Spinning Starlight

by R. C. Lewis

  I force myself to my feet and tap a touchscreen to activate the computer. “Link Domestic Engineer and Itinerary Keeper from country estate to current location. Dom, you there?”

  “Yes, Liddi. I see you’re at the townhouse. Is everything to your liking?”

  “Well enough. I’m doing some research. Get me everything you can find on phenomena that make people look like ghosts.”

  “Could you please clarify what you mean by ‘look like ghosts’?”

  “Translucent. And transient. Like appearing and disappearing.”

  “Compiling…done.”

  I’m already heading upstairs to the top floor. “Cue it up in the workshop.”

  Once there, I sit down at my old spot and narrate my observations into the computer—the time and place of each sighting, my brothers’ behavior, everything I remember. Then I have Dom start playing his findings on the wallscreen.

  I watch media-casts of people who claimed to have seen ghosts in “haunted” locations, like the site of an old concert hall collapse on Yishu. Maybe I was wrong about no one believing the old legends. The witnesses always sound either mentally disconnected or more interested in the attention than anything else, so I quickly dismiss them. Listening to treatises on life after death is a little more enlightening, but the philosophers on Tarix are still just theorizing without any thought to evidence or hard facts.

  It takes hours to sift through everything, and nothing helps. Finally, though, Dom cues up a technologist’s working notes from centuries ago when the conduits were first being tested.

  “The conduits are holding now that we’ve attuned the energies at each end. Several trips to each Point have been completed successfully. The dimensional shift from the origin Point and the shift back into phase at the target Point are separated by an average of eleven seconds. We’ll continue to monitor stability, but it looks good. A side note: some of the conduits on Erkir have outdoor exit points for now, since the citizens prefer we not build facilities until success is confirmed. When making transit on moonlit nights, we’ve observed a strange visual phenomenon. The traveler appears before he’s arrived, while he’s in the neither-here-nor-there hyperdimensional state. ‘Appear’ may be too strong a word. More a ghost of an appearance. May be linked to the frequency variance we’ve observed. We’ll try to tighten that up.”

  Both times I saw my brothers, it was at night. In the moonlight, even. And “neither-here-nor-there” sounds similar to what I witnessed. But not exactly. My brothers aren’t in transit. I don’t think. Or if they are, they’re not completing the transition, getting back into phase with our reality’s dimension.

  Like they’re stuck.

  I go up the final flight of stairs and out onto the roof. Still the middle of the night, still dark. Luna Minor has set, but Luna Major is high above me. I sit on the bench where Mom and I used to look for the stars against the city lights, but now I watch everything else. Every corner of the roof, every flicker of movement. Nothing.

  But just because I can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

  “Boys, I have an idea where you might be…maybe.” It feels weird, talking into the nothing, but I keep going. People hear voices on the other end before completing a conduit trip all the time. It might work here, too. “If I can see one of you again, here while I’m talking to you, I’ll know it’s not a coincidence. And I’ll find a way to help you. Please, I need to know I’m right.”

  More silence, more nothing, but only for a moment. Then a patch of moonlight takes shape. It’s Anton. Since I’m watching carefully this time, expecting it, I see the effort it takes from him. He smiles, but it’s not one of the easy smiles I’ve known all my life. It’s strained, its tightness echoing across my chest. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, but he slips away again before he can.

  It’s the beginning of an answer that only creates a hundred more questions. I hate that Anton couldn’t tell me anything, that I can’t solve the problem right now, but this beginning is more than I had. “Okay, I’ll figure it out. I’ll get you home.”

  I race downstairs and change into some of the clean clothes Ms. Blake—Minali—had sent over from the estate yesterday. As much as I don’t want to, I take an extra five minutes to brush and braid my hair. After everything Minali said about spin, she’ll be more likely to listen to me if I’m not running around the city looking like a lunatic…again. I scarf down a protein bar, too. I’m starving.

  The sun is barely teasing the horizon when I leave the townhouse, my security-cam humming along behind me. Much too early for anyone to be in at JTI, but I told Dom to send an urgent message for Minali to meet me right away. The alert will wake her up if necessary.

  It isn’t far, so I walk, even though that means picking up plenty of vid-cams on the way. Their presence is so common, it gives the illusion of everything being normal. Almost comfortable when everything is so definitely not normal. Some aren’t on autopilot, it turns out, because the voices of their media-grub owners come out of minuscule speakers.

  “Any comment on yesterday’s unusual events, Liddi?”

  “Not yet.” I keep my eyes on my destination. Just a few more blocks.

  “Doesn’t seem like you to head into the office so early in the morning. Or at all.”

  That’s true in a way, but I bristle. I don’t come in to JTI, but I’m in the workshop at all hours, usually trying not to smash my head against the bench. “Let’s face it. How much do you guys think you really know about what is or isn’t like me?”

  “We know you prefer clubs on the east side of the entertainment district, and fashions from the aquatic zones of Yishu.”

  Several other cameras prattle off bits of minutiae gleaned from my attendance at parties and galas and whatever else qualifies as “not working for JTI.” I don’t say anything until I’ve reached the door.

  “Exactly. You know what I’ve wanted you to know. And that’s how it stays.”

  I wave to the guard at the security desk—he knows better than to slow me down—and go straight to the elevator bank. Minali’s office is empty, but not for long. She arrives three minutes after I do. Every hair is in place, her pants are perfectly pressed, so only the weariness in her eyes betrays the early hour.

  “What is it, Liddi?” she asks. “Did something happen?”

  “I think I figured it out.” I quickly summarize everything, from seeing Vic-or-Luko as I ran from the house to the technologist’s notes I stumbled on. “Could that be it? Could they be in the conduits, stuck in transit without an exit point?”

  My words spilled out so quickly, Minali’s face didn’t have much chance to react until the conclusion. Now her eyes widen and her hands flex.

  “No. I mean yes. It makes sense. I should have thought of it.”

  She should have? I thought the way-out-there nature of the idea explained no one figuring it out. “Why?”

  After another moment of thought, Minali taps and swipes a few commands on her desk, activating the wallscreen. Seven icons are arranged with a web of thin lines connecting all of them. Off to the side is some kind of fluctuating meter.

  “Is that the conduit network?” I ask.

  “It is. This is how it looked when the conduits were first established.” She swipes the panel again. The lines connecting the Seven Points turn fainter, flickering. The meter fluctuates more wildly, and at a higher level. “This is how it is now. Has been for a while.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “The conduits have never been very efficient. That over there?” She points to the meter. “It’s the energy intake per trip, making the hyperdimensional shift and back again. It’s quadrupled. Yet even with all that energy, the conduits are destabilizing.”

  I try to swallow against the dust that seems to coat my throat. Destabilizing does not sound good. “What does it have to do with my brothers? How did they get stuck?”

  “I’m not sure exactly. But I do know they’ve been
working on this destabilization problem for almost a year. It’s obviously a top priority.”

  That feels right. Just after the triplets moved out, all of the boys got busier than ever, more distracted…and that was saying something.

  But none of them told me anything. They kept me in silence, and I don’t know why, but I refuse to stay in it now.

  “Okay, fine. Maybe they were doing some experiments and got stuck. How do we get them out?”

  “That’s the question. And I don’t know if there’s an answer.”

  Nevi Jantzen was the most important man on Sampati—and arguably on all the Seven Points—with near-constant demands on his attention.

  That didn’t stop him from sneaking away from the office during lunch to spend time in the park with his kids. Especially baby Liddi and the triplets. Ciro, Marek, and Emil had been born after Nevi’s father died, passing the reins of JTI officially into Nevi’s hands. They would have no memory of life before their father was the head of the company, but he was determined to ensure they would have memories of him being their father.

  One day brought such a lunch hour with Nevi in the park with Liddi. The boys hadn’t wanted to stop their work, and he wasn’t going to force them to. So Liddi had him all to herself, squealing with exhilaration as he pushed her on the swings, or going down the slide on her own as long as he caught her at the bottom.

  As she went to climb to the top of the slide again, her little face screwed up and she waved a hand by her ear like she was shooing a bug away.

  Her father spotted it, though. Not a bug.

  “Hey,” he said sternly. “I’ve told you to stay away from my kids.”

  The vid-cam persisted, barely moving out of range of Liddi’s hands.

  “Have it your way.”

  Nevi reached in his pocket and pulled out a tiny device he’d been meaning to test. He touched the button to activate it, and the vid-cam fell to the ground, dead. The device in his hand likewise sparked and shorted out, though.

  “Bad bzzz-bzzz, bad!” Liddi said.

  “That’s right, Liddi-Loo. And this thing has some promise. Daddy’ll work on it this afternoon. But first, one more time down the slide!”

  MINALI SENDS MESSAGES to the top technologists at JTI, anyone who’s ever worked on anything related to the conduits, right down to the communication interlocks. Everyone’s reassigned to the new project, but she asks me not to mention my brothers, just sticks to a general story that the conduits may have malfunctioned, someone might be stuck, so we need to collect and analyze all the data possible. She doesn’t want news getting out and starting a panic, which makes sense. The whole building thrums with people murmuring into their earpieces, and images I’m not familiar with flash across wallscreens.

  They work all that day. And the next, and the one after that. I go home just long enough to sleep each night, and only when Minali shuts everyone down because sleep-deprived brains don’t do great work. Except, thinking of my brothers trapped in a hyperdimensional state just outside our reality makes sleep impossible.

  I try to keep up with the technologists. I try to follow along and offer suggestions. I try to dig in and find the missing pieces, because these aren’t just the top technologists in the Seven Points who need help. These are my brothers. Even if they never touch another piece of technology again, I need them. The eight of them are all I have.

  Half of what I hear makes sense, but the other half is missing a connection. Someone states a fact about the conduits. I ask why it’s so. Their explanation feels as useless as saying, “Because it is.”

  Just like when I try to come up with something for the Tech Reveal. I’m a step behind.

  Worse. I’m in the way. That much is obvious when Minali finally pulls me aside.

  “Liddi, you’re exhausted. Maybe you should get some rest.”

  I get the message. “Tell me something first. Where do we stand?”

  She smooths a hand over her hair. “Hard to say. The conduits are failing. We have time, but if we don’t do something, they will collapse and each planet will be left isolated. As for getting your brothers out…I’m not sure we know enough about how the conduits really work. Designing them in the first place was guesswork with half-understood energies, and failing conduits aren’t the right ones to study. We’ll keep looking. But we still have you, and it’s more important than ever that you take care of yourself, okay?”

  I nod, because I don’t want to hear any more. Definitely not anything that hints at me being the only Jantzen left. Minali ushers me toward the door, offering to arrange a hovercar home, but I decline.

  I don’t want to rest. So I wander. There’s been no further sign of the gunmen, making the attackers look more and more like some opportunistic ransom-takers. With the security-cam keeping an eye on me, freeing my brothers is a much bigger concern.

  Regular vid-cams notice me quickly enough, but I don’t pay any attention to them. My feet carry me in random directions. Away from JTI, away from home, away from the entertainment district. If it were night, I’d try to see my brothers, hope that they could give me some clue. Knowing exactly how they got trapped would help so much in getting them back. But it sounds like sunlight is too bright for them to be seen, so that’s not an option, and I keep walking.

  The last Jantzen. The only one left. The one everyone has been counting on.

  The world presses on me, crushing with its weight. Maybe all seven worlds. I find a bench on the side of the road and sit, hoping if things settle, a solution will pop out of the ground like it’s been waiting for me to notice the obvious. The first ten minutes aren’t promising—nothing obvious yet—and my still silence is so boring that the vid-cams following me back off and try to find something more interesting in the vicinity.

  I don’t know if it would count as “interesting” to the computer algorithms, but something is happening in a schoolyard across the street. Several little kids are playing with a skip rope, including the rhyme everyone learns around the time they begin to walk:

  If you found a portal high, if you found a portal low,

  Where in the Eight Points would you go?

  Each child takes a turn calling out one of the Points and jumping as long as they can according to the matching rule. Sampati means jumping with a fast left-left, right-right pattern. Yishu has to dance and spin. For Pramadam, the twirlers move onto a low wall or curb so the jumper has just a few inches of width to stand on. Erkir jumps gently, Tarix jumps backward while the twirlers move across the playground, and Neta does the opposite, with the jumper moving forward so the twirlers have to follow. Banak is the favorite for show-offs, with the rope swinging at knee-level off the ground. Most kids don’t last long on that round.

  The Eighth Point is Ferri—Death. Not a real Point, no planet to match, just the mythical afterlife ruled by the Sentinel and the Wraith. When a kid chooses Ferri, the twirlers have to drop the rope and everyone runs from them. Anyone who gets caught within a minute is dead and out of the game.

  During the brief time I attended school, we got bored with the game pretty quickly. Not so with this group. Round after round they go, laughing at the silly dance moves of a boy who chooses Yishu, cheering on a girl who manages to complete fifty Banak-jumps.

  If you found a portal high, if you found a portal low,

  Where in the Eight Points would you go?

  Portals. Not conduits. I remember Fabin telling me something about portals, the natural phenomena the conduits were based on, the original connection between the seven worlds. There’s a reason the rhyme goes the way it does, about finding portals. They had to be found every time you wanted to use one, because they don’t stay in place. Anyone who looked hard enough seemed to find one, but they’re unreliable, unsafe, and unpleasant, from what Fabin said. That’s why technologists developed the conduits—artificial, stable, and simple.

  Except the conduits are failing. Emil says mimics are never as good as originals, in anything. It
seems especially true in this case. And my brothers got trapped trying to repair those mimics. The originals are better, somehow, but they’re still similar. Maybe similar enough and better enough to help.

  The portals must still be around, even if it’s been centuries since anyone used them.

  My thoughts are interrupted by the children screaming. Someone called out Ferri, so everyone’s running from the two twirlers.

  I have some running of my own to do, but that’ll draw the attention of the vid-cams to me. Instead, I walk as quickly as I dare. I have to get back to JTI.

  Minali’s assistant rapidly becomes my least favorite person.

  “Ms. Blake isn’t in her office. She’s busy,” he says.

  “And I need to make her even busier. She’s here somewhere, so tell me where.”

  He says something about appointments and makes a show of having the computer list available times. With his attitude, I’m not going to get anywhere with the nice approach, and this is too important to let him brush me off. Time for the approach I never use.

  “Computer, voiceprint override. Identify Liddi Jantzen.”

  “Liddi Jantzen, identified,” says the electronic voice. “How may I help you, Miss Jantzen?”

  I ignore the way the assistant glares. “Locate JTI manager Minali Blake.”

  “Minali Blake is in Lab One on the thirty-eighth floor.”

  In a last-ditch effort to assert his authority, the assistant physically blocks me from the door. “You have no right to interfere with daily operations here.”

  “I have every right. I may not have taken control yet, but this is still my family’s company.” I shove past before he comes up with another futile argument.

  The lab is easy to find. It’s also locked—standard for all the upper-level labs at JTI—but that’s no problem with my voiceprint logged in. Minali is inside, working a bank of equipment with several wallscreens running. She turns, startled to see me. Her assistant must not have commed ahead, but I’m too excited to apologize for the rudeness.