The Stars Blue Yonder Read online

  Myell poked at his food with a spoon. “Maybe five more hours. Maybe four.”

  Twig tugged on Jodenny’s sleeve. “You should come with us when we leave. You’re the nicest you we’ve met so far.”

  “Oh, honey.” She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. “You’re the nicest granddaughter I’ve ever met, too.”

  “That means no,” Kyle told Twig. The bitterness was back in his voice. “And next time we come back, she won’t remember you at all.”

  “Maybe.” Jodenny reached for her bottle of water and took two careful sips. “Maybe not. Tell me, how did you all end up traveling together?”

  “It was a Roon,” Kyle said.

  Osherman reacted instantly. He scrambled backward in the leaves and mud, grabbed for a fallen branch, and rose up with the weapon as if the Roon were right there, ready to strike. Maybe in some warped corner of his mind there really was a Roon, a flashback of some kind, a delusion. Twig, who was nearest, ducked away toward Jodenny’s arm. Kyle didn’t move from his spot and Myell stood up with hands in a placating gesture.

  “It’s not here,” Myell said. “You’re safe right now.”

  The branch sliced through the air, right at Myell’s head. He caught it and twisted it out of Osherman’s hands. Osherman tackled him mid-waist with a cry of terror. They both toppled down the riverbank toward the rushing water. Osherman was wild, striking and punching with no aim, kicking and biting with little accuracy. Myell, trying to subdue him, was ineffective against such frantic onslaught.

  “Sam!” Jodenny yelled, following them. She tried not to slip or fall, one hand curved around Junior. Damn it that they didn’t have a handy sedative. “Sam! Stop!”

  “Grandpa!” Twig cried out, close behind Jodenny.

  “I didn’t know.” Kyle’s fists were clenched helplessly. “I didn’t know I couldn’t say it.”

  Osherman didn’t hear them pleading with him to stop, or didn’t understand the words, or didn’t have the ability to control himself. Osherman and Myell rolled dangerously close to the water. The mud beneath them slid out, dumping both into the current. Myell was lucky enough to grab a tangle of weeds and roots that kept him from being sucked into the rush. Osherman flailed, was tugged under, and disappeared.

  “Sam!” Jodenny yelled.

  “Get him!” Twig said, dangerously close to the water’s edge.

  Kyle yelled, “I’ll get a branch! Hold on!”

  Jodenny didn’t throw herself into water. She couldn’t. Instead she grabbed for Myell and helped him back to sure footing. He was coughing up water and had livid scratches on his face, in no shape to go after a drowning man.

  Kyle waded into the water. “I’ll get him.”

  “No you don’t,” Jodenny said, and caught his arm.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Myell choked out. “He’ll be fine once we leave.”

  “You’re not going anywhere.” Jodenny tugged Kyle back to dry land and helped Myell up. “Twig, go get my beach bag.”

  “Where are we going?” Kyle asked.

  “After him,” Jodenny said.

  Myell opened his mouth as if to argue, but coughed some more instead. Jodenny wasn’t about to debate the matter, anyway. She said to Kyle, “Run ahead, call Sam’s name, but don’t get into the water yourself. You’ll drown.”

  Kyle dashed ahead of them. Twig disappeared into the cave and came back with Jodenny’s garish beach bag. They followed the river as it swung south, scouring the banks for any sign of Osherman. Jodenny sensed that Myell’s heart wasn’t in the endeavor, but he didn’t complain out loud.

  The bad weather cleared out and the morning grew increasingly hot as they hurried south. Sunlight through the trees made Jodenny’s face heat up, or maybe that was the exertion. Junior set up a steady drumbeat of kicking inside her, bam bam bam bam, and she wondered if Twig’s mom was some kind of martial artist. She tried imagining Osherman washed up in the mud, or clinging to a low-hanging branch, but all she saw was the deadly river. Her heart ached at the thought that he might be dead.

  “What’s the town like, forty years from now?” she asked, trying to distract herself.

  “Not so bad.”

  “We never establish contact with anyone back home?”

  “It’s too far,” he said.

  She knew that. Had calculated the miles back to Earth a million times, and had lain out in her yard watching the stars in this new sky. “What about the Kamchatka?”

  “Searched for an Alcheringa drop for months without finding any way home. They had to bring it down eventually, before it lost orbit completely. The engines failed under the stress of reentry. They lost it over the Southern Ocean.”

  He sounded like he was reciting lessons from a history book, but this was her future, hers and Junior’s. She imagined how devastating the loss of the Kamchatka would be—all that recyclable material they hadn’t yet stripped out, the power plants and mechanical parts, the computers.

  “You don’t have to sound so casual about it,” she said.

  He stopped walking. “I’m not. It’s just—it’s the way things are going to be. I’ve seen it.”

  She stopped him. Kissed him.

  “We’ll find a way out of this,” she promised, though she had no idea how or why to follow through on it.

  He kissed her back, and they resumed the search for Osherman.

  Jodenny was trying to keep Twig close and make sure Kyle didn’t get too far out of sight. In the process she didn’t realize how far they’d come. When she saw a wooden platform in the trees above she stopped, surprised. The guard post was empty, which was alarming in and of itself.

  “Kyle!” she shouted. “Come on back here!”

  “But I see him, Nana!” Kyle called back. “He’s here!”

  By the time Jodenny caught up, Kyle and two other people were bent over Osherman’s body on the east bank of the river. Large and ruddy Teddy Toledo was pounding helpfully on Osherman’s back. Louise Sharp, her red hair pulled into a ponytail, was scooping mud out of Osherman’s mouth with her two fingers.

  “Swallowed half the river, he did,” Louise said as Jodenny approached. “Finally got around to pushing him in, did you?”

  “No,” Jodenny said. “He fell.”

  “Not too graceful,” Toledo said, and then caught sight of Myell. Toledo’s mouth opened and stayed open, his teeth bright in the sunlight. “Ugh,” he said, which was more articulate than Osherman, who began jerking and coughing up brown water.

  Louise leaned back and blinked at Myell and the kids. “Hello. Where did you come from?”

  “You’re dead,” Toledo said to Myell.

  Myell sat down on the riverbank wearily. “Not yet.”

  Jodenny sat down beside him, all of her energy spent. She said, “Welcome to the Outpost.”

  Myell had been there before, of course. They all gave him crazy looks when he said so, but he just shrugged off their disbelief.

  “About fifteen years from now, things will be going well,” he said. “You’ll have a good infrastructure, steady power, and enough food for everyone. But then there’s a flu. Kills a lot of people. The survivors mostly disperse or go up to Providence, where they develop a vaccine in time to save everyone else.”

  They were sitting in the middle of the camp, surrounded by the small huts and most of the Outpost’s adult population—the forty or so men and women who’d rejected living under military rule in Providence and opted for self-rule near the beach. The settlement had been slapped together using the same materials from the Kamchatka but had a more haphazard look, given that all the military officers, including the engineers, had stayed loyal to Captain Balandra.

  “Bastards,” Baylou Owenstein said. In this eddy, he was still young and strapping. Destined to survive. His husband beside him, Hullabaloo, would be one of the unlucky ones. Killed in the first wave of sickness, Myell knew. Feverish and delirious for days until the end. Baylou continued, “Bet they do it on purpose
. Wait ’til we’re sick and dying and then come up with a vaccine.”

  Louise Sharp, who would also be one of the unlucky ones, said, “Now that we know it’s coming, we can prepare.”

  Myell rubbed his eyes and said nothing. Jodenny, who was sitting in a sturdy chair beside him, patted his knee.

  “I tell you, it’s creepy looking at you,” Teddy Toledo said. “Leorah would have a good old fainting spell if she saw you.”

  Jodenny doubted that Leorah Farber had ever fainted in her life, but appreciated the sentiment. Faber was down the coast with three others from the camp, looking at a possible new site for relocation.

  “I almost fainted, myself. You don’t meet a resurrected dead man every day,” Louise agreed, and passed Myell a beer.

  The beer at the Outpost tasted like swill but it was alcoholic swill, and Myell appreciated that. He needed a wet throat to keep answering their questions about the future. To them it was all vitally important but to him it was just another exercise in futility, and a headache was beginning to blossom behind his eyes.

  He supposed the ache in his skull was nothing compared to the pain in Osherman’s. Osherman was sitting under a lean-to, a cold cloth pressed to the lump on the side of his head. Twig and Kyle were sitting with him, though the Outpost’s nurse had declared him right as rain. A dunk in the river was nothing impressive around here. They didn’t get truly worried unless someone lost a limb, and even that was treated as a mere inconvenience.

  “So tell me, time-traveling man,” one of the women asked. “Do I get married?”

  “Do I have kids?” someone else asked.

  “Listen to you all,” Mrs. Zhang said. She was the oldest woman on the planet, ornery, and even the people who liked her were afraid of her sharp tongue. “Time traveler! What rubbish will you believe next?”

  “He was dead,” Louise pointed out. “And now he’s not. What is he? A ghost? A robot?”

  “He could be his own twin brother,” someone said.

  “Twin brother or not, you’re at least staying for lunch,” Louise proclaimed.

  “That’s not a good idea,” Myell said. “There’s a chance—a very slight chance—that a Roon might show up. It’s been following me around.”

  Jodenny nodded. “I’ve seen it.”

  “Christ,” Louise said.

  Baylou reached for the knife at his waist. “Let me at the lizard.”

  Most of the crew and passengers off the Kamchatka had never met a real live Roon, but had instead watched on the vids as the aliens approached and reconnaissanced Earth. Myell guessed his other self—his twin brother, his doppelgänger, the version of him that had died, however he wanted to think of himself—had gotten up close and personal in a specifically fatal way, but this Jodenny hadn’t given up all the details yet. Judging from the shuttered look on her face, she wasn’t considering it a priority in their last few hours together in this eddy.

  He remembered the Flying Doctor’s threat about the baby, and felt a hot flush of shame that he wanted this Jodenny to come with him anyway.

  It wasn’t an option. Absolutely not. By the time the ouroboros came, he intended to be miles away from her. Him and the kids—

  Myell turned. “Where’d they go?”

  Jodenny followed his gaze. Kyle, Twig, and Osherman had disappeared from under the lean-to.

  “Damn it,” Myell stood up. “Anyone see where they went?”

  “Up there,” said a man sitting against a rain barrel. “Toward the waterfall.”

  With Jodenny beside him, Myell followed the curve of the camp to where a small river drained out of the dense eucalypt forest. A short, well-trodden path led to a waterfall only a few meters high. Most of the water frothed on flat rocks and rushed down to meet the ocean, but some of it pooled behind the waterfall in a area of slick damp rock and green ledges.

  The kids were there, bathing away mud and grime, with Osherman keeping a close eye.

  “You’re not supposed to go anywhere without me!” Myell said sternly.

  “We didn’t go far,” Kyle replied, unconcerned.

  Twig splashed water their way. “Come on in! It’s really nice.”

  Jodenny needed no further urging. She took off her T-shirt and shorts until only her bathing suit remained.

  “We only have a few hours left,” Myell protested.

  She stepped gingerly into the water and gave him a wide smile. “More than time enough for a swim, sailor.”

  He peeled off his shirt and followed her in. The water was warmer than expected, fresh not salty, and he was glad to soak away the river silt that had been clinging to him all day. The bottom of the pool was slippery but not very deep. He dunked under, circled around to Jodenny, and surfaced with her arms linked around his neck. Her baby bump rested solid and warm against his stomach.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She kissed his forehead and his nose. Her voice was carefully neutral. “What for?”

  “Everything.”

  “Everything’s pretty big,” she said, her mouth against his.

  Twig called out, “Kissing!”

  “That’s gross,” Kyle said.

  Jodenny blushed. Myell turned his back to the kids and Osherman, who was watching with a flat blank look.

  “You can’t leave,” Jodenny said.

  He traced her lips with one finger. “If there was any way to stop it, I would. You know I would.”

  Her hands moved down his back and to his legs, determined to explore him. Myell nestled his head in the crook of her shoulder and let her have her way. She touched the burn marks and other scars left by his travels.

  “Let’s go lie in the shade,” she said.

  They climbed out. The kids seemed determined to stay in the water until they turned into fish. Myell led Jodenny to a stretch of grass under a rocky outcropping. She put her shirt back on and used her shorts as a pillow. He stretched out beside her and she nestled against him.

  “Tell me all the places you’ve been,” she murmured.

  He considered the question. “I’d rather tell you where I’m going.”

  Jodenny’s hand moved to lay flat on his heart, and he covered it with his fingers. Two blue-winged butterflies flitted past and rose up into the trees. In the water, the kids laughed and splashed each other under Osherman’s supervision.

  Myell said, “I’m going to see you when you’re old and cranky but still have that spark in your eye. That never-give-up, get-the-job-done glint. I’m going to see you when you’re running around the playground of the Simon Street orphanage—your hair in pigtails and scabs on your knees. There’s some boy there that you always tease. You like to steal part of his lunch and make him come get it. I think you’re sweet on him.”

  Her eyes were wide and dark.

  “Billy Lawrence.” “Billy Lawrence,” Myell repeated. “And I’m going to see you at the academy, all prim and proper in your uniform, marching back and forth across the parade field fifty times because you refused to rat out your roommate for pulling a prank on the company commander. Later you go to a birthday party for Richi Miller and make out with him in the alley. You come back all smiles with your blouse buttoned wrong.”

  She used her free hand to cover her face, then peeked between her fingers at him. “You see too much.”

  He kissed her softly. “I’m going to see you marry Sam when he’s whole and healthy again, and you’re going to dance at your wedding with Lisa beside you. I’m going to see your daughters when they’re all grown up and doing their best every day, because that’s what you teach them. To be strong and keep trying and never look back.”

  Her eyes were watering now. His own eyes were damp, but he wouldn’t weep. Not in front of her.

  “I’m going to see you stay here while I walk away into the woods, because it’s time for me to go now. You’re going to forget I was here, but you’ll never forget I love you.”

  Tears spilled down her cheeks. Myell wanted to spare her tha
t, wanted to spare himself, but how could he? Not with the ouroboros and the universe pitted against them. He kissed her once more and then rose up, determined to go.

  “Come on, kids,” he said. “Time to get out of the—”

  All the air sucked out of his lungs.

  The world tilted.

  “Terry!” Jodenny reached for him, alarmed, and he didn’t have the breath to tell her to stay back.

  Too soon. The ouroboros was hours too soon. Myell shook off her arms and lurched away. The blue light was filling his vision. She must have thought he was choking, or having a fit, or maybe he’d swallowed his tongue. The ground slid out beneath him despite his best efforts to stay upright. He tumbled into the pool just below the waterfall. On his way into the blue rushing water he saw Jodenny reach for him, and now here was Osherman making a grab, but the kids were too far away, too far—

  “Kyle!” Myell managed. “Hurry!”

  He saw Kyle hold tight to Twig and retreat. Shaking his head. Choosing this eddy and the chance of evaporation over anything Myell could offer him.

  Too late now. The blue ring had arrived. It swept away Myell, Osherman, and Jodenny. And Junior, defenseless in Jodenny’s womb.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sub-lieutenant Adryn Ling reached for her third coffee of the midwatch and grimaced at the bitter taste. She hated coffee but tea was even worse. At oh-four-thirty she’d drink raw sewage if it contained enough stimulants to keep her going for another four hours. Not that there was much chance of raw sewage on the flight deck of the UAC Confident. Just row after row of Eagle A7-40s ready to launch as needed to defeat the Roon.

  “You’re daydreaming again,” said Chief Cappaletto, in his odd American accent. “Concentrate on the game.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m contemplating.”

  Silence for a long moment. Rows of chess pieces awaited her decision.

  “We’re off duty in three hours,” Cappaletto said.

  Adryn reached for her only remaining knight, moved it forward carefully, and released her grip. Cappaletto grinned wolfishly and moved his queen in return. “Checkmate. Sunday rules.”