Starstuff (Starstuff Trilogy Book 1)

by Ira Heinichen

  Dozens of eyes stared back at him, wide like moons, waiting for them to begin.

  Petrick next saw Mistress Fris sitting in the front row. Her eyes were ablaze and communicating one single, very clear message: Get on with it. Petrick cleared his throat and looked over at Suzy and Barry, who were wondering what in the blazes was taking him so long.

  “Gratefulness for your presence,” he said, addressing the crowd in the silted language used on such formal occasions. “I am Petrick of eleven seasons, she is Suzy of eleven seasons, and he Barry of ten. Today, we three present to you as a group, as one, as we are one with the sacred Indacar who is the mother of us all. May Indacar bless this Choosing Day. May we find a match in each other, choose and be chosen, to become one. As one, we wipe away our shame.”

  He had memorized the words a thousand times over, but they still came out stiff and halting. Petrick could hear Mistress Fris’s clenched jaw from the stage.

  “Family is life,” he said, concluding the sacred words.

  “Family is life,” repeated the crowd.

  Petrick bowed and then nodded to his two compatriots, who brought out Clarke from a shrouded cage. The dog saw Petrick, barked, and tried to wiggle from Barry’s grasp to get over to his master. The watching crowd of adults murmured in amusement, which spurred Petrick on.

  “Prepare to be amazed!” he proclaimed.

  Petrick gave Barry and Suzy another nod, and they unshrouded the sheet-draped machine. It was more impressive in all its assembled glory than Petrick had even hoped. He heard the crowd murmur again; he knew their first reaction would certainly be shock, and he was counting on that. If he could just show them what this machine could do, he knew they’d change their minds.

  Barry and Suzy speedily placed a small harness onto Clarke. It had wiring connecting it to the contraption, and Clarke couldn’t help but squirm in petulance. No dog enjoys being restrained when there are new people to meet and greet.

  Barry, remembering his role, produced a bag of lerik morsels from his pocket. Clarke immediately quieted, instantly entranced by the small round meatballs.

  Petrick picked up a smaller, square handheld device from his table and hauled out the saucer-shaped object. In full view now, it looked like two dinner plates pressed face-to-face with a boomerang-shaped antenna on top.

  He turned back to the crowd. “Using this device we have created together”—he motioned to Barry and Suzy, who were looking tense and sweaty—“we will use static energy to fly this remote-controlled saucer here, with no wires or mechanical force!”

  There was dead silence from the crowd.

  This is good. Keep going, before they stop you.

  “My dog, Clarke, will provide the static electricity to power the craft.”

  Petrick nodded at Barry, who plopped a morsel into Clarke’s waiting mouth. He chewed it happily and didn’t even notice as Suzy began to rub his fur vigorously.

  The machine jolted to life, whirring and clanking here and there as arcs of electricity began to spread and wheels turned. After the briefest of moments, Petrick’s saucer began to hum as well. Petrick tapped a button on his handheld remote, and with a wobble, his saucer hiccupped up for a brief moment into the air, and then came back down again.

  Petrick frowned and looked at Suzy and Barry. They saw the cue, and Barry gave Clarke another morsel as Suzy increased the intensity of her rubbing. In a flash, something entirely new occurred to Petrick: What if it doesn’t work?

  As the terrifying thought danced through Petrick’s brain, the saucer began to match the intensity of Suzy’s gesticulations on Clarke’s furry back with a volume spike in its humming. There was another lurch up off the table, but this time, it stayed floating, wobbled, and then flew straight up into the air!

  There was an inhale from the crowd of adults, who awoke from their shock as the saucer soared above their heads. Petrick whooped in exultation.

  “As you can see,” he called out over the din of the surprised adults, “it is receiving electrical power without cables, allowing it to fly freely. It is perfectly safe, completely technological, and wonderfully fast.”

  Fris, he could see, was trembling and furious in the front row, but she hadn’t told them to stop. It had happened too fast, and now it would be incredibly rude and embarrassing to everyone to intervene.

  With his remote, Petrick swooped the saucer down toward the crowd and then up again in an elegant arc, producing just the collective gasp he’d wanted. He beamed, looking out over the awestruck crowd.

  “It’s a simple design using magnets, something my father taught me, and something I think might be very useful here at Chi—”

  A loud clank interrupted Petrick’s speaking. He looked back up to the saucer to see it had been going faster and faster in his inattention. He glanced at his remote control to make sure he hadn’t bumped the throttle. He hadn’t.

  That was when he heard Clarke begin to bark.

  The fluffy dog was half off the table, squirming frantically in his harness, while Barry was on the floor trying to gather a spilled pile of lerik morsels. He must have dropped them, but lerik morsels were round, and round things like rolling in every direction they can.

  Clarke was beside himself. His wiggling to escape was apparently producing far more electricity than Suzy could ever have mustered with her rubbing, and all that extra power was flowing straight into the machine.

  Another, louder clank yanked Petrick’s eyes back to the saucer, as it was now careening around the room at an alarming speed. It dipped and dove over the assembled crowd. Somebody was going to get hurt.

  “Petrick!” a voice rang out. It was Mistress Fris. She was standing now, her face a deep red and her eyes on fire. She was done staying silent in the name of decorum. “Shut it off!”

  Just then, Petrick heard a new sound: a snap.

  The saucer had sliced into a rope that was holding up one of the massive candle chandeliers. The rope frayed and broke.

  The chandelier fell.

  I’m dead, Petrick thought.

  5

  “THIS IS FORBIDDEN, CHILD.”

  Petrick was looking at Mistress Fris’s scowl lines from the corner of his vision. He wondered how long it took to make such deep lines permanent. Did she have to start when she was young?

  “You’re lucky this sinful contraption of yours didn’t crash directly into one of the Childless.” She picked the saucer up from her desk and then tossed it down in punctuation.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Petrick said with a wince.

  Blessedly, the crashing chandelier had hurt no one, but the fallout was nonetheless swift and severe. Choosing Day had been canceled for everyone, Fris had denounced the use of technology to the appalled crowd, and Petrick and his friends had issued a mumbled plea for forgiveness.

  Petrick felt Fris’s eyes boring into his forehead, and he squirmed, looking at the multitude of hand-carved busts of other former headmistresses and headmasters that covered the paneled walls of the office. Their sharp lines scowled at him too, and he found himself wondering: was Fris trying to be like them, or were such dour faces just a requirement of the job?

  Fris stalked over to the box on the floor that was full of wires and straps and bolts, and she hoisted it up directly on top of the saucer, which gave way with a deflating crunch.

  “Recite to me the Sacred Caution.”

  “‘I am of Mother Indacar.’” He said the words without inflection. Every child on Indacar knew them by rote. “‘I choose to live under her protection and eat the fruit she bears with my own hands, for she will not lead me astray.’”

  “‘Damned are those who forget Mother Indacar and work with anything but their own two hands,’” Fris finished the intonement. She paused to let the words sink in. “We choose a way of life without such technologies because they are evil.”

  “That’s not true.” Petrick finally met Fris’s gaze.

  “What happened today is more proof that it is true.” />
  “It was just an accident.”

  “Those are our rules.”

  “My father says that machines are just tools. Only we are good or wicked.”

  “Your father is the one who left you here, Petrick.”

  The words landed like a physical blow. Fris looked down at her desk.

  “Well, he’s coming back,” Petrick said.

  “Is that why you did this today?” She gestured to the box and the crushed saucer underneath. “Is that why you continue to defy the ways of Mother Indacar . . . because you think he’s coming back for you?”

  “I do it because I like doing it.”

  “Are you trying not to be chosen?”

  Petrick shrugged.

  “Everyone needs a family. Family is life.”

  “I have my father.”

  Fris pointed to the office door. “What about your two friends sitting outside?”

  “What about them?”

  “Do you not think about them? How your actions affect them? Do they not deserve a family? To be chosen?”

  Petrick felt his cheeks redden and he looked back down to the floor. Had he thought of Suzy and Barry?

  “Know this, boy: You were left alone in this world because your father loved his machines and his stars more than he loved being here with you. He left you here at Childer’s, under our care, to be with them. We are your family. Not him. You are responsible to your family. Not him.”

  She moved in front of Petrick, took his chin with her hand, and gently raised his gaze to her.

  “We do not chase after the stars. We are here, rooted to Mother Indacar at our feet, and it is the purest, most sacred way to live in a universe filled with sorrow and evil. You will realize this someday.”

  Petrick looked back at her, his cheeks still burning. He said nothing.

  “Your friends out there will follow you anywhere,” she said, “which means you are responsible for them. You must remember that before you act.”

  She looked at him until she was satisfied he’d heard. She stood and looped back around behind her desk, where she then gestured to the saucer and the box.

  “Now,” she said, “this is what’s going to happen . . .”

  Barry couldn’t sit still.

  He wiggled his butt on the hard wooden bench for what was probably the trillionth time and got an elbow in the ribs from Suzy.

  “Ow!” he said.

  “Stop it,” Suzy said, and Barry stopped moving.

  The reprieve lasted only a moment; Barry began to swing his legs back and forth from under the bench. Suzy leaned back with a grunt.

  “What do you think Fris and Petrick are talking about in there?” Barry asked.

  “Probably Petrick’s stupid machine and how stupid his idea was to build it for Choosing Day. I swear, I’m going to break his nose.”

  “What are we going to talk about with Fris?”

  “I’m not gonna talk about anything with Fris,” Suzy said.

  “Yeah, but she has that way of getting stuff out of you, you know?” He looked at the door to her office, just a few paces from where they were sitting, and his legs swung a little faster under the bench. “Bet she’s really ripping into Petrick in there.” He looked back at Suzy when she didn’t reply. She had her eyes closed and her head against the wall. Barry slid himself to the rear of the bench to join her. “We should tell her this was Petrick’s fault.”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “But it’s the truth. It was all his idea.”

  “You snitch on Petrick, and I’ll break your nose.”

  “But you just said you were going to break Petrick’s nose.”

  Suzy opened an eye. “Yeah, well, I’ll break both.”

  There was a three-eyed stare-down between the two of them until a smile cracked Barry’s face and he tried to suppress a giggle. That proved a bad idea because it came out anyway as an odd snort/burp hybrid that hurt the inside of his nose.

  “Ow!” he said, and Suzy let out a chuckle despite herself, and then both of them were laughing. It died down, and Barry realized he felt a little less anxious. Suzy could have that effect on him, even when she was grumpy.

  He chewed on his bottom lip and looked back over at the door to Fris’s office. “You think we’ll get in more trouble when we all stick together?” he asked.

  “I think we’re in big trouble any way you cut it.”

  “You think they’ll make us fix the chandelier?”

  “No. The adults will do that. They’ll make us clean the hall, though.”

  Barry nodded and let out a big sigh. “I hate cleaning.”

  The two of them were startled into upright positions when the door to Fris’s office swung open. They looked up from their hallway bench to see Petrick standing in the doorway. His face was bright red, and his arms were ramrod straight at his sides, Fris’s firm hand on his shoulder.

  “Barry, Suzy: Petrick has something to say to you,” Fris said.

  She looked down sternly at the stiff Petrick. She gave his shoulder a meaningful squeeze. Petrick cast his eyes down before he spoke.

  “I’m sorry, Barry. I’m sorry, Suzy. For tempting you into my wicked schemes and ruining our Choosing Day.”

  “Thank you, Petrick,” said Fris with a curt nod. She let go of his shoulder. “You may go.”

  Petrick shuffled swiftly past his two friends and disappeared down the hallway without looking at them once and without calling Clarke to come after him. The dog’s tail lowered as he watched his master hurry out of sight, as if he knew he was meant to stay. Barry shot Suzy a glance.

  “He didn’t take Clarke,” Barry hissed. Suzy ignored him.

  “Barry and Suzy,” called Fris, “you may come in.”

  She said it as if they were the ones who’d wanted to see her all this time. Suzy gave Barry a poke, which had the desired effect of getting him to jump reluctantly to his feet, and the two strode in after Fris. Barry motioned for Clarke to follow them.

  “Close the door behind you,” she called out.

  6

  THE DIRT CLOD arced high up into the air, as far as Petrick’s eleven-year-old arm could propel it. He watched as it reached its apex, and then acceleration gave way to gravity and it began to tumble down. It picked up speed as it went, finally meeting its end when it smashed into the ground, and a giant dust cloud billowed out from the impact.

  He reached down to grab another chunk of dry dirt. This time, he aimed slightly to the right. The clod arced up and back down much like its predecessor, but this time made its impact short of the ground, exploding onto the corrugated metal roof of a leaning and rusted shed. Petrick could hear pieces of the fragmented dirt trickling down the various U-shaped channels. They fell through holes that water and time had eaten into the roof, and they tinkled over the stuff stored inside.

  It was the only building constructed from such materials Petrick had ever seen. Metal was in short supply for the technology-averse Indacarans; it took enormous amounts of time and effort to smelt and shape by hand, and so it was used only for the most important of objects, like plows, knives, or gears for the grinding stone at the mill. To build an entire structure from metal was inconceivable, even one as small as this tiny, dilapidated shed.

  Petrick, Suzy, and Barry called it the “treasure shed.” It was off in the far corner of Childer’s grounds, somewhere they came often, and they called it that because of what was inside.

  Petrick squinted his eyes to peer through its dusty, broken windows. He could see the remnants of what used to be a workshop, which was a veritable trove of pipes and wires and parts, and every other kind of farm-related machinery one could imagine. A tractorlike vehicle, long since decommissioned, sat inside. Its power source had been removed, and the rest of it was collecting dust and rust. It was one of several sources of components for Petrick’s many projects in the treasure shed . . . but it was also a decaying reminder of a time gone by, one when his people had been machine-using space
-farers like the rest of the Damned. Before they had cast off the rot of outside society and chosen to live in harmony with their world, they’d used machines like that tractor to till their land and stored them in metal buildings like the shed. Plowing a field took days, now; Petrick imagined the tractor finishing the same job in hours. How could they have abandoned such innovation, such convenience.

  It all seemed so backward.

  He grabbed another fistful of dirt with some heft to it and threw it as hard as he could at the shed. The dirt clod clanked heavily against one of the sheet-metal walls, flimsy from rust and damage accumulated by time, and dented it. The roof and broken windows shifted in one groaning movement.

  Petrick picked up another clod and flung it toward the same spot. His aim was true, and the clod folded the feeble wall in half. With a great dusty shudder, that entire section of the shed crumpled to the ground. Glass broke and metal clanked inside, obscured by the cloud of dust that billowed out toward Petrick.

  A pang of guilt shot through Petrick as the sounds of destruction died down.

  “Crunch,” he said.

  He jogged toward the dusty heap and to his dismay saw that it had almost entirely collapsed. The open area of the workshop was now a tangle of sheet metal and rotted wood, held up only by the old tractor. Petrick got down on his hands and knees to get a good look at the structure. A space just large enough for an eleven-year-old to stoop through was left, swirling with unsettled dust.

  Petrick crab-walked inside carefully, watching for nails and sharp corners. After a few feet, past the front work area, the back part of the shed opened up, and Petrick could fully stand up again.