Stranded

by James Alan Gardner

  “As for you,” he began—but Sirius leapt upon him.

  “The Captain said,” Sirius yelled, cracking Toren’s jaw, “leave her alone!”

  This time, Toren was really staggered. Still he managed to knock Sirius away with a backhand—but he didn’t knock Sirius off his feet. Instead, Sirius looked even more ready to fight—but before he regained his balance, Toren pulled the blaster from his holster.

  Suddenly everyone got quiet.

  “Tori,” warned the smaller boy, raising his hands. “Don’t—”

  “Weaponsmaster!” Toren shouted, holding out the weapon, and Betelgeuse stepped forward, taking it and Toren’s pistol. “Hold our steel. We have a challenge on our hands.”

  “Alright, Tori,” Sirius said, cracking his neck. “If that’s how you want it—”

  And he leapt on Toren without a second thought.

  Toren was bigger, but Sirius was better. After all, he’d trained Toren, trained most of the crew; his parents were bounty hunters. But Toren still had muscle on his side—that, and a row of cheering boys, who crowded around the sparring pair as the bound girls looked on in horror.

  “How,” Leonid said, “did we go so wrong?”

  “Where were you going?” asked the centauress, rolling away from him.

  Leonid sat up and reached out to keep her from bolting. He now questioned whether she should still be a prisoner, but she was still a prisoner. But when his hand fell on her horsey side, he unexpectedly felt her breathing. He hadn’t realized she kept her lungs down there.

  “Uh . . . good question,” he said, realizing that it was something they should have asked themselves long ago. “A world. Any world. After the adults died, we got tired of running. We just wanted to find a place to settle. Preferably with a port but . . . we didn’t agree on where.”

  He looked over at Serendipity, saw her hunching away from him, saw that curly red hair pouring over her face so all he could glimpse of her face was a violet rose and a marble-blue eye. “Please believe me,” he said. “I am so sorry about your friend. I never meant—”

  “He wasn’t my friend!” Serendipity reared up, easily throwing off his hand as she rose with the strength in her four legs. But her hands were still bound behind her back, and Leonid rose with her and caught her elbow to keep her from running. Twisting, she tried to shake him off. “Dashpat! I just met him. Then you killed him!”

  Serendipity glared at him, angry and hot. Leonid pulled her back harder than he meant to. She stumbled on a stone and bumped into him with a sharp yelp, and he found himself staring right into sparkling blue eyes over a spray of freckles, breathing her lavender perfume.

  When he couldn’t see her legs, she was human—and beautiful. Even the spots, the weird quills at her temples, even those elegant horsey ears didn’t break the effect: they just made her more exotic. Leonid’s breath caught. So did hers. Leonid’s eyes widened. So did hers.

  “Everyone, listen up,” Toren said. He had a forearm around Sirius’s neck, swinging him around; Sirius was squirming like a madman, but the fight was over. “Andromeda crashed the ship—because Leonid let her. So we’re going to have some new rules around here—”

  “I never meant for this to happen,” Leonid said, squeezing her arm. “I’m sorry—”

  “I’m sorry too,” Serendipity said—and slipped her arms free.

  Leonid jerked as he realized she’d gotten loose, and tried to seize her, but she ducked and reared, reaching out with one arm and collaring him with effortless grace. Leonid cried out, struggling—her grip was incredibly strong—and Toren turned towards them. Serendipity reached out—and a knife leapt out of Toren’s belt and into her hand.

  “Don’t move,” Serendipity said, holding the knife to Leonid’s throat.

  —————

  Leonid stood frozen, feeling the point over his jugular. “That’s usually my line.”

  “Shut up. Everyone else, listen up,” Serendipity said. “Stay back—or I’ll kill him.”

  “No!” Andromeda cried, struggling to get to her feet. “Don’t you do it—”

  “Shut up!” Toren said. Then he turned to Leonid and smiled. “Go on, kill him then.”

  “Toren!” Leonid began—then shut up when she tightened her grip on his neck.

  “You really want three people in shrouds?” Serendipity said.

  “I—” Toren began, smile growing vicious—and fading when Serendipity dug in the knife, making Leonid yelp. “No, no, come on,” Toren said, dropping Sirius in the dirt and extending his hands. “I didn’t . . . we don’t . . . no. We don’t want you to kill him.”

  “I don’t know what went on here,” Serendipity said, jerking Leonid around. “And I don’t really care. You’re all acting like you’re still in the deep of space, one bad decision away from death. Look around and relax for a moment. Your ship’s down, but you survived—”

  “Not all of us,” Toren said, “and we’re stranded on a hellhole—”

  “An attractive enough hellhole to draw me nine thousand light years out here,” Serendipity said. “Everything’s a wreck right now, I don’t know why, but this is a splendid world, not far off the shipping lanes. And I got here. And if I got here, I can go for help.”

  Toren stared at her. Slowly he relaxed. He kicked at Sirius, not hard, and Leonid felt Serendipity’s arm tighten. But rather than spit more abuse, Toren simply said, “Siri, you’ve been right about every damn thing so far, so . . . what say you? Can we trust her?”

  Sirius squinted at them. Leonid’s mouth opened, but Serendipity gave him a squeeze—not a warning, but reassurance. But when Sirius cleared his throat, a distant rumble of thunder echoed, the quills at Serendipity’s temples raised—and goose bumps rose on Leonid’s arms.

  The night sky lit up white—and every piece of machinery lit with blue fire.

  —————

  Leonid screamed. Everyone screamed. Sparks flared up all around them. A new white star blazed in the sky, painfully bright, with a growing blue-white halo around it like feathers of blue flame—blue flame that matched the sparks streaming off anything with a tensor crystal.

  “That’s the black hole,” Serendipity said, aghast. “And that’s a tensor flare—”

  She screamed, losing her grip on him, upper body flipping forward. Leonid leapt back from Serendipity as blue fire danced over her, too, rippling out from her spine over her arms and all her legs. Her hair began shifting through every shade of the rainbow, and she doubled up into an arch, wracked with pain. He reached to touch her, then jerked back, stung.

  “We need to get back to Independence!” Andromeda yelled over a rising whine. Roiling flames rippled across the sky like a giant curtain, and in the distance a titanic bolt of lightning struck, followed by crackling thunder and a new tremor in the already shuddering earth. “The field’s going to build up in the gliderdrive! We have to pull the coils—”

  Leonid realized he’d been dumbstruck, that he should have done something, and failing him, Toren. He opened his mouth to bark an order he didn’t know if anyone would follow, but it was already too late. Independence’s gliderdrive had already started to glow, the same blue-white fire it glowed with when running, only brighter, and brighter, and brighter—until an explosion detonated in the Engine Module and the whole ship went dark.

  Everyone was silent now. Even the curtains of light in the sky went quiet. In the stillness Leonid heard a hissing, sparking noise and glanced over to see the flickering light of the cargo pallet. Serendipity’s farstaff was aflame, sparks spraying out of its top end at an angle.

  Serendipity’s seizure ended, and she slowly lifted herself off the dirt, struggling to sit upright, hair a frazzle of a dozen different colors. She saw the staff fizzle out, and her face drained to pale, making her look wan beneath her rainbow
spray. “Oh, God.”

  “You were saying,” Toren said, cocking his head at it, “you could go for help?”

  “Oh, God, no!” Serendipity wailed, and Leonid saw her reach not for the staff but for a little furry creature curled up on the wheatgrass. The tiny fox looked asleep, but its red fur was covered in soot, and it was dead in her hands. “Oh no! Tianyu!”

  “Where did that come from?” Leonid said, swaying in a new earth tremor. Serendipity ignored him, cradling the dead creature to her breast. Then he saw a bit of zip tie in the creature’s mouth, and realized that creature had freed her. “It must have eaten away at her bonds.”

  “Dammit. I didn’t anticipate that. We’ll have to watch the girls more closely,” Toren said, hands on his hips, ignoring the increasingly unquiet earth. “Beetle, check their bonds.”

  Beetle laughed. “Sure, but I doubt any of the girls picked up a Dresanian familiar.”

  The earth shuddered again, and while Toren was off balance, Leonid quietly picked up the knife Serendipity had dropped. Toren had taken charge, for now, but he was too unstable to keep it. Leonid knew, if he kept his head, ultimately he’d win the crew back—

  Low thunder echoed across the valley. The trembling ground shook, hard. Toren whirled. Leonid tensed. An immense tearing rent the air. Glowing cracks spread out over the smooth hillsides in the distance . . . and then the hillsides bulged and slowly lifted into the air.

  —————

  “Oh my God,” Leonid said. His voice quavered, drowned out by the thudding of falling boulders, the rumbling movement of displaced earth, the terrible cracking and tearing of some fabric below he couldn’t yet see. “What . . . what is that?”

  The hillsides were now vast rising balloons, the wheatgrass trees that covered them now waving like cilia. Huge tentacles uncoiled beneath them like mooring cables, sliding over the landscape—and vast eyes opened beneath them, blazing with blue-white fire.

  “Of course,” Serendipity said. “If there’s a source of energy . . . life will exploit it.”

  “What do we do?” Toren said. “They’re everywhere. What do we do?”

  “Go deeper into the hills,” Leonid said, pointing. “They’re clear of the creatures—”

  “I wasn’t asking you!” Toren shouted. “We lost our ship following your advice! We don’t know where they’re going yet. We . . . we stay here, we sit tight, and we watch.” He looked around, then motioned to Betelgeuse to return his gun. “We’ve got to make hard choices—”

  Then Sirius sprang up, snatched Toren’s pistol from Beetle and aimed straight at Toren.

  “Go,” he said, backing toward Serendipity and Leonid. To Toren he said, “Stay back.”

  “You little—” Toren snarled. He froze when Sirius raised the pistol.

  “I’ll shoot you in the face, Tori. Your suit will be no protection. You two, go!”

  “What?” Leonid said, but Serendipity gripped his arm and began pulling him away. He realized Sirius meant to flee, that by going with them he’d be leaving Independence behind, leaving Toren in charge, and giving up any hope of remaining Captain.

  “We can’t just leave the ship—”

  “We have to! Andromeda, come on,” Sirius said, extending his hand. “Come on!” She stood up and started forward, but Toren punched her in the gut and she collapsed, wheezing. “Dammit, Tori!” Sirius screamed, stepping forward. “You’re pushing it!”

  “You gonna shoot me, Halfway Boy?” Toren smirked.

  “Ironic coming from my other half,” Sirius said, and Toren stiffened and snarled. Then he froze as Sirius stepped up, the gun just inches from Toren’s face. “Tori! Have I ever had a problem with shooting people?” Sirius asked, and Toren squinted. “Try me.”

  Toren raised his hands, cocked his head. Quicker than anything, Sirius leapt back and turned the gun on Betelgeuse, who’d stayed frozen since Sirius snatched Toren’s gun. But Beetle just raised his hands, making no move toward the veligen and the blaster on his own belt.

  “Nobody’s done anything worth shooting over,” Beetle said. “You wanna go, you go.”

  Sirius backed up until he joined Leonid and Serendipity. “Let’s go.”

  “What are you doing?” Leonid hissed, gripping his arm.

  “If you’ve ever trusted me about anything . . . go,” Sirius whispered. “Toren may not look it, but he’s panicking. He’s consolidating his power. And he’s violent. Anybody he can blame for anything needs to be gone. I’d take Andromeda, Artemyst and Dijo if I could. Go.”

  Serendipity bolted forward and seized her satchel, slipping the poor broken fox robot into it. She started towards her staff and saddlebags, but jerked back when Toren raised his fist.

  “Come on,” Leonid said, pulling her away. “Sirius has a good head on him. If we’d started listening to Sirius earlier, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  “On my back then,” Serendipity said, now pulling at him.

  “You are the fastest,” Leonid said, lifting his leg and settling atop her. He found it very disturbing, putting his hands around her waist, more so when Sirius hopped on behind him and put his hands about his waist. “But can you carry both of us?”

  “Like feathers,” Serendipity said. “Sirius, keep them covered.”

  “Not a problem,” he said—and then his voice faltered. “But where can we go?”

  “I know a place,” said Serendipity, “that’s stayed safe for ten thousand years.”

  “Go on, run,” Toren said, waving. He turned away. “Good luck on your own.”

  —————

  Even with two people on her back, the centauress could run faster than anyone Sirius had ever seen. At first she ran low, ducking and weaving through the hills until they were out of gunshot of the camp—but then she told them to hang on and bounded over the ground.

  Behind them, what had been hillsides were transformed into a forest of looming balloons, moving over the landscape on slack, slow-moving tentacles. Toren was right about waiting and watching: the things hadn’t started up into the mountains yet, but Sirius didn’t want to brave those feelers combing the earth.

  After a long leap, Serendipity yelped and stumbled. Leonid grabbed on for dear life, and Sirius did too—then he heard Serendipity yelp again, but more in startled surprise than pain. She moved Leonid’s arm.

  “Wandering!” she snapped, elbowing back at him.

  “Sorry,” Leonid said, though he didn’t sound sorry at all.

  Sirius hissed at the smug sound in Leonid’s voice. This sucked. He knew Leonid had been with Andromeda, but Sirius had hoped that he’d wanted more than just another girl. Some part of him was even glad Toren had run them off—maybe now he could sound Leonid out.

  The few times they’d met after the ship split, Sirius had thought he’d seen glimmers of interest—but here he was, practically wrapped round Leonid, and Leonid was so hopelessly girlsmacked he was already falling for—feeling up—another one, even one with four legs.

  “Just another damn breeder,” Sirius whispered, leaning his head against Leonid’s back. This ride was as close as they would get.

  “Is that it?” Leonid said. “Sirius, is that the Beacon that drew us out here?”

  “Yes. It’d have to be. It’s the only one,” Serendipity said, winded. “I—I think we’re safe now. Can we walk the rest?”

  She skidded awkwardly to a stop, her legs splayed. Sirius hopped off; moments later, Leonid carefully set one leg down and lifted his other off her pony back. “Are you alright?” he asked, gently taking her hand and supporting her. Sirius clenched his fists.

  “I’m right enough,” she said, limping a little. “I came down hard over that ridge.”

  “Is it broken?” he said, kneeling, reaching out—but she pulled back.

 
“Mitts off,” she said, slapping his hand away. “Probably just cut the frog.”

  “Sorry,” Leonid said. “Didn’t mean to feel you up back there.”

  Serendipity covered her breasts mock protectively. “Sure you didn’t.”

  Sirius strode past them angrily, staring up at the glowing spire rising over the next ridge. This was the Beacon that had promised them safe passage, a place to land. Sirius suddenly remembered what he’d seen in that landing cradle and ran to the top of the ridge.

  The landing cradle was huge: the floating lake hanging over its curved copper fingers had to be a full kilometer across. It gleamed underneath the white burning star, its rippling surface flashing every time the Beacon flared. Beyond, an imposing, castle-like structure loomed.

  Serendipity and Leonid joined him, her limping, arm over his shoulder.

  “Beacon’s working,” Leonid said. “I thought that tensor shock trashed everything.”

  “That’s too big an antenna to fry,” Sirius said. He’d seen launching rails smaller than that mammoth rapier pointed at the sky. “I bet most of the circuits are gone, though. Anything that wasn’t physically disconnected from the circuit was probably destroyed by the surge.”

  “How does that work? What happened back there?” Leonid asked. “Up there?”

  “I don’t know,” Sirius said, looking up at the glowing white star. It was no longer painfully bright, but it still had that weird halo of blue flame. After a moment, he shielded his eyes, then looked away. It gave him a headache, and his eyes had a spotty afterimage. “That’s a black hole, right? A dead star, crushed so far not even light can escape—”

  “The whirlpools of space,” Leonid said, shading his eyes to look up at the white pinprick. After a moment, he too looked away, grimacing. “Normally, we just avoid them. How’d this one reach out and smack us?”

  “Anything we make has a counterpart in Nature,” Serendipity said. “That black hole’s a natural phenomenon simulating a hyperdrive. It and this star dance around each other every seventy-two years, whirling around their common center, then flying out into the Plume—”