Far Beyond the Stars

by Steven Barnes

  One.

  After another.

  After another.

  Until all that remained was the limp and lifeless form of the Jimmy which would never be anything again but meat, who would run no races, who would share no laughter, whose lifeblood even now drained meaninglessly into the gutter.

  Jimmy. Dead.

  "I know him," Benny said numbly.

  The other cop came over, carrying with him his nightstick and gun, his arrogant swagger and obscene self-confidence. Cloaked, armed with all of that, and more. "Yeah?" Mulkahey said harshly. "Then maybe you can explain what he was doing trying to break into that car."

  Mulkahey pointed to a sedan. A Ford, made in the late forties. Worth maybe a few hundred dollars, maybe as much as a thousand. There were a few items in the back seat of the car, visible even from across the street. A coat. A package wrapped in brown paper. A bag of groceries. Whatever their monetary value, their ultimate worth had been the life of a young man.

  Benny's mind whirled. He turned to the two cops, terrified of the darkness within him. "Is that why you shot him? For breaking into a car?"

  Ryan almost, almost managed to conceal his smile. "He tried to run," he said, as if that explained it.

  The pounding in Benny's ears rang so strongly that he could barely hear anything, any more, so that he was almost unable to hear the murmur of his own thoughts. He was angry, he was frustrated, he was pushed to some place outside his control. He tried to push past them, to see for himself, to see more closely, and the darkness swirled and swirled and—

  SHUFFLE

  CHAPTER

  30

  BENJAMIN SISKO stood on the Promenade of the space station known as Deep Space Nine. He looked down, incredulously at the body laying limp and unmoving on the floor.

  The burnt-coffee skin, the face he had kissed so many times, the eyes which were the only remnants of the woman he had loved and lost. He felt as if they were plunging down a hole, falling away from him. His son was dead.

  Jake Sisko was dead.

  He felt a great and terrible fire stirring within him, one which would not bend to logic, nor yield to reason. Over his son's body stood Gul Dukat and Weyoun. Their faces held no remorse, betrayed no sorrow. If anything, they had not quite managed to conceal their contempt, their glee that they had finally managed to strike so dear a blow.

  "You murdered him," Sisko said. "You murdered my son!"

  Weyoun sneered. "He refused to obey a direct order," he said.

  Dukat took a combat-ready stance. "He got exactly what he deserved," he said, his eyes daring Sisko to act.

  Without knowing how or when he had begun the action, Sisko was in the air, burying his fingers in Dukat's throat. Despite the Cardassian's readiness, despite his long combat experience, Sisko's speed and ferocity caught him by surprise, and he went down hard. Sisko was atop him in a moment, all of the rage and frustration and hatred that only a mourning parent can feel boiling out of him in one savage moment.

  But before Sisko could truly press his advantage, Weyoun had stepped around him, hitting him over the head with the butt of a phaser. Sisko's knees buckled, and he spilled to the side.

  Dukat rolled to his knees, then stood unsteadily. Sisko flew at him again, all of his combat training forgotten, remembering only that the son he had nurtured and loved was gone. Gone. Only the feel of Gul Dukat's bones breaking beneath his hands could possibly give him satisfaction, now or ever again.

  Weyoun hit him again, and then again. Sisko groaned, falling down, and then Dukat and Weyoun were on him, driving him into the ground, pummeling him, stomping, screaming, cursing, and the blows went on and on and on like bloody raindrops in an endless black typhoon.

  Benjamin Sisko flinched away from another terrible blow, but saw a woman who looked much like Kasidy Yates, but wasn't. She wore clothes that were . . . strange.

  And her name was . . . Cassie. Yes, Cassie.

  "Stop it!" She screamed. Yes, she did. "Stop it! You're killing him."

  As unconsciousness rose to claim him, Benjamin Sisko finally remembered, that he wasn't a Starfleet officer after all. He wasn't a man of honor and responsibility. He was a small, unimportant man named Benny Russell, a black man in a white man's world, being beaten to death in the middle of the street as a hundred white people watched, and not one lifted a hand to help him.

  SHUFFLE

  CHAPTER

  31

  "STOP IT!"Cassie pleaded.

  No one listened. No one acted. There was no one who gave a damn. She turned, in horror, to see the faces. Faces of people who, in another time, as individuals, might have treated her with respect and kindness. Faces of people who, in this time and space, did not, could not afford to care.

  With all of the strength in her slender body, she tried to intervene, but she was pulled away by one of the other officers, who held her fast and watched as the beating continued.

  The tears rose in her throat to become something deeper, something even more painful. And she was sobbing now, pleading, as if she didn't even know who she was any more. Certainly, no sane being would want to be a part of this one. Anywhere but here. Screaming for help that did not come, she watched the only man she had ever loved reduced to an insensate, bleeding pulp against the cold and glistening sidewalk.

  SHUFFLE

  CHAPTER

  32

  1940

  BIG SID'S CAR came for Benny at five o'clock. It was a limousine that seemed to be a block long. Sid's bodyguard, a gigantic ex-pro boxer who claimed to have been one of Joe Louis' sparring partners, opened the door for him personally.

  Ardelia and Benny sat in the back seat as they were taken to the spacious apartment up on Sugar Hill, to be welcomed by an expansive, gold-toothed, smiling Sid.

  "Benny!" Sid said. "Benny my boy, you did it!" There was a pile of bills on the table, and Benny's eyes opened wide to see them. His aunt whooped and swooped down on them, stuffing them in her purse eagerly.

  "I knew it!" she cried, the expression on her face so predatory that Benny quailed inside. "I told you this boy could do it!"

  "All the money is there," Sid said. He watched Benny, his tight little eyes cautious within the folds of fat. "Sit down, boy. Sit down, and let's talk. I seen you grow up, boy—always thought there might be something unusual about you. And now I think maybe there is."

  He pointed to the pile of money in front of him. "I made a hunch—you've got to do that in this business. I decided to trust you, see if you paid off. I laid fifty dollars a day on your number, and after five days it paid off." He leaned forward. "I got a feeling that we can do business—"

  Benny heard the words, saw the money, felt pride and excitement swelling within him. He had done it! He really did have the power! And he could use it again and again and—

  (The stove)

  What in the hell was that image? And why did he suddenly smell burning fat?

  Big Sid was still jabbering, "—when you get another dream, I'm going to take a chance. This here is found money, so if I bet it, and maybe another hundred on the side—"

  Again that smell. This time stronger. Hell—Sid's luxurious apartment had, narrowed, darkened, collapsed into a filthy, crowded tenement slum, with a smoking

  (stove)

  now belching smoke, and rags that were beginning to flame—

  (Second floor. He saw it. The stink of burning carpet, flaming drapes was enough to choke him now. And he saw the fire spill out into the hallway—)

  "We lay off the bets careful, like, spread them around, but as soon as we're sure—"

  (He actually saw the flames lick to life, saw the old wallpaper blossom with flame, heard the first screams of panic—)

  "—got some people who can make bets uptown—," suddenly they were staring at him. "Boy? Benny? Can you hear me, boy?"

  Benny suddenly stood up. "I got to go."

  His aunt was on her feet. "Benny. This is an important meeting—"

  "I'
ve got to go!" Benny said, and he was on his feet, with both of them calling after him, screaming his name. He was out the front door, down the street, not sure where he was going or what he was doing, only that he had to run and run, and he could smell the

  smoke

  and feel the

  heat

  and hear the

  screams

  He didn't know what to do, or what to think, or anything at all except—

  Run

  CHAPTER

  33

  BY THE TIME he got to Jenny's building, it was completely engulfed in flames. The fire engines blocked off the entire street, and faces in the crowd gazed up at the inferno with expressions that he had known all his life.

  Fear.

  Empathy.

  Relief.

  "Is everybody out?" he asked.

  One of the firemen rushed past him, his cheeks grimy with ash. A gust of steam opened from the top of the building.

  Water played up there, and as water touched superheated brick, steam gushed anew. Then the smoke was caught by a gust of hot air: for an instant parted like storm clouds before the wind. In that moment of sudden clarity he saw a face, pale against the flames, staring out at them from the fifth floor. A face distended with fear, bright with heat, eyes wide with terrible knowledge.

  He didn't, couldn't let himself know who it was, or what it meant.

  The face turned, madly, smoke gushing from her open mouth. It searched the crowd, until, for a brief moment, she locked eyes with Benny.

  She said something. It might have been "Help me." It might have been "Oh God."

  It might have been "remember me, Benny."

  And then she jumped.

  He didn't remember any of the rest of that night. He wandered. He took a train.

  He eventually made his way back out to Flushing Meadow. The entire park was covered with trucks and workmen. Most of the empty buildings were being disassembled, although some few of them might stand for another hundred years.

  Unnoticed, he made his way to the abandoned Hall of Nations.

  Nothing. Everything had been removed. In the alcove of the exhibit donated by the Mali Republic, where the Orb had been, nothing remained but bare walls and floor.

  Whatever strength had sustained Benny drained from him utterly, and he collapsed. He curled up on the floor under it, desperately trying to feel something of what had been there, tried to recapture some small scrap of the knowing he had experienced only weeks before.

  He cried until his eyes had no more tears.

  And then he slept.

  This time, he did not dream.

  CHAPTER

  34

  IN THE MORNING, Benny was found by workmen. "Hey kid," they said. "What are you doing here?"

  "I don't know," he said honestly. All of the memories were slipping away from him, even the precise events of the previous day. Was Jenny really dead? Had a strange gem from another land really spoken to him? Surely, it was all just a dream …

  "You better get out of here, before we call the cops."

  He looked at them, and nodded.

  "Have you got money to get home?" an older man asked. His face was densely freckled, his red hair tinged with gray but his eyes were kind.

  Benny shook his head. "I'm not even sure how I got here."

  The workmen looked at each other. "Harlem?" one asked.

  "127th," he said.

  The redhead dug in his pants, and pulled out ten cents. "One of these days, I'll see you on the street," he said. "And you better have my dime."

  Benny nodded dumbly, and ran, all the way to the station.

  The rest of the summer passed too quickly. Benny rarely left his aunt's apartment. Ardelia pled with him to give her another number, but his dreams were black and empty spaces, dead as the void between the stars and he had nothing to give her.

  Little Cass came to see him a couple of times. They sat in the living room together, not touching, rarely talking, just keeping company. She tried to pull him into conversations, speaking of boxing or the fair, of things around the neighborhood. He felt as if he sat at the bottom of a well. When he heard her at all, her words were like the wind whispering across its open mouth. Even when he heard her, he couldn't find the strength to answer.

  So they sat together. After a few days, he found the strength to take her hand.

  The seasons changed, and classes started again. Wearily, Benny dressed and pulled himself out of the house, then entered the red brick building where he would spend his final semester … or maybe just a few useless days. He had a notion that perhaps he should just quit. Just stop now. There seemed to be no purpose to life. Vaguely, he remembered that he had seen things, strange things, during the summer, but for the life of him he couldn't remember what. If he could only remember, even a little bit, it might make the difference. But that empty place in his memory was like an open drain, pulling his heart and soul down in a relentless whirlpool of depression.

  His fifth period composition class was an ugly surprise. There, large as life, sitting in the front row, was Willie. The boy didn't look at Benny, but he knew that there was unfinished business between them, and Willie would find a way to finish it.

  The teacher, a pale woman who looked desperately in need of sunshine, rose and spoke. "Hello. I'm Mrs. Elaine. I am replacing Mr. Cooley in senior composition this year."

  One of the girls in the class raised her hand. "Where is Mr. Cooley?"

  She hawed and seemed to turn her nose up a bit. "The school administration felt that he was offering too advanced a curriculum … that is, a course of study for the students at this school. They feel that something suited to future tradesmen would be more appropriate. Many of you will be carpenters. Plumbers." She smiled. "I don't think we have many future poets here."

  There was no comment from them, and she went on. "Well. But we will see. I would like you to write an essay for me, just a hundred words on what you did this summer."

  Benny took his pencil, and stared at his paper for a couple of minutes. Nothing came, only void.

  Only blackness.

  As dark as the space between the stars.

  He wanted so desperately to say something, if not for himself, for Jenny, whose eyes had begged him to remember her. And in that moment, the moment his attention was off his own pain, and had fastened on his urge to give to someone else—

  don't be greedy

  The universe opened up to him. Not the torrent which had come before. Just a trickle … a single ray of light in his darkness.

  It was enough.

  After a half hour, Mrs. Elaine said, "well, halt." She smiled primly, and Benny found himself absently wondering what Mr. Elaine looked like. "I was wondering," she said, "if any of you would care to read what you have just written."

  There was a general silence in the classroom, then all eyes turned back to Benny. He stood, eyes averted downward. He held a ragged piece of notebook paper in his right hand. Barely moving his lips, he began to read.

  "This summer," he said, "Was the worst and best time of my life. This summer I fell in love. This summer, the girl I've loved all my life said that she loved me. This summer I watched her die." He paused, and realized that his eyes were hot, and streaming, that his voice had cracked. "This summer my heart broke, but my mind opened. I saw what I was, and what I might be one day. I know that I don't have to be a carpenter, or a plumber, or a number runner. Maybe I'm a poet. Maybe I'll walk in the stars. I might be any of those things, because I am strong, and brave, and I have endured throughout the ages. I'm not what my aunt wants me to be. I'm not what my teachers say I am. I'm not what my friends think I am. I don't know who or what I am anymore, except I know I have dreams, and I'm going to live them." He paused, then repeated, softer this time. "I'm going to live them."

  He sat down. The class was silent, until Mrs. Elaine cleared her throat. "Well. That's very interesting, Benny." She studied him as if she had never seen anything quite like
Benny before, and then sighed, unwrinkling her pallid brow.

  "Well," she said. "Next?"

  CHAPTER

  35

  BENNY WAS WALKING HOME from school later that day. He felt that something had lifted off his chest, as if he had turned some corner in his life, and even if he couldn't define what it was, that didn't make it any less important.

  There was a figure leaning up against the wall ahead, and he drew closer to it before he recognized it as Willie. The larger boy was just staring straight ahead, with an expression more contemplative than Benny had ever seen before. Then Willie turned and looked at him.

  "I heard what you read, man," he said, quietly.

  Benny tensed, waiting. "Yes."

  "I didn't love her," Willie said. "None of us did." He stared out across the street, and Benny wondered what he was looking at. Was he remembering Jenny's laughter? Her eyes? The years he had shared with her? "I didn't love her, but I liked her." He paused. "And you know? I never even told her that. And I should have."

  Willie sighed and pushed himself away from the wall. "Nice essay, man. You got a talent for that stuff." He turned and started to walk away, then turned again. "Oh, and by the way—nice right hook." His broad face split in a surprisingly soft grin. "Good fight, man," Willie said, and he held out his hand.

  Benny took it, and they shook. Willie's hand was strong and broad and warm.

  Willie broke the shake and stuck his hands deep into his pockets. "Which way you going?" he asked, unnecessarily. They knew. They had walked the same way every day for years.

  The two boys walked together for a couple of blocks not talking, just sharing the day, until Willie turned right to go to ball practice. "See you around," he said, and once again, more sadly this time, he smiled. Benny watched him, sensing some great and nameless burden lifting from his own chest.