For All Time

by Shanna Miles

  The message is growing out of the stone instead of etched into it. I’ve seen this method used on other colonies, sometimes for religious reasons to mark a holy spot, sometimes just to advertise coffee on the side of a building.

  “Uh, you’ll have to take video, because it will disappear once the weather changes. It’s the same message repeated over and over—at least that’s what I’m seeing from the lines I can translate—but it doesn’t make any sense. Loosely, it says:

  A blessing to live but a curse to die if only love the heart does find

  On the wind of chance does the goddess climb

  To turn the many-faced head of time

  “It could be ‘crown’ instead of ‘time’; I’m not sure. The rest is a jumble of letters and numbers.”

  The girl’s face, previously an angry grimace, softens into something shrewd. She’s pretending not to understand English. My answer surprises her, so I focus on not making eye contact with her again.

  “Letters and numbers, huh,” First Sergeant says, a little skeptically.

  A groan from deep in the cave erupts from the blackness and brings with it a stench so powerful it makes it through the filters in our suits. This isn’t good. That smell could only mean one thing: volcanic activity, shifting fault lines, and a possible collapse of this very old cave.

  First Sergeant raises his voice and the disc begins to translate. “Looks like we’re running out of time, sweetheart. I have a cryptic little message and a teenage spy, just small enough to creep through that hole up there and read it. And if my years of experience don’t fail me, I’d hazard to guess those letters and numbers are coordinates of some kind. Now, my higher-ups, and even the head of the Republic, seem to think the Sueronese are a bunch of primitives on a backwater planet that even they don’t want to defend, but I know better. Even a cowardly dog will bite if you get close enough.”

  First Sergeant picks up the girl’s discarded blade, curved in the middle but sharp at the end. He holds it up to her neck, and I look to see if anyone is going to stop him. Killing POWs is against the rules of occupation. Even witnessing a murder can put you up for a dishonorable discharge.

  “First Sergeant,” I say tentatively, my voice clear but not too aggressive. “What are you doing?”

  “Hush, boy. Now, sweetheart, I’m gonna need you to tell me where those coordinates lead.”

  “Rubbish. It leads nowhere. It is a children’s rhyme to teach the youth to listen to their parents,” she says dismissively.

  “Ah, ah, ah… don’t you lie to me.”

  The girl’s chin is pointed as high as it can go, and her nostrils are flaring with fear, or it could be rage; I can’t tell. First Sergeant presses the blade in farther.

  “This knife would be enough for me. A blade like this is unmatched, I’ll give you that. Sharp enough to run through a man, but curved just right to cut a man’s throat,” he adds.

  “It is used for fruit,” the girl says, and begins to laugh. “All you see is killing and death. We are a people of light,” she says proudly, unfazed by the blade. “It will take more than a blade and a polyglot lover boy to pull anything other than poetry from my throat,” she says. Her eyes dart to mine, unsettling me with their focus, and then she laughs a bit more.

  It unnerves the sergeant so much he pulls the dagger down a bit, but that doesn’t make me feel any better. Men like him would rather be wounded than laughed at. I’m debating whether I’ll have to tackle the sergeant to keep him from killing her when the ground starts to shake, sending us tumbling to the floor. A split second later all the lights wink out.

  The girl continues laughing. “It is the goddess. The winds are changing.”

  One of the other soldiers gets a flare going, bathing the shrinking cave in orange light as he leads the way to the opening.

  “The cave is collapsing!” he shouts. “Everybody out.”

  We all run, with me pulling up the rear, and I realize that the girl is down there, her hands and feet still tied.

  “What about the girl?” I shout as we run.

  “She’s the enemy, newbie. Let her figure it out.”

  Maybe she knows some way out of here that we don’t, but just in case she doesn’t, I do the only right thing, hoping no one sees me, hoping it’s enough. Then I full-out sprint to the exit, squeezing through the hole just as a boulder shifts and closes the opening completely.

  We barely make it out before the entire cave system shudders and collapses, shaking the ground for miles.

  We ride in silence, our mission failed, but I’m glad to have time to think about what the girl called me. Lover boy. Where have I heard that before?

  30 TAMAR

  THE ALARM RIPS THROUGH MY earbuds and cuts off the constant waves I need to sleep. I can’t tell if it’s a drill or the real thing, and I bump my head on the top of my bunk when I bolt upright. The knot is rising on my forehead; I’m sure it’ll easily rival the size of a golf ball by the afternoon. I’m a little unsteady on my feet because of it, but this isn’t my first drill. The lights have been dimmed to emergency levels so that all residual power can be diverted to life support and the exit ramps. I grab my go bag from the corner of the bunk, a uniform shirt from the shelf, and jump into my boots. I let them tighten on my way out the door. I run into Sil in the hallway.

  “Drill?” she pants. She’s hopping on one foot as she tries to get her boots on. She’s still in her underwear, a uni shirt and what look like gym shorts slung over her shoulder.

  “I don’t know. It might be the real thing,” I say as quietly as I can, hoping that I’m not right.

  A twinge of panic rises in my chest as we both run, nearly tripping over each other to fully dress. It could be an attack or a full biodome collapse. I pull off my bonnet and stick it in my pocket, grateful that I decided to rebraid my hair last night.

  “Look at you with the big reveal,” Sil teases, a little out of breath. “I knew that linguistics kid got to you. I saw you guys talking. Fate will turn you into a romantic yet.”

  “Whatever. One must be well turned out for the end of the world,” I joke as we run. My head pounds, and the more I run the less convinced I am that this is just a drill. When we make it outside, it looks like an anthill has been kicked over. The world is scrambling.

  “Evacuate, calmly. This is not a drill.” A disembodied voice crackles through my comm. I slide my finger along the bone behind my ear to increase the volume, but it doesn’t really help. I’m still healing, so it doesn’t work as well as it should just yet. Brain procedures are delicate. You can’t rush the recovery. “Move quickly and calmly to your designated evacuation site. I repeat, this is not a drill.”

  A great boom reverberates around us, and the ground shakes violently for almost five full seconds. We watch in horror as the general classroom building collapses.

  “Jesus, this is real.” Sil coughs. Dust and debris kick up into the air from the destruction.

  “Shit! The doll. I gotta go back!”

  Sil grabs my arm. “Are you crazy? We gotta get out of here.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t be the one who lost it. I’ll be out in a minute. Don’t wait for me.”

  I pull my arm free and run back inside; the sound of Sil screaming my name pelts me as I run through the corridor. My room’s on level one, so it’s not far. I’m fast, and even in the dark I know exactly where it is: an arm’s length above the sink, which is two steps from the door. Two turns and a thirty-second jog and I’m there. I grab the doll and an external account card just in case—if we get dropped on a colony with less than favorable refugee considerations, I’ll have a few credits to live on. The sound of my boots echoes in the empty hallways as I make my way back out the same way I came, but another boom rocks the building and throws me to the floor.

  This time the alarm kicks out for a minute, and an eerie silence fills the corridors. I’m plunged into darkness, but I jump up and keep moving. It’ll take a minute or two for the gener
ators to kick in, and I might not have that. I can’t risk being caught in a building if the ground collapses. I won’t know for sure if it’s an aerial attack until I get outside. I take a deep breath in and get my bearings. I have to turn around to find another exit, but all the buildings are symmetrical, and an exit on one end has to have a twin exit on the opposite side. This time I move a bit slower because of unfamiliarity, but I’m still able to make it out. The trip, the fall, and the exit take all of two minutes, but those two minutes save my life.

  * * *

  It’s gone. The building, the spot where I left Sil, my bunk, all of it. Wailing, sirens, the boom, crackle, and crash of metal on concrete, rock against soil, all crumbling, fill my ears.

  I buckle myself into the right side of the escape pod, fingers trembling, tears streaming down my face. The escape drill is the first thing recruits are taught when they arrive at a new base. Tucked into the median of each road, the pods look like architectural flair with a curved awning here or an adjacent bench there to hide their functionality. Light panels cover most of the outside shell of every pod: bright yellow for singles, and vivid green for doubles. I’m so disoriented by the time I make it to the nearest pod station that only doubles are left.

  There’s a boy already inside. His hair is full of fine dust that covers him from head to foot. A trickle of blood and sweat easing from his forehead cuts through the dryness like a river. He’s smiling, though his chest is still heaving as he gathers his breath.

  Fayard.

  “Tamar!” he gasps in surprise. He must have run here too. “Sinkhole?”

  Of course it was a sinkhole. It left behind a crater so deep I knew it was futile to try to assist with any rescue efforts. I watched it swallow everything in the quadrant, just a couple of hundred feet to the left of me, including Sil and all my classmates as they were making their escape. My chest hurts. It’s an old ache, not from the running or from the ash in the air, but from loss. Sil was my friend, one of my only friends. Space is vast—it swallows you up without regard for your dreams or hurts. Some people like that feeling of being part of such a large whole. Right now, it just makes me feel insignificant, and like Sil was insignificant too. My heartbeat won’t slow down even though I’ve stopped running. I know that I’m safe now, but knowing and feeling are two different things.

  “All that damn drilling!” he yells, and I nod. Thousands of drones are now hovering above the sinkhole, diving in and out of the dust gap. Some come up with an officer or recruit twisting like a caught fish, but too often the bodies aren’t moving at all.

  This is supposed to be a drilling accident? Engineers would have checked and rechecked for that kind of thing. Not to mention the alarm systems set up for evacuation. No, this feels more like an attack. I purse my lips.

  “Why are you yelling?” I say as I look him over. “No… don’t. It’s y-your… ears. They’re bleeding,” I shout, realizing I’m doing the exact same thing.

  He puts his hands to his ears as if this is the first time he’s noticed the blood.

  “Got a tissue?” he asks.

  I pull my silk hair bonnet out of my cargo pocket and hand it to him.

  “Merci,” he says, loud and bright. “I got caught just outside the quadrant when the building came down. Good thing the linguistics department is on the outer edge. If I’d been in engineering, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

  His accent is thick. It’s got a rhythm to it like the Kreole spoken on the outer colonies. I didn’t notice it out in the canyon.

  “Can you please stop talking? My friend just died and…”

  My voice snags in my throat.

  “I’m sorry. I talk when I’m anxious. This is a lot for the first week of school. I’ve never been caught in a sink before,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady; he taps the inside of his forearm a few times. I wonder if he’s gotten an anxiety patch installed. I know a few kids who swear by them. I decide to soften a bit.

  “It’s fine. Sorry. Talk,” I say, feeling bad for snapping at him.

  The air is snatched from the pod as the countdown begins, and the pressure from the ascent makes my ears pop. My muscles are screaming and my eyes are watering from the pounding in my head, but I’m in one piece. All my senses can be accounted for. I don’t know if he can say the same. A part of me wants to offer him my first-aid kit, and another part of me wonders if I should keep my multitool in hand, just in case he gets… however some people get during bad times.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, softer this time.

  Fayard smiles as he points to my uniform. “I can’t hear you too well, but it’s pretty easy to read your lips. You’ve got a pretty mouth, 675.”

  The pod rattles. Is he flirting with me?

  I look down at my uniform and shrug. I don’t get it.

  “675,” he says, and I look to see my serial number stitched right above my name. He points to his. “I’m 712.”

  He’s the guy who knocked me out! The biosuits covered our ID numbers at the canyon. He continues to smile and puts up his fists in slow motion. Sil’s voice echoes in my brain: There are no coincidences.

  “My apologies,” he says.

  “No need,” I reply, and take a good look at him without his helmet on. Sil said he was handsome, and as he takes a cloth from his go bag, I can see what she meant. Even covered in dust he’s got a warmth to his smile, long wet lashes, and full lips that have a hard time frowning. His face seems more familiar than it should; maybe we met before on another colony? No. It doesn’t matter, though. I don’t want to talk about the fight. I don’t want to talk at all.

  “Can I see?” he asks, pointing at something on my right.

  I look down at the doll. The sealed case is cracked and the panels are covered in dust, but I can tell that it’s still fine inside. I saved it. And it saved me.

  I shake my head. “No,” I say softly. “It’s very old.”

  “That’s fine. Not yet, then,” he says patiently.

  For some reason this makes me smile, because now I know he’s crazy. Crazy I can handle.

  “Prepare for cryosleep in T minus thirty seconds,” the pod announces. I settle back and take off my boots, nestling the doll in between. My stomach lurches as the pod rises. I hate cryosleep. I always have these vivid, nonsensical dreams. 712 stares at me, the same goofy look on his face.

  “Oh, right,” I murmur to myself. “Ears.” I point to the ceiling and mouth slowly, and with real exaggeration, CRYO SLEEP. THIRTY—WELL, TWENTY SECONDS.

  “Oh! Cryo is the worst. It gives me nightmares. Okay. Well, I’m glad you made it. I guess fate has brought you to me.”

  “What?”

  “I said fate. She brought you here. Don’t you believe in fate?”

  My eyes fall to the sankofa medallion on his chain. He’s a zealot. Great.

  “I-I… my best friend does.” Did. She did believe. I swallow hard.

  He grabs both my hands in his.

  “We’re going to be okay,” he says, a fervor in his grip and in his gaze.

  I want to believe him. God, I really want to believe him.

  31 Columbia, South Carolina, Present Day

  TAMAR

  I DON’T HATE THIS. HAVING fay here is exactly what I wanted, even though I wouldn’t let him know that. He makes everything seem like it will be okay. I don’t think I’ve admitted that to myself until just now. I kept that gospel tucked away, because it would mean all those things I never said out loud were true: that I love him, that I need him. That those fairy tales where the prince sweeps the princess off into a happily ever after weren’t bullshit. Aabidah’s right. He makes me want to stay—stay and fight.

  “Give me your foot.”

  “Why?” I ask as I lean back on the cushioned bench in the sky lounge. It’s quiet with just a few businesspeople holed up in separate corners of the place, their heads glued to phones or pinned to computers. Fay and I are the youngest people here by at least twenty years, but Fay wo
rked his magic. He’s leaning back against the wall opposite me in the one booth that isn’t visible from the attendant at the bar.

  “I want to touch you.”

  I suck in a tiny breath of surprise and Fay laughs.

  “Not like that—well, I do… but… not right now.”

  “Not like this, anyway,” I say quietly, and adjust my oxygen line, feeling too on display all of a sudden.

  “Shut up. You being wild disrespectful to my generous offer,” he jokes.

  He slips off my sandal and cradles my heel in his lap and begins to rub all the kinks out of my arch.

  “That feels good.”

  “I know. I am a champion foot massager. And before you get started, it’s ’cause of my mom. She works long hours. I rub her feet for her.”

  “I wasn’t going to start,” I say, warring with myself to decide whether to apologize or confess. Is it pride I’m fighting? Embarrassment? What am I afraid of?

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  “I wish we’d… you know,” I say, and raise my eyebrows.

  “I know what?” he asks.

  “You know. That night at Renata Tripp’s pool party last summer. Everybody was downstairs, and we went to the basement to dry off and talk, and we started kissing and… I should have. We could have—”

  Fay holds up his hand to stop me.

  “No, we shouldn’t have.”

  I freeze as a bolt of embarrassment rises in my belly. I thought… I’m not sure what I thought, but…

  “Relax, that’s not what I mean. What I mean is yes, I wanted to do that with you that night too, but I’m glad we didn’t because that’s not how I wanted it to be with you—in Renata’s unfinished basement on some moldy-ass towels while ESPN played old highlights in the background? Trying to do it quick so we wouldn’t get caught? Nah. If you had told me you were ready, I would have tried a lot harder. We both deserve better than that.”