Vale of Stars

by Sean O'Brien

  She resisted the urge to glance at Arnson, but she was sure he was smiling smugly just outside the transmission booth. Jene took another deep breath and willed her eyes to remain dry. Forgive me.

  “Shipmates, I recommend full and total resistance to the Council! Armed insurrection may be the only hope for our children and our colony!” Jene saw Arnson bolt into the control room and she knew she had only seconds more before she was cut off. As she spoke, she watched Arnson frantically shouting at the technician.

  “The Council has taken my family hostage in order to pressure me to speak against my views. In a few moments, they will stop this transmission. They can silence me, but they cannot silence all of Ship if you rise up against them!” Jene saw Arnson look at her from the other side of the glass. He was no longer shouting, but looking icily at her. She stopped talking and folded her hands in her lap, waiting patiently for him to enter.

  Arnson left the control room and came around to the transmission booth. “That was unwise, Doctor.”

  “You should have made me record my speech first,” Jene said softly.

  Arnson smiled without mirth. “I see that. I had hoped your love for your family would have been enough.”

  Jene fought to keep her composure at the remark.

  Arnson continued coolly, “Surely you must know that my security force can quell any uprising your transmission may have initiated. I am afraid that I cannot let you go now—you must agree that your inflammatory statements cannot be considered protected speech. You are hereby under arrest and will be confined to the Panoptikon. Constable, restrain her inside the observation deck then report to your precinct for riot control.” He looked back at Jene. “You’ll be able to see your petty revolution put down from up here.”

  The constable grabbed Jene, none too gently, and shoved her ahead of him towards the observation deck. Arnson went the other way, toward the Council Chamber.

  “Don’t give me any trouble, Doctor,” The constable said in a low rumble. “I know what you did to Jaq.”

  Jene stared at him until she realized what he meant: Jaq must be the constable she had shocked in the hospital. “How is he?” she asked with genuine concern. The guilt from that incident had been hovering in her mind for hours but had been deferred until now. This constable guiding her roughly to her jail had brought it to the surface.

  “He’ll be fine. Burns here and there.” He looked accusingly at her. “He’s a good man. He didn’t want to hit the girl.”

  “What?”

  “That’s why he didn’t shoot you. That other doctor said if he missed and hit the girl being operated on, she might have died. I talked to him about it.”

  Jene swallowed. “I…I’m sorry. Can I…can you tell him that for me?”

  The constable shook his head. “He’s probably not in the hospital any more. He’s not supposed to be on active duty, but after what you just did, I expect they’ll call him up.”

  Jene did not answer. She knew very well what must be happening below her. Shipmates who had supported her views and who were already inclined to hate the Council and its authority would unleash their hatred on the few constables who were on the surface first, then the pro-Council shipmates would try to stop the protests, and all would escalate. There would be assaults, some with fists, some with makeshift weapons. There would certainly be injuries, possibly deaths.

  But the lives she was most concerned about were those of her partner and child.

  “Look, Constable,” she said, stopping her progress just short of the observation room doorway by grabbing onto a guide rail, “I am truly sorry for what I had to do. I don’t want violence but Councilman Arnson left me no choice. I’m sorry your friend is out there in danger, but I put my friends and family in greater danger. Can you tell me where my partner and daughter are?”

  He hesitated, and Jene took the opportunity to press him. “I just want to make sure they’re safe. If I knew where they were, I’d feel much better.”

  “I…can’t tell you that. But I will tell you that we have received no orders to hurt them. They really are in protective custody, you know. Councilman Arnson doesn’t want to hurt them, or you, or anyone.”

  Jene couldn’t help but smile slightly. Under other circumstances, the constable’s almost blind loyalty would be admirable. He truly believed Arnson’s lies. Jene could not find it within her to hate or even dislike the lawman. On the contrary—she found herself warming to his simple-minded obedience and gentle manner. Perhaps she could appeal to him directly.

  “What’s your name, Constable?”

  “Rik,” he said automatically, then nodded with compensatory gruffness towards the observation room door, indicating Jene was to enter. She turned but kept talking as she floated through the doorway.

  “Okay, Rik, can I ask you for a favor?” She said, turning to face him once she had entered the Observation room.

  “Look, Doctor, you know I can’t let you see your family. Councilman Arnson—”

  “No, no, Rik. I don’t need to, if you will agree to something for me.”

  “What?” He seized her shoulders and spun her around. Jene felt the adhesive of restraint tape on her wrists.

  She twisted her head around so she could look at him. What she had to say needed to be said with the eyes as well as the voice. “Tell me you will make sure they stay safe.”

  Rik finished tying her wrists together, somewhat less tightly than doctrine dictated, then gently spun her back around to face him. He looked at her, the beginnings of admiration in his eyes at the question and the implicit trust behind it.

  “I will see to it,” he said.

  Jene smiled a little and sighed—a deep, soul-cleansing sigh. “Thank you, Rik. I won’t cause any more trouble for you.”

  Rik nodded grimly, already thinking about where he was about to go—into the heart of a riot that spanned his entire world. Jene could see the man’s loyalty to appointed (or self-appointed) authority battling with his proletarian ideology. Before he closed the door completely on her, Jene added, “I trust you, Rik. You will do the right thing. I know it.”

  And he closed the door, gently.

  Chapter 5

  Jene could not make out the identities of individual figures below her, but she could see the battle unfold. It was difficult to think of the scurrying specks below her as people—far, far easier on the conscience to imagine they were indeed the ants they resembled from her position. The surreal, soundless images of warfare—no other word would suffice—continued for hours. Jene forgot the aching hunger in her belly and the pressure of her bladder as she floated, hands still bound behind her back, above her world as it tore itself apart.

  She could see the hospital in flames. Most of the fighting seemed to be concentrated there. As she watched, she saw a portion of the building collapse on itself, dozens of tiny people fleeing the area. She looked away when she thought she saw some of them on fire.

  Wherever she looked, however, she saw the war. The university, a tight group of six buildings on the opposite side of Ship from the hospital, was another source of heavy fighting. A shapeless mob of people clashed in the quadrangle, their affiliations unknown to Jene. She had no way of telling which of the combatants were on her side and which were trying to reassert Council authority. Most of the people who were not fighting hand-to-hand in the quadrangle were clustered around one of the buildings near a ground floor corner. Many of the people were carrying rectangular shields—or were they placards? Jene could only barely make out small objects being thrown at the building—rocks, or possibly bricks. As she watched, a fulisade of tiny sparks shot from the building and the group dispersed suddenly. When the crowd was gone, Jene could see dozens of individuals lying motionless on the ground where they had either been shot by the sparks or trampled by their own compatriots.

  Jene closed her eyes and tried to shut out the horror below. She could not, however, ignore the pain in her soul; it was she who had plunged her world into vio
lent chaos.

  She must have slept at some point, for she woke with a start at the sound of a loud metallic banging on the door to the observation room. She heard sounds of shouting and fighting beyond the door. A quick scan of Ship below did not help her orient herself in time—the sunrod was still burning, but that meant nothing. If Arnson wanted to, he could keep the sunrod on indefinitely. No doubt he would if it offered his forces a tactical advantage.

  There was a sickening, meaty sound of metal on flesh from beyond the door—Jene saw the door buckle inwards. Jene heard a ragged cheer from the other side of the door and forced herself to full wakefulness. The pain in her shoulders would have to wait.

  The door burst open and a body came hurtling through the doorway. Behind it was a mob, cheering and brandishing all manner of weapons. The body, in the uniform of a constable, cartwheeled through the air in the telltale starfish pose of the dead or unconscious. The constable’s body bumped into a wall and rebounded towards Jene. With a sick feeling she recognized Rik’s bloody face. She swam awkwardly towards his gently spinning body and tried to orient herself in the microgravity to examine him. She was hampered by her inability to maneuver in free fall and by her bound wrists.

  She heard her name from the doorway. Three of the mob wormed their way through the doorway and floated inexpertly to her. They cut through the adhesive tape, asking her if she was all right. Jene turned to the crowd and shrank away at the excitement and lust for battle in the faces of the mob. She knew what they must be thinking—they had rescued their leader! The fact that the mob was in the Panoptikon meant the revolution must have been carried through successfully. She did not stop to ask the men and women of the crowd what had happened. Instead, she continued her examination of Rik’s body and took his pulse. He had several gaping holes in his torso that were oozing globules of blood. Jene withdrew her hand from his neck. He had no pulse, a fact Jene realized she should have inferred from the man’s wounds. Had he been alive, blood would have been coming out of his body more forcefully.

  His heart had stopped, but he was still warm. He must have been shot defending the observation room. Dragging Rik with her, Jene started moving slowly and awkwardly through the air towards a wall so she could begin CPR, but by now the observation room was thick with revolutionaries.

  “Get away, dammit! This man is dying! I’ve got to save him!” She tried to push her way past the thronging crowd, but it was no use. There were simply too many bodies in free fall around her. “We’ve got to get him down to the surface and get him to the hospital!”

  “Why?” The cry came from an unidentified voice in the crowd. Jene could hear murmurs of approval ripple through the multitude. She continued to the nearest wall and bumped into it. She spent what seemed an eternity in maneuvering Rik’s body, flattening it as best she could against the wall. Her ears heard the indistinct sounds of disapproval around her but her brain refused to process the words.

  She started chest compressions on Rik and found that the slight rebound from his sternum caused her to float away slowly. She could not get purchase for more than a few thrusts at a time.

  “You there! Hold my feet!” She shouted at a nearby revolutionary. He stared at her and looked at her feet.

  “What for?”

  “So that I can….” Jene realized the fault in her thinking. If the man held her without being himself anchored, she would gain nothing. It would take many people to form some kind of chain so that she could continue compressions.

  And what then? Jene felt tears running down her cheeks. She had not even realized she had been crying. The futility of trying to save Rik in the microgravity was too much for her. She rounded on the young man nearest her and shouted, “You want to kill? Is that what this was all about?” The mob grew quiet at her words. “We’ve come all this way, five generations of humanity, over one hundred years, to tear ourselves apart even as we reach the conclusion of the journey?”

  “This is what you wanted!” said another voice.

  “I never wanted this!” She threw Rik’s body angrily into the mob. She herself tumbled away from the body, the crowd becoming a nauseating whirl of faces as she spun crazily about. She felt arms steady her and right her.

  “What have I done?” she whispered.

  Another voice, this time from the doorway, rang out. “We’ve got control of the Council Chamber and the Council itself! Ship is ours!

  A deafening cheer went up from the mob in the observation room. Men and women exchanged embraces and private moments of exhilaration all around Jene, who worked her way slowly towards the door.

  The bright-faced youngster guarding the door took a moment before recognizing her. “Doctor Halfner!”

  Jene said urgently, “There were two prisoners of the Council before this all started. A Gen Four male and a Gen Five girl, about five years old.”

  The teenager shook his head. “I haven’t seen anyone like that up here, but it’s pretty crazy right now.”

  Jene pushed past him and entered the long corridor of the Panoptikon proper.

  It was a madhouse. Scores of jubilant revolutionaries floated everywhere, the occasional bound and helpless constable floating among them like a slow-motion volleyball. There was no organization whatsoever. Jene spent hours floating among the mob, asking anyone who could hear her if they had seen Kuarta and Renold. She was well-recognized in the crowd, and as she passed, many of the revolutionaries shook her hand or embraced her.

  “Doctor Halfner!”

  She whirled at the sound and saw Delores, the medical student who had agreed with her at the cafeteria table, waving frantically in the air. She had a red scarf tied to her upper arm.

  Jene pushed aside three floating revolutionaries and made her way to Delores.

  “Have you seen my husband and daughter?” Jene had to shout to make herself heard over the noise of celebration.

  Delores’ smile faded slightly. “No. Are they up here?”

  “I think so.” Jene turned away, ready to continue to search.

  “Doctor, I wanted to tell you.…” Delores started. Jene turned to face her.

  “What?” Jene looked at the young woman tiredly. Her scarf was in Jene’s field of vision, and what she had taken as an emblem or identifying mark was in fact a bandage, soaked through with blood. “Were you at the hospital?”

  Delores nodded.

  “What happened?”

  “The constables showed up and tried to take control. They got inside and got a lot of help from the staff, but some of us fought back.” Grim triumph filled her eyes. “We were pushing them out when the fire started. I think some of the deputies did it.”

  “Deputies?”

  Delores nodded. “The constabulary deputized about eight hundred men and women early in the fighting. I think they started the fire.”

  Jene shuddered as she remembered the scene. “How many were killed?”

  “I don’t know. Twenty, maybe. Mostly patients.”

  Delores relayed the datum with such coldness that Jene did not trust herself to speak. The macabre irony in the story seemed to be lost on Delores. The very people the war was meant to save had been killed in the fighting.

  “Any staff?” Jene asked finally.

  “Doctor Werner.”

  Jene stared at Delores, searching for any sign of emotion and found none.

  Jene did not feel like fighting again. She simply placed her hand on Delores’ shoulder and said, “Thanks.” She turned away before she lost control of her mask of composure and revealed the disgust beneath.

  Then, suddenly, she saw Kuarta. She was being carried by a man Jene recognized from the hospital—Bobby Yancey’s father.

  “Kuarta!” Jene shouted above the din. She shoved her way through the crowd towards her.

  “Mommy!”

  The two collided awkwardly, both trying to embrace the other. Jene held Kuarta for a long time before she noticed her daughter was crying hysterically.

  “It’s
okay, sweet. I’m here. Where’s—” But before she could complete the question, she could see the answer in her daughter’s eyes.

  Kuarta stammered, “The constables took him away and then brought him back. Then he was…not moving and he was bleeding, Mommy! He said ‘I love you, Kuarta,’ then…he closed his eyes and…and he stayed that way.” Kuarta buried her head in her mother’s breast and burrowed into her. Jene felt her daughter trying to find a place within her where everything was understandable and where her father was alive. Jene tried with all her might to make that place exist inside her but could not. Their world had been forever darkened.

  Bobby Yancey’s father floated a few feet away, unmoving and silent. Jene finally found his eyes and mouthed a silent “thank you” to him.

  He answered in kind. “Thank you, for Bobby.”

  Jene nodded, just a little, but something in Mr. Yancey’s eyes stopped her.

  “He’s dead,” Mr. Yancey said.

  Jene closed her eyes like she had in the observation room. This time, it didn’t help.

  * * *

  Jene woke up some time later in her own bed, her arm draped awkwardly across…Renold? No. She realized, despite her attempts at self-deception, that it was Kuarta’s sleeping form nestled against her. She did not remember boarding a shuttle to the surface, nor did she remember crawling into bed with her daughter.

  She could not completely label the mélange of emotion she felt as she became acutely awake, but that did not stop her from feeling it. Mostly, she had a sense of foreboding. She did not yet miss Renold—her sorrow was for the future when she would. Looking at Kuarta sleeping beside her, she realized that her own pain would not equal her daughter’s. The thought that she would have to help her daughter overcome the loss helped to mitigate her own selfish pain. She tried to mourn Renold, but she found it was too easy to pretend that he was simply elsewhere in Ship, busy at work trying to calm emotions after the fighting. She could accept the revolution far easier than she could fully accept Renold’s death. She had seen the same inability to face truth in the few colonists who had lost loved ones through accidents—she had respected the survivors’ reactions without fully understanding them. Now she did. Her brain could accept Renold’s death, but her heart could not.