Spinning Starlight

by R. C. Lewis

  Not even close. “Vare-ee bah-tum.”

  Something snaps in him, with a sound of disbelief huffing from his chest. “You come here, this impossible thing, from a place we’ve barely heard about, and you force me to lie to almost everyone I know about who you are and where you’re from, but I do it. Then you break the law, and people think I’ve lost respect for the Khua, for my mother’s station, but still I’m here. You’re not at the bottom, Liddi. I am, because you’re the one holding answers and refusing to give them up.”

  He’s right. I’ve put him in an awful position, but my choice is made. My brothers’ lives come first. That doesn’t mean I feel good about it.

  “Vare-ee saw-ree.”

  Tiav stares at me for a long time, like he’s trying to make a decision. Finally, he exhales sharply again and rests his crossed arms on the edge of the desk. “Fine. If you’re not going to answer questions, then you might as well be the one asking them.”

  There wasn’t much snow that winter, but there was rain. Plenty of rain. Enough rain to make Liddi despair of ever seeing the sun again, and enough to drive her to more parties and clubs than usual. At least the lights there weren’t gray and dreary. Then it became too much rain, with a storm that flooded the river and ripped branches and debris from the woods, blowing it all into the yard.

  Afterward, though, the sun finally returned. Blue sky with a side of more blue sky. So when Emil asked Liddi if she’d help the “Triad” clean out the yard along with the garden so it’d be ready for planting, she agreed.

  The four of them piled up branches and dead leaves in one corner of the yard, picked carefully through the flowerbeds, and pulled up the remnants of last year’s garden plantings…which they should’ve done at the end of the growing season but hadn’t gotten around to. The triplets had been very busy with their projects, so Liddi had kept just as busy in the city.

  After working awhile, Liddi took a large armload of dead vines. Maybe too large. Two steps later, her foot took a squelchy slip in the mud, and she couldn’t right her balance. The vines landed back on the ground where they’d started, with her next to them, chilled mud seeping into her clothes.

  “Are you okay, Liddi?” Marek asked, hurrying over to check on his sister.

  Just a few years ago, Marek and Ciro would’ve laughed at her, but now she was the one laughing. She stretched her fingers into the mud. Then she curled a fist and flung the handful of muck at Marek. It hit him right in the cheek. He wiped it away and grinned.

  “Boys, Liddi has declared war.”

  From there it was a mess of mudballs and tackling each other and painting mud designs on their faces and arms until every inch of their skin had gone from sienna-colored to the deep walnut of their sitting room furniture. Liddi had never been so deliriously dirty. She collapsed on the grass, letting the sun dry the mud covering her.

  “Well, that was productive,” Emil said, looking down at her.

  “Yes, it was,” she countered. “It was fun. You guys are leaving soon, and we won’t have many more chances for fun like this.”

  “Sure we will. We’ll visit.” He reached down for her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come on, let’s get cleaned up.”

  I CAN ASK QUESTIONS, pretty much any questions I want. Tiav says he might not answer them all, either because he won’t know or won’t be allowed, but I should ask. It’s hard to choose where to start, but the immediate past makes the most sense.

  “Owt uhv koo-ah how?”

  Maybe talking about that isn’t a good idea, because his expression goes a little stormier again. “How did we get you out? With you using that tether to anchor yourself, we weren’t sure what to do. No one does that. You’re lucky it wasn’t any worse than those cuts on your arm. Crossing the physical world with the Khua…strange things can happen.”

  “How?” I repeat.

  “Wasn’t that complicated in the end. There’s another Khua less than a mile from there. I went in and asked your Khua to pull you back and push you out. Still took some time.”

  Something pulled that tether, no question. I thought it was the people on the outside. Maybe it was. Maybe while Tiav was coming back from the other Khua, the keepers or Kalkig pulled me in.

  “Yoo theenk koo-ah ah-live?”

  “Don’t think. Know.”

  Right, he couldn’t be an Aelo if he didn’t believe it, I suppose. “Wer-ship lyke Ag-nak?”

  “No, not like that. I can’t exactly say I’m friends with them, but I respect—no, that’s not the right word, either. It’s like…how you feel about your parents, but different. Looking up to them, learning from them, and realizing as you go along that they respect you back.” His pause is full of having something more to say, so I wait. “I know I said you could ask the questions, but I hope you can answer this one. Do your parents know where you are? Aren’t they worried about you?”

  I hunt down the single syllable I need. “Ded.”

  Tiav’s stance has been defensive since he arrived, his expression hard and immovable. Now it softens, just a little, and he uncrosses his arms. “I’m sorry. How?”

  I did accident once before, so I scroll through my list. It was a lot of words ago, and I’m not sure what icon I put with it. The computer reads my first guess to me in my earpiece. Wrong. My second guess is right, and I have the computer read it to Tiav.

  “Recently?” he asks.

  I shake my head. Sometimes it feels like it hasn’t been that long, but ten years is not recent. The turn in conversation brings up another question of my own.

  “Yore dad?”

  “My father? He lives a few provinces from here, rehabilitating sick and injured animals. I don’t see him as much as I did when I was younger, but that’s just because I’ve been busier. It’s not…my mother’s not exactly typical, in anything. She wanted a child. My father obliged. So we’re not a family, exactly. But he’s a good person, and he’s there when I need to talk to him.”

  The situation is hard to fathom. My parents were always two halves of a whole to me, a perception solidified when they died together. Then again, if I could choose between my situation and Tiav’s, I’d take the two very separate but very alive parents over the together but very dead ones.

  I stare at the grid of symbols, fighting the impatience that rages at using it. So slow. So incomplete for expressing myself. I can get basic messages and questions across, but not what I’m really thinking. Not what I’m feeling. Silence still wins.

  “Liddi?”

  Tiav’s expression has changed again, like he’s been studying me while I studied the symbols. Like what he sees worries him.

  “Whatever your trouble is back home, it’s bad, isn’t it?”

  Definitely. “Bad fore mee.”

  As soon as the computer says it, the words pierce through. If my brothers die or are even just stuck in the conduits forever, my world will end. A few friends will mourn them, but we’ve always been closest to each other. And if Minali’s plan succeeds in stabilizing the conduits, that’s a good thing for everyone in the Seven Points. She’ll explain away the disappearance of the Jantzens, that we gave our lives preserving the connection between the worlds. No one will suspect her in Garrin’s death.

  I wonder how many people would put the conduits before my brothers’ lives, but the number doesn’t matter. I can’t. But I can’t pretend the conduits’ demise means nothing, either. Shiin said the Agnac requested a ban on using the Khua for travel, and that asking the Khua to cut off the Lost Points took care of that. But it didn’t. Shiin said the Khua cut us off centuries ago, but even with the conduits, we used portals to travel between the Seven Points. Not easily, not often, but people did sometimes because they didn’t trust the conduits yet. And then there were the vague sightings after the conduits were perfected.

  Sort of perfected. Their current state of destabilization shows definite flaws. Maybe it’s time to risk trusting Tiav with some information and see what happens.

&nbs
p; “Koo-ah still inn lost poynts.”

  Writing that took forever, but as soon as the computer reads it, I have Tiav’s attention. He leans forward, his muscles tense. “What? What do you mean?”

  This will take even longer, but I stick it out. “Nott saym. Kall pohr-tahls. Hard but kan yooz trah-vuhl.”

  Tiav keeps his eyes on the desk, running a hand through his hair as he absorbs what I’ve told him. “So you didn’t somehow break into a Khua from your end. One was already there.”

  That’s accurate as far as I know. “Look diff-rent. Skair-ee.”

  Finally, he drops his hand and looks up at me again. “This…I don’t know what this means. If the Khua didn’t cut your people off, but told us they did…I don’t know. There’s a reason, an explanation, has to be, but…we should keep this to ourselves for now. Definitely don’t mention it when Kal’s around, or any of the other Agnac.”

  I was hardly planning on it, but that brings up a very different question. “Yoo dont hayt mee lyke Kal wye?”

  It might be a bold question considering Tiav’s anger, but that seems to be fading. “Kalkig…His regard for the Khua runs deep. It does for all the Agnac, and it makes them very protective. They’re quick to judge. As an Aelo, I can’t be. Or I’m not supposed to be, at least. It takes time and patience to understand the Khua, and I’ve always assumed the same is true of people. So I tried—am trying to give you a chance.”

  “Wye frends?”

  “Why am I friends with Kal?” Tiav pauses and shifts in his chair. “I wasn’t always sure I wanted to be an Aelo. When I was younger, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to. Other people said I’d grow out of my resistance, learn to embrace my role. Kal and I were already friends, played gedek together all the time. He told members of the Agnac Hierarchy right to their faces that if I didn’t want to, I shouldn’t have to. I should do whatever I want with my life.”

  “Still Ay-loh.”

  “Yeah, well…I grew out of some things and grew into others. Kalkig was right about me doing what I want. That ‘relationship’ with the Khua I told you about—as I discovered that, what I wanted changed. And I learned how to cope with the responsibility.”

  I lean onto the desk and rest my head in my hands. It’s so unfair. Tiav sounds like one person who could understand the pressure of being “the Jantzen girl.” But thanks to the implant in my throat, there’s no way I can tell him. Explaining what JTI is, its importance to the Seven Points, my utter failure to live up to familial expectations…it’d take days to tap out. More time than it’s worth.

  For now, I’m still on my own.

  Silence has had a vise on my chest for days, and it’s tightening again. Like it’s pushing me further into myself, separating me from the people of Ferinne. It’s even tight in my sleep, giving me dreams of suffocating at the top of a mountain or drowning in an ocean.

  I wake with a start, gasping for breath that comes easier than it should. Easy breath isn’t enough. I need fresh air.

  The apartment is silent, no sign of movement from Shiin or Tiav. After being arrested, I know better than to think I can go out the front door without an alarm going off, but there’s a chance I have another option. The door to the roof is right by my room, and it doesn’t have anything resembling a lock-panel.

  I open the door—sure enough, unlocked—and wait. When nothing happens for two full minutes, I head up the stairs.

  The night air is cool and clean. It helps. The complicated winch assemblies from the Daglin are gone, so I sit against the low wall edging the roof. Then I close my eyes and just let myself breathe in, trying to loosen the vise. Trying to relax, because being tense and anxious never helps anything in my life go better.

  I think of home. The workshop. The night phlox. The river.

  The portal.

  The ball of energy on Sampati whirls in my memory, snapping and sparking. Then the little mote of light here on Ferinne, hovering peacefully between two crystal spires. I went in one and came out the other. They have to be the same thing. The in-between felt like both and neither, all contradictions and chaos.

  Two ends of a string. One end tethered to the spires on Ferinne. The other free to roam. Sampati. Banak. Neta. Anywhere.

  If you found a portal high…

  Except if I’m right, the Sampati end of my portal—my Khua—wasn’t free. My brothers held it in place long enough for me to reach it. Maybe.

  A picture half forms of something that must move but can’t because it’s restrained. What would happen? Violent vibrations, probably. Maybe that’s what I saw on Sampati.

  Minali trapped my brothers in the conduits, but I’ve been with them in the Khua. So for them to be in both, the two networks must be different, but somehow connected. Like…different frequencies trying to send the same message.

  “Liddi?”

  I know that voice, so I open my eyes.

  Emil stands a few feet away, and he’s not alone. Marek and Ciro are with him, the whole Triad. Their faces tell me they’re still in pain but trying to hide it, working hard to appear here. I can’t ask. I can’t say anything to them, and I can’t stop my own tears from falling.

  “Don’t cry, Liddi,” Emil says. He crouches in front of me, but he’s not solid enough for me to reach out and hold his hand. Even with three of my brothers here, I’m still alone, choking on my tears. “We can’t stay long. Marek told us what happened, how you got hurt. You can’t do that again. You have to be safe.”

  “That’s the most important thing,” Ciro says. “More important than us.”

  “We’re starting to understand some things from this side,” Marek adds. “Things that might help, how it’s all connected. What Blake’s doing. Leave it to us. You stay out of trouble, try to fit in. Be safe.”

  They fade away. Gone. Busy.

  I leave the roof and hurry down to my room. I can’t shout or scream, but I have to do something, so I kick the desk, thump a fist against the wall. It doesn’t help, and I do it again, harder. And again. And eight more times, one for each of my brothers. Wherever Shiin’s and Tiav’s rooms are, they’re far enough not to hear me, because silence is the only company to my impotent rage. Finally I collapse on my bed, knowing I can cry in peace and knowing one other thing with certainty.

  Even my brothers have realized I’m useless.

  Liddi and the likewise mud-covered triplets had to promise Dom several times that they’d definitely and absolutely clean up the mess they tracked into the house before he’d open the back door and let them in. As soon as they were inside, though, Dom had something else to say.

  “Someone’s at the front entrance.”

  Ciro was closest, so he checked the ID screen and opened the door. Reb Vester stood on the other side, tall and muscular, his shiny hair looking like they’d frozen it perfectly in place at an expensive salon. He ignored the Triad completely and stared at Liddi—her muck-crusted hair and skin darkened from minerals in the soil that would take ages to wash away.

  “Liddi, I, uh…hi.” Reb seemed flustered by her appearance, but then she noticed the way Emil glared at him. All three of her brothers did. Maybe Reb wasn’t ignoring them after all. Of course, even at his best, Reb wasn’t the most eloquent person she’d ever met.

  “Hi, Reb. What brings you out to the country?” Liddi asked.

  “There’s a new club opening in Edgewick, supposed to be ten times as good as Syncopy. Wondered if you wanted to set the trend opening night.”

  Liddi was sure the club owners would be thrilled if she did. Then she wondered if those owners had any affiliation with Reb’s laserball team. She’d been friends in passing with Reb since he was the top recruit in the junior leagues, but she knew better than to trust his motives. Before she could say no thanks, though, Ciro jumped in.

  “Edgewick is two hundred miles away. A bit far for a club opening.”

  “Just a couple of hours in my hovercar,” Reb said.

  Marek stepped up to Ciro’s shoulder.
“Liddi has more important things to do with those hours. Be on your way, Vester.”

  Reb considered arguing for about three seconds, then gave Liddi a nod and left.

  She whirled on her brothers. “Thanks a lot!”

  All three looked startled. “What, you wanted to go?” Marek said. “That guy is trouble, Liddi. He only cares about your status.”

  “Like I don’t know that? But you think I’m such a child that I can’t handle one laser-addled jock. That I can’t handle anything.”

  Emil nudged her arm. “We don’t think that. You know we don’t. We just know that you have to handle more than the rest of us combined. So when we can handle something for you, we do.”

  She pushed him away and stomped upstairs. They handled the things they could, leaving her only the things she had to handle on her own…but couldn’t. And that was the problem.

  “ARE YOU OKAY, LIDDI?” Tiav asks the next morning after breakfast. “You look tired.”

  I am. Every attempt to sleep after seeing the triplets was met with nightmares about my brothers dying and my rescue attempts doing nothing but getting in the way. Hardly restful.

  “Let’s not bother with the Nyum today, then. We can stay here.”

  I can’t help noticing Tiav’s anger has cooled, so at least that’s an improvement. He leads me to one of the book-filled rooms—there are a few—and I sit on a couch. It’s definitely more comfortable than the office. Then he sets his com-tablet on a low table in front of me, complete with a holo-projected keypad hovering in midair.

  I have nothing to ask, nothing to say. My brothers don’t want my help, even if I had any to offer.

  Tiav, as usual, does the talking. “I went to a Khua early this morning and asked about what you said. How they’re still in the Lost Points, but different. If I understand correctly, what you have is a sort of ‘echo’ or tail end of the Khua, but I couldn’t make sense of why they were there. Still, they seemed to be saying they’d been left alone for ages until you came along. Does that sound right? You were the first to travel through them in a long time?”