The Loneliness of Stars

by Z. M. Wilmot

  ~Vincent Magritto, in an interview on his acceptance of the position of head of security on the Ambassador

  “Come to us, Jakken. A new world awaits you, and a new destiny lies at your fingertips. Just walk among the stars, and all will be well…”

  I opened my eyes and found myself standing in a swirling sea of grey mist. My passage had no effect on its movements as I slowly walked through it, towards the source of the voice.

  “Yes, Jakken. Come nearer, and know the warmth of the stars. You will be welcome here…”

  I sat up straight in bed as a hand touched my shoulder. It drew back quickly at my movement. “Jak?”

  I sighed in relief. It was only Ezekiel. “Sorry. I thought it might have been Ivor.”

  Ezekiel sat beside me and put his arms around me, drawing me nearer. “Nope, not Ivor. Though the door was unlocked.” He looked at me with concern in his eyes. “Promise me you’ll be more careful next time.”

  I smiled and rested my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. “I promise.”

  He hugged me more tightly. “How was your nap?”

  I drew away and looked at him indignantly. “I wasn’t sleeping!”

  He raised his eyebrow and crossed his arms. “Oh really? Then what was that noise coming out of your mouth just then?”

  There was a witty comeback on the tip of my tongue, I promise you, but I just couldn’t get it out. I raised my finger, unable to speak, as he smirked at me. “Thought so.” He leaned forward and kissed me, pushing me down onto the bed.

  I wasn’t going to get the next day off. Korzos had ordered Joseph to prepare large quantities of food with no explanation. Joseph enlisted the help of both of us about half an hour earlier than we normally got up. Thank goodness we decided to sleep in separate beds that night, for he burst into our room using his special key, shouting at us to move our ugly asses and get going.

  It was a long day. Breakfast was taken care of quickly (that day’s was rather mediocre, far below Joseph’s usual standard), and lunch was little better. We spent most of the day preparing for the larger meal that the captain had told us would take place later today. Seeing Korzos in the kitchen made me very uncomfortable. It didn’t help to see Karanov just outside, watching him, and Sansson lurking about, watching me.

  When we finally got to take a fifteen minute break, Ezekiel suggested we go to a viewport and see if we could still see the landing craft. He didn’t know that I had been on board it. I agreed, and we set off to one on the starboard side. When we found an open viewport, we peered outside. It wasn’t visible. Ezekiel laughed at my disappointed face and walked to a panel on the wall to the right of the port. He pressed a few buttons, and suddenly the view zoomed in. I stood, open-mouthed, staring out into space. I had never seen anything like it. Ezekiel walked over while I was standing in awe, closed my mouth, and kissed me gently.

  “I found it.” He grinned like a small child. I could only nod. The Diplomat was a beautiful ship, much sleeker and more streamlined than the Ambassador. Of course, it didn’t have to store nearly as much cargo. It didn’t appear to be moving rapidly, but I knew that was just an effect of the magnitude of the objects in the background and the angle that the ship was travelling in relationship to us.

  We both watched the ship for several minutes, admiring its elegance and beauty. As we were about to turn away, we saw a beam of light shoot across our field of vision, appearing to come from behind the Ambassador. It hit the Diplomat, which exploded in a cloud of fire and dust far larger than the actual ship had been.

  We both froze in place and stared. After sharing a look, we both took off for the bridge. It occurred to me, about halfway there, that going to the captain might be a mistake, as he might be – no, probably was – involved. However, I didn’t want to be left alone to walk through the corridors of the ship, so I hurried after Ezekiel.

  Most of the crew was already gathered on the bridge, watching one of the larger monitors in horror. The grey cloud of debris was very visible there, set against the black background of space. Korzos was shaking in rage. We arrived just in time to hear him shout, “Who did this?” He had been in front, facing the screen, but whirled around the face the crew, who all took a step back from him. His rage looked very real. I began to doubt myself. Was he really that good of an actor?

  His eyes fixed themselves directly on me. “You,” he snarled. I stepped back from the force in his words. “You and your friend are responsible for this! Other than security, you were the only two not near the bridge when the beam was fired! And it clearly came from this ship! Who else could have done it?” I’m pretty sure we both blinked. We weren’t the only ones missing! Joseph wasn’t there, the two scientists definitely weren’t, and neither was Lazarus, the priest. And who was he to say that security themselves hadn’t fired it (unlikely, but still a possibility)? More and more people were beginning to notice their captain’s lack of coherency, and there was a lot of quiet muttering amongst the crew.

  A look of concern flashed over the captain’s face as the voices reached his ears. I think he began to feel the doubt slipping into the minds of the crew, for his voice and his accusations suddenly grew softer. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “Perhaps I am mistaken. I apologize for letting my temper get away from me.” He tried to smile, but it didn’t turn out very well. “It’s just that… losing Mather… it’s a blow.” The crew nodded in sympathy, their faces growing glum as the implications of what had happened hit them. These were the first deaths on the expedition. That they knew of, anyway. That most of them knew of. There were some who knew about the scientists’ murder, I reminded myself. But I only knew who five of them were.

  Korzos had turned his attention back to me (not Ezekiel – he was clearly singling me out) as I was reflecting. “However, you are the most suspicious at the moment, stowaway. Not here, like almost everyone else, when the shot was fired? Arriving late from the direction the shot was fired from?” I blinked at this additional piece of information. It had clearly come from the opposite side of the ship, but no one pointed this out to him.

  “Until we get to the bottom of this, you are to be confined to your chamber. Michaela, escort him there.” She nodded, walked over to me, and led me off. Ezekiel started to follow, but Korzos called him back. We walked back my room in silence. Michaela didn’t even look at my face, just my feet, as I stepped into my room.

  Once there, and after locking the door, I walked to my bed, lay down, and cried, not caring that the cameras could see me. I scarcely noticed when Ezekiel walked in and pulled me close to him. I think we fell asleep like that, but I’m not sure.

  When I woke up, he was gone. Not in the same way that Peter and the others on the ship were, but I still wished he was here. I missed all of them acutely, though I never had really spoken to most of them. I rolled out of bed and slowly paced my room. There was really nothing else to do – I had lots of time to reflect.

  The first thing I thought about was food. I was hungry. I wondered if meals would be brought to me. Looking at the chronometer, I noticed that it was almost lunch time. I hadn’t been brought breakfast. I hoped they just forgot, and weren’t starving me.

  It took me at least five minutes to stop thinking about my stomach. Once I stopped, I then decided to be practical, and tried to figure out what was going on. Korzos had accused me of destroying the Diplomat. I knew that I hadn’t done it, and I’m pretty sure he knew that, too. When he heard the angry mutterings of the crew, he had looked slightly panicked, like someone caught in a lie.

  I began to suspect very strongly that Korzos was behind this, and was using me as a scapegoat, as I was the easiest person to assign blame to. I wasn’t even supposed to be here. But why would he kill his own first mate? Daniel’s words came back to my mind: He hates your country, and would like nothing better than to see it humiliated before the world when its prized expedition fails. He had nothing against Mather, or most people on board the craft. If he hate
d any crew member, it would be Crydgar, the only Bajan on the crew besides me.

  Maybe that was why he singled me out. I was Bajan. And I had managed to circumvent his security – I bet he didn’t liked that. At that moment, a thought struck me. Why hadn’t security picked up on me while I was in the cargo hold? They must have had cameras there. I decided to ask Vincent when I next saw him – if I ever did.

  But if he only hated Crydgar and me, why not just send us to go down on the carrier before destroying it? It certainly would have been more convenient.

  But Peter and Daniel had known something was wrong. They didn’t trust Korzos. Perhaps Korzos knew that they knew something, and so had gotten rid of them. But still, why not put Crydgar and me on the ship? I suppose his orders would have been questioned had a lowly stowaway been put onto the landing craft, but why not Crydgar? A commando on board would have made sense.

  Unless of course, there were other forces at work here. Maybe Korzos had been just as surprised as everyone else when the beam hit the ship. Could Ivor be responsible? I didn’t remember seeing him in the crowd. But then again, I was too busy being terrified to notice that much.

  Maybe Crydgar or Adam? But what would they have to gain from the destruction of the landing craft? No, the only even remotely possible suspect was Korzos. I wondered why he hadn’t just destroyed the ship before it launched, or just blown up the ship during our journey, if he hated Baja so much. Unless…

  I stopped pacing. What if he had tried? He had put something into the main engine on that day I had been cleaning, but Mather had removed it shortly afterwards. Could Mather have known something was up, known who was behind it, and had been stopping Korzos from carrying out his sabotages? Did Korzos send him out to get rid of this obstacle? I blinked. If he knew, then why had he agreed to go onto the landing craft, preventing himself from stopping Korzos if anything went wrong in the future? Maybe he just couldn’t have refused with any good reason. After all, he was the logical choice.

  I sat down on my bed just as I heard a knock on the door. I froze. Who was willing to talk to me, and risk gaining the disfavor of the captain? I was relatively sure he would frown on anyone talking to me, and he could easily have security watch my room. He had probably posted a guard.

  Remembering the lesson Sansson taught me, I walked to the door and asked who it was. In response, I heard the lock click and the door swing open. I leapt backwards out of the way and raised my arms, ready to be attacked. Instead I heard laughter. Standing in the doorway was Vincent. “Good to see you were ready for anything.” He grinned at me. “Unfortunately, Security has all the keys, so you couldn’t have stopped me even if you wanted to.” I was strangely happy to see Vincent, although his chatting did get on my nerves.

  “I decided to bust you out of here for a few hours. Plus, you never did show me how you bypassed our security.” He grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the room, locking the door behind him.

  “But won’t you get in trouble?”

  Vincent just laughed and led me straight to the security booth. We didn’t pass anyone on the way.

  The booth, which was actually a rather large room, was hidden in the walls of the corridor. Vincent stopped at a seemingly random point and placed his hand on the wall. It vanished, revealing a black set of ascending stairs. He muttered something in some language I didn’t recognize. He then walked up the stairs with me in tow, half dragging me. I didn’t like the smell of the room.

  It was a rather short flight of stairs. All the way up, guns of some sort followed us, making me nervous. The wall had reformed behind us as soon as we stepped through it. At the top of the stairs was a room whose walls were plastered with monitors. They covered nearly every vertical surface, and any raised horizontal service held a keypad of some kind. There were four other people in the room.

  “This is my staff – or what remains of it. Valerius Publiatys was on the landing craft. He’s why you had a direct link to me.” He smiled grimly. “I hope whoever it was who fired that beam gets what he deserves.” Valerius must have been the man I didn’t recognize. I had to say I agreed with Vincent’s sentiment.

  “Shouldn’t you be in charge of the search?” I inquired, looking up at him.

  He nodded. “Aye. That we are. But we’re going to have a hell of a time. The beam fired was from the ships own weapon systems, not a separately installed weapon or one not connected to the ship. Someone must have hacked into the weapons network and fired it. There are no traces of the attack, though, so we really don’t have any leads.” I wondered if he had considered the possibility that it was one of his own men.

  “I don’t believe it was you, Jak. No offense, but I don’t think you’re… quite that skilled. Or angry.” I wasn’t either of those, and told him as much. He nodded. “Most of the crew think Korzos is over-reacting. He’s been acting strangely throughout this entire trip.” That was an understatement – he’d been acting as if he’d lost his mind. “Security’s watching your door, but if you want to leave without a trace, hold up two fingers like this…” He demonstrated. “…wait five seconds, then leave. We’ll cover you and make sure no one sees you. If someone is approaching your position, the nearest camera will start buzzing.” I was taken aback by Vincent’s willingness to do this for me.

  He grinned down at me as I stuttered my thanks. “Always willing to help the unjustly persecuted. Now, how on earth did you get on board the landing craft?” I thought fast, and told him an improvised story about covering cameras and boxes. I didn’t think he would buy it, especially as they would notice blocked cameras, but he did. I was surprised.

  “I thought we should have had more people watching the ship. There was only Scipio here. The rest of us were seeing them off. Ah well. What’s done is done. We’re lucky we got you off.” I nodded. I had been lucky. Peter, Daniel, Henry, Angela, and Valerius had not been.

  Vincent spent another hour showing me how the various pieces of equipment worked, what controlled what, and where all the cameras were (apparently everywhere except the kitchen, the mate’s cabin, and the captain’s cabin). I asked him why there was no camera in the kitchen, and he told me there was, but it was never on. “After all, where’s the fun in knowing what’s for dinner?” I couldn’t fault him on that.

  Remembering my earlier musings, I asked him if there were cameras in the cargo bay that I had been hiding in. He smiled at me. “Of course there were!”

  “Then why didn’t you catch me earlier?”

  Vincent shrugged. “Luck, I guess? We don’t really watch the cargo bays much. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a lot of tension on this ship. It’s what happens when you drop a bunch of people from every country and planet known to man on a single vessel. People are bound to not get along. We’ve been monitoring people we know are here rather than those we don’t. Plus, there are only a few cameras in there – perhaps you never were at a good angle for them to capture you.” I nodded, but I wasn’t satisfied with his answer.

  As Vincent walked me back to my room, I realized that my opinion of him had completely turned around after this visit. I began to find his chatting pleasant, and actually listened to him all the way back. I thanked him as he turned around to go back to his booth as he left me at my door. He winked and bid me farewell.

  I opened the door to find a very angry, not to mention worried, Ezekiel standing there.

  “Jak! What the flying fuck did you think you were doing? If you had been caught you could have been flogged or spaced or something!” I hadn’t thought about Ezekiel. I felt horrible.

  “Ezekiel, I’m sorry… I didn’t…”

  “Didn’t think? No you didn’t! I don’t want to think of what could have happened to you!” He was shaking in anger. I had never seen him like this. “All by yourself, alone in this ship…”

  I interrupted him. “I wasn’t alone. Vincent was with me. He came and got me from the room and showed me around the security area.” I knew as soon as the words left my
mouth that it was the wrong thing to say. Ezekiel just stared at me for several seconds. Then he swallowed, tears forming in his eyes.

  “I see.” He walked forward, pushing past me, and started to walk out the door.

  “Wait! I didn’t mean it like that!” I ran out into the corridor after him, but he was gone.

  10

  “Korzos… someone needs to keep an eye on him – and I suppose I am that man. Officially, at least. The Corgathian government was right – they are paying me to do something useful, and not just sending me out on a wild goose chase. I’ve let Daniel in on my secret… but I’m not sure about Vincent. He seems nice enough, but slightly odd. I think he can be trusted, but I’ll wait before I make my final decision.”