Our Child of the Stars

by Stephen Cox

  ‘Ship!’ said Cory, excitedly. ‘Ship not sowl-jer machine! Ship not hurt anyone, no-no—’

  But the President was already being shepherded out of the room.

  Cory let out the tock-tock-tock of his disapproval and demanded, ‘Cory speak to Ship, now-now-now.’

  ‘Ma’am, sir, you and the boy will be safest with the President,’ said the Secret Service man at her elbow. ‘Hurry now.’

  Gene looked as fraught as she felt; she wished he’d say something, but in a daze, they went silently at a fast trot down the corridor, a couple of the nameless Administration people bringing up the rear.

  Molly felt the floor judder and plaster fell from the ceiling, which brought on twinges of heartburn and a resurgence of the endless stress and fear over the last few weeks. Surely the Ship wouldn’t harm them?

  There was a clanging, some metallic notes, and then a loud, extraordinary voice speaking Cory’s language, sounding utterly inhuman and menacing as it reverberated through the windows and walls.

  Tock-tock-tock. ‘Ship calling Cory . . . stop-everyone stop-stop.’

  There was an explosion somewhere, and shell-fire, and the shrieking alarm made it impossible for Molly to think.

  ‘Ma’am, sir, the command centre has radio and phones. You can do whatever you need from safety.’ Her Secret Service man had a rugged chin and piercing blue eyes.

  Molly laid her hand on Cory and said, ‘Not now, Cory. When it’s safe.’

  They passed soldiers and civilians running in other directions, until at last they reached a door guarded by two soldiers with rifles. One of them touched a button and when the door opened, she could see the wood covered a steel core, like a trap.

  ‘Ma’am, sir, this takes us to the bunker underground. A nuclear bomb can’t harm you down there.’

  Molly stopped, holding Cory by the shoulder, and she wasn’t budging.

  Gene was urged on by his Secret Service man; he took three steps forward, then turned to Molly. ‘I guess they’re right. It’s safest down there while we try to talk . . .’ he said uncertainly.

  Blue Eyes said, ‘Ma’am, we can’t wait.’

  ‘No, we’re not going down there,’ she managed at last, wishing the alarm would just stop. ‘I don’t want to. We’ll try to talk to the Ship, now. Just us.’

  From the corner of her eye she recognised Dr Pfeiffer walking towards them. A strange fluting noise was emanating from his jacket. He was sweating and his pallor reminded her of that man who’d lost a leg in the derailment, all those years ago; she wondered if he was in shock. He was the last person she wanted to see, even if she lived to a hundred.

  ‘Sir, you don’t have security clearance to be here,’ snapped Blue Eyes.

  Pfeiffer ignored him. ‘Cory, a plane has crashed. Does your bracelet let you talk to the Ship?’ he asked.

  Molly noticed Dr Tyler’s picture on his badge. So that’s how he got in.

  Cory’s quivering ears and writhing tentacles meant indecision, like, I don’t want to answer that question truthfully.

  ‘Sir, ma’am,’ said Blue Eyes, ‘we have our orders, so please get into the elevator now. They’ll be wanting to close the blast doors.’

  The man had put his hand around her arm and was pulling her forward. He was as big as a line-backer and she’d break an ankle in these shoes if she wasn’t careful.

  Cory was muttering no-no-no and she could feel his bubbling irritation. Gene, already in the elevator, was looking angry. She couldn’t free her arm and the Secret Service man might just pick her up and carry her in.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘this is a big mistake. Let Cory talk to the Ship.’

  Gene stepped in front of the elevator doors and a bell began to ping.

  ‘Cory, people have been hurt,’ Pfeiffer said. ‘This won’t end well unless you ask the Ship to leave.’

  Tock-tock-tock. ‘Cory said that!’ He was agitated now, waving his tentacles, paws and tail. ‘Grown-ups – just – not – listen.’

  ‘I don’t want to get unpleasant,’ Blue Eyes man said, talking over the boy.

  Pfeiffer reached into his jacket pocket—

  —and the other Secret Service man whipped out his gun at extraordinary speed and levelled the weapon at the doctor’s face.

  He froze. ‘Th-this is an alien artefact. It belongs to the b-boy.’ He spoke slowly, like speaking too quickly might mean a bullet between the eyes. ‘I don’t believe it’s a weapon. I believe that Cory can just call off the Ship.’

  Blue Eyes snapped his fingers – Give it to me – and moving like an exaggerated mime artist, Pfeiffer took out the bracelet. Green light flowed over it.

  And then the bracelet was gone – and where was Cory?

  Blue Eyes licked his fingers. ‘All of you! Into the elevator – now.’

  Cory was near, Molly’s heart told her, but the soldiers, the officials behind them, the Secret Service men . . . There were so many to hide from.

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ she snapped, ‘so don’t you dare push me. I’ll scream—’

  She debated stamping one of her impractical but sharp heels onto the man’s polished black shoe, or trying to knee him between the legs, but they were just delaying tactics, and against four men with guns and more within hailing distance?

  They hadn’t yet noticed Gene was gone. Could her darling son really manage . . . ?

  Pfeiffer was peering around as if he could spot Gene and Cory.

  Blue Eyes coughed and said, ‘I’m going to carry you, ma’am.’

  She felt a touch and Cory’s familiar power flowed, hiding her. But this felt stronger than before. Sounds and colours were not muted. She could sense Cory and the Ship talking in his language.

  ‘They’ve made me the scapegoat,’ Pfeiffer shouted. ‘Remember . . .’

  Molly didn’t care; he was of no importance. With Cory between them, they walked away. She tried to orientate herself; they needed to get to an entrance on the south side so they could get close to the Ship.

  In a voice meant to carry, Pfeiffer ordered, ‘Lower your guns. A single bullet could mean war with another civilisation – one vastly superior to ours. Let them go. We have to trust them.’

  Molly glanced back and saw Pfeiffer being marched at gunpoint into the elevator, but the rest of the men, gazing unseeing towards them, didn’t move. It didn’t matter; Cory’s power was enfolding them as they walked past paintings of old heroes, flawed men who chose not to build a palace for a king, but a people’s house for a free republic: a republic, ‘if they could keep it’. A nation of fine promises that it must be held to.

  They walked past terrified staff and running soldiers, through rooms filled with ancient maps, antique furniture and china and glass, paintings of explorations and wars and emancipations, both the brutal and the principled.

  Here at last was a door, guarded by soldiers preparing to fight some threat they couldn’t even imagine. They looked so young, even in their uniforms, like the kind men who’d changed her wheel.

  Molly led them away from the soldiers and into an anteroom. There were the French windows, and clearly none of the officers had considered someone would be trying to get out, not in. The Myers stepped into the chill air of outdoors and the clamour of the Ship, hovering high above the White House.

  Dancing silver machines like insects swarmed back into the Ship.

  Why is it flying away? Molly wondered. Aren’t we going to fly in the spacecraft? I so want to go home . . . But they had no car, nothing but what she carried in her purse, and these unwearable shoes.

  The Myers walked across the fine lawns into some evergreen bushes, where Cory released his power and un-hid them.

  They had no plan, but at the gates they could hear the protesters were singing of love and hope and peace, not the angry shouting of before. But surely they couldn’t just wa
lk through all that crowd? They didn’t have coats and it was bitterly cold and damp. Cory wasn’t even wearing a hood to hide his face.

  His bracelet burbled at him, on and on, and he explained, ‘Ship told me very loud – find bracelet, because bracelet many things but al-so human word am-pli-fi-er.’ He pronounced it carefully. ‘Told Ship about baby and Ship sorry-sorry, Ship is radio-active, un-healthy for human baby, so not fly us back not-yet, oh-no. Also, I want my special sam-o-var from Russia, present from all children every-one.’

  ‘Sweetie-pie, we don’t want to get involved with everything in there. Let’s just go home—’

  ‘Listen to that voice,’ Gene said suddenly, as a song rose above the crowd, swooping and soaring to heaven. No one but Joan Baez sang like that. And where else would she be, with the world in turmoil, but giving heart to the demonstrators?

  ‘We Shall Overcome’.

  ‘You always wanted to meet her,’ Molly told Gene. ‘Maybe you could play her one of your songs.’

  ‘No,’ said Gene, ‘no, they’re no good. Don’t tell her—’

  But Molly had the bit between her teeth. ‘That new one, “Our Child of the Stars”. It’s really lovely.’

  ‘No—’

  ‘Yes-yes good idea Mom yes-yes. Dad play her that one.’

  ‘Hide us again, Cory, just till we see where she is.’

  Overhead, a silver arrow-head bigger than the White House flew off, heading a little east of north. The Ship was pointing the way home.

  CODA

  Cory’s third Halloween

  Molly sat by her bedroom window, feeding Fleur. Here in her favourite chair, looking out on the warm fall sunshine, she felt her baby suckle at the breast, strong and healthy and hers. She could stroke that soft fuzz of black hair all day.

  Cory was present at the birth, and on his planet, children named the baby. Cory’s choice meant Little Blue-Eyed Creeper Flower, although no human could say it.

  Molly said, ‘Sweetie-pie, human eyes only start blue; they may change.’

  ‘Everything changes,’ Cory said. ‘Still good name.’

  They’d decided her human name would be Fleur.

  Along Crooked Street, decorations hung unmoving in the still air and jack-o’-lanterns waited to be lit at dusk. Fall had come again, the leaves blazing reds and yellows, even brighter than the years before. The town had gone crazy for Halloween this time; there was to be a Grand Parade, and fireworks after dark, even though who ever heard of fireworks for Halloween? They’d suggested Cory be Grand Marshall, but his parents had said no, very firmly. Every second child today was wearing a purple rubber Cory mask and a hooded sweatshirt; it was like Cory’s people had arrived . . . but they hadn’t. There had been time for his people to come and to return to their home planet twice over and still Cory and his Earth family waited.

  Now it was just Molly, the baby, the radio and the sunlight. It had been a year since their world was turned upside down by the thugs, one disaster following another, and yet somehow, they had come safely to shore.

  On the radio, Gene’s song played. Their friend Joan Baez had made ‘Our Child of the Stars’ a worldwide hit; Gene’s longing in words and music spoke to every parent who wanted a future for their child. The cynics said people only bought it for the Myers name, but Molly had schooled herself not to care what people like that said. Her husband’s talent spoke to everyone who understood that love made you vulnerable, and the love of a child most of all.

  The doorbell pealed loudly. Molly had left candy out, but she knew this wasn’t a trick-or-treater. She slung the baby on a shoulder to wind her and carefully went down the stairs; with Cory’s friends in and out every day, and despite her best efforts, toys were left everywhere.

  On the wall hung her best photo of Gene’s parents, her nursing diploma, the poster proclaiming War is not good for children and other living things and the smiling portrait of Dr Martin Luther King. And there behind glass was the front page of Witness that had introduced her son to the world, which reminded her, she must frame and put up the new photos from Carol and Storm’s last visit.

  As she walked to the door, her silver alien bracelet coughed. ‘Dr Pfeiffer,’ said the Ship.

  But she didn’t need the Ship or the peephole to tell her that. The disgraced doctor stood there with a vast bunch of bronze chrysanthemums and two presents wrapped in childish paper, shuffling from foot to foot, a bit like a most unsuitable suitor. In a weak moment she’d agreed to see him, because he was useful, but the devil in her debated not letting him in. His presence still made her skin crawl, even all these months later. But what was there to fear? She knew the Ship could use Cory’s power to hide her, or the house, or the whole town.

  ‘You’re a little old for trick-or-treat,’ she said. ‘You’d better come in.’

  She loved chrysanthemums, but she didn’t take them from him, even when he thrust them forward.

  Dr Pfeiffer sat at the kitchen table, the spurned flowers on the table, and took a glass of Diane’s famous lemonade. He kept looking at the red samovar, in pride of place on the dresser.

  ‘My girls have come dressed as Cory. Will he mind?’

  ‘So’s everyone else in Amber Grove. He’ll think it’s hilarious. Half Bradleyburg will be there too.’

  ‘Shall we talk now, before the children arrive? Your message was very cryptic.’

  Fleur belched like a little footballer.

  ‘Who knows who listens in on things nowadays?’ Molly said. ‘I’m not sure what help this is going to be, but someone needs to start thinking about it.’

  Even out of favour, Pfeiffer had his allies, in think-tanks and Congress, contacts in the press, and above all, friends in the big charitable medical foundations. If the President could visit China, she could use her enemy.

  She sipped her lemonade and said, ‘The Ship is disturbed by the snakes, but it’s always been very cagey. I’ve finally got out of it why. Cory’s people don’t let intelligent machines build more of themselves unsupervised – the machines do the work, but a builder has to approve each and every one.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Pfeiffer rubbed his ear. ‘The Russians turned to nuclear weapons when they realised the snakes were mining metal to make more of themselves. That’s when the Red Army started the bombardment of Pevek. Ruthless, but understandable, under the circumstances.’

  She didn’t ask how Pfeiffer knew that.

  ‘So, they’re not alien weapons,’ Pfeiffer said. ‘They’re the aliens themselves.’

  ‘Ship thinks they overthrew their organic masters and went on a rampage. It might have been thousands of years ago, but it won’t say why it thinks that. Cory’s people are cautious: all their intelligent machines are wired to see machines out of organic control as . . . well, blasphemy. Monstrous.’

  She’d always hated The Sorcerer’s Apprentice cartoon, with broom after broom after broom all out of control; she couldn’t stop thinking of silver metal snakes, breeding like bacteria and attacking everything they found. She’d dreamed just last night that the stars she loved were only lights over tombs, shining to no purpose on countless destroyed planets.

  ‘Ship was ordered not to share its technology with us primitives,’ said Pfeiffer, dismayed, ‘and that puts us at such a disadvantage. The snakes might just assemble an army too big to destroy.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Cory’s people will come,’ Molly said. She had to remain optimistic. ‘They’ll come, and they’ll know what to do, and it’ll be fine.’

  But she couldn’t get the simple explanation for why they hadn’t come out of her head: the snakes had destroyed the message rockets and Cory’s people didn’t know he was here. Or even worse, the whole of Cory’s laughing, peaceful purple people were locked in a life-or-death struggle with the machines and they hadn’t the time or the resources to rescue one little boy on
one savage planet.

  Against these threats, détente with this disgusting man was necessary.

  There was a knock on the back door: shave and a haircut, two bits, the sound of excited children laughing and arguing and the high-pitched yapping of that crazy dog.

  ‘Later, Dr Pfeiffer.’

  She called, ‘Cory, there’s a new costume for you to try on, hanging in the hall.’

  Cory’s head appeared in the door, ears up. ‘Hello Mom. Hmmmmm, hello Dr Pfeiffer nasty Liar-man,’ he added.

  She rose awkwardly and went into the hall, because she wanted to see Cory try on the costume. Amber Mill was working three shifts a day to make sweatshirts and T-shirts – why buy any old space sweatshirt when for two dollars more, it could be union-made in Amber Grove, the home of the Meteor, with Cory’s signature on every breast. Cory had brought strangeness and disruption to the town, but he’d also brought jobs the town so badly needed and the workers at the mill at least were grateful.

  The black and silver robe was magnificent. It had a high Mandarin collar to show off his long head and came with a sceptre in black and silver.

  Cory looked eager, but uncertain. ‘Your costume was so-the-best Mom,’ he said.

  She tried to keep her voice level. ‘Oh, that’s kind – but try it on, and let’s go and find the others, shall we?’

  Cory grabbed her in a skinny hug and she put her face down to his so he could stroke her cheek with outer tentacles the colour of red plums. He smelled of crushed lemon-balm, horses and rain.

  I cannot know the future, but I will live each day at a time.

  Costumes approved, Gene ushered everyone outside, ignoring Dr Pfeiffer entirely, and settled Fleur into the baby-carriage. Mrs Pfeiffer, a poised woman, stood beside their two brainy girls. Diane and Janice gave Dr Pfeiffer grim stares that would have made a rock squirm, then directed reproachful looks at Molly, which she pretended not to see. Cory ran around, chased by Chuck and Bonnie and half a dozen neighbourhood kids, pretending to cast spells, or whatever he was doing, while Meteor the dog circled the whole lot of them, yapping with joy. She was all grey curls and lopsided ears, the clumsiest, craziest dog Molly had ever met, always tripping over her own feet or barking at nothing. But she adored Cory, and he adored her back.