Amy Bechtel: In Fortune's Hand

Granna propped the book on a stand, lifted the mandolin and played a few bars of a mazurka. Ria closed her eyes for a moment, listening. The music took her back, took her back so far. To when she was ten years old, a nervous stranger in her grandmother’s house after the death of her parents. Watching with fascination as her grandmother dug through boxes of old printed music, watching Granna in the music room moving from instrument to instrument before selecting the one she’d play. Just watching at first, watching and listening, till the music caught hold of Ria and she picked up a tin whistle to try her first fumbling notes.

Ria opened her eyes as Granna laid the mandolin back across her lap. “I found that music in an antique shop. The owner didn’t know what she had! She was using it for a decoration, lying across a desk with a bunch of old books; can you believe it? I’ll send you a copy.”

“Thanks, Granna.”

“So when is Paul coming home?”

“Don’t know. What about you; when are you coming back to the States?”

“Oh, my, I don’t know either. I think I might look through the decorations in a few more antique shops. Who knows how long that will take?”

Ria smiled. “Then I’ll see you when you get back. Say hi to the cousins.”

“Good night, dear.”

“Night, Granna.”

Ria switched off the phone and knelt on the floor among the clutter of disks and papers. Softly she hummed a snatch of the tune her grandmother had just played on the mandolin. It was a bright air, one she’d enjoy learning. She reached for her fallen guitar, wanting to play the tune through before she forgot any of it. She sat down on the bed, put the guitar over her knees, and had played only the first chord when the phone rang again.

She groaned, put down the instrument, and dug the phone out from the clutter on the floor. Probably it was Granna again, with something she’d forgotten to say. But when she turned on the phone she saw a young man that she couldn’t place at first, not until she saw the room behind him. It was the control room in Aurora’s financier’s private residence, a beautifully equipped and comfortable room with huge prints of astronomical scenes on the walls. On the edge of the screen Ria saw one of Ruby’s planets; she recognized it from the photographs Paul had brought home.

“Ria Kerey? It’s Andy Davison. I don’t know if you remember; I’m part of Aurora’s ground crew. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

I have some bad news. Ria went cold, recognizing the phrasing, knowing the tone of voice all too well. They were words she’d used herself, trying to find the gentlest way to tell people that their loved ones were dead or missing. Useless words, words that didn’t mean a thing, that did nothing to soften the blows of the information that would follow.

“What’s happened?” she whispered. And listened in a daze as Andy Davison haltingly told her that they had lost Aurora. That the ship was still out there, somewhere, among Ruby’s planets, but was stranded. The string they’d traveled on had shifted, leaving Ruby unreachably far away. No one knew why. Of course they would let Ria know immediately if any more information came to light.

“Of course,” Ria said, and broke the connection. The screen hummed and spluttered at her for a moment, then faded to black. Slowly, carefully, Ria turned off the phone and placed it back on the shelf, then reached for the fallen pile of disks and music. She began to stack the disks, struggling to put things back in order. Halfway through the stack she found Simone’s last album. She was sitting holding it, staring at the photograph on the back, when the alarm sounded.

Ria was the first one outside. The copter sat on its pad before her, still and silent, a dark shadow against a background of stars. Seconds later Lupe and Jack appeared, Lupe complaining bitterly, Jack muffled and groggy.

“Unbelievable,” Lupe muttered, climbing into the copter and jabbing at the controls. The engine whirred to life, the rotor began to turn. “I was so set to go home I could taste it,” Lupe yelled above the engine noise. “We’re jinxed, I tell you. Jinxed!”

Jack climbed in blearily, his eyes half closed, and curled up under a blanket without a word.

Ria started to get in, then hesitated, feeling a strange reluctance. She was so disconnected, she felt she could float away if she stepped off the ground.

“Come on, Ria,” Lupe called. “Hey! Where’s Darcy?”

Ria glanced back at the station, just in time to see Darcy emerge and start to run toward them. She was about to climb into the copter when Darcy, breathing hard, caught her shoulder and held her back.

“Ria,” Darcy said, “we can manage. You don’t have to come.”

Ria stared at her. “How did you know?”

“Andy Davison called me right after he talked to you. He was worried about you. Ria—”

“Hey, what’s taking so long?” Lupe yelled. “Get in!”

“You don’t have to go,” Darcy said again, to Ria.

“Yes, I do,” Ria whispered.

“No.”

“Yes! I can’t stay here alone.”

Darcy hesitated, then said quietly, “OK.”

So strange, Ria thought. The copter moved urgently through the air, on its way to an accident site, and somewhere far away on Aurora another accident was waiting to happen, or perhaps had happened already, yet her mind was filled with music. A tune was in her head, repeating itself over and again, driving out thoughts of Aurora, of how much fuel the ship might have left, of whether any of Ruby’s planets might be habitable. Ria couldn’t picture Paul dead or gone or even on the ship; in her mind he sat beside her on the floor of their home, poring over the old songs they both loved to collect. Ria had shown Paul the boxes of Castilian and Galician music that Granna had given her, and he in turn had introduced her to a world of other songs, traditional tunes with words in Gaelic or Japanese; Russian or Navajo; songs from Africa and Antarctica, and even from the Moon. Paul had collected songs wherever he’d traveled, and there were not many places he hadn’t been. He played no instrument, having never had the patience to learn one, but his voice was good, and together they sang in a harmony that Ria loved.

The music in her head suddenly faded and Ria listened desperately, trying to find it again, but it was gone, and she heard only the noisy chop of the copter’s engine and the soft ping of Lupe’s search pattern. The copter’s seat was cold and clammy. Ria shifted uncomfortably and peered out the window; there was nothing but pitch blackness below, and she couldn’t even tell where the ground ended and the sky began. She glanced over Lupe’s shoulder at the virtual on the screen, and saw the sharp contours of canyons and mountain ridges.

A new screen lit up and one of the controllers appeared and began to speak. Ria closed her eyes, trying to shut everything out, to find the music again, but the controller was too loud and too urgent. A passenger in a small plane had seen a car lose control on a turn and go over a cliff; computers had traced the car to a woman named Mary Arden, who had last been seen leaving a campground with her two children, ten-year-old Jenny and six-year-old Daniel. Ria shivered. She’d really had enough of cliffs.

“We’re getting close,” Lupe said, changing course, and Ria looked up at the virtual display again. Inside the virtual she could see the ripples of a mountainside, the jagged edge of a cliff, the dusty track of a dirt road climbing along the cliffs edge. The screen next to the virtual flashed silver, and Lupe brought the copter into a hover and switched on the spotlight. The light swept over the remains of the car, tumbled and shattered on a slope at the base of the cliff. Looking at it, Ria felt sick; there wasn’t much left. The twisted metal remains could have been anything: a car, a plane, even a spacecraft, smashed on the surface of another world when its fuel had run out.