Sing Down the Stars

by Nerine Dorman

  This went on until lunch time, when Nuri’s eyes were so scratchy, she was half asleep. She was ridiculously glad to be out and away from those stuffy classrooms – stepping into the corridor with the dozens of other recruits was a refreshing slap in the face.

  What followed after lunch was much, much better.

  Combat training. Athletics. Basic weapons proficiency. These were classes they had with Raphel.

  This was all stuff she was already good at, which made it easier for her to deal with the sniggers from the Nasty Girls (as F’Thr called them) – Stasja’s other friends, who were, according to Stasja, so much cooler than her own squad. Nuri, despite being smaller than most, could run faster, climb higher and jump further than the others. Granted, as Raphel said, she didn’t have the stamina for the longer distances, but that would come with time.

  Avatars needed to be prepared for any situation, Raphel stated.

  “You may be required to negotiate for a hostage’s release,” said Raphel. “Or perhaps act as a judge in a territorial dispute that affects your client’s trade. You may have to fight your way out of a barroom brawl. The point is, you never know where star-jumper business will lead you.”

  “It all sounds terribly dull,” Opna said quietly, but then he never really tried, and Nuri realised he wasn’t interested in being Chosen.

  It was becoming more and more apparent to her that being Chosen wasn’t something all the recruits took seriously. For many it was a diversion. Spoilt Elder, Merchanter and Military brats – here she was, bleeding grateful for a meal in her belly and clean clothes. But she held back her words, remembering Facilitator Alda’s stern warning about not betraying her origins.

  Nuri tried not to concern herself too much with the others, but since she’d arrived at the base so late, and didn’t exactly look like anyone else, she feared she’d become a natural target. She’d seen this at the barrens, so she made herself ready, just in case.

  The comments started in tea break during the late afternoon. Two of the Nasty Girls, whispering and giggling in a way that was meant to be overheard but not challenged.

  There was nothing new about “space trash”, but the comments were about her looking like she was diseased, with the faint spattering of scales on her cheeks and arms. This led to “Snake-girl” or “Fish-face”. And her eyes – that her pupils shrank into slits whenever the light was particularly bright. “Goblin” was another name that cropped up, or “Goblin-ears”, because few races had pointed ears like hers. Nuri tried to avoid this one by pulling her coveralls’ hood low.

  “Just ignore them,” F’Thr muttered. “They’ll stop if they don’t get a rise out of you. I get called ‘squidface’ and ‘wormy’ often enough.”

  “We’ll get them back,” Opna said, with a wicked grin. “No one calls me ‘the lump’ anymore.”

  “What they said,” Mei added, nodding. “They’ll get bored once the novelty wears off. They were weird with me too, because I’m from Old Terra. No one’s from Old Terra much these days. ‘Museum specimen’ was the kindest one, but I got ‘chink’ and ‘gook’ too.”

  Yet when Nuri was taking a shower late that afternoon before dinner, her towel was yanked out of her cubicle. And when she crossed the floor of the busy female bathroom, horribly conscious of being naked, she discovered her clean clothes had mysteriously vanished. Amid nasty titters, she had to pull on her dirty coveralls and return to her dorm. What got her the most was the fact that most of the other girls merely wouldn’t look at her or even acknowledge that she’d had this prank pulled on her. Their gazes slid past her, and that stung.

  Next time she’d take her clothes into the shower stall with her, even if it meant they got wet from the spray.

  Those awful females didn’t know what it was like to sleep hungry. They didn’t know what it was like to be chased by knife-wielding gangsters. None of them had had to break into a place to steal things and then run for their lives when the bots caught them on their sensors.

  They could do nothing to her. This was all temporary.

  And yet their words were little splinters that wriggled beneath her skin. When the lights were turned off, these tiny jabs multiplied, so that she lay awake most of the night, staring at the bunk above her bed until the shadows seem to pool and swarm about like living things in her vision.

  It’d worked for her in the Den, to keep her head down. And it had helped that she’d been a good runner; Vadith might punish her with bathroom duty from time to time, but he’d never tolerate the other runners being too mean. Besides, they’d been a team – for all their faults, they’d been pack.

  Here. Well. She had her new friends, but they couldn’t always shield her. And neither could she expect them to.

  So what if she didn’t have the right genes or enough education. Ancestors, if it ever should get out that she’d been little more than a common criminal, there was no telling what would happen. Nuri made sure to keep that part of her past close to her heart.

  What was wrong with people?

  7

  “I have an idea.” F’Thr was dangling upside down from his bunk, his tentacles curling and uncurling fitfully. Judging by the flashes of blues and greens pulsing through his skin, he was deep in thought.

  Opna flipped up his AR lenses. “Careful, you might do yourself injury. Thinking is dangerous. One of your brains might just implode.”

  “Especially considering you don’t use them too often,” Nuri quipped.

  “Hush, you two, and listen.” F’Thr stretched until he could pour himself onto the ground. Nuri never failed to be astounded by how flexible J’Veth were – it was as if they were part liquid.

  “This had better be good.” Opna flexed his long-fingered hands. “I’m trying to shove a millennium of Alliance diplomatic conventions into my head, and if you keep distracting me, nothing will stick.”

  “This is far, far better than history.” F’Thr wriggled then side-eyed Nuri with one large, flame-orange eye. “We’re going to get the Nasty Girls good. What they did today in the dining hall was uncalled for.”

  Nuri sighed. “It’s my fault. I should have been paying more attention.”

  They’d gotten one of the smaller boys to crawl under the table and loosely tie string around Nuri’s ankles. When she’d tried to get up, she’d fallen badly, not only jarring her hip, which still smarted, but also dragging a pile of plates and mugs onto the ground with her.

  One of the Nasty Girls had captured the event and broadcast it on their intranet. A hundred-and-fifty kudos already, and Nuri suspected the video clip may even have been sneaked beyond the firewalls onto the public Net. Not that anyone in the wider world would care about her – her name meant anything to anyone other than her pack – but it bothered her that strangers might be giggling over her misfortune.

  The misfortune of a nothing, a nobody.

  “You can’t spend whatever time we have left here looking over your shoulder, Nuri,” said F’Thr.

  “But what do you propose we do?” Opna leant forward. The way he was clutching his blankets suggested he was now far more interested in mischief than in their studies.

  “Will you three cut it out?” Mei called from one of the top bunks. “I can hear you over my earphones.”

  “Told you to get the noise-cancelling ones,” Opna shot back. “Why don’t you go join Byron and Stasja in the media centre if our having a quiet conversation bothers you so much?”

  Mei’s disgusted snort was the only response she gave.

  “Right,” said F’Thr. “You remember on the run this morning, Raphel warned us about the nest of swamp-jiggers on the north-western boundary?”

  Nuri crinkled her nose. She hated those things. They’d gotten into the Den last winter, obviously to avoid rising water levels. “How could we not?”

  “Ooh,” Opna said, baring his tiny, sharp teeth, his large eyes growing bigger and darker. “Am I thinking what you’re thinking?”

  “You know what
they say about great minds,” F’Thr said.

  “But,” Nuri said, “how’re you going to catch them? They stink like … like, I dunno, like crap if you disturb them. And you can’t get rid of the smell, even if you wash three million times.”

  “I did some research,” F’Thr said. “They’re susceptible to suggestion, and that, my dear humanoid of undetermined species, is where you come in, considering you scored so high in the psi-tests this morning.”

  “Oh.” Nuri tried to recall how they’d gotten rid of their infestation back at the Den. Hadn’t Vadith called in a friend who rated highly in psi? Then she focused on F’Thr. “But I’ve never done anything with my psi, even if I am apparently gifted.” She was still bemused that her unexplored sensitivity had raised the facilitator’s eyebrows so high.

  “Surely it won’t be that hard?” Opna asked.

  “Yes, but I’ve not tried to persuade anything before. Playing ‘broken link’ once with a bunch of recruits is vastly different from trying to suggest to a wriggling mess of septic worms that they should obey me. And what exactly are you planning to do with a bunch of swamp-jiggers anyway?”

  “It’s bound to be interesting,” Opna said.

  “So long as we don’t get any of that smell on us …” Nuri was unconvinced.

  And that’s how the three of them ended up sneaking out after lights out, when everyone was supposed to be in bed. Not that it ever truly was lights out here. Something was always going on, though this was the first time Nuri had involved herself. It felt good to be out. Like old times. And she and her two new friends worked well as a team, like back when she ran with her pack.

  Thanks to her ability to see well in low light, Nuri went first. Opna and F’Thr followed, treading silently as they crossed the obstacle course, then hid behind one of the structures for a short spell while a patrol passed.

  The air was chilly, and only a few stars prickled past the smog. A shuttle drew a slow arc across the sky, green lights flashing as it ascended to one of the orbital stations. Not too far from their destination, Nuri and her friends hunched while a night creature trilled a forlorn call that sent wriggles down Nuri’s spine. If only she knew what had made that sound, she’d feel a little less nervous. Her AR might tell her, but she’d muted it.

  When they were certain there was no one else around, they crossed the last bit of ground into the forest proper, and once they had enough distance between them and the usual route used by the security guards, Nuri allowed herself to relax. She hadn’t been out at night since she’d first broken into the facility, and that had been, what, nearly three weeks ago. Amazing how her life had changed.

  Now she and her companions weaved between the trees, their footfalls cushioned by a bed of fallen leaves. They followed a stream, the water occasionally throwing back glass-like planes of reflection. Everything here had a wet, organic smell, as if the very air was alive. So different from things in the barrens or even in the training centre. Nuri felt exposed, with all the shadows and spaces around her.

  “Here we are,” F’Thr said after some time. “Bear just a little bit to your left, where that old stump is.”

  They stopped about twelve metres from the route they usually took on their morning runs. The reeds grew thick here, screening them from the path. A security bot whizzed by on its line running atop the boundary wall, and then they went ahead.

  Opna said, “Those bleeding bots give me the creeps.”

  “I’d sooner deal with them than the jiggers,” said Nuri. “Now where are these horrid things? I’d like to get this over with.”

  “Heh, the night is but a larva, my dearly beloveds!” F’Thr pointed his tentacles at a patch just to the left of the stump. “Look there, where that bit of glow is. Have you got the bag, Opna?”

  “Sure.”

  Next to Nuri, the Heran dropped to his knees, holding a plastic packet he’d scrounged from the kitchens – the labelling said it was for sand-tubers.

  “That doesn’t look too secure. Or stink-proof,” said Nuri.

  “Best I could do,” Opna murmured. His pale grey skin gleamed with a sort of luminescence in the darkness.

  “C’mon, Nuri, we don’t have all night,” F’Thr said. “I’ll keep chips, but you have exactly four minutes and thirty-three seconds before the next bot comes by, and I’d like to be making dust by then.”

  “Ancestors,” Nuri muttered then crouched next to Opna. The ground was slimy between her fingers, and she had to resist the urge to wipe them on her coveralls. Inexplicable dirt stains might draw attention once they were back.

  Until now, reaching out her psi to people during their exercises had been more her thing. From time to time she’d been able to snatch scatterings of thoughts, but now, under pressure to perform, she wasn’t entirely certain how to approach the problem of covert communication.

  Centre yourself. Breathe in, breathe out. Feel your awareness spreading out from you, like a blanket you’re slowly lowering to the ground.

  Their facilitator made it seem so simple, and those times she had picked up the message she was supposed to pass along had been thrilling. And she had heard the star-jumper’s calling, hadn’t she? She could do this.

  Nuri shut her eyes, aware of the nearby movements of small creatures, their liquid trills and pops. The wind soughed in the treetops, and Opna’s breathing was loud next to her; she almost fancied she could detect his nose slits opening and shutting. At the edge of her awareness, F’Thr was a fitful presence, his agitation a small flame fluttering. That was something she could work with, even as she took note of Opna’s surprising calm, flavoured with annoyance for being outside when he could rather be tucked into a warm bed.

  She cast out further, catching the little flickers of amphibians. Not what she looking for. Then the ground ahead of her lit up like a small constellation of bugs and creatures burrowing in the soil. And then the nest of jiggers, shining like a hot mass of wriggling, squirming slugs. Their minds were slippery too, falling between her mental grasp.

  “Another two minutes, Nuri,” F’Thr warned.

  She bit the inside of her cheek, tasted pennies. “C’mon,” she murmured, nudging, pushing with her will. You need to go into the bag. The bag is nice and warm and safe. Go, go, go.

  For a moment, the jiggers went limp, and their psi-light winked out, but then they flared and shivered, and crept in a mass, right into Opna’s bag.

  “Come, come, come!” F’Thr grabbed her by the arm.

  Opna was already up and running, the bag slung over his shoulder.

  Along the wires came the faint buzz of the next approaching bot.

  “Was that nearly five minutes?” Nuri asked once they were deep among the trees.

  “Yeah, you kinda spaced out,” F’Thr said.

  “Like you were blissed,” Opna added. “Creepy. Your eyes got all glowy.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Nuri replied, suppressing a shudder. She’d never really liked watching anyone busy with creepy mind stuff. That she’d had these powers all along was a further factoid she could file under ‘weird stuff is weird’.

  For some reason, the journey back to the dorms didn’t take as long or seem as tense as their mission to get to the swamp-jiggers. Maybe it was because she was falling back into a familiar routine, moving from shadow to shadow, stopping, listening, being careful about where she put her feet so that she didn’t accidentally step on a twig or dislodge gravel.

  The Nasty Girls were in a dorm room on the other side of their building, on the third floor. This late at night, few folks would still be awake, so the three friends hurried along the corridors. The swamp-jiggers didn’t like being in the bag, and they curled and slapped about, making the interior grey with their slime.

  Whenever Opna swung the bag, Nuri swore she caught a whiff of something so nose-achingly pungent she couldn’t decide if it was excrement or days-old dead rat.

  “What about the cameras?” Nuri hissed, pointing at the sensors as they ran up
the stairs. Damn it, she hated thinking about these things after the fact.

  “We’re way ahead of you,” F’Thr said. “Disabled them when we came in. System’s been hinky for days, so the AI won’t be concerned.”

  In other words, F’Thr had been brewing this mischief way before he’d roped her and Opna into his scheme. She didn’t know whether to be alarmed or secretly pleased.

  “But we don’t have much time. We’ll need to be in our dorm within a few.”

  They only had a short bit of passage to go. Opna knelt and Nuri obliged by ‘nudging’ the jiggers under the door. Now the pong from the bag made her think of a combination of sick and runny canid turd, and her stomach heaved.

  As it was, Opna didn’t have the guts to pick up the bag. The way he reflexively wiped his hands as they sprinted back down to the second floor, Nuri didn’t need to be psi-gifted to know he was going to feel the texture of the slimy jiggers through the bag for days.

  Mei and Stasja were fast asleep, and barely stirred when Nuri closed the door behind her, F’Thr and Opna, but Byron was sitting atop his bunk, and he swung his torch beam right in their faces. Ancestors, the light hurt. Nuri threw up her hands to shield her face.

  “Aw, gee, B, what the hell?” F’Thr rasped. “You know what bright lights do to us at night!”

  The older boy jumped down from the bunk and strode to them, waving the torch. “Who gave you three leave to be absent from the dorms after curfew?”

  “What, are you going to report us?” F’Thr snapped back.

  “No, because – ”

  Opna giggled. “I give it a three, two –”

  That’s when the first piercing shrieks echoed down the passages.

  8

  It took the facilitators under thirty minutes to establish who was guilty. Whether it was the AI or someone had snitched on them, Nuri couldn’t figure out – but that wasn’t important, was it? Nuri had to give the organisation credit as she, F’Thr and Opna answered the summons that saw them trudging to the facilitators’ offices shortly before midnight.