Phoebe North - Starbreak

Laurel sat stooped over a log, eating a fist of burned meat. Her face was still puffy from the night spent crying, but it was no longer slick with tears. She glanced up at me and gave a weak smile. I wriggled my fingers back, then went to the stack of supplies the shuttle crew had stacked up just past the fire pit, hoping to find even a small ration of fresh water.

They’d lined the jugs up all in a row. Half were from the shuttles—the tempered polyglass that had been crafted by our ancestors and filled by a fleet of old women in preparation for our journey. The other half were of a foreign design. Their shapes reminded me of the curling flasks Mara Stone used in her research. Their bottoms were sturdy, but the necks looped and twisted. Each was corked with a plug of bright green wax. Some had been punctured, drained. But I found one still three quarters full. I jammed my thumb into the seal, breaking it—and leaving a ring of dirt around the glass lip. I didn’t even care. I held the mouth to my mouth, and drank and drank. It might have been alien water, but it was clean. Cold. Healing.

I was standing there, my head cast back, a bottle shaped like a swollen gourd pressed to my lips and the water dripping down my chin, when the gate at the front of the camp gave a great shudder. I turned, my stringy hair catching on my still-dripping mouth. It was through the blond veil of hair that I saw a line of Ahadizhi filter in. I understood then why the others had seemed so apprehensive. The Ahadizhi grabbed on to them with three-fingered arms, prodding them with their weapons. The whole camp was filled with flashes of light, sparks. Ettie let out a cry. It seemed to rise up over the cacophony of electricity. I dropped the bottle against the hard-packed dirt and went running, grabbing her by either shoulder before one of the Ahadizhi could do the same.

“Go hide,” I told her, pushing her toward the tents. She scrambled forward, her hair a dark streak behind her. I watched her tuck herself into one of the rear tents and zip up the flap behind her. When I turned back, it was to a new sight.

The Xollu. They walked two abreast, skirting the edges of the camp. Their eyes were black holes bored into their smooth-skinned faces. But there was a flash of curiosity there too. They seemed to be appraising us, looking us up and down like we were animals being judged fit for slaughter.

The Xollu didn’t take everyone. One by one they appraised us, touching their smooth fingers to our chins. I saw them give Jachin’s scraggly beard a tug before they shoved him off with the other stubble-cheeked men. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Laurel and Hannah and Aleksandra, I watched as the Ahadizhi dragged the men forward and through the open gates. That’s when I spotted him. The translator. He stood at the gate’s edge, speaking in low tones to a Xollu pair beside him.

He was tall and lean. Though his shoulders were broad beneath his tunic, his waist was narrow. He was a Xollu, most definitely, in body and eye and tooth. But his flesh was a deeper shade than the rest of them. Indigo. That had been the name of my favorite pencil in the set my momma had given me years and years before. He matched it perfectly, whereas the others were mulberry and carmine and poppy. He alone was bright, bright blue.

I knew that color, knew how it would look over the pale slick of my belly. From a dozen meters away I knew how his body smelled, and even tasted. It was so strange to see him standing there, lips lifted to reveal a row of tiny needle teeth. The others were afraid, but not him. He put his hand on Rebbe Davison’s shoulder, stopping him. He said something I couldn’t hear, and Rebbe Davison responded meekly, tapping his hand against his own chest.

I needed to stop the translator, needed to get him to draw those night-dark eyes to mine. There had to be words that would turn his head toward me, that would compel him to bridge the gap between our bodies—meters and meters, entirely too many. I groped for syllables, sounds, reaching back through dreams. My lips found the name almost without thinking. Vadix. Vadix. I whispered it twice, tasting it.

Was that his name? He’d never told me, but somehow I knew. And now, having realized it, I couldn’t hold the knowledge in any longer. Maybe I should have plotted, waiting for the perfect moment to take him aside and whisper it into his earslits. But what if that chance never came? I had to stop him—and fast, before the moment passed.

“Vadix! Vadix!” I called. “It’s me, Terra! Vadix!”

I know he heard me—the long slits along the side of his face opened at the sound of my voice. But he was the last one to lift his head. When he did, his black eyes were less like glass and more like stone. Hard and solid, letting none of the day’s weak light through. What did he see when he glanced up? A dirty girl, dressed in someone else’s stained undershirt, waving her fingers through the open air? A fool? An animal?

Whatever he saw, it didn’t matter. He put his three-fingered hand on Rebbe Davison’s shoulder and pushed him through the open gate. Then he turned his back on me. He walked out of our camp without a single glance back. I called his name out one final time, but the syllables died on the muggy air.

In the awkward silence that followed, the Ahadizhi led the rest of the men out. The Xollu trailed after, their expressions grave as they clutched at one another. The gate slammed, and I fell down on one of the fire pit logs, my posture slumped, my shoulders sagging.

But the others didn’t drift away. In fact, both Hannah and Aleksandra stood over me, looking equally perplexed. Maybe Aleksandra wanted to threaten me, to question my gall. But Hannah spoke first. There was weak laughter on her voice, but a question, too.

“Terra,” she said, “I don’t understand. How did you know his name? I never told you . . .”

Aleksandra stared at her, expression stony. Then she stomped off on her boot heels. I watched her go before I turned to Hannah again, lifting up my dirty hands.

“I don’t know, Hannah,” I said, because it was true. “I have no idea.”

One night, when the path ahead was bleak, I sat with Rachel in the guest room of Ronen’s home. The room was the same as always—same floral bedspread; same painting, done by some long-dead bubbe of ours, pinned up on the wall. But Rachel had changed. I’d changed too.

Once we’d talked only of boys, of jobs, of what the names of our children might be. We’d traded these dreams the way other children might trade marbles or jacks. We wove our futures together like an embroidered bracelet. But the path ahead was uncertain on that night, so Rachel’s thoughts had turned inward. As was always the case back then, she talked about her religion, her newfound faith. Her hands moved quickly through the air. She gave me advice based on her readings, offered me stories that weren’t often told on our ship. When I sat back on my heels, chewing my lip, she put her dark hand on mine.

“You don’t believe, do you?”

I didn’t. I wanted to be filled with the same passion and assuredness that she was, to feel my heart swell, safe and warm, in my chest. But it didn’t. I remained closed to the possibility. When I thought about life after death, the only thought I had was for the ground’s cold embrace. When I thought of a higher power watching over me, I felt only uneasy, not bolstered like Rachel did. No, I didn’t believe. I shook my head and said so.

“It must be so sad for you,” she said, dropping her chin to her chest, “living a life without miracles. All alone in the world.”

I didn’t know what to say. At the time, I didn’t say anything—just sat up straight and changed the subject.