These Broken Stars

by Amie Kaufman

  We’re left gasping, staring at each other—she, confused, uncertain why I stopped; me, trying to breathe, pushing away the need coursing through me despite the ache in my hand.

  I know what this is. I recognize that desperate longing in her expression—I’ve seen it before, in the field. Lilac was very nearly left alone on this planet, and she’s mistaking her relief for something else.

  A girl like her would never look at a guy like me in other circumstances. If that building on the horizon is our ticket home, I’m not sure I could stand to see her waltz off into her old life and leave me behind. Not if I let myself—no.

  I can’t afford to show her how badly I want her.

  Not when it isn’t really me she wants.

  Her expression is shifting with every moment I keep her at arm’s length, eyes darkening, the confusion turning to doubt.

  A treacherous part of me doesn’t care that she’s confused, desperately wants to kiss her anyway. Maybe one moment would be worth it, even if afterward it all dissolved into mist, like our trail of purple flowers.

  I could be wrong. Maybe she does want—maybe—

  I’m drawing breath again when she pulls away sharply, climbing to her feet to stalk off into the darkness. There’s anger in her jerky movements, in the tense line of her shoulders.

  My mind thunders with everything I should say, the words tangling in my throat. Wait. Come back. Tell me you won’t vanish the moment they find us here. Tell me if I touch you I’m not going to lose you.

  “Don’t go far,” I call instead, and silently curse my own cowardice. She doesn’t come back, but she does stop where I can still see her, choosing the cold, windy emptiness of the dark plain over returning to me. The mirror-moon gives off enough light that she probably won’t break an ankle, but I wish I knew how to call her back.

  In the end I unroll the blankets and stretch out on them—I’m too weak, too tired to sit up and wait for her. When she returns to lie down beside me, it’s at the edge of the blanket, as far from me as she can get.

  I have to say something. This will get worse overnight. I reach inside myself and find the part of me that’s used to dragging the unwilling through all kinds of uncompromising landscapes, and I try for a lighter tone. “Stop that, will you come over here? I’m an invalid, I need you to keep me warm.” If I can get my arms around her, maybe she’ll understand.

  She’s silent so long it doesn’t seem like she’ll reply at all. When she finally does, her voice is hoarse and hostile. “You’ll survive.”

  “Probably,” I agree. “But I’d rather be comfortable.”

  She keeps her back to me, spine curved as she curls in on herself. “Tarver.” Now she sounds like she’s the one talking through gritted teeth. “I’m humiliated. I’ll be fine in the morning, and we’ll keep going and get rescued, and then this will be over. Just leave me alone right now.”

  “Lilac—”

  She curls up away from me more tightly, tucking her head down as though she can block out my words. Eventually I stop waiting for her to roll over and join me. I lie on my back to stare up at the unfamiliar stars and the bright, blue-white mirror overhead, and wait for sleep.

  It’s bitterly cold without her.

  She wakes up before me in the morning. I’m still feeling like the living dead, which is what I get for trying a forced march so soon after I’ve been laid up.

  We eat a ration bar each in silence. I’m pretty sure giving me a whole one instead of splitting it is her version of looking after me while I’m sick, which perhaps means we’re going to be civilized about what happened last night. It’s not as though we have the luxury of finding someone else to talk to.

  I know she’s started hearing the whispers again—she shakes like a leaf whenever they show up. But they’ve declined to let me in on their secrets again, and if they tell her anything, she doesn’t share it with me. I’m not sure I like the idea that they seem to be focusing on her—or targeting her.

  I shoulder the pack and we set off in silence, but we do manage to talk a little as the morning wears on. It’s not much, but the content of the conversation isn’t the point. It’s the gesture that matters, on both our parts—our way of telling each other that we’re going to find a way to keep working together.

  Seventeen days ago I’d have pulled out my own teeth with pliers before voluntarily seeking her out for conversation. Now I’m just tired with relief that we’re not going to shut each other out completely.

  It’s late afternoon when we reach the trees. They’re mostly pole trees again, like the forest where we crashed. This inexplicable landscape, none of the terraforming as it should be, is becoming normal to me.

  Lilac’s hand goes out when I stumble over a root. I’m so tired I’m not lifting my feet properly now, a combination of three days of fever and nearly three weeks of rationed meals. At least I started out with some condition on me. I have no idea how Lilac’s still moving, but in some ways she actually seems stronger than she was before.

  We emerge from the trees quite suddenly, both of us stumbling to a halt in the same moment.

  A boxy, one-story building squats in the middle of the clearing. Hope surges up inside of me.

  It’s perfectly intact. This isn’t wreckage, and it isn’t ruined. It’s real. It’s an observation station, like dozens I’ve seen before on newly terraformed planets.

  As we stand rooted to the spot, a carpet of purple flowers unfurls beneath our feet, racing away from us to ring the building. The path that led the way from the ship finishes here.

  And then, in the next moment, disappointment cuts through me. I look again, and realize the clearing is dotted with young saplings. There are thick vines crawling up the sides of the building.

  Nobody’s been here in years.

  “Are you reluctant to answer our questions, Major?”

  “Of course not. It’s a pleasure to assist you. I can see you’re hanging on my every word.”

  “You seem uncooperative, Major. You’re a highly decorated soldier. Your conduct doesn’t match the favorable reports on your file.”

  “I suppose appearances can be deceiving.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  LILAC

  For a while we forget what happened last night and explore the building, working together again. Seeing an intact structure, something man-made, is electrifying. I try to imagine what my home looks like, my city, the buildings that touch the clouds and the cars on the skyways, and my mind draws a blank. I think if I were to somehow transport myself there now, it’d be overwhelming.

  There’ll be a generator inside this building, somewhere, and if we can get that working, I can get everything else working. Tarver insists there will be a communications system inside—though I’ve never been to a planet in any phase earlier than advanced settlement, he tells me that stations like this are common, and all alike.

  Communications equipment would mean a way to send a signal. A way to get Tarver back to his family, where he belongs, even if I’m not so sure I want to rejoin the world anymore. And if there’s any justice or decency in the galaxy, he’ll get home in one piece.

  I want so badly to tell him why I said the things I said when we first met. Why alienating people is one of my greatest talents. But to tell him would be to betray my father. To show Tarver just how monstrous I am. And so I bite my tongue, and try to ignore the way the truth is building inside me like water under pressure.

  Let him hate me, and think I hate him back. It’s safer for both of us. We don’t talk, but the silence is still easier than it has been. Neither of us asks why this place was abandoned, or what it was originally for. It’s large enough that it can’t just be to house monitoring equipment. It had to hold people at some point.

  We haul on the doors, pry at the shutters over the windows, go so far as to attempt to bash our way in with a rock. The building is solid, despite its neglect, and sealed up tightly. We discover a shed not far away with a broken-down hovercraft
inside. A quick look tells me it was probably broken even at the time this place was occupied. We poke around under the hood for a little, checking out the hopelessly gummed-up plugs and leads, then Tarver moves on to inventory the rest of the shed, leaving me to examine the circuitry.

  He gives me a running commentary on what he finds: rusted tools, lengths of rope, cans of oil and glue, tanks of fuel in the back. Paint cans and a shovel in the corner. Drills and saws with plugs. This place once had electricity, then, which confirms my guess that there’s a generator somewhere.

  I wonder if some part of my brain will always look at things, now, and try to think of how they might be useful. If they’re worth their weight, being carried from a wreck. I can’t help but wonder if I’ll always think of ways rope or oil or rusty hammers could save someone’s life.

  When I finally pry the circuit board’s cover off to find half the circuits missing, it takes me only a few moments to realize the entire thing is useless. I slam the hood of the hovercraft down, and when Tarver looks at me, he sees the frustration in my face and doesn’t ask. We head back out into the clearing, circling the building again, this time armed with tools. We set to work attacking the shutters, prying, trying to find a weak spot.

  “At least you’re human after all,” Tarver says lightly. I’m still nursing the wounds from his rejection as I glance at him, expecting it to be a jab. He glances back, trying half a smile, and I realize it’s an olive branch instead. “We’ve finally found circuits you can’t fix.”

  He looks so tired, so weary, despite his weak attempt to bridge the gulf between us. I suppose I would be too, if I were him.

  I sigh, rubbing a hand across my eyes. “I wish I knew more. If I did, maybe I could fix it.”

  “I still don’t understand how you know any of this. Your father’s the engineering genius, not you. I mean—you’re not the sort of person who would’ve studied circuitry and physics in school. I mean—oh, screw it.”

  So much for the olive branch. Despite the temptation to leave him tripping over his words, I can’t take credit for what I know. “When I was a little girl, after my mother died, I wanted nothing more than to be just like my father. Even then I knew I was everything he had, so I wanted to be … worthy of that, I guess. I asked someone to teach me.” I swallow, feeling Tarver’s eyes on me, knowing he can sense the tension in my voice.

  “Who?”

  “A boy named Simon.”

  Tarver’s eyes go back to the shutter he’s working on, focused, not looking at me. “You’ve mentioned him before. Who is he?”

  My throat tightens. How can I tell Tarver, of all people, about the monstrous parts of my past? Why give him another reason to push me away? And yet, maybe he deserves to know why I said the things I said aboard the Icarus.

  And maybe I deserve to relive it.

  “If I tell you, will you just listen to me? Don’t interrupt, don’t say anything, just—let me get through this. Can you do that?”

  His demeanor changes subtly, but he stays where he is, crowbar dangling at his side. “Okay.”

  I take a few deep breaths, like a diver about to jump.

  “Simon was a boy who grew up near our summer house on Nirvana.” I can’t look at him while I’m speaking. I don’t want to see the moment when realization hits.

  “His family wasn’t as well connected as mine, but whose is? He was absolutely brilliant, and not just in the subjects we were expected to learn. He’s the one who taught me everything I know about electricity and physics. My father turned a blind eye to the time we spent together because he thought it was harmless, that I was too young to form any real attachment. I was fourteen then, but I loved him.” I run my fingers along the edge of the screwdriver, fingertips learning its planes, the sculpted plastic handle. “The night before he turned sixteen he asked if we could stop hiding, and be a real couple. He said he was going to go to my father in the morning now that he was an adult, and ask for a position within the company. To earn the right to be with me.”

  Simon’s sandy-blond hair and green eyes flash in front of me, my heart constricting even now. Just keep talking. Get through it.

  “I said yes. When I woke I practically flew downstairs in anticipation, but when I got there it was like nothing had changed. My father said he hadn’t seen him—he didn’t even look away from the news screen. I went to his house, and found his parents devastated. All gentlemen’s sons are in the reserves—you know that. As a matter of honor, I suppose, though it’s never tested. It’s all for show.”

  My eyes sting and the red and yellow handle of the screwdriver blurs.

  Not yet. Hold it together. I turn the tool over and over in my hands.

  “Simon had been called to active duty. I went to the recruiting station, but due to some clerical oversight, he was shipped out to the front lines with a bunch of soldiers who’d been training for a year. By the time I got through all the red tape and found out where he was, he was already dead.” And I should have known better.

  Tarver keeps true to his word, not speaking, not even moving. But I feel his eyes on me, and I know he’s listening. I swallow, suddenly uncertain. Will he understand why I’m telling him this story that no one in the galaxy knows, outside of my father and me?

  “I live a life of utter privilege. I know that. I accept that.” My voice cracks a little and I lick my lips. “But nothing’s free. It comes with a price. I accept that, too. My father has expectations about where I’ll spend my time, the company I’ll keep, the connections I’ll make to advance his interests. He always says that our name was hard won, and required sac-rifice and work to maintain—but that if protected, it was all I’d ever need to get anywhere in this world. But sometimes—sometimes I slip.”

  I force myself to glance at him. He’s standing where he was, his face shut down, as impassive and unreadable as I’ve ever seen it. I crumble a little, despite my resolve. This isn’t just about how he sees me; that ship rocketed away long ago.

  It’s about how he thinks I see him.

  “In the salon, when I dropped my glove, do you really think I didn’t know who you were?” My fingers close around the handle of the screwdriver like it’s a lifeline. “You were a hero, all over the news vids. I knew who your family was, that you were a scholarship case, all of it. I knew exactly who you were. I just—forgot, for a few seconds, who I was. Because I wanted to talk to you. Because you didn’t look at me like I was Lilac LaRoux.

  “So yes, I was cruel afterward. I’m cruel because it’s the fastest way to get a man to lose interest, and trust me, I’ve learned how. My father taught me well.” I swallow, making sure my tone is even. He’d be proud. “Tarver, you have to understand that everyone who approaches me—everyone—wants something. Men are after my money. Women are after my status. And men will suffer a lot for a rich girl’s attentions, but not that level of humiliation. I’ve had to learn to use it over the years. And maybe I’m cruel because it’s easy, and because it’s something … something I can be good at.”

  He’s still standing there, motionless. I’ve run out of things to say, and fall silent. My hand twitches, like it wants to throw the screwdriver at him. Anything to get him to move, speak. Say something. He stands there like he’s been hit in the head with the canteen, staring at me, square-jawed and silent.

  I toss the screwdriver down. “I’ll find us a place for the night.”

  I can feel his eyes on me as I retrieve the pack of supplies and make my way back toward the stream.

  The stream is cloudy where we crossed it earlier, so I follow it, looking for a place to refill the canteen and wash a little. A thread of an idea nags at me, but I push it away, my mind roiling.

  Why, why, did I tell him? Why should he be interested in the sad saga of the poor little rich girl who had her boyfriend taken away? It’ll be a great story for him when he ships out, something to laugh about with his platoon. I can just imagine him describing how this lunatic rich girl tried to jump him beca
use of her daddy issues. Something twists uneasily inside me. Tarver isn’t the type of person to share the story. But still, he must think me so self-involved. He’s seen dozens of his friends blown to smithereens on the front lines, and I’m crying because a boy I once knew got sent away to war.

  Still, now he knows. What my father is. What I am. That I’m responsible for the death of a boy whose only crime was falling in love. Now he knows how toxic I am.

  I’m so tangled in my thoughts that I almost don’t notice the cave. The entrance is narrow, barely wide enough for Tarver’s shoulders. The source of the stream must be within it, but I can’t hear any bubbling, only the light trickle of water cascading down the rock. I rummage in the pack for the flashlight, climb onto the wet rocks, and ease my shoulders through.

  The stream continues back in the gloom through another, wider fissure. I stop long enough to leave a bright red T-shirt from my pack tied around an outcropping of rock, to signal in case Tarver should come looking for me. Then I slip back inside, and head deeper into the cave to see if there’s a big enough place for us to sleep.

  “Was there any significant time during which you and Miss LaRoux were separated?”

  “Define ‘significant.’ ”

  “Are you able to account for her whereabouts and actions during the entirety of your stay on the planet?”

  “You make it sound like we were on shore leave.”

  “Major.”

  “We were together the whole time.”

  “And nothing strange happened to her in that time? She didn’t change in any way?”

  “I think crash-landing on an unknown planet is pretty strange.”

  “Maj—”

  “No. No notable changes.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  TARVER

  I pick up a rock and choose a spot to slam it against the base of the metal shutters. There’s a hollow metallic thunk that tells me there’s nothing behind it, so I slam the rock home again, angling my body and finding a rhythm. My head’s spinning.