by Phoebe North
“I know that some of you are unwilling to make these concessions,” he said, then loosed dry, self-assured laughter. “As I certainly am. If you would like to continue living in the manner to which you’ve grown accustomed, then stay with me here on our ship, in the safe belly of our mother Asherah. God willing, in five hundred years our descendants will live to set foot on Earth. Our planet! We will stop this wandering and return to our home. It will be a long journey, but I have faith in the mettle of our people. Come with me and claim the land that is our birthright.”
More conversation. I heard the first spark of disagreement flicker, white hot, over the crowd. Some wanted to join me. Others—their friends, standing right by their sides—wanted to follow Silvan. I glanced at him and then, aping his gesture, lifted both hands up. I hoped that their trembling didn’t show.
“This is a choice that every Asherati must make for him- or herself, one that will determine the shape of our future for generations to come. We know that you have much to talk about and a hard decision to make. The Asherah will leave Zehava’s orbit in two weeks’ time. Until then, go in health.”
A few stray voices called back to me in turn. I pressed my lips appreciatively together.
“You really are becoming a leader,” Silvan said, turning to me, grinning.
I shrugged.
“Someone has to,” was all I said.
• • •
It’s done.
That night I sat on the front stoop of my brother’s home, watching as the Council-loyal stragglers made their way back to the districts from the safety of the ship’s bow, carting their belongings behind them. Soon they’d be able to get to work, righting the chaos of the past few weeks. They’d repair windows, patch up crumbled brick, put their lives back together. Their lives wouldn’t be quite as seamless as they once were—we’d all been changed by our sojourn in Zehava’s orbit—but their lives would be safe. Familiar. I watched them exchange hopeful smiles. They were so lucky to be together for this, with their families, their children, their spouses. They were lucky not to have to face the future alone.
It took a long, long time for Vadix to answer me. He was there. I knew he was, floating just beyond the reach of my mind. But he’d drawn away from me in the time since our departure from the planet. Except in sleep, when our bodies moved in concert, oblivious to the dark days ahead, I was alone now. Once again a solitary person.
I know, he said at last. I saw. You did well.
Thank you.
I smoothed the thin robe down over my knees. The day was chilly, but soon it wouldn’t be. Silvan said that the Council had plans to turn the ship back to four seasons. Better for planting. Better to prepare the people for Earth. The Council-loyal citizens would get the summers that we never had.
Will you miss it? he asked.
I sat straight, surprised at the curious tone of his voice in my mind. Lately he didn’t allow himself the luxury of conversation, of my companionship. He was shutting down, preparing for the end.
Miss what?
The ship.
I gazed at the cobblestone and the streetlamps, at the cats who dozed on their front stoops, at the ancient curtains that hung, faded, in the window. I wanted to lie to him, to tell him that it all meant nothing to me and that I’d be glad to never see it again. But I couldn’t.
For sixteen years she’s all I’ve ever known. This is where I lost Momma, and Abba, too. This is where I had my first kiss and where I met my best friend. Of course I’ll miss it, Vadix. I licked my chapped lips. But that doesn’t mean I’m not excited about Zeddak Alaz. This is where it all started, but I have my whole life ahead of me. Years and years and years. Why do you ask?
Silence stretched on between us. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was somewhere dark, shadowed. At last he turned, facing a feeble light.
No reason, he said.
• • •
I think the weeks that followed went quickly for the rest of them. Those were busy days. The Asherati divided the spoils of our journey, portioning out our supplies and technology between the new colony and those who would remain on the ship. It was hard work—emotional, too. I watched as Hannah and her parents squabbled over a few pots inherited from some long-dead ancestor. As they argued, the pain was clearly etched in my sister-in-law’s face. I think she’d never anticipated leaving them, and so she tried to hold on to every single object she could. As if a vase or a rug could fill in the space left by a whole, vital person.
“I think,” I heard her tell Ronen one night, her voice drifting toward me down the hall, “I’ll never shake the feeling that I’ve forgotten something.”
My brother’s answer came after a pause. I could have hugged him for it. “They’re just things, Hannah. What really matters is that we’re together.”
We began to send shipments planetside, necessities and books and hatchery equipment, medical supplies and genetic samples of crops and animals. Most of the wildlife would stay on the ship; our first year would be one of famine, but only in preparation for the decades ahead. Soon we’d wake animals that hadn’t been seen in generations—pollinators and herdbeasts and predators. Horses to ride and birds to fill the skies with song. And plants, too. Mara Stone was beside herself. Though our colony would be small, slightly more than seven kilometers squared, she said that it was plenty of acreage to sow Triticum mara, Mara’s wheat.
We were visited by senators and researchers from the surface, Xollu and Ahadizhi both. New translators, a clumsy-tongued young Xollu pair who spoke in garbled Asheran, accompanied them. They came to view our half-dissembled labs to gauge our progress—and to examine Ettie. Her mate still hadn’t been located in any of the twelve cities. As I sat there in her bubbe’s galley, the senators questioning the girl, I found myself filled with apprehension. What if they told her that it was all a dream, a child’s delusion, impossible? But they didn’t. One of the Xollu scientists said something; the female translator inclined her head.
“Tatoum,” she said. “There have been changes to our aita in the days since departure yours. Unpaired lousk surface from the funerary field. Xollu who once must die. Surely Ettie-zeze is among these spirits.”
I couldn’t contain my excitement. Sitting forward in my seat, I let my mind stretch down to the surface.
Vadix! Did you hear? Unpaired children! What if there are more like us? What if we’re not alone?
But I’d forgotten. We were no longer an “us.” To him our existence wasn’t a joy. Now, in the living days before his death, it was a source of pain.
Yes, I heard, was all he said.
That was why those days stretched on for me, one after another, interminable. He was there somewhere on the planet above. But I didn’t know for how long. Most days he shielded himself from me entirely. I couldn’t blame him. Some day soon—too soon—he’d depart for the funerary fields beneath Raza Ait. Every night I’d tuck myself into the guest bed in my brother’s room and stare up at the ceiling, terrified that he wouldn’t join me in the dreamforests. I was afraid he’d be gone and I’d be left to ordinary dreams. When I found him there, relief filled my limbs, my gut, my heart. We didn’t speak. Our bodies did the speaking for us. The joy of his flesh was singular, except for the joy in mine that matched it.
But every morning I’d wake with guilt weighing down my mind. Not my guilt. His. He’d stayed too long. He was being selfish. He needed to go join her in the funerary fields. He needed . . . As I rose from my bed and dressed, readying myself for the day’s preparations, I felt him shutter himself from me. He needed to steel himself if he was finally going to fulfill his purpose and lay himself down beside his first mate.
Busy days, but long days. So very long. Because soon he’d join her in death. And I would be all alone.
• • •
Our final night. Everything was packed; the shuttles would be waiting for us in the morning. In total 872 citizens had made the decision to join us. A clear majority. They’d grown used
to liberty, I suppose, and to the dream of open skies that had been promised to us. But more than two hundred citizens would remain behind. Council-born mostly, but a few others, too. Their first years would be lean—they’d have to get their population up if they were to support the ship’s basic functions. But looking at Silvan, his arm wrapped around Rachel’s slender waist as she lit a pair of electric candles and set them on their long table that night, I had faith that they would thrive.
With her hands cupped over her face, she said a prayer. Then she turned to all of us who had gathered there at Silvan’s family’s oak galley table. It was the finest table in the finest house in all of the districts. A guard was posted at either side of the door. This was the captain’s house now, and none would forget it. Especially not Silvan’s mother; she gazed up at him, dark eyes bright with pride. She didn’t know what I’d done to her husband either. I suppose it was better for her. Easier.
“Amen,” Rachel said. “Now, to begin the festive meal.”
She rushed off toward the kitchen. I went to help her. There was a turkey, freshly butchered; emerald vegetables; hard boiled eggs. And a loaf of knotty egg bread. My contribution. The recipe had been Momma’s. I’d found it as I packed that morning, tucked at the back of her ancestor’s book.
“Thank you,” Rachel said as I took the potato kugel from her and set in on the table. There were nearly twenty people gathered—her family, and his, and mine. Hannah and Ronen and Alyana. Mordecai and Mara Stone. Maybe they weren’t all my flesh and blood, but they were family nonetheless. Their boisterous voices rose up as Rachel went to carve the turkey in the galley.
I watched her. She wore another long skirt and blouse, but brighter now, reds and yellows. She still looked beautiful as she went to work, slicing the meat away from the breast, but so different from the girl I’d once known. Adult.
“I’ll miss you,” I said. She flashed her dark eyes up to me.
“I’ll miss you, too,” she said. Then paused, glancing over her shoulder. “Will you hand me that platter?”
“Sure.”
It was a night for good-byes, but it seemed that Rachel had no time for those. She carved the turkey and then carried it to the table. I lingered behind her, watching from the counter as she grabbed her glass and lifted it.
“Before we begin,” she said, “I’d like to say a few words over the wine.”
Everyone raised their glasses. I reached for the bottle that sat on the counter and raised it, too, sloshing the few centimeters of liquid at the bottom. I watched Rachel, ready to hear her wish us luck on our new home—ready for her to give us a chance to wish her luck on her long, long journey back. But instead she bowed her head and intoned, “Baruch atah Adonai elohaynu melech ha’olam boray pri ha’gafen.”
“Amen,” said Silvan, lifting his glass. The others faintly echoed back the word, though Mara seemed particularly confused by the recitation. Letting out a sigh, I lifted the bottle, said “Amen,” and drank the wine down. Then I watched Rachel and the way her smile glittered as she sat down at the table.
“Wonderful, wonderful,” she said. “Silvan, you say the blessing over the bread.”
Silvan looked up at her, his inky eyes sheepish. “I don’t remember how,” he said.
Her smile was gentle, patient. As if she were looking forward to the future they’d share together, during which he would learn this, and so many other things.
“I’ll help. Repeat after me: Baruch atah Adonai . . .”
Silvan, pink-cheeked, bowed his head. “Barach atah Adonai . . .”
As he spoke, Rachel’s eyes caught mine. I lifted my lips, but the smile tasted as bittersweet as the wine. She was right here with me, but she might as well have been thousands of kilometers away. Her heart, after all, was already promised to someone else.
• • •
That night, while I was preoccupied with the light and the laughter of Rachel’s feast, the boisterous conversation and the lingering farewell hugs, Vadix went completely silent.
I didn’t realize it until I lay down in my brother’s guest room bed one final time. The night was seamless black, without stars, without a moon, but that was nothing new. For sixteen years I’d faced those nights. Windowless bedrooms. Impenetrable dark. They were my companions, utterly ordinary. But what was unusual was the silence. Echoing and absolute. It was a quiet that seemed to swallow up my whole world.
Vadix? I asked, but no voice came thundering back inside my mind. My breath was suddenly shallow. Absent. I sat up in bed, tugging open the top button of my nightgown in a panic. Vadix!
Nothing. Nothing. No flowers turning their faces to the light. No vines to bolster me. When I closed my eyes, the only thing I saw was a dark cave wall streaked with limey water. I smelled metal and packed-down dirt where the perfume of life should have been. I heard silence where there should have been music. Felt pain where there should have been joy.
These were the funerary fields—underground caverns below even the winter caves, pungent with the odor of decay. Purple seedlings curled up from mounds. Some would swell into lavender flowers. Blossoms. Fruit. People. But the season was early, the light at the cave’s mouth feeble. There was no life there, not now.
He was down there somewhere, deep beneath the city. If I could have, I would have kicked back my covers, raced through Raza Ait with my hair unbound. I would have pulled him back toward the moonlight, to the place where the living still walked and worked, laughed and loved. But I was hours and hours away. There was nothing I could do. He was as good as gone if he wasn’t already. Swallowed by a darkness so much deeper than any I’d ever known, even on the ship.
I pulled Pepper against me. He let out a mewl of protest, but I didn’t care. I buried my face against his warm body, cried and cried and cried. It was my last night on the Asherah. The next day I’d take off for a new planet, a new life.
And I would be alone.
30
In the shuttle bay Hannah cried. She embraced her mother first, then her father, then her mother again, the tears streaming down her face. Even Ronen looked a little choked up as he bid them farewell, watching as they pressed kisses to Alyana’s fat baby cheeks. I stood off to the side, holding Pepper in his carrier. He scrambled and yowled, throwing his body against the bars.
I felt nothing.
As we made our way down through the air lock, my fingers were ice cold; my heart, numb. I hardly heard the pair of voices that called out for me. But then they came again, louder, rising over the sound of the departing crowds. Lifting my eyebrows, I turned. Rachel and Silvan rushed down the narrow walkway, elbowing past the gathered crowd.
“Terra! Terra!”
I put the carrier down on the metal grate, raised my arms, and accepted Rachel’s embrace. Silvan stood off to the side, watching us. She was weeping already, her face shining with tears.
“I’ll miss you. Oh, I’ll miss you so much.”
I felt my chest squeeze. It was almost too much for me; I had to swallow down the lump in my throat. “I’ll miss you, too, Raych. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
She glanced over her shoulder to Silvan. He stood tall, proud. When their gazes locked, he gave a firm nod.
“Of course,” he said, answering for her. “This is what we want.”
But Rachel stayed frozen for a moment longer, squeezing my ice-cold fingers. “Silvan told me all about the planet,” she said. “I can’t wait to tell our children about it. About the green-gold skies and purple trees, and how they stole away the heart of my sister.”
“Didn’t I always tell you you’d be a great mother someday?” I said, my voice creaking coarsely out. She smiled through her tears, let out a bell of laughter.
“Yes,” she said. “You did.”
The line moved forward. I bent over to pick up Pepper’s carrier and shuffle it ahead. Rachel’s dark eyes were locked on me. There were words on her lips, but I could see that she didn’t know how to speak them.
&n
bsp; “What is it, Rachel?”
“Well,” she began, picking up the pleat of her dress and worrying the fabric. “I wanted to ask. If your people want to worship, you’ll let them, right?”
I stopped, standing straight, and looked at her. The crease between my friend’s eyebrows was deep. I was still no believer, though I remembered too well what Jachin had said. In the distant past, before we’d lost our planet, religion had helped humanity thrive. The biologist had already boarded one of the shuttles with his family—probably speaking prayers to the darkness beyond, thanking God for changing his wife’s mind, asking God for a safe trip home. He was one of us, but faith was important to him. As it had been to Vadix, once.
“Of course, Rachel,” I said, watching as relief flooded her features. “That’s what ‘liberty’ means.”
Her smile was wide and bright. I watched as Silvan threw an arm over her shoulder and drew her in close. Though the line moved up again ahead of me, I hesitated beside the pair.
“Be good to your people,” I said at last. Silvan frowned, but not Rachel. She only angled up her chin, listening. “No matter who they love or how they wish to live. Please. Be good to them.”
Rachel’s hand darted out and grabbed on to mine. She leaned up and pressed a kiss to the corner of my mouth. She smelled like perfume. Springtime. Freshly laundered clothes.
“I will, Terra,” she whispered, just before Silvan pulled her away. “I will.”
• • •
The others all jabbered the hours away on the shuttle ride over, fogging their flight helmets with their breath. Not me, though. I sat with the cat’s carrier on my knees, my eyes closed as I tried to reckon everything I’d lost.
Momma. Mar Jacobi. Abba. Captain Wolff. Mar Schneider. Deklan Levitt. Laurel Selberlicht. Aleksandra. A whole ship, and the people inside it. Silvan. And Rachel, my first, best friend.
I could recover from these losses, from the gap they left inside me, bright and raw. I’d done it before, and I’d do it again, just like I’d told Laurel. Day after day I’d put one foot in front of the other and pull myself slowly forward. I’d live so that our colony could live, so that our new city could burst forth with life and laughter. One day it wouldn’t hurt so much. I knew this because I’d done it before.