Starbreak (31 page)

Surely, he wouldn’t harm you, then?

Any semblance of a smile fell. The door dinged open. I stared down the long, dark hall that led to the captain’s stateroom, thinking of Silvan. I remembered his plush lips, and the way he’d pouted them when his father had denied him something—when his father had treated him like the boy he truly was. Sometimes he’d rage against the man, ranting and throwing up his hands. Other times he’d channeled his anger into his lust as he pressed me down against the rotting leaves. I blushed to think about it, how I’d taken his kisses, his heat, and never even gave it a second thought. Back then I’d hardly had to worry about Silvan’s temper. He never seemed particularly angry at
me
.

But back then he hadn’t been on a fool’s quest to return to Earth. He hadn’t had the loyalty of his father’s people behind him. And I hadn’t been the girl who killed his father.

I suppose we’ll see,
I told Vadix as I took the first lonely steps down that echoing hallway.

•  •  •

The stateroom was packed full of people. It was a wonder that the room could fit them all—crowded on cots and in corners, whole families gathered on the polished marble floor. They still wore their uniforms, their rank cords. It was clear that they expected the rebellion to be over soon. Zehava herself—shining in the glass overhead—would seem like nothing more than a bad dream. When the
Asherah
was en route to Earth, they would travel down to the dome, this whole ordeal only a memory, take up their old houses, their old jobs, and continue living in the manner they’d become accustomed to.

I couldn’t help but shake my head to see it. All those gold-threaded cords.

But their guards were upon me almost as soon as I arrived. They didn’t have guns; those were ours, hidden in our houses, waiting for some opportunity to be used. But they did have knives tucked inside their thick belts, shining blades sharpened to fine edges. I knew the wickedness that a knife like that could bring, and so I held up my palms.

“I have no weapons!” I shouted. The rumble of conversation that had been brewing across the stateroom stuttered to a stop. For the second time that day, all eyes were on me. But despite my upturned hands, the guards still grabbed me by either elbow.

“Do you pledge your allegiance to the Council?” one of them growled. I flashed my gaze down to his dagger, then up again.

Lie!
a voice intoned in my head, so urgent that I couldn’t be sure if it was Vadix who spoke or if the thought was my own. But I was no good at lying. No good at following my better instincts—or his, either.

“I pledge my allegiance to no one!” I spat, shaking the guards off. But their gloved hands found me again, and fast. “I’m here to speak to
Silvan Rafferty. I come on behalf of the Children of Abel. I have no weapons. Will you strike an unarmed woman down?”

The guards grappled with me, but my words did their work. The Council citizens, who roamed beneath a dark glass sky, all gazed up at me. They saw; they watched. They were disapproving. If anything, our leaders had always been about the
appearance
of propriety. Their murders were buried under lies. Fallen bookshelves. Cancer. Their guards would never kill me with an audience.

I hope you’re right,
Vadix said, and this time I was sure the words were his. I stiffened my spine, resisting the guards’ grip. Finally their hands fell away.

“Take her to Rafferty,” one of them grumbled. The guard to my left looped her arm through mine, dragging me across the marble floor.

“Come on!” she shouted, though we stood far too close for shouts. I winced as we headed toward a wide stone staircase near the back of the room—passing dozens of cots, a whole army of Council families.

I was taking staggered steps up the wide steps when I saw them. Solomon and Miriam Meyer, Hannah’s parents, rising up together from their cot. They reached out for me even as I was yanked up the stairwell.

“Terra!” Solomon called. “I’ve heard Hannah is back. Is she all right? When will she come join us?”

I resisted the guards’ hands. Mordecai’s words echoed in my mind. The people needed a leader, one who could give them strength. Even at times like these.

“She’s okay. She says she loves you. She’ll see you soon.”

One of the guards gave my arm a yank and dragged me up the stairwell.

•  •  •

The last time I’d been in the command center, just a week before, I’d wondered at the blinking dials and ancient machinery—this strange, secret place, hidden from most of the ship’s inhabitants. But now that I’d grown used to the idea, the room just seemed dusty and ancient, the computer terminals all edged with rust, the screens feathered with cracks. More surprising were the two figures who stood in front of the wide viewer, staring down at the planet overhead. Silvan and Rachel, shoulder to shoulder, holding hands. Rachel turned first, her eyebrows lifted at my arrival.

“Terra, you’re here!” she said, dropping Silvan’s hand and rushing toward me. Before I could respond, she’d cocooned me in a hug. But Silvan stayed where he was, his feet fixed to the metal floor as Rachel talked and talked. “Silvan was worried you were still plotting your way back to that planet. But I knew you’d come around. Oh, I’m so glad you’re here!”

“I—” I began, and then stopped, pulling away from her embrace. I wasn’t here for Rachel—and I certainly wasn’t here to join her on her
journey. I stared at Silvan. Garbed in white, his muscular arms crossed over his chest. I think he knew the truth, that I hadn’t come for her.

“Hello, Silvan,” I said.

With that, his mouth softened. Standing there, in the Zehava’s vibrant light, he looked so
handsome
. After days among the unwashed shuttle crew on Aur Evez—and then two more with the tired-eyed rebels on the ship—I was struck by how hale he still appeared. Shining black curls graced his shoulders. His skin was deep amber and freshly scrubbed. And his linen shirt was so
clean
that you could practically count the fine threads. He moved past the center console with measured grace, coming close.

“Terra Fineberg,” was all he said.

His eyes, edged with dense lashes, were dark enough that they almost appeared black. I tried to read the emotion there. I saw pain, confusion, maybe even a drop of desire. And heaps and heaps of pride. But that couldn’t even begin to compare with what I felt, standing there with my former intended, and my old best friend.

“I guess congratulations are in order,” I said. “I’ve heard you’ve declared your intentions to each other.”

Silvan looked surprised. But Rachel reached out, putting her smaller, darker hand on his.

“I know you wanted to be with me when I told her about the engagement, but I just couldn’t wait, Sil.”

“We’re going to be married in the captain’s stateroom,” he said stiffly. I felt my throat go tight. There had been a time—just one week ago—when Silvan and I were going to be married there. But that had never happened. The riots did instead. And then I ran off.

“Just like you always planned, Rachel.”

She glanced down, nodding shyly.

“Mazel tov,” I said, and then glanced toward the viewer.

They think I’m going to be there to celebrate with them,
I found myself saying to Vadix, as I stared at Zehava’s continents, faint blue in her endless night and pinpricked by a thousand artificial stars. He was out there somewhere—if only he could have been here with me.
I don’t want to hurt them, Vadix.

Terra,
came Vadix’s response. But I don’t think he quite knew what to say to calm me, to quiet all my fears and guilt. He only said my name again, soft and sad.
Terra.

“What’s it like?” Silvan asked, the velvet tenor of his voice almost enough to pull me out of my anxious haze. I snapped my head back, staring at him.

“Silvan!” Rachel chided, but her new husband rebuffed her.

“I’m allowed to ask. What’s it like there, Terra?”

I thought of the endless ice fields. The craggy mountains that jutted up toward the sky. I thought of her forests, dancing below us in the night like a whole crowd of bodies, and of the ocean that stretched on
and on and on. I thought of her beasts. The Ahadizhi. Raza Ait, and the sparkling cupola. All those plants growing and growing through the false summer. I thought of one plant. Vadix. Mine.

“It’s wonderful,” I said softly. I thought of his three-fingered hands, dark against my hip. And his belly going red in his lust for me. I thought of his lips, of deep kisses, of everything we’d done on that long night. Of everything he’d done for me since. Begging the senate to let us return, working day and night to see me safe. I felt his mind stretch far, up and up and up like a vine, touching mine—and that was only a wavering shadow of his real caress. “It’s so much better than we ever imagined.”

“Bah,” Silvan said, and with that single, gruff syllable, he washed away all those memories. All that hope. “It’s no good with people there. It will never be really
ours
.”

Silvan leaned forward, the heels of his hands resting against the center console and all his weight resting against his hands. He was gazing down into the terminal embedded there, those smoldering eyes distant with thought. They were beautiful eyes, but I didn’t like the emotion behind them. Like he was owed something.

“What’s it matter if it’s ours? It will be a good home for us—better than this creaky old ship!”

The corner of his mouth twitched.

“This ‘creaky old ship’ might be
our
home, but that’s a sacrifice I’m
willing to make if our descendants can one day live to see Earth. Jerusalem. Israel. Zion—it was
ours
, Terra. Her deserts and the springs that pour from the rocks there, as clear as glass. Her mountains, green and dappled, and the sky, blue and endless overhead. The smell of pomegranate on the air in the summertime. All those sacred buildings we lost. Can you imagine?” He had to be quoting Rachel. These pretty words were not his own.

“They’re gone,” I said through clenched teeth. His gaze had gone hazy, like he was looking into the future and the past all at once. “The asteroid destroyed it all. Destroyed the whole planet, Silvan. Do you think a tiny piece of land would have been spared?”

“We were spared, weren’t we?” he asked. “I’ve asked the Council-loyal scientists what they think. Even had an audience with Mara Stone. The chances are slim, based on their projections. But it’s not impossible. There’s even a chance the asteroid missed Earth entirely. Our ancestors left before it happened, after all. All this wandering might have been for nothing. Worthless. A waste.”

I glanced toward the purple slip of land that floated in the glass. On that planet Vadix waited. His guests had left; he’d sunk into the circular sofa, sliding his eyelids shut. Tired. So tired. But he had work to do, still, and hours to go before he joined me in the dreamforests.

“It
wasn’t
for nothing, Silvan! We have a chance to achieve
tikkun olam
. Can’t you see?”

He watched me for a long moment, pressing those plush lips thin. “No,” he said. “I can’t. Why won’t you join us, Terra? We’d be happy to have you. Mara Stone will be retiring soon. We’ll need a botanist.”

“I don’t want to be
your
botanist.”

He looked wounded at my words, and more than a little puzzled, too. To Silvan there was no greater honor than to serve him, and no greater insult than to turn him down. But after a moment his expression brightened, as if a new thought had just occurred. “Is it because Rachel and I are to be wed? You don’t have to be alone. There are boys here among us—unmarried boys.”

I massaged my index fingers over my forehead. “I don’t
need
an unmarried boy. I’m working with their translator to negotiate—”

“Yes, yes,” Silvan said as he began to roll his eyes. “You’re going to negotiate an accord. I’ve heard all about it. It’s not happening, Terra. The aliens will never welcome us on their planet, and I’m not going to stick around to wait for them to prove it.”

“You don’t even know them.”

“I don’t have to. I know my people. We’ve survived these five hundred years by sticking together. It’s how we’ll survive the next five hundred. I’ve been warning them—” He broke off, setting his fingers down on one of the console switches as if to demonstrate. He flicked it up and down and up again. I thought of the lights flickering in the ship. Off and on and off. The darkness was
nothing more than the stupid, thoughtless movements of this
boy
.

“And if they don’t listen?”

“They have no choice. I control the engines. The lights. The air. I’d rather they go willingly, but we
belong
together, Terra. It’s what my father worked his whole life for.”

“Your father.” I grimaced at the memory of Mazdin Rafferty, telling me I was worthless, telling me I was no threat to him. Telling me that, in the end, all rebels became obedient Asherati—or died.

But Silvan lifted his chin. His curls tumbled down his shoulders. He was beautiful, but young and proud and foolish, too.

“Abba understood the importance of keeping the people united. How you sometimes have to make hard choices to keep the ship running.”

Like killing my mother,
I thought. In that moment I wanted to say it. I wanted to fling accusations at Silvan, to tell him the whole truth about what had transpired between his father and me. That night in the Raffertys’ quarters, my temper had flared more brightly than it ever had before. I’d thought it was a righteous anger, though as soon as I shoved the wine bottle, full of poison, back on the rack, the doubts began to grow within me.

“Your father,” I said again. Silvan peered curiously at me, blinking his dark lashes hard.

Killed him. I killed him,
I thought. The words were threatening
to spill past my lips. Perhaps if I told Silvan, the weight of the death would lift from my shoulders. Silvan could absolve me—set me free.

But I saw his fingers, how they caressed the dials. Silvan had a temper too. He could be selfish and spoiled, sullen, temperamental. And though I wished I could say with certainty that he wouldn’t do a single thing to harm me, in truth I didn’t feel so sure.