Phoebe North: Starbreak

I thought of the video I’d seen in the ship’s command center just before the revolt. Only hours had passed, but it felt like a lifetime already. The men who’d held the shuttle crew hadn’t been like any men I’d known in my waking life. They were too tall, too thin. Their bodies bent in ways that should have seemed unnatural to me.

But they didn’t. Every night for nearly six months now, I’d dreamed of a body like that—long and cool beside me, filling my nose and mouth and mind with the scent of a thousand different flowers. In my dreams I was naked, and when I wasn’t, he soon undressed me with his nimble, three-fingered hands. . . .

His eyes were black, a pair of obsidian lozenges without a shred of light inside them. The men in the transmission had black eyes, too. But their gazes didn’t welcome me. In fact, the men in the transmission snarled as they forced the lost shuttle crew to parrot officious words.

Mayday, Mayday. Zehava is inhabited. I repeat, Zehava is inhabited. . . .

And yet I knew in the pit of my belly that my boy was real. He waited on that planet somewhere—the one that, just now, had only barely begun to come into view. I saw the delicate, curving lip of her oceans against the horizon, swirled with white from above. I saw the lights, winking, glinting. It was too dark to see the purple vegetation, but I knew that if I wanted to see Zehava’s forests and her vines, all I had to do was shut my eyes. It had always worked before.

“Hey, lady,” the little girl said. I turned to look at her.

“Mmm?”

“What do you think the aliens are like?” she asked.

“Alien,” I thought. What a funny word. We’re the strangers. They were the ones who lived here first.

But I only smiled at the girl. “Real nice,” I told her. “They’ll be so happy to see you.”

It wasn’t a lie, not entirely. But it was a precious, fragile hope, one that flew in the face of my sister-in-law’s words. In the video Hannah had been terrified. Send a recovery shuttle , she’d said. But I couldn’t believe it. I needed the boy, his long arms; his bright body, rank with pollen. I needed to believe that I was traveling toward something, that I was doing more than running away.

The others prattled and joked while the white noise of the engine whirred on and on. It had been a long day, too long. I’d been drunk and sober; terrified, and then calm again. Now my eyelids felt impossibly heavy. My limbs felt heavy too. Soon I found myself nodding off, tumbling toward the forest of my dreams.

It was the same as always, and yet the sight of it never failed to make me lose my breath. The lush landscape here wasn’t the muddled brown and green of the dome. It was purple: deep blue flowers, craning their blossoms up through the black soil; violet vines, curling toward the sun. And stranger still, it all moved, as though the plants weren’t just alive but knowing—sentient. One moment the trees would all glance up, staring into the white-gold sky. The next, they’d swivel their leaves to face me like I was a long-anticipated guest they couldn’t wait to welcome home.

At first he was nothing more than a shadow, shifting listlessly in the wind and waiting for me. I saw only his shape, his narrow waist and broad shoulders. But then he started to come closer. His movements across the soft black ground were effortless. He didn’t so much stroll as glide . Soon he stood in front of me, his body smelling sweet as summer.

I’m coming , I thought, though it was as if the words traveled through a veil of molasses. For some reason I felt unsure that they would reach him, that he would understand. Most nights we spoke with our bodies, not bothering with mouths or even thoughts. He stared up into the yellow sky.

Coming?

Yes, coming. I’ll be there soon.

But his response wasn’t the one I’d hoped for. Instead of enveloping me with his arms, drawing me close so I could feel safe from the intrusions of the world beyond, he hung his head. His words came swiftly, easily, like he was used to speaking this way.

No, no. You are not real. Cannot be . . .

He might as well have punched me, sinking his fist into my solar plexus and snatching away all my breath.

What do you mean? Of course I’m real. I’m right here! Just as real as you are.

No— he began, but before he could finish that thought, I reached out, grabbing his hand in mine. I pressed it to my chest, let him feel the heart that beat frantically inside.

Do you feel it? I asked. Do you? I’m here! I’m real!

He snatched his hand away, cradling it against his body like it was a wounded bird. I wanted to reach for him again, to make everything between us right and safe. But I couldn’t. I didn’t know how.

Behind us the forest was waiting for me, its branches cast back like a pair of open arms. I couldn’t make things better with the boy, not now, not when we still had so far to go. So I turned around and walked into the forest, into her vines, her purple light. She enveloped me, wrapping branches around my limbs, tangling her flowers through my hair. I let her. I thought I heard his voice, soft and strangled. But I paid it no mind. What was the point? He didn’t want me, not yet. But soon I would be there, standing in front of him, and he wouldn’t be able to deny me.

I let myself get lost in the wild landscape of the Zehavan jungles.

I was jerked from the warm, smothering dark by turbulence.

The planet filled the entirety of the glass ahead. In the morning light, clear waters sparkled. Sprawling forests were swirled with a thousand different shades of violet, crimson red, and the bluest ultramarine you could imagine. But something was wrong. The continents seemed to jiggle beneath us like old fingers, prone to tremors. I watched as Laurel wrestled with the controls, gripping the control stick, pulling hard.

“No, no, no!” she was saying through gritted teeth. I turned to the little girl.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, but of course she didn’t know. Though her legs still swam in her too big flight suit, she’d pulled them up onto the seat. She held her arms high, shielding herself from whatever was to come next. Her grandfather had slung an arm over her to protect her. I turned the other way. Rebbe Davison sat in white-knuckled silence beside Jachin.

He was my teacher, one of the smartest men on the ship. Surely he would tell me.

His forehead was wrinkled. But his expression wasn’t like it had been during school when I tried his patience, stumbling in late day after day. Back then there had been a weary humor beneath his frown. Now there was only fear.

“She entered the wrong coordinates,” he said softly, so soft at first that I almost couldn’t hear it above the engine’s roar. But Laurel did.

“I’m only a talmid !” she shouted. “I was never supposed to do this alone!”

In the seat beside her I saw Deklan reach out. He put his hand against the nape of her neck.

“Not now!” She swiped at him, smacking his hand. He shrank back. I did too, my shoulders sinking into the bucket seat. After our long flight my armpits ached, sweaty from the straps. My legs felt somehow both numb and swollen in the flight suit’s boots. But none of that mattered now. What mattered was my heart and its hard, hysterical rhythm, and the dry, shallow wheeze of my breath.

“The shuttles are meant to make a water landing.” Rebbe Davison’s words were murmured low. This time Laurel didn’t hear them. But I don’t think she was meant to. When I slid my gaze over, I saw that his gaze was firmly fixed on me. “We’re supposed to land on water.”