Navigating the Stars Page 3

  I bite down on a protest. The roasting has begun and the roastee—me—must endure it in silence.

  Lan continues with her eulogy of my misdeeds. “… adhesive everywhere, took poor Lucas hours to get free. Then she wormed the doors and lights of the soch-area and all our babysitters thought the place was haunted.”

  Jarren laughs. “That was classic.”

  “Despite her propensity for practical jokes, she was a perfect friend and I’m gonna miss her very much.” Lan sniffs and digs in her pocket for a tissue.

  Pressure builds behind my eyes and my throat tightens. I’m gonna miss her more.

  “Would anyone else like to speak?” Lan asks.

  Jarren hops to his feet and shoots me a sly smile. “I’ve a confession. While Lyra has proven herself to be rather adept at worming, she didn’t breach the base’s security systems so we could sneak outside. That was me, but I had so many demerits at that time—”

  “You still have them,” Belle mutters.

  He flashes her a grin. “I gotta maintain my reputation. However, one more demerit would have sent me to detention for seven days. And we all know how horrible it is to be locked up in a white room that long.” At everyone’s blank looks, Jarren says, “Nobody? Really?” He sighs. “Trust me, it’s terrible, so I’m eternally grateful that Lyra took the blame for the worm. She was good that way.”

  We share a sad smile. Nice of him to fess up. I swipe my eyes. He taught me a great deal about worming in the Q-net, and most of my pranks were to impress him.

  “Anyone else?” Lan asks.

  Belle tells a story about how I helped her with calculus and Cyril describes our epic space battle that we’d fought for so long the Q-net called it a tie and shut us both out of the game cluster for three days.

  When they finish, Lan resumes her role. “Lyra Tian Daniels, may you rest in peace,” she says in a heavy tone. There’s a moment of silence. “Now for the reading of her will.” Lan sits down.

  I pick up my bag and stand. “For Belle, who often commented on the beauty of the ancient Warriors despite being covered in red dust daily…” Digging into the bag, I pull out a terracotta vase about fifteen centimeters tall that I constructed with a variety of discarded pieces and then sealed so it wouldn’t leak. “I leave this vase.” I set it in her hands.

  “This is beautiful! Thank you.” She cradles it with reverence.

  “For Cyril, who is the King of Mutant Zombies from Planet Nine, I leave a file describing all my best moves and a list of cheats that I’ve discovered.”

  “Sweet,” he says.

  “For Jarren, who is the most likely to wind up in detention again—”

  “Hey!” he protests.

  I wait.

  Then his cocky grin returns. “Probably right.”

  “I leave the passcode to the soch-files.”

  For once Jarren is speechless. The passcode will allow him to access his disciplinary records and erase demerits. Took me at least thirty days to worm around all the safeguards, but worth it to surprise him.

  I whisper the code into his ear. “I suggest you be subtle and only delete one or two at a time.”

  He hugs me. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Only one thing left. “And for Lan, a kindred soul who is the sweetest person in the Galaxy. I leave…” I take out a glossy colored photograph printed on precious paper. I planned to give it to her at her surprise sixteenth birthday on 2472:022—a mere twenty-seven days away. “Diamond Rockler. He’s all yours.”

  She shrieks when she sees her name and his autograph scrawled over his bare muscular chest. “How did you get this? You shouldn’t have—this is too much. I love it!” Her words tumble over each other.

  It set me back a few…er…a hundred credits, but I did get paid for my hours helping in the archaeology lab. Besides, I would have spent more just to witness her reaction.

  With that last gift, my funeral officially ends. There is no good-bye or we’ll be in touch. I hug Lan and leave the room with only my memories and a couple photographs to add to my collection.

  Emotionally drained, I head back to our housing unit. Each step an effort of will. By the time I reach my bedroom, I make a promise.

  No more friends. Ever.

  Three

  2471:361

  Launch day isn’t as exciting as it sounds.

  Last to be shuttled up to the ship are the scientists who are voluntarily relocating to Yulin. The port occupies about a third of the research base and is filled with people saying good-bye. The port’s roof is retracted all the way open to allow the shuttle access. The entire base can be pressurized with breathable air if necessary, but, so far, all the Warrior planets have air similar to Earth’s. I weave through the groups, avoiding eye contact. The various surface vehicles the scientists use when doing field work have been pushed to the sides along with piles of equipment, in order to leave room for the passenger shuttle.

  Before embarking, I gaze at the light purple sky of Xinji and the massive forest that keeps trying to reclaim the land the base occupies. The native trees are so determined, Dr. Natab’s team has to clean saplings off the roof every fourteen days. Breathing in the thick moist aroma of living green mixed with a spicy coffee odor, I try to hold in Xinji’s particular scent. The same one I complained to my parents about when we first arrived. Now I’d bottle it and take it with me if I could. Instead, I step into the long oblong of the shuttle’s main compartment and find my seat. All without having to talk to anyone. Bonus.

  It takes forever for everyone to board. I scan the passengers. About a dozen kids—most under twelve A-years old—are going to Yulin. They appear as miserable as I feel, but a quartet of fourteen A-year-old girls are sitting close together and excitedly chatting. Lucky them.

  My father is doing a final check as my mother settles next to me. She squeezes my hand. “Sorry your friends didn’t come see you off.”

  I shrug. “We said good-bye yesterday.”

  “I know, I just thought—”

  “Am I going to have my own room on board the ship?” I ask. I’m not in the mood to discuss my feelings.

  “Yes. And since your father and I are in charge at Yulin, our housing unit will be four times the size of the one here.”

  Wait. “You’re in charge of all the research teams?”

  “Yes, DES asked us to be the lead scientists after we discovered the alien octagon. Your father will oversee the base’s operations and I’ll be directing personnel.”

  That’s cool for them. “Does that mean you can use all the 3D digitizers on the broken pieces instead of cataloging the Warriors with them?” It’ll be so much faster than a group of people trying to glue the shards together. “You might find another alien artifact.”

  “That would be ideal, but we still have to assess the entire planet, not just the Warriors.” Mom’s expression pinches tight.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “Not everyone believes the octagon is alien.”

  I’m not surprised. Other than the strange markings, there’s no other evidence it was made by an extraterrestrial instead of one of the craftsmen on Earth. That’s one of the theories about the Warriors—made on Earth, transported to the stars by...something. “Maybe it’s like one of those practice boards. You know, so they can learn how to do it right before they carve the symbol on a Warrior.” Some of those glyphs have complex designs.

  Mom huffs with amusement, but then sobers. “A few people think it’s a hoax.”

  “Why would they think that?”

  “It’s been a couple centuries of Earth time since we discovered the Warriors on other planets and, in all that time, we don’t have any credible theories on why they are there.” Mom presses her lips together in frustration. “A number of naysayers think we planted the alien artifact so DES continues funding our research.”

  Oh. “Are they going to shut down the Warrior Project?” An interesting thought. “We could return to Eart
h and catch up with Phoenix!”

  I regret my outburst when my mom flinches and gazes down at her hands. They’re now clutched together in her lap.

  “Phoenix made his choice, Lyra,” she says, so quiet I have to lean closer. Then she glances at me. “DES will still fund the project, but they might reduce the budget. We’re already understaffed and have only a few people to analyze the data so the likelihood of discovering any new clues will diminish.”

  Unwilling to hurt my mom’s feelings again, I refrain from reminding her that the archaeology teams haven’t discovered why the Warriors are on other planets since explorers found the first group on Planet Xi’an. At that time, they marveled over the sheer number of Warriors—about ninety-three thousand—the alien symbols on the armor, and the fact that the Warriors were modeled after the Chinese like the original find on Earth back in 1974. But each new Warrior planet, so far, matched Planet Xi’an, which was named after the city in China where the original Terracotta Army was discovered. Ever since, the Warrior planets have been named after cities in China, unlike the colony planets that are named using the Greek alphabet.

  My father bounds onto the shuttle. “Everyone’s here, we’re good to go,” he says to the pilots.

  We strap in and soon Xinji is falling away along with my heart. Grief burns in the empty space in the middle of my chest. To fill the hole, I imagine inserting a titanium heart complete with gears and valves—functional and impenetrable.

  The artificial gravity kicks in when we clear the atmosphere.

  Yesterday, they transported supplies and equipment for Yulin to the Big Fat Frog in orbit… Oh, excuse me, it’s a state-of-the-art Interstellar Class space ship with a Bucherer-Plank Crinkler engine that just happens to resemble a big fat frog. Since it doesn’t travel through an atmosphere, there’s no need for it to be aerodynamic. But it would have been nice if it at least looked sleek.

  This morning, they conveyed all our gear up. The trip doesn’t take long. Within thirty minutes, we dock with the Big Fat Frog. As I disembark and follow my parents to the passenger quarters, memories of my last trip bubble in my mind. All Interstellar Class ships have the same design. Cargo bays, medical bays, living quarters, dining areas, rec areas, etc… Of course the engine room, bridge and crew quarters are off limits to us. I remember how boredom drove my ten-A-year-old self to explore every inch. I expect this trip will be equally as boring. Well…maybe not. This time I know how to worm into a few restricted clusters of the Q-net. Maybe there’s some hope for excitement.

  Our quarters have a common area, washroom, and two bedrooms. It doesn’t take me long to unpack. My room has a standard terminal and screen which is fine for doing school work, accessing my personal files, and messages. I can bypass some of my terminal’s limits. If I used my parents’ terminal, then I’d be able to go deeper, but if I’m caught I’ll be in big trouble. Hmmm….boredom might trump trouble.

  The ship vibrates and hums as it leaves orbit. We are traveling to a crinkle point—or rather a safe place where they can engage the BP Crinkler engine. If the ship is too close to a planet or a sun or a black hole or another ship that is also crinkling space when it starts the engine, bad things will happen. When the captain engages the BPC, the space around us will crinkle and we’ll travel from one point in the Galaxy to another in seconds instead of decades. Then the engine is shut down and space smooths out. Warping space has a cost—the time dilation.

  Yeah, it’s hard to imagine, so on the next page are a few diagrams drawn by yours truly (I need to find a hobby).

  Since it’s too dangerous to crinkle a vast amount of space at one time, the ship does a series of small crinkles all in a row (crinkle, smooth, crinkle, smooth, crinkle, smooth, etc…). All of our Actual time will be spent traveling to and from the crinkle point—twenty days to the point and then seventy to Yulin. That gives me ninety days to see just how deep into the Q-net I can go without causing ripples. Fun.

  I get my first nasty surprise on the second day of the trip. “I should be exempt from soch-time,” I say to my mother. “There’s no one my age on board.”

  “It’s required by law, Lyra. You know that. Besides, some of the crew have kids. Maybe one of them will be older.”

  I bite my lip—no way to win this argument. And I’m not going to tell her that I’ve no interest in befriending a crew kid only to be separated in eighty-nine days or she’ll lecture me on the scientific research behind the socialization requirement for children. Instead, I keep my comment to myself and report for soch-time in the recreation bay. The area is off limits to anyone over eighteen A-years old for the next two hours. The babysitter is the only exception—she looks about forty A-years old. Her face is creased with lines as if she’s already exhausted. I tell her my name so she can check me off. She starts to explain the rules, but I wave her off. I can recite the rules by heart.

  As expected, the place is filled with noisy little kids, awkward pre-teens and the quartet of giggling girls from the shuttle. Oh joy. I head straight for the back wall. There’s a game terminal and screen there, but during soch-time you can’t play by yourself—that would defeat the whole purpose of socialization time. That’s okay, I’m aiming for the group of comfy chairs facing it, thinking of taking a nap. But I stop in my tracks.

  A guy is already there. He looks older than eighteen, but he’s not wearing a crew uniform. And his black hair is longer than the buzzed fuzz of the other male crew members. He’s sketching a picture of something leafy in an actual paper book with a stick of some sort—old Earth stuff—and I wonder if he was born on Earth, but I’m not curious enough to actually ask, despite the fact he’s kind of handsome with his straight nose and angular jaw.

  I turn to find another spot to nap, but the babysitter hustles up to me. She shoves a portable screen at me. The flat twenty-five-by-fifteen centimeter device can download files and run basic programs so you can do work without being entangled with the Q-net. ’Cause of that whole spend-too-much-time-and-go-insane caveat. You have to be in the Q-net for over twelve hours at a time for that to happen, but some of these scientists are serious workaholics.

  “You need to state that you understand the regulations,” she says.

  Reciting my name and the fact that I’m well aware of the regs, I hand it back to her.

  She glances at the boy. Oh no. Before I can retreat, she grabs my elbow. “Let me introduce you.” She tows me closer. “Niall.”

  He pulls his gaze from his sketch reluctantly. His eyes are a blue-green. Annoyance pulses from him.

  The babysitter is not affected by his glower. “This is Lyra Daniels. She’s your age.”

  A slight nod of greeting.

  “Lyra, this is Niall Radcliff.”

  I nod in return. The babysitter mutters something uncomplimentary under her breath about teenagers and goes to yell at two kids fighting over a toy. Niall returns his attention to his drawing and I search for another quiet corner. Except I can’t find one. And, after observing the kids, I notice that there is this invisible barrier between them and Niall. Even the kids from Xinji have picked up on this and avoid going near him. He’s surrounded by calm and comfortable chairs.

  I’m not about to suffer with the younger kids so I claim a seat near Niall. He ignores me and I return the favor. Except, I try to imagine what it’d be like to live on an Interstellar Class space ship. Due to time jumping, I’m one hundred and thirty-four Earth years old. Space brats who grow up on the ships can be as old as the dawn of crinkle travel—about four hundred plus E-years. It all depends on where they go. Having friends on a space ship must be really hard. Lots of things can happen—crews change, parents decide to settle on a planet and the passengers are all temporary.

  “Are you done?” Niall asks me in an irritated tone.

  “What are you talking about?” I ask.

  “Staring. Are you done?”

  Oops. I’d apologize, but his hostile glare pisses me off. “No, I’m not. What’s that yo
u’re drawing with?”

  He sighs—and on a scale of one to ten in teenaged aggrieved sighs, I’d give it a ten. “It’s a pencil.”

  “Okay, now I’m done.”

  “Good, because I’ve no intention of becoming friends.” He says the last word with disgust. “You passengers come on board and act like you own the place. You don’t. You’re a temporary nuisance and, as far as I’m concerned, the sooner you’re gone the better.”

  Gee, what a sweetheart. “Don’t worry, Mr. Nasty, I’ve no intentions of socializing with you either.”

  “Then we’re in agreement. Excellent.” He returns his attention to his sketch.

  I glance away. My pulse taps out a fast beat—so much for my nap.

  After a few minutes, I’m bored. I insert my tangs and turn on the game terminal. When Mutant Zombies from Planet Nine fills the screen, I smile, thinking of Cyril—he never could beat Jarren no matter how much he practiced. My heart kicks me hard, reminding me to not think about my friends. Once I confirm the babysitter’s attention is elsewhere, I worm into the game controls and override a few restrictions. I hope outsmarting zombies will make the time go faster as I start the game.

  Sometime…later, the babysitter’s voice breaks my concentration and my avatar falls into a tar pit. I swallow a curse.

  “You’re not allowed to play alone,” she says.

  “I’m not.” I gesture to the left corner of the screen. “There’s Niall’s player right there. See?”

  She peers at it, then at Niall whose attention is focused on his sketch. Good thing his hair covers his ears so she can’t see he’s not wearing entanglers.

  “He’s waiting for the next wave of zombies,” I say. “The tar slows things down.”

  “Oh. All right.” She returns to the others.

  Too easy. I switch my focus to “Niall’s” avatar and continue to play by myself. When the tone sounds to end soch-time, I stand and stretch. Niall is already gone.