Beyond Our Stars (6 page)

“Wow!” I said, admiring it. I knew it was Chance's birthday and I had planned something special for tonight. But that was before he'd told me to stay out of his life.

Most of us hated birthdays now because they were reminders of the years we had spent aboard ship. But
of course
I'd planned something, and I still wanted to give him his gift. I hadn't seen him since the finals. Deep down I was hoping he still wanted to spend today together. But I knew it might not happen.

“It's awesome, but don't you want to give it to him yourself?” I said, not wanting Weeks to know of my uncertainty.

“Nah. I like drawing stuff like that, but kinda weird to say, hey man, I drew you,” he gave me bug eyes.

“Okay, I'll get it to him,” I said. I took the paper and rolled it up carefully. “Thanks,” I said, but he turned with me as I moved to go.

“Hey, about Legacy?” he said.

“Yeah, what about him?” I asked, surprised.

Weeks shifted on his feet, his thick arms swinging at his sides. “He acts like that because he likes you.”

I smiled and coughed, choking on the idea. “No, he most definitely…” I started.

Weeks put a finger on my lips. “Shhh, darling, don't get your knickers in a twist. Only telling you so you don't get caught in his snare again, he'll likely take no prisoners next time.”

I gave him a doubtful look.

He smiled back at me. “Some of them boys, they got a likin' for you, but not me. No.” He switched from an overblown southern accent to a New York one. “What I know is, that you be wantin' some of this,” he pulled at his shirt, rolling his shoulders back and puffing up his chest, “But cha can't have none, girl.” Then he winked at me and left me standing in the corridor with a disbelieving look on my face.

I wasn't sure about what Weeks said, but that would have to wait. Right now the day was disappearing fast and I still hadn't seen Chance.

I went to his old room, which was still open and just as empty. I went to Billie's room but no one answered and I didn't know the code.

I felt myself getting hungry so I took a break from my search and made my way to the cafeteria hoping dinner would still be out and I could grab something fast.

I'd been working a few hours here and there at the cafeteria so that I could get paid in food. Chance's favorites, the junk food that you couldn't get anymore unless you knew someone who liked you a lot at the cafeteria, were my payment. I'd weaseled a packet of cheese puffs and a box of chocolate-chip cookies out of Winny, the head cook. It had taken me thirty hours of work scrubbing dishes in the back to get them for him. I was carrying them in a small sack slung over my back, with Weeks' commemorative drawing in there now, too.

I found him at a table in the cafeteria. It was getting really late so the place was close to cleared out, but Chance was at a table with his sister Billie and about twenty of our friends. I walked over, eager to tell him that I hadn't known he wouldn't be in the meeting with the Chief. That I'd been looking for him. But I didn't get the chance. People around Chance began to glare at me.

So he's told everyone
.

I walked over to the group anyway. Chance didn't look at me until I was standing right next to him. I put the bag down in front of him on the table and kissed him on the cheek. He jerked away slightly, and I left.

“We're entering the atmosphere,” a voice said over the ship intercom. It was six a.m. and I was in my quarters by myself, holding my blanket. Sort of as a comfort and also so I had something in my hands to pull on and try to rip as my nerves threatened to spontaneously combust. Like I thought the ship might do. If we all died I would die alone. Now was one of those times I wished I had some family, somebody to be with me. I wished I had Chance.

“Make it through, make it through,” I whispered out loud to myself.

And then there was a jolt, and then a bounce the opposite way. I put my hands on the edges of my bed to keep myself steady. Then a loud rattling that I really didn't care for. The Reflection was leading the fleet. We would be the first ones to land.

“It's okay,” I said out loud as my voice vibrated with the ship. I closed my eyes. It was a good thing my mirror was bolted to the wall. I'd put all my belongings in my drawers under the bed the way Chief had advised us. He knew this would be a bumpy ride.

He wouldn't be at the main deck right now. He wouldn't be standing at the helm. He'd be in the engine room, sweating and working with all the others to make sure we made it down in one piece. I imagined our fleet of ships all descending onto the planet and wondered who or what was watching.

The rattling got louder and went from a worrisome shaking to a different, unnamable sound that could only be described as coming-loose-at-the-bolts-terrifying-we're-all-going-to-die noise.

“Ooohhhh,” came out of my mouth. Not as a word but a sort of hollow groan that echoed and bounced around in my room as the ship shook violently and I struggled to hang on. Then we were catapulting forward. I was flung from my bed into the wall. I curled into the corner of my room, trying to hug the floor.

But then the furious ride started to slow and the ship started to feel normal again.

“We're through and final descent begins in 5…” the countdown began and a blaring alarm sounded, blasting down the halls and into my room.

I pictured Chief Up to try and make myself feel better. He'd be working on whatever the problem was right now. He'd know what to do, he could fix it.

“Make it, make it,” I prayed, sitting up and talking aloud to myself again.

The voice continued the countdown over the intercom. Then there was a sick lurching feeling in my stomach and I knew we were descending.

When the alarm suddenly stopped, I expected another lurch forward, something else bad. Instead I felt the jiggling, jostling feeling of colliding with a solid surface.

“We're here,” I whispered. Seconds later I sat bolt upright.
But what now?

***

Chief sent out armed men from the Reflection as a perimeter defense. We waited to be attacked. But nothing came. After a while Chief gave the order that we could disembark the ships. People walked outside nervously. Our landing site was a maze of ships. We'd landed the sixteen major vessels and twenty-eight minor ones into high grass; massive ships settled in fields of grass growing higher than your head, in fields with tall stalks of unfamiliar plants, smaller ships in patches of root vegetables or in the spaces in between orchards of tall trees.

No one was eager to wander far from the ships but we could see a little ways in most directions. On the east side of the Reflection were more of the same crops and trees. The maroon leaves of the trees to the east dotted the landscape all the way into our landing site. It was a sea of purple. To the south were gold and brown colors stretching far into the distance behind us. To the west and the north was the green patchwork quilt, different types of vines and leaves growing in a highly organized profusion of food. We'd landed in the morning and the wisps of deep green and wavy yellow skylights were still visible, though muted by the planet's sun.

Almost immediately we discovered that our landing site was a nesting spot for animals about the size of a pig, with mud-colored shells, hard as diamond. Six legs wriggled under their squat bodies. They didn't have heads, only two antennae on either side of the front of their body. The slimy antennae were about an inch long, with huge, bulging eyes at the tips that moved around, like a demented slug. The animals looked dim, but they charged at the slightest provocation. Growing out of their hard shells were short, curved spikes like rose thorns that were jagged and razor sharp. Our medics spent the morning treating people with sliced up hands and legs, fingers missing, from defending themselves against the ferocious creatures. Bullets didn't penetrate their shells, but finally an enterprising kid figured out their vulnerability. He waited at one of the holes in the ground, threw a large rock and smashed one of its eyes. Then he hit it again, in the other eye.

Turned out once it was blinded you could sneak up on it, flip it over, and locate the one small crack on its underside where the shell exposed the flesh underneath. The kid got to be the first to name something in our new world, and he called them Steves.

It was a cruel game of death, but we needed meat. And all of our fingers.

After we defeated the Steves, Chief ordered us to spend the entire day harvesting the crops we'd landed in. After five years of the tasteless oat gruel and vacuum packed, frozen or freeze-dried, canned cafeteria fare, fresh food was a delicacy. It had been a delicacy long before that. Guards walked around us as we worked but people forgot about them as they greedily plucked the fruit and threw caution to the wind.

I knew someone probably should've said something about testing out the food sources to make sure they were edible, but the sight of a round, yellow root vegetable caught my eye and I had to dig in. It was earthy and sweet, with a crispness that was light and juicy but had a little tang at the end. I pulled them from the dirt, devouring one after the other.

After gorging ourselves we began gathering. We still had some supplies, but it was only maybe a few weeks worth. Rationing had never been necessary because more ships were built and stocked than had actually taken off.

Back on Earth we'd been camped out around the ships that were built in Nevada for over three weeks, waiting to see if any more people would make it before we left. In other countries survivors camped at their ship sites. The ships could communicate back and forth though most other means of relaying information had already been destroyed. The day picked for takeoff was chosen because no new refugees had shown up in the last three days at any of the ships, and we couldn't wait forever. During that time we'd taken food from other vessels and over-stocked ourselves. We hadn't ‘saved' any because at the end of our journey there was Haven. Now as I helped gather, I wondered if we should've been more cautious. Re-supplying ourselves was necessary, we wouldn't be able to go far if we were attacked and we'd need the food.

We didn't unload a thing. The ships were still our home. No one felt welcome here and those who didn't understand things like crumbling ships wanted to be able to take off quickly if the need arose. But one ship's core had given out seconds after landing.

People made plans to sleep together, in the hallways and in the bays and auditoriums. Everyone, myself included, felt better being in a group. We waited all day for whoever had planted the crops to appear. The anticipation was almost unbearable. I couldn't sit still. But nothing happened.

At nightfall I forced myself to go to sleep. It was a restless night with unfamiliar sounds and the shifting of bodies waking me intermittently after so many years of sleeping by myself or with Chance. I awoke to the strange sight of people throwing blankets off themselves and stretching in the hallways. I sat up from my makeshift bed and forced myself to believe that no contact the first day was a
good
sign.

“What the hell did you do to yourself?” It was Houston, who'd come to sleep next to me.

I rubbed my eyes wearily. “What, hair's a little out of place? Give me a minute to wake up, will ya?”

“No, you goof! I mean why are you drawing on yourself? You look…” her voiced trailed off uncertainly. She met my eyes.

Something about her look made me get up and check my face, to see what her reaction was about. I found the door to my quarters, stepping over and kicking sleeping people who cursed at me. I hit the code, flooded the room with light and went to stand on my bed and find my face in the six-inch square.

“What the hell…” There was a marking on my forehead. Three vertical lines with dots next to each of them. They were painted on delicately, in an iridescent color that glowed a soft green.

I carefully brought my hand up to touch it. It stayed in placed, but I could feel the substance. Like a glue.

Houston cleared her throat behind me. I turned and stared at her with wide eyes.

“This is… weird. We should go see the Chief,” she said. I wholeheartedly agreed, but I didn't get the chance to answer her because there was the unmistakable sound of murmuring and small cries going on out in the corridor.

Houston and I ran for the door and peeked outside.

Weeks had been sleeping several yards down the hallway from us and people were standing around him in a circle. He was rumpled from sleep, his messy hair in maniacal disarray. He had the same marking on his forehead. And even farther down the hallway, so did the shy blonde Houston had made friends with.

“Hey, she's got it, too!” someone next to me yelled out. I had no idea what was happening, but I had nothing to hide. I walked to the middle of the hallway, people crowding around me.

“We go see Chief,
right now
,” I said.

I stomped over people and grabbed Weeks by his forearm, and then put my hand on the slim blonde girl's back to guide her as well. As we went people whispered. Some backed away like we'd been cursed or were catching. Some tried to grab us and ask questions we had no answers to.

“What did this, you think?” Weeks said out of the corner to his mouth to me.

“You mean
who
,” I corrected him.

It ended up being a long, drawn out process to get to the Chief.

Word of mouth said that there were numerous people who had the markings, and the symbols weren't all the same. Everyone who had a marking was instructed over the intercom to come to the Chief's quarters. I kept dodging people who wanted to ask questions, and along the way I found a kid surrounded by the crowd because he had the marking but didn't want to go anywhere.

He was actually shaking, trembling over his whole body. People were yelling things, asking him questions as though he were part of some alien conspiracy. Pilgrim was the boy's name.