ARC: Under Nameless Stars

by Christian Schoon

  “Nine Hells, Scarlett.” He stood up again. “OK. I get it. About your mom and all, but… I just thought we could make a fresh start. I never thought about… I’m such an idiot.” He shook his head. “I never thought about you, about what school means, why you’re so damn intense about it all.”

  “Yeah, I guess I am. Intense.”

  “No kidding.” He went to the window, leaned against the sill, looked back at her. “But, Scarlett, I’ve gotta go. I can’t stay here. I may never get this chance again.”

  She went to stand behind him, put her arms around him and leaned into his back, felt his warmth, realized that even after all his time off-world, he still carried the faint scent of fresh-cut hay. She thought again of her mother’s words, that sometimes, making the right choice was the most frightening thing you could do. Her mother hadn’t mentioned it could also break your heart.

  “You’ll send word of how you’re doing?” she said, still pressed in close, not looking up, afraid of what would happen if she did. “I want to know all about what Earth is like. And how your wasp-farm turns out.” Her voice was breaking now. She took a long, deep breath to steady herself before she pulled away. He didn’t face her but continued staring out into the night.

  “Damn, Scarlett, you’re really killing my ego here, you know that you don’t you?”

  “What?” she said, smiling to keep the tears back. “Your girls in Arsia didn’t act like this?”

  “No. They did not.” He turned to her. “But, hey, you warned me before. You’re not like the other girls in Arsia.”

  “So, when do you–”

  “The ferry back up to orbit leaves at dawn.”

  “I’m serious, Liam,” she said. “You send me shards on a regular basis or I’ll…”

  “You’ll what?”

  “I’ll send my attack rikkaset to hunt you down and…” She’d tried not to; she told herself she wasn’t going to. But it was no use – she started to cry, shoulders heaving, vision blurring. He was next to her a second later, arms tight around her.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I wasn’t going to get all… I didn’t want you to see me cry.”

  “Scarlett.” He leaned back so he could see her face, ran one big hand under her eye, wiping at her tears. “You’ve never looked better.”

  He lowered his face to hers, kissed her lightly on the forehead and let her go. Going to the window, he hefted his body up and out onto the ledge. He stopped there, swiped the hair out of his eyes and said, “When I’m a wealthy waspworm farmer, I’ll send my private ship for you, OK?”

  “You’d better,” was all Zenn could manage to say without breaking down again.

  “Be careful around your animals. Especially the big ones. And keep an eye on Katie for me.”

  “I will.”

  “OK, then, well… bye, Scarlett.”

  She ran to the window, leaned out to hug him hard, once, and then he dropped out of sight. She listened to his footsteps on the gravel path until they faded away.

  Suddenly, she was alone with Katie, the sound of grasshoppers being crunched and the scent of blooming gensoy sweet in the night air.

  THIRTY-THREE

  At the evening meal three days later, the cloister’s great refectory hall was filled to overflowing with humans and Asents at every long table. This, of course, was a sight Zenn had heard about from Otha but never witnessed. Sister Hild had explained that tonight was a special event, to acknowledge all that had happened, to bring everyone together and celebrate with what she described as a victory dinner. It was so strange, Zenn thought, looking out over the crowd; it was like it must have been in the old days, before the Rift with Earth, when the cloister school teemed with students and every night saw the hall packed to the rafters with eager diners.

  As the first dishes were brought out, Zenn recognized some of the servers as towner kids. She was surprised, and gratified, to see that Otha’s community outreach program seemed to be working. If the locals were letting their children wait tables at a Ciscan cloister dinner, they must have started to reconsider their suspicions about the alien “monsters” housed in the cloister’s pens and pools.

  Zenn and her father were seated with Otha, Hild and Hamish at the room’s head table. Before all the dishes had been brought out, they were joined by Ambassador Noom and a newly ambulatory Jules. Liam’s absence was painfully apparent to Zenn, but she tried to tell herself he was a big boy, he knew what he wanted, he’d done what he felt he must. Still, it was hard to see all of them together again without seeing him in among the familiar faces. Fane was missing from the assembly, too, but she’d had word that he was in good health and once again working alongside Treth aboard the Helen of Troy.

  “Inga, my mate-to-be, is regretful she could not be here,” Jules said as he parked himself near the table. “Her walksuit was damaged beyond repair during the ordeal. But I am paying to have a new unit constructed for her. I do not mind the paying, as she is my First Promised. This goes without saying. Despite its impressive expense. And look…” He spread his mech-arms wide. “My own suit is now fully refurbished and with a special coat of polishing wax. It shines.”

  “Very impressive,” Zenn said, smiling at her friend. “And please tell Inga ‘hello’ when you see her.”

  “So, Novice Scarlett,” Noom said, wrapping several tendrils around the large chair that Otha had adapted into a perch for her. “I’m told your thwarting of the conspiracy of the New Law and the Skirni is the talk of all Mars, of the entire Accord.”

  “Heroic actions.” “Bold exploits.” “Great deeds.” “Worthy of blink-novs, feh?”

  Zenn felt color rising to her cheeks.

  “It wasn’t just me, you know,” she told Noom and the others. “I had lots of help.”

  Otha heard and slapped his hand onto the table. “Yes! But how you rose to the occasion.” Her uncle had trimmed his beard for the evening’s festivities and wore a brand new linen shirt woven for him by Sister Hild, with a sleeve-screen made from spare parts she’d scavenged from one of the clinic’s old diagnostic computers. “One could say you were born to do what you did. Literally born to it.” Her uncle had already downed several glasses of Hamish’s latest batch of home-brewed ale, and he was feeling gregarious. “Here’s to our own heroine, blood of my blood.” He raised his mug into the air. Hamish sat next to him, and the big insectoid now lifted the foaming mugs he held in three of his four upper arms to clink against Otha’s glass.

  “Excellently done, Novice Zenn.” Hamish’s Transvox translated his Coleopt whirrings. “And welcome home to your cloister. May you remain here with us for an extended period.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” Sister Hild said, reaching over to squeeze Zenn’s shoulder. “You’ve been missed, child. By all of us, including your animals.”

  “Dad,” Zenn said quietly, turning to her father, “Charlie? Any news?”

  “Oh, I didn’t have a chance to tell you. I heard just before dinner. Your Loepith was still aboard the Dancer when they checked him off the list of the missing. He was already helping out with refitting the ship’s Indra chambers and getting systems back on line. He did have an odd request, though.”

  “I’m so glad he’s OK,” she said. “What did he want?”

  “A lawyer. One skilled in interstellar divorce law,” her father said. “Something to do with the marriage rights of AI entities. You know what that’s all about?”

  “Actually,” she said, smiling to herself, “I do.”

  When the last of the dishes were just being cleared away, the murmuring of the crowd increased to a low buzz as a group of very tall women and one boy entered the room from the large double doors at the front of the hall.

  “What’s this?” Zenn asked.

  “Just a little surprise,” her father said, a glint in his eyes.

  Everyone turned to watch as the new arrivals approached the table where Zenn and the others sat. Treth walked at the front of the group of eight
other women, all Indra grooms. They all wore their formal dress uniforms of iridescent blue-black synthweave bodysuits topped with vermillion cloaks, the cloaks draped over their left shoulders, their right shoulders bared to the arm to show off their anitats. As they drew closer, Zenn realized with a surge of emotion that the boy who walked with them… was Fane. The young sacrist wore one arm in a sling and walked with a slight limp. When he saw Zenn, the crooked smile he gave her almost made her burst into tears of relief. Fane, lopsided smile, feather-beaded-hair and all. He wore a new gold sacrist’s tunic. In his uninjured hand, he carried what looked like an oblong silver-bronze bowl. The group stopped behind Zenn’s table, and Treth raised her hands to address the crowd.

  “I would speak.” The room grew quiet. “We are all still coming to terms with the momentous events of recent days. We faced a terrible challenge. The worlds of the Accord balanced on the knife-edge of apocalypse. But we triumphed over the forces arrayed against us. Forces of intolerance, greed and evil. I stand before you now to credit one among us who, more than any other, made our victory over these forces real.”

  Treth placed her hands on Zenn’s shoulders.

  “Novice Zenn Scarlett,” she said. “In recognition of acts of valor and selfless daring, I am privileged this night to make this announcement before my Union Sisters and before all others assembled. I announce here your induction into the Sacred and Exalted Procyoni Union of Stonehorse Honorary Grooms. So saying, I welcome you as Honorary Starship Groom, Irullian Class.”

  A thunder of applause filled the room, the diners rising to their feet. Zenn turned to look up at Treth, her heart almost too full for her to speak. She managed to whisper, “Treth, thank you.”

  “Rise, Groom Scarlett.” Zenn got to her feet, and the noise in the hall died away. “Extend your right arm.” Zenn obeyed, giving her father and the others a quizzical look. Treth reached out to roll up the sleeve of Zenn’s shirt until her forearm was exposed.

  “Sacrist, the Irullian Indraydith-Tull,” Treth said solemnly. Fane stepped forward. He gave Zenn another quick, furtive smile and handed what he carried to another groom. The surface of the metal bowl was engraved with runelike symbols.

  “Groom Fareeth,” Treth said to the woman who had taken the device. “I confirm this one worthy of the mark. Proceed.”

  The one named Fareeth placed the device against the skin of Zenn’s arm, midway between her wrist and elbow.

  “Attend me now as I give you the mark,” Fareeth intoned, staring into Zenn’s eyes. “By the Shepherds’ grace, I give it. By the ancient ways, I make it. By your willing soul, you receive it. I make the mark of the stonehorse Groom. The mark is yours. The mark is ours. The mark will make you known.” She pressed on the device and Zenn’s arm prickled with a quick, fierce heat followed by icy cold.

  Fareeth lifted the device away. The room again echoed with applause as her father moved to stand behind her. She held up her arm for him to see. The animated tattoo on her skin was small, just a few inches across. It was shaped like a tiny, intricately detailed Indra, curved into a ring, chasing its own tail. The anitat seethed with the gemlike color of living flame, shifting red, blue, yellow, then red again as the hues glowed and faded, rose and fell, the stonehorse circling around and around in endless, timeless flight.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to: my agent Adam Schear at DeFiore & Co, my editor Amanda Rutter at Strange Chemistry, all the publishing support elves/warlocks/selkies at Strange Chemistry/Angry Robot Books, my extended family alive and passed, all my friends, all my teachers, all the readers of the first Zenn Scarlett book and all the cats, dogs, ferrets and many equines here at the Schoon Ranch and, as always, to my endlessly supportive wife Kat.

  BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Zenn Scarlett

  PRAISE FOR CHRISTIAN SCHOON

  Praise for Christian Schoon

  “Christian Schoon knows his xenobiology! Zenn Scarlett has everything a sci-fi lover craves, from exotic alien life forms to quantum entanglement, all grounded by a stellar YA heroine. Zenn’s moxie and determination make this a debut to remember. Highly recommended!”

  Phoebe North, author of Starglass

  “Reading Zenn Scarlett is like venturing into a gargantuan alien animal in one of the in-soma pods Zenn uses to provide veterinary care: delightful, bizarre, and occasionally terrifying.”

  Mike Mullin, author of Ashfall

  “Many young people want to become veterinarians because they love animals. All future veterinarians will want to read Zenn Scarlett and her adventures with veterinary medicine on alien animals.”

  Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation

  “Mars, monsters, and mysteries: Zenn Scarlett is a thoughtful and thrilling science fiction adventure that’s perfect for readers who think they’ve seen it all! It’s refreshing to encounter an original young adult story that defies expectations, and the breathtaking conclusion will leave you desperate for more.”

  EC Myers, author of Fair Coin

  “Both animal lovers and science fiction fans will enjoy the unusual and imaginative story of Zenn Scarlett. This is the challenging life of a trainee exovet, in an inventive future where alien creatures are harnessed to send ships between star systems.”

  Janet Edwards, author of Earth Girl