But The Stars

by Peter Cawdron

  “No lies,” she says, reinforcing Mac’s veiled threat.

  After a few seconds, Cap begrudgingly replies, “No lies.”

  For Dante, it feels as though they’ve reached an impasse. Perhaps if both sides are stymied, being forthright might offer a solution—a kind of detente. If they’re honest, perhaps they can both learn something about each other.

  Through gritted teeth, she says, “We’re going to die in here, aren’t we?”

  There’s no hesitation from Cap, no bitterness, no hatred, no anger, just one word spoken without any emotion at all.

  “Yes.”

  For him, this is a fact.

  Mags paces across the floor behind him, making herself heard but keeping her voice quiet as she mutters half a dozen swear words in rapid succession. Dante can feel the anger seething deep within her. Mags wants to explode but holds herself back, knowing the importance of what Dante’s doing by getting Cap to talk. The two women lock eyes for a moment. Mags pulls her lips tight, clenching her jaw. In any other context, she’d rip his head off. Dante’s not sure how long she can contain the crew. She’s got to get answers.

  “Is Angel one of you?”

  “No.”

  Again, his answer is quick, almost as if he anticipated the question and was waiting with an answer, but his response takes Dante by surprise. A knot tightens in her chest. Guilt washes over her at the realization she’s betrayed a friend. Angel, though, is silent. She simply nods in agreement. For her, at least, now is not the time for recriminations. That’ll come soon enough. Dante’s got to stay focused.

  “Are there any others among us?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  Heads turn around medical. Eyes dart between the crew, shifting from one person to another.

  “Ah, now wait a minute,” Angel says, holding her hands out with her palms raised and her fingers splayed wide, wanting to stop the conversation. “Don’t tell me you actually believe him. Why the hell would you believe him?”

  “Angel,” Naz says, exasperated. “He just cleared you of being one of them!”

  “He just admitted he was lying to you,” she says. “So why do you believe him now?”

  Dante is confused, but she doesn’t want the conversation to spiral off on a tangent so quickly. She has more questions for Cap, but Benson breaks into the discussion.

  “Are you saying you are one of them?” he asks, confused by Angel’s rebuttal.

  “No, but my point is valid. Why trust him? Okay, so we’re going to die in here. No shit. I didn’t need him to tell me that. Am I one of them? No. I also didn’t need him to say that. You guys did, but not me. I know who I am. Are there any others among us? Regardless of what he says, do you really think I’m going to believe anything that comes out of his mouth?”

  Zoe asks, “If he told the truth about you, why would he lie now?”

  Angel laughs, shaking her head. “Why wouldn’t he? Oh my God. We are so fucking stupid.” She holds out her hands again, signaling an apology in advance to Zoe, who looks insulted, perhaps a little hurt. “No offense, but we are—collectively—all of us.”

  “You’re saying we shouldn’t believe him?” Benson asks, still trying to unravel the conversation.

  Angel points at Cap.

  “I’m saying, nothing he says can be trusted. Anything he says is irrelevant. Anything he says, regardless of whether it’s true or not, is spoken for one reason and one reason alone.”

  Dante completes her thought. “To manipulate us.”

  “Thank you,” Angel says, nodding in acknowledgment. “You see, it’s not about truth or lies. It’s about direction. Trajectory. It’s about misleading us. The truth can be just as damaging as a lie. It’s all about the delivery.”

  “Wait?” Vichy says. “I’m not following this. If he’s lying, he’s trying to inject uncertainty, wanting to get us to doubt ourselves. I get that. But if he’s telling the truth, isn’t that a good thing?”

  “Is it a good thing to be manipulated?” Angel asks. “We need to make our own decisions, draw our own conclusions. We shouldn’t take anything from him. Nothing. Not a goddamn thing.”

  Cap is silent. He may have been cold and sterile with his words, offering only one-word answers, but Angel’s on fire, and he seems to be quietly relishing the volcanic eruption he’s unleashed. It’s as though he anticipated her anger. Angel looks at him with disgust. Spittle flies from her lips as she points at each of the crew in turn.

  “You don’t know what it’s like. You’ve flown under the radar. You don’t understand how it feels to be accused, despised, not trusted, hated, and all without reason, all because you were nervous, because you tried too hard to fit in, because you made the mistake of wanting to be normal just like everyone else.”

  Cap smiles, only slightly, but his lips turn upwards. His cheeks rise, unable to hide his delight.

  “Look at him,” Angel says, jabbing at the air, pointing at him with disdain. “He loves this shit. You want to know why he told the truth? Because he knew it would tear us apart.”

  She shakes her head.

  “I didn’t know. I mean, I knew about myself, but I didn’t know if he was or wasn’t one of them. All I knew was we were in the same boat, but look at him now.

  “Do you want to know why he cleared me? Because he knew it would unleash more hurt and confusion. Don’t you see? He’s weaponized doubt. He’s using our own emotions against us, isolating us from one another. And now look at us. We’re paralyzed with uncertainty.”

  “Fuck,” Mags says.

  “Thank you for your succinct and invaluable contribution,” Angel replies, tilting her head to acknowledge her. “Fuck indeed.”

  Zoe says, “So there may or may not be another one of them among us.”

  “For all I know,” Angel replies. “It could be you, but regardless, look at his intent. He wants to sow discord. He wants us divided. Why?”

  “To distract us?” Benson says, but Dante knows.

  “They’re stalling. They want to delay us.”

  Angel points at her, screwing her face up tight and not saying anything, but she clearly likes the logic. For Dante, it’s a relief to see Angel isn’t holding a grudge.

  “Well, this is fucking great,” Mac says.

  “Don’t believe him,” Angel says, turning to face the others. “Do not believe anything he says.”

  Naz still isn’t settled on the idea. “Now wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You’re saying we shouldn’t believe him at all—on anything?”

  Angel nods.

  He points at her, looking down his finger as though it were the barrel of a gun. “So we shouldn’t believe him when he says you’re not one of them?”

  Again, Angel nods. She offers no further explanation. Intuitively, Dante can see what she’s trying to do. Rather than wrestling with arguments and reasoning with the crew, she wants them to arrive at their own conclusions.

  “So,” Naz says, working himself through the logic. “Nothing he’s said has any bearing on whether or not you’re an alien?”

  “Nope.”

  “We just have to decide for ourselves?”

  “Not we,” Angel says. “You. Don’t make this about anyone else. You have to decide. You can’t run from this. You can’t abandon this to someone else. You cannot out-source your beliefs to one of us. You have to make your own decision about what you believe.”

  Naz turns to Mac. “I think my head is about to explode.”

  “She’s right,” Dante says, feeling compelled to support Angel. “We can’t abdicate our responsibility to make our own decisions. We can’t hide behind the decision of others or simply flock to the most popular opinion.”

  It takes all of Dante’s emotional strength to follow up with, “That would be a mistake.” Given her earlier accusation of Angel, that’s a bitter pill on her tongue.

  Naz says, “I liked it better when we had to pick between those stupid arrows.” To which Mac laughs.r />
  “I don’t get it,” Vichy says. “Why did you lie about the colors?”

  “You don’t understand,” Angel says, shaking her head with a sense of exasperation. “You were looking for an imposter. I am an imposter. Just not in the way you think.

  “All my life, I’ve been second,” Angel lets out a solitary laugh. There are tears in the corners of her eyes. “You guys. You have no idea what it’s like to be on the B-team. But me? All of my goddamn life!

  “My mother died when I was seven. I don’t know that my dad was ever sober again. I rarely did homework because I was too busy working to put food on the table. Me and my sisters ate a helluva lot of ramen.

  “My boyfriend got me through college. I don’t know that his parents ever noticed the additional costs. As for NASA, someone somewhere read an obscure research paper on nuclear magnetic resonance in the formation of quasar relativistic jets and I was given a wild card entry for selection.”

  A single tear rolls down her cheek. She looks Dante in the eye. As much as Dante wants to look away, feeling overwhelmed with guilt, she fights to maintain eye contact as Angel continues.

  “Do you know why I never gave up on that goddamn treadmill back in selection? I couldn’t. I had nothing to go back to. I would have died rather than give up. That’s the only time I ever came first at anything.”

  Dante swallows the lump in her throat. She nods, appreciating Angel’s resolve.

  Angel finally addresses Vichy’s original question. “You want to know why I lied? I felt intimidated. By you. By her. By everyone onboard the Acheron. You’re all so goddamn perfect. So yeah, I lied. I made a fucking mistake.”

  She walks around Cap, facing him, looking down at him with anger boiling inside, but Cap isn’t fazed. He keeps his head square, facing Dante, watching her reactions and ignoring Angel. She sighs.

  “Hell,” she says, gesturing to Dante, making as though she wants to draw her physically closer. “What’s that thing I’ve got?”

  Sheepishly, Dante says, “Anomalous Trichromat Protanomaly.”

  “That’s it. I never did like those fancy words.”

  Angel purses her lips, lost in thought. No one dares speak, giving her the space she needs to articulate the weight bearing down on her. Even Cap seems to sense the importance of the moment. Perhaps this is what these creatures really want—to observe the nuance that is humanity.

  “Do you know what’s funny about being color blind?” She points at herself. “I don’t think I’m blind. I can see. Apparently, you guys just see a little more than me, that’s all, but I have no idea quite what you see.

  “At the age of thirteen, they told me I have red-weakness. They told me red is actually quite bright or something. They say there are more blues—blues with red in them. Hell, I don’t know. All I know is I’m not actually blind. God, I hate that term.”

  She leans back, trying to stop the tears from running down her cheeks, but she can’t and she’s forced to wipe them away.

  “The thing is—up until then I thought I was normal. You know, just like everyone else. But I wasn’t. I was different. I was less. So then I go through selection. And all of a sudden, I’m told I’m better than everyone else. Hah! Me? Better than billions of other people on the planet? Really? ‘Yes, you,’ they said.”

  She taps the side of her head, touching lightly at her temple.

  “But I know better. I know I’m not. I’m an imposter. I spent the next nine years wondering when I was going to be caught out, right up until launch. So yeah, when Dante showed us those colors, I wanted to fit in bad, real bad. I did not want to be the freak.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Dante says, but Angel cuts her off before she can continue.

  “I know,” Angel says. She points at Cap as she addresses the rest of the crew. “Don’t you see. This is precisely what he wants. He wants her to feel guilty. He wants all of you to second guess yourselves. None of this is random or haphazard.”

  She laughs before continuing. “Do you want to know what I thought?”

  Angel jabs at the air, singling out Dante. “I thought she was an alien. I thought she was trying to set me up so I pushed back, probing, looking for answers, looking for weaknesses, inconsistencies.

  “I didn’t like being on the outside of the group, but it did have some advantages. I was able to observe you and think about your little rebellion and how it might play out with these creatures. And I think I know why the original color thing didn’t work.”

  “It should have, right?” Dante says.

  “Yes,” Angel replies. “Benson’s right. Colors aren’t real.”

  “But neither is this,” Vichy says. “None of this. I don’t see how we can rely on anything in here.”

  “So why didn’t it work?” Dante asks, not liking the way Vichy cut off Angel. Dante doesn’t want to break Angel’s train of thought.

  “I thought the answer would be obvious,” Angel says. “Think about it.”

  Dante’s not sure what she should be thinking about. Her brain simply doesn’t work that way. She’s about to shrug when it hits her.

  “Assumptions,” she says, remembering the warning of Dr. Romero.

  “Yes,” Angel replies. “We knew they were impersonating us, but we assumed we knew what that meant—simple mimicry, but what if it was something more?”

  “Oh,” Dante says as the implication dawns on her. “You think they’re using us. You think they’re using the bodies of the deceased.”

  Angel grits her teeth, nodding with grim focus. “I think they dissected them. Analyzed them. They needed to probe the dynamics of the human body.”

  Dante completes the thought, “That’s why they could see colors. They knew what to look for.”

  “We assumed it’s either/or,” Angel says. “That either we’re talking to an alien or a human, but what if that’s not the case? What if we’re talking to an alien that’s reanimated or perhaps co-opted a human body? Or one that’s examined an eyeball and looked at its limitations.”

  “They wouldn’t be fooled,” Dante says as the realization hits her like a freighter running a blockade.

  “Exactly.”

  “But the color yellow,” Benson says. “That requires working eyes, right? Not just the analysis of the cones and rods.”

  “Yes,” Angel replies. “For all their mastery of this illusion, matching the physics and even the operation of computerized components and mechanical parts like doors and locks, there are faults—flaws.”

  “Imperfections,” Benson says.

  Angel says, “Lies never come easy.”

  Cap watches Angel closely. His eyes narrow. Dante wants to say something. She wants to shift the focus back onto him. Angel seems to realize what she’s thinking.

  “As for this piece of shit,” she says with disdain dripping from her words, marching around to face him. “The worst thing about him is knowing the man I love is dead.”

  Honesty

  “So what are we going to do with this fucker?” Mac asks.

  “What can we do?” Mags asks. “Like he said, none of this is real.”

  Zoe says, “I for one wouldn’t mind watching him squirm inside an evacuated airlock.”

  “Might wipe the smirk off his face,” Naz says.

  Vichy is unusually quiet. He seems preoccupied. Dante wants to talk to him, to bounce some ideas off him, but doesn’t feel comfortable voicing her doubts in front of the rest of the crew. It seems testosterone is a substitute for any real action. Bluster and bravado have always been a placebo for substance. As much as she wants to join in the trash talk, she can’t. Cap is facing her. Nothing that’s said elicits so much as a twitch from his face. He holds his steely gaze on her. That’s a challenge Dante can embrace. She locks eyes with him, unsure of her next move but not wanting to show any weakness.

  “You don’t know, do you?” Cap asks.

  “Oh, I have my suspicions,” Dante replies, which causes the others to fall silent. “T
he experiment’s coming to an end, isn’t it?”

  “You don’t understand what you are?” Cap says, laughing, only it sounds hollow—fake. All pretense is gone. Dante may be speaking with Cap, but the intelligence driving his responses originated from within some other alien biosphere. “You don’t even know what you are.”

  Dante feels a sense of vertigo. The room seems to swing around her. Jeeves said the same thing. Were they listening? Was that even Jeeves or yet another imposter? Twinkle, twinkle, little star, oh how I wonder...

  She closes her eyes, squeezing them tight, wanting to shut out everything except this moment, determined not to fall foul of this insipid creature. Her lips tighten. Her jaw clenches. The muscles in her shoulders and arms stiffen, ready for a fight she knows will never actually come.

  “Try me,” she replies, staring down at him with contempt. “What am I?”

  “A waterfall.”

  Dante is on the verge of laughing. She turns, looking at Mags and then Zoe, wanting to gauge their reactions. They too are incredulous. Benson shakes his head. Such an idea is ridiculous. As far as metaphors go, it’s lousy.

  “What is a waterfall?” Cap asks, playing to their scorn.

  “I don’t know,” Dante says, humoring him, holding her hands out wide and gesturing in a blend of amusement and disdain. “What is a waterfall?”

  “It’s something that is nothing,” he replies. “It’s not a thing, but a process, an event, an occurrence.”

  “Water falls over a cliff,” Dante says. “How is that anything like me?”

  “Water isn’t actually part of a waterfall. It simply passes through the falls and then it is gone,” Cap replies. “In the same way, every aspect of your lives is transitory. From the two million blood cells that die every second within your arteries to your skin, your hair, your bones, the fiber of your muscles, the neurons in your brain. None of them last much more than a handful of years. They just trickle a little slower over the rocks. You are water cascading down the side of a cliff, only you don’t know it. And one day, the river will run dry.”

  Dante falls silent.

  “Everything about you is fleeting. Everything except for one thing—consciousness. That’s the only thing that remains constant throughout your entire lives.”