To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

by Christopher Paolini

  Still testing the mobility of her new fingers, Kira climbed out of the nest. She attempted to pull up the date on her overlays and only then realized that—as on the trip to Bughunt—the Soft Blade had absorbed her contacts.

  Belatedly she remembered the small case containing the replacements Vishal had printed for her. She dug it out from the blankets and carefully placed each transparent lens onto the corresponding eye.

  She blinked and felt a sense of comfort as the familiar HUD of her overlays popped up. There now. She was a fully functioning person again.

  Resisting the urge to check the news, Kira left the airlock, pulled herself along the walls until she reached the center of the Wallfish, and then started up the main shaft.

  The ship was still so quiet, empty, and dark, it felt abandoned. If not for the sound of the life-support fans, it might have been a derelict drifting alone through space for gods knew how long. Kira felt like a scavenger moving through halls that had once been inhabited by others … or like an explorer opening a centuries-old mausoleum.

  Her thoughts returned to the city on Nidus and their dire findings there. She growled and shook her head, annoyed. Her imagination was getting the better of her.

  As she reached the level below the Control deck, the thrust alert sounded. Taking heed, Kira planted her feet on the floor, and a proper sense of weight pressed her down—there was again a down!—as the Wallfish’s fusion drive roared back to life.

  She sighed with relief, welcoming the burn.

  The surrounding lightstrips flickered and changed from red to the bluish-white glow of ship-day. The light was almost painfully bright after so long spent in the somber dark. Kira shielded her face until her eyes adjusted.

  Falconi and the rest of the crew were just emerging from cryo when Kira arrived at the ship’s storm shelter. Dropping to all fours on the deck, Sparrow dry-heaved like a cat with a hairball.

  “God, I hate long runs,” the woman said, and wiped her mouth.

  “Good, you’re up,” said Kira.

  Falconi grunted. “If you can call it that.” He looked as green as Sparrow, and like all the crew, he had bruised circles under his eyes. Kira didn’t envy them the side effects of such an extended cryo sleep.

  Sparrow hacked again and then staggered to her feet and joined Falconi, Nielsen, and Hwa-jung as they retrieved clothes from their lockers. Vishal took longer to get going. Once he did, he went around handing out the little blue pills Kira knew so well. They helped with the nausea, as well as replenishing some of the body’s lost nutrients.

  Vishal offered one of the pills to her as well, but she declined.

  “What’s the shape of things?” Falconi asked, pulling on his boots.

  “Not sure yet,” said Kira.

  Then Gregorovich’s voice broke in on them with a laughing, teasing tone. “Greetings, my lovelies. Welcome back to the land of the living. Yes, oh yes. We’ve survived the great journey across the void. Once again we have defied the dark and lived to tell the tale.” And he laughed until the ship rang with the sound of his voice.

  “Someone’s in a good mood,” said Nielsen as she closed her locker. Vishal joined her and bent his head to ask her something in an undertone.

  “Hey,” said Sparrow, taking a proper look at Kira. “Where’d you get the new arm?”

  Kira shrugged, self-conscious. “The Soft Blade. I woke up with it.”

  “Huh. Just make sure it doesn’t get away from you.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  All of the cryo tubes were open save Trig’s. Kira went to pay her respects. Through the frosted viewplate, the kid looked the same as before, his expression unsettlingly serene. If not for the deathly pallor of his skin, he might have been sleeping.

  “Right,” said Falconi as he started toward the door. “Let’s see what’s what.”

  2.

  “Jesus-fucking-Christ-on-a-stick,” said Sparrow. Next to her, Hwa-jung’s brow pinched, and she made a disapproving sound, though she never took her gaze off the holo. None of them did.

  Falconi was scrolling through images from throughout the system. Sol was a war zone. The ruins of antimatter farms floated inside the orbit of Mercury. Ship debris cluttered the skies over Venus and Mars. On asteroids, hab-domes had been cracked open like eggs. Damaged space stations, rings, and O’Neill cylinders drifted abandoned throughout the system. Hydrotek refueling facilities were venting plumes of burning hydrogen from punctured storage tanks. On Earth—Earth of all places!—impact craters marred the northern and southern hemispheres, and a black blight covered part of Australia.

  Large numbers of ships and orbital platforms clustered around the settled planets. The UMC’s Seventh Fleet was massed by Deimos, close enough to the Markov Limit that they could jump out at short notice, but not so far away that they couldn’t help the inner planets in an emergency.

  In several places, fighting was ongoing. The Jellies had established a small operating base all the way out on Pluto, and they’d invaded a number of underground settlements along the arctic regions of Mars. The tunnels prevented the UMC from clearing out the aliens with aerial attacks, but ground operations were in progress to eliminate the Jellies while also trying to save the civilians in the area. More serious still was the blotch on Australia: a nightmare ship had crashed there, and within hours, their infection had taken root, spreading their corrupted tissue through the soil. Fortunately for Earth, the crash had occurred in the barest of deserts, and the immediate use of an orbital solar array to scorch and melt the area had contained the infection, although efforts were ongoing to ensure that no scrap of tissue had escaped destruction.

  “My God,” said Vishal, and crossed himself.

  Even Falconi seemed stunned by the extent of the damage.

  Nielsen uttered a distressed sound as she pulled up a window listing the news from Venus. Kira glimpsed part of a headline saying: Falling City Is—

  “I have to make a call,” said the first officer. Her face was deathly pale. “I have to check if … if…”

  “Go,” said Falconi. He touched her on the shoulder. “We’ve got this.”

  Nielsen gave him a grateful look and then hurried out of Control.

  Kira exchanged worried glances with the rest of the crew. If Sol was this bad, what was the rest of the League like? Weyland! She fought a sudden surge of despair.

  Just as she started to search for news from home, Gregorovich said, “Ahem, if I might make a suggestion, it would be best to answer the UMC before they do something foolish. They’re threatening us with all sorts of violence if we don’t provide immediate flight information, as well as clarification of intent.”

  Falconi sighed. “Might as well get this over with. Do they know who we are?”

  The ship mind chuckled without much humor. “Judging by the frantic nature of their calls, I would say that is a most definite yes.”

  “Alright. Put them on the line.”

  Kira sat near the back of Control and listened while Falconi talked with whomever Gregorovich had connected him with. “Yes,” he said. “… No.… That’s right. The UMCS Darmstadt.… Gregorovich, you’ll—… Uh-huh. She’s right here.… Okay. Roger that. Over and out.”

  “Well?” Kira asked.

  Falconi rubbed his face and looked between her, Sparrow, and Hwa-jung. If anything, the circles under his eyes had gotten darker. “They’re taking us seriously, so that’s a start. UMC wants us to dock at Orsted Station, right quick-like.”

  “How far away is that?” said Kira.

  Before she could pull up her overlays, Falconi said, “Seven hours.”

  “Orsted is a hab-ring out by Ganymede, one of Jupiter’s moons,” said Sparrow. “The UMC use it as a major staging point.”

  That made sense. The Markov Limit for Sol was right near Jupiter’s orbit. Kira didn’t know a whole lot about Sol, but that much she remembered from her stellar geography class.

  “You didn’t tell them we have a Jelly on
board?” Kira said.

  Falconi took a long drink from a water bottle. “Nope. Don’t want to alarm ’em too much. Figured we can work up to it.”

  “They’re going to be pissed when they find out,” said Kira.

  “That they are.”

  Then Hawes’s voice, rough from cryo, came over the intercom: “Captain, we’re out of the cryo tubes, but we need the Jelly to come get these damn cocoons off the rest of my men. We’d cut them off, but I’m not sure what it would do to them.”

  “Roger that, Lieutenant,” Falconi said. “Send someone over to the airlock, and I’ll have Kira meet them there.”

  “Appreciate it, Captain.”

  Falconi glanced at the ceiling. “Gregorovich, is the Jelly awake yet?”

  “Just barely,” said the ship mind.

  “Wonder how it knew?” Falconi muttered.

  Kira was already moving toward the door as he looked at her. “I’m on it,” she said.

  3.

  Escorting Itari to the cargo hold, waiting while it extracted the three Marines and—with another secreted gel—revived them, took nearly forty minutes. When not translating, Kira stood by one of the racks of equipment, skimming news reports from Weyland.

  They weren’t encouraging.

  At least one article claimed that Weyland had suffered orbital bombardment near Highstone. Her family didn’t live especially close to the city, but they were close enough that the news made Kira even more worried.

  The Jellies had also landed near Toska, a settlement in Weyland’s southern hemisphere, but according to the most recent news (which was nearly a month old), they hadn’t stayed. Several nightmares had passed through the outer part of the system, and they and the Jellies had engaged in a furious fight, the outcome of which was unknown, as all ships involved had jumped to FTL, one after another. The League had sent reinforcements to the system, but it had only been a small task force; the bulk of their ships were kept concentrated in and around Sol, to protect Earth.

  Kira stopped reading when Itari finished with the Marines, and she walked the Jelly back to the airlock. When Kira told it about Orsted, Itari expressed polite acknowledgement and nothing more. The alien seemed surprisingly uncurious about where the Wallfish was heading or what would happen when they arrived. When she asked about that, it replied, [[Itari here: The ripple will spread as it will.]]

  With the Jelly back in the airlock, Kira swung by the galley to grab some food and then climbed back up to Control. Nielsen arrived just as she did. The first officer was flushed and had tears in her eyes.

  “Everything okay?” Falconi asked from across the holo table.

  Nielsen nodded as she sank into her crash chair. “My family is alive, but my daughter, Yann, lost her home.”

  “On Venus?” Kira asked.

  Nielsen sniffed and smoothed the front of her tan shirt. “The whole city was shot down. She barely escaped.”

  “Damn,” said Falconi. “At least she made it.”

  A minute of silence followed. Then Nielsen stiffened and looked around. “Where’s Vishal?”

  Falconi waved toward the back of the ship in a distracted way. “Went to check on sickbay. Said something about running a few tests on the Marines.”

  “Didn’t he live in a hab-cylinder here at Sol?”

  Concern spread across Falconi’s face. “Did he? He never mentioned that to me.”

  Nielsen let out an exasperated sound. “Men. If you ever actually bothered asking some questions, you might learn—” She shoved herself up from her chair and stalked out of Control.

  Falconi watched her go with a faint look of puzzlement. He looked over at Kira, as if hoping for an explanation. She shrugged and looked back at her overlays.

  Interstellar wars were slow-moving affairs—even with technology as advanced as the Jellies’—but what had occurred was of a depressing sameness. Weyland’s experience was mirrored by those of the other colonies (although the battles at Stewart’s World were more similar in size to those at Sol).

  And then there were the nightmares. As the months swept past, they had become increasingly prevalent, to the point where the UMC was fighting them as often as the Jellies. Every time they appeared, the monsters seemed to take a different set of forms, as if the result of constant mutation. Or, as Kira felt more likely, as if the driving intelligence behind them—the mashing Maw born of the unholy fusion of human, Wranaui, and Soft Blade—was feverishly, frantically, insanely, and randomly experimenting to find the best possible flesh for fighting.

  The scale of suffering that the nightmares must be enduring, as well as inflicting, sickened Kira to think of.

  She was unsurprised to see that the war had resulted in an unprecedented drawing together of humanity. Even the Zarians had put aside their differences with the League in order to join forces against their shared enemies. What was the point of arguing amongst yourselves if the monsters in the dark were attacking?

  And yet for all that, the combined might of every living human wasn’t enough to fight off their attackers. Fragmented though the news was, it was more than clear that they were losing. Humanity was losing, despite every effort to the contrary.

  The news was overwhelming, exhausting, and depressing. At last, unable to bear any more, Kira tabbed out of her overlays and sat staring at the banks of lights and switches overhead, trying not to think about how everything seemed to be falling apart.

  An alert appeared in the bottom corner of her vision. A message waiting for her. Kira opened it, expecting to see something from Gregorovich.

  It wasn’t.

  Sitting in her inbox was a reply to the video she’d sent to her family from 61 Cygni. A reply from her mother’s account.

  Kira stared, shocked. With a start, she remembered to breathe. She hadn’t expected an answer. Her family couldn’t have known where or when she would return, so how could there be a message waiting for her here, at Sol? Unless …

  Trembling slightly, she opened the file.

  A video appeared in front of her, a dark window into what appeared to be an underground bunker. Kira recognized it as the sort used for radiation shielding by the first wave of colonists on Weyland.… Her parents were sitting facing her, gathered around a desk cluttered with tools and medkits. Isthah stood behind them, peering between their mom and dad with an anxious face.

  Kira swallowed.

  Her dad had a bandage around his right thigh. He looked painfully thin, and the lines around his eyes and nose were far deeper than she remembered. There was white in his sideburns that shouldn’t have been there, not if he’d gotten his scheduled STEM shots. As for her mom, she’d grown even harder, like an eagle carved from granite, and her hair was cut short, in the style favored by colonists who spent most of their time living in skinsuits.

  Only Isthah appeared much the same, and Kira took some comfort in that.

  Her mom cleared her throat. “Kira, we just received your message yesterday. It was a month late, but it got here.”

  Then her dad: “We’re really happy to know you’re alive, honey. Really happy. You had us worried for a while.” Behind him, Isthah ducked her head. Kira was surprised she didn’t butt in; the restraint was uncharacteristic. But then, they were living in uncharacteristic times.

  Her mom glanced at the other two before focusing on the camera again. “I’m sorry, we’re sorry, to hear about your teammates, Kira. And … Alan. He seemed like a good person.”

  “This can’t be easy for you,” her father added. “Just know we’re thinking about you and wishing you the best. I’m sure the scientists here in the League can find a way to get this alien—” He hesitated. “—this alien parasite off you.” Her mom put a comforting hand on his arm.

  She said, “I’m not sure why the League let your message go through. Maybe they missed it, but whatever. I’m glad it got here. You can see we’re not at home. The Jellies came by a few weeks ago, and there’s been fighting around Highstone. We had to evacuat
e, but we’re okay. We’re doing fine. We have a place to stay here with some folks called the Niemerases—”

  “Over on the other side of the mountains,” said her father.

  A tip of the head from her mom. “They’re letting us live in their shelter for the time being. It’s decent protection, and we have plenty of room.” It didn’t look like plenty of room to Kira.

  “The Jellies burned the greenhouses,” Isthah said in a low voice. “They burned them, sis. Burned all of them.…”

  No.

  Their parents shifted, uncomfortable. Her dad looked down at his large hands where they rested on his knees. “Yeah,” he said. Kira had never seen him appear so sad or defeated. A hollow chuckle escaped him. “Got this scratch trying to get out in time.” He tapped the bandage on his leg and forced a smile.

  Then her mom stiffened her back and said, “Listen to me, Kira. You don’t worry about us, okay? Go do this expedition you have to do, and we’ll be here when you get back.… We’re going to send this recording to every system in the League, so no matter where you arrive, it’ll be waiting for you.”

  “We love you, honey,” said her father. “And we’re very proud of you and the work you’re doing. Try to stay safe, and we’ll see you soon.”

  There was a bit more, a few more words of farewell from her mom and Isthah, and then the video ended.

  Kira’s overlays swam before her, blurred and watery. She took a hitched breath and realized she was crying. Closing the display, she hunched forward and buried her face in her hands.

  “Hey now,” said Falconi, sounding alarmed and concerned at the same time. He came over, and she felt his hand light between her shoulder blades. “What’s wrong?”

  “I got a message from my family,” she said.

  “Are they—”

  “No, no, they’re fine, but—” Kira shook her head. “They had to leave our home, where I grew up. And, just seeing them … my mom, my dad, my sister; they’re not having an easy time of it.”