Beyond Those Distant Stars

by John B. Rosenman

  “Are you sure?” She gripped his shoulder.

  He kissed her, and she caressed the skin over his sternum, the taut muscle of his biceps. “Oh yes,” he whispered hotly when their lips parted. “Oh yes, am I ever.”

  He carried her to the bed, which proved broad and comfortable. Jason kissed her lips and eyes, then ran his mouth down her body. She stroked his back, then reached down to caress him. His mouth, warm and demanding, found hers again, and she felt herself open to him.

  Entering her, Jason quickly showed that he was all right indeed, despite his new body. Holding her close, he started to move, his lips murmuring in awe as if he saw an undiscovered country that transcended description.

  And despite all her doubts, all her deepest fears, she found that she went there with him.

  * * * *

  Afterward, they lay tangled together. She ran her fingers lightly over the damp hairs on his chest, not wanting to think of anything but the two of them together.

  “Are you sure you aren't pushing things to do this so soon?”

  He smiled. “No pun intended.”

  “No!” She laughed. “I'm not so clever as that.”

  Jason wiggled his nose, looking almost like a little boy. “You aren't, huh? Even after all you've managed to accomplish? I disagree. By the way, if you'll take a look, you'll see I'm not pushing things too fast at all.”

  “Ohhh,” she marveled. “You're ready again.”

  “Uh-huh. Or you might say that I'm prepared to fire my engines for another launch.”

  “But your engines are back on the Spaceranger.”

  “I'm still able to use them.” He winked, and then turned serious. “I'm going to be different with you,” he promised. His hand caressed her cheek. “There isn't going to be anyone else.”

  She moved her hand down his body and fondled him. “How old are you, Jason?”

  “Twenty-eight.”

  She sighed. “I'll be thirty-eight in a few months.”

  “So what?”

  “So don't promise undying love and fidelity, especially to an older woman.”

  He kissed her, kissed her again. “I mean it, Stella. I'm going to change.”

  She sighed as he bit her earlobe, feeling his long hair brush her cheek. “If you say so. But I'll expect it in writing.”

  “I—”

  There was a sound at the door.

  They sprang apart, Jason covering himself with the blanket and Stella freezing in terror. She knew there was no time to act, even for her.

  The door slid open, and General Gage entered the room.

  Turning, Gage saw them and came forward, her face doing a double and triple take as she registered the situation. She halted a meter from their bed, shaking her head in amazement.

  “Well, at least there's only two of you in bed together. That's refreshing.”

  “General,” Stella said, “what are you doing here?”

  “We have to move quickly,” Gage said. “Now. You were right, Commander. Two of my officers reported our plans to Malek and he forbade the investigation. You're in danger. We have to move now!”

  Stella and Jason scrambled out of bed and yanked on their clothes. Stella was ready before Jason was even half finished.

  “I've arranged for some of your key officers and crew to join us on the way,” Gage said. “We're taking a rather colorful route. It may seem strange, but it's fast. And don't be surprised by anything you see, just keep moving.” She headed toward the door, anxious to go. “There's only one problem. Since your pilot's been disconnected, who's going to pilot the Spaceranger?”

  “I am,” Jason said, buttoning his shirt. “It'll be harder but I can do it.”

  “General,” Stella said, “can't you get us on the Slug ship? It would be much better.”

  Gage shook her head. “It's harder and longer to get there, far more dangerous. Besides, it's more heavily guarded. You'll have to go this way or not at all.” She snapped her fingers at Jason. “C'mon. The shit's about to hit the vents and every second counts.”

  The door opened and someone entered. Gage's hand slapped her holster and rose with a weapon trained on Tessa and her son.

  “You're leaving, aren't you?” she asked Stella.

  “If God's willing,” Stella said.

  “I haven't really thanked you for all that you've done.” Her pale face twitched with emotion.

  “Stella, now,” Gage said.

  “It's all right,” Stella assured Tessa. She pressed Tessa's hands and then knelt and embraced Ulysses. “Grow tall and strong and true,” she whispered, kissing his cheek.

  “Hurry!” Gage snapped.

  She rose and turned. Jason was ready.

  Gage checked them both, then jabbed the wall button.

  Oh God, Stella thought as the door slid open. Hold on tight ‘cause here we go.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Outside her room, Jason almost hit the guard when he put the body-cuff back on Stella. However, Gage silenced him with a look, and after a couple minutes they were on their way down the corridor.

  “First chance we get, we'll try to pop you out of that suit,” Gage said.

  “That would be nice,” Stella answered. “By the way, I saw your gun. It looked old-style, driven mass to me.”

  “That's right,” Gage said, eyes trained straight ahead. “This station's tough, but it's SOP to use only metal-alloy projectiles. We don't want to risk any damage to the outer surface.”

  I hope Lovejoy and those on the other side use similar restraint, Stella thought. ‘The other side’ ... it seemed so strange to think that way. Damn it, they all belonged to the same side and she shouldn't have to do this!

  As they walked, Jason's physical presence became more and more of a distraction. It was so hard to believe he was actually beside her, she wondered if she were dreaming. The feeling only intensified when Gage waved her to a door and she passed through it to see Lee and Carol hanging onto each other in apparent drunkenness at the bottom of a stairway. Their disheveled appearance and gaudy robes made them look like they'd joined the revelers. Stella felt surprise, then hot anger. Had her crew given in to debauchery?

  Before she could speak, Lee moved forward, slipping the ornate robe off his shoulders and over her own, then another robe onto Jason. He wore yet another robe beneath them.

  Carol placed a brown wig on Stella's head, tucking in some hairs. “Don't want them to spot your blonde locks.”

  “We're revelers,” Gage said, “part of the celebration. If we act festive but not too boisterous, we should fit right in.” She started up the stairs as Carol poured a glass of champagne from a bottle and gave it to Jason.

  With Gage in front, Lee and Carol behind, Stella and Jason proceeded up the stairs. A little champagne slopped over the rim of Jason's glass, and he steadied it. He seemed bemused by his glass, and Stella wondered if he'd eaten or drunk anything since being returned to his body. Did he have to relearn how to swallow and take nourishment? She felt a thrill of embarrassment as she remembered Jason's recent skill at love-making. No, it probably hadn't taken him long at all to reacquire his basic functions.

  At the landing, Jason cautiously took a sip and held the glass to her lips. She drained the rest in two gulps. Lee instantly gave him a partial refill from his own bottle. “Get in the mood,” he advised. “But don't get squigged!”

  Gage, who was already halfway up the next flight of stairs, glared down at them. “Hurry up!”

  They followed her up the stairs, out a door, across a concourse, through another door and into the mezzanine of some kind of theater. Stella felt soft plush carpet beneath her, and Jason put his arm around her shoulders at a suggestion from Carol. That way they'd look more like another carousing couple and people would be less likely to notice her arms were confined.

  The move came none too soon, for two couples with arms flung around each other half-stumbled past t
hem from the other direction. Stella saw a heavily painted woman's face, mouth wide open in mid-screech. For a moment they looked directly at each other.

  It was Major Stuckey, the fat xenologist who had interviewed her so rudely.

  The champagne soured in Stella's stomach. Would Starkey have a delayed reaction, recognize her despite the disguise? Long seconds dragged as they continued on with no sharp cry of “Wait!” from behind. Before them, Gage's small, tough figure was a beacon she clung to with her eyes.

  Jason's lips brushed her ear as they moved. “I love you,” he whispered.

  Behind them, glasses clinked and Lee made a mock toast. She heard them laugh.

  “I love you too,” she whispered back before faking a laugh. God, she had to be dreaming!

  Or maybe it was a nightmare. They might fool a drunken Starkey, but what about Lovejoy, Chong, or a hundred others of Gage's officers? What if Malek and a death squad were already on their way to kill her?

  “Hi, Stella,” Myles Uxman said. Stella saw him rise from a theater seat with Brett Duvall held in his arms. Brett's soft features were flushed, and she clung tightly to Myles’ neck. The strength required for him to stand while carrying her made Stella reassess the plump, unmuscular man. The orange lip-span smears on his face were a surprise too. From the looks of things, the two had been doing more than just play-acting.

  Brett slipped drunkenly from Myles’ arms to the floor, but Stella could see the sober precision in the move. Glancing quickly around, Brett scooted close. “Hey, we First Contact Heroes gotta stick together, right?” She took a glass from Myles and frowned at Jason before they all continued on. Stella was at the center of a growing company, and more concealed than before.

  Through a door and out the theater. Then down a broad corridor to a smaller one and a panel on the wall. Gage checked both directions, and then opened it. “Used to be a clothes chute,” she said, climbing inside. Perched on the edge, she looked back at Jason. “Hold her going down.”

  Jason looked at Stella. “All the way.”

  Gage nodded. “It's a low ceiling. Be sure to keep your head down, and last one in closes the panel. I don't want any arrows pointing our way.”

  She turned, ducked her head, and slid from sight.

  Stooping, Jason picked Stella up and set her on the edge, then maneuvered himself up till he was sitting behind her. He held his arms tightly around her waist and his legs pressed against hers and the narrow walls of the chute. “Head down?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then here we go,” he breathed against her ear.

  And down they slid, down into darkness. She felt Jason's arms around her, his breath on her cheek. Then the dark flicked into light and George Darron was at the bottom, waiting to catch her. She saw him give Jason a quick, probing glance as he helped them up.

  As others slid down, Gage handed out guns and ammunition from a hidden cache. “Remember the recoil,” she warned. “Projectile weapons will kick your hand off if you're not ready, so brace one hand with the other and squeeze smoothly, like this. Got it?”

  “Let's get you out of that thing, Stella,” George said.

  He found the seams and pulled, his face turning red.

  The device wouldn't loosen. “Shit,” he said. “Might have known I couldn't open it if you couldn't.”

  “Lovejoy said it was an electrically-generated polymer,” Stella said. “One of the guards used a field disrupter or something to open it.”

  Gage cut short a gun demonstration and came over to check the body-cuff. “Damned thing's super-tight,” she said, tugging at it. “We'll have to get you out of it later.”

  George gripped the green suit and his great arms strained again to open it without success. Sighing, he closed the robe about her and tied the belt. “Sorry,” he said, “you'll have to wear it.”

  Stella stamped the floor and strained against the body-cuff herself, grunting with effort. Nothing. She was sealed tight.

  They were in a corridor that had either fallen into disuse or was being renovated. Moments later, they took off at a slow run and were joined at various points by members of the Spaceranger's crew. Nick and Morner appeared, and Stella realized that five of the six surviving members of what Brett called the ‘First Contact Heroes’ were now present. Only Thunderheart was missing. As she moved, she counted nine other crew as well, including O'Bannion, the red-haired bridge tech.

  She feared they were getting too numerous to escape detection, but they passed other groups almost as big as theirs. Not all consisted of raucous celebrants. Stella saw worshippers kneeling in silent communion. Their faces bore beatific smiles, as if they beheld the face of God.

  At the head of Stella's group, Gage reached another panel and stood before it with her finger held to her lips.

  “This is our next-to-last destination,” Gage said. “We pick up our last members here before advancing to the docking area and the Spaceranger. It's possible that area will feature even heavier traffic, especially since the revels are in high gear. I want you all to be sure Commander McMasters is shielded as well as she can be. Do I make myself clear?”

  Stella heard them murmur assent. As Gage and four others entered first, she crouched and again tried to loosen the body-cuff, straining till her eyes bulged. The others watched her. Gritting her teeth, she braced herself and tried again, contorting herself in what felt like nine different directions.

  Nothing. It was like she was buried in solid rock.

  Jason touched her. “Stella,” he said, “we have to go.”

  Swearing softly, she turned and slipped through the panel.

  On the other side, she saw a wall of lush green fronds. Gage called her softly from beyond, so she slipped through and looked around.

  They were in the botanical gardens.

  She caught a glimpse of exotic flower beds and a blue lily pond into which a small silver waterfall splashed. Pebbled paths wound here and there and something darted overhead in the warm, fragrant air, followed by a sharp caaw! Glancing up, she saw a bird with brilliant green and gold plumage settle on a branch.

  They all clustered about her, covering most of this Eden from sight, and started down one of the pebbled paths.

  With Jason's arm around her, she continued to fight the suit, squirming within it. How much stronger was she than before the accident-fifteen times? Twenty? Yet it was as if she were a powerless child, like Thunderheart when he tried to crawl from the Slug's dead body. Jason touched her cheek and bent down.

  “Take it easy, people coming.”

  She relaxed and huddled against him, hearing drunken greetings from outside the group which those around her answered. Gage said something which drew coarse laughter in their wake. They wound onward along the path.

  Just ahead of her, George caught his breath. “Jesus-Buddha on a primrose pogo stick,” he said, “I don't believe it!”

  What did he see-some danger? Were Powers and Lovejoy closing in? The people to her left parted slightly.

  And there was Thunderheart, Thunderheart as she'd never seen him. The three girls from before were all hanging onto him with sated, contented smiles, their makeup and hair in disarray. Thunderheart himself was barefoot and half-naked, his head erect and his shoulders thrown back. His black skin glistened with sweat and honed muscles rippled as he moved. He wore what appeared to be an animal skin draped over one shoulder and carried a large tankard of ale. As he strode forward, his deep rich laugh burst out.

  Thunderheart and his harem flowed into the small gap before her, and within seconds, she was even more concealed than before. Stella saw him recognize her despite her disguise before turning to Jason. “You're...”

  “Jason, the pilot. George Darron reimplanted me.”

  A look passed between the men, then Thunderheart's eyes dropped to hers and he smiled. I'm glad for you, his expression said.

  “Let me tell you something,” one of the girls chirped, looking possessively up at Thunderheart. “
They oughta call this man ‘Thunderstud'!”

  The blonde girl slapped the other girl's hand away and stroked Thunderheart's chest. “Umm, I just love him. He's such a brave and tireless warrior.”

  “Especially ‘tireless,'” the third girl giggled. “I think I'm going to be sore for a week.”

  Thunderheart nuzzled the girls and beamed like a galactic conqueror. Looking at him, Stella saw that he had changed, been transformed in some irreversible way. Could something as elemental as sex with these simple-minded pets of the Emperor's court account for his new vitality? Whatever the case, the dek-path soldier who had died in the Slug's body was gone. He had evolved into an independent spirit. Her ‘child’ had begun to transcend not only the family that had nurtured and narrowed him, but herself.

  Seeing Thunderheart laugh, she felt joy for them both. Her bleak despair of a few hours before seemed drenched in the fertile hopefulness of this place. Like Thunderheart, she too had been transformed, and as she moved on beside Jason, she knew that these danger-filled moments were among the happiest of her life.

  All too soon they were over. They passed through doors and the pebbled surface beneath her was replaced by flat metal. The next corridor led to the docking bay. Through her group's bodies, she caught a glimpse of the Spaceranger's bow and two guards standing at the closed hatch just behind it.

  They continued on, passing broad columns that supported the upper level. Purposely, her crew raised their level of gaiety while Thunderheart's adoring companions prattled on and competed for his attention.

  Suddenly they stopped. Stella heard a clear, sharp voice, evidently one of the guards.

  “Ser!”

  “I request entry,” Gage's voice said with just the right mixture of stern confidence and in-her-cups good cheer. “We wish to bring the sacred revels to those poor soldiers confined to ship.”

  A pause. One beat, two. “General,” the guard said, “we have our orders. Regent-Protector Malek has expressly forbidden any unauthorized personnel to board this ship.”

  “That's true, ser,” the other guard said in deference. “The order was quite clear.”