Phoebe North: Starbreak

“What’s so funny?” she said, with the sort of righteous indignation that only someone under the age of ten can muster. “I don’t get it!”

But no one answered her. We only breathed in deep gulps of frigid air, our laughter echoing against the mountainside.

I don’t think our meager meal filled any of our bellies, but we didn’t complain. There was no telling how far we’d have to stretch our rations, how long we’d have to make them last. We were used to following the leader—the Council, Captain Wolff, even Aleksandra. But we had no leader, no plan. It would have been worrying if the weight of sleep hadn’t been pulling at us so heavily. The sun was barely three quarters of the way across the sky, and already we were yawning, sniffling, and blinking the sleep away.

“I can’t believe I’m so tired,” Deklan said. With the rifle still nestled against his belly, he pressed his face to his knees. “It can’t be any later than—what? Twenty-three o’clock?”

“We don’t have our pills.” I thought of the little packet of pills we all ate each night, and of something Koen Maxwell had told me once. How years ago, just for kicks, just to see what it would do, he’d started palming them.

No matter what the light looked like in the dome, it was like the day inside me was getting shorter and shorter.

Jachin let out a small grunt of agreement. He lifted himself to his feet and went to fetch our tent. Laurel scrambled to help him pound in the stakes.

“Melatonin,” he said as he worked to unfurl the canvas walls. “And somnescence. We’re not built for Zehava’s days. It’s only the pills that keep our internal clocks synced to hers.”

“Abba always thought—” I started, then stopped. It felt weird to talk about my father now, as I sat amid a coterie of rebels. Like I hadn’t quite shed the skin of our former lives. But I guessed it didn’t matter. He was a clock keeper once, after all. It had been his job . “My father had this theory that, given enough time exposed to the natural rotation of Zehava around its sun, we’d adapt. Our circadian rhythms would shift. But it was only a theory. No way to test it on the ship.”

“Guess we’ll have our chance now,” Deklan Levitt said. He pulled himself upright and snatched up one of the sleeping rolls. Then he ducked inside the tent. We all craned our necks after him, staring into the dim interior. It was inviting, dry and warm. After only a moment’s hesitation we followed him inside.

The rest of them all stripped out of their flight suits, exposing the sweat-soaked clothing beneath. But I didn’t—couldn’t. I wore only my underwear under the synthetic fabric. It wasn’t until I was tucked inside my sleep sack that I felt okay undoing the long zipper at the front of my suit. It was strange to feel the soft fabric of the sleep sack against my bare skin. The blankets on the ship were all wool and rough-hewn linen, but these ancient synthetics had been saved by our ancestors just for landing. I pulled my suit out of the sack and left it splayed out like a second skin beside me, then snuggled down inside the covers.

Sleep came instantly. At first I was buried in the firm hold of the forest—vines lacing their way through my hair, branches looping my ankles. It was warm, safe. But wrong. I pulled forward, parting the brambles. He was waiting for me, as he always was. I guess he couldn’t stay away.

I’m here now , I said. On your planet. I’m here. I came for you.

His back was to me, a wide violet plane that dipped gently in the middle. His shoulders were lit by the setting sun. When he glanced back at me, his eyes caught the light above. For once they didn’t look flat, impenetrable. Instead they sparked and danced. Like fire—like a pair of living flames.

I can’t— he said. I don’t—

Even in my dreams I was exasperated. I threw my hands up into the air.

If you don’t help me, we could die ! I came all this way just for this place, just for you, and now that I’m here, you tell me you “can’t”?

I was angry, my fingers cutting through the air, my jaw clenched so hard, I thought my molars might crumble in my mouth. But underneath that heat was fear, raw and real. At long last he took my frantic hands in his.

But he didn’t put them on his body, like he normally would have. Nor did he press them to his wet, sweet mouth. Instead he shoved my fingers upward, toward the evening sky above. I followed the line of our intertwined fingers to the green-streaked sky.

The full dark of night hadn’t come on yet. The sun was a white circle in the west. All the trees unfurled their blossoms, exposing their lewd insides to its light.

Xarki, he said, pointing fiercely. Xarki .

The sounds curled my tongue in new ways. Xarki. Xarki. Epsilon Eridani. Their sun. Then he moved my hand in a wide arch across the firmament, stopping at each of the three moons above. He named them.

Akku. Zella. Aire .

I glanced up. One moon was a perfect crescent; another barely a sliver high overhead. The third was full and perfect, a rose-gold circle marked by distant mountains and empty ocean beds.

Why are you telling me this? I asked. His chest was close to mine. I could smell him, fragrant, like overripe peaches and something else, something foreign, strange. He didn’t answer, only pointed upward to the stars that barely twinkled to life in the evening sky.

These nine stars. The hunter in his carriage. Look for the head of his harp. It is fixed in all seasons—in autumn, in spring. And in the deep, deep cold of winter. He always stands upright as he makes his music. You will stand upright too. And then turn around. Walk away from the hunter. Stay on the rocky pathway. Avoid the forests.

The vines tangled around us, caressing our ankles, our calves. They didn’t seem dangerous.

Why? I asked.

His eyes went dark, half-shaded. He let out one simple word: Beasts.

There was a shudder in the distance, like the rattle of an ancient engine, but louder, rawer. He gave his head a fearful shake and went on. From there the path to Raza Ait lies between the shadows of Akku and Aire.

Raza Ait?

He still held my hand up in the sky, cradled against the palm of his hand; his chest was pressed to mine. When I looked at him, I saw a fierce hunger. I felt the burn of his skin against my skin—blue, so blue, against my own pale white belly.

The city of copper. He paused, licking his lips with his bright purple tongue. The city where I die.

I gasped myself awake. My heart thudded so hard that at first I was afraid that the others might hear. But then, with a relieved breath of air, I realized that I was alone. Shaking—as much from the dream as the shock of the cold against my naked limbs—I rose and put on my flight suit. I could smell the ripe, rank smell of my body, but ignored it. On the ship our ancestors had been able to maintain the fiction that our society was polite, orderly. But here in the wilderness we could no longer deny the truth. We were savages.

I stumbled out of the tent, zipping it tight behind me. The others had gathered around the smoldering coals. Rebbe Davison had one arm thrown over Ettie’s shoulders. He was singing “Tsen Briders” to her—that counting song about the brothers who all die off, one by one. I’d always thought it was a ghastly song, even when we all sang it together in school. Ettie didn’t seem to like it either. She squirmed beside him.

I trampled over the hard-packed snow. We were still deep in night, even if our bodies didn’t know it yet. The only sign of the sun— Xarki? I asked myself—was in the delicate blue wash at the eastern edge of the sky. Soon, in a few hours maybe, dawn would come. But for now it was all wild, unbridled night.