Jennifer Wells - Beyond the Stars - At Galaxy's Edge

As the silvery craft receded, Liza hammered her fist against the thick plasglass viewport, then went to pace in her room. Rage and hope and fear fired her footsteps, churned in her belly until she couldn’t bear it any longer.

The cantina was packed and smelly, but full of life. She needed life, in the face of so much death. They all did.

It seemed as though everyone in the belt was crammed onto barstools and around tables, talking, drinking, and staring at the screen over the bar as it updated with the names of the confirmed dead.

Every few minutes, a new name would appear, and the cantina would fall silent in a moment of respect. Two of the already-posted names were known to Liza‌—‌other miners who’d been vacationing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

She hated the stab of relief she felt with each unfamiliar name. That was someone’s son, someone’s lover, someone’s wife.

Dead.

“Why’d he do it?” one of the miners at the bar next to her asked. “A D-ray, that’s insane.”

“Smuggled it on-planet,” somebody replied. “One of those crazy Ascetics saw people dancing on the vids and decided it was his job to cleanse the place.”

Another name posted, another breath of silence.

“Aw, damn,” a woman said.

Rand Miller. The letters were stark against the screen.

“Trudi,” Liza said, then realized she’d spoken aloud.

Tears slipped down her face, hot and messy. She couldn’t imagine anything more terrible than what Trudi had gone through‌—‌seeing her son’s last words, his pleas for help, and not being able to do a single thing.

Unless it was the horrible ache inside of not knowing.

Selina. Please.

More names, until the count reached fifty. Sixty. Seventy.

“How many?” Liza said, drinking another beer somebody had set in front of her.

Drinks were on the house, not that there was anything more exciting than jimjack to drink. Still, it helped blunt the razor-edges of grief.

“Near eighty, they think,” the miner on her right said.

Liza pulled her handheld out of her pocket, trying not to hope. The screen was dark.

Surely Selina would have told her she was safe, by now.

Two more unfamiliar names.

And then the one Liza had been dreading.

Selina Perez.

“No,” she whispered.

The letters muddled and blurred, but the name was printed with stark clarity in her mind. Selina was one of the dead‌—‌her beautiful smile and teasing laughter, her warmth and light gone forever.

The universe held nothing but darkness.

The hours scraped past, turned into days, then weeks. Liza moved numbly through the mines. She felt as though the dust had permanently coated her soul. At night, memories of Selina knifed through her.

They’d talked about leaving the belt, going somewhere better and making a new life for themselves. Liza didn’t know how, but Selina had always kissed away her worries.

“We’ll figure out a way,” she’d say. “Together, we can do anything. Look at these places!”

Then she’d pull up vids of Holst and X’inlii and for a while they’d dream.

There was no point now, but as the third month turned to the fourth, Liza found herself re-playing those vids. The lush forests of Holst seemed to whisper that things could be better, away from the mines. The tropical waters of X’inlii promised more peace than the edge of the galaxy could hold.

Maybe.

She still had the credits from her unused ticket to Raldoon, the vacation she and Selina never got to take together. But every time Liza thought about going, a part of her shied away.

In a new place, she wouldn’t have any memories of Selina walking down the hallway, just so, or dancing to no music over the sticky floor of the cantina.

“It’s been six months,” Trudi said one night, as they shared a table. “You going to waste the rest of your life here, drinking jimjack and mourning? I don’t think Selina would have wanted that.”

Liza shrugged, and took another sip of the tangy beer.

“I’m leaving next week,” Trudi said.

“What?” Liza set her beer on the dinged-up metal table. “You’re leaving the mines?”

The older woman nodded. The lines on her face were carved deep, but her eyes were serene.

“With the settlement, and what I have saved up, I got a place out on Chugo. Small, but I don’t need much room. Miner’s pension will keep me in tea and crackers. I’m going to write those stories like Rand always told me to, instead of just dreaming about them. His memory deserves better than this.”

She waved her hand at the cantina, but Liza knew she meant all of it‌—‌the dusty mining complex, the thankless work, the hard edges everywhere a person turned.

“Good for you.” Liza meant it, and something kindled deep inside her. She wouldn’t call it hope.

What does Selina’s memory deserve?

The keyboard in the corner waited. It was too late for Selina to hear her play, but Liza still heard her words. Would always hear them.

“You’ve got light inside you, novia. Let it shine.”

What better tribute could Liza give, than to play? To let the emotions bottled up inside her fingertips, inside her heart, rush free.

Before she could change her mind, she rose and went to the instrument. The protective bubble was gritty with dust. She folded it back, then wiped her fingers on her coveralls, trying to get some of the grime off.

The bartender came up beside her, towel tucked through his belt.

“You know how to use that thing?” he asked, squinting at her.

“I used to play. You mind?”

“Go ahead.” He glanced at the half-empty cantina, the shadows and weary faces. “Might be all to the good.”

Liza nodded. It might.

She sat on the small, padded bench in front of the keys. They marched off to either side, traditional black and white, orderly and serene. Above them was a row of colorful buttons and a screen display. She could create any sound she wanted, but tonight, just the piano.

Holding her breath, she flicked on the power switch.

A comforting hum came from the speakers mounted on either side of the keys, and the screen and buttons glowed with light.

Liza wasn’t familiar with this model, but it was made by Yamaha, similar to the keyboard she’d learned on. It had taken two years before her strict tutor had allowed her to play the behemoth grand piano kept in the climate-controlled music room of the palace she’d grown up in, and she doubted many of those vintage instruments had been exported off Earth.

The keyboard, though, there were plenty of those scattered across the galaxy. Even out here, on the edge.

Selina.

The name flared across her thoughts, and she realized that along with the pain, there was an echo of joy. Then sorrow blossomed up inside again, a dark, shining flower of loss. Liza caught her breath and set her hands on the keyboard.

It took a moment to adjust to the action of the keys, to press with just enough force. She stopped and tweaked the volume, then adjusted the foot pedal that was still, miraculously, attached.

Then she played, letting the tears fall down her cheeks, letting the grief pour from her body. Moonlight Sonata , then Barber’s Adagio . River Flows in You and The Rose .

Her fingers, stiff from her long shifts in the mines, slowly loosened. Her shoulders ached, but she ignored them. Her heart ached more.

The feel of the cantina changed‌—‌softened, warmed.

Liza didn’t know how long she played. As long as she needed to. But when she turned, stretching her sore arms, she found that the room was full again. The quiet light shone on faces that had, for a few moments at least, found some peace.