Tarnished Are the Stars

by Rosiee Thor

  Think like a physician instead. Visualize the entire problem and diagnose; do not simply apply the bandage.

  Thatcher’s words echoed in her mind, an untimely reminder of her failures. She couldn’t fix this problem with a scalpel and gauze. She couldn’t split open the world and expect to patch it back together without consequence.

  When she’d been locked in here before, something about the room had felt off. That same wrongness chorused through her as she spun in the chair, surveying the Commissioner’s bookshelves. They were neat—too neat—with titles like The Creation of Earths: A Terraforming History, The People’s Planet, and Earth Adjacent: A World Away. Nothing pointed to illicit activity. In fact, it was everything an official’s study ought to be, clean and stark—and way too small.

  “Visualize the entire problem,” Anna muttered. “Big picture, Anna.” She closed her eyes, mapping everything she’d seen. Books, empty drawer, clean desk, wooden ceiling beams.

  Anna’s eyes flew open.

  There, on the ceiling, was her missing link: Wooden beams—pine, maybe—ran in even lines, except for the center beam. It looked nearly identical to the others, except where the ceiling met the wall. The middle beam ended several feet before the edge to make room for the door to swing open.

  Standing, Anna crossed to the door and pulled it open, watching its progress through the space. Yes, the shorter beam was not a purely aesthetic choice.

  “What are you doing?” Nathaniel pushed the door shut again.

  “I’m visualizing the problem.”

  “So you said. What does that mean?”

  “There’s something not right about this room. Things that should be here aren’t.”

  “The holocom?” Nathaniel asked. “I’m not sure that’s particularly significant.”

  “Not just the holocom.” Stepping back to the other wall, Anna ran her hand along the bookshelves, peering at the space between the books and the wall. “Where are his documents, his records? He’s the Commissioner of Earth Adjacent—he must have paperwork.”

  “Maybe he keeps them somewhere else?”

  “Why keep an office with nothing in it?”

  Nathaniel cleared his throat. “I-I suppose it might be for appearances.”

  “Exactly.” Anna stuck her hand between the bookshelves, feeling for what she couldn’t see. “The only reason to have a fake office is to divert attention from the real one.” Her hand hit cold metal. “This is no mere bookshelf.”

  “What?” Nathaniel’s brows collided.

  Grinning, Anna felt the hinges beneath her fingers. “It’s a door.”

  Anna made quick work of the door, all things considered. Nathaniel watched in awe as she dismantled the hinges one-handed with only a wrench and no light to see by. If he could be half as skilled at anything as she was at taking things apart, he’d count himself lucky.

  “Finished!” Anna held out a hand full of metal parts.

  Nathaniel took them, feeling the smooth metal with his fingers. To think such small parts made up such a large secret.

  “Help me move it?”

  Nathaniel deposited the parts on his father’s desk before moving to the other side of the bookshelf. “If this is really a door, shouldn’t we have been able to just open it?”

  Anna paused, her face contorted in a pained expression.

  Nathaniel stared at her. “Don’t tell me you didn’t think of that.”

  Anna shrugged. “No, I … I … did not, in fact, think of that.” She bit her lip. “I’m sure this was faster than figuring out the secret contraption that opens it, though.” Anna sighed, her shoulders drooping. “Don’t tell Eliza?”

  His laugh died on its way to his throat, coming out as a cough instead.

  Anna, fueled by fire and a thirst for vengeance, still had space inside her to be nervous about a girl. After his conversation with Eliza, Nathaniel was inclined to find it endearing rather than frightening. Somehow, knowing it was all right to be on the outside—to be himself, as different as it might be—made his discomfort at their affection less acute.

  And yet, her phrasing struck him through the middle. Don’t tell Eliza. He’d given the same directive to Eliza about Anna only days ago. So much was unspoken among the three of them, whether it was only embarrassment or family secrets long hidden. Hadn’t Nathaniel decided to trust them that night in the garden? Hadn’t they, in turn, shown they trusted him?

  Swallowing the words he couldn’t say, Nathaniel helped her move the bookshelf, creating a gap large enough for them both to slip through.

  The room beyond was nothing like the one they’d just left. It was cramped, nearly half the size yet twice as full. Two desks sat in the middle of the room, both covered in loose papers and scrolls. Rather than books crowding the shelves, the walls were lined with equipment not unlike the tools and vials Anna carried in her satchel.

  This wasn’t only the Commissioner’s office; it was his laboratory.

  Nathaniel’s stomach dropped out from under him as the room morphed before his eyes. His mother had stood here once, too, unaware she would die by the alchemical solutions she brewed. If Anna was right, if the Commissioner truly had poisoned her village, had his mother lent a hand with the poison? Or had she learned of his plot and suffered for it?

  Anna inhaled sharply beside him as she, too, caught sight of the alchemy instruments. For a moment, they both stood there, eyes glued to the far wall. Then, as though compelled by the same force, they crossed the room together.

  “You were right,” Nathaniel whispered, fingers trailing over the glass vials, small tubes filled with various liquids, some clear, some cloudy, others completely opaque. Each had a small label attached, combinations of numbers and letters Nathaniel didn’t understand.

  Anna bent to examine the lower shelves, reaching to pluck a vial from its stand. “Look at this.” She held it up for him to see. Liquid gold swirled inside, shimmery and thick.

  “Do you think that’s it—the poison?” Nathaniel shrank back involuntarily.

  Anna pointed to the label: Au-A was penned in faded writing.

  “Au is the symbol for gold, so if my alchemy book is anything to go on, I’d say there’s a good chance this is our culprit.” She turned the vial in her hand to read the label herself. “I’m not sure what the second A is for. Your father must have some notes. Maybe there’s a legend somewhere.” She gestured to the heaps of paper on each desk and slipped the vial into her pocket.

  Nathaniel didn’t need to be told twice. He began sifting through documents as Anna inventoried the contents of the drawers.

  “He must have notes somewhere.” Anna gestured to the shelves around them. “Any scientist worth their weight keeps records of some kind. It’s irresponsible not to.”

  “Or clever. No one can stumble across incriminating evidence if you don’t keep any.”

  “Mistrustful old man!” Anna spat. “Who’s going to come wandering across all this anyway?”

  “Maybe this lack of documentation actually tells us what we need to know,” Nathaniel said slowly, thinking of his mother. “Absence can speak just as loudly sometimes. It shows he knows what he’s doing is wrong.”

  “You know, that isn’t half-stupid. You might be onto something.”

  “Although, there is one place we haven’t looked.” Nathaniel pulled the holocom from beneath a pile of agriculture reports.

  Anna grabbed it, a smile on her lips. “Not half-stupid at all!” She flipped it over and tugged a small wrench from her satchel.

  “What are you doing?” Nathaniel asked, snatching the holocom back.

  “What do you think? I need to see what’s on it.”

  “And you need to take it apart for that?”

  “Well, yes. How else do you propose we see your father’s secret documents?”

  Nathaniel pointed to the dial on the side. “The normal way. You can’t just take everything apart. What do you think my father would think if he came back to his
office to find it in pieces?”

  Anna bit her lip, looking put out. “Fine. So we guess the passcode.”

  Nathaniel nodded, fiddling with the dial. “Four digits.” He turned it in his hands, peering at the buttons along the side. It was identical to Eliza’s in every way. Had his mother’s past been only four digits away his entire life?

  Anna sighed. “Okay. What’s his birthday? No, wait—when did he become Commissioner?”

  Nathaniel spun the dials on the side all the way through the options. “It’s letters only, no numbers.”

  “Try N-A-T-E.”

  Nathaniel winced, unsure if it would be more painful to discover his father hadn’t used his name as his passcode or if he had. “No one calls me Nate.”

  Anna took the holocom from him. She tried G-O-L-D; then Nathaniel tried T-E-C-H.

  “Really? Tech?” Anna snatched the holocom from him. “That would be like naming your cat Cat, if you were famous for hating cats.”

  “Well, let’s see you come up with something better.”

  “He’s your father. If anyone can guess the code, it’s you.”

  Staring down at the holocom in his hands, Nathaniel spun the dials. Why did people keep saying that? He didn’t know his father at all. He didn’t even know what his father liked—besides power—or disliked—besides Nathaniel. The Commissioner was as much a mystery to him as his mother.

  If it was Nathaniel’s passcode, he knew what he’d choose.

  I-S-L-A.

  The green light clicked on.

  Nathaniel’s breath caught. Isla—his mother—was the key. His father, who would never speak her name aloud, who’d erased her from the history books and refused to discuss her with Nathaniel, still used her name as his passcode. After all these years, she lived on only in the mind of a tyrant.

  “See? You did it!” Anna patted him on the shoulder gingerly.

  “You do know I’m not a cat, don’t you?”

  Anna glared. “I was only trying to— Whatever. It’s working now. Let’s see what the Commissioner has to hide.”

  Imitating Eliza’s movements, Nathaniel pressed the button on the side, bringing up the control panel. Blue light shot up from the surface of the holocom, forming a command center. A search tool topped a long list of Settlement documents: reports from his various councilors on agriculture, the economy, the census … and personal notes.

  What would the Commissioner consider personal?

  “Give me that.” Anna snatched the holocom, keying in Au-A into the search bar and clicking on the first result.

  “ ‘I call it Au-A. Clever, isn’t it? Gold Adjacent,’ ” she read aloud. “Full of himself, isn’t he?”

  “She,” Nathaniel corrected. “My mother was the alchemist, not my father.” Nathaniel leaned over Anna’s shoulder to read with her.

  The compound, if prepared correctly, will suppress the effects of Tarnish and prevent further cases of the disease. As the element cannot be fully combatted by terraforming efforts, a vaccine will have to do instead. —Isla Fremont, 2874

  “So it isn’t poison after all,” Nathaniel whispered.

  Anna grunted.

  “But what good is transmuting lead when the very earth bleeds gold?”

  Anna wrinkled her face. “What are you talking about?”

  “The alchemy book—that’s what it said. This must be what it meant. The very earth bleeds gold. It meant that Tarnish is naturally occurring in the planet, and Gold Adjacent is the cure.”

  “What difference does it make?” Anna said through tight lips. “So the Commissioner didn’t poison us, simply withheld the vaccine. It’s the same. People died because of your father.”

  Nathaniel rooted himself to the floor against the force of her words. He’d thought they’d made so much progress, trusting one another, working together. But in the end, he was still the Commissioner’s son, and she would always hold it against him.

  “And it’s not a cure; it’s a vaccine,” she added, pointing to the word on the holocom projection. “I don’t think Tarnish can be cured—it has already damaged our hearts. Nothing can erase that.”

  “Then what is this for?” Nathaniel held up the vial, staring at the shimmering liquid. Some part of him had thought maybe, just maybe, he could still become an heir worthy of his father. But if that was the case, his father would have given him the cure years ago.

  Anna fixed him with a baffled expression. “For the future, of course. It’s too late for us, but not for the next generation.” She took the vial from him and shook it. “With this, we can ensure no one’s affected by Tarnish again.”

  A chill went up Nathaniel’s spine. The next generation could live without the fear of heart failure, without the taint of metal sewn into flesh. “Why would my father keep this a secret, then? Why not give you the cure? Without Tarnish, you’d have no need for tech, and the Settlement and your village could live in peace.”

  “There is no peace to be had. Tech isn’t only good for TICCERs. There are plenty who use it for other things. Limiting tech hurts those already disenfranchised, and your father knows it. It’s a power play—like everything he does.”

  Nathaniel swallowed a retort. His father was not worth defending.

  “Here—another entry.” Anna pointed to the holocom.

  At first, I thought Tarnish would affect us all on Earth Adjacent, but my research has proven otherwise. While adults are not immune, the malady appears most commonly in children. Children transplanted from the Tower, like myself, do not develop Tarnish, regardless of age, and the disease is only present in those who were born planetside.

  My experiments have yielded little in terms of pinpointing when Tarnish takes hold, as it appears to vary from child to child, impacting them anywhere from birth until adolescence. However, as long as Tarnish has not developed, the vaccine has proven effective in preliminary experiments. I theorize the vaccine will be most successful when administered to expectant mothers prior to birth, but more study is necessary to determine how and when Tarnish enters the bloodstream.

  As the vaccine appears to have no ill effects on those without Tarnish, I plan to propose introducing Au-A into the general water supply of the Settlement. Until I can isolate the direct cause of Tarnish, this is the surest way to secure a healthy populace and mitigate any further damage from Tarnish. —Isla Fremont, 2875

  “The water supply,” Anna murmured. “All right, she is clever. I’ll give her that.”

  “Was,” Nathaniel corrected before he could stop himself.

  “Right. Sorry.”

  Nathaniel bit his cheek. He’d not meant to divert the conversation. “But this explains why no one else in the Settlement has Tarnish, doesn’t it?”

  Anna nodded, returning her attention to the holocom. “It does, but these notes aren’t sufficient for replicating the solution. I need an ingredient list or an alchemical formula to take home.” She scrolled through the search results, selecting the most recent entry dated from a few months ago.

  I am running out of Au-A—and time. No success replicating the formula. Isla’s notes incomplete. I need help. The Queen, not an option for obvious reasons. I need an alchemist … I need the damn Technician.

  Nathaniel froze. So did Anna.

  Ever so slowly, Nathaniel tore his eyes from the holocom to look at her, but he couldn’t summon words—he couldn’t even summon thought.

  “Me?” Anna blinked at the holocom. “Why would he need me, except to hang me publicly and laugh?”

  Nathaniel flinched. The Commissioner was capable of such cruelty, but looking at the short, hopeless cadence of his father’s notes, Nathaniel almost felt sorry for him. He sought the Technician with as much desperation as Nathaniel had, only Nathaniel had wanted her to gain his father’s respect while his father wanted her to save the Settlement.

  “It’s not like I’d help him, anyway, selfish, sniveling snake of a—” She stopped, jaw dropping.

  “What is it?”
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  But Anna didn’t respond, her eyes glued to the desk. Nathaniel followed her gaze to a partially obscured piece of paper he recognized as a map of their island. He’d used an almost identical map to find Anna’s secret meeting place. How faraway that memory felt, as if it was from a different time entirely, as if he’d been a different person.

  “What’s wrong?” Nathaniel asked again.

  Anna dropped the holocom, letting it fall onto the desk, and pointed to the map with a shaking finger.

  Nathaniel leaned in. The Settlement had been drawn in detail, just like the map back in his room. But across from it, beyond the farmlands and uncharted terrain was a hand-drawn star.

  Anna lowered her finger ever so slowly to touch the mark. “That’s Mechan—that’s my home,” she whispered.

  Her wide eyes met his, sending a chill down his spine.

  “H-how did he find it?” But Nathaniel didn’t need an answer. A silver chain protruded from beneath the map. He knew what it was before he saw it: a locket.

  His locket.

  Nathaniel’s stomach plummeted. With the revelation of his mother’s murder, Nathaniel had forgotten about his missing locket.

  He picked it up to find it broken—the front had been torn off its hinges. Underneath, he found a folded piece of paper. The handwriting wasn’t the looping purple of Anna’s riddles but severe black letters, pointed like blades.

  Properties of locket’s metal: iron, carbon, and sphalerite zinc. When compared to Settlement steel, percentages differ. Settlement smiths use nickel and molybdenum, not zinc, to create steel alloys, as there is no substantial source of zinc near the Settlement. Scouts report zinc more likely found on the eastern side of the island but found no sign of habitation or mining. Sea salt residue found on exterior of locket. Oceanside town? Southeast ocean ridge blocks coastal access. View obscured. Town below?

  “The Commissioner knows,” she whispered.

  Nathaniel’s stomach flipped. If his father knew where her village was, if he’d found them, what was keeping him from tearing it to pieces? What would stop him from taking everything from Anna and destroying her family just like he had his own?