Phoebe North: Starbreak

Eyes wide, he did.

When he was all done, the room erupted into fractious shouts once again. Senator Zera lowered herself back down into her seat, but several others had risen up in her place, shaking fists toward the glass sky. I watched as Vadix hung his horn back up on the stand. He threw an arm around my shoulder and drew me close.

“I believe the deliberations have begun,” he said, his lips gracing my ear as he spoke. My hands were cold as I hung up my horn too, then let Vadix whisk me down the platform and away.

We waited in the antechamber for the senate’s decision. After all this time I felt like I had practically memorized the patterns of purple moss that clung to the corners of the walls, the nicks in the stone table, the smudges on the glass that stood between us and the expansive chamber below. These hours upon hours of fighting, scheming, plotting had led to this—all of us gathered round, staring across the expanse of slate, and waiting.

Vadix stood by the window, staring down. I tried to reach out to him, to let my mind envelop his like a pair of arms. But he held me back. I couldn’t tell if he was angry at what I’d done, laying our love bare for all to see. Or maybe he was just nervous about the senate’s decision. Whatever the case, he didn’t want me to read him right now, and so I couldn’t. I wondered if someday I would learn how to block him. If only the senate would relent, if only Vadix would stay with me, if only we had the time.

“This will never work,” Silvan said, at last breaking the silence that had fallen over us. “We should have sent someone else. Someone qualified.”

“Who?” Mara demanded. “You?”

“I’ve been trained for leadership,” he said, sitting back in his seat. He folded his arms over his broad chest. “All the Council-born were. We could be trusted.” His gaze lingered on me for a moment, as if he were intent on reminding me that I was common born worthless.

But Mordecai cut in. My old teacher, who had watched me struggle, as awkward as a duckling, all through my childhood. Now his voice was firm.

“We had a Council-born leader. Aleksandra Wolff. The captain’s daughter, destined for leadership. She got herself killed.”

“Aleksandra,” Silvan said, and snorted. I saw Mordecai clench his fist. I knew that I should stop them, step in before their tempers spilled over. But I was worn out—tapped. I couldn’t find the words.

Luckily, I didn’t have to. As the men argued, Vadix moved away from the window. I felt him settle his cool hand between my shoulder blades, a reassuring weight.

“Regardless of her qualifications,” he said, loud enough that they all glanced up, “Terra did exemplary work down in the senate. The most educated Xollu would have flinched and shivered before such a crowd. She was strong. Convincing. I believe—”

But we never got to hear what he believed. The door slid open, and an Ahadizhi page stuck her head into the room.

“Tatoum sase doza osouezhi zhiososek ut oliz xezlax,” she said. “Sase vauri zhiososek, zalse esevhe, aum oliz ahasazhi.”

Vadix went silent, staring after her long after she withdrew and the door closed behind her. Mordecai rose from his seat. He cracked his knuckles, his anxious gaze falling on my bashert .

“What did she say?” he demanded. “What did they decide?”

Vadix’s mind was a haze of emotion. But the words were there, floating at the forefront of his mind. So, my eyes welling with tears, I spoke for him.

“They’ve agreed. They’ve agreed. We’re going to settle Zeddak Alaz.”

They broke out into whoops of victory, joyous shouts. Mara Stone threw her arms around Mordecai, letting out ripples of relieved laughter. Even Silvan gave his fist a pump. He’d be able to return to Earth, as he and Rachel wanted, unencumbered by the rebels who had upset their lives.

But I didn’t cry out in joy. I didn’t even speak. I’d done it—and soon we would all achieve tikkun olam as our ancestors once hoped we would. But what was I going to have to sacrifice in return? I gazed up at Vadix, his endless gaze still frozen at the door.

This is a time to celebrate, isn’t it? I asked, though I didn’t feel certain about it. Not at all. My lover turned to me. For the first time I saw how, behind all that black, his eyes were a swirl of color. He smiled, his mouth full of teeth.

“Yes, zeze ,” he said, enfolding me in his arms. “Of course it is.”

Two nights later the bells rang out across the pastures, drawing out of their homes the citizens who had cowered through the last several days. That night Koen seemed to throw his whole weight into his task—I’d never heard the bells call out with such clarity or force before, not even when I’d watched my father do his work in the years before he lost himself to the bottle. But on that night I wasn’t there to see it. I waited in the ship’s bow with Silvan, readying ourselves for the work we were about to do.

The controls twinkled, their light flickering against the brass buttons of his uniform. At Rachel’s suggestion he’d abandoned his white wool for the familiar navy uniform of captain. Though his skin didn’t look quite so radiant in the dark shade, he remained undeniably handsome. His long curls had been tied back at the nape of his neck with a blue ribbon. He stood tall, proud. Every bit the Council man who had been born to lead.

“Are you ready?” he asked. I gave the sash of my borrowed robe one last tug, squaring the knot just as Vadix had instructed. I wondered if our people would be shocked at the sight—one of their own wrapped up in alien garb. But soon the Xollu wouldn’t be aliens anymore. They would be our friends, neighbors. The citizens would have to grow used to the sight of robes and spires, of copper and filigree.

“Yes,” I said, smoothing down the fabric. Silvan offered me his arm, but I didn’t take it. This wasn’t a wedding—and not a funeral, either, I thought as we loaded ourselves into the lift. Tonight the bells rang for something else, something new. Something that hadn’t happened before and wouldn’t happen after, either. The doors dinged open. We marched into the cool of the dome evening. The scent of frozen earth and frost-tipped grass was all around us. For years after the same smell would remind me of that night. The last night that we were all Asherati. The night we began to say good-bye.

“Good evening, citizens!” Silvan cried out across the pasture. More than a thousand faces stared up at us. Some sneered at Silvan’s words. Others pressed two fingers to their hearts in salute. Already our people were divided. But on this night we’d drive down the final wedge. “We’re here to speak to you tonight not as Children of Abel or honored followers of the Council but as Asherati!”

He turned to me, nodded. So I stepped forward. As I spoke, I kept my hands folded in front of me, determined to quell their shaking. You’d think that after the last speech, my fear would be gone. But it wasn’t; it was a part of me, just like my past was a part of me. Just like Vadix was a part of me.

“I have met with the senate of Aur Evez,” I called, lifting my voice above their murmurs of confusion, “the ruling body of the planet we call ‘Zehava.’  They have agreed to let us settle on the southern continent, on territory they call Zeddak Alaz.”

I saw several of them turn their gazes to the planet in the glass above. Their faces were lit by smiles. But I couldn’t allow them such a simple joy. This wasn’t the promised land. The lives for which we were about to depart would be ones of hardship, sacrifice. Not so different from the lives we’d known on the ship.