To Sleep in a Sea of Stars

by Christopher Paolini

  She sighed. She’d had enough ration bars to last the rest of her life, but at least the UMC was feeding her. And the fresh produce was a welcome treat.

  As she ate, she eyed the slot in the door. Things could obviously pass through it without triggering the explosives. If she could sneak a fiber or two through the seams, maybe she could find a way to turn off the current on the outside of the cell.…

  No. She wasn’t trying to escape. Not this time. If she—or more accurately the Soft Blade—could help the League, then she had a responsibility to stay. Even if they were a bunch of assholes.

  When she finished eating, she shouted at the door a few times, and as promised, the trooper came and took the tray away.

  After that, she tried pacing, but the walls were only two and a half steps apart, so she soon gave up and instead did push-ups, squats, and handstands until she burned off her nervous energy.

  She’d just finished when the light overhead began to dim and grow red. In less than a minute, it plunged her into almost total darkness.

  Despite her resolution not to worry or obsess, and despite her tiredness, Kira had difficulty falling asleep. Too much stuff had happened during the day for her to just relax and drift off into unconsciousness. Her thoughts kept going round and round—returning each time to the nightmares—and none of it was useful. It didn’t help that the floor was hard, and even with the suit, she found it uncomfortable.

  She concentrated on slowing her breathing. Everything else might be outside of her control, but that much she could do. Gradually her pulse slowed and the tension drained from her neck, and she could feel a welcome coolness creeping through her limbs.

  While she waited, she counted the cell’s faces: twelve in total, which made it a … dodecahedron? She thought so. In the faint red light, the walls appeared brown, and the color and the concave shape reminded her of the inside of a walnut shell.

  She laughed softly. “—and count myself a king of infinite space…” She wished Gregorovich could see. He of all people would appreciate the joke.

  She hoped he was okay. If he behaved himself with the UMC, he might get off with a fine and a few citations. Ship minds were too valuable to ground over even relatively major infractions. However, if he yammered at them the way he had during some of his conversations with her, and the UMC decided he was unstable, the League wouldn’t hesitate to yank him out of the Wallfish and ban him from flying. Either way, he was going to have to endure a gauntlet of psych tests, and Kira didn’t know if Gregorovich was willing or able to hide the crazy. If he didn’t—

  She stopped, annoyed with herself. Those were the sorts of thoughts she needed to avoid. What would be would be. All that mattered was the present. What was, not word-castles and hypotheticals. And right then, what she needed to do was sleep.

  It must have been almost three in the morning before her brain finally allowed her to sink into welcome unconsciousness. She’d hoped that the Soft Blade might choose to share another vision with her, but though she dreamed, her dreams were her own.

  4.

  The light in the cell brightened.

  Kira’s eyes snapped open, and she sat upright, heart pounding, ready to go. When she saw the walls of her cell and remembered where she was, she growled and bounced her fist against her thigh.

  What was taking the League so long? Accepting the offer of support from Tschetter’s Jellies was a no-brainer. So why the delay?

  She stood, and a faint layer of dust fell from her body. Alarmed, she checked the floor underneath herself.

  It appeared the same as before.

  Kira let out her breath, relieved. If the Soft Blade had chewed through the plating during the night, she would have been in for an explosive surprise. The xeno had to know better, though. It wanted to live as much as she did.

  “Behave yourself,” she murmured.

  A fist pounded on the outside of the door, startling her. “Navárez, we have to talk,” said Stahl.

  Finally. “I’m listening.”

  “I have some additional questions for you.”

  “Ask away.”

  And Stahl did. Questions about Tschetter—had the major seemed to be in her right state of mind, had she been as Kira remembered from the Extenuating Circumstances, and so forth and so on—questions about the Jellies, questions about the Seeker and the Staff of Blue, and also many, many questions about the nightmares.

  Finally Stahl said, “We’re done here.”

  “Wait,” said Kira. “What happened to the Jelly? What did you do about it?”

  “The Jelly?” said Stahl. “We moved it to biocontainment.”

  A sudden fear struck Kira. “Is it … is it still alive?”

  The colonel seemed to take a certain offense at that. “Of course, Navárez. What do you take us for, complete incompetents? It took some doing, but we managed to incentivize your, ah, tentacle-covered friend to move from the Wallfish to the station.”

  Kira wondered what that incentivizing had involved, but she decided it was wiser not to probe. “I see. So what is the League going to do about this? Tschetter, the Knot of Minds, and all the rest of it?”

  “That’s need-to-know, ma’am.”

  She gritted her teeth. “Colonel Stahl, after everything that’s happened, don’t you think I ought to be part of this conversation?”

  “Maybe so, ma’am, but that’s not up to me.”

  Kira took a calming breath. “Can you at least tell me how long I’m going to be held here?” If the League was going to transfer her to a UMC ship, that would be fairly clear evidence that they were going to take her to meet with the Knot of Minds so she could help negotiate the terms of alliance.

  “You’ll be moved to a packet ship at zero nine hundred hours tomorrow and taken to the LaCern research station for further examination.”

  “Excuse me?” said Kira, nearly sputtering. “Why would you … I mean, isn’t the League going to at least talk with the Knot of Minds? Who else do you have to translate for you? Iska? Tschetter? We don’t even know if she’s still alive! And I’m the only one who can actually speak the Jellies’ language.”

  Stahl sighed, and when he answered, he sounded far more tired than he had a moment ago. “We’re not going to talk with them, Navárez.” And Kira realized he was breaking protocol by telling her.

  A horrible sense of dread came over her. “What do you mean?” she asked, not believing.

  “I mean that the Premier and his advisors have decided that the Jellies are too dangerous to trust. Hostis Humani Generis, after all. Surely you heard. It was announced before you left Sixty-One Cygni.”

  “So what are they going to do?” she said, nearly whispering.

  “It’s already done, Navárez. The Seventh Fleet departed today under the command of Admiral Klein to attack the Jelly fleet stationed at the star Tschetter gave us info on. It’s a K-type star about a month and a half away. Objective is to smash the Jellies when they’re least expecting it, make sure they can’t ever threaten us again.”

  “But…” Kira could think of any number of things wrong with that plan. The UMC might be cast-iron bastards, but they weren’t stupid. “They’ll see the Seventh coming. And they can jump out before you get close enough to shoot. Our only chance is to take out the leadership before—”

  “We’ve got it covered, ma’am,” said Stahl, terse as ever. “We haven’t been sitting on our hands the past six months. The Jellies might outclass and outgun us, but if there’s one thing humans are good at, it’s codging together makeshift solutions. We’ve got ways of keeping them from seeing us and ways to keep them from jumping out. Won’t last long, but it’ll last long enough.”

  “Then what about Tschetter’s Jellies?” Kira asked. “The Knot of Minds?”

  Stahl grunted. When he spoke again, his voice had acquired a brittle tone, as if he were guarding himself. “A batch of hunter-seekers was dispatched toward the meeting location.”

  “To…?”

&n
bsp; “Eliminate with extreme prejudice.”

  Kira felt as if she’d been struck. She wasn’t the biggest fan of the League, but she’d never thought of it as being actively evil. “What the hell, Colonel? Why would—”

  “It’s a political decision, Navárez. Out of our hands. It’s been determined that leaving any of their leadership alive, even if they’re rebels, is too great a risk for humanity. This isn’t a war, Navárez. This is extermination. Eradication. First we break the Jellies, and then we can focus on taking out these nightmares.”

  “It’s been determined,” she said, spitting out the words with all the scorn she could muster. “Determined by who?”

  “By the Premier himself.” A brief pause, then: “Sorry, Navárez. That’s the way it is.”

  The colonel started to walk away, and Kira shouted after, “Yeah, well fuck the Premier and fuck you too!”

  She stood there, breathing heavily, fists clenched by her sides. Only then did she notice that the Soft Blade—that she—was covered with spikes poking through her jumpsuit. Again her temper had gotten the better of her. “Bad, bad, bad,” she whispered, and she wasn’t sure if she meant herself or the League.

  Calm but still filled with a cold, clinical anger, Kira sat cross-legged on the floor while she tried to think through the situation. In retrospect, it seemed apparent that Stahl didn’t approve of the Premier’s decision either. That Stahl would tell her the League’s plans meant something, although she wasn’t sure what. Maybe he wanted her forewarned for some reason.

  That hardly mattered now. The League’s impending betrayal of the Knot of Minds was far more important than her own troubles. Finally they had a chance of peace (with the Jellies at least) and the Premier had to throw it away because he wasn’t willing to try. Was trying so great a risk, after all?

  Frustration joined anger within Kira. She hadn’t even voted for the Premier—none of them had!—and he was going to set them at perpetual odds with the Jellies. Fear was driving them, she thought, not hope. And as events had taught her, fear was a poor guide indeed.

  What was the Premier’s name? She couldn’t even recall. The League tended to shuffle through them like cards.

  If only there was a way to warn the Knot of Minds. Maybe then some sort of alliance could be saved. Kira wondered if the Soft Blade could somehow contact the Jellies. But no, whatever signals the xeno could produce, they seemed to be indiscriminate, blasted forth to the whole of the galaxy. And luring even more Jellies and nightmares to Sol would hardly be helpful.

  If she could somehow manage to break out, then—then what? Kira hadn’t seen the file of information Tschetter had given Akawe (and that the Darmstadt had copied over to the Wallfish), but she felt sure there had to be contact information in it: times, frequencies, and locations, that sort of thing. But she doubted that the UMC technicians would have left even a single copy of the file on the Wallfish’s computers, and Kira had no idea whether Gregorovich had bothered to memorize any of the information.

  If not—and Kira thought it would be irresponsible to assume otherwise—then Itari would be their only hope of warning the Knot of Minds. She’d not only have to rescue herself, she’d also have to rescue Itari, get the Jelly to a ship, and then fly the ship out of the system, where they’d be clear of any jamming, and the whole time the UMC would be doing their damnedest to stop them.

  It was the sheerest fantasy, and Kira knew it.

  She groaned and looked up at the faceted ceiling. She felt so helpless it hurt. Of all the torments a person could endure, that—she felt sure—was the worst of all.

  Breakfast was a long time coming. When it arrived, she could hardly eat, her stomach was so cramped and unsettled. After disposing of the tray, she sat in the center of the cell, meditated, and tried to think of what she could do.

  If only I had my concertina. Playing would help her concentrate, of that she felt sure.

  5.

  No one else came to see her for the rest of the day. Kira’s anger and frustration remained, but boredom smothered them like a blanket. Without her overlays, she was again left with nothing but the contents of her mind for amusement. And her thoughts were far from amusing at the moment.

  In the end, she did what she always did when trying to while away the time during each of the long FTL trips she’d endured since leaving Sigma Draconis. Which was to say, she dozed, drifting into the hazy half-sleep that allowed the Soft Blade to preserve her strength while still keeping ready for whatever might happen next.

  And so she spent the day, her only interruption being the bland lunch and even blander dinner the troopers delivered.

  Then the lights dimmed to red, and her half-sleep became a full-sleep.

  6.

  A tremor ran through the floor.

  Kira’s eyes snapped open, memories of the Extenuating Circumstances coursing through her. It might have been midnight. It might have been three in the morning. There was no way to tell, but she’d been lying on her side for so long her hip was sore and her arm was numb.

  Another tremor, larger than the first one, and with it, an odd twisting sensation, similar to what she’d felt in the maglev. A moment of vertigo caused her to grab the floor for support, and then her balance steadied.

  A shot of adrenaline cleared the last of her sleep haze. There was only one explanation: the hab-ring had wobbled. Shit. Not good. The very definition of not good. Jellies or nightmares—someone was attacking Orsted Station.

  She looked at one of the cameras. “Hey! What’s going on?” But no one answered.

  A third tremor shook the cell, and the light overhead flickered. Somewhere in the distance, she heard a thud that might have been an explosion.

  Kira went cold as she dropped into survival mode. The station was under attack. Was she safe? That depended on the cell’s power source, assuming she wasn’t hit by a missile or a laser. If the cell was hooked up to the main reactor, and the reactor went offline, the explosives surrounding her could detonate. Same if there was a large enough power surge. On the other hand, if the cell was hooked up to batteries, then she might be okay. It was a gamble, though. A big one.

  Boom!

  She staggered as the cell shook around her. The light flickered again, more than before, and her heart clutched. For an instant, she was certain she was dead, but … the universe continued to exist. She continued to exist.

  Kira straightened and looked at the door.

  Screw the UMC and screw the League. She was getting out.

  CHAPTER III

  ESCAPE!

  1.

  Determined, Kira went to the door.

  She had only two options. Find a way to disarm the explosives or find a way to reroute the current so she could break down the door without ending up as a white-hot lump of slag.

  The floor rumbled.

  Whatever she did, she’d have to do it fast.

  Disarming would be safer, but she couldn’t figure out how to disarm it. Even if she could sneak a few tendrils past the slot in the door, she wouldn’t be able to see what she was doing on the other side. Groping around blindly, she’d be just as likely to blow herself up as not.

  Okay. That left rerouting the current. She knew the xeno could protect her from being shocked. Which meant it could channel electricity into conductive paths around her body. So theoretically, it ought to be able to form wires or some such that could keep the current from being disrupted if she opened the door. Right? If not, she was dead.

  The light dimmed for a second.

  She might be dead anyway.

  She covered her face with the suit and studied the lines of electricity embedded within the polyhedron’s outer surface. A half-dozen of them crossed the door. Those were the ones she’d have to bypass.

  Kira took a moment to visualize, with as much detail and clarity as she could manage, what she wanted. More importantly, she tried to impress her intentions on the Soft Blade, as well as the consequences of failure. As Alan would s
ay, “All go boom.”

  “No boom,” Kira murmured. “Not this time.”

  Then she released the Soft Blade and willed it to act on its own.

  A cluster of thin black wires sprouted from her chest and extended outward until they touched the spots, on either side of the door, where the lines of electricity originated. Then additional wires leaped across the door and joined each contact point to its intended partner.

  She could feel the xeno drilling into the walls then, burrowing with atomically sharp tips through the paneling, toward the leads.

  The cell shuddered hard enough to rock her, and her breath caught.

  Just a few more microns of drilling and … Contact! The glowing, blue-white lines of electricity jumped from their established paths into the wires the Soft Blade had laid down. Around them, the translucent loops of magnetic force shifted as well, roiling and realigning as they sought a new state of equilibrium.

  Kira stood frozen, waiting for the inevitable explosion. When it didn’t happen, she relaxed slightly.

  Hold, she told the Soft Blade, and reached between the wires. She placed her fingers over the door’s locking mechanism and drove the suit into the door. Metal screeched, and there was a sticky, tearing sound as the seal around the door parted.

  The warbling whine of a siren seeped in through the gap.

  Feeling as if she were trying to pet a sleeping tigermaul without waking it, Kira slowly pushed the door outward.

  It swung open with a protesting squeal, but it did open.

  She almost laughed. No boom.

  Then Kira stepped forward. The wires warped around her as she passed through the doorway, and though the lines of electricity bent, they never broke.

  Freedom!

  The concourse had become a garish nightmare. Emergency lights painted the walls red, while rows of yellow arrows glowed in the floor and the ceiling. The arrows pointed spinward, and she knew if she followed them, they would lead her to the nearest storm shelter.