To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

by Christopher Paolini

  Blinding pain exploded in Kira’s face. An involuntary cry escaped her, and she felt the man squirming in his shirt, trying to tear free.

  “Stp it!” she said as tears flooded her eyes and blood clogged her nose and throat.

  The man swung his head back again. This time he caught her right on the chin. It hurt. A lot. Kira lost her grip, and the man twisted out of her arms.

  She grabbed him again, and he took a swing at her, sending them tumbling.

  “Thts engh!” she shouted, angry.

  At the words, a spike shot from her chest and stabbed the man through the ribs. He stared at her with disbelief, and then he convulsed, and his eyes rolled back in his skull. Blots of red spread across his shirt.

  Across the hold, the four other Numenists cried out.

  Horror immediately replaced Kira’s anger. “No! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t—” With a slithery sensation, the spike retracted.

  “Here!” said Vishal. He tossed her a line from by the wall. Kira caught it without thinking, and the doctor reeled her and the Numenist in. “Hold him still,” said Vishal. He ripped open the side of the man’s shirt and, with a small applicator, sprayed medifoam into the wound.

  “Will he—” Kira started to ask.

  “He’ll live,” said Vishal, hands still working. “But I have to get him to sickbay.”

  “Trig, help the doctor,” said Nielsen, drifting over.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “As for you,” said Nielsen, pointing at the rest of the Numenists, “get out of here before I throw you out.” They started to protest, and she stopped them with a glare. “We’ll let you know when you can have your friend back. Now scram.”

  Trig took the man’s feet and Vishal his head. Then they carried him off, just as Hwa-jung had carried Sparrow.

  3.

  Kira hung by the wall, dazed. The rest of the refugees were staring at her with fear and outright hostility, but she didn’t care. In her head, the unconscious Numenist was Alan, bleeding out in her arms while the air escaped screaming through holes torn in the walls.…

  She’d lost control. Just for an instant, but she might have killed a man, same as she’d killed her teammates. This time she couldn’t put the blame on the Soft Blade; she’d wanted to hurt the Numenist, to hurt him until he stopped hurting her. The Soft Blade had only been responding to that urge.

  “Are you alright?” Nielsen asked.

  It took Kira a moment to respond. “Yeah.”

  “You need to get that looked at.”

  Kira touched her face and winced. The pain was receding, but she could feel her nose was humped and crooked. She tried to push it back into place, but the Soft Blade had already healed it too much to move. Apparently close enough was good enough where the xeno was concerned.

  “Dammit,” she murmured, feeling defeated. The nose would have to be rebroken before it could be straightened.

  “Why don’t you wait here for now,” said Nielsen. “It’s better that way, don’t you think?”

  Kira nodded numbly and watched the other woman drift off to supervise the disembarking process.

  The Entropists came over then, and Veera said, “Our apologies for causing—”

  “—such a disturbance, Prisoner. The fault is ours for telling the Numenists—”

  “—that there are greater infinities than the set of real numbers. For some reason, that offends their concept—”

  “—of the Number Supreme.”

  Kira waved her hand. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

  The Entropists bobbed their heads as one. “It seems—” said Jorrus.

  “—that we must part ways,” said Veera. “Therefore, we wished to thank you for sharing the information about your suit with us, and—”

  “—for giving us the opportunity to explore the Jelly ship—”

  “—and we wish to give you this,” said Jorrus. He handed her a small, gem-like token. It was a disk of what looked like sapphire with a fractal pattern embedded within.

  The sight of the fractal gave Kira a shiver of familiarity. The pattern wasn’t the one from her dreams, but it was similar. “What is it?”

  Veera spread her hands in a gesture of benediction. “Safe passage to the Motherhouse of our order, the Nova Energium, in orbit around Shin-Zar. We know—”

  “—you feel compelled to assist the League, and we would not dissuade you. But—”

  “—should you wish otherwise—”

  “—our order will guarantee you sanctuary. The Nova Energium—”

  “—is the most advanced research laboratory in settled space. Not even the finest labs on Earth are as well equipped … or as well defended. If anyone can rid you of this organism—”

  “—it is the minds at the Nova Energium.”

  Sanctuary. The word resonated with Kira. Touched, she pocketed the token and said, “Thank you. I may not be able to accept your offer, but it means a lot to me.”

  Veera and Jorrus slipped their hands into the opposing sleeves of their robes and clasped their forearms across their chests. “May your path always lead to knowledge, Prisoner.”

  “Knowledge to freedom.”

  Then the Entropists departed, and Kira was again alone. She didn’t have long with her thoughts before the woman, Inarë, and the cat with the unpronounceable name stopped next to her. The woman was carrying a large floral-patterned carpet bag. She had no other luggage. The cat was perched on her shoulders, every strand of its hair standing on end in the zero-g.

  The woman chuckled. “You seem to be having an interesting time of it, Ellen Kaminski.”

  “That’s not my name,” said Kira, in no mood to talk.

  “Of course it isn’t.”

  “Did you want something?”

  “Why yes,” said the woman. “Yes I do. I wanted to tell you this: eat the path, or the path will eat you. To paraphrase an old quote.”

  “Which means?”

  For once Inarë appeared serious. “We all saw what you can do. It seems you have a larger part to play than most in this dismal scheme of ours.”

  “What of it?”

  The woman cocked her head, and in her eyes Kira saw unexpected depth, as if she’d arrived at the crest of a hill to discover a yawning chasm beyond. “Only this, and this alone: circumstances press hard upon us. Soon all that will be left to you, or to any of us, is bare necessity. Before that happens, you must decide.”

  Kira frowned, almost angry. “And what exactly am I supposed to decide?”

  Inarë smiled and shocked Kira by patting her on the cheek. “Who you want to be, of course. Isn’t that what all of our decisions come down to? Now I really must be off. People to annoy, places to escape. Choose well, Traveler. Think long. Think fast. Eat the path.”

  Then the woman pushed herself away from the wall and floated out of the cargo hold into the Malpert spaceport. On her back, the large, maned cat continued to stare at Kira, and it uttered a mournful yowl.

  4.

  Eat the path. The phrase wouldn’t leave Kira’s mind. She kept turning it over, gnawing on it as she tried to understand.

  Across the hold, Hwa-jung shepherded a pair of loader bots that were pushing and pulling the four cryo pods from the Valkyrie. Through the frost-encrusted windows, Kira glimpsed Orso’s face, blue and deathly pale.

  At least she hadn’t needed to eat him to survive. He and the other three were going to be in for a hell of a shock once the UMC thawed them out and told them what had been happening while they slept.…

  “You’re a walking disaster, Navárez,” said Falconi, coming up. “That’s what you are.”

  She shrugged. “Guess so.”

  “Here.” He dug a handkerchief out of a pocket, spit on it, and without waiting for permission, started to wipe her face. Kira flinched. “Hold still. You’ve got blood everywhere.”

  She tried not to move, feeling like a kid with a dirty face.

  “There,” said Fa
lconi, stepping back. “Better. That nose needs fixing, though. You want me to do it? I’ve had some experience with broken noses.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’ll ask a doctor,” she said. “The Soft Blade already healed me, so…”

  Falconi winced. “Gotcha. Okay.”

  Outside the ship, a series of exclamations went up from the refugees arrayed before the duty officers, and Kira saw people pointing at displays along the spaceport walls. “Now what?” she said. How much more bad news could there be?

  “Let’s see,” said Falconi.

  Kira brought up her overlays and checked the local news. The malignant newcomers were continuing their rampage across the system. They’d already destroyed most of the Jellies—and been destroyed in turn themselves—but the biggest headlines concerned Ruslan. Six of the newcomers had blasted past Vyyborg Station and the rest of the planet’s defenses and landed in the capital city of Mirnsk.

  All but one.

  That one ship had aimed itself at Ruslan’s space elevator, the Petrovich Express. Despite the planet’s orbital batteries. Despite the UMC battleship, the Surfeit of Gravitas, stationed around Vyyborg. Despite the numerous lasers and missile batteries mounted around the crown and base of the mega-structure. And despite the best design-work of countless engineers and physicists … despite all of those things, the alien ship had succeeded in ramming and severing the ribbon-shaped cable of the space elevator, three-quarters of the way to the asteroid that served as a counterweight.

  As Kira watched, the upper part of the elevator (counterweight included) hurtled away from Ruslan at greater than escape velocity while the lower section began to curve toward the planet, like a giant whip wrapping around a ball.

  “Thule,” Kira murmured. The higher parts of the cable would either break off or burn up in the atmosphere. Farther down, though, close to the ground, the collapse would be devastating. It would obliterate most of the spaceport around its anchor point, as well as a long swath of land stretching off to the east. In absolute terms, the collapse wouldn’t cause that much damage, but for people close to the base, it would be an apocalyptic event. Imagining how terrified (and helpless) they had to be made her feel sick.

  Several small, spark-like flares appeared along the length of cable still attached to Ruslan.

  “What are those?” she asked.

  “Transport pods, I bet,” said Falconi. “Most of them should be able to land safely.”

  Kira shivered. Riding the beanstalk had been one of the more memorable experiences she’d had with Alan during their brief shore leave prior to the launch of the Adra survey mission. The view from high on the cable had been incredible. They’d been able to see all the way to the Numinous Flange, far to the north.… “Glad I’m not there,” she said.

  “Amen to that.” Then Falconi gestured toward the spaceport. “Captain Akawe—the captain of the Darmstadt—is ready to see us.”

  “Us?”

  Falconi gave her a clipped nod. “The liaison officer said they have some questions for me. Probably about our little excursion to the Jelly ship.”

  “Ah.” It comforted Kira to know she wouldn’t be facing the UMC by herself. Even if Falconi wasn’t a friend, she knew she could count on him to watch her back, and she figured saving Trig and Sparrow ought to have earned her some goodwill. “Alright, let’s go.”

  “After you.”

  CHAPTER X

  DARMSTADT

  1.

  From the Wallfish airlock, Falconi led Kira into a tunnel that burrowed through the rocky asteroid that Malpert was built on and in. They’d floated halfway around the circumference of the station before Kira realized they weren’t going to enter the rotating hab-ring closer to the center.

  “Akawe wants to meet on the Darmstadt,” said Falconi. “I figure they think it’s more secure. No monsters running around.”

  Kira wondered if she should be worried. Then she shrugged off the concern. It didn’t matter. At least she wouldn’t be in zero-g on the Darmstadt.

  Evidence of the fight with the newcomers was everywhere. The air smelled of smoke, the walls were scorched and pocked, and the people they passed had round, staring expressions, as if they were still in shock.

  The tunnel passed through a large dome, half of which was closed off behind doors that said Ichen Manufacturing. In front of the doors, Kira saw what remained of one of the unidentified aliens. The creature had been torn and splattered by bullets, but she could still make out its basic shape. Unlike the others, this one had black shards across its back: bone or shell, it was hard to tell. Double-jointed legs—three of them if she was counting correctly. Long, carnivorous jaw. Was that a second jaw near the prominence of the chest?

  Kira moved closer, wishing she had a chip-lab, a scalpel, and a couple of uninterrupted hours to study the specimen.

  Falconi’s hand on her shoulder stopped her. “We don’t want to keep Akawe waiting. Bad idea.”

  “Yeah…” Kira turned away from the corpse. All she wanted to do was her job, and the universe kept conspiring to prevent it. Fighting wasn’t her thing; she wanted to learn.

  So then why had she stabbed the Numenist? Rat bastard though he was, the man hadn’t deserved a blade to the chest.…

  A pair of Marines in heavy power armor was waiting for them outside the airlock to the Darmstadt. “No weapons allowed,” said the near Marine, holding up a hand.

  Falconi grimaced but unbuckled his belt and handed it and his pistol to the Marine without protest.

  The pressure door rolled open.

  “Ensign Merrick will show you the way,” said the Marine.

  Merrick—a thin, stressed-looking man with a smear of grease on his chin and a bloody bandage taped to his forehead—was waiting for them inside. “After me,” he said, leading them deeper into the UMC cruiser.

  The layout of the Darmstadt was identical to that of the Extenuating Circumstances. It gave Kira uncomfortable flashbacks of running through corridors while listening to the sounds of alarms and gunfire.

  Once they passed through the hub of the ship and transitioned to the rotating hab spokes, they were again able to walk normally, which Kira welcomed.

  Ushering them into a small meeting room with a table in the middle, Merrick said, “Captain Akawe will be with you directly.” Then he left, closing the pressure door behind him.

  Kira remained standing, as did Falconi. He seemed as conscious as she was that the UMC had them under surveillance.

  They didn’t have to wait long before the door slammed open and four men filed in: two Marines (who remained standing by the entrance) and two officers.

  The captain was easy to identify by the bars on his uniform. Of medium height, with dark skin and a five o’clock shadow, he had the over-stimmed look of someone who hadn’t gotten a proper sleep for several days. There was something about his face that struck Kira as being too symmetrical, too perfect, as if she were looking at a mannequin brought to life. It took her a moment to realize, the captain’s body was a construct.

  The other officer looked to be the second-in-command. He was lean, with a heavy jaw and creases like scars along his hollow cheeks. His short-cut hair was receding, and his eyes glowed with the deep, predatory yellow of a tigermaul’s.

  Kira had heard stories about soldiers who chose to have the gene-hack so they could see better during combat, but she’d never met anyone with the mod.

  Akawe went around the table and sat at the single chair on that side. He motioned. “Sit.” His second-in-command remained standing by his side, back regulation-straight.

  Kira and Falconi obeyed. The chairs were hard and uncomfortable, devoid of padding.

  Akawe crossed his arms and eyed them with something akin to disgust. “Goddamn. What a sorry-looking pair you are. Wouldn’t you agree, First Officer Koyich?”

  “Sir, yes I would, sir,” replied the yellow-eyed man.

  The captain nodded. “Damn right. Let me be clear here, Mr. Falconi, and Ms.
Whatever-your-name-is, I don’t have time to waste on you. There’s an honest-to-god alien invasion going on, I’ve got a damaged ship that needs attending to, and for some reason Command is chewing on my ass to get everyone from the Valkyrie shipped back to Vyyborg yesterday. They are pissed that you decided to change course and head for Malpert instead of Ruslan. If that weren’t enough, you kicked up a real hornets’ nest by boarding that Jelly ship. I don’t know what kind of bullshit you’re trying to pull, but you have exactly thirty seconds to convince me you have anything worth saying.”

  “I can understand the Jellies’ language,” said Kira.

  Akawe blinked, twice, and then said, “Somehow I doubt that. Twenty-five seconds and counting.”

  She lifted her chin. “My name is Kira Navárez, and I was the lead xenobiologist on the team sent to survey the planet Adrasteia at Sigma Draconis. Four months ago, we discovered an alien artifact on Adrasteia, which led to the destruction of the UMCS Extenuating Circumstances.”

  Akawe and Koyich exchanged glances. Then the captain uncrossed his arms and leaned forward. He templed his fingers under his chin. “Okay, Ms. Navárez, you now have my undivided attention. Enlighten me.”

  “I need to show you something first.” She raised a hand, held it palm up. “You have to promise not to overreact.”

  Akawe snorted. “I seriously doubt there is anything—”

  He stopped as a cluster of spikes emerged from her hand. Behind her, Kira heard the Marines lift their weapons, and she knew they were aiming at her head.

  “It’s safe,” she said, straining to hold the spikes in place. “Mostly.” She relaxed and allowed her palm to smooth over.

  Then she started to tell her story.

  2.

  Kira lied.

  Not about everything, but—as with the crew of the Wallfish—she lied about how her friends and teammates had died on Adra, blamed it on the Jellies. It was stupid of her; if Akawe thawed out Orso or his companions and debriefed them, her lies would become obvious. But Kira couldn’t help herself. Admitting her role in the deaths, especially Alan’s, was more than she could bear to face at the moment. If nothing else, she feared it would confirm Falconi’s worst impression of her.