Brightly Burning

by Alexa Donne

  I stumbled back, hitting the edge of the captain’s chair. “As your what?”

  “My wife. I was hoping you’d marry me.”

  I gave it a second, letting the concept roll around my brain. No, it still sounded wrong.

  “You look surprised. I figured it would be obvious.”

  It most definitely was not. “Why?”

  “Well, I was going to marry Bianca.”

  “She had a ship; it was an arrangement,” I protested. “I have nothing to offer, none of the traditional barters for inter-ship marriages.”

  “You don’t have to offer me anything. A marriage to Bianca would have been a trade deal, one I’d long thought I had no control over. But now I see I have other choices. Better choices. I don’t want to marry you because it’s a good business arrangement. You’re my equal, Stella. All you have to bring is yourself. I love you.”

  “Say that again,” I practically whispered.

  “I love you,” he obliged, but I shook my head.

  “No, the other thing,” I insisted.

  “What?” Hugo replied with genuine confusion.

  “That I’m your equal.” It was like music, the crescendo to a symphony. It was something I’d felt, many times before, but to hear it from him?

  “You’re my equal,” Hugo repeated.

  Magic.

  “Then I will marry you,” I said.

  This time, when we kissed, I let him try the tongue thing again. And it wasn’t half bad.

  Breakfast was crowded, every seat at the table occupied for once—​me, Xiao, Poole, Orion, Jessa, Hanada, Albert, and the surprise additions of Sergei and Hugo. Hugo was at the head of the table, while I sat to his immediate left; not my usual spot, but he’d insisted I sit close so he could hold my hand under the table. We blinked around the table at one another, Xiao darting eyes to Hugo, then to me, back to Hugo; Hugo staring intently at Hanada; and everyone unfamiliar with my favorite shuttle captain throwing confused glances his way.

  “Sergei, are you extending your stay?” I finally asked.

  “Da, I need some rest, and Iris was kind enough to find me a bed.”

  I caught Xiao blushing, which made my own cheeks heat. Seemed more than one of us had found romance on board. Hugo saw that as his in.

  “Well, I have good news.” He paused for effect. My heart thumped so violently in my chest, it threatened to burst out and flop onto the table. “Stella and I are getting married.”

  Hanada barked a laugh, while Poole sputtered her coffee and Jessa broke into a whoop.

  “No more Bianca! Yes!”

  Orion, Albert, and Sergei offered hearty congratulations. Xiao just stared, mouth set in a firm line.

  “Do you really think that’s wise, sir?” She addressed Hugo, avoiding my gaze. My stomach twisted. Hanada piled on.

  “Seriously. I mean, you’ve known each other, what, three months?”

  “Four,” Hugo corrected tightly.

  Had it been? My sense of time was warped. It felt like a year, but Hanada’s estimation felt closer to accurate. Three months wasn’t a very long time. Or four.

  “You’re only nineteen, and she’s not even eighteen,” Xiao kept on.

  “My birthday is next month,” I offered uselessly.

  Hugo squared his shoulders and set his mouth in a hard line. “Age is no matter. I’ve been captain since I was fourteen. I can make my own decisions.”

  “You know my objection. My concern.” Xiao’s reply was clipped.

  I shoved a piece of bacon into my mouth, focusing on the crunch of it under my teeth, the bright, salty flavor as it washed over my tongue. Anything to keep from agonizing. Was it that I wasn’t good enough for him? That I couldn’t offer a ship for scrap like the Ingrams could? Worst of all, Hugo didn’t say anything else. Didn’t defend me, or himself. He simply got up and left the table. Left me. I stared at my plate to avoid the gazes of everyone remaining. The rush of air at my back and the sound of the door opening once, twice more after Hugo’s departure made it clear there’d been an exodus.

  Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. It squeezed, the pressure reassuring. “I’m happy for you.” It was Orion, who leaned close and kept his voice low. “Don’t listen to them. We should all be so lucky, to find someone to love on a ship this small. That’s fate right there.”

  I looked up to see him leaving, and took stock of the other absences. Xiao, Sergei, Albert, and Poole were gone, leaving me with two people for whom I had opposite feelings.

  “I’m glad you’ll be my sister.”

  I swiveled my chair around to meet Jessa’s open arms, pulling her into a hug. She was right; we would be family. I held her tighter, glad to have another ally, even if she was eleven.

  Hanada leaned back in her chair, arms crossed over her chest, clearly playing the long game. Reluctantly I sent Jessa down to her quarters, promising I’d come down in a bit so we could talk more. Hanada would track me down eventually to say her piece, so I might as well face it now. The morning couldn’t get worse.

  “I understand where you’re coming from, you know,” she started. “Getting swept up in a ship romance. It’s stupid. But understandable.

  “Ten years ago, I was just like you. Eighteen, from a succession of cold ships with no affection, landed here on the Rochester and thrown into the company of a brooding Fairfax.” Hanada was never without some dramatic pretense, yet this was an earnest admission, I could tell, for her. “Phillip was . . . everything.”

  “Wait, Hugo’s dad?”

  “Of course,” she snapped. Then her fury quickly ebbed as she fell back into her story. “I was his lab assistant. Hired because his son, who would surely follow in his footsteps, was not old enough. We learned all the basic scientific techniques and theory aboard the Marie Curie, but Phillip pushed scientific boundaries. Invented new life out of nothing . . .” She trailed off. Took a sip of tea. Regrouped. “Science is pure. Love is messy. I don’t regret it. But I should.”

  “What’s your point, Hanada?” I was out of patience. She appeared impressed.

  “You’ll need that bite if you stay. But you can still leave. It’s fortuitous the shuttle captain is still here.”

  “His name is Sergei, and I’m not leaving. Are you actually going to tell me what your problem is, or are you going to keep throwing vagaries at me?”

  “It’s not my place to tell you anything.” She made for the door, but left me with a parting shot. “You should have a frank conversation with your fiancé about what’s going on on this ship.”

  I found distraction in an afternoon of movies with Jessa, who was all too happy to skip lessons for the day. After an uneventful dinner—​it seemed everyone decided to eat in their quarters except for Jessa and me—​I paced before Hugo’s study door, rehearsing what I wanted to say. After five minutes, I still didn’t have an eloquent solution.

  “Frex,” I cursed.

  The door slid open, revealing Hugo and a curiously quirked eyebrow.

  “Cursing before you’ve even talked to me. That’s bad.” He gestured for me to come in and had a drink in my hand before I could protest. This was becoming a bad habit.

  “I should have come and found you after this morning. I’m sorry.” Hugo sat in his normal chair, and I in mine. We had a routine, like a proper couple. I felt a temporary surge of warmth in my stomach, briefly assuaging my nerves.

  “I figured you needed to cool down. That you would want to be alone.”

  Hugo cringed. “I hate that you think my default is to be alone.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but you’re the exception.”

  I felt a brief stab of doubt, the onslaught of feeling setting me off-kilter. Hugo had gone from coy to devoted in the space of a few weeks. How could I know he wouldn’t change again a few weeks later?

  But I had a feeling my concerns—​that Hugo’s feelings were not real, that I may have accepted his proposal hastily—​were not the same concerns Xiao
and Hanada had. Those were still dangling in the air, like a sword above my head.

  “I feel like you’re not telling me something,” I said. “I’ve thought that for a while, but never said anything, and after this morning . . . Hanada said some concerning things to me.”

  “Mari has her own issues when it comes to me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Hugo seemed to weigh his words carefully. “Mari has her own reasons to dissuade you. I wouldn’t listen.”

  “And what about Xiao? She seems perfectly reasonable, and she, unlike Hanada, seemed to like me. Until now.”

  “Xiao thinks she’s my mother,” Hugo said darkly.

  “I’m not good enough. Because I have no ship to barter.”

  “I told you that doesn’t matter.”

  “To you, maybe.”

  “Stella,” he said my name like a prayer, crossing the short space between us, pulling me up from my chair and into his arms, “you can’t let them get to you. They have their reasons, but all that matters is I love you. Xiao will come around, I promise. And what Mari thinks doesn’t matter.”

  But what about what I thought?

  What did I think?

  When I retired to my quarters for the night, I laid my head on the pillow and willed sleep to capture me quickly, so that I might wake up sooner, to a better, happier day.

  My dreams kept me from a sound slumber. Their subjects were nebulous, the settings obscure, but there was something dark, something that pinned me down, sucked the breath from my lungs, tore me from sleep, gasping. The room was pitch-dark but for a single stream of light, dim. And the laugh. It reverberated down the corridor and made the hairs on my arm stand on end.

  I jumped up, making for the door, feeling strange, but pushing it aside. I found the source of the light—​my door had been left open. Something had been inside my room. My heart skittered against my rib cage as I poked my head into the corridor, which appeared empty. I patted myself down, from chest to knees, checking for damage.

  “Lights on just a bit, Rori,” I managed with a shaky voice, squinting at the light, meager as it was. My bed, the wardrobe—​everything was fine. No fire. Except . . . there seemed to be something on my pillow. It was dark—​was that blood? I crept closer.

  It wasn’t blood. My hands flew to my head, feeling with useless fingers for what was no longer there. My hair. Someone had cut it all off.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  My feet carried me out to Hugo’s room before my brain could second-guess it. I pounded on the door until my palms hurt, taking care not to glance in either direction down the corridor. I dared not stare into the black, for fear I might see something lurking in the shadows.

  Finally, Hugo answered the door. “Stella, what is it?” he said, then caught sight of my appearance, eyes going wide. “What happened to your hair?”

  “Someone broke into my room and cut it while I was sleeping. Just like someone broke into your room and set the bed on fire.” My voice started small, then rose, all the mishaps and accidents flooding back, screaming in my mind. “Someone sabotaged the airlock. And attacked Mr. Mason.” I pounded my fists against Hugo’s chest, pushing him back a foot. “What are you hiding? Tell me!” On my next downswing, Hugo caught my wrists, holding me fast.

  “Stella, I’m sorry.” He pulled me into a tight embrace, and I could feel him grasp at the remains of my hair with his fingers.

  “Don’t apologize,” I said. “Tell me the truth. Who would do this? And why?”

  Hugo peered down at me, eyes searching mine for something—​forgiveness? “I never thought she’d hurt you.”

  “Who? Please tell me.”

  He pulled back, his look turned wild and cold, grabbed my hand, and tugged me into the corridor. “Follow me.”

  I tripped along behind him, struggling to keep up. Hugo’s strides were long and determined; he knew exactly where we were going. Soon enough, I did too. The elevator, normally locked against my use, took us up to Deck One at Hugo’s command.

  “Once you’ve seen what is upstairs, you may change your mind about me,” he said as we lifted off. “I want you to know that it’s okay. I wouldn’t blame you.”

  His ominous words did nothing to calm my anxiety, which rose like the tide as we ascended. The doors dinged open to reveal a perfectly ordinary corridor, except that it dead-ended in a bulkhead with an extra-large door. Hugo’s grip on my hand went tighter, his palm sweatier than before; I realized he wasn’t fixed fast to me to keep me in his stride, but rather he needed the comfort of my touch. Whatever was behind that door terrified him.

  Still, Hugo approached the bulkhead with measured speed, letting go of my hand to open the bio-lock. “Stand behind me,” he commanded as the door slid open.

  With that kind of warning, I expected something—​or someone—​to jump out at me, bearing claws. Instead, I found myself stepping into living quarters just like any others on board. Lights dimmed low with the same superfluous elegant features as Hugo’s study—​wood paneling, tapestries, furniture made of buttery leather—​we stepped through the hatch door into a drawing-cum-dining space, where a figure dozed in a large, overstuffed lounge chair.

  “Lieutenant Poole?”

  Poole stirred, blinking first at Hugo, then at me. Her eyes went wide. “What is she doing here? And what happened to her hair?”

  It was like the oxygen left the room; I half expected to be vented into space, my lungs burning, tears pricking at my eyes. I started to cry hot, stupid tears. It was only hair. Except it also wasn’t. It was as if the world was collapsing out from under me.

  “Where is your patient?” Hugo asked, to Poole’s confused look.

  “Asleep. Where else would she be?”

  Hugo inclined his head toward me, to my hair. He flinched at my tears, which I was desperately trying to paw away, but soon my thin sleeve was soaked and my nose started to run too.

  “Frex,” Poole said, immediately sweeping into the next room. It was dark, but I could make out a bedroom. Then an earsplitting laugh. The laugh.

  “That’s the laugh I heard, over and over!” I moved behind Hugo, burying my face in his shoulder.

  “I know,” Hugo said darkly. “She thinks it’s hilarious, what she does. She’s not herself.”

  “Who?” I asked, peering around Hugo to see Lieutenant Poole frogmarching a figure toward us. The light revealed a woman, a mass of dark curls obscuring her features momentarily, until she violently shook her head, attempting to wrench free of Poole’s grasp. And then I saw her eyes, and it was horrifically clear.

  “Stella, meet my mother, Cassandra Fairfax,” Hugo said, voice drained of all energy. I stepped out from behind him to get a better look, and immediately she went into a frenzy.

  “Phillip, get away from her!” Cassandra screeched, nearly breaking out of Lieutenant Poole’s grasp. “She’s trying to steal you away!”

  “She thinks I’m my father,” Hugo explained sadly.

  “I thought she killed your father,” I asked Hugo under my breath, afraid Cassandra would hear me, but she was wholly distracted by Poole, who’d wrestled her into a firm hug and was whispering something into her ear. Cassandra fought against her, attempting to break free.

  “She did,” Hugo said sadly. “But she doesn’t remember sometimes.”

  “Hugo, I need help,” Lieutenant Poole said, grabbing firm hold of Cassandra’s arm and leading her over to a chair about ten feet from where Hugo and I now sat. He leaped up, grabbing something white and stiff from a hook on the wall and joining her.

  “I’m going to put you in your dress and go fetch you something nice to help you sleep,” Poole said. Only instead of a frock, she and Hugo fit her, gently but firmly, into a coarse white coat that restricted the movement of Cassandra’s arms and stuck her fast to the back of the chair. Poole’s role on board suddenly snapped into focus. She was a caretaker. No wonder I rarely saw her, and when I did, she was making off with double porti
ons of food. Her affection for her charge was clear; she tucked a strand of wild hair behind her ear and kissed her on the forehead.

  “What’s wrong with her, exactly?”

  “Psychosis,” Lieutenant Poole said. “Brought on by an experimental drug unwisely administered without understanding potential side effects.” Her distaste was clear.

  “He didn’t know,” Hugo bit back. “He thought it would help, with her panic attacks . . .”

  “He should have known. He was the fancy scientist. She trusted him.”

  “Nobody knew it would do this to her,” Hugo argued, though the fight had clearly gone out of him. He slunk against the pillows and worried his lower lip with his teeth.

  “She’s the one who tried to kill you?” I asked. “Twice?”

  “Since you’ve been here,” he confirmed. “And once before you came. Now that I’m older, I look too much like him. She gets confused.”

  “And you’re hiding her here,” I said, putting all the pieces together as I spoke. “Only you, Lieutenant Poole, Officer Hanada, and Officer Xiao know.” Now Xiao’s ominous comments about our engagement made sense, plus a lot more. “And it’s why Mason was here.”

  Hugo nodded. I didn’t need to say the rest out loud. His mother had been a comms officer, which was how she’d hacked the bio-lock systems on our doors, known how to sabotage the oxygen in the airlock. And she’d attacked me—​cut off my hair—​because Hugo had said he liked it wild, tumbling down my shoulders, and she thought he was her husband.

  There it was—​the Rochester’s big secret. Hugo’s big secret.

  “I’ll get the sedative from Hanada.” Lieutenant Poole stood, lumbering for the exit, leaving Hugo and me to awkward silence broken by the occasional whimper from Cassandra.

  “I don’t like to drug her,” Hugo said once Poole was gone, though he did not look at me, or at his mother. He stared straight ahead at the opposite wall, where I followed his gaze to find an old family portrait. “Most of the time, we can talk her down. She flits in and out of the worst of it. But sometimes medication is essential.”