Phoenix

by S. F. Said

  Up. Up. The Sunfire rising –

  – rising –

  – rising into the sky.

  Inside the ship, everything shuddering. Juddering.

  Metal bucking and shaking like it would break all around him.

  ‘Get away from that airlock!’

  Frollix hauling him back into a cabin. Slamming the hatch shut behind him.

  The smoke and fire of the spaceport falling away.

  The burning shadowship gone from view –

  – and his mother—

  Gone.

  She’s really gone.

  My mother’s gone, and—

  Face crumpling.

  Tears like knives behind his eyes.

  A howl of grief and pain rising in his throat—

  Hold it together!

  You’re on an Alien starship: you’ve got to hold it together!

  I can’t. I can’t. Not alone—

  You have to! She gave everything to save you, but if you don’t pull yourself together, it won’t mean a thing!

  Looking around, trying to get his bearings.

  But everything strange in the Alien ship.

  Unidentifiable objects. Weird shapes. Everything old, faded, dusty. Dilapidated.

  The walls covered in damaged vidscreens, buzzing on and off. Crackling with static. Flashing up fragments.

  Broken glimpses of the view outside.

  Clouds streaking past. Breaking through the clouds. Beyond them, the blood-red disc of Aries One.

  ‘We’re breaking atmosphere!’ the Aliens rejoicing. ‘She beat them! There’s no one coming after us!’

  Impossible to reply. Eyes clenched tight, trying to hide the howling pain inside.

  A gravity field kicking in. A life-support system pumping out air.

  ‘The astrolabe,’ Captain Nox demanding. ‘Give it to me.’

  Handing it over. No choice.

  ‘Now leave me alone!’

  The Aliens leaving the cabin, leaving him alone –

  – all alone in the galaxy.

  My home is gone. My mother gone. And why?

  But she promised! She promised it would be OK, and now look—

  Collapsing right there on the floor.

  Huddling in a ball.

  Shivering. Shaking. Sleeping and waking, fits and starts. In and out of fever dreams.

  Knees throbbing with pain. Red raw and bleeding. Whole body aching from the impact of the fall.

  Remembering something stupid. That battlefield Medikit of hers. How he’d scoffed at it, only a day ago –

  – and how he wished he had it now.

  Wishing she was there. Wishing he’d told her that he cared. All that time, she’d been looking after him – and she was brilliant, so brilliant, she could do things he never even knew about – and all he’d done was argue with her –

  – and weeping –

  – weeping –

  – weeping into the night.

  Chapter Eight

  Lucky dreamed of the stars again that night.

  He dreamed they were calling to him once more. Making that small, soft, silvery sound, like the chime of a faraway bell. Trying to tell him something so important, it would change everything, if he could only understand it.

  And in his dream, Lucky rose up and soared through space, into the swirling stars and constellations.

  He rose higher and higher, until the sound wasn’t distant any more. It was all around him now, surrounding him with waves of overwhelming power, closer and clearer than ever before.

  It was as near as his own thoughts; like hearing voices in his head. Many voices, in unison, the harmonies ringing out as the sound grew richer, deeper, stronger.

  And then he knew. The sound was a song.

  The stars were singing.

  The meaning of the song lay in its words, if only he could grasp them. But they were so elusive. Already, the song was slipping away from him.

  He reached out his hands to touch it –

  – and woke up with a violent start.

  He was in the Alien ship. He was alone, flat on his back by the airlock. The floor around him was scorched black. The metal had been badly burned. It had twisted out of shape, bubbled and bent back on itself; it was barely recognizable as metal any more. It looked like a lunar landscape.

  He himself was unharmed, though his knees hurt, his hands felt raw, and a headache blazed behind his eyes. He was soaked in sweat. Exhausted.

  And totally naked.

  Lucky hugged himself, but couldn’t stop shaking. Where are my clothes? What’s going on?

  The memory of a dream flickered at the edge of his mind . . . and slipped away.

  He clambered to his feet. A cloud of smoke and ashes rose around him. He brushed the ashes off his skin, and realized with a sickening jolt that they were the remnants of his clothes. It had happened again. Just like the burned bedsheet at home. This thing that scared his mother so much she’d made them leave home: it had happened again.

  Why does this keep happening? What’s wrong with me?!

  Lucky had no answers. Only pain, like a great burning hole in his heart where his mother used to be.

  He felt so lost without her. How could he survive alone? At that moment he would’ve given anything to have her back, looking after him, taking charge, making plans. Whatever the truth of this terrifying mystery, she would’ve found a way to make it all better again. But now she was gone, and there was nothing left. Not even a crumb of those chocolate brownies he’d pushed away . . .

  He felt such a wave of homesickness, he almost gave up, right there.

  Lucky, my love, you keep yourself safe, OK?

  He forced himself to focus. Survival. His survival. That was what she gave her life for, and that was what mattered now. He had to find his own way in the galaxy. He pushed everything else out of his mind, because if he let himself think about what had just happened, he knew he would break into a thousand tiny pieces, and would never put himself together again.

  First things first: he was still naked. But the bag she’d packed for him was undamaged, on the other side of the cabin. He opened it, and quickly dressed himself in new clothes, making a bandage for his knees by ripping a shirt into strips.

  OK. So. What now?

  Lucky looked around the cabin of the Alien ship. It was nothing like his fantasies of glamorous starships. Even where it wasn’t burned, every surface looked dusty and dilapidated. The floor was rusty metal, held together by loose rivets. He couldn’t even see the ceiling, because it was so covered in cobwebs.

  The broken vidscreens on the walls crackled and buzzed with static. He’d hoped to see the stars from a starship, but these screens were so old and damaged, he could barely see the view outside at all.

  He couldn’t have felt more isolated. The only people he could talk to now were a crew of Aliens, capable of ripping his head off.

  He forced himself to remember that this was his mother’s plan. He was only here because she trusted them, somehow.

  But I can’t, he thought. Can I?

  No way. And I can’t trust the government, not after what the Shadow Guards did.

  So who can I trust? Who’s going to look after me now?

  He remembered the vidpic on his bedroom wall. A handsome man with a moustache, in a starship commander’s uniform. He’d been watching over Lucky protectively, smiling down at him beneath the blazing stars of a spiral nebula.

  My father.

  He’s still out there, somewhere. And he knows what’s happening to me – he warned her it was going to happen, so he must know . . .

  His fingers dug into his palms, gripping onto this idea, because it was all there was.

  Find my father. That’s what I’ve got to do.

  A sharp voice broke into his thoughts.

  ‘So, Groundling? What do you think of our ship?’

  He jumped back, startled. Bixa Quicksilver was standing behind him. He hadn’t heard her enter the c
abin. But there she was, the needles in her hair glinting electric neon colours. She wasn’t wearing her mirrorshades, and without them, Lucky was dazzled by the silver fire that burned in her eyes.

  He looked down at her huge black cloven hooves. Then up at the needles again. He couldn’t speak. The hole inside him burned. His mother knew how to talk to these Aliens; she knew what to say and do. He didn’t.

  But he needed the Aliens’ help if he was ever going to find his father.

  ‘I need to see the Captain,’ he made himself say. ‘Can you take me to him?’

  ‘Making demands already?’ She crossed her arms, like a solid wall in front of her. ‘Let’s get something straight right now. You try anything, Groundling, and you’ll regret it. You do just one thing that damages this ship, or brings us into any more danger . . .’ She left the threat hanging there in mid-air.

  ‘OK,’ gulped Lucky.

  Bixa looked down and inspected the scorched, blackened ground around the airlock. ‘Hmm. How did this get so burned?’ she asked.

  His heart quivered. If she knew it had happened around him, while he was asleep –

  Promise me you will never, ever tell anyone what happened here.

  – but she didn’t seem to know. ‘Those shadowships must be even more powerful than I thought,’ she said. ‘Well, I guess it’s time we redecorated in here.’ She tapped the ground with her long slim fingers. There was a rippling sound, and everything started to change. The walls, the ceiling, the floor: every surface was suddenly unstable.

  Lucky felt dizzy. He couldn’t even trust his own eyes any more. But he soon realized what was happening. The ship was cleaning itself, using some kind of Alien technology. As he watched, cobwebs fell away. Dust disappeared. Rust deoxidized and became solid metal.

  The cabin still looked old, but as it renewed itself, signs began to appear that it must once have been something very grand.

  It was like a cathedral in space. The ceiling vaulted high above his head in silver arches, which flowed down into the floor through graceful columns, every line curving and connecting organically. And as Bixa tapped the vidscreens on the walls, they stopped crackling with static. Instead of showing the view outside, they started to glow from within, filling with vivid colours and light, like stained glass.

  Vidpics now began to appear on the screens. They were images of people, but the most amazing people Lucky had ever seen. They were vast and powerful: more like gods than ordinary people. Some of them had wings and haloes. Others wielded tridents, scythes, flaming swords; bolts of thunder and lightning. A few held entire worlds in their hands.

  ‘Who – who are those people?’ he asked, scalp prickling with the strangeness of it.

  ‘The Twelve Astraeus, of course.’

  ‘The twelve who?’

  Bixa didn’t reply. She tapped the ground, and a substantial stove appeared. Beside it rose a table and some spherical silver chairs, while swathes of fabric dropped down from the ceiling, like hammocks. It was as if a kitchen, a dining room and a bedroom were being jammed into a cathedral, with no boundaries between them at all.

  But Lucky hardly noticed; he couldn’t look away from the glowing figures on the vidscreens. ‘Are they characters from your myths and legends?’ he guessed.

  ‘Go ahead and laugh, if you think it’s so funny,’ Bixa growled. Her needles flashed danger-signal red.

  ‘Huh? Why would I laugh?’

  ‘Because you’re just like every other Groundling I ever met!’ she said, stamping a hoof on the floor. Her fingers curled into fists of rage.

  He backed away, heart thumping in his throat, hands up, helpless. ‘Look, if you’re really going to hurt me,’ he managed to say, ‘just get it over with!’

  She blinked. A strange expression came into her silver eyes – but whatever it was, it wasn’t anger. Slowly, her needles cooled; her fists uncurled. She tapped the walls, and the lights went down in the cabin. ‘Well, we’re all done in here,’ she said quietly. ‘You wanted to see the Captain, right?’

  ‘Uh – yes?’ he said, surprised.

  ‘Then come with me. ’Cos he wants to see you.’

  Chapter Nine

  Bixa strode away down a cloistered corridor, her hooves clicking confidently on the curving floor. Lucky trailed along behind her, losing his balance and stumbling with every step, until they reached an arched doorway.

  Through it was a cabin lit with candles and sticks of incense, and more vidscreens that glowed like stained glass, showing those mysterious figures Bixa had called the Twelve Astraeus. In the centre of the cabin was a fur-covered bed. An Alien lady was tucked up inside it.

  She was old, like someone from another age, but she was grand as well. She was wearing a robe of turquoise and gold, blazing with colour like a peacock’s feathers. A matching headscarf covered her hair. She had golden rings on every finger. Captain Nox and Frollix stood on either side of her bed. The Captain was holding the astrolabe, and they seemed to be arguing about something. But as Lucky and Bixa entered the cabin, the lady looked up and saw them, and her eyes shone with fire as golden as her rings.

  She stared right into Lucky’s eyes. Her gaze seemed to reach directly into his brain. A worrying thought flashed through his mind: They eat eyeballs! Is that why she’s staring into my eyes like that? Does she want to eat my eyeballs?!

  He began to sweat. It felt very warm in this cabin, and very light, as if gravity was lower than elsewhere on the ship. There was a strange smell in the air: a mixture of gunpowder, chocolate and spice.

  The Alien lady drew her furs tight around herself, and then spoke at last. ‘Welcome to the Sunfire,’ she said. ‘My name is Mystica Grandax.’

  ‘And I’m Lucky.’

  ‘Are you quite sure?’

  ‘Of course! I mean – it’s my name,’ he replied. But as he spoke, he couldn’t help remembering the Shadow Guard’s words. Diana Ashbourne: we know who you really are. We know your real name, and we know what you’ve done.

  There was so much he’d never known about his mother. He never even knew her real name. Maybe he’d never known his own?

  ‘Well, Lucky – or whatever your name is,’ said Mystica. ‘I heard what happened in the spaceport. I am sorry about your mother. What she did was courageous, and we will not forget it.’

  ‘What exactly did happen, back there in the port?’ Captain Nox cut in. ‘Why were the Shadow Guards after you? Why did your mother . . . do what she did?’

  The words were like knives in Lucky’s belly. He shut his eyes, trying to hold back the feelings that were rising up inside him. ‘I don’t know. That’s the scariest thing. They wanted something – and she knew what it was – but she never told me.’

  ‘Well . . .’ said the Captain. ‘Do you know what her plans were, at least? She asked me to take you somewhere safe; a remote moon, perhaps . . .’

  Lucky didn’t know what to say. How could that possibly help him to find his father? He knew he had to be strong here, to stand up for what he wanted, but it was so hard to speak with those fiery eyes on him.

  Frollix stood up and tended to the candles, which were burning low. ‘That don’t make sense, Captain! Shouldn’t we take him to his family? Where’s your family, kid?’

  Lucky peered at the enormous Alien, his mother’s words echoing in his mind. They’re not devils. They’re people, just like you and me. Was it possible that they really might help him?

  ‘The only family I know about is my father,’ he made himself reply. ‘He’s in the War Zone, beyond the Spacewall. So that’s where I want to go.’

  Captain Nox’s eyes burned. ‘Do you have any idea what you’re saying?’ His huge grey horns glinted in the candlelight, casting long shadows.

  ‘Isn’t that where the Alien worlds are?’ said Lucky. ‘Isn’t it your home?’

  ‘Not any more.’ The Captain looked down. ‘There are . . . things . . . out there.’

  ‘What sort of things?’ said Lucky, feeling cold at
the thought of something that could scare this formidable Alien.

  But the Captain wouldn’t say any more. ‘If that’s where your father is,’ he growled, ‘then forget about him. We’ll do what your mother wanted: drop you on a nice safe moon—’

  ‘I’m not going to forget about my father!’ Lucky shuddered, and forced himself to press on. ‘I’m going to find him, whatever it takes. I don’t want to go to some moon; I’m going to the War Zone.’

  There was a moment of silence. The Aliens looked at each other.

  ‘But . . . where in the War Zone, exactly?’ said the old lady. ‘It covers half the galaxy, you know. How do you plan to find him in the middle of all that?’

  Lucky had no answer. The cabin felt like it was beginning to spin around him, and only one thing was clear: just how hard it was going to be to find his father.

  ‘Hey, don’t look so sad!’ said Frollix. ‘There must be something, some clue. What else do you know about him?’

  ‘Not much. He’s been fighting in the War since before I can remember, and my mother never liked talking about him. I’ve only got one thing of his: the astrolabe.’

  ‘So why don’t you use it to find him?’ said Bixa.

  Lucky blinked; a spark of hope flickered inside him. ‘Could it do that?’

  ‘It certainly could,’ said Captain Nox, ‘if it was working properly. Astrolabes are the most powerful navigational devices ever made. They can find anything in the galaxy, from a person to a planet . . . But yours is the most temperamental I’ve ever seen. It gave me just enough to plot a course, but no more. I believe there’s something wrong with it.’ He held the black metal disc out to Lucky. ‘You see? Not a single glimmer of light.’

  Lucky took the astrolabe, and held it in his hands. It was true. There was no silver glow. The symbols around its circumference weren’t even visible. It just looked like dead black metal.

  But it was a relief to hold it again. It felt so good to have it back. It made him feel closer to his father; made him believe he really could find him, out there in infinite space.

  ‘Look!’ breathed Mystica.