Brightly Burning

by Alexa Donne

  “He doesn’t earn a substantial salary, but it should be enough, with my owning our quarters outright and all. Worst case, I figure out how to hold down a job.” She wrinkled her nose at that. “You can meet him, if you like. There’s a dance tonight.”

  A rasping cry sounded from Aunt Reed’s room. “Charlotte, where is my dinner!”

  Charlotte pushed back from the table with a sigh and retreated to care for her mother, leaving me to finish my meal.

  I didn’t have an appropriate outfit for dancing, so reluctantly Charlotte lent me something of hers, bemoaning loudly that we were the same size and thus she felt obligated. We left her mother in the care of a shift nurse and made our way toward the heart of the ship, to the old cultural center I remembered well. But I’d never been old enough to attend any of the dances held here, and found the Empire’s idea of a night of frivolity quite other from that on the Stalwart. There was no DJ mixing digi-tunes on a tab, but a chamber orchestra playing. Everyone was doing dances they all seemed to know the steps to, so I sat firmly on the sidelines while Charlotte flirted and danced with her tea farmer, Abhishek, or Abe for short. A boy named Edward took an interest in me and kept prattling on about different types of tea-cultivation methods. I could have been a tree, and he still would have talked on and on. I was bored out of my gourd, but I did glean some more useful information: the Empire was growing not only tea but fruit. They had only one small orchard, but nonetheless. It meant that Jon was onto something. It seemed the Stalwart was being phased out.

  I hated that I couldn’t write to him, not with Mason reading. I’d been back on the fleet for only a day, but I felt off-kilter. Treading water while I waited for Aunt Reed to die. I shook away the mere morbidity of the thought, grabbing Edward’s hand and demanding he teach me the next dance. Over the next hour, I pranced around in a circle, making a fool of myself and a mess of bruises of Edward’s feet, but it was, in some vague measure, a bit of fun. It was an unexpected emotion for the trip, and the only thing that made returning to the red room that night bearable.

  Over the next week, I helped Charlotte care for Aunt Reed, who often slept. When she was awake and lucid, she insisted I sit and talk with her, apparently her version of doing penance. Aunt Reed talked about everything and nothing, sharing idle Empire gossip and, when I could cajole her into it, telling me more about my mother. They’d grown up together, not exactly friends, but close, by way of family friendship. The derision in my aunt’s voice was clear as she relayed the particulars of my parents’ marriage.

  “Love conquers all,” she sneered before a hacking cough overtook her. She recovered to finish off with “And look how well it turned out for her.”

  It wasn’t the first time I’d heard her thesis on how stupid my mother was to leave the comforts of the upper decks of the Empire for the lower, all for love, only to die eight years later. I didn’t take the bait, refusing to reward her with my protestations.

  When I wasn’t bound to the family quarters, I availed myself of one of the Empire’s shiniest features: the library. Unlike the one aboard the Rochester, this was a living, breathing archive, housing works by all the fleet’s literary stars, plus a museum of classics—​real-life books—​under glass. I used to find them eminently impressive, now less so since I’d held so many in my hands. But the archive was what I sought. It contained not just books, but news. I searched for key terms pertaining to the Rochester and Hugo, and I drank up every article I could find.

  His mother had been sick. His father the toiling scientist. Rumors of experimental drugs. Psychosis. Murder.

  Further back, there were fluff pieces about the Rochester hosting elaborate parties, even producing a Klaviermeister—​Hugo’s grandfather. Some permutation of Fairfax—​a hundred years back, at least—​had pioneered a flu vaccine that saved half the fleet.

  The Fairfaxes were high society, integrated into the fleet, key citizens. Then it all changed. The parties stopped; the gossip items turned to speculation about the Fairfaxes becoming hermits. Then murder and self-imposed exile. It painted a puzzling picture. It told me Hugo’s history but gave me no real clue as to what was going on now. I had only half the equation.

  I knew Aunt Reed was about to die when she started apologizing to me. She wheezed, struggling for breath, but her grip was surprisingly strong. Her fingers dug into my forearm as she locked eyes with me, insistent.

  “I did wrong by you, Stella Ainsley. You should hate me, yet you came at my request. You sit by my bedside.” Her lip curled. “Your goodness is annoying.”

  Aunt Reed was still the master of the one-two punch. And she wasn’t done.

  “I promised my husband I would love you as my own child, but I could not. You were too much like his sister, and he preferred you to his own children. I hated you for it. I’m sure this cancer is my punishment.”

  I could have protested, reassured her no one got cancer as a punishment, that there was no way my uncle loved me more than his own children, but it seemed unimportant now. My aunt was exercising her right to confession, and the best I could do was listen. She went on, listing both her grievances against me—​I ate so much food! Required so much attention!—​and her sins. The coldness. Withholding affection. Sending me away.

  “Aunt Reed,” I urged her as she went on endlessly, working herself up into a frenzy, “please do not worry yourself any further. You were cruel to me, you sent me away, but I am fine. I forgive you.”

  She sank into the pillows, spent. It was apparently what she needed to hear. Forgiveness. I meant every word I said. I would find my place in the world. Somewhere. There was no need to hold a grudge.

  She died two days later. I did not cry, though I absorbed a sea of tears from Charlotte. I attended my fourth funeral, the pomp and circumstance unchanged over the years, in which Charlotte managed a tidy little speech between sobs, shared with the five people who bothered to show up but who had never visited while my aunt was sick. Then I held Charlotte’s hand as we gazed through a hexagonal-shaped window, watching Aunt Reed’s body—​tastefully enclosed in a shroud—​vented out into space.

  The next day, chaos, and Charlotte wailing for a whole new reason.

  “Those bastards!” She slammed her tablet down on the dining table. “They know we don’t have any money left, and yet they are requiring I travel to the Olympus to file some stupid forms!”

  I picked up the tab and read the message myself. To legally complete the transfer of her mother’s quarters to Charlotte, she would have to travel to the Olympus in person within seven days, or else she would forfeit it. It was crude yet effective: what better way to strip the poor and destitute of their inheritances than to require a trip they could not possibly finance? The valuable real estate would revert to the Empire, and they could do with it as they saw fit. Luckily I was in a unique position to help. “I’ll pay for the shuttle. I have an advance on my salary, and I know a guy who will take you there for a reasonable rate.” I didn’t know what Sergei’s rates were, since the Rochester had always paid, but I figured I’d twist his arm a bit.

  “You’d do that?” Charlotte sniffed.

  “Of course I would,” I replied. “And I’ll go with you.”

  It was uncanny how quickly Sergei could be hailed when you weren’t located by the moon. By breakfast the next day, we were on our way to the Olympus. It orbited within our cluster, so the journey was short, but the security detail on board was not. The Olympus checked our identification papers twice; then officers interrogated Charlotte and me for a half-hour about the purpose of our visit, unsatisfied the first three times we showed them the message Charlotte had received. Finally, we were released to visit the Population and Control Department, two identical keytabs in hand. The security office had already keyed in our destination, pulling up a map of the Olympus with a big red dot signifying where we were. Soon we arrived, using the keytab to open a bulkhead door, which lead to a cramped waiting room.

  “Who are you her
e to see?” a bored-looking man asked from behind a cluttered desk.

  Charlotte handed over the keytab, which now flashed our clearance stamp. “Mr. Reynolds,” she said in a small voice, almost like she was scared.

  “Have a seat,” the man directed us. “He’ll be right with you.”

  We had a very different definition of “right with you,” which I would have classified as “forthwith; very soon.” The government drone, however, meant “at some nebulous time in the future.” We waited ten minutes, then twenty.

  At the forty-minute mark, two miraculous things occurred. First, Mr. Reynolds finally appeared, beckoning us to follow. Then, as we were trailing behind him, making our way down a narrow, dimly lit corridor, I caught a familiar face heading in our direction. I did a double-take, stopping in my tracks.

  “Jon?”

  “Stella!” He jogged to me, grinning wide, and then enveloped me into a hug. I went stiff at the unexpected intimacy, but thankfully we parted quickly. I looked to see Charlotte stopped ten feet ahead, expression gobsmacked. A cute boy hugging cousin Stella—​scandalous! Farther off, Captain Karlson stood, equally bemused.

  “Um, go on without me,” I told Charlotte, who obliged with no fuss. Captain Karlson let Jon know he’d wait in the lobby, leaving us alone.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I could ask you the same thing. I thought you might end up on the Empire, but I never expected to see you here.”

  “How did you know I might go to the Empire?”

  “Your cousin contacted the Stalwart about your aunt a few weeks ago. I took the call, but advised her to write to you herself. I didn’t want to be the one to break the news.”

  “Oh. Well, Charlotte had to come to sign some papers. So here I am.”

  When Jon leaned in close, I was afraid he was going to hug me again or, worse, kiss me. But his arms remained at his side, his voice low. “I finally convinced my uncle. We came here to ask for a ship, to send a group down to Earth.”

  “You can’t. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Do we have another choice? They’ve been systematically moving all our crops onto other ships. Something’s going to happen. I just don’t know what.”

  I thought of Mason, telling me in his oily voice that my friends should worry less about vegetables. “Be careful about writing anything in messages. They’re reading them.”

  “Of course they are.” Jon sighed. “But how do you know?”

  I did my best to explain, and with the way Jon was looking at me, it must have sounded mad.

  “You’re living on a ship with a potential murderer. You can’t go back there.”

  “I have to go back. I promised.” I bit into the last word, let its weight wash over me. How much was my word worth if the price of it was my own heartbreak? I longed to see Hugo again, just one more time, but could I really bear to see him married to someone else?

  “A promise is a stupid reason to put yourself in danger.”

  “You didn’t find anything before, when I asked you to look into the crew.”

  “Doesn’t mean there isn’t anything to find.” The steel edge melted away, leaving an expression I’d never seen on him: weariness. “I know you don’t want to come back to the Stalwart; probably wise, given our predicament. They’re phasing us out, but won’t give us a ship that’s able to deorbit safely. But couldn’t you live with your cousin now? You could apply for a permanent visa, since you’re here anyway. My uncle would vouch for you.”

  It was tempting. I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t thought about it. Charlotte wasn’t my favorite person, but she wasn’t as whiny as I’d remembered her being when we were children. We’d both grown up a lot. She was about to come into a four-bedroom unit, and if I could secure a job on board, she might let me move in.

  I felt a pang at the thought of leaving the Rochester and Hugo behind for good, like someone twisting a wrench in between my ribs.

  “I’m going back,” I said. I needed a proper goodbye. “But I’m going to just flat-out ask what’s going on. If they fire me, I’ll make the request to move to the Empire.”

  “Firing you is a best-case scenario,” Jon said darkly.

  “They’re not going to kill me.” I rolled my eyes and punched him on the shoulder. Jon was becoming far too paranoid for his own good.

  “You’re still here?” Charlotte was back; either her meeting had been short or Jon and I had been talking too long. We headed back toward the lobby, collecting Captain Karlson and making our way en masse to the shuttle bay.

  I trailed a few steps behind, my brain running over all the best- and worst-case scenarios for my return. The best brought a grin to my face and a blush to my cheeks, while the worst ran my blood cold and had me glimpsing Hanada down the Olympus’s corridor, fuchsia hair flashing in the corner of my eye. Jon’s paranoia was rubbing off on me. I looked again, and she was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sergei laughed as I climbed aboard his ship the next day. “You really want to go back?”

  I gave him the same speech I’d given Jon and Charlotte the day before. I’d been gone weeks, I missed everyone, etc. I kept the uncertainty to myself: how long could I stay before the wedding? Where I would go afterward? Would seeing Hugo again twist a dagger in my heart? And then there was the matter of the attacks.

  Sergei distracted me with fleet gossip. Apparently, the Empire was not alone in growing food supplies. The Saint Petersburg was harvesting wheat. The Lady Liberty had corn. Sergei had ferried more than a few food workers and inspectors to several private ships, presumably to start their own micro farms. Jon’s paranoia was justified; the fleet was rendering the Stalwart nonessential. But why wasn’t the fleet helping by providing a safe vessel so the Stalwart’s inhabitants could go down to Earth? There was no way the Stalwart could safely enter Earth’s atmosphere without being torn apart. It would need a series of smaller ships, in better condition, if there was any hope of saving everyone. I pushed aside the niggling voice that whispered, They don’t want to save everyone.

  To silence the voice, I slept. Finished the Jupiter Morrow back catalog and started on a new author, since I’d loaded up on contemporary books on the Empire before I left. Rehearsed what I would say to Hugo when I saw him.

  I know you’re hiding something.

  I wish you and Bianca the best.

  I missed you.

  As soon as I stepped off Sergei’s ship, I felt like I was home. And I hated it. The Rochester would not be the first home to cast me aside, but it would hurt the most.

  Sergei helped me haul my new trunk into the transport bay, where I realized no one had come to greet me. “Did they respond when you hailed?”

  “Of course,” he said. “I’m sure they trust you don’t require a welcome party. I will wait for Officer Xiao.”

  I nodded, agreeing with him, but feeling somewhat unloved nonetheless. “You’re staying?”

  “For a day or so. I require a break after such a long flight. But next time you need me, you know how to get in touch. I’ll be waiting.”

  With a halfhearted wave, I started dragging my trunk along behind me, thankful I’d sprung for one with wheels. I was halfway to the staff quarters when I remembered: I’d won my room back from Bianca during the poker game. It seemed like eons ago, though it was only weeks. Was it real? If I went upstairs, would the bio-lock admit me to my quarters?

  To be safe, I continued toward the staff quarters. The rumble of the wheels as they glided along the metal flooring plainly announced my arrival, yet no one came out to greet me.

  “Lizzy? Preity?”

  Nothing but hollow silence echoed back at me. I tried the sleeping quarters, but no matter how hard I pressed the lock to our room, it didn’t open. The crew mess was deserted, rendered eerie in the absence of the detritus of the Ingram crew; waistcoats and borrowed tabs strewn on tables and chairs, sneaky flasks of booze tucked away that the junior staff brought in and the seniors
pretended not to see (but drank regardless). It was odd how quickly I’d become accustomed to the people in this space. Now everyone was gone.

  I even knocked on Hanada’s door, but either she wasn’t inside or she was ignoring me. One was as likely as the other.

  I sat on my trunk, somewhat at a loss, then remembered: I was back on the Rochester. My comms piece would work again. I dug it out of my bag, and a minute later Rori’s distinct voice, both warm and stiff, sounded a greeting in my ear.

  “Rori, where has the Ingram party gone?” I asked

  “They left. Your quarters on Deck Two are ready for you, Stella.”

  Making the round trip back to the elevator with my heavy trunk proved a workout. I pressed the elevator call button, chest heaving, a sweaty curl dangling stubbornly over my brow, my usual tight bun a mess. I longed for a shower.

  The elevator dinged, and I barreled inside. Right into Hugo.

  “Oof,” he said, and I could feel it reverberate through his chest, through me. My immediate instinct was to jump away, but hands at the small of my back and on my hip stopped me. My world narrowed to the heat where we touched, Hugo like a furnace—​or maybe that was me—​and my chin tilted up, an action I regretted immediately. We locked eyes, his warm and intense, like the smile playing across his lips. My heart thumped against my ribs, and I did my best not to say anything stupid.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect anyone to be inside.” My words broke the spell; Hugo pulled away and turned serious again.

  “No, no, don’t apologize.” He reached behind me to help with my trunk, raising an eyebrow at its weight. “Is this why you were gone so long? Shopping?”

  The doors closed as I stammered out my excuses. “No, see, it took my aunt some time to die, and then my cousin was a mess, and so I found I had to stay longer than I expected. I’m sorry—”

  “Stop apologizing,” Hugo interrupted. “I’m glad you’re back. And I like your hair like this. Loose and a bit wild.” He tucked a lock of it behind my ear, and my heart plummeted into my shoes. We were in a tiny box, a breath apart, and he smelled good, and—​ding! We arrived at Deck Two and the doors opened, letting out all the magic in doing so.