Beyond the Stars: At Galaxy's Edge

LIZA ROTH TOOK a swallow of her green jimjack beer and, for the hundredth time, tried to ignore the old-Earth piano keyboard stuck in the corner of the miners’ cantina. Even if the instrument worked, which she doubted, she probably couldn’t remember how to play any of her pieces.

And supposing she did, it was so crowded and noisy in the cantina the music would just be buried under the babble of voices, the clank of gear, the clatter of dishes.

That would be fine, actually. She didn’t want anyone to hear her, to notice and start asking questions about how an asteroid miner on the far edge of the galaxy knew how to play an antiquated hunk of machinery, let alone perform the classic works of the old masters.

So she turned her back on the keyboard and its protective bubble, and looked instead at her girlfriend, Selina Perez, who sat beside her at the bar.

“Can’t fool me,” Selina said. The warm light from the vidscreen illuminated her face, glossing her curly dark hair and showing the playful dimple at the corner of her mouth. “I can see you thinking about that dusty old thing.”

Liza shook her head, denying the truth. You loved to play, her memories whispered. Music was the one thing keeping you sane back then.

She never should have admitted her interest in the keyboard to Selina. Her girlfriend was tenacious, and in their six months together had pried more out of Liza than she’d ever wanted to give.

A knot deep in her belly reminded her it was dangerous to get close. To share information that might give away all her secrets. But it was too late. She’d already lost her heart to Selina.

Eventually, she’d tell her girlfriend about her past.

Just... not yet.

“Look.” Selina blew a stream of clove-scented vapor past Liza’s cheek. “If you can play, you owe it to everyone in this granky place to share that gift. Life is hard enough as is. We need a bit of sweetness to keep us going‌—‌you know that. Music. Beer. Kisses.”

She bent close to Liza, pressing their lips together to illustrate her argument.

Liza let herself get lost in that softness. After she’d fled Earth, she didn’t know if she’d ever be happy again. Selina had showed her that she could start over‌—‌that a broken heart didn’t last forever.

As their kiss deepened, a few people let out catcalls, and further down the bar someone started belting out a raunchy song. Reluctantly, Liza broke the kiss.

Selina winked at her. “Really, though. You should play that piano.”

“The bartender said the parts for the jukie system will arrive soon,” Liza said. “Then they can fix the music and we won’t have to listen to drunken bar songs anymore.”

“Soon can mean months,” Selina said. “You’ve got light inside you, novia. Let some of it out.”

“We’ll be down planet soon enough.” Liza changed the subject. “On vacation there’ll be plenty of music to listen to.”

“And dance to.” Selina slipped off her bar stool and did a little shimmy. “I wish you could come down with me tomorrow. Stupid schedule rotations.”

“Just two days, and then we get most of the break together. You can scout out the place and show me all the good stuff when I get there.”

“There’s way more than ten days’ worth of fun on the pleasure isle of Raldoon, so they say.” Selina grinned. “It’s only the top vacation spot in the whole sector. I’ve been saving up for this trip for ages.”

“We both have.”

It was expensive to shuttle down to the nearby planet of Doralfi, let alone take a jaunt to the pleasure isle. But Selina made everything worthwhile.

“Gonna stay up here and turn into a dried-out stick?” her girlfriend had said when Liza had expressed her doubts. “We only get one life, darling. Let it shine.”

Selina was right. After almost a year working the asteroid mines, Liza needed a break.

Sometimes, late in the dark when she was alone, she’d curl into a tight ball and allow a few tears to seep out the corners of her eyes, remembering everything she’d left. Was this life she’d made for herself any better? Had she made the wrong choice?

In the morning, though, all her reasons would come flooding back. It wasn’t much of an existence, true, but it was hers. Her choice. And she’d found some happiness in it.

Selina hopped back onto her stool and took another suck of clove-steam. “I want to buy a nice dress down there. And shoes, if I can afford them. Something with sparkles.”

She stuck out her foot, studying her scuffed boot.

“You’d look good in dimsilk,” Liza said, then bit her tongue. “I mean, there are some decent imitations.”

“It’s pretty stuff, from what I can tell on the vids.” Selina winked at her. “Think of the highbrows we’ll be rubbing elbows with‌—‌and us a pair of granky miners. Play our cards right, and they’ll never know.”

“Right.” Liza took another swallow of her beer, letting the tangy flavor fill her mouth.

She’d have to be careful in Raldoon not to let herself slip. It would be easy to revert back to the ‘highbrow’ ways she’d been born to. One year as an asteroid miner couldn’t erase the nobility she carried, all unwilling, in her blood.

“Dance with me,” Selina said, lacing her fingers through Liza’s.

“There’s no music.”

“We’ll make our own. On the floor, and off.” Selina’s eyes were bright with promises.

Liza finished off her beer, then let her girlfriend pull her off the barstool and into the rest of the night.

“Figure they’ve landed by now?” Trudi Miller asked, leaning on her diggerbot, her helmet’s face mask covered with fine dust.

“Probably.” Liza slid a load of rock into the cart. More dust rose, glittering in the harsh artificial lights. “It’s only four hours down to the surface.”

Before she’d run away, she had never thought about the kind of menial work people all over the Empire performed‌—‌or if she had, she’d assumed that mechanicals did most of it.

But mechanicals were expensive, and the mining dust damaged their circuitry. Human labor was cheaper, and easier to replace.

“Hope we can ping chat down to Doralfi after shift,” Trudi said. “I miss my boy already.”

Trudi and her son had been working the asteroid mines for four years, and Rand looked forward to his yearly vacations on Raldoon. He and Selina had been on the same shuttle down, leaving Trudi and Liza to wave them off from the docking bay.

Trudi preferred to spend her vacation time relaxing in her room, devouring vids and screenbooks.

“I’m too old for that kind of fun,” she’d said when Liza asked. “And I always have been, even when I was young. Dancing and carousing and holo-games‌—‌the thought wearies me to the bone. I like my pleasures on the quieter side. Though I do enjoy the tales Rand brings back.”

Liza spent the rest of her shift wondering what Selina was doing. She could hardly wait for the moment she was planetside, holding her girlfriend in her arms. With the added bonus of being able to wash the miner’s dust off her skin without it settling right back on again.

Before dinner, she got a quick chat in with Selina, whose smile was brighter than ever.

“I wish you were here, love‌—‌there’s a sunset dinner and, oh, the water is so warm. I’m going dancing later, in my new dress.” She twirled, the pale fabric swirling about her, contrasting with her dark skin. “Like it?”

“You look beautiful,” Liza swallowed the lump in her throat. “When I get down there, I’ll buy you a necklace to match. Something shiny.”

“I’d love that. But I love you more.” Selina blew her a kiss. “This cheapass handheld is almost out of credits. Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, love.”

Selina smiled, her image dissolving into the blank screen of Liza’s handheld. Communications planetside were horribly expensive, for both the sender and receiver, but the minute of conversation and the sight of her girlfriend’s smile had been worth it.

A grief-stricken cry woke Liza. She sat up, blinking, then fumbled for her handheld. It was almost three in the morning. Was someone having night terrors?

The cry came again, floating down the corridor, and Liza heard someone yell to shut up.

She pulled on her thin robe and went to the door, sliding it open to reveal the gray walls of the sleeping area hallway. Someone was sobbing‌—‌Liza could hear it through the closed plasmetal doors, and it didn’t sound like the aftermath of a nightmare.

Bare feet cold over the floor, she went down the hall, counting doors. The crying was coming from the fourth one on the left. Trudi’s room.

Heart squeezing with sudden apprehension, Liza tapped on the door.

“Trudi? What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“Nooo,” it was a moan of pain.

“I’ll call emergency,” Liza said, whirling.

Trudi’s door whooshed open to reveal the older woman, the screen of her handheld illuminating the tears flowing down her lined cheeks.

“It’s Rand,” she whispered. “My baby.” She stood there, rocking back and forth.

Liza stepped inside, closed the door, and led Trudi to the disheveled bed.

“Sit down, and tell me.”

Trudi sank down on the bed, then held out her device. As Liza read the scrolling communications, her blood went cold.

Rand: Mami I love you.

Rand: Someone here with D-ray. Shooting.

Trudi: Are you ok?

Rand: Trapped.

Gods, no. Liza sucked in her breath. D-rays were banned on all the civilized words. They could kill dozens of people with one sweep. And Rand was down there in Raldoon, trapped by some madman with a death machine. Her legs suddenly weak, she sat heavily on the bed beside Trudi.

Her blood went to ice. What if Selina was there, too?

“Where is he? What’s happening?”

Trudi drew in a gasping breath. “A dance club.”

Selina had planned to go dancing. A wave of nausea swept over Liza as she glanced back at the conversation preserved on the screen.

Rand: Call for help.

Rand: I’m going to die.

Trudi: I called. Help coming. Is anyone hurt?

Rand: Yes. Lots.

Trudi: Stay safe. Please.

“Has security come?” Liza asked. The handheld trembled in her grip. This could not be happening. Not to Rand.

Trudi nodded. “Been almost an hour. Some vid coverage. Shooter is barricaded in the building. With my boy. I haven’t heard from him in over twenty minutes.”

She covered her face with her hands, shoulders shaking with desperation. Tears blurring her vision, Liza kept reading.

Rand: Still in building. He has us. Need help. Call them, Mami.

Trudi: Guards are there. Tell me you see them.

Rand: Hurry.

Rand: He’s here.

Trudi: Stay down.

Trudi: Are you hurt?

Trudi: Rand! Baby, are you ok?

Trudi: I love you.

Trudi: Talk to me.

Trudi: Baby?

Trudi: Rand?

Trudi: I love you.

It was the last thing on the screen. Liza checked the time of the last communication, and felt like a black hole opened in her chest.

Over half an hour since Rand had responded.

She set the unanswered handheld down and put her arms around Trudi. She had the terrible conviction that Rand was dead. Help hadn’t come in time. It was hard to breathe past the vacuum surrounding her heart, dragging all the light from her body.

What about Selina?

“I have to get down there,” Trudi said. “My boy.”

“The shuttle won’t leave before eight,” Liza said, cursing the fact they were stuck up in the belt. It was impossible to get to their loved ones.

“I don’t have enough credits.” Trudi’s voice broke, and she bent over, her chest pressed to her knees.

For a moment, Liza almost offered Trudi her ticket down‌—‌but no. She had to get down there, too. Had to make sure Selina was safe.

“Ask the company to send you,” Liza said.

If they wouldn’t, she’d help take up a collection.

Trudi sat up, and gave a single nod. “They should. They should help.”

“Let me get my handheld,” Liza said. “Then I’ll come stay with you until it’s time.”

She ran back to her room, heart pounding. Please, let there be a message from Selina that she was safe. That she’d gone to bed early. That she could hardly wait for Liza to arrive.

The screen was blank. No messages.

Liza flipped to the news, then stumbled to her chair as she read the headlines streaming past.

“Devastation at Raldoon Dance Club.”

“Dozens Dead in Wake of D-beam Madman.”

“Security Finally Takes Down Shooter in Club Massacre.”

Why? She knotted her robe in her fingers. How could such a thing happen? And where was Selina?

She stabbed at the device, trying again and again to reach Selina, each time hearing her girlfriend’s laughing, recorded voice telling her to try again later.

Grief knifed through Liza. Would there be a later, or had the bright spark of Selina’s life been erased from the galaxy?

Numbly, Liza pulled on her clothing, then grabbed her handheld and went to sit with Trudi through the long, excruciating hours until morning.

The next morning, the miners were given the first three shifts off, and it was announced that all traffic to Raldoon was being restricted. Only relatives of those affected were allowed to travel to the surface. The eight am shuttle left, taking Trudi.

As the silvery craft receded, Liza hammered her fist against the thick plasglass viewport, then went to pace in her room. Rage and hope and fear fired her footsteps, churned in her belly until she couldn’t bear it any longer.

The cantina was packed and smelly, but full of life. She needed life, in the face of so much death. They all did.

It seemed as though everyone in the belt was crammed onto barstools and around tables, talking, drinking, and staring at the screen over the bar as it updated with the names of the confirmed dead.

Every few minutes, a new name would appear, and the cantina would fall silent in a moment of respect. Two of the already-posted names were known to Liza‌—‌other miners who’d been vacationing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

She hated the stab of relief she felt with each unfamiliar name. That was someone’s son, someone’s lover, someone’s wife.

Dead.

“Why’d he do it?” one of the miners at the bar next to her asked. “A D-ray, that’s insane.”

“Smuggled it on-planet,” somebody replied. “One of those crazy Ascetics saw people dancing on the vids and decided it was his job to cleanse the place.”

Another name posted, another breath of silence.

“Aw, damn,” a woman said.

Rand Miller. The letters were stark against the screen.

“Trudi,” Liza said, then realized she’d spoken aloud.

Tears slipped down her face, hot and messy. She couldn’t imagine anything more terrible than what Trudi had gone through‌—‌seeing her son’s last words, his pleas for help, and not being able to do a single thing.

Unless it was the horrible ache inside of not knowing.

Selina. Please.

More names, until the count reached fifty. Sixty. Seventy.

“How many?” Liza said, drinking another beer somebody had set in front of her.

Drinks were on the house, not that there was anything more exciting than jimjack to drink. Still, it helped blunt the razor-edges of grief.

“Near eighty, they think,” the miner on her right said.

Liza pulled her handheld out of her pocket, trying not to hope. The screen was dark.

Surely Selina would have told her she was safe, by now.

Two more unfamiliar names.

And then the one Liza had been dreading.

Selina Perez.

“No,” she whispered.

The letters muddled and blurred, but the name was printed with stark clarity in her mind. Selina was one of the dead‌—‌her beautiful smile and teasing laughter, her warmth and light gone forever.

The universe held nothing but darkness.

The hours scraped past, turned into days, then weeks. Liza moved numbly through the mines. She felt as though the dust had permanently coated her soul. At night, memories of Selina knifed through her.

They’d talked about leaving the belt, going somewhere better and making a new life for themselves. Liza didn’t know how, but Selina had always kissed away her worries.

“We’ll figure out a way,” she’d say. “Together, we can do anything. Look at these places!”

Then she’d pull up vids of Holst and X’inlii and for a while they’d dream.

There was no point now, but as the third month turned to the fourth, Liza found herself re-playing those vids. The lush forests of Holst seemed to whisper that things could be better, away from the mines. The tropical waters of X’inlii promised more peace than the edge of the galaxy could hold.

Maybe.

She still had the credits from her unused ticket to Raldoon, the vacation she and Selina never got to take together. But every time Liza thought about going, a part of her shied away.

In a new place, she wouldn’t have any memories of Selina walking down the hallway, just so, or dancing to no music over the sticky floor of the cantina.

“It’s been six months,” Trudi said one night, as they shared a table. “You going to waste the rest of your life here, drinking jimjack and mourning? I don’t think Selina would have wanted that.”

Liza shrugged, and took another sip of the tangy beer.

“I’m leaving next week,” Trudi said.

“What?” Liza set her beer on the dinged-up metal table. “You’re leaving the mines?”

The older woman nodded. The lines on her face were carved deep, but her eyes were serene.

“With the settlement, and what I have saved up, I got a place out on Chugo. Small, but I don’t need much room. Miner’s pension will keep me in tea and crackers. I’m going to write those stories like Rand always told me to, instead of just dreaming about them. His memory deserves better than this.”

She waved her hand at the cantina, but Liza knew she meant all of it‌—‌the dusty mining complex, the thankless work, the hard edges everywhere a person turned.

“Good for you.” Liza meant it, and something kindled deep inside her. She wouldn’t call it hope.

What does Selina’s memory deserve?

The keyboard in the corner waited. It was too late for Selina to hear her play, but Liza still heard her words. Would always hear them.

“You’ve got light inside you, novia. Let it shine.”

What better tribute could Liza give, than to play? To let the emotions bottled up inside her fingertips, inside her heart, rush free.

Before she could change her mind, she rose and went to the instrument. The protective bubble was gritty with dust. She folded it back, then wiped her fingers on her coveralls, trying to get some of the grime off.

The bartender came up beside her, towel tucked through his belt.

“You know how to use that thing?” he asked, squinting at her.

“I used to play. You mind?”

“Go ahead.” He glanced at the half-empty cantina, the shadows and weary faces. “Might be all to the good.”

Liza nodded. It might.

She sat on the small, padded bench in front of the keys. They marched off to either side, traditional black and white, orderly and serene. Above them was a row of colorful buttons and a screen display. She could create any sound she wanted, but tonight, just the piano.

Holding her breath, she flicked on the power switch.

A comforting hum came from the speakers mounted on either side of the keys, and the screen and buttons glowed with light.

Liza wasn’t familiar with this model, but it was made by Yamaha, similar to the keyboard she’d learned on. It had taken two years before her strict tutor had allowed her to play the behemoth grand piano kept in the climate-controlled music room of the palace she’d grown up in, and she doubted many of those vintage instruments had been exported off Earth.

The keyboard, though, there were plenty of those scattered across the galaxy. Even out here, on the edge.

Selina.

The name flared across her thoughts, and she realized that along with the pain, there was an echo of joy. Then sorrow blossomed up inside again, a dark, shining flower of loss. Liza caught her breath and set her hands on the keyboard.

It took a moment to adjust to the action of the keys, to press with just enough force. She stopped and tweaked the volume, then adjusted the foot pedal that was still, miraculously, attached.

Then she played, letting the tears fall down her cheeks, letting the grief pour from her body. Moonlight Sonata, then Barber’s Adagio. River Flows in You and The Rose.

Her fingers, stiff from her long shifts in the mines, slowly loosened. Her shoulders ached, but she ignored them. Her heart ached more.

The feel of the cantina changed‌—‌softened, warmed.

Liza didn’t know how long she played. As long as she needed to. But when she turned, stretching her sore arms, she found that the room was full again. The quiet light shone on faces that had, for a few moments at least, found some peace.

Selina. The memory was a punch to her gut.

Liza would never forget.

But she couldn’t live with that raw ache right up next to her heart, day after day. And she couldn’t stay there in the belt any longer. There were new planets to explore, even if she didn’t have Selina to explore them with.

She thought of the dark universe stretching out around them, seeded with tiny specks of stars. Each one just a pinprick of light, yet together they held the blackness at bay. She owed it to Selina’s memory to shine, however dimly.

To be one more star against the night.

“Will you play again, tomorrow?” Trudi asked, smiling. A tear track etched through the dust on her cheek.

“Yes,” Liza said. “I will.”

Q&A with Anthea Sharp

What was your inspiration for this story?

After the terrible events of the summer of 2016, and particularly the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, I was constantly on the edge of grief. Reading the texts sent from Eddie Justice, trapped in the club, to his mother completely shattered me, and I found myself wondering daily; How can a person keep going after such tragedy? How can we possibly pick up the pieces and move forward when the universe is so full of terrible things?

I wrote, a lot, and finally found my answer in this story. It might not be your answer, but I have to believe that every piece of light, every kind and good thing we can do in our lives, must surely push back the darkness.

(Proceeds from the sale of this story have been donated to help victims of the shooting in Orlando, and especially the Justice family, at https://www.gofundme.com/2929hs6c/donate)

Do you write happier tales?

Yes! Most of my work is much lighter than the story in this anthology. My bestselling Feyland series is a blend of high-tech gaming and ancient faerie lore (it’s been described as “Ready Player One with faeries”), and is more on the YA side, with a touch of romance. The first book in the series, Feyland: The Dark Realm, is free at all ebook retailers.

Tell us more about the setting of One More Star, Shining.

This story is one of several shorter pieces I’ve written to explore the edges of a Victorian Spacepunk universe‌—‌one where Queen Victoria was replicated by aliens in 1850 and reigns, basically, forever. You can find more Victoria Eternal stories in my Stars & Steam collection, and I’m currently working on a brand-new novel set in this Galactic British Empire.

Where can we find out more about you and your writing?

Head on over to https://antheasharp.com/ where you can join my mailing list (and get a free story!) and learn more about the Feyland series, plus take a peek at all the various shenanigans I’m up to in the writing world.