Steal the Stars

by Mac Rogers

  “Grant with me in Object E. Salem in Bird’s Eye. You on the floor.”

  “I’ll make it happen.” She turned on her heels and retreated. It was like she was never here—the entire encounter, caught inside a heartbeat and over before I knew it.

  You should have told her first thing. You put it off until it was almost too late and made it harder on her than it needs to be.

  Yeah, well, some other voice, cold and merciless. Somehow I don’t think that’s what she’ll be upset about by the end of today.

  When she disappeared into the elevator, I stashed my Lloyd Suit into the duffel. Then I slid under the security camera and pulled on a latex glove. I took out the vial Nikki gave me on the train, and unscrewed the top.

  Thud thud.

  * * *

  MOSS DIDN’T care about any of this. Any changes going on around him, any tension, any upset: he just sat there. His big black eyes, dry yet reflective, made me wonder what they’d look like when they actually focused on something. Would it be even discernible? Eleven years of minimally invasive biological examination hadn’t revealed pupils, or even eyelids. Would his eyes be this bottomless and inscrutable even if he were alive (which, of course, we had no way of proving he wasn’t)?

  “Your shag’s looking a little light,” I said to him. The moss on his chest had receded noticeably while I was away. Noticeably to me, at least.

  I was sorry for this. I knew he couldn’t know that—for all I knew, being sorry was a state of mind he couldn’t even comprehend—but for whatever might happen to him after all this was said and done, I was sorry. Of all my coworkers, Moss had never once given me shit.

  The Guardshift bell rang throughout the Hangar and the Fifth Rotation made its way into place. Grant squeezed himself through the ship’s fissure, punctual as expected. Here was a coworker for whom I would not feel sorry.

  The N5 duffel bag containing my Lloyd Suit was at my feet. No helmet; I’d deal with that later.

  “Chief Prentiss.” Grant’s voice sounded even more snide and intrusive in the ship’s bizarre acoustics. “Nice vacation?” He took his place in the ship, clasping his hands in front of him, looking directly ahead. He was upset.

  “You’ve probably been hearing a lot of shit going around.” Given how gossip was already floating around like so much pollen in the air, none of it presumably mentioning his name, Grant would be feeling his patented mixture of excluded and personally slighted.

  “There’ve been rumblings,” he said. He wasn’t just not looking at me to play it cool, the motherfucker was giving me the cold shoulder like we were a high school couple learning how to fight.

  “‘Rumblings.’”

  “But I prefer not to dignify rumors.”

  I sighed. “Let’s just say, there’s gonna be an announcement today.” I stuck out my hand. “Congratulations.”

  I expected a little more resistance, but I guess he really wanted good news. His stony butthole of a face broke into a smile, a goddamn genuine smile that cleared away years of scowling—instantly negated when he looked at my hand and the scowl returned.

  “Why are you wearing a glove?”

  “Picked up a nail fungus on the beach,” I said. “Don’t wanna contaminate the site.” He hesitated, staring at my hand like I was holding out some rotting horse dick, a spasm of hesitant disgust curling his upper lip ever so slightly. Shake it, you contemptuous prick. “I’m taking shit for it, asshole, you’re fine,” I hissed.

  He reached out and shook my hand. Once we made contact something in him became resolute.

  “It’s about time.” He jutted his chin out. “I want a meeting. First thing tomorrow. I have a number of ideas I want to put into play.”

  “Looking forward to it.”

  “We’re going to have discipline here at Quill Marine. You’ll see.”

  “Let’s just get through today.”

  He let go. We went back to our posts and I waited for him to learn a thing or two about being undisciplined.

  Thud thud.

  * * *

  EXCEPT, NO. Fifteen minutes later, there had been no change whatsoever. Not a twitch, not a sniff. Grant seemed downright chill. My heart felt stalled in my chest.

  Nikki wouldn’t let me down, I tried to remind myself. Nikki wouldn’t let me down.

  Eventually I had to say something. Observe him.

  “How they hanging, Grant?”

  He shrugged, contentedly. “I’m just thinking.”

  “Thinking?”

  “Making plans.”

  Other than seeming the closest to happy I’d ever seen the petty little prick, there was nothing abnormal.

  Fuck.

  My mind was swirling. Maybe I’d applied it wrong? Maybe it actually had all been left on the floor up in Bird’s Eye, or in a trail behind me as I walked to the ship trying to keep my hand inconspicuous? This was supposed to be fast-acting and here we were, a lifetime later, with nothing to show for it.

  I had to busy myself. I clicked on my communicator.

  “Salem, confirm position,” I radioed.

  Your voice came back right away like a strong, encouraging hand against my back.

  “Up in Bird’s Eye, all good, all quiet.”

  To keep up appearances:

  “Patty, confirm position.”

  “Seriously?” Her voice, less like a comforting palm, more like a middle finger.

  “Deputy, confirm position.”

  Rather than answer me, there was a tiny chime in my ear—Patty had opened our private comm channel.

  “Since when do you ‘confirm positions’?” she sniped at me. “Dak, what the hell is going on?”

  “I’m asking you to confirm p—”

  “On the floor, Jesus, like you said.”

  I was about to come back with something equally snotty—I was still the fucking security chief, wasn’t I, I should be allowed to confirm positions without my deputy acting like I’d called for Jell-O shots and group sex—when I noticed Grant out of the corner of my eye. He was blinking heavily, trying to clear his vision, rubbing his face … and staring at Moss.

  “What is he doing?” he whispered.

  “You okay, Grant?”

  “What is he doing, look at him, what is he doing?” His voice was low and private, but in the deader-than-dead acoustics of Object E, there was no problem hearing him.

  “What’s who doing?”

  “You didn’t see that? YOU DIDN’T SEE THAT?!” Now he was shouting.

  “See what, Grant?” Patty’s voice came over the comm. We were still on our private channel.

  “Switch off, Patty,” I ordered.

  “HE JUST MOVED! HE JUST MOVED!” Grant was bouncing up and down in position, pointing at Moss.

  Even now he’s a fucking tattletale, I thought distantly.

  “Who moved? Nobody’s here, Grant.” I eased my way toward him—not too close, in case he did anything stupid. But there was also no such thing as “far away” in this ship.

  Grant was jabbing his finger toward Moss. His lips were stretching across his face in an aggressive, actually painful-looking scowl. It looked almost like the two ends of his mouth were trying to wrap themselves around his head and meet on the other side.

  “Dak?!” Patty was still on the channel. “Dak, is he talking about Moss? Is he telling the truth?!”

  “No.”

  “YES!” Grant shouted. “YES! IT’S TRUE! HE MADE THE GESTURE!”

  The gesture.

  “Dak, do you need assistance?”

  “Lemme suss it. Switch off!”

  “YOU … you didn’t see the gesture?!” Grant turned his wild and staring eyes to me, his face still frozen in that horrid scowl-mask.

  “What gesture, buddy?”

  “The-the-the-that-the-one-that-means he CHOSE ME!” His hands had found the zipper to his uniform. He pulled it down erratically, trying to strip off his clothes but having difficulty getting his motor skills to cooperate. “The
one that means he’s inside me!”

  “I’m getting people in there now.”

  “Wait. Wait, I don’t know if that’ll—”

  “THE ONE THAT MEANS HE’S IN MY BLOOD.” Grant was shouting again. He finally emerged from the top part of his coveralls and began to rip his undershirt off his body. “I’LL PROVE IT! WATCH!”

  “Grant. Buddy—”

  He started to claw at his exposed skin.

  No, not claw at. Dig into. Like there was no pain, like his skin was mud and he could just furrow his fingers through with minimal effort. Dark red pools began first to form then spill out in his fingers’ wakes. The amplifying ambience of the ship let me hear the wetness of his ragged flesh, smell the coppery tang of blood. I saw with horrifying clarity the front of his shorts were beginning to tent out. He was relishing this.

  I didn’t think it would be this bad.

  Yes, you did. This was exactly what you wanted.

  I knew Nikki wouldn’t let me down.

  I didn’t want to try to restrain him while my hand was still wearing the doped glove—what if I made it worse (how?!). I carefully peeled the glove off, conscious in my harried state to not make any contact with the powdered side. The process felt unbearably slow. Grant, meanwhile, was continuing to dig into himself, a man trying to peel a layer of paint off a wall. At last the glove was off. Given what was about to happen in a few minutes the time for caring about evidence and shit was over so I threw the glove to the ground, kicked it out of sight, and hoped whoever found it and picked it up one day later had a nice trip.

  “Okay, okay, Grant,” I cooed, “Can’t you see you’re hurting yourself?” I held my now-bare hands out and inched toward him.

  “Take it back!” He was grunting. “Take the gesture back I don’t want it get it out of me.”

  “Shhhhh.”

  I managed to pull his right arm away from his chest. I was so distracted by the bloody ruin of his skin that I didn’t even notice him pulling his gun out of his holster.

  * * *

  THE SHOT did not ring out. It burst. As quickly as it occurred it was over, no rolling thunder, no echo. Just an unbelievably loud bark and then a chunk of the console to the left of where Moss sat compressed into itself. The ship took the bullet the way a body would. No detritus. No explosion.

  I’m sure this all happened very fast. But, time dilation: still a hell of a thing. It felt like we danced with the gun forever.

  I heard panicked voices—I wasn’t sure if it was over the comm or outside the ship, I was focused on getting the weapon out of Grant’s hand. I yelled to whoever might hear me, “Stay back, there’s a gun out!”

  I was about to kick Grant’s legs out from under him—not my first choice given how uncontrolled it could get—when Grant just … let go. I stumbled forward into the wall of the ship while he ran at Moss.

  “WHY ME?!” he was screaming. “YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO PICK ME!”

  In another eternal nanosecond, I watched in dumb amazement as Grant wrapped his hands around Moss’s slender throat and squeezed. He was trying to strangle the (dead?) alien.

  “Dak!” I heard Patty shout—she was standing just outside the fissure of the ship. “We clear?”

  “I CAN’T LIVE LIKE THIS!” Grant continued throttling Moss. It was almost funny, he might as well have been strangling a broom, except for the rabid, merciless look on Grant’s face. “I CAN’T LIVE KNOWING YOU’RE IN MY BLOOD!”

  “I’m calling it, Patty,” I yelled back to her.

  “You’re—?” I wasn’t sure if she didn’t hear me, or if she wasn’t clear on what I meant. It didn’t matter. I had Grant’s weapon in my hand. I walked up next to him, taking care to not accidentally hit Moss or spray him with much blood and brain, and shot Grant through the head.

  Grant’s hands were still fiercely clasped around Moss’s neck. They didn’t unknit even after his brains burst out, so when he crumpled to the ground, he took Moss down with him. Moss slid out of his seat and they both thumped pathetically onto the ship’s deck.

  “All clear,” I heard myself call out. Patty squeezed her way inside in an instant.

  “Are—” she began. Then broke off and stared at Grant and Moss. “Jesus.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered to her. I radioed up to Bird’s Eye. “Salem, you still on?”

  “Chief, I saw that all go down on the feed. Are you—?”

  “I’m fine. I need Turndown Service.”

  “On it.”

  Patty was still gaping. “Shit.” She swallowed. “He just—” She gave some weak gesture approximating Grant taking Moss down with him.

  I knelt down next to the knot of bodies. “Help me get them separated.”

  She joined me, tentative.

  “Should we … check him? Moss, I mean? In case—”

  “I didn’t hit him. And Lloyd should be here in thirty or so. Let him do it.”

  My knees were starting to hurt. Grant’s blood pooled across the floor.

  We pried Grant’s fingers off, careful not to touch the moss. I could feel Patty’s eyes slide to me every few moments, suspicious, confused.

  Once Moss was free, Patty and I got on either side and lifted him back into his chair, a little sneak preview of what I hoped to be doing with you about ten minutes from now. Moss was heavy, but not as heavy as one might think, considering how tall he was.

  There was some blood on him. It pearled on his strange, gray skin. I wondered if Turndown had any idea what they were in for and whether or not they’d handled something remotely like this mess before. The fuck do you use to get blood out of a spacewalnut?

  “I wish you hadn’t pulled Salem out, Chief.” Patty pulled me out of my reverie. “You could’ve used somebody just now. It was a lot of risk.”

  “I was supposed to anticipate this?”

  Her look said: well actually yes. Or maybe it asked: did you anticipate this? Either way she held her tongue. For now.

  I realized that my heart hadn’t been beating for what felt like hours. But now it was going, no longer impossibly slow but at a frenzied trot. Combat speed.

  Thud thud

  Thud thud

  Thud thud

  Are we really doing this?

  Thud thud

  Yes, we fucking are.

  Everything else today had felt like it was moving underwater; now it felt like we’d hit hyperdrive.

  “If you have questions for me, Patty, you can ask me in my office later.”

  “Which office?”

  “Go get me something to wipe this blood off Moss. Now.”

  She stiffened, gave me a half salute, and left.

  As soon as she was out of the fissure, I started putting on the Lloyd Suit.

  The time had come for step two.

  * * *

  WHEN I came out of the Tent, Turndown was already wheeling an oversized, colorful coffin our way. Damn, they worked fast.

  I ordered the sentry to roll the box right up to the opening of the Tent and sent them back to wherever they came from.

  I think someone was talking to me, but I wasn’t listening. I was looking around at the Hangar, my home, one hand on the box that was to be my way out of here, trying my best to savor this final moment. I was failing. I felt no nostalgia, no whimsy. Just an urge to get everything over and done with.

  I looked up at Bird’s Eye. You were there, watching. I couldn’t quite see from this angle, but I had to assume you were wearing your suit. I gave you a thumbs up and boosted my hand up and down. Within a minute, the winch started up, raising the giant class cube up and away from the Harp. The murmur on the floor ceased. Everyone, including Patty, stopped to watch what was happening. When they turned to see me, it was like I’d stepped out of the ship naked. Or like I was a goddess emerging from flames unscathed. They didn’t know what to make of it. In one smooth motion, I walked over to the rack where the other Lloyd Suits hung and grabbed a treated helmet and pair of gloves.

  Patty was
shouting at you over the comm, demanding to know what in the hell was going on, ordering you to reverse the winch. From where I could see, you were following my motions, putting on the helmet and gloves.

  The roar of the winch was practically prehistoric. A very different, very alive kind of thunder rolling through the echo chamber that was Hangar Eleven.

  “Jesus, Salem! Fish!” Patty was screaming. “You’re uncovering the fucking Harp!”

  Peters, another security team member assigned to this area of the floor on Fifth Rotation, was watching me. “Wait. Chief,” he was asking, “should the rest of us be suiting up too?”

  Patty turned from where she was glaring up at your position in the tower and saw what I was doing. The look on her face—it was the look I had tried my best to avoid throughout this entire endeavor, but here we were at the end. There was no avoiding it now.

  “Dak,” she gulped, astonished, betrayed.

  Fully sealed and suited, I walked over to the Harp, picked it up, and began walking in a large circle.

  21

  THE PLAN had finally fallen into place that final morning with Lisa.

  I’d already figured I could take Moss out in a Turndown box. I’d already figured it would be a box meant for a doped Grant. I just hadn’t quite figured out how to make certain no one else in Quill could stop us.

  Lisa had been curled up on the bed, pithed by depression and I had known I actually had the power to take some of that despair away, even for the moment. But I didn’t. Either she’d get better or she wouldn’t—I had my own journey to make and I didn’t need her getting in the way. So I let it consume her.

  * * *

  PATTY WAS screaming at me, pleading with me. She had drawn her sidearm, as had most of the rest of the security team, but between the general standing mandate to not harm the Harp and the paralyzing confusion of just what the hell I was doing, no one risked a shot.

  Patty’s voice cracked on the brittle edge of tears. “Dak! For fucking God’s sake, what do you want me to do?”

  Other guards were yelling at her—should they take the shot, what was the order?—but no one seemed to be able to quite commit to any one idea, one emotion, and that’s what I was about to take advantage of.

  They didn’t know the Harp like I did.