The Stars Blue Yonder

by Sandra McDonald

  “If you don’t let me go you’re going to be in big trouble!” the boy was saying. “He’s going to come get me and he’ll be mad!”

  Mark kept his hand on the boy’s arm. “Who’s going to come get you?”

  “Who are you?” Captain Balandra asked.

  The boy was glaring at Jodenny as if she was the source of every sour thing in the universe. “You can’t tell? Look at him and look at me.”

  Jodenny turned to Osherman, bewildered. And there she recognized the profile, the guarded eyes.

  If Osherman recognized the similarities, he kept silent about them. Instead he said, “Why don’t you tell us your name?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” the boy said sullenly. “It never matters.”

  With that, the kid kicked Mark hard in the shin and dashed off toward the trees behind the town hall. He was young and spry and easily outpaced the colonists who gave chase.

  Jodenny gave her bouquet to Lisa. “Hold this. And stay here.”

  “Where are you going?” Osherman asked.

  “That kid,” she said. “Come on!”

  So they left their wedding and joined the pursuit. But it was a helpless cause. The kid seemed to know the woods pretty well. By nightfall , even though most of the colony had joined the effort, they had found nothing.

  When they returned to town Alli Carter reported missing food from her kitchen, and Sydney Ford reported trousers and shirts were missing from her clothesline.

  “He wasn’t acting alone,” Osherman said. “The kid’s got companions. Or accomplices.”

  Jodenny would have answered, but deep in the woods a blue light flashed.

  Myell was getting worse with each jump. He knew it. Each landing was followed by headaches and vomiting, and the ouroboros had begun to give off a high-pitched, off-kilter whine that ate at his eardrums. Luckily the kids weren’t suffering the same symptoms, not yet. In each new eddy he needed their help to find shelter, rummage up food, lie to Jodenny, or otherwise survive until the ring whisked them away again.

  It was risky to let them out of his sight for even a few minutes. The ring’s arrival was erratic now, with his usual twenty-four-hour window now down to twenty, sometimes eighteen. It had been ten eddies since he’d taken Kyle and Twig from their home and the strain was showing in the dark circles under their eyes. They’d met ten different versions of the grandmother and had certainly experienced different parts of Jodenny’s life; still, Myell was sure they regretted the entire trip.

  Maybe Twig not so much—she woke up every day the same curious ten-year-old that he’d first met. But Kyle was increasingly gloomy and argumentative. Though he never said it in front of Twig, it was obvious he didn’t believe Myell could get them home.

  He wasn’t sure he could get them home either. No amount of hoping, concentrating or praying to unseen gods could get the ouroboros to take him where he wanted to go. If there was a magic formula, it eluded his grasp.

  Now, floating in darkness, he tried to remember where exactly he was—leaving an eddy? arriving in one? He couldn’t hear the kids or any other sounds. When he cracked his eyes open he saw the white walls of a military infirmary. To the Yangtze again, then. He was tired of running into Jodenny as a junior officer but in some ways it was more comforting than the eddies where she was only a child, or those places she was an embittered old woman.

  The funny thing about this infirmary was that there were no sounds other than his own breathing and the slap of his bare feet on the cold floor. He was dressed in a thin white gown, no privacy there. He went through the open hatch into the passage, which was empty of doctors, nurses, and techs. Even the admitting station was empty.

  Then he saw the Flying Doctor.

  The creature’s head was turned Myell’s way, its beady eyes alert, but it didn’t move toward him. Its black feather cloak hung motionless in the still air. The headdress was so high it nearly scraped against the overhead. Myell couldn’t be sure the Roon was actually alive, and not a statue or hallucination.

  “Go away,” Myell said, a request that only sometimes worked with Homer.

  The Roon lifted its head, turned to its right, and walked off silently. Goosebumps ran up and down Myell’s arms. He didn’t want to follow it, but he couldn’t imagine leaving it to roam the ship among thousands of unsuspecting sailors and civilians.

  Slowly, his limbs like ice, he walked after it.

  The bulkheads around him billowed like white curtains in an unnatural wind. Myell noticed the absence of all smell—no antiseptic or blood, no medicine or perfume. There was a bitter taste in his mouth, as if he’d been chewing metal, with bits of aluminum still stuck between his teeth. His fingers were numb even though he flexed them, rubbed his knuckles. He was scared, oh yes, his bladder uncomfortably full, his pulse hammering, but he had started to recognize this as a nightmare, and nightmares couldn’t truly hurt him.

  A black hatch appeared in front of him. He opened it with a touch of his hand and walked into Garanwa’s station, the nexus of the Wondjina Transportation System. The control room containing the rock hives and skin cloak was whole, intact, undamaged. No sign of the destruction he remembered. He rubbed at one arm, soothing the thickness of a scar on his dream body.

  “What do you want?” he asked, unsure of who he was actually addressing.

  Shadows moved against the skin cloak. The Flying Doctor turned toward him, backlit by circles and swirls and Aboriginal patterns.

  “You inherited the helm. We saw, on the plains of Burringurrah. Now you seek to change Kultana, and we will stop you. Cease your quest.”

  This was a dream: the being couldn’t hurt him. Probably. Maybe. He took a step forward, squaring his shoulders under the alien’s relentless glare.

  “What is Kultana? Where?” he asked. “Tell me.”

  Behind Myell, a voice whispered soft syllables. He couldn’t quite make them out. When he glanced over his shoulder he thought he saw a woman, but then there was no one.

  The Flying Doctor bared its teeth. Tall bastard, it was. Imposing and foul. “We know where you are now. We can follow you. Through the networks, through your dreams. If you abandon this quest, you will be rewarded.”

  The whisper grew louder, more urgent.

  “I don’t want a reward from you,” Myell said.

  Behind the alien, the skin cloak buckled and rippled as if alive and thrashing. The swirls across its surface darkened to red and burst into flame. Remembered pain rippled through him—skin blistering, smoke searing his lungs. This was where his journey had started, damn it. If the answers weren’t here, they might not be anywhere. Already, though, the Flying Doctor was fading into blackness. Myell lurched forward and grabbed the thing with both hands.

  “Tell me what Kultana is!” he shouted.

  The Roon threw him backward. Waves of fire raced across the skin cloak. Myell landed hard, his legs and arms jerking against the rough unyielding ground. From somewhere high above came a waft of cold air, and a girl’s frantic voice.

  “It’s okay,” Twig was saying. “Please wake up, please, you can’t keep sleeping.”

  He blinked his eyes open and saw Twig hovering over him. Behind her, the sky was gray and threatening with rain. With her help he sat up.

  “Where’s Kyle?” he asked.

  Twig burst into tears.

  “Where is he?” Myell demanded. “Where did he go?”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The baby kicked. Hard. Jodenny pushed her finger against her side and said, “Stop that. Mommy’s trying to sleep.”

  Junior kicked again. The ocean continued to smash against the reef and roll into the lagoon, where it lapped up near her bare feet. Jodenny had put her beach towel down well above the high tide mark. It was amazing what the cargo holds of the Kamchatka had yielded up—she also had a garish pink beach bag, which was stocked with water and snacks for her and Junior as well as her gib, a flashlight and knife, and a romance paperback with a cracked spine and some
missing pages.

  Seagulls flapped overhead and continued northward. The breeze had kicked up during the afternoon and the sky was more gray than blue. She imagined another storm somewhere offshore, brewing up a potent mix of wind and rain. Jodenny hadn’t gotten to the beach until nearly noon, and she was determined to relax there as long as possible. Anything to prolong returning to the village and the inevitable argument with people who thought they knew more than she did about her own body and limitations.

  “I’m pregnant, not incapacitated,” she’d said to Mark Sweeney. “Don’t treat me like glass.”

  “You could slip,” Captain Balandra warned.

  “You could go into early labor,” Ensign Collins said.

  If she’d been in a more gracious mood she might have thanked them for their concern. Not many women in the colony had gotten pregnant yet. Everyone had a vested interest in helping her deliver a healthy baby. She was also a grieving widow, and everyone knew how often she trekked up the hill to where Myell’s body lay rotting in a dark grave.

  She’d let grief dictate her days and nights for almost seven months now, and had told herself she needed to move on. Let his memory rest, instead of pick at it like a wound that never had the chance to close up. The notion was sound. Laudable. Her future was here, not in the past. But when she woke up some mornings she found her face wet with tears and her hands scrunched under her chin, as if in prayer.

  Mark Sweeney’s last-ditch argument that morning had been “At least take Sam. He won’t let anything happen to you.”

  Osherman would have come if she’d asked, but she didn’t ask. He constantly acted anxious and jittery and on edge in ways that made it hard for many people to relax around him. He still couldn’t talk, and Ensign Collins couldn’t tell if the problem was physical, psychological, or both. What no one saw was how far he’d come from the wreck of a man they’d found on Burringurrah—Osherman and Anna Gayle both, prisoners of the Roon, though one had clearly resisted with all his might and the other had thrown her lot in with the enemy.

  Junior kicked again. Jodenny didn’t like the kicking part of being pregnant. She didn’t like her swollen ankles, either. Or the way her center of balance shifted daily, and how she had to trot off to the bathroom far too often, and how she felt hot all the time, no matter what the outside temperature was. But sitting in the shade was nice, and she’d decided a brief nap before the return trip was just the thing a tired expectant mom needed.

  Her gib beeped.

  “Just wanted to say hi.” Louise Sharp’s voice was as loud and cheery as ever. “Haven’t heard from you lately.”

  Jodenny pulled her hat down lower on her head. “I’m sitting on the beach with a fruity tropical drink.”

  “Really? Damn nice, that must be. Any handsome hula boys for me?”

  “No hula boys,” Jodenny conceded.

  “You’re at Skipper’s Point?”

  “Near the lagoon.”

  “Come on down for dinner,” Louise suggested. “We’re having a fish fry. Again. Folks would love to see you.”

  Every night was fish night down at the Outpost. Though they’d negotiated their share of military rations from the Kamchatka’s stores, they saved it for special occasions and hard times. Their hunters weren’t quite as good as the ones who’d stayed with Providence, and they hadn’t had much luck with their crops, but no one was starving yet. Mostly they just complained about the menu. Complained and drank beer.

  “I promised to be home by dinner,” Jodenny said.

  “Got you on a leash, do they?” Louise sounded amused.

  Jodenny refrained from kicking sand on the gib. “I’ll be on your doorstep by seven.”

  “We’ll have a pajama party,” Louise said.

  She pinged Mark to let them know she’d be spending the night down at the Outpost. He didn’t sound happy about it.

  “Forecast has changed,” he said. “We’re due for some serious rain tonight.”

  “They have roofs down there, Mark. I’ll call you in the morning.”

  After that she dozed off to the sounds of the surf, low and comforting. When she woke the sky had clouded over and the temperature had dropped. She hadn’t meant to sleep so long. Her mind was still groggy as she packed up her things. Junior must have been napping along with her, but now he was awake and pushing his head against her bladder. For good measure, he threw in an extra kick or two.

  “You better be one hell of a soccer player,” she said.

  She was on the path to the Outpost when she thought about their latrines, and how hard the beds were down there, and wouldn’t it be nicer to be in her own bed. Standing in the middle of the coastal woods, one hand on her hat to keep it from blowing away, she considered how indecisive and muddy-headed pregnancy had made her. If she went down to the Outpost for a day or so, she’d get a much-needed break from all the do-gooders back home. If she went home, she’d have better creature comforts and wouldn’t have to eat fish for dinner.

  “Louise,” she said, once she’d raised the other woman on her gib. “I’m taking a raincheck. I’ll be down at the end of the week.”

  “You okay?”

  “I want my own bathroom and bed,” she said, and that brought a bark of short laughter.

  “All right, missy with the full bladder. Come on down Friday. We’ll have us some fish then.”

  Jodenny reversed course and headed back to Providence. Soon the hidden sun was setting, casting the woods in gloom, but she had her flashlight and knew the way, and had no concerns. The wild animals had learned to avoid the area and Mark Sweeney’s great aim. The bugs came out but she had on her repellent, and though she had to stop again to piss in the bushes, she had more than enough water to carry her through another twenty minutes of walking.

  Five minutes later, a man appeared in front of her on the path.

  Appeared, just like magic. Popped out of nowhere. One moment she saw trees and the next minute she saw him, wearing a purple outfit that hadn’t been in fashion for decades, if ever.

  “Gamsa!” he said, grinning widely, throwing his arms open. “It’s good to see you!”

  Jodenny slid her hand into her pink beach bag and groped for her knife.

  “Who are you?” she demanded. He certainly hadn’t been aboard the Kamchatka. This planet lay millions of light-years from Earth and had no Spheres linking it to the Wondjina Transportation Network. Strangers were not only unheard of, they were impossible.

  “I’m Homer,” he said, friendly as could be. He was in his mid-twenties or so, with frizzy hair past his shoulders, dark brown eyes, and skin like milk chocolate. Though he was standing in place, he seemed ready to bounce on his toes, crack his knuckles, fidget like a teenager. He practically hummed with energy. “You’re Jodenny. Jodenny Scott. My great-grandmother twenty times removed, or something. Gamsa!”

  “Where did you come from?”

  “The future,” he said, flinging his arms open.

  She didn’t like the sound of that, but she didn’t entirely discount the possibility. Her life had been strange enough these last few years.

  “I could tell you things I couldn’t possibly know,” he said. “Like that time you were in the academy and you went to Richi Miller’s birthday party and kissed him in the alley. Such passion, Gamsa! I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  For a moment her memory failed her. The academy was so entirely long ago that it belonged to someone else’s life. But there had been a cadet named Richi something-or-other, yes, and she had stepped out in the alley with him. She could feel her cheeks warm.

  “I never told anyone about that,” she said.

  “I tell you, Gamsa, I’m traveling through time. I’m not the only one.” Homer’s expression and voice turned serious. “There are others. There’s one other, most importantly, very vivid, you know? Someone who loves you very much and thinks he’s lost you forever. Are you ready, Gamsa? Ready for him to come back into your life?”

  Her
heart thudded painfully against the inside of her chest. “You’re lying.”

  Homer shook his head. “He’s been through many ordeals since you last saw him, and he’s lost faith. You have to help him regain it. He needs that hope, more than even he knows, if he’s going to do what he’s going to do.”

  She had forgotten how to breathe, or so it seemed. Homer was talking about the impossible. Terry Myell was buried on a hill outside town, his corpse nothing more than rotted bones.

  “Just a bit away this path turns down the hill. He’s going to walk out of the woods down there and you have a choice,” Homer continued. “You can treat him with suspicion and fear—the dead returned. You can be distant and cold. Hold him at arm’s length. He’s used to that. He’ll expect it. He won’t fight it, though it’s killing him inch by inch. Or you can say to yourself, ‘This is what I’ve been wanting. Answer to my prayers. The gods finally listened.’ It’s all your choice, Lieutenant Commander Scott. Gamsa.”

  He lapsed into silence.

  Jodenny heard only the movement, soft and persistent, of the wind in the trees. She could no longer feel her fingers or toes.

  “Show me,” she said.

  “He went away,” Twig said between her tears. “Hours ago, to get help, because you wouldn’t wake up. But he hasn’t come back and now it’s getting dark.”

  Myell pulled himself upright. His legs were rubbery but they held his weight, and they damn well would until he found the kid. He tried to identify the forest around them. The air was cool, with a crescent moon sliding in and out from behind storm clouds that threatened to dump rain at any minute. The air smelled faintly salty. He clung to the slim, impossible hope that they had returned to Twig and Kyle’s eddy in Providence.

  “Homer!” he called. “Show yourself.”

  A flicker of light behind a bush, and there Homer stood. “I’m right here, Gampa. No need to shout.”

  “Where’s Kyle?”

  Homer’s nose wrinkled in confusion. “Where’d you leave him?”