Starglass

“Grab him! Don’t let him get away!”

I don’t know what made me run toward the distant voices, but I did, turning a corner and making my way down the narrowing corridors. At last I reached the end of the hall, then spilled down a step into a wide-open space. I barely managed to catch myself with my hands. Beneath my weight the metal grate swayed. I could see massive tubes spiraling down into the darkness through the gaps in the metal. They hugged the frozen engine tight, holding it aloft. There was the sound of wings fluttering from one end of the darkness to another. Apparently, bats had taken up residence there.

“What was that?” A woman’s voice pulled me out of myself. I pushed my hands against the grate, scrambling to my feet.

“Nothing!” A second voice—a man’s—answered. “It’s nothing! Hold him down!”

The rail that bordered the walkway was thin and precarious, lit only by a series of amber lights. I took hesitant steps, following the curving pathway around the massive central column. And then I stopped, peering forward.

In the flickering light stood Aleksandra Wolff. Her wool-clad shoulders faced me. She held her hand against the hilt of her knife like a silent threat, watching as two of her comrades wrestled a man to the floor.

I crept forward. Past Aleksandra and the scuffling trio, there was another pair of men in the shadows— another guard who held a man against the ground. Long red locks hung in the citizen’s face. I noted the white cord on his shoulder. Academic class. A flash of recognition lit my mind. It was the librarian’s talmid. Vin or Van or something.

That’s when I realized who his companion was. Benjamin Jacobi. The librarian, who’d spoken to me about my mother in kind tones only the day before.

He was on his knees. One of the guards held the blade of a knife against the soft underside of his jaw.

“The names! Give them to me!” the man on his left shouted.

But it was Mar Jacobi’s student who answered.

“Leave him alone!”

I watched as he struggled toward his teacher, stepping into the feeble light. He was hardly even an adult. Though his compact body was covered in lean muscle, there was a curve of adolescent softness to his features.

“Get back, Hofstadter!” Aleksandra snarled. “This isn’t your business!”

And then I heard Mar Jacobi’s voice. It was soft, gentle. “Van, it’s all right.”

The boy gave an uncertain nod. But then his gaze ambled up through the dark. His eyes were green, and they seemed to glow even in the dim light. He’d seen me watching in the shadows. He mouthed words to me, forming the syllables silently with his trembling lips: “Run. Now.”

Before I could obey, I heard Mar Jacobi’s gentle voice rise up one last time.

“Liberty on Earth,” he said. I saw the guard’s blade glint as it lifted. “Liberty on Zehava!”

The knife came down.

Red. Blood.

I did my best to ignore the strange gargle of sound that followed me as I raced down the twisting hallway. When I reached the lift, I jammed my hand against the panel over and over again. But before the door could shudder open, I heard Van Hofstadter’s voice barrel toward me through the silent corridors.

“Ben!” he sobbed. “Benjamin!”

* * *

I was still shaking when I stumbled through the front door of my house. The sound of? Van’s anguished cries kept echoing through my head. I didn’t even see my father sitting stone-still at the table, waiting for me.

“Terra. You’re late.”

I jumped, nearly dropping my bag on Pepper. There was my father, hands flat on the tabletop, a series of covered dishes laid out before him. And he wasn’t alone. Koen Maxwell sat across from him, his brown eyes wide. He seemed afraid to speak or even breathe. I knew that feeling.

“I know.” I shook my head. “Something happened—”

“I don’t care what happened. I made supper for you so we could eat like a family for once. I expect you to come home at a reasonable time.”

I was doing my best to keep my cool, but I could hear the emotion cresting in my voice already. “Mara kept me late, and then I came home through the engine rooms and—”

“Don’t talk to me about Mara Stone. And the engine rooms are no place for a girl to go off walking alone!” He slammed the flat of his hand against the table. The dishes shook. Koen’s eyes got even bigger. I wondered if he regretted his vocation. But that wasn’t my problem.

“I’m not a girl! I’m fifteen years old—”

“I don’t care, Terra!” He pushed up from the table. As his chair came crashing to the floor behind him, Pepper darted up the stairs. My father towered over me. He was still so much taller than I was. “So long as you live in my quarters, what I say goes, and I won’t have you roaming the ship like some hooligan!”

As if he didn’t roam the ship alone all the time!

“Abba—” I clamped my hands over my mouth. The syllables had squeaked out like a baby’s cry. Beneath my fingers my face burned with shame. My gaze shifted to Koen, who was staring down at the tabletop, pretending he was somewhere else.

My father didn’t notice my embarrassment. He was still caught up in our argument. “Don’t ‘Abba’ me! I won’t have you roaming the ship like some worthless little slut!”

I’d heard those words before, of course. They always hit me just as hard as any blow. Between my clamped-down fingers I let out a small noise. A cry. I fought it. I didn’t want to cry in front of Koen. I didn’t want to let him see the way things were in our house.

So I took off running for the stairs and locked my bedroom door behind me.

I stood there for a moment, trembling. I wasn’t sure if I was angry, or hurt, or terrified, or all of those things; the only thing I knew for sure was that my heart was thrumming furiously in my throat. At last I threw myself face-first into my blankets. The bed was unmade, still rumpled from the morning. My father had given up trying to get me to straighten my sheets in the morning years ago. That used to be our old battle—my messy room, my twisted blankets. Momma had been my defender.

“What’s it matter what her room looks like in the morning,” she asked, “so long as she gets to school on time?”

Now there was no one to defend me. Just like there had been no one to defend Benjamin Jacobi.

And now they’re both dead, I thought, weeping into my pillowcase.

6

Another dream.

I was in the atrium again. I stood in a grove of pines, dressed in my plain cotton nightgown. The perfume of the air was sharp, the ground soft with needles as I padded across it. Barefoot. I should have been cold. The spring was too new for me to go around without boots on. But I didn’t shiver or tremble. The air felt hot against my face.

“Terra!”

I traced the line of trees to the ceiling lights. It was Silvan’s clear tenor, and it came from the treetops. I gazed up into the branches that were splayed out above me like long-fingered hands.

He gazed down between the boughs. He was wearing dark wool—the same uniform coat that Captain Wolff wore, purple and gold gleaming on his shoulder. The brass buttons were unfastened, and the front hung open. But he’d forgotten his boots. Instead he was barefoot too. I could see the pink soles of his feet, clean against the scrubby branches.

He smiled at me, then gestured for me to join him. I fixed my hands to the branches and began to shimmy up. The world bucked and swayed beneath me. But the higher I climbed, the higher the tree seemed to grow. And