Their Fractured Light: A Starbound Novel (32 page)

The feed cuts to two-dimensional footage, projected flat like a screen from the palm pad. The shot is shaky, like it’s being filmed from a handheld device, probably not too different from the one Gideon’s using to show us the feed. It’s dark, the scene lit only by generator-powered floodlights. But despite the nausea-inducing sway of the camera, despite the throngs of people milling here and there, despite the bloodied injuries in the background, all of us are staring at what’s in the foreground.

It’s Monsieur LaRoux, without a scratch, and at his side, her arm through his, leaning close as though taking comfort from her father’s presence, is Lilac.

And her eyes are blue.

Jubilee gasps aloud, leaning closer as though she might magnify the image. “She’s—she’s herself? Look at her eyes.”

“She couldn’t be—she’d be trying to find Tarver.…” Flynn’s always been good at debate, and though he sounds certain, his eyes are troubled. “There’s no way she stands by that man if she’s not being controlled.”

We all start talking at once, even Mori, trying to figure out what’s going on.

“Everybody
shut up
.” Tarver’s voice cuts through the argument, his eyes never leaving the projected image of the girl he loves. “Listen.”

She’s talking. “I don’t know what happened to him,” Lilac is saying in response to a question from the person holding the camera. One hand is smoothing down the skirts of the black dress she wore on the
Daedalus
, as immaculate as it was the first time I saw it. “We got separated. But, truth be told…maybe it’s better we did.”

“Better?” The interviewer’s voice comes from behind the camera, unseen but loud in the device’s microphone.

“Major Merendsen…he’s a nice boy, and I’ll always be grateful that he saved my life after the
Icarus
crashed. But I think I just got carried away with that gratitude. I never really wanted to marry him.” She shuts her eyes, as if this is difficult for her, as though the words she’s speaking do cause her pain. “I hope he’s okay, I truly do. But I’m glad I’m here, with my father, trying to help.”

I find my gaze going toward Tarver, who’s watching the feed without expression. He might as well be carved from stone for all Lilac’s confession seems to affect him.

“That’s not her.” Jubilee’s the one who speaks, and this time her tone brooks no opposition. “Even if she did think that—and trust me, she doesn’t—she’d never say so on the news. She’d never do that to Tarver. Somehow, the whisper’s learned to fake it—to make it seem like it’s the real Lilac.”

“To that end,” LaRoux is speaking now, putting an arm around his daughter’s shoulders and giving her a squeeze, “I’m making a plea to all the planetary delegations, wherever you are, whoever is left, that we carry on with the Galactic Summit despite this great tragedy. Peace is too important to be put on hold—we must find a way for all people, across the galaxy, to live safe, happy, pain-free lives. I’ve devoted every resource at my disposal to the rescue operations taking place here, but I would like to extend an invitation to all surviving planetary delegations to come to my personal home tomorrow to meet. While we do not yet know what caused the
Daedalus
to fall, we cannot discount the possibility of rebel terrorist interference, which makes this summit of peace ever more vital. The Galactic Council chambers might have crumbled and been destroyed, but the spirit of peace must continue.”

I even find myself wavering, wondering if he’s doing something noble after all, despite the loathing I ought to feel for him. Even
knowing
that it wasn’t rebels who brought down the
Daedalus
, I find myself wanting to listen to him. I may have spent the last year learning to talk people into doing what I needed them to do, but LaRoux is a master at it. My heart shrivels at the thought that I could have anything in common with this monster.

Flynn, though, is shaking—his voice is fierce. “This is wrong,” he whispers. “It’s impossible for every senator to have made it off the
Daedalus
alive…any resolution passed would need elected officials to vote on it. He’s planning something.”

The camera jolts, then swings dizzyingly to the side, showing only a jumble of ruined buildings and oddly green lawn from the LRI courtyard; then it comes to rest again, and the air goes out of the room.

It’s the rift. It’s being moved, painstakingly slowly, by a crew of two dozen people, only some of whom are in LRI uniforms. And it’s active, casting its blue glow across the grass, across the faces of the people moving it.

“Ah, yes.” The camera swings back to show LaRoux, turning to monitor the rift’s progress. From this angle, the device over his ear is clearly visible, masquerading in plain sight as a hands-free comm unit—the little bit of tech, all that’s standing between him and domination by the whisper inhabiting Lilac. “I’d hoped to wait to unveil this new technology until after speaking to the planetary delegates, but in light of this disaster, I think it’s needed now, more than ever.”

He pauses, glancing to the side, eyes finding Lilac—who’s smiling back at him, every inch the adoring daughter. I search her face, trying to find some sign of what’s inside, some hint of the horrifying creature we glimpsed on the
Daedalus
. But she just smiles, giving her father an encouraging nod. And she never lets go of his arm.

“At LaRoux Industries, we’ve been attempting to tap into a source of clean, renewable power for decades. And finally, at long last…we’ve perfected it.”

The camera shakes, then steadies. Then, the voice behind it stammers, “E-excuse me, Monsieur LaRoux. But are you saying…”

LaRoux nods, his face grave but determined. “Before you is the galaxy’s first stable, safe hyperspace generator. We’ve long been aware of the vast, infinite reserves of energy on the other side of the dimensional fabric separating us from hyperspace—indeed, one of the challenges we face in ship design is how to safely skim through hyperspace to shorten interstellar journeys, without that energy harming us or our vessels. But after decades of experimentation, we’ve finally perfected the process.”

The cameraman is speechless—and so are we, all of us gathered around the glow of the palm pad. When I look up I see only a ring of pale faces.

“That’s not everything,” Lilac says, her eyes on her father. “Tell them, Daddy—go on, tell them.”

LaRoux gives her hand on his arm a pat, smiling. “It may not be the appropriate time for such an announcement, but—it is my intention to share the plans for this device with
all
planetary delegations. For free. No catches, no favors owed. It’s my belief that sharing this free, limitless power with the galaxy will remove the need for rebellions. All people, whether colonist, citizen, or rebel, will have access to computers, to schools, to hospitals. Terraforming efforts will proceed with unprecedented speed, reducing the period of time before new planets become self-sustaining, self-governing. With education, medicine, and the free exchange of ideas, I am confident we can all finally find peace.”

The camera swings back toward the rift machinery as LaRoux’s people continue moving it, then freezes. A little bar pops up along the bottom of the projection, telling us it’s buffering—then goes gray, showing a dropped connection. The hypernet’s out again.

Silence. Only the distant sirens, and the minute noises of Kumiko’s people in the next room, tell me I haven’t gone deaf.

It takes a seeming eternity before someone—Gideon—moves. He leans forward, reaching for the palm pad, whose image is still frozen on the rift. He zooms in on the picture with a flick of his fingers, and though he can’t make it any less grainy, it’s obvious to everyone what he saw. One of the people helping to move the rift has her head turned just enough that we can see her eyes—empty, black, like starless night.

I find myself shivering and wrap my arms close against my body like I might be able to somehow comfort myself. LaRoux couldn’t have had this go any better for him if he’d planned it. No doubt he planned on trying to send out the rift technology to other planets after the summit—now he can capitalize on the disaster to make it look like a mercy mission. No one will blame him for the crash of the
Daedalus
if they believe he’s bringing clean, renewable energy to every corner of the galaxy. If they think he’s single-handedly repairing the galaxy, they’ll sing his praises as a hero and remember the
Daedalus
as the tragic catalyst toward a golden age.

Except that we know what the rift really is. Those black eyes stare at us from the woman’s grainy face on the palm pad footage.

He couldn’t have planned it better.…

The breath goes out of me in a gasp so harsh my throat aches, and I feel all the eyes in the room swing toward me. “One week,” I manage, looking up until I find Gideon’s face. “When we first found this rift at LaRoux Industries, we heard them say they had one week to get it working properly. We thought that they were talking about the
Daedalus
gala, that he’d planned something for tonight.”

Gideon’s face is going white—whiter—as I speak. He lifts a shaking hand to pass it over his features. “It was never the gala. It was the summit talks all along. He couldn’t have planned the crash, but this…He wanted the rift for the summit.”

“If he gathers what’s left of the planetary leaders,” Flynn says slowly, “and gives them blueprints to construct what they believe are sources of infinite clean energy…”

“Then in a matter of weeks, there will be rifts on all the planets.” Jubilee finishes when Flynn’s voice peters out. “And he’ll be able to control every single person in the galaxy. Like he practiced on Avon. Like he’s been perfecting here on Corinth.” For once, she doesn’t look like the ultimate soldier we all feared so much on Avon—she doesn’t look like the Stone-faced Chase who led the fastest, deadliest squads on the base. She just looks terrified.

I swallow the sour fear threatening to choke me. “And that’s how he’ll stop the rebellions.”

“But why is the whisper controlling Lilac helping him?” Jubilee asks, brows drawn in. “He’s only ever used its kind for his own ends.”

Tarver swallows and then speaks, his voice hoarse. “Lilac said she could feel this last whisper in the rift—that it was angry, twisted by the years of torture. If it wants revenge, not just on LaRoux but on all of us…then having access to rifts across the galaxy would only suit its purposes, extending its reach so that humanity has nowhere to hide.”

“LaRoux and the whisper, they want the same thing,” Flynn murmurs. “It’s just a question of who’s in charge when those rifts are turned on.”

The holographic woman’s blank, black eyes dominate the room, larger than life in the palm-pad projection.
Peace,
said LaRoux. As though peace is simply the absence of conflict. As though it’s something that could be imposed, forced, upon every mind in the galaxy. As though choice is a flame to be extinguished with a smothering blanket.

The scrape of a chair on cement jolts us from our own individual pits of fear; I look up to find Tarver on his feet for the first time since the crash.

“We’ll stop him,” he says quietly. “We’ll go to the summit, expose his plans, and stop them both.”

The boy who lost his brother to the blue-eyed man’s jealousy is older now, too. He comes alive in our world more than in his own, seeking connections throughout their hypernet. His grief is not so very different from that of our keeper’s daughter, and yet they do not seek each other out to share this pain.

Instead he dives deeper into the web of data and information streams, and she pulls back, to skim the surface of the world. He stays low, in the darkness and shadow, leaving no trace of himself where he’s been; she lights up the world, seen by all and known by none.

They are both so alone.

THE UPPER CITY IS ALL
but abandoned, even after dawn starts creeping up the streets between the buildings. The sun seems to rise more gradually than usual, filtered through Corinth’s smog and the smoke above us now, not purified by Sofia’s smartglass windows. Slowly, it’s oozing down the streets and turning the white stone ruins of the huge mall before us a pale gold, and with the faraway sirens finally silent, there’s a sense these buildings fell centuries ago, not just last night.

Some seem utterly fine, unaffected—others have suffered structural damage even this far out from the crash site. Everyone who can evacuate already has. It’s like walking through the set from a disaster movie, the postapocalyptic landscape of a city after a volcanic eruption has covered the world in ashes. There are surprisingly few bodies—Jubilee’s the one who explains to me in a whisper that they’ll be mostly inside the buildings, buried under debris. There’s an eerie beauty to it, a sense of waiting, as though the people will step out from behind the cardboard sets any moment—like visiting a school after hours or breaking into an amusement park during its off-season.

Except, of course, the only people we see are still, never to move again, or they’re the whisper’s husks—and we only see those from a distance. But all of them are heading in the same direction: toward the wreck of the
Daedalus
, and the rift.