Bright Star (13 page)

I look at him in wonder. I always slept in cycles of five hours. The pace was regulated by Ship. The lights went on for nineteen hours and remained off for five hours.

“It isn’t like sleeping inside a sarcophagus,” Solartrance says. “Your body ages anyway. But at least you avoid the space madness.”

He smiles at my bewildered expression. “Humans consider us clones expendable. They don’t use expensive technologies with the only purpose of not wasting our lives during space travel. But at least we are given the drug. In this way, humans avoid mutinies.”

“And clones are okay with this?” I ask naively.

Solartrance laughs. “No. How can we be? Humans want to believe we have no feelings and we are different from them. We were also equipped with different eyes so they can increase the distance between the two races.”

“How can you continue to serve humans?” I ask. “Why don’t you rebel?”

“Because humans are stronger and keep us under control. Not all the clones are aware of what I’m saying to you. Most are kept in ignorance.” Solartrance sighs, looking at his hands resting on his knees. “When we’re too old to carry out our tasks, we go to recycling. They put us into a capsule and a lethal gas kills our bodies. We are dismantled into proteins used in the amniotic fluid of the wombs in which other clone embryos grow.”

“Oh, Corp!” I exclaim, shocked.

Solartrance stares at me. “I want to believe that when I close my eyes in the recycling capsule, I’ll reopen them as a new clone.”

I think of Blasius, who told me not to be sad for his death because we are the same person and he will live in me. My eyes fill.

“Maybe we are lucky enough to wake up in clones who make a better life,” Solartrance continues. “Or maybe one day things will change and we can finally start a revolution. Who knows? The important thing is, don’t lose hope.”

Solartrance grabs my ration out of my hands and opens it for me. “Drink this, Phae. Your journey will be more bearable.”

I take my ration of drug. “Thanks, Solartrance.”

He nods.

T
HE
DRUG
makes me dream of Prince. For another nine years.

At first the dream is a memory of the short time we spent together. Then it is enhanced with details, speeches, and situations, and I live a sort of parallel life in which, in my sleep, I deal and live and make love with my Prince again. We aren’t inside Ship, but inside the luxuriant page of Book. Mostly we walk hand in hand along the mysterious path, and the grass is soft beneath our bare feet. Sometimes we sit on the grassy bank and talk and make plans, and discuss the wonderful things that await us at the end of the trail, or we make love, or simply sit together in silence. The place is nice, the path promising, but the best thing is to have Prince with me. I don’t even care so much about what we’ll find at the end of the trail.

Because the important thing—the great gift—is just walking the path beside him.

O
NE
CYCLE
,
at my awakening, Solartrance gives me a ration slightly different from the others. I examine the cubic package in my hands. Solid food.

For nine years I didn’t eat solid food.

“We need to stop taking drugs and start staying awake,” Solartrance explains to me when I stare at him in amazement, the package of dried food in my hand. “Our ship is in approaching route to the military base orbiting around Otherworld.”

I simply gaze at him, so Solartrance drags me to the cockpit. When I look out of the tiny porthole on the nose of our spacecraft, I almost scream.

A big, colorful celestial body floats in front of us. It’s so great, so damn huge, it fills the entire porthole. Its size makes me dizzy. I’m sure its orbit will swallow us.

But then another object comes between our spacecraft and the scary planet. A metallic, uneven cluster full of protrusions, turrets, and antennas, and the gleaming of assorted nuclear engines. It’s huge, too. Not as much as the planet, but bigger than our spacecraft.

“The orbiting base,” Solartrance says, pointing at the thing with his finger. “We’ll land there in three hours.”

So this is the end.

My body becomes ice. Thirty-seven years have passed since my birth, and now my trip is over. Prince’s body will arrive at his destination alive, young and perfect as when he left. My mission has been successfully completed.

I should be happy. I should be satisfied and proud of myself; instead, I’m tired and drained and deadly scared.

I run to the sarcophagus. I curl up on the metal edge, leaning to look at Prince’s icy face, at his eyes open and covered with frost.

“I did it,” I say. “We arrived, Prince. Now they’ll awaken you. And… and I don’t know what is going to happen. I hope you’ll remember me. I hope so.”

My heart hammers in anxiety and fear against my rib cage. Prince said he would find a way for us to be together. But he’ll remember the promise? He’ll remember me? And worse, is it fair, forcing him to maintain such a commitment? I shouldn’t interfere in his life, I know. He’s still a boy of twenty, and I’m an old battered clone of almost forty. Do I really have to afflict him with a promise he made me eighteen years ago, at a time when he was scared and upset?

“I can’t answer these questions, Prince. I’m just a poor stupid clone. What I really want is for you to be okay. And I’ll make sure they treat you the right way, I swear.”

I stay next to Prince, as always, for the time Spacefrost and Solartrance deal with the approaching maneuvers. I feel, however, our spacecraft bumping and jolting when we land inside the orbiting base. In a few minutes, some weird soldier clones flock into the cubicle and surround me.

I’ve never seen such scary clones. They are a full head taller than me, wearing dark, matte metal armors, their bare arms swollen with overdeveloped muscles, and strange things implanted in points of their bodies and faces, like breathing tubes and communication devices. All have elongated eyes completely black inside, like insects.

One of them looms over me. “Royal Guard of Senator Coburn,” he says, in a voice so low and deep it makes my stomach liquid. “You can get off the sarcophagus, guardian.”

Okay. There’s not much I can do. I get up and move away just one step, and I observe, anxious, as the soldiers stick some portable engines under the sarcophagus. Although the clones are big and spine-chilling, my instinct is to jump on them and get them to leave Prince alone, leave him to me. I have to repeat to myself that they aren’t here to hurt him.

The portable engines switch on, and the sarcophagus rises with all its precious cargo. Anguish grabs my throat. I remain stuck to the coffin while the senator’s soldiers direct it toward the door, and then toward an unloading ramp magically opened in the tail of our spacecraft.

At the bottom of the ramp, one of the clones puts his enormous hand on my chest. “From now on we deal with it. Your task is concluded, guardian.”

My blood turns to ice. I was afraid of this. I clench my fists. “He’s not yet awake!”

“Your task is to watch over the human during the trip, not to attend in his awakening.”

“But… but I have to! I promised!”

I practically shout the last sentence.

The clone peers at his companions. “We have to call the biomedical service. Another one is gone crazy.”

Heat begins to spread on my face. Oh no. They can’t. They can’t take Prince away from me like this. I take a step aside, in the hope of bypassing the big clone and continuing to follow the sarcophagus, which is dangerously moving away from me, and instead I find myself slammed to the ground, aching and stunned, not even remembering how or when the gigantic clone hit me.

They are really doing it. They are separating Prince from me.

I jump in assault, but someone clings to my waist, keeping me still.

Solartrance.

“Let me go!” I scream. “Let me, they’re taking him away!”

“They will kill you, Phae!”

“I don’t care! Let me go!”

Solartrance is perhaps my only friend. But I beat him. I hit him with my fists and kick and scream. He’s probably right, those monstrous clones will kill me, but I can’t remain here and watch while they take away my Prince. The sarcophagus enters the depths of the orbiting base and disappears from my view.

My heart breaks apart.

O
THER
CLONES
come, and they are too many. They immobilize me with a sort of cage that holds my arms clasped behind my back. I can’t do anything except scream and cry, my face pressed against the dirty floor.

“Phae?”

I blink. Solartrance kneels next to me. He bleeds. I split his lip with a punch.

“I want my Prince,” I mutter.

Solartrance sighs. “If you behave like that, they take you straight to recycling.”

“I don’t give a shit. I want my Prince!”

“I’ll deal with him,” Solartrance says to someone outside my field of vision. “I’ll calm him down.”

“Must be recycled, you know,” someone says.

“I got it!” Solartrance insists.

The others leave.

Solartrance turns me on my back, then drags me to sit up. My head whirls wildly for a moment. My face is caked with grease, tears, and mucus.

“Phae, look at me,” Solartrance says, shaking me slightly.

I focus on him. “You can’t understand. My life is useless without him!”

“I know. But your task is ended. You have to accept it. Please, Phae, prove you’re able to take another task, or you will be recycled!”

“I don’t want another task! I want my Prince!”

Solartrance sighs. “You need to let your human go, Phae.”

“No!”

Spacefrost approaches from the chute of our spacecraft. “Leave him alone,” he says to Solartrance. “He’s just crazy.”

I clean my face on my shoulder. We are on a dark and crowded landing deck, a kind of platform for small vessels. In a lower level, in a darkness flashing with lights and strange machinery, I catch a glimpse of another huge deck where colossal, elongated spaceships are lined up, gleaming in the dim light. The open space and invisible ceiling, after nine years in a small ship, make me feel dizzy, but I’m too jumbled to care.

“You don’t understand,” I say, trying to stop the trembling in my voice. I appeal to Solartrance, looking directly in his eyes. “I have promised to be present at his awakening. I gave my word. And Prince said he would find a way to stay with me.”

Solartrance frowns. “It’s a dream, Phae. Your human can’t have spoken to you.”

“He spoke to me!” I yell. But then I realize my only hope to be believed is to not sound crazy. And I want them to believe me.

I take a breath. “We had an emergency and he woke up,” I continue, trying to maintain a firm tone. “He spoke to me. And I… I began to be in love with him.”

Solartrance stares at me, wide-eyed, in silence.

“Absurd,” Spacefrost snaps. In these years, he hasn’t been close to me like Solartrance. “Even if this really happened, which I doubt, you can’t mean anything to a human.”

“It’s not true! He’s different. It’s strange, I know, but he isn’t like the other humans.” My eyes fill with tears at the overwhelming memory of the short time I spent with Prince. After eighteen years, I still miss him excruciatingly. “He is special. He has feelings for me.”

“Are you saying that your human… reciprocates your feelings?” Solartrance asks.

“I hope so,” I say. I swallow back the tears. “No, I’m
sure
of this. He said he would find a way to keep me with him. Even if he has to marry the senator, he could keep me as a servant, or something like that. But first I have to be there when he wakes up, to find out if… if he really remembers me.”

“Absurd!” Spacefrost blurts out.

Solartrance rubs his forehead. “Let me understand. You spoke with your human? He felt something for you? He promised you’d stay together?”

“Yes! It is so! Please. You have to help me!”

“We can’t do anything for you,” Spacefrost says.

“Did he touch you?” Solartrance asks.

I swallow. I want to say it with a firm voice. I raise my chin. “We made love.”

“Oh this is
ridiculous
!” Spacefrost shouts, while Solartrance gapes at me. “Humans don’t have sex with clones, apart from sex slave clones inside the brothels!”

“I was born on Ship and I’m just a poor stupid clone,” I say, straightening my back. “But I know what I say. Prince felt something for me. I don’t… I don’t expect he still has feelings for me, and I don’t pretend he’ll keep his commitment, but I want to keep mine. I promised to be present when he wakes. Please. If there’s a way….”

“There isn’t,” Spacefrost concludes.

Solartrance narrows his eyes. He touches a point in the restraints that squeeze my arms behind my back, and the metal object opens and falls to the floor. My arms are suddenly free.

“I don’t know if there is a way to help you. But perhaps we can give you the password, Phae,” Solartrance says.

Spacefrost passes a hand over his face. “Oh, fuck.”

I
N
MUCH
less time than I need to overcome the shock of the separation—from my birth, I’ve never been without Prince—I find myself on another boarding bridge, wearing a clean uniform, after a brief stop in a sanitizer that barely scratched the dirt upon my face.

I don’t know the meaning of the password. It’s
freedom
. I don’t understand this word, but it’s a nice word. And it’s powerful. As soon as I pronounce it, all the clones fall silent and stare at me in awe.

The clones are a lot. And for a lot, I mean a damn awful lot. I never imagined there were so many clones in the universe. I’m standing in the middle of a crowd waiting to embark on one of the space ferries toward Otherworld. All hairless, narrow-eyed clones. Watching them, I can distinguish only four or five types of faces, endlessly repeated in a lot of individuals, the number of whom scares me. My breath runs too fast and my heart hammers against my rib cage. Someone looks at me with curiosity, because as I heard from some clones in the locker room where Solartrance pushed me, I’m a clone of a very old class, with human-shaped eyes. But for the most part, they ignore me, even if they touch me and bump into me. The illogical fear that so many clones can steal my breath invades me.