Among The Stars

by Robin Banks

  “No.” She sits next to me. “That ATR is all I’ve got. Until it’s fixed, I don’t have a home. I can’t sleep in it without life support. I can’t get the fuck out of here if I want to. It’s not what it is, or how much it’s worth; it’s what it means to me. I feel fucking trapped.”

  “That’s probably why they did it.”

  “I know. But it doesn’t stop me feeling like that.”

  “Where are you going to stay until it’s fixed?”

  “Tom’s… The spare bunk, I guess. I’d love to stay in Kolya’s room, but it’s his room.”

  “That’s ridiculous. He wouldn’t mind at all. Hell, he’d love it if it made you happier.”

  “I know. But I’d feel like I’m visiting.”

  “You are. You’re visiting your best friend’s house. Nothing wrong with that.”

  “I guess. You really reckon he wouldn’t mind?”

  “Alya, if you need to ask that then you’re not thinking straight.”

  “I’m not thinking at all.”

  The tech comes just as we’re starting our afternoon shift. I guess we got lucky there. She seems a bit shocked seeing Alya in her show outfit, but she gets over that and gets to work. We see her crawling all over Alya’s ATR as we walk to and fro the shows. Every time I see her, she looks gloomier. We finally manage to catch up with her during the interval.

  “It’s not good. I don’t know what went on, but everything really is fried. It can’t have been a surge: your protector would have handled that. I don’t get it. Nothing’s wrong with the junction, either. Must have happened up the line, but I don’t know how or why.”

  “How much?”

  “Not cheap. In all honesty, if this wasn’t such a nice conversion I’d suggest you just start all over again with a new vehicle. But it’s so damn beautiful. The real problem is not how much; it’s how long. I couldn’t do it before you leave. Maybe if you booked someone to start as soon as you land somewhere… But it’s going to be tight.”

  “Thank you,” whispers Alya.

  “Do you need a hand getting it out of here?”

  “Shit. I’d not even thought of it. Yeah, if I can’t drive it into the ship.”

  “I’ll tow you. Won’t take a moment.”

  “Ok. Thank you.”

  They park the ATR in its corner of the ship. Alya comes back carrying a small bag. She shakes hands with the tech, and then the tech drives off.

  Alya drags herself over to the bunks, throws her bag in Kolya’s room, and sits on the doorstep. “She wouldn’t charge me. Would you believe it?”

  “What?”

  “She couldn’t fix it or explain it, so she wouldn’t take my credit. I think she felt sorry for me. I told her I’d get her into the show for free, at least.”

  “Maybe she’s just nice. Some people are.”

  “Yeah. It’s easy to forget that around here.”

  “You know what we should do?”

  “What?”

  “Eat a ton of nice food. You could have a few drinks. Then we could collapse wherever we’re sitting.”

  “That sounds brilliant. Do we have a ton of nice food?”

  “Nope.”

  “We’d have to walk back into the bubble. No ATR.”

  “Oh. Shit.”

  “Hey, it’s not all bad. We need the exercise.”

  No part of this is funny in any way. It’s the opposite of funny. This is fucking tragic. But I start laughing and I find that I can’t stop. Alya takes a look at me and starts laughing too. We’re both guffawing out of control. Every time we manage to calm ourselves down, one of us starts to chuckle and off we go again. It makes no sense at all, but at the end of it, when we’re simply too out of breath to carry on, I feel a lot better.

  “Tell you what,” I croak. “Since you’ve had a bit of a day, I’ll treat you. Dinner at the café. How’s that?”

  “No offense, but I’d rather eat your cooking.”

  “Had you not prefaced that, it wouldn’t have been offensive. Suit yourself. Generic vat-grown protein slop it is. Eat it or go without.”

  “Kid, you’re alright.”

  I kinda like having Alya as a neighbor. I only realize that after she moves in next door, but I’ve been lonely. I like knowing that she’s right next door, only a partition wall away from me. It’s comforting. After the alarm goes off, I tap against the wall. She taps back. I sleep a little bit better.

  One more move over. One more and we’ll be on a ship. Every day gets us closer to Kolya coming back. We are doing this.

  We come out of the stables at lunchtime to find two boys dismantling our kitchen. Our gear is strewn all over the floor, along with our food. It looks like it was thrown there.

  Alya flips out. I don’t think she means to. I think she just finally snapped. All I can do is hold her back while she shrieks incoherently at the boys, until she’s calmed down enough that I can trust her not to rush them. They look like the sort who hits back.

  I leave her stewing in her frustration and walk to the bunks. I point to the stuff to the floor. “That’s mine.”

  “No English.” Yeah, I believe that.

  I point again. “That?” I point at myself. “Mine.”

  They look at each other and shrug. Looks like I’m not the only one who practices acting clueless. This is going to be great fun.

  I stretch to release the tension in my neck and shoulders. As I do, I see something on the ground. Kolya had a couple of really good knives. One of them, a heavy meat cleaver, hardly saw any use: who the hell has meat to cut? He occasionally used it to chop up food for the tigers. I think he mostly treasured it because it’s been in his family for generations. Now it’s lying on the ground, a small chunk missing from its tip. It probably snapped off when it landed. I pick it up and wave it around a bit to get a feel for it. It feels good in my hand, though hefty. I’m really fucked off at the damage, though. I run a finger over the nick and sigh.

  “Ok, so this is what is going to happen. You’re going to go and get your boss. He’s going to come out here and tell us what this is all about. And I mean now.”

  They stare at me for a couple of seconds, mutter to each other incomprehensibly, and scarper.

  Alya walks up. “Luke? Put that down.”

  “What? Oh. Sure.”

  “You scared the crap out of me.”

  “Why?”

  “I thought you were going to gut them.”

  “I was perfectly calm.”

  “Yes. You were. It was chilling.”

  “Heh. It worked.”

  “Sure did. Look at this mess!”

  “Are you going to be cool about this? When Sean comes?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Good.”

  It doesn’t take him long to saunter over. I’m surprised at how disinterested he looks. I thought he’d be gloating. “What’s this all about?”

  “You tell us. Why have your goons been chucking our stuff around?”

  “Your stuff? It was in a communal area.”

  “Communal to my team. It was our stuff. We bought it. We owned it.”

  “That’s unfortunate. We were unaware.”

  “You haven’t answered my question: why?”

  “Safety measure. After the incident with your ATR, we’ve decided to review our provisions and reduce the chances of fires.”

  “Fires? There was no fire at my ATR.”

  “But there could have been.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “All the same, safety first. A kitchen next to staff living quarters is just too risky, so we are converting it to an extra bunkroom. You’ll need it, anyway, when you’re back to full staffing levels. We’re just thinking ahead. Anticipating your desires. You used to like when I did that.”

  “Very funny. And where exactly are we going to eat now?”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, we have a café on site.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, café food
isn’t part of our contract.”

  “Consider it a bonus, then. Out of the goodness of our hearts.”

  “We can’t eat at the café. Our work pattern doesn’t match their meal times.”

  “Oh, Alya. Flexibility is essential in circus. You never understood that. Anything else you need me for?”

  “No.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  As he ambles off, I start to pick our gear up. “What do we do with this?”

  “If it ain’t broke, put it in my ATR. We can sort it out later. What the fuck are we going to do for food?”

  “Go to the café or eat cold crap. Given that we’d have to go shopping on foot, I’m for going to the café.”

  “We’ll have to shuffle our schedule around to do that. And lose sleep.”

  “We’ll work it out. It’s the amount of human spit I’ll be consuming that concerns me.”

  “I don’t think Ava would stoop to that.”

  “Stoop? It would improve the taste of her coffee.”

  I can’t bear eating at the café. I’ve not been there in I don’t know how long, I don’t know anyone, I don’t want to know anyone, and I don’t want to be surrounded by strangers. I volunteer to pick the food up and bring it back to our bunks. Ava seems to be about to have a pop at me, but she reconsiders. She hands me our meals without even looking at me.

  We sit in the gutted remains of our kitchen and eat there. The food hasn’t improved since I’ve last had it, but I’m used to eating whatever people put on my plate. Apparently Alya is not.

  “I can’t tell what any of this is.”

  “Food.”

  “Yes, but what kind of food? I can’t tell.”

  “Have some and you’ll find out.”

  She takes a small bite. “Nah. None the wiser. What is this stuff?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t care. Food’s food. Don’t smell it, shove it in your mouth, swallow it quick, and you’ll be fine. And stop pouting.”

  She manages to swallow a few spoonfuls before giving up.

  “Well, there you go. He’s controlling my work, my sleep, my air, and now my food. He’s got me precisely where he wants me.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?”

  Her eyes harden. “I’m going to fucking show him.”

  3.

  Watching Parcae disappear behind us is a huge relief. I half expected godsdamned Sean to try and stop us leaving, but I guess he wouldn’t try the same trick twice. I allow myself to relax for the first time in weeks. That’s probably not a good idea. As my tension dissipates, my ability to think goes with it.

  When the animals come out of sedation, I deal with them in a daze. I completely lose track of what I’ve done and what I still need to do. Alya doesn’t seem to be doing much better. I realize we’ve been standing in the middle of the stables waiting for the next task for I don’t know how long. There is no next task. We’ve finished.

  “Alya? Bed. Now.”

  “What?”

  “Bed.”

  “Ok. Gonna check the bridge. Then bed.”

  I have no idea what time it is when I wake up. Something butted into my dreams. I realize that it’s been going on a while, scratching at my consciousness. Then the noise registers. It’s not loud, but it’s damn unpleasant. I get up and stumble towards it, so I can kill it.

  I find myself on the bridge. Alya is in her seat. The com is screaming at her. Sean, on video. He’s in a different world. Two different worlds.

  “I need to see you. I need to know that it’s over. I want to be sure. Don’t you want to see me? We were so good together. We could be good again.” He looks so earnest, so wistful. Then he puts his head down and switches.

  He’s raging. He’s a ball of tightly-compressed but rapidly unraveling fury. Different face, different voice. Different person. “You think you can get away from me? You think you can ignore me? I’ll fucking get you. I’ll fucking teach you. You get over here now.” Then he switches.

  “We can work things out. You know I love you. You’re the only woman for me. You always have been.” Switch.

  “Fucking cheating whore, embarrassing me in front of the whole show. Everybody knew but me. I couldn’t believe it. I had to see it.”

  It just goes on like this, on and off, on and off, the difference between the two moods becoming more pronounced. This cold, sudden switching is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.

  Neither him nor Alya have spotted me yet. I guess they’re both engrossed in his performance. I manage to attract Alya’s attention, but when she turns around to look at me he starts bellowing.

  “Look at me when I’m talking to you! I’ll fucking teach you, you bitch!”

  He starts throwing stuff around the place. His hat. His glass. The bottle he was swigging from. Everything within his reach is taking flying lessons. He’s completely out of control, until one of the boys cautiously approaches him. He switches to a third state to talk with the boy. The com goes off.

  “Alya? How long has that shit being going on for?”

  “Dunno. Soon as he got into free com range.”

  “Have you had any sleep?”

  “Nah. I tried. He stops for a bit, then he starts up again.”

  “Just turn the fucking thing off!”

  “Can’t. Need to be able to receive. Can’t fly with the com switched off.”

  “We can’t fly without a fucking pilot, either. You need to rest. Turn the fucking thing off, or I will.”

  “It’s only gonna make him angrier.”

  “Who the fuck cares? You won’t have to hear him.”

  “He’s gonna have to stop when he gets out of free com range. Parker will skin his hide if he runs up a Fed bill.”

  “Parker will bury that the same way he buries everything else Sean does. Fuck this shit.”

  I turn the com off despite Alya’s vague protests. I scoop her off her seat and she doesn’t even try to fight me off. That’s a bad sign. I cart her off to her ATR and put her on her bed. She manages to crawl under the blankets. I should probably have reminded her that she’s filthy, that she’s making a mess of her place. She always keeps everything so nice. But she can clean up tomorrow and she needs rest now.

  “I’ll get you a glass of water.”

  “What?”

  “In case you get thirsty in the night. That’s what people do in your threedees.”

  She smiles feebly. “Thank you. You’ll be a good daddy.”

  When I come back with it, she’s already zonked out. I have to watch her breathe for a while to convince myself she’s not dead. She’s gone boneless in her sleep.

  I take Kolya’s bunk in the cargo bay. It still smells like him. If I close my eyes, I can hear Kolya’s voice. He’ll come back to us. We’re going to be ok. This is my safe place, my happy place. I’m safely locked in a tin can in space with my animals and my friend. Nobody wishes me harm here. And all of that feels like a lie I can’t believe in anymore, and I just can’t get to sleep. I’m so tired I could hurl, but I can’t sleep.

  I hear her when she starts moaning. I ignore that – she’s probably just dreaming. Then the moaning turns to wailing and I can’t ignore that. I hate to wake her up, but it doesn’t sound like she’s getting any rest anyway.

  Calling her name does nothing, so I shake her gently by a shoulder. She opens her eyes and looks at me in abject terror.

  “It’s only me. You’re alright. You were just having a bad dream.” I feel like a liar saying that. Probably because I am.

  “Sorry. Did I wake you up?”

  “Nah. Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Are you ok?”

  I don’t know whether to cry or yell at her. She’s worrying about me. State she’s in, she’s still worrying about me.

  “I’m great. Budge up.” I sit on the bed next to her. She lets me. We’re both fucked.

  “Alya, what is wrong with us? Why are we still here?”

  “Can’t leave the anim
als.”

  “We’ll have to, when we die of exhaustion. Or end up like Kolya. That’s not it.”

  “This is my home. This is where I live. This is what I do.”

  “So go do something else. Somewhere safe.”

  “Yeah, it’s that easy.”

  “I know it’s not. But it can’t be harder than here.”

  “You know better than that.”

  “Honestly? No, I don’t. I don’t think I’ve never had it half as bad as you right now.”

  “It’s not that bad.”

  “Then I don’t want to know what you class as ‘bad enough’. Alya, you’ve gotta go.”

  “No. He’s not chasing me out of here. He’s not taking this from me. I’m not letting him win. Not again.”

  “Tell me again how he ever won, what he won? You gave up a life you hated to try a life hardly anyone gets a chance to even see, and you loved it. When he turned into an asshole, you left him. You went on to get yourself a life you enjoyed even more. You had a ball for five years. I haven’t had a ball for five months, so forgive me if I don’t cry for you.”

  “He’s taken it all away.”

  “He’s taken the future of it, yes. Though technically it was Jameson selling us down the river that did that. But he hasn’t taken what you’ve had. He can’t do that. You can: you’re pissing all over your memories, letting them hurt you now. Making good stuff into a stick you whack yourself with. Which, by the way, is not much of a spectator sport. You wanna worry about what he’s capable of, what he’s won? Only win I saw him make you handed over to him, when he wasn’t even there, and he doesn’t know about it.”

  “What are you on about?”

  “Raj.” Her face collapses as if I slapped her, but I see her rallying fast. She’s soon gonna be too angry to listen to me, so I wade right in there before she can get going. “Tell me that the Alya who quit the Patrol to run off with the circus would have left Raj like that. If I’m wrong, tell me.”

  She looks at me for a while as if she’s unsure whether to speak to me or hit me, then she sits back, crosses her arms and says “Ok, I’ll allow it. You’re right. You’re an asshole, but you’re right.”