Stone in the Sky

by Cecil Castellucci

  “You might as well have,” he said. “At least, that’s what I know now.”

  “There were circumstances beyond my control.”

  “How’s Trevor?” he asked.

  “He’s here,” I said. “The Hort took him to the electronics bay.”

  “That’s good to know. I’ll be taking him with me,” he said. “Then again, we’ll take whatever we want.”

  I swallowed back my sadness as he and the others looked around the bridge with greed in their eyes. I knew I couldn’t argue to keep Trevor. Caleb was no longer the boy who sang tender songs in the arboretum and spoke of love for a girl that he hardly knew across a galaxy. He was different now. A Pirate.

  “Of course,” I said. “He’s yours.”

  He exchanged hand signals and half the group of pirates went off into the ship. Caleb and three others stayed behind.

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  “I told them that I’d take the parley since you are Human,” he said.

  Everyone left was staring at us.

  “Do you know this man?” Ednette asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “He’s a friend.”

  “I’m not your friend,” Caleb said. “I’m an intrigued acquaintance.”

  “This is my sister, Bitty,” I said pointing to Bitty. I saw a look pass over Caleb’s face.

  “She’s alive,” he said slowly. He was surprised, and I could tell that he cared about that.

  “Yes, and I’d like to keep her that way,” I said.

  He nodded and then rubbed his face. He looked exhausted.

  “I’ve been trying to figure out what you were doing,” he said getting back to it. “Jumping from ship to ship. Your course made no sense.”

  “I was forced to leave the Yertina Feray,” I said. “I didn’t have anyone else to turn to. You were the only person I knew. I thought I could ask you for help.”

  He laughed and shook his head.

  “I didn’t imagine that you’d joined a tribe. But when I noticed that you’d transferred to this ship, I knew that was bad news for you. Wanderers don’t have a habit of ever hitching again if they board certain ships.”

  “You know about what’s been happening to the Wanderers? What Brother Blue is doing?”

  “You and Brother Blue,” he said. “You are single-minded Tula. I have heard rumors about it, but it’s not my concern.”

  “Of course it’s your concern!” I said. “They’re Humans. He’s killing them for nothing. For power.”

  “I’m only interested in cargo that I can sell,” he said. “Or have use for.”

  “Who are you?” I asked looking straight at him. After a moment I saw his eyes flick away defensively.

  “I came for you, didn’t I? I stepped in when there was trouble.”

  “We were doing fine without your help,” I said.

  He laughed. It came right up from his belly, and for a moment he looked happy. Like it had been a long time since he’d really laughed.

  I hardened my eyes. Nothing about this situation was funny.

  “We would have taken the ship eventually,” I said. He was making me angry. I had wanted to find my friend. I didn’t need this stranger’s help.

  “And gone where?” he said. “Do you even know how to fly a spaceship?”

  “No,” I said. “But he does.” I pointed to Siddiqui. Caleb took in his tattered Imperium uniform.

  “Can you?” he asked him.

  “Maybe,” Siddiqui said. “Probably. I had simulation training.”

  “Fair enough,” Caleb said. “You can take care of yourself.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We would have figured it out.” But the truth was I had not thought much beyond taking over the Hort ship. I had figured that it would be a hijack, and we could persuade them to fly us somewhere safe. But the Hort were all gone, or dead. They’d been running to their escape pods. What did they care about abandoning some Humans?

  I thought that once I found Caleb all of my problems would be solved. I had always known that he would be a leader, and here he was in his element. Commanding. Charming. Seemingly invincible. He was right next to me and yet a million miles away.

  In my mind, Caleb was too soft to plunder and steal and he could not roam the stars for any other reason than to try to make things right. I wondered what had happened. It was as though Reza and Caleb had switched places. Hard becoming soft. Soft becoming hard.

  “Who is your leader?” Caleb asked our group of Humans. “We should have that parley.”

  I expected Ednette to move forward. She had been the Wanderers’ journey leader on this journey, but instead they all stepped back and pointed to me.

  “You?” Caleb said. “You’ve finally recognized your leadership qualities. I’m impressed.”

  “No,” I said. “I just got here. I’m not a Wanderer. It’s Ednette, she is the journey leader.”

  I pointed back to her. She shook her head.

  “You led us to this bridge,” Ednette said. “With or without the Pirates coming, you were leading us to our freedom and giving us this ship. You are in command. That’s how this works.”

  I thought of all the times that I had been ignored by the Wanderers on my voyage. I didn’t have the confidence that they would follow me wholeheartedly.

  “It’s easy to lead when it’s fighting for your life,” I said. “But I don’t have much luck with the tribes listening to me any other time. We should choose someone else.”

  Ednette knew that what I was saying was true.

  “Bitty took the bridge,” Traynor said.

  “I’ll lead, if you will all counsel,” Bitty said to us.

  We all nodded in agreement.

  “You can talk to me,” Bitty said to Caleb.

  That was how quickly power changed hands with the Wanderers. Bitty would be this journey’s leader. The Wanderers on the bridge bowed their heads at the same time to indicate respect for her.

  “You’re no more than a child,” Caleb said.

  “There are no children in space,” Bitty said. “We grow up too fast.”

  It was true. I felt so far away from being young even though I still was.

  “All right then,” Caleb said. He knew it was true, too. In the time he’d been out in space he’d grown up by eons.

  “Go deck by deck and tell the others to strip whatever valuables they find,” he said to the remaining Pirates on the bridge. “But leave enough for these Humans to use on the ship. After that, we’ll rest and leave in two full turns.”

  They nodded and quickly spread out, leaving the bridge.

  “Come with me,” Caleb said to Bitty.

  He turned back to Ednette.

  “Organize yourselves with quarters and food on this ship.”

  Something was not quite right. Instead of safe I felt nervous. Both Bitty and Caleb were so far from the people that I had known and loved.

  It made me remember that the largest distance between two people is farther than the farthest star.

  28

  Ednette, Siddiqui, Traynor, and I went through the decks one by one and counted the dead. Sixty-three out of three hundred and fifty.

  “That’s one full tribe,” Ednette said sadly.

  After we cracked the cargo door open and let those who’d stayed behind out, everyone went to the mess hall to search through the food and see what was fit for Humans to consume. Soon enough Bitty returned from her parley with Caleb and called her council, all of us who had taken the bridge, together.

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “They will leave us with what we need to survive and to make a jump to a system where we can hitch on another ship.”

  “We’ll run into the same trouble,” Ednette said.

  “Yes,” Bitty said. “But now we’re armed with knowledge. It may protect us.”

  “That’s a generous deal,” Traynor said.

  “He’s being generous because you are with us, Tula.” Bi
tty said.

  “I need to talk to him,” I said. I didn’t want to believe that he’d come just to leave again.

  “I don’t get the impression that he wants to talk to you,” she said. “He said to say thank you for taking good care of his robot.”

  “Was Trevor whole? Had it been broken down?”

  “He just said to say thank you,” Bitty said.

  “What do we do now?” Siddiqui asked. He knew he was a long way from the Imperium, and he would have to throw his lot in with us.

  “We mourn our dead,” Bitty said.

  “And then we celebrate our new journey leader,” Ednette said, looking like a proud mother. She pulled Bitty in for a hug, and for a moment I saw Bitty smile like when we were little girls.

  * * *

  We got to the sad task of dealing with the dead.

  The bodies were incinerated. The ashes were packed and then scattered, jettisoned out among the stars where they would always be wandering.

  Afterward, the Wanderers cleared the mess hall and what instruments could be found were brought out. Songs were sung to mourn, and then songs were sung to celebrate. We all feasted on the Hort protein paks and the grubs that the Hort considered a delicacy, which were not very tasty, but they filled us up.

  “Come,” Bitty said. “That tattooists are ready. It’s time to get your mark.”

  “My mark?” I said.

  “Your ship tattoo,” Bitty said. “Now you have a story.”

  She brought me over to the tattoo artists who had set up in a corner of the hall. Even Siddiqui was in line for a tattoo. But as journey leader, Bitty was given preference and everyone let her go to the front of the line, and she took me with her so we could sit next to each other. The others in line watched and clapped and sang to us as the ink bloomed black on our skin.

  “I didn’t do anything but try to live,” I said to Bitty, as I watched the tattooist work on my arm. The right arm was where your first voyage was marked.

  “That’s what makes this your ship,” Bitty said.

  But I thought of my story. Of the Prairie Rose and the Yertina Feray. Of all the other ships that I had taken to get here; it seemed strange that there would be no mark for those places.

  I almost asked for a different mark, to speak of those ships, but in the end I kept quiet and got the same tattoo that everyone on this voyage did. This mark was just the beginning of my wander. Nothing else would be forgotten. I was marked by them in my heart, where it counted most.

  Bitty got something more to her tattoo. She got an extra line, thicker than the other under the ship. It was the mark of this ship’s journey leader. Ednette clapped the loudest as she watched Bitty with a mother’s pride.

  The pain of the needle pricking my skin was a welcome pain, but as it pricked, I felt an intense happiness. This ship would be marked on us all as part of our story. My first tattoo. I hardly knew who I was anymore. An Earthling. A colonist. A gutter rat. A space station citizen. A Wanderer.

  The music tempted most to the floor, but I did not want to dance with the other Wanderers who would laugh at my not knowing their intricate steps. Or sing the songs that I did not know. I could only hum along to the pretty tunes.

  As much as they had welcomed me, I also did not belong here.

  29

  I left the celebration while it was still in full swing, slipping out quietly to send a sweets, water, and salts invoice to Tournour who was the one being in the galaxy that I wanted to share this victory with. I wanted to let him know where I was, so that someone knew that I was alive. But a one-way message is unsatisfying. So I settled my restlessness and roamed the ship as I used to do on the Yertina Feray, trying to find a good window to look out of.

  I paused in the observatory lounge. It was nothing like the arboretum from the Yertina Feray, but it was the place that had the best windows. I could see a gas giant in the distance, some stars, and the Noble Star attached to our ship. We were flying together.

  I thought I was alone, and so I jumped at the sound of Caleb’s voice.

  “I went to the celebration, but you were gone,” he said.

  “I couldn’t join in,” I said composing myself. “I am not a Wanderer.”

  “What are you then?” he asked, stepping closer to me.

  “An alien,” I said.

  “You don’t look that strange to me,” he said gripping my shoulders and bending down to my height so he could look me in the eyes.

  “Did you come to say goodbye?” I asked, a wave of sadness washing over me.

  “Not yet. But soon,” he said, shaking his long blond hair off of his face. “We should talk. And I knew I’d find you here, gazing out a window.”

  “I’m predictable,” I said.

  “No. You’re not.” He indicated the windows. “But in this you are.”

  We were quiet for a moment as we looked out at the vast darkness that we were sailing through. He began to hum. That song. It reminded me of becoming his friend.

  “I’m sorry about what happened with the cryocrates,” I said.

  He put his hand up to silence me. Then his shoulders hunched, and he went from looking like this strong man, this ruthless Pirate, to the thin, sensitive boy I’d met on the Yertina Feray. As though being with me reminded him of all that he hadn’t done. Of all that he’d had to do to get here. This moment was his weakness.

  “You’re different,” I said.

  “That’s what happens with time,” he said smiling. For the first time since I had seen him again, I saw my friend standing in front of me, my old friend in this now hardened face.

  I had only been out here for a few months, and I was also already so changed.

  “I don’t have friends. I have associates. And we would all double-cross each other if we didn’t have a code to live by,” he said. “It gets to you.”

  “We all have a code we live by,” I said.

  I thought about how I had made rules for myself in order to survive. Things I’d suppressed in order to live with myself.

  “It wasn’t like what I thought it would be out there. I signed up for something totally different,” he said. “Mostly, it feels like I’ve had to fight my way out of hell.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “You don’t know.”

  “Reza came back to the Yertina Feray.”

  “So he made it,” Caleb said with a bit of admiration in his voice. “I wasn’t sure that little ship he’d stolen would make the trip.”

  “He almost made it. He crashed on Quint. He found the alin.”

  “He’s always been lucky,” Caleb said shaking his head.

  Of course, Reza had not said much about what happened on the Outer Rim, but it was a way to keep Caleb talking.

  All beings are nostalgic, Heckleck used to say. They will talk about the past more than the now.

  “He mentioned some things,” I said. Caleb winced.

  “He left me,” Caleb said. “We woke up and we were surrounded by aliens that we couldn’t even understand.”

  “I know what that’s like,” I said.

  “No, you don’t,” Caleb said.

  “Then tell me how it was different,” I said. “I sent you there because it was where you wanted to go.”

  “But I was asleep,” he said. “Do you know how vulnerable that made us?”

  I had never thought of that. I had just sent them out in the cryocrates in cryosleep because I wanted to save them. To get them off the ship. I hadn’t thought about anything else except giving them the best chance to keep alive.

  “The first group we fell in with once we’d been woken from stasis were a species that I had never seen before,” he said. “They didn’t even know about the Imperium, they were so far out on the Rim. They just wanted to hit some ships. They put us in a training camp, more like a torture camp. They trained us, and we shipped out, ill prepared for what we were up against.”

  “I know it was hard,” I said.

  “Hard
?” Caleb said. “Our bodies were wrong for all of the gear. But we made it work. Killing is easy. You just do it. I did it so many times that I started to feel nothing. But we weren’t getting anywhere. It felt like we were running in place.”

  I thought about how lucky I had been to find friends in the aliens that had surrounded me. Even in leaving the Yertina Feray, I had Caleb to look for. But I would never forget those first months on the Yertina Feray, where every face was strange and I was utterly alone.

  “At least you had each other,” I said.

  Caleb rubbed his face.

  “That was cold comfort in a cold place.”

  “I know you both had different ideas about how to help Earth to resist collaboration with the Imperium, but once you were out there it couldn’t have mattered anymore.”

  “Of course it mattered. It mattered because we couldn’t agree on how to survive. Every day was a battle out there between us, worrying about what was going on at home and how we couldn’t do anything. We’d failed.”

  It sunk in as I watched his face twist with emotions. Humans had a way of hanging on to ill feelings long after time should have let them fade. I knew that best. Here I was, time marching on, changing in some ways, softening in others, letting those like Tournour, Reza, and Caleb into my heart. But I would never stop hating Brother Blue. I knew that it stunted me.

  “You’d be surprised what you learn about someone when you are in the far reaches of the galaxy, being trained to be in an army that you don’t believe in. You can get anything out of anyone if you are hungry enough, or sad enough, or desperate enough for an escape. It’s not that I’m angry anymore. It’s just … God knows what Reza’s got on me.”

  Some things about Caleb may have changed, but I could see that parts of his heart hadn’t. It made me relieved. Perhaps there was some kind of salvation in having a past bond with someone.

  “You split up,” I said, trying to get the story out of him.

  “The ship we were on was boarded by Pirates. They seemed more merciful than the aliens we’d been with and even though they were strange, they seemed less alien. Maybe it was because they had traveled more than the aliens we were with. They’d at least seen Humans before. That makes a difference, you know.”