Нил Шустерман - Scorpion Shards

The dying star?

It began as a single thought, that suddenly grew until it became the key to the vision . . . but not just the vision . . . the key to everything! It was so simple, yet so stagger­ing, she didn’t know whether to believe it or just crawl up into a ball and disappear.

She broke the circle of four, and the moment the con­nection was broken, the world around them became cold and hostile once more. The ruined silo was no longer a haven, it was just a lonely, forgotten place where they could all die and no one would ever find them.

As they all sat up, they began to shiver. It was like com­ing out of a dream. “What’s wrong?” Winston asked Tory. Now that they were apart, they moved away from one another, withdrawing to the walls of the silo, as if, now that their senses had returned, they were ashamed of the words they had spoken and the heartbeat they had shared.

“You sick or something?” he asked.

Tory just shook her head, still reeling from the thoughts playing in her mind.

“You figured something out, didn’t you?” asked Lourdes. “Tell us.”

Tory began to shake and tried to control it. “I’m afraid to tell you,” she said, " ’cause what I’m thinking about is crazy.”

“We won’t think you’re crazy,” said Lourdes.

“I’m not afraid of that . . . I’m afraid you’ll think I’m right.”

Winston looked at Lourdes, and Michael just looked down. A wind now breathed across the open silo above them, and the heavy stone ruin began to resonate with a deep moan, like someone blowing across the lip of a bottle.

“Tell us,” said Lourdes.

Tory took a deep breath and clenched her fists until her knuckles were white. She forced her thoughts into words. “We know that all of this started when that Scorpion Star blew up last week, right?”

The others nodded in agreement.

“But . . . that star didn’t just blow up, did it?” continued Tory. “We’re just seeing it now, because of the speed of light, and stuff, but it really blew up sixteen years ago.”

Winston shifted uncomfortably. “What are you getting at?”

“Winston, you believe we have a soul, don’t you?” asked Tory.

“Yeah, so?”

“So, does every living thing have a soul?”

He took a moment to weigh the question. “I don’t know—maybe.”

“How about a star?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” said Michael. “A star’s not a living thing!”

Tory looked him right in the eye. “How do you know?”

“Because it’s just a ball of gas.”

“So? When it comes right down to it, we’re all just piles of dirt, aren’t we? Dirt and a whole lot of water.”

Michael zipped his jacket as high as it would go, but it wasn’t just the cold he was trying to keep out. “Speak for yourself,” he said.

“Let her talk!” demanded Lourdes.

“I know this sounds wild,” said Tory, “but the more I think about that vision we had, the more it makes sense . . . because it wasn’t a vision at all. It was a memory.”

Tory took a deep breath and finally spat out what she was thinking. “What if the Scorpion Star was alive? What if it had a soul, or a spirit, or whatever you want to call it . . . and when it blew up all those years ago, its soul blew up, too . . . into six pieces that flew through space a zillion times faster than light, and ended up right here on earth. What if it became our souls? What if it became us?”

Lourdes heaved herself closer to Tory. “And sixteen years later,” added Lourdes, “when we saw the light of the explosion, it reminded us . . . and we started to move toward one another like it was an instinct.”

“No!” Winston shook his head furiously, “No, you’re crazy.” He put his hands over his ears and pulled his knees up. “And anyway,” he said, “if it’s true we’d all have to born on the same day, wouldn’t we? The same day the star exploded.”

Tory hesitated for a moment. She hadn’t thought it through that far yet.

“When’s your birthday?” Winston asked her.

“May 23rd?” she offered.

“Ha!” shouted Winston. “My birthday’s June 15th! You’re wrong!”

“Maybe not,” said Michael, and all eyes turned to him. “I was born on April 20th, but I was six weeks premature. I was supposed to be born at the beginning of June.” He turned to Tory. “Were you early or late?”

Tory shrugged. “Don’t know. My mother and me . . . we didn’t talk much.”

“I was right on time,” chimed in Lourdes. “June sec­ond.”

Everyone turned to Winston.

“June fifteenth, huh?” said Michael. “I’ll bet you were two weeks late, weren’t you?”

Winston wouldn’t look him in the eye. He pulled his knees up to his chest again.

“Well, Winston?” said Tory.

Winston picked the ground with a twig and finally said, “My Mom always said I was too stubborn to come into this world when I was expected. I came in my own time . . . two weeks late.”

Tory gasped. “Then we were all supposed to be born on the same day!”

Michael nodded, “Not just the same day . . . but the same second, I’ll bet.” He looked down, and found in the debris of the silo the shattered remains of an ancient Coke bottle—he picked it up and pieced the shards of the bottle together. “Check this out—sixteen years ago, our parents conceived each of us at the same instant in time . . . and at that same exact moment . . . BOOM!” He dropped the bottle, and the shards scattered as they hit the hard earth. ". . . The star died . . . and we got ready to be born.”

Winston stared at the broken glass, looking a little bit sick. He didn’t say anything—just closed his eyes and held his knees tightly to his chest. Tory could tell that he was trying desperately to make this information go away. The way he looked at things—it’s like he wanted all of creation to fit nice and neatly in a little box, and whatever didn’t fit he just ignored. Well, this time Tory knew he couldn’t ig­nore it—he’d have to stretch that little box.

“C’mon, Winston, you can deal with it,” said Tory. “Make the stretch.”

“I ain’t no bungee cord, okay? I don’t stretch that way.” Winston shut his eyes even tighter, and Tory could hear him grinding the last nubs of his teeth in frustration.

The soul of a star, thought Tory, how big—how powerful was the soul of a star? Even one-sixth of it must have been brighter than any other on earth. “We must be the most powerful human beings in the world!” she told her friends.

“Then why are we dying?” Winston looked at her coldly and left the silo. Since no one had an answer, they silently followed him out.

Why were they dying? thought Tory. Not just dying—but suffering hideous afflictions. Why would the brightest lights on earth be so consumed by darkness? This answer she had found was only half an answer, and it made her furious.

Outside the silo, the ground was covered by a thick fog that swirled around their ankles, and the air smelled rich with the decaying remains of an early harvest. A hint of blue on the eastern horizon told of the coming dawn, and although they had not slept, they were too tightly wound to sleep now.

“Yesterday when I closed my eyes,” said Michael, “I could almost see the faces of the others . . . but now they feel further away.” And then he dared to voice something they were all too afraid to admit might be true. “I don’t think they’re coming,” he said. “Something’s gone wrong.”

“We have to go to Nebraska,” said Tory. “To Omaha. I’m telling you some astronomer at some school there pre­dicted the explosion of the star; he has to know something that can help us.”