Beyond the Stars

by C. S. Wilde

  James rolls down the car window. “James and Miriam Bauman.”

  There’s something sweet and comforting in sharing a last name with James, as though we’re both a part of each other. Casey, Chuck’s great-granddaughter, says my choice was ‘super lame’ and that James should’ve taken my last name: Haworth. But my last name was a cover-up that never meant anything to me. Bauman, on the other hand, means my entire world.

  The intercom checks James’ voice patterns and then beeps. The gates click open and we drive the road to the main courtyard.

  Chuck’s mansion never ceases to amaze me, all white and majestic with two floors that include some seven rooms with en suite bathrooms. The mansion also has its own indoor swimming pool and movie theater. I know because we visit Chuck frequently, the benefits of having a multimillionaire pre-teen “cousin”, which is the cover-up we created. I’ve also pretended to be Chuck’s mother during a few PTA meetings, and James made for a perfectly goofy dad—he even came up with some “dad jokes,” that’s what he called them, to embarrass Chuck in front of his pre-teen friends: Do you know why the mushroom was invited to the party? Because he’s a fun guy!

  I shake my head at the memory.

  We park at the round, graveled courtyard before the mansion’s entrance. No one comes to greet us, so we climb the sandstone stairs and ring the bell. The soft tone echoes deep within the mansion and after a minute or two, steps rush from inside.

  Soon Casey slams the door open. She wears wool socks, jean shorts, and a pink shirt. The combination makes her look like she’s sixteen and not twenty-five, like me and James.

  “Very glad you guys are here.” She ties her thick, black hair into a high pony. “Grandpa has been acting strange and he won’t tell me what’s going on. He barely leaves the lab!” She spins around and walks into the hallway.

  Lab?

  We follow Casey, crossing impeccably white marbled corridors with hanging golden chandeliers: minimalistic whisar decoration mixed with human ostentation. The hallways give way to an inner garden brimming with exotic plants, some green with red patterns, others with spiky purple blooms the size of my torso. A breath of hot air envelops us as the sun peeks through the glass roof.

  We finally reach a dark-marbled spiral staircase that dives into the ground, right at the end of the greenhouse. Casey walks down the stairs in a clear cue for us to follow.

  “Does this seem strange to you?” James asks. He’s exploring his new telekinetic abilities, however long they might last.

  “Very.” I reply. “I had no idea Chuck had a lab.”

  Casey grumbles, “Guys, it’s not like I can’t hear you.”

  Oh, right. Casey shares the genetic material of one of Chuck’s old vessels, which means she can read thoughts too, though she can’t venture deep into minds. She only intercepts what happens on the first layer of thought, like a radio catching interference.

  She halts brusquely and turns back to James, her big brown eyes wider than I’ve ever seen. Her voice rings in our heads. “When did you become telepathic?”

  James shrugs. “Apparently my wife likes to share.”

  Casey blinks at him, not fully understanding his answer. She opens her mouth, but instead of speaking, she shakes her head, then turns around and keeps going down the stairs.

  We finally reach the bottom, where a white lab expands ahead. In many ways it resembles the labs back home: white and sterilized, the sharp scent of antiseptic everywhere. Tall computer servers stand on the far end, black towers that slash through the whiteness. A few screens rest over a large white table in the middle of the room.

  Chuck is hunched over a white padded stool while checking the displays. I’ll never get used to seeing him in the form of a red-haired child with freckles scattered all over the bridge of his nose. His former vessel matched his personality a lot more: Mr. Weltman, a seventy-year-old bulky mountain of a man with fierce blue eyes and a strict face that rarely smiled. Mr. Weltman was the human embodiment of legendary Ah’rbal-ack-to, my former mentor, but Mr. Weltman was smashed into a puddle of guts and bone back at the base behind the moon, so now Ah’rbal-ack-to lives as Chuck, a twelve-year-old boy.

  The fierce eyes are still there, though—green this time.

  “Hey, Chuck,” James says, but Chuck either doesn’t listen or completely ignores him.

  James smiles to me and winks. His voice rings in my head, better yet, in all our heads, “Hey, Chuck!”

  Chuck startles and jumps from his seat. “Great dimensions!” He walks to my husband and stands on the tips of his own toes. He pulls down James’ face, checking his eyes and ears before stepping away. “Merging brain waves,” he mumbles. “Remarkable.”

  “Care to enlighten us on what’s going on, buddy?” James asks.

  Chuck gazes at him with big doe eyes that glisten. I’ve rarely seen such a worried expression on Chuck’s face—on all of his former bodies, actually, including the original.

  “It’s not so easy, boy,” he croaks.

  A cold, hollow sensation spreads in my chest. I walk to the table and recognize the hieroglyphs on the screens: my people’s writing. One word is clear: dimensions, but before I can read any further, Chuck clears his throat.

  He glances from me to James and then to Casey, like he wants to tell us something but can’t imagine where to start.

  “Grandpa,” Casey says. “You’re scaring us.”

  I’ll never get used to her calling a twelve-year-old “grandpa.” It’s so odd, like when Chuck calls James a boy even though James is thirteen years older now.

  Sight can be a confusing sense.

  Chuck’s fingers fidget for a moment and his eyes dart to the sides. “It’s hard…” his voice cracks. “T-they altered you, Miriam.” His words come out broken and devoid of hope, almost as if he were telling me I have a terminal disease. “You’re different from normal vessels.”

  A knot clogs my throat, and my heartbeat thumps in my ears. “Different how?”

  “I ran some variables based on your brain activity. I could show you the results,”—he rubs the bridge of his nose, exhaling a heavy sigh—“but I don’t want to.”

  “If you think that will stop me from finding out…”

  “I know,” he lets out a sad smirk. “You’ve been my disciple since you were eleven dratas old, remember?”

  “Chuck, please,” I beg. “I need to know what’s going on.”

  With a deep sigh, he says, “Someone altered the patterns of your brain waves. I don’t know how they did it, but if the models based on your previous and current telepathic signatures are correct, your waves are only starting to change.”

  A part of me wants to find out what’s happening, but another part just wants to run and run and never stop.

  Whatever the truth is, it’s clearly hard for my former mentor to tell, so I sit down on the white stool and face the screens. After a while, the models on the displays start making sense. What they show though, is hard to believe. I check them twice, but the calculations are correct.

  My mind spins as I stand. Now I understand why Chuck couldn’t tell me.

  “Why would someone do this?” The words come out from my lips but I can’t register them, almost as if I’m watching myself speak. The sound of a flat line hums softly in my ears. Voices come muffled from behind, but I can’t understand what they say. My hands feel cold, my core feels cold, everything feels cold.

  “The models might be wrong.” Chuck’s voice wakes me from my shock, bringing me back to reality. He forces an upbeat smile, but it’s filled with pity. “We don’t know for sure yet.”

  “It’s insanity,” I mumble. “It can’t be true.”

  “Guys, what’s going on?” James asks, his nostrils flared, his breathing frantic.

  I slam into him, hugging my mate as if he were my own life, feeling the warmth of his skin, the taut muscles beneath his shirt, listening to the beating of his heart. “I spent centuries without you.” I press my f
orehead against his chest as tears pile up at the corners of my eyes. “We haven’t been a year together, this can’t be happening.”

  “Mir?” he demands, his terror so strong that it slips into me, gnawing at my guts, sucking all of me into a cold void.

  Damned our telepathic connection.

  My body trembles but I try to stifle it. I must be strong now, like James was strong for me.

  He lifts my chin so that he can look into my eyes, silently encouraging me to speak.

  “The thing is…” The screens fling themselves against the wall, shattering in a mess of cables and scattered pieces. I did this without wanting to, and according to the models, it’ll only get worse. “I’m so sorry.”

  A pressure pins the back of my head and demands me to say what’s wrong. It’s James. He’s trying to venture deeper into my head, digging as deep as he can.

  I look up at him and take a deep breath. “James, I won’t be existing in this world for much longer.”

  6

  -James-

  Miriam doesn’t say anything further, just stares at the floor, lost in her own thoughts.

  Chuck steps in. “She’s becoming an interdimensional being, boy.”

  Whatever an interdimensional being is, it doesn’t sound good. I glare at Chuck, chest puffing as I try to control my heartbeat. “In English, please.”

  It’s getting harder to keep calm about all this. When that mountain of water fell on us, I stood strong. When Miriam merged with the sheets, I did my best to calm her down. It’s getting harder though.

  Chuck’s hands form a triangle. He leans the tips of his fingers on his lips, like a professor trying to explain cold fusion to an infant. “So, basic principle: thoughts can affect matter.”

  I inhale sharply. “Clearly, since you’re all telekinetic.”

  He shakes his head. “No, listen. Your entire body is an electric field, your brain especially. Your thoughts are formed in this field, which is why human scientists can measure and decode thoughts.”

  “Okay.” I shrug. “Thoughts are energy.”

  That was easy.

  He nods. “Humans have a lightbulb in their heads, and beings like me and Miriam have a nuclear power plant.”

  Thanks, Chuck, that makes me feel great.

  “However,” he adds, “our abilities are limited because of the laws of thought and matter interaction.”

  It’s strange hearing a twelve-year-old speak like an old college professor, but his eyes aren’t those of a child. In them, I find the somberness and wisdom of Mr. Weltman.

  “There are a number of rules,” he continues, “particular physics you might say, which govern the thought-over-matter interactions. One of them says that it’s impossible to reshape matter or move an object much heavier than our own size.” He nods to Miriam, who’s listening to our exchange. “Yet she did both.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask. “Come on, Chuck, I’m not exactly an expert in a science that doesn’t exist on Earth.”

  He ignores my remark. “She’s not just interacting with matter now, she’s merging with it, going deeper to the place where matter becomes a concentration of atoms and particles.” He blows air through his lips as if he’s trying to find a better way to explain it. “In doing so, she’s connecting so deeply with the fabric of our universe that her energy will soon dismantle and then slip through the void in between particles.”

  This is all Russian to me.

  Miriam jumps in, her voice shallow and forlorn. “I’m turning into a puzzle that disassembles and reassembles itself, until one day, I won’t be able to join my pieces.”

  Chuck crosses his arms. “It’s one possibility, yes. But there are many others, the strongest one being that once you cross the threshold, you might still be able to reassemble yourself, just not in the way we perceive it.”

  Can he tell us something that makes sense for once? “Chuck, I swear to God—”

  “Precisely.” He runs both hands over his shoulder-length hair. “When humans curse, they curse God or the Devil, heaven or hell. When whisars curse, we curse the infinite dimensions and universes. It’s the one scientific concept we haven’t proved or explored yet. An idea so immeasurable, so impossible, it becomes the closest we have to a religion.”

  “Why are you telling this to us, Grandpa?” Casey asks from behind me, a hint of fear in her eyes. I wonder if she knows where he’s going with this.

  “By existing consciously on such a deep level with what makes the universe what it is, Miriam will, theoretically, be able to cross into other universes. Other dimensions, you might say.” Chuck leans on the wall, arms crossed. “We won’t perceive her because she’ll run in different existential waves. She’ll likely see us, but we’ll never see, feel or hear her again.”

  So Miriam will become a living ghost?

  “I wouldn’t say a ghost,” Chuck says, having read my mind. “She could still affect matter in our dimension in such cataclysmic ways, that she’d be more like one of your human gods than a ghost. Existing in this plane, but not really here.”

  A god? Is he fucking kidding me?

  Chuck shrugs. “It’s not an exact science, boy.”

  “Don’t call me boy!” I snap, my voice resounding on the glossy white walls. “You’re fucking twelve!” I kick a stool and it hits hard against the closed door of the lab, snapping two of its thin wooden legs.

  Miriam steps toward me and wraps her arms around my torso, as if her hug could somehow appease my frustration.

  And it does. Always.

  I kiss her forehead. “Okay.” One deep breath, then another, and another. For her. “We’ll figure it out.” I drown in the curve of Miriam’s neck. “I won’t let you go, I promise.”

  She tangles her fingers softly in my curls. “I don’t know how we can stop it.” She presses her cheek on my chest, her tears softly staining my shirt. “By all the stars, I can’t be without you.” She turns to Chuck. “I’ll go mad.”

  Chuck avoids eye contact. Miriam is like a daughter to him, he walked her down the aisle at our wedding. He might not show his emotions very often, but when he was Mr. Weltman he died trying to save her, and he’d do it again.

  At least we have that in common.

  The white table suddenly flies against the wall, but just before it hits, it dismantles into trillions of pieces, a cloud of white pearls that clank against the ground.

  “Sorry,” Miriam mumbles.

  Chuck hasn’t heard her. He walks to the pebbles and grabs one. “Matter rearrangement in such a precise level,” he mutters, eyes nearly bursting out of their sockets. Then he blinks out of his wonder. “We need to hurry.”

  ***

  We rush toward a big garage with a curved roof at the end of the property, hidden just about where the forest begins. To get there, we walk past the tennis field and the Olympic-sized swimming pool. The magnitude of Chuck’s property never ceases to amaze me. He could fit a small village in here, or at least a five-star hotel spa.

  As we walk, I realize the garage is actually a huge hangar.

  Chuck keys in something akin to numbers on the pad outside the hangar, then leans closer and says, “Vocalization test, alpha beta seven.”

  The metal door clicks and slides open. Lights blink to life, revealing a massive white ship in the middle of the hangar. It’s shaped like a disc with a tail at the end—some sort of propulsion system.

  “Holy shit,” I murmur, my head falling back so I can take in all of the starcraft.

  It hovers over the ground as if it’s a normal thing every ship does, the soft buzz of the engine humming in the background. The silver discs I had seen before bear no comparison to this intimidating and sleek giant. It kind of reminds me of the Enterprise, and the fanboy inside me freaks out a little.

  “What happened to the silver spacecrafts?” I ask, trying not to squeal.

  Chuck blows air through his lips. “Silver stars are only good for close-reach travels. They
wouldn’t serve our purpose.”

  A few crates and grayish blankets lay scattered on the floor, encircling the ship. Miriam strolls toward them, checking what’s inside. She barely pays attention to the ship, because she has probably seen vessels like this all her life.

  I bet Casey also wouldn’t be surprised taken she lives here, but she stayed behind to clean the lab—she’s a bit of a neat freak—so I can’t be sure.

  I walk closer until I’m standing below the ship’s smooth white panels. I touch the surface the way a cowboy would pet his favorite horse. A buzz passes through my fingertips.

  “Chuck, this is amazing. How did you get this ship?”

  “A gentleman never tells.” Chuck grins and the freckles on his cheeks stand out, turning him into the definition of a mischievous child.

  I didn’t think I was going to get a proper answer anyway. Perhaps it’s better this way. “So, where are we going if we need a ship like this? Mars?”

  He chuckles. “No, boy. Way farther than that.”

  7

  -Miriam-

  James wraps a few tools in one of the thin, gray blankets scattered around the hangar, then places them inside a crate. He closes the crate then taps it twice. Chuck nods before the crate lifts and floats into the ship.

  Travelling to deep space is much like travelling around the world with a car: extra parts are bound to be needed. There’s also the supplies for the food replicator: big cases with powder that once loaded, can create three servings of any food in the universe.

  At least we won’t starve in space. There are so many crates…

  I wonder how Chuck got this ship and the supplies. He’s an exile, and since whisars monitor the Earth and anything in its orbit, it would be extremely hard to smuggle a spacecraft this big.

  “Mercenaries can be very resourceful,” Chuck’s voice rings in my head.