The Heart is a Universe

by Sherry Thomas

  Vitalis frowned. “The background radiation level is considered practically undetectable, even by the most sophisticated instruments. You are saying that the sigil on your arm is such a sensitive reactor that it can discern trace amount on a person who has spent only a few days on Pax Cara and who is now a kiloparsec removed from the source?”

  “We tested her hypothesis a number of times. She was correct: at the touch of those freshly returned from Pax Cara, the sigil changed twice, rather than only once. My physicians theorized then that perhaps my illness could be cured by experiencing the Pax Cara Event up close.”

  The Pax Cara Event was marked by an extraordinary burst of radiation.

  And the Pax Cara Event also happened to be the occasion on which she would give her life.

  She gazed at him, her expression blank.

  He took a deep breath. “At that point, the next Pax Cara Event was sixteen standard years away. We had no confidence I’d live that long. Besides, we found only one instance in which a Chosen One set out with a companion—and no information was ever released on how far the companion went or whether he or she even survived.”

  Her expression unchanged, she ran her hand through her short hair. “I see. But you are still alive and the next Pax Cara Event will arrive at an opportune—indeed, crucial—time for you. So you decided to take the gamble, to see how close you can get to the Elders’ Temple. And to do that, you must first become my husband. So you secure me a place here, at the Courtship Summit.”

  She spoke calmly and without rancor. He could not guess at which precise moment his ulterior motive had crystalized for her, but it was clear that she had suspected something for a while.

  But did she suspect what he knew about her? “Except you did not accept the invitation in order to find a mate. You came because it was a path to escape.”

  She recoiled—and remained silent. But her jaw was tight and her fingers dug into the padding of the settee.

  “I took a walk earlier today and stopped to rest in one of the smaller gardens along the rim of the panorama deck. There I heard a rather ordinary conversation taking place between a woman and a deck steward. The woman was interested in knowing how one could get to Terra Antiqua’s moons from the liner, if one needed to shop for some items not easily found on one’s home planet for gifts. The steward was very forthcoming and not the least bit suspicious—after all, people scheme to get into the Courtship Summit, not out.

  “I recognized your voice. I had half a mind to introduce myself, but you left before I could do so. Like the steward, I thought nothing of your questions, until I saw you at the ball. That was when I realized you were no longer the same girl from the documentary. That you desperately did not wish to die.”

  Her throat moved. “Did you think less of me?”

  She looked small. Frail. Tormented by uncertainty. And yet all he saw was the fearless young woman of yesteryear, who loved life all the more because she lived in the shadow of death.

  “How could I think less of you? I wish with equal ferocity to hold on to life, one more sunrise, one more sunset, and, now that I know how it feels, another ten thousand hours in your arms.”

  She pulled up her feet, as if she felt cold. Her thumb rubbed over a scar on her ankle. “Would you have told me of your precarious health, if I had not found out for myself?”

  “It would be impossible for you to spend more than a few hours in my company without finding out for yourself. But yes, I would have told you before dawn, before you made up your mind whether to remain married to me or to walk away.”

  She looked directly at him, her gaze not yet adversarial but devoid of warmth. “You know that I agreed to the connubial assay only to satisfy my curiosity. You know that when I abscond, I will not take a spouse with me. And you know that I’m useless to you if I do not march bravely to my doom. Do you think you can change my mind, so completely and dramatically?”

  When I abscond.

  When, not if.

  Had it come to that?

  When he didn’t answer, her countenance darkened. “Have you put measures in place that would prevent me from leaving?”

  “No,” he said quietly, “though I thought about it.”

  Her fingers flexed. “What held you back?”

  He was reminded that lovely as she was, her training had not neglected the use of deadly forces. “Your Task asks so much of you. In the end it should be no one’s choice but yours.”

  She laughed, a glacial sound. “What choice? Does a little girl have a choice when she is told that the safety of everyone on the planet depends on her giving up her own life? When she is barely old enough to understand the concept of mortality, and there is a sea of grown-ups on their knees, looking at her with desperate hope in their eyes, what does she say except, yes, of course she will accept this great Task? It will be her honor and privilege.

  “And then when everyone has gone, when she’s eaten all the cake her stomach can handle, when her parents have wiped away the tears in their eyes and kissed her good night, and she wonders, alone in the dark, What have I done?

  “She buries the thought. But it has the habit of rising from the dead and coming to visit her. Then one day she realizes that thought has mutated. It is no longer What have I done?, but What have they done?

  “Who agreed it was acceptable to practice human sacrifice? Why has this tradition been allowed to endure? Why should anyone bear this burden? Why should she?

  “She gives herself all the answers that she gives to everyone else. Answers that she does her best to believes in. Until one day she sees that she doesn’t believe in anything anymore. She is someone who says one set of things and thinks quite another. In fact, in recent years she might have stopped thinking altogether. She has become a caged beast, hurtling herself at the bars.”

  A caged beast, bent on escape.

  He remembered the pod that had brought her here. In a pinch it could serve as an emergency vessel, more than capable of traversing the half AU between the liner and Terra Antiqua’s moons.

  Had she planned to wait until he fell asleep, then steal away, ostensibly to return to her own suite, only to disappear forever?

  “I will not restrain you from any course of action you choose,” he said. “Nor will I pass along information to those in charge of the summit—or to the Pax Caran delegation. Everything I’ve learned tonight I will hold in strict confidence to the end of my days.”

  She stared at him, her eyes hard and mistrusting.

  He reached out and took her hand. She stiffened, but he did not let go. “I’m sorry that you’ve been placed in such an untenable position. I’m sorry that there are no good choices.”

  The corners of her mouth turned down. “Are you about to advise me on which path to choose?”

  “How can I, when I have so much self-interest at stake?” He brought her hand to his lips. “I only wish we’d met sooner.”

  She looked away. “Will you still think so kindly of me when my entire planet suffers for my selfishness?”

  He would think of what must be going through her mind, knowing the consequences her choice would unleash. He could not imagine that she would be in anything other than unbearable torment.

  He kissed her fingertips again.

  “Are you trying to seduce me into staying?”

  “I would, if I could. But I’m compelled less by strategy than a feverish desire to hold on to that which is already slipping through my fingers.”

  The harshness of her expression turned into a bittersweet chagrin. “I’m sorry I can’t give you a new lease on life.”

  “That new lease would have lasted two years, three at most.”

  “It’s a bargain I’d have gladly taken,” she said, her voice barely audible, her gaze on the vast swath of stars beyond the clear, domed ceiling. “If anyone were to offer me two extra years, I’d accept in trembling gratitude and vow to fulfill all my obligations in the end, to live incandescently and die with dignity and wh
atnot.

  “But I’d be lying. As time slipped by, fear and anger would overcome me again. And I would again seek to run, to disappear so completely that not even my own shadow could find me.”

  He rose and retrieved the medal of honor that his chamberlain had earlier tried to pin on him. The medal appeared quite thick but was hollow at the center, and inside was a cache of little value to him, but possibly great use to her.

  “I was given an anonymous universal passport for my service to the Sector. Since no one knew I was too ill for sightseeing and other such adventures, my peers thought it would be a nice present for a young man with time to spare.”

  He extracted a small, white globe from the center of the medal, placed it in her palm, then closed his hand over it. A blue light seeped from between his fingers—and then dimmed. “It’s been transferred to you. You will now be able to pass through any and all checkpoints, and your movements will not be recorded.”

  She stared at him again, this time in disbelief. “You are willing to be an accomplice in my flight?”

  “You would flee with or without an accomplice. Given that is the case, there is no reason I shouldn’t try to make your life a little less cumbersome.” He squeezed her hand. “Consider it a wedding gift.”

  It was not an entirely selfless gesture, of course. He would like for his generosity to give her pause, however slight.

  She pulled away, the universal passport clenched in her fist. “I haven’t prepared any wedding gifts.”

  “It’s all right. This night was enough.”

  Her gaze shuttered. She was completely still, yet he had the impression that she was in mortal turbulence, a tiny solar-sail ship caught in a massive coronal flare.

  He could not breathe.

  Stay with me. Do the right thing. Do not make a choice you cannot atone for, not with a thousand lifetimes.

  She leaned forward, kissed him on the cheek, and rose. “Thank you. I will see myself out.”

  4

  Narrator: In a distant corner of the human sphere, on a lovely but otherwise unremarkable planet, lies a great mystery. It began two thousand and seventy years ago, shortly before the completion of terraforming.

  [Long, silent shot of a blue-green planet. Continents and oceans peek out from between bands of brilliant white cloud. Abruptly, all light from the planet’s star disappears. The next moment, a beacon of light pierces the atmosphere from within, penetrating deep into space. The camera shakes, loud with static.]

  Narrator: This footage was captured by an unmanned orbiting surveillance station. Within days, a team led by the sector’s most experienced investigators arrived on the still uninhabited planet.

  [A montage of shots: men and women in membrane-thin safety suits walking about; several deep-dive submersibles being unloaded from the landing craft; members of the expedition fiddling with communication devices, trying to establish contact.]

  Narrator: It was determined that the source of the burst lay deep in the ocean.

  [Footage from the submersible’s camera reveals a temple-like structure at the bottom of the sea.]

  Male Crew Member: [Redacted for language] There is a voice in my head telling me we stop or we die. Is anyone else hearing it? Anyone?

  Female Crew Member: [Redacted for language] I hear it too! Whoever they are, are they communicating telepathically?

  Narrator: Here is testimony from Captain Neha Mohuan of the investigative unit.

  Captain Mohuan: We told the Elders that there were people coming, millions and millions who had been granted residence on this planet. They were the war torn and the oppressed. Would they now have nowhere to go?

  [Shot of an old woman identified as Captain Mohuan, dated fifty years after the testimony.]

  Old Captain Mohuan: Of course I remember that day. The light from our submersible shone on this otherworldly structure. Everybody always says it’s temple-like. But temples are what people build for gods. What we saw that day was what gods built for themselves.

  [Shot of the public testimony.]

  Young Captain Mohuan: The Elders replied immediately, almost as if they knew the question we would pose. They said, “Your refugees have Our permission to occupy the land, but the oceans belong to Us. Furthermore, as a token of goodwill, We shall exact as sacrifice the best and brightest member of each generation.”

  [A montage of shots: intense discussions; street protests; graffiti scrawled on walls: YOU PROMISED US A HOME, NOT A DEATH TRAP.]

  Narrator: But an accord was eventually reached. The oppressed and war-torn set out for Pax Cara, knowing the cost they would bear.

  [Close-up of a small girl, about five years of age.]

  Girl: When my mama was little, my grandparents took her to the house of the boy who was the Chosen One. They didn’t go into the house, but they left chocolates and toys and a thank-you note. Mama cried on the way home, because that boy would die. My grandparents told her that she must be the best person she can be, for herself, and for him, so that he wouldn’t have sacrificed himself for nothing.

  A man off-camera: Do you think you want to be chosen?

  Girl (shaking her head): No.

  Man: But what if you are?

  Girl (hesitates): Then I want to be as brave as he was.

  Eleian stopped The Quiet Girl.

  It was the worst possible thing he could choose to watch, except he set it aside for something even less helpful: accessing the liner’s logs.

  Her pod had been given permission to use one of the liner’s auxiliary accelerators, which catapulted the small vessel toward the nearest planetary accelerator. Apparently no one doubted the reason she’d given: an urgent need for a wedding present.

  The pod was subsequently flung in the direction of Terra Antiqua’s primary moon, which, because it housed the largest interstellar hub this half of the sector, was also a shopper’s mecca.

  The logs further showed that the pod was given a berth at the hub and that a launch slot in two hours had been requested—and granted, for her return trip.

  For the pod’s return trip.

  She would be long gone, halfway to the borders of the Sector.

  He could still stop her: a quick word to the Pax Caran delegation; a message to the nexus to hold all transport headed out of the Sector. Five hundred million lives hung in the balance. Did he not have the moral obligation to intervene?

  But if she were dragged back kicking and screaming and forced to sacrifice herself, then he—and all the other Pax Carans—would have blood on their hands.

  He stared into the endless abyss outside. When he had climbed the steps of parliament on that long-ago day, it hadn’t been the most difficult decision to put his life on the line for his people—it had seemed the only right, indeed, the only possible thing to do.

  But could he make that decision for her?

  [A montage of photographs, of young men and women who had given their lives, so that their people could live on this pristine new world, safe from the chaos and strife they had fled.]

  Narrator: The next Pax Caran event comes in ten years.

  Voice off screen: Catch! Catch!

  [Fade in: A group of young people, running across a stretch of sand. The light is warm and languid. In slow motion, the camera lovingly caresses the lithe musculatures of its scantily dressed subjects. They throw a heavy-looking ball among themselves—those who receive stagger a little, then lob it forward with visible effort—all the while maintaining a near-sprint pace.]

  Trainer: That was half a second off your best pace. One more time.

  [The group emit a collective groan.]

  Trainer: But you can have a ten-minute break.

  [The sea is only twenty feet away, but the young men and women do not go into the gentle waves. Instead they use water rifles on one another. The camera lingers on each laughing face. They look happy, and beautiful in the way that the young are all beautiful.]

  Narrator: Is it him? Her? This one? Would you have known t
he Chosen One, just by looking?

  [The camera pans slowly across the entire group again and at last settles on a young woman. Hers is not a face that immediately stands out, but it is difficult to look away from.]

  [Cut to the interior of Vitalis’s home.]

  Vitalis: I know. I’m surprised too—all the time—that it’s me. But mainly because I don’t feel any different from anyone else. [laughs] In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever been the best at anything. Not in any of my classes, or in my physical training. There’s always someone better than me.

  Voice off screen: Do you ever think that they made an incorrect choice in choosing you?

  Vitalis [sighs softly] Can I tell you a secret that really isn’t much of a secret? We have no prophecy engines on Pax Cara, no oracles or seers. We have a selection committee made up of citizens. They agonize, argue, weep—and make their best guess.

  Voice off screen: That’s it?

  Vitalis: That’s it. And then it’s up to the one they choose to rise to the occasion and prove them correct.

  He was in her house. He recognized it from the documentary, an open, airy dwelling with a view of a turquoise sea. A breeze meandered through the rooms. Outside, slow waves murmured and lapped a long arc of white sand.

  The Vitalis who bounded in and kissed him was younger, the age she had been during the making of The Quiet Girl. She tossed aside her training gears. Let’s get into the water. I’m hot and dirty, the way you like me.

  He leaped up. Together they ran—ran!—shedding clothes as they raced across the warm sand. He looked down and was astonished to see that he was as fit as her training mates, a potently muscular demigod, his skin gleaming with youth and vigor.

  They splashed each other, laughing.

  I’m so happy, he told her.

  Aren’t you glad you found a way to travel back in time? We still have years. Years! she cried giddily, her arms outstretched, as if to embrace all that bountiful time.