Beyond Our Stars (15 page)

I slammed my way down the ship, taking my time, banging into things with my feet and legs on purpose, wanting to kick and scream and go back in time.

When I got to the tanks I shimmied down the one in the middle, sliding quickly to the floor. I landed with a thud. My breathing was ragged and I fell back against the tank.

I jumped in surprise when a familiar voice next to me said, “At least I'm better at this,” and arms grabbed me.

Chance enveloped me in a tight hug. But I shoved at his chest.

“Stop pushing me away,” he said.

“I'm only doing it because you're doing it!” I said. “Billie told me you wanted me back. You know we should be together, you just want to hurt me.”

“Billie told you what?” he asked me, confusion filling his face.

“Billie said,” I started to yell, but then became more unsure as I saw the innocent disbelief on his face. “Billie said you told her you missed me but you didn't know how to say…” I trailed off weakly. As I spoke I could see the truth on his face. “But you didn't really say that, did you?”

Chance leaned his head forward to touch mine, heaving a sigh. “No.”

I pushed at his chest again, so embarrassed. I had to get out of there.

He kept his hands around me, locking me firmly against the tank.

“Stop pushing, Hope,” he said in a stern voice.

“It's obvious…I need to leave you alone, I,” I stopped talking because my voice was starting to crack. He had never wanted me back. This was really over and I was an idiot.

Chance shifted his arms and he leaned in closer to me. He put his hand on the top of my head and I felt it slide it down my hair to meet my cheek.

“I never said that to Billie, but maybe she knew even if I never said it out loud,” his fingers lightly traced my neck.

I could barely speak over the lump in my throat but I managed, “Then why do you keep pushing me away?”

“I'm pushing
you
away?” he asked me.

“Yes, obviously,” I snapped. What was this? I was getting sick of this charade. “If you don't want me I need you to stop this. It isn't fair,” I said. He continued to let his fingers brush my skin.

“It didn't seem fair when you didn't want to marry me, either,” he said.

“Okay, I didn't react in the best way… to a ring.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “But you took me by surprise with that.”

He watched me for a moment. Debate flashed over his features. But then he said, “I knew it was dumb when I did it. But you make me feel like you don't need me sometimes, like you could walk away from me at any moment and not care.”

“But that's not true at all, it's never been true. It's hurt every second you were gone.”

He didn't answer. It felt like my body acted of its own accord when I grabbed him and kissed him hard, tears welling in my eyes.

He groaned softly and pulled his face back. “Can't you understand? I only wanted you to say you were sure about us. I love how strong you are. Having me beside you doesn't change that. I don't want to feel like I'm nothing, I want to know you love me as much as I love you. I need you.”

I pulled him toward me and kissed him again, harder. “I definitely need you,” I murmured.

“This isn't the need I'm talking about,” he said.

“I know,” I said. “I need you in every possible way.”

That did him in. He wrapped his hands into my hair, falling with me so my back was pressed to the cold metal behind us.

But after a minute he pulled away again, stumbling, putting distance between us.

“Oh, don't,” I groaned. Honestly, he was a teenage guy, and I was the one doing the convincing here?

“We have to talk about this,” he said.

“I get it. I should have taken your feelings into consideration and you were trying,” I hesitated but I wanted total honesty, “maybe a little too hard, to make a symbol of our love for each other.”

Chance eyed me warily, but then nodded. “Yeah, I guess maybe I was. And you didn't want it.”

“Why did we need it?” I asked.

“We didn't, until I realized you couldn't do it,” he said.

“You
knew
I'd say no.”

He didn't answer but I saw the guilt in his eyes.

“Everyone else seemed happy to get paired up.”

“We're not everyone. It doesn't mean I don't love you as much. It doesn't mean we don't love each other more than all the rest of them.” He nodded. I met his eyes with a challenge. “So are you going to cut me off then?”

His head sank. Then he shrugged as he walked back to me. “Another minute couldn't hurt,” he said in a low voice, taking me back into his arms and giving me kiss that left me heavy lidded and warm.

We both pulled back and looked at each other. His breath caught and he gave me a stunned look.

“I really missed you.”

I felt horrible then. All he'd wanted was for me to make him feel like he was permanent in my life, and he was. I'd always thought it. I never wanted to be without him.

“You make me feel like a crazy person,” he said. His eyes darkened and he leaned in for another long kiss. “I really wish I'd had it in me to make you jealous.”

My eyes opened wide and then I glared. “You were going to do that?” He could, I had no doubt. I knew that plenty of the girls from the Reflection hoped we were broken up for good. If he'd tried to make me jealous I was sure it would've worked.

“I just didn't have the heart,” he said, giving me a small smile.

“Because it belongs to me,” I said, tightening my arms around him.

“Yes it does,” he said back. “Yours?”

This was the root of it, the thing he'd wanted to test, to really know.

“Always,” I answered.

Chance's eyes met mine and I knew everything was going to be okay.

He let go of me with one arm and reached into the collar of his shirt. He pulled out a chain I hadn't noticed, with a ring sliding down it. My ring.

“I— you've been wearing this?” I asked.

He looked away, cocking his head to the side. “I'm not proud of it. I didn't want anyone to see.” He ran a finger over the crude eternity symbol etched into the inside. “Best I could do onboard for an inscription.” He looked at me. “I know we're not getting married, Hope. But I still like what it means. We should always be together.”

I kissed him softly on the cheek. “Yes, we should.”

The construction of the jail was underway, with Legacy already stowed inside it. Chief had put Morgan in, too. The only thing keeping me sane was that Chance was by my side again. He was my protection from the demons that tried to make me spin back into the depths of self-loathing. His kiss stopped me from thinking about old Abel saying we should kill Legacy to save ourselves. It stopped me from thinking that no matter what I ever said or did, it would always be the wrong thing.

The sessions had stopped completely. Usually this would have been a welcome respite from the constant state of fear, except now we were worried about what it might mean. Our crops were dwindling. The supplies we'd brought had lasted us this far, but we wouldn't be able to stretch them much further. And worst of all, the water supply we'd been dipping into had been cut off. We still had our own water treatment system but it wouldn't last forever.

The stop of the water meant no more irrigation. So we harvested what was left of the crops and watched as everything else began to brown at the edges, crackling and shrinking under the sun.

And still no more sessions.

Chief called for an ‘All Voices' meeting. The engineers had it set up to broadcast to every auditorium aboard every ship. I was nervous for him. Over the past few weeks Legacy had become Morgan's martyr. Even in custody Morgan was gaining more followers, especially as food became scarcer.

I found Chance by the doors to auditorium 4B, where we'd arranged to meet.

“Hey,” I gave him a kiss and nodded at Weeks.

My other Specs were here, too. Even Boston. Chief had told me that Boston wasn't who I thought he was. He'd been worried about Morgan overthrowing Chief, and what his plans were, so he kept going to meetings with Legacy to get information, and had secret meetings with the Chief.

I took Boston to the side for a moment.

“Hey, did you have any idea Legacy would do what he did?” I asked him.

“No. I thought he might kill Cole someday. But not this.” Boston shook his head.

“Kill him?”

“Because of what Cole did back on Earth.”

I stepped closer to Boston. He took a deep breath.

“They were fleeing together, all of them, Cole, Legacy, and his mom. She got hurt. Not bad, not like she was going to die, but she couldn't walk as fast, she was slowing them down when they were trying to get to the ships in time.”

I gulped.
No.
“Cole left her behind?”

Boston nodded. “Yeah. While Legacy was screaming to stay with her.”

I didn't know what to say. What kind of man did that?

“Cole has always blamed Legacy, said he'd given her up to keep him safe. That's a lie. He did it for himself.”

It sounded exactly like the Cole I knew, shifting the blame, taking credit.

“I feel so bad,” Boston said, and I looked up to see emotions wrestling on his face. “I didn't know he'd do that.”

I shook my head. I hadn't either. And now I was overcome with the same guilt. “Let's just go in,” I said, motioning to the meeting.

We found seats in the swiftly filling room. Pilgrim hopped around people's feet so he could squirm into a chair next to mine. We all exchanged nervous glances as the screen lit up a bright white, and then Chief Up's face appeared on it. There was a microphone and a moderator, one of Chief's engineers, up at the front of the room. A line with red tape on either side marked the place you were supposed to go if you had something you wanted to say. There were people already lined up, stretching past the red tape. If the other rooms were like this it was going to be a long night.

The screen would show the person asking the questions then go back to Chief. And during big meetings there was also the matter of translations to deal with. Aboard Reflection we had a system that automatically translated other foreign languages into English and Spanish for us, and there were hand held devices you could use if you needed a different translation. Aboard other ships the questions were being translated into whatever languages were most common to their occupants. So once the person asked their question in whatever language, there would be a delay until a voice robotically repeated the question over the intercom and into the hand-held translators so we could understand. Almost all of the first people up to the microphone were worried about food.

“The food supply is my top concern. From the beginning I've had people working to see if there's any way we can penetrate the force field. But as you know, we have no other home to escape to. All food is now on strict ration. Since the water was cut off the Steves disappeared, so I'm working out a system to distribute any water we can spare from our systems to them, hoping they'll come back.” Chief said. He sounded calm, commanding.

“Hope isn't really a luxury we have, though, is it,” the next person asked. “You don't have a family to provide for. How do you think the rest of us feel?” The man asked.

Chief cleared his throat. “I don't have family, per se, but most of you know that I consider some of you to be like my own children. So I know what you're feeling. And we're all in the same boat. We must persevere together.”

A woman in another auditorium went on for a long time in Russian about the demolition of the Memory. It was a minor ship, its core no longer functioned anyway. It was being used to supply materials for the construction of the jail.

“But why do we need a jail so large?” the woman asked a second question after criticizing the destruction of the ship.

“I'm sorry, ma'am, only one question,” the moderator told her in English, which the system translated into Russian for her, even though she was still trying to talk.

Chief Up interrupted. “Yes, only one question but I'll answer that one,” Chief said. The woman stopped talking.

This one had me paying attention. They could have built a small jail, just for Legacy and Morgan. But instead of a small jail, Chief was having a structure erected that could house hundreds of people. “I haven't addressed this specifically yet, so I'll take this opportunity to do so. The jail is intended to pacify the Locals. Let's pray it works. In that same regard I will use it to jail any citizen who conspires to commit violence, against the aliens or anyone else.”

There were shocked gasps. A buzzing murmur spread throughout the room. I looked over at Chance. That sounded like a direct threat to any of Morgan's followers.

A man in another auditorium took the microphone. “I know the idea of offering Legacy as a…as a sacrifice has been previously postulated. May I ask why this has not been revisited?” The man was trying to make execution sound very civilized, but still the crowd hushed.

“That isn't something I think will help us,” Chief answered. “Next question.”

I thought about the man's question, and the Chief's response. I didn't think the people knew what was right, either. But each day that there was no contact with the Locals, each day that the food supplies dwindled, people got more and more desperate.

But Chief still didn't want to kill Legacy. He'd told me recently, “There are so few of us left. I don't want to be responsible for any more dying.”

In fact, it might already be over. Maybe the discontinuation of the sessions and the shutting off of the water had been their final decision. If what they wanted was Legacy, they could have come for him.