These Broken Stars

FOURTEEN

LILAC

“TELL ME AGAIN WHAT YOU HEARD,” he asks for the eighteenth time after we complete another of his ever-expanding search perimeters around our campsite. In the light of morning, it’s hard to keep insisting that what happened was real.

“It was a woman crying. She sounded desperate, afraid, maybe hurt, I’m not sure. She sounded—” But I cut myself off, pressing my lips together.

“She sounded?” he prompts, leaning back against a tree.

“She sounded like me,” I finish, realizing how the words sound—even worse than I’d expected.

He’s silent for a while, scanning the forest. “Right,” he says after a few moments, pushing off from the tree and leaning down to retrieve his pack. “If there was someone here last night—”

He pauses a moment, as if expecting me to say something. I want to interrupt, insist I heard what I heard, but something keeps me quiet. I’ve lost the right, if I ever had it, to protest his declarations. I’d die out here if it weren’t for him.

When I remain silent, he continues. “At any rate, she’s gone now. We need to keep moving. How are your feet?”

Maybe I did invent her. The admission, even to myself, causes an uneasy tension to settle throughout my shoulders. But I have no choice. If he’s decided it’s time to move on, then I have to move on with him. The worst part is that I have to admit that he’s right. There’s no sign of anyone here, no trampled earth, not even a snapped twig to show that someone passed by.

“They’re fine,” I mumble, despite the throb from the matching blisters on my heels at the reminder.

“Once we’re out onto the plains, we can find a place to rest, stop a little earlier today. Neither of us is going to have much stamina after such an interrupted night.”

I know he means that I won’t have much stamina. My jaw tightens in protest, and for an instant I want to retort. But then my ears fill with the memory of a cat’s hunting snarl, and I smell the burning fur and the blood and I close my eyes.

The voice was moving toward the plains, which is the direction Tarver proposes to hike in order to reach the wreck. Perhaps if we just start moving, we’ll be able to track down whomever I heard.

“Fine.”

Silence from Tarver, which stretches long enough that I’m forced to open my eyes again. He’s watching me with an odd expression on his face, one I can’t read—his eyes aren’t quite on mine. With a start, I realize I’m still wearing the jacket he wrapped around my shoulders last night.

When I start to scramble out of it, struggling with the way the material swallows up my hands, he’s roused from whatever trance he’d been in. “No,” he says abruptly. “Keep it for now.”

Then he turns his back and moves out, sure in the knowledge that I’ll follow.

What else can I do?

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a tiny, unbidden voice whispers, Would you actually want to do anything else?

The pace seems easier today. Perhaps he’s being gentler on me, but I suspect I’m growing accustomed to walking.

We make better time on the flat ground of the plains, pausing only to choke down a ration bar each. I choke, anyway; Tarver tucks in as though it’s a three-course steak dinner.

He calls a halt again after another hour and a half of walking, looking around the plains in each direction. Behind us the forest is a smear of gray-green on a ridge, dropping down into the broad, golden expanse of the plain. I’ve never seen anything so immense as this, such a vast sweep of empty land. The creek we’ve been following fans out into a network of silvery streams, marking the small dips in the land. They’re all narrow enough to jump across, but large enough that Tarver can dip the canteen into them, filling it up and letting the water filter do its work. The wind ripples the grass of the plains in waves, for all the world like the oceans I’ve seen on the HV. On the far side of all this are the mountains that stand between us and the Icarus.

But we don’t see any signs of life. No rescue craft roaring overhead, no colony traffic crisscrossing the sky the way the streams divide the plain. I can’t understand why there aren’t colonies here. Where is everyone? Neither of us says a word about it, but I know it can’t have escaped him.

Tarver makes camp more quickly than he did the night before, and it takes me a few moments to realize why—he hasn’t dug a fire pit this time. No wood on the plains for a real fire. Why hadn’t I thought about that? Until I leaned against him last night, I was halfway to freezing, even with a fire close at hand. And after shoving him away so quickly this morning, I can’t rely on his warmth again. I shiver, my mind on the miserable night ahead.

Tarver gathers up a bundle of the wire he stripped from the escape pod, mumbles something about setting snares for food, and strikes out across the plain in a straight line. At least I can see him here, without the trees of the forest to block my view, and know I’m not completely alone.

I’m watching him and exploring my face with my fingertips, wishing I had a mirror. My skin is warm and flushed despite sitting still; sunburn, something tells me, swimming up from some childhood experience when I got lost on a simulation deck emulating a tropical vacation. Then, my father just summoned a physician, and the burn melted away under her care. Now I trace its damage across my cheeks. The skin around my eye is still painful to the touch, and I imagine that it’s at least a little bruised—it’s had the four days since the crash to bloom. At least Tarver has the decency not to mock me about it.

I hear his voice not far behind me. Didn’t I just see him in the distance, crouching to set a snare? I turn, chest tightening in surprise, only to find an empty plain. How could he have gotten behind me so fast? I squint back over my shoulder and see him straighten up, too far off for me to have heard him speak.

The hair on the back of my neck lifts, and I scan the plains behind me. There’s no sign of anyone, and yet as I stand there, heart pounding and ears straining, I hear another murmur. It isn’t Tarver’s voice after all—it’s not quite as deep. It carries some emotion I can’t identify, and I can’t understand at all what it’s saying.

My body begins to shake, my fingertips tingling and itching, my breath quickening. Fear, I tell myself, but it doesn’t abate even when I force myself to take deep breaths. My skin runs hot and cold and hot again, itching with restlessness until I feel like I must move or explode from the sensation. My head spins as though my blood sugar’s low, as if I’m wearing a too-tight dress, and not enough oxygen is reaching my brain.

I’m still standing when Tarver returns. I hear his footsteps through the tall grass long before he reaches me, so when he announces with uncharacteristic cheer, “Burrows—we’re in luck,” I manage not to jump.

I glance over my shoulder to find him standing there smiling, his arms full of plants and long grasses. The sight’s distracting—but not so distracting as what I heard. I turn back toward the plains.

“Did you hear anything while you were out there?” I ask, squinting into the afternoon light and trying as hard as I can to keep my shivering to a minimum.

“Wind,” he replies, punctuated by a rustle as he drops his armful. “The grass, the occasional scurrying critter. There won’t be anything larger out here, there’s nothing to feed it.”

“I heard a man.”

The sound his monster of a gun makes when he takes it out of its holster is getting to be familiar. I sigh, shaking my head. “I don’t think he means us any harm. He didn’t sound angry.”

Tarver comes up next to me, peering in the same direction I’m facing. “You sure? There’s not much room for someone to hide out here.”

“Positive.” He can’t accuse me of dreaming this time. I’m wide-awake, every nerve on edge. “I thought it was you at first, but you were too far away. It sounded really close, like he was nearby.”

Tarver’s frowning now. I catch him shooting me a sideways glance, before taking a few steps forward to turn in a slow circle, scanning the area. “I guess a voice could be carried a ways on the wind. What did he say?”

I hesitate, clenching my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering. “I don’t…know. I couldn’t quite tell. It was like listening to voices through a wall. You know they’re speaking a language you understand, and you know you could hear them if you could just…” I don’t know how to explain it.

He stops watching the plains, turning his attention fully on me. “Well, which was it? Was he distant or right next to you?”

“I don’t know!” The burst of frustration escapes before I can control it, and my voice is shaking with whatever’s seized my body. “He was right here, but muffled. Like—the sounds were clear, but there was no meaning in them.”

He’s staring at me, and I feel my face starting to burn.

“I’m realizing how this sounds,” I whisper.

“Not good,” he agrees. But then he surprises me, and turns around to holster his gun and cup his hands around his mouth to bellow across the plain. “Come on in if you’re out there. We’re armed, but we’ll play nicely if you will.”

He drops his hands, turning his head slightly to better listen for a reply. My own ears strain, skin prickling at each rustle and whistle of grass and wind.

Then, from only a few feet away, comes the voice, clearer than ever. I still can’t make out what he’s saying, but this time I can tell he’s excited.

“There!” I dart forward to stand at Tarver’s side. “There, it’s the same voice. I told you.”

He isn’t smiling. He’s not looking out at the plain, but rather down at me, his expression more troubled than annoyed.

“I heard nothing,” he says quietly.

The words are like a punch in the stomach, leaving me gasping. Even he wouldn’t be so cruel. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not laughing.” Carefully, Tarver reaches out and takes hold of my shoulder. “I’ve been working you too hard. You’re exhausted. Let’s just sit and rest, and you’ll feel better tomorrow.”

I jerk my shoulder away with such force that I wrench the muscle, although I scarcely notice the pain. My spine tingles uncomfortably. “I’m not hallucinating, Tarver!”

He smiles, though it doesn’t touch his eyes, which remain grave, fixed on mine. “It’s no big deal,” he says dismissively. “I’ve done it myself, once. Come, sit down for me, and I’ll see about finding you something to eat besides those ration bars.”

“I know what’s real!” I want to smack him, shake him, do whatever it takes to convince him that I know what I heard. My shivering slows, my dizziness ebbing. As a breeze skitters past and touches damp skin, I realize I’ve been sweating.

“Lilac,” he says, voice soft and weary. “Please. Rest.”

I wonder if he knows how easily he can win this way—how can I fight him when he’s so tired, so sad? The relief at having heard another human voice has shattered into a thick misery, so dense I can barely breathe. I sink back down onto my blanket, eyes burning. I refuse to cry, not while he can see me. But was it too much to ask to have been proven right, just once? Instead he thinks I’m going mad, that Lilac LaRoux’s so traumatized she can’t even tell dreams from reality. I wish Tarver were here alone.

And the worst part is that I know he does too.

“Sudden trauma can manifest in any number of ways.”

“That’s true. We receive extensive training.”

“Did you notice any of those manifestations in Miss LaRoux?”

“No. Well, only that she was off her food, but I think that was an objection to the ration bars, mostly. Not quite what she was used to.”

“Otherwise nothing?”

“That’s what I said. Are you having trouble understanding my answers?”

“We just want to be certain, Major. Exact.”

“Any chance you can tell me exactly how much longer this is going to last?”

“Until we have the answers we require.”