights.

  “We are arriving at Delphi.” JEFF loomed over him, grinning. “Remember to breathe slowly, and please count down from thirty before you attempt to sit up.”

  Liam blinked, counting to himself.

  “Also, you are receiving a message.” JEFF slid away.

  “Wait, what?” Liam strained to lift his head and saw that the necklace was floating just above his chest, blinking in green flashes. “JEFF, why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “I only became aware of it when I opened your pod.”

  Liam lurched up, taking the necklace in his hand, trying to catch up to the series of fast and slow blips. He needed the tap code key from the link Mina had sent him—

  Splitting pain tore through his head, and his stomach lurched. Sweat breaking out all over—oh no. Liam had floated halfway out of the pod. He grabbed the side, hands clammy, arms shaking, tried to push himself toward the bathroom—

  Too late. He spun and vomited into the stasis pod. The liquid burst from his mouth in wobbling brown globules, some splashing against the foam insides of the pod, some floating free around the room. Gasping at the sour, metallic taste, Liam slammed closed the top of the pod, containing nearly all of it.

  “JEFF!” he croaked. The necklace drifted up into his view, still flashing. He breathed deep, spun himself around, and—ugh!—felt his bare heel collide with one of the warm vomit bubbles still drifting around the room.

  He pushed over to the cabinets on the wall and pulled out the link Mina had sent him. Weirdly, it opened to that video that Mina had made for him—there was Shawn’s face on pause. Liam didn’t remember watching it since they’d first received the link. He clicked to the menu and opened the file with the picture of the tap code key, a simple pattern that used sets of dots, or in this case flashes, to indicate letters.

  His head still ached as he watched the beacon, trying to catch up. How long had she been sending him a message? It might have been seconds, or it could have been minutes. She might have tried a few times over hours, even days.

  Tap code was slow and arduous. The beacon went dark momentarily, which indicated the end of a letter. Then four taps, another space, and two more taps, which all together meant the letter U. Four and four, that was an R. Now an I, then a B. Now a longer space indicating the end of a word.

  u-r-i-b

  What was that? Must have been a fragment. Or he’d gotten a letter wrong. But there was no time to check because another word was starting. He ran his finger over the code key.

  h-u-r-r-y

  Liam smiled. They were so close! He couldn’t wait to see Mina, to give her a hug and have her scowl at him. The beacon stopped blinking and he started his reply.

  delayed but close now

  “How long until we get there?” he shouted.

  “Forty-one minutes,” JEFF replied from the cockpit.

  less than one hour

  He wished there was some way to send an exclamation point, or include a smiley face, anything to convey his excitement. But Mina would know. He stared at the beacon, but it didn’t blink again. She was probably busy in the social center, or maybe down on Delphi itself.

  Liam tucked the beacon into his shirt. There was a soft splooshing sound, and he saw one of the vomit bubbles pop against the wall, spraying into smaller ones. Some of them were heading right for Phoebe’s pod, which was already open and empty. He darted over and closed it before he floated out of the room. He peeked in at his sleeping parents, their pods still warmly lit, and then pushed through the ship to the cockpit.

  He was just passing the airlock when the world seemed to slide in his vision. He felt like a door had opened, a great breeze blowing through him, and everything blurred—

  Suddenly, the sun appeared before him, swollen, red, hurling furious solar flares around itself. Liam saw the skim drone cockpit, his hands in the gloves of a space suit, working the controls. The sun was enormous, its waist bowed out like it would explode at any second, and for some reason, he was flying directly toward it—

  Splitting pain in his head. Liam flinched and found himself tumbling backward in the cabin of the cruiser.

  “You okay back there?” Phoebe called.

  He had flipped upside down and now grabbed the wall and righted himself. His head ached, and he vaguely remembered hitting it on the cabinets near the cockpit entrance. He rubbed the bump already growing there and felt that strange, spacey feeling inside once more. He checked the alien watch. Had he touched it by mistake? But it wasn’t blinking or flashing. So why did he feel like he’d just used it? The burning-bright image of the enormous sun flashed in his head again. He had been dreaming about being back on Mars when he’d woken up, and he was always a bit disoriented after stasis, but he also wondered, not for the first time, if the trips he made with the watch were messing with him. After all, the watch wasn’t meant for humans.

  Liam took a deep breath and waited for his vision to stop swaying, then pushed into the cockpit.

  “Hey,” he said. “Sorry, just a little out of it after stasis— Whoa.”

  Out the cockpit window, a dim gray-blue orb glowed faintly in the distance, not much bigger than a fingertip.

  Delphi.

  “Finally!” Liam buckled into the seat behind JEFF and stowed the link with the tap code in the side pocket.

  “Decelerating to two percent velocity,” said JEFF. Retrorockets on the front and sides of the ship fired in short bursts.

  “JEFF, I, um, sorta threw up in our compartment. It’s mostly in my pod, but . . .”

  “Acknowledged.” JEFF stood, and Liam thought he heard a tiny sigh. “Autopilot is engaged; I will return in just a moment.” He rolled past Phoebe, who was in the copilot’s chair, and then swiveled to look down at Liam. “You’ll”—his eyes flickered in that lagging way—“see to the controls?”

  “Sure.” Liam unbuckled and moved to the pilot’s chair. He surveyed the panels, everything blipping along. “There’s nothing really to do, though, right?” he asked over his shoulder.

  JEFF didn’t answer and Liam figure
d he’d already headed out, but then he heard the hum of JEFF’s increasingly stubborn joints. Liam turned and saw the bot looking at him and Phoebe, or maybe the controls, eyes flickering again. “Of course,” he finally answered. “We just want to be sure, as landing procedures are delicate.”

  “Relax, JEFF,” said Liam, turning back around and feeling a rush at the sight of the dim planet. “We’re in the home stretch.”

  JEFF rolled out. Phoebe was staring at Delphi, her expression serious.

  “Nervous?”

  “I’m fine,” she said quietly, picking at her thumbnail.

  “Don’t worry, they’re still here.”

  Delphi grew rapidly before them. It was a rogue planet, about one-quarter the size of Earth. At some point, long ago, it had likely been part of a solar system, but whether due to a supernova, an asteroid collision, or its star simply dying out, it now floated without a home through the void.

  Though it appeared dark and cold, Delphi had an intensely active geothermal core and, above that, large oceans that were encased in a kilometer-thick layer of ice. The heat from the core caused massive plumes of steam to jet skyward, creating a dense cloud of ice fog that enshrouded the planet.

  As Liam remembered from countless viewings of the virtual tour, the waypoint station was built on one of the rare land formations that jutted out of the ice. It was powered by the geothermal energy, and from there, the oceans were mined for fuel same as humans had once done at Saturn Station on Enceladus. Delphi had a far weaker gravitational field than even Mars, so the Scorpius could dock directly above the station, which made refueling easy.

  By the time JEFF returned to the cockpit, Delphi had grown to the size of a fist, but it was still murky, almost like a smudge on the black. Liam could just make out the faint swirls of the clouds. His relief and anticipation were briefly dampened by a flash of worry: They hadn’t been near a planet in so long, and what better place for an ambush from the Saturn attackers? But then wouldn’t the middle of deep space have actually been easier, with no one else around? It was more likely that Barro and his people were far behind somewhere. Or, with any luck, they hadn’t even gotten out of the way of the supernova in time.