The Whisper of Stars

by Nick Jones

  * * *

  Jen’s fall had been short, the train’s carriage filled nearly to the top with large sacks of grain. It was so cold that the sacks had begun to freeze, and Jen was starting to wonder how long it would be before she did too. The one blessing, she supposed, was being out of the wind. She listened to it whistling through the gap in the ripped tarpaulin above her.

  Hours later she clambered up over the hessian sacks, covered her face and popped her head out. It felt as if someone had slapped her, the cold wind ripping at her skin. In the distance she saw what she needed. The Zhiguli Mountains, their jagged peaks cutting the skyline, steep slopes dropping sharply into the frozen Volga River. They were an unusual sight. At under four hundred metres some wouldn’t consider them mountains at all, but seeing them towering in front of her she could understand how they had captivated people’s imaginations over the years. Local folklore included unexplained fireballs in the sky and transparent ghostlike creatures appearing from the ground, often attributed to the work of aliens bending the Volga River to their will.

  Jen ducked back inside the carriage and checked the time. Soon the train would arrive in Samara; she needed to be off before then. She tried to keep herself moving but could feel the dreadful numbing pain in her hands and toes returning. The active base layer she’d found in the airport storeroom was only just maintaining her core body temperature; her extremities were less fortunate. When the train lurched and slowed she was actually relieved – at least she could start moving again, give her blood a chance to warm up.

  As the train made its way around the Southern tip of Samara she climbed up again and lay flat this time, managing to open her eyes. To her right Samara city, its towering buildings cutting the horizon; to her left a frozen blue river and beyond that woodland, covered in a thick blanket of snow pricked by black trees. The train slowed again. This was her chance. The deep snow could offer a soft landing, but without knowing what lay underneath it was too dangerous to just jump.

  She climbed to the edge of the carriage and slid over the side. She hung, lifted her knees and walked her feet up the cold steel where she waited until the tracks were lined up with nothing but flat deep snow. She pushed off, releasing her hands and spinning in the air as best she could. The feeling of weightlessness reminded her of leaving a swing as a child, the delicious fear and trepidation of the landing to follow. The ground came and she rolled, tumbling to a stop. Sitting in the deep snow she watched the train thunder past and then crawled to a nearby corrugated iron hut, powdery snow creaking under foot.

  She crouched and checked her handheld GPS. It estimated the trek would take ten hours but it was snowing heavily now and the wind – a constant force – was more aggressive and threatening to knock her over. Jen had felt worse, but considering she wasn’t even in the mountains yet, it was bad news.

  She put her head down and pressed on. One step at a time.

  Chapter 44

  Jen shielded her eyes and surveyed the area. Towering above all were the Zhiguli Mountains, their colour flattened to a hazy blue. Ahead the Volga River bent and twisted abruptly in on itself, forming an almost-closed loop, commonly known as the Samara bend. Jen wasn’t surprised the locals had their folklore. River curves like this were extremely rare and such places always had their stories – all, of course, to be taken with a generous helping of salt.

  Jen stepped onto the frozen river, its dusty white surface cut by thousands of manmade lines, and made her way towards a small island in the centre. Whilst the Volga would remain frozen for at least another month, its centre was already thin and dangerous. The tiny piece of land would offer a safe crossing point.

  The wind howled and rose up, threatening to knock her sideways. She steadied herself and pulled a set of goggles from her backpack and tightened her hood, the muffling effect creating an unnerving sense of separation. She put her head down and stepped out onto the ice. It took all her strength now to ensure she was moving forwards. Her plan was to cross and then follow the river’s edge, climb the Western tip of the mountain and drop down onto the target.

  She had experienced a blizzard once before. Her well-equipped unit had holed up and waited for the storm to pass. This time she was alone and woefully unprepared, her body temperature plummeting. Jen was finding it increasingly difficult to judge the terrain, and there was no denying it anymore: she was in trouble. She had turned inland and begun her climb up one of many ravines cutting into the mountainside. Darkness descended quickly and Jen felt hope slip away, along with the glow of her GPS.

  Approximately a hundred metres above sea level she lost her footing and fell, tumbling and barreling down the side of the mountain before landing hard, knocking the wind from her lungs. She lay for a while, convinced she wouldn’t be able to move, that she would die there, the warmth of civilisation a distant dream. She felt the blizzard pulling and tearing at the snow on the ground around her and screamed, her voice drowned by the ferocious wind. Eventually she stood, wavering like a drunken sailor, her body so numb that she couldn’t be sure she hadn’t broken something during the fall. She realised with a sickening wave of panic that she couldn’t open her eyes. Using her teeth she pulled off her right glove, warmed her hand under her armpit and placed it over her tender eyelids. She felt a thin layer of ice melt, and then pain as blood returned momentarily to her skin. After a quivering struggle her eyes finally clicked open, but visibility was zero, her hands lost in a haze of dancing snow. There was nothing more to do. She would camp here the night, wherever here was.

  If I live through the night, maybe I’ll find out.

  Her tent didn’t require pegs or poles. Placed on the ground, it locked into position, inflated and self-assembled. She grabbed her bag and collapsed inside, zipping the entrance shut against the fierce storm. Relief wasn’t immediate. First there was pain as her body began to thaw, then a dullness in her nose and fingers, a numb feeling that might lead to frostbite. Slowly she warmed up, gradually and evenly, managing to avoid the urges to rub the affected areas. That wouldn’t be good. The fact she felt tired and irritable was good. Mild hypothermia – she could live with that.

  She clicked a small lamp, illuminating the orange innards of the tent. Its thin fabric was billowing like lungs in spasm, the edges almost touching each other. Using a small stove she melted thick lumps of snow and drank, warming her core, thanking her decision to pack it. Outside the wind was increasing in ferocity, wailing like a thousand banshees. Again and again it felt as though she would be pulled into the air and smashed back onto the mountain, where she would lay broken and buried for weeks.

  In that moment of solitude, small and insignificant, she wondered what the hell she was doing halfway up a mountain in Russia. For what? A hunch?

  She was shivering again, but there was no change of clothes. Instead she peeled off a layer and slid into her sleeping bag, her thoughts settling on her parents again. It was weak to turn to them now, but she didn’t care. Not tonight. Jen held her necklace, clutching the ring her mother had given her, and prayed. Not to any God, or any ethereal being. She prayed simply to fate or destiny. She prayed she would find something hidden in the mountains, something even the locals wouldn’t believe, something worth dying for.

  * * *

  The gift of exhaustion granted her some sleep, but around 6am Jen woke, freezing, the storm threatening to disembowel the tent. If she didn’t move soon she would die. She packed her things, dressed in her icy clothing and emerged from the tent, like a calf being born, steam rising up and out of the entrance. The blizzard had actually weakened and she was just able to make out the incline of a ridge up ahead, and her own footsteps in the snow behind her. One step at a time, she reassured herself.

  The storm retreated. Gone was the recognisable foe, replaced by a stealthy killer, an all-consuming cold the like of which Jen had never experienced. It felt as though her blood were being filtered through ice-cold steel. Her body leeched warmth. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably,
her skin bonding with the frozen scarf wrapped around her head. She cursed as the GPS unit fell from her hand, its cracked screen fixed forever on minus thirty nine. Above her the peak of the mountain, majestic and distant, seemed to taunt her, its voice whistling through the trees.

  You were never going to make it.

  Jen whimpered, dropping to her knees, hope spilling out of her like fuel from a bullet riddled aircraft. She was punctured by solitude, her body shutting down against the terrible, permeating cold. She heard voices, demons scratching at her sanity, more and more of them, their questions swirling and joining together. Questions that demanded answers.

  What about love?

  You’ve been played your whole life. All of it lies.

  You’ve denied yourself love. And now you’re going to die here. Alone.

  For what?

  She growled like a wounded dog and pulled herself up, staggering through the icy woodland. Silver birch trees surrounded her like an endless maze, the air still and calm. She realised the pain was leaving her, along with those nagging questions, dissipating like her breath drifting away in clouds of steam. She was tired, could feel a weight pulling her down, could hardly breathe. She’d been searching for the truth for so long. Now, death was near. She twisted around, flinching, half expecting to see death himself – a dark figure come to take her, to make it all better.

  I’m going to die, she thought calmly.

  She was holding the communicator Nathan had given her, single channel and short range. He had assured her it would work, but she wasn’t near enough to him. She’d tried it numerous times and received only static. Their last conversation came back to her. She replayed it in her mind.

  ‘You can use this to contact me,’ he’d said, handing her the radio. ‘It’s a communicator.’

  ‘I haven’t seen one of these in years.’

  ‘I know.’ He was holding an identical unit. ‘It’s retro.’

  Jen had noted his excitement, his innocent, boyish expression, and smiled.

  ‘What?’ he’d asked her.

  ‘You would never know to look at you,’ she had said, smirking, ‘but you’re a real geek on the inside. You know that?’

  A real geek on the inside.

  Nathan O’Brien was a geek, but she would never see the real him. She’d only ever seen David Shaw, an imposing figure of a man, not Nathan. It was hard to get your head around sometimes. She realised, as she lay there dying, that she wished she could see him again, to tell him that. Tell him he should be honoured, that she didn’t bestow like on many people, that he was one of the good ones.

  Too late now.

  She collapsed again, down to her knees and then forward, until the side of her face lay flat against the snow. She smiled. It felt warm. How could the snow feel so inviting?

  My mind.

  It’s telling me that.

  It’s giving in, letting me go.

  She saw a bird. Small and grey.

  It was looking at her from a branch, twitching its head as if trying to understand. She watched it for a while, her eyes struggling to stay open. An intoxicating, flickering purple aura began to circle the bird. The Histeridae. Jen smiled as she lay dying.

  The Histeridae.

  She had never considered it might be possible to link to animals. She was surprised when she saw herself lying there in the snow. As the tiny bird lifted into the sky, Jen gathered what little energy she had and began searching. She could see the land below through the bird’s eyes. It took a while, but something happened, something different. She had a flash, a vision, a mountain hut, stone and wood, built up against the mountain. The connection to the bird broke suddenly, leaving her alone again.

  Jen raised her heavy head to see coloured tendrils, leading through the trees and down the mountain. She crawled, eventually managing to stand, each footstep like heavy lead. It was something beyond effort, digging deeper than she knew, but the vision of the hut had bought fresh hope. The Histeridae was guiding her to safety.

  When she finally reached the wooden shack, its roof buried under impossibly thick snow, she realised what was actually happening. It wasn’t guiding her, it was simply finding the nearest mind. The wilderness hut, built specifically for trekkers and people stranded, was occupied, light bleeding from the small windows. She smelt the aroma of warm, salty food and felt her stomach cramp and throat tighten. She fought against a sudden swimming exhaustion and realised, as she opened her eyes, that she must have passed out.

  A man was approaching. She tried to move, to escape, but her body no longer responded to her unreasonable demands. She moved her lips but words didn’t come. The man rolled her roughly onto her back. He was large and bearded, the smell of fish and fire poured from him. Jen could feel his heat and was aware of being lifted, and then an unexpected sense of shelter, of real warmth. Her eyes opened briefly, long enough to see large wooden beams and the shadow of an open fire dancing on the walls.

  She felt safe but knew that was unlikely.

  She passed out again, drifting down into the blackness where her demons lay waiting, their questions unanswered, their appetite for despair insatiable.

  Chapter 45

  Jen’s mind danced on the edge of consciousness, vaguely aware of time slipping away and a dull throb in her hands and feet. Hours passed. She opened her eyes and blinked a few times until her vision gained some focus. Above her were thick oak beams, to her left an open fire, still smouldering. The hut’s rough stone walls were warmed by a morning sun. She’d slept through the night.

  Rolling her shoulders, she felt her neck and upper spine pop and winced as she swallowed, her mouth dry and sour. It didn’t take long for her memory to come rushing back. Her fall. The man.

  She sat up suddenly, peeling back the fur bedding that had kept her so warm. The shelter was basic, designed to save life on nights like the one she’d endured. Next to her pack, propped up by the door, was another bag, canvas and heavy-looking.

  I need to move, I need to get out of here.

  She was still dressed. That was good. Her dreams had been filled with unpleasant imagery and fear, the man and the mountain taking what they wanted from her. She stood and felt nauseous, her head swimming. She would need to take things slowly. That’s when the door handle twisted and the man stepped in. He boomed something in Russian, and before Jen could react, slapped her hard on her right shoulder. She felt her whole body lift.

  Jen stared at him blankly, wishing she had studied Russian. He was big and heavy with dark leathery skin covered by a messy grey beard. He looked to be smiling but it was hard to tell. Spinning a bag over his shoulder, he emptied a pile of logs and began throwing them into the corner of the room, restocking the shelter. Jen helped, and although her fingers were numb, she was relieved to see they weren’t frostbitten. She guessed the man was a local hunter who had been trapped by the blizzard and holed up in the shelter for the night. He glanced over and smiled, his eyes glimmering purple in the bright sunlight. Jen took a step back and swallowed.

  He was augmented with active contact lenses.

  As soon as this man was off the mountain and back onto a network, they could search his mind for imagery. They would see his memories of her and, once they knew she was in Russia, would make the obvious connection to the Vault. Questions circled, making her feel weaker still.

  Should she tie him up? Leave him here? What if she didn’t make it back? He could die.

  She eyed a branch, nestled amongst the bigger logs. It was just thin enough to wield, long and hard enough to use as a club. She picked it up and for a brief moment imagined striking him. The man turned, frowned, shook his head and continued to throw logs like they were made of paper. It was amazing how much connection could be made through simple body language.

  She knew it was pure luck that he’d found her. If he hadn’t come along she would be dead, buried in thick snow. She sighed and added the potential weapon to the growing pile, knowing her decision might have seri
ous repercussions.

  It was a risk she was willing to take. She wasn’t a killer.

  She wasn’t like Zitagi.

  * * *

  The news report echoed through the only occupied room in the Zvezda Hotel, Tolyatti, like a lone transmission drifting through deep space. The correspondent’s voice became choppy as the picture sliced through the middle and then disappeared completely. There had been another attack on a Hibernation zone in Italy somewhere, a resistance group known as The Liberation. Nathan stared at the blank screen, watching his breath travel slowly towards the window, which was covered in swirling crystal patterns of blue and white ice.

  The blizzard, which had hit Tolyatti two days ago, had frozen the place solid. Since then the power had been intermittent and a cluster of electric heaters, strategically positioned around him, worked just long enough to keep him alive. That morning, dreams of happier times had been stolen by the burden of waking. He’d been holding his wife, hugging her, telling her she would be okay. Some days it just didn’t make sense. All their history, the world they had made together, was his now. His alone. They would never look back on it together. He’d woken in the cold silence and allowed himself a few minutes to cry before wiping the tears roughly from his face.

  The day before he’d visited the kitchen to order food and found it deserted, that staff nowhere to be seen. He searched and in the end managed to make a cheese sandwich. Sitting in front of the bar heater, defrosting it just enough to eat, he’d considered whether he could drag a generator up to his room.

  Room? More like a tomb.

  He had spent the day testing equipment and trying the radio, a close-range, encrypted transmitter. Old technology that would only work when Jen was near. Every hour on the hour, nothing but static. He didn’t want to consider what might have happened. She would make it somehow. He thought about what to say when she did make contact. How would he break it to her? That without power he could do nothing?