The 13th Star: An Action Adventure Sci-F Apocalyptic Novel

by Adam Peled

  The locked door surprised him. It was never locked. Benaya believed a home should always be open, without any obstruction and delay. And now it was locked and dark, the house empty. There was no sound and no answer.

  Hearing knocking, their old neighbor Elena arrived. “Rettoul, am I glad to see you!” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Your mother told me you’d come today, but as evening fell, I thought she must’ve been wrong.”

  “Elena, where’s Mother? Where’s Benaya?”

  Her face clouded over. “Come. I’ll open the house for you.” She removed an unfamiliar key from her apron pocket. “I closed the house at Benaya’s request. Indeed, she said you’d come today, but I wanted everything to remain as she left it.”

  “Where’s Benaya?” he demanded.

  “Benaya died yesterday morning,” she said quietly.

  Rettoul looked at her incredulously. “What?”

  “Rettoul, Benaya was not healthy, or strong. She wanted to support you as long as you were fighting. Benaya was a very special woman. Last week, she called me and asked me to keep an eye on the house during the days that would pass between the time of her death and when you arrived.”

  “What do you mean?” He didn’t understand.

  “Benaya knew she wouldn’t live to see you. She was not ill—on the contrary, she wasn't healthy and very strong. When she spoke to me last week, I thought she’d gone mad with longing and difficulty. Although, in all the years since you left, she was very happy. She knew you’d succeeded. She was very proud, knowing you would remain the person she sent, only maybe a little rougher.”

  Rettoul seemed not to listen. Elena could see her words went over his head, but she continued. “Yesterday morning, she came into my house, healthy as ever, and said, ‘Elena, tomorrow Rettoul is coming. I made food especially for him and left it in the fridge. I don’t know if he’ll want to eat, but I want you to receive him. Tell him I didn’t expect to see him, but I knew he’d return. Tell him I love him and will watch over him all through my—and his—life. Tell him I couldn’t see him. This is my will and testament. And if he does’t understand, promise him in my name that the day will come when he will understand.’

  “That’s it. Rettoul, your mother was a very special woman. Perhaps you’ll find something in the house that will explain what happened. This is also why I locked the house, so that everything would remain as she left it, especially for you.” She stroked his bent head and broad shoulders that trembled from crying.

  ***

  Rettoul’s gaze swept the rooms of the house he’d known as if nothing had changed. The same furniture stood in the same places. A photo of him in uniform had been added to the merit certificates he’d collected, sent by the Kantaran commander with a dedication: “To the woman who managed to educate and prepare her son for the best.”

  The picture surprised him, as well as the dedication. Rettoul knew that not every student and fighter received such a gift, if at all.

  He wandered from room to room, looking for a clue as to what had happened, not understanding how she knew, but remembering that, in her wisdom and silence, Benaya knew everything. He walked along the walls, stroking them as if touching her hands, lifting up his pillow on his bed and smelling it, stretching the blanket that remained in his room—just as he’d left it. Such great sadness.

  “What happened?” he asked aloud. The sound of his own voice in the stillness alarmed him, but he continued. “Benaya, my mother, I did everything to come to see you. I can’t believe you didn’t wait another day.”

  He entered her room and looked around. This room was also neat and clean, as always. There was a note on Benaya’s bed. No, not a note—an envelope, with “Rettoul, my beloved child” written on the outside in her own hand. He quickly opened it and read her letter.

  Rettoul, my dear and beloved child, God gave me a gift through you. I didn’t know you before you arrived; I never dreamed of you, or ached with the pain of your birth. I received you on the day you were born from your birth mother, who vanished the day she gave you life. I’ve been in charge of your life, your education, and your health. My love for you has always been huge, as if your birth mother’s love and concern blended with mine. I felt that together, with joint forces that I don’t know how to explain, I can give you everything…and more.

  The track your life would take was clear to me from the day I first held you. I understood that when I sent you to Kantara, I would lose you forever. But I knew you’d return and read these things. You’re not an ordinary boy, not even a regular soldier. You have qualities that even I cannot explain that will bring to everyone the ability to move forward.

  Rettoul, my dear boy, my loss and yours is nothing compared to your galactic and personal gain. Remember that I’m with you as your mother, who has always been here and would never let you feel any deficiency. Remember that you must go forward because you’ve not yet completed the journey you embarked on at your birth. I was your first stop, Kantara was the second stop, and there are more to come. Continue on, as you do everything, and always—head held high, with humility and success. I’m with you.

  Over ten years ago, I was invited secretly to the planet of Petra. When I arrived, an old man named Adam entrusted a fragment of a parchment scroll to me and said, “The power to rebel and stay alive.” I looked at the eccentric, waiting for me to descend from the shuttle. I had no doubt he was the one who invited me—who sent the money and the ticket, and who made sure I traveled back and forth in an empty shuttle—but I didn’t understand a word of what he said. I just repeated the sentence to myself to remember it for you.

  You’ll find the piece of parchment in the envelope. You must continue the way.

  Rettoul, go to the planet Levi. Answers await you there that even I don’t know. Don’t give up—it’s part of the destiny and correction that you need for your soul. Perhaps for the soul of the entire galaxy. And another thing, my dear boy. The scars on your body were both made by men—not by anything else.

  Rettoul shook. For years she’d told him repeatedly that those were scars from childhood rampage and mischief. Now she wrote what he’d known all his life.

  Rettoul cried. During his journey to Kantara he’d lost his mother, his past, his future, and his innocence. He’d never again be the happy boy who pranced around with his many friends on Falcon. Even the memories were gone.

  His uniform was suddenly almost too large. He didn’t want the decorations and symbols, didn’t want the citations. He just wanted to sit on the porch of his home with Benaya and talk—to live in the world as it was before he left.

  Chapter 7: The Return

  Since the early morning there’d been lively activity on Falcon’s commercial floors. Merchants received new goods with loud shouts and cries. No one knew the culture of speech at this time of the morning, or even all day, but later it mingled with the tumult of the day’s confusion in the area, with its noise and mayhem.

  Rettoul, not used to deep sleep in recent years, woke with a start, not recognizing where he was. He was lying on Benaya’s bed and had fallen asleep in his clothing holding the letter.

  He got up and washed his face. Sadness and fatigue stared at him in the mirror, and momentarily he didn’t recognize himself. He ran his hands over the stubble just starting to grow on his face and smiled. The last time he looked in this mirror, his face had been completely smooth. It was only recently that he’d learned about shaving. He’d learned so many things—far from Benaya. For years he’d stored stories and anecdotes from everyday life in his mind, ready to share with her when they met. In his letters, he never told her of the difficulties and fears, always writing about the great food and the wonderful staff, about experiencing new things. He never described the unfamiliar things that sometimes froze his blood.

  And now… Who could he tell? For what had he waited? After all, if he correctly understood the letter she left and Elena’s comments, Benaya knew in her soul when he’d return. She
’d have moved her death forward to the day before his arrival even if he’d come a year, a month, or a week earlier.

  His gazed moved from the thoughts in his mind’s eye to the sadness on his face in the mirror. In the shower cabinet, he found his old toothbrush and the cream Benaya would smear on his face to protect him from the strong sun. Nothing of hers was there, not even a toothbrush.

  The chaos of the street brought him back to reality again. He took a long shower and felt like it was no longer his place. Strange, he thought. In recent years I’ve had a million odd showers and never felt a lack of belonging. But here—in my own house, the home of my childhood and adolescence, the home of my memories—I feel alien.

  He exchanged his uniform for ordinary clothes and went out to roam around Falcon. Last night’s surprise was unbearable, so he looked for the familiar and known—what he hoped had remained unchanged.

  Near Benaya’s lived Don, his good friend, and his family. The young woman who answered the door was beautiful and looked about 16 years old. She said nothing, just gazed at him. He thought she reminded him of someone, but didn’t know who.

  Suddenly there was a shout from inside and in a moment, Don stood before him. “Rettoul! You finally came back!” Don was the same—a tall, thin person. Next to Rettoul, who’d become broad-shouldered and solid, Don looked a bit amusing. An outsider would have thought a big brother was hugging his little brother—who didn’t look the least bit like him.

  “Dida,” said Don, “don’t you recognize Rettoul? She’s my girlfriend now,” he added to Rettoul.

  “Are you Dida? I knew you were familiar, but you look 16. What, didn’t you grow up with us?” Rettoul smiled and hugged her.

  “Come on in, come on,” urged Don, ushering him in and closing the door behind him.

  Inside it was dark and cramped, with a strong smell of Sinta hanging in the air. The windows had obviously not been opened for a very long time and Rettoul had to get used to the sour air and darkness that were so different from outside. It seemed to be Don and Dida’s way of life.

  From there he went on to meet Sohan, who used to be a skinny boy who went everywhere with him, as if they were Siamese twins. Now Sohan was the lead programmer of the commercial floor, where he had a medium-sized office in a small corridor on the management level. He was married and had a family.

  His eyes lit up warmly when he saw Rettoul and was speechless for a full minute. Then he got up from his desk and smiled.

  “You came home. Welcome.”

  Sohan’s smile was enough to bring tears to Rettoul’s eyes. Maybe he really had come home.

  Sohan cleared the day especially for Rettoul, calling home and asking his wife to prepare a festive meal. He opened a bottle of fine wine he’d received on his appointment that had been kept for a special occasion.

  “None of the past events have been as special as this,” Sohan said. “Not even the births of my sons.”

  Don arrived and the three old friends sat together. Rettoul spoke briefly about the events of the last few years of his life and Don and Sohan questioned him further, wanting juicy details. Everyone on Falcon had heard he was doing well, that he’d taken part in this battle and in that action. Rettoul pulled out of his memories the smallest details he’d so hoped to tell Benaya. His heart ached and filled with joy alternately.

  When he left Sohan’s home, he continued to Reine and Tanya’s home. He’d read about their marriage in Benaya’s early letters. They were busy up to their necks raising their children. It was nice to listen and not to talk. Youngsters ran between their legs and the din was great. He watched, amazed at the gentleness—a little too exaggerated, in his opinion—with which they were handled. Tenderness and love filled him when their young daughter sprawled on him as if he were an old acquaintance.

  At the end of the day, he returned to his mother’s empty house. He’d intended to go to Elena to ask her more about Benaya, but changed his mind. What would she say?

  The following days were spent wandering Falcon. His curious eyes weren’t satisfied. He devoured the planet’s familiar and new streets, but didn’t find solace for his soul. There was nothing in his day that made him get up, or do anything. Longtime friends were busy with their normal lives. His mother—he still found it hard to think of her as his adoptive mother—was gone. He didn’t have a clue who his birth mother was, and his only skills had no place in his life right now. The friends he’d made in recent years were scattered around the galaxy, each one on his home planet.

  Detachment stalked him.

  On the weekends, Falcon’s commercial and entertainment levels were now open around the clock. The 48 hours of revelry was amazing. The celebrations were supposed to end with a shot from an Ingram, a laser rifle that pumped 500 watts from its barrel—in different colors and in a different formation every time. Sometimes these were bars of color, sometimes fragments of color, and sometimes it produced a kind of fireworks that then curled in the air.

  Firing the Ingram ended the weekend celebrations abruptly. Within minutes, all the entertainment venues and shops closed their doors. Pub owners packed their guests off into the streets. Falconite police would then clear the streets of people, sending them home or to prison.

  He remembered that, as a child, it was already quiet when the Ingram was fired. No one had to be forced to get out, as the commercial and pleasure shops would close peacefully minutes earlier. The Ingram shot at that time found the revelers, businessmen, and shop owners on their way home already. Nowadays, shouts could still be heard for a long time after the Ingram fired.

  At the end of his second weekend on Falcon, Rettoul offered to take Golli, Reine’s eldest son, so the married couple could enjoy themselves. Since his arrival he’d heard them constantly say that raising children robbed them of so much energy that they couldn’t go out as before. Golli saw Rettoul as a hero who had defeated the worst enemy of all, Zoron. Rettoul smiled every time the child said this with an air of respect and great admiration, and continued in his child’s voice: “Teach me a little! Teach me how to hit the hardest, but without it hurting!”

  Rettoul complied. “Make a fist with your right hand and hold it up to your eyes. Thrust your left hand forward—not to punch, but to hide. Now kick me in the thigh with your right calf.” Little Golli did as his teacher said with a huge smile of happiness. But he didn’t laugh. He understood that what Rettoul was teaching him was important. He must not laugh. His expression amused Rettoul, who thoroughly enjoyed it. Since returning home, it was only Golli who filled his soul—the way Golli waited to see him, to hear him asking Rettoul to take care of him again, to visit them again, and he promised to be a good boy at school if only Rettoul came to visit. Reine and Tanya were happy for the help—and, more importantly, for the happiness in their son’s eyes.

  Rettoul understood that the little boy, who spent hours with him, was a reflection of himself. He’d lost his innocence, and since he returned, he had nothing to look forward to. Golli, on the other hand, who pestered his parents and Rettoul with sparkling eyes, was the mirror of his distracted soul. When Rettoul left the house, he remained empty and emptied. Little Golli, with his laughter and intense seriousness toward him, highlighted the fact that he was a foreigner on Falcon. He had no home here. This was just a way station.

  The hours of desolation returned him to Benaya’s letter, to Kantara, to the scars on his body. Rettoul was beside himself, and the loneliness didn’t help.

  ***

  On other planets, Rettoul’s friends also returned and discovered houses that were empty of people and content. None of them were able to find themselves. Some couldn’t even try to find their way home, as there was no planet to return to. The years they’d been gone away from home were critical ones for the galaxy.

  Understanding gradually dawned on them that Kantara, the tough mother base from which they sometimes sought to escape, could give them what they didn’t have—a home to return to.

  ***
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  A new day dawned on Falcon. The streetlights suddenly winked out, accentuating the dirt and the remains of the delights of the completed weekend. Rettoul hadn’t slept, busy making preparations for his departure. Unlike the last time he left the planet, he had somewhere to go but nowhere to return to. His packed bags waited by the door.

  He hesitated a moment, thinking maybe he should leave someone a letter, a message. But he changed his mind. They’ll think I’ve been called for an urgent assignment, he believed. Neither did he care about dwelling under the wings of the glory of a war hero.

  The first shuttle of the day took him to Kantara. He had a few hours until the meeting with the chief of staff, Bar. He knew Bar didn’t typically devote any time to soldiers, yet he didn’t dwell on the possible reasons for the invitation. It was important for him to attend the meeting—that was enough for him.

  Rettoul arrived a few minutes before ten at the bar's office. Intense cold air from outside lingered in the foyer. For some reason, he thought the place would look like a war room, but the lobby was huge. At the far end sat a pleasant-seeming secretary. Pictures and medals adorned the walls and Rettoul smiled to himself. A foyer the size of a ballroom would be necessary to display the huge number of pennants and souvenirs properly. To see any of them clearly, one had to get close. Avoiding the trap of curiosity, however, he went straight to the secretary’s desk. From the entrance the woman looked very small. As he approached, he realized that the distance deceived him, and it made him smile at her broadly.

  Above her head was an old picture of Bar and stony-faced Coldor, both at least 15 years younger. Unbelievably, Bar was grinning, and a small smile at the corner of Coldor’s mouth seemed to have escaped by mistake. Maybe you can get a smile out of stones, Rettoul thought.

  Bar’s booming voice brought his attention back. “Enter and remain standing!”