Starglass (22 page)

“You really think it would help to have more than two?”

“Sure! It would spread that stuff around. And besides, I think I’d be good at it. Being a dad. I mean, Van’s kid loves me.”

I thought about the way that little Corban had beamed up at Koen, and I couldn’t help but give a nod of agreement.

“He does,” I said. I squinted, wondering whether Koen would have the same sort of relationship with our own children. But the thought felt somehow absurd. Even though we were supposed to have our first child within five years of marriage, I couldn’t imagine motherhood, for the life of me.

“So,” Koen said, “what do
you
want life to be like once the Children of Abel take over?”

He was talking too loudly again, and in such open air. I held a finger to my lips, shushing him. And then I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just hope we get more of a say in the way things work.”

“Like the job system?”

He was always harping on about that—about what a tragedy it was that I couldn’t spend all of my time drawing.

“I told you. I don’t mind Mara
that
much.”

“Speaking of . . .” Koen stopped his progress across the field. His hands were suddenly still—his expression dire. I braced myself. I knew what was coming.

“Van says they can’t move forward until they have the foxglove.”

“Move forward with
what
?” I demanded, my eyes searching the
ceiling panels overhead. They were just beginning to go dark, the first feeble stars shining through. But the blue onset of night did nothing to deter Koen.

“I don’t
know
,” he said. But his hands darted out. His icy fingers enveloped mine. “All I know is that they need you.
We
need you, Terra.”

It wasn’t quite what I wanted to hear. I wanted Koen to tell me that
he
needed me, that his heart wouldn’t be sated until he pressed his lips to mine and pulled me down against the cold hard ground. But looking at his ruddy face and the determined expression that had tightened his mouth, I realized that this was as close as I was going to get.

“Okay, Koen,” I said, and gave his cold hands a squeeze. “I’ll try.”

“Promise?” he asked.

“Promise,” I agreed.

Koen threw an arm over my shoulders, drawing me close. Together, under the growing twilight, we moved across the frozen field.

•  •  •

My opportunity came only two weeks after we entered our new sun’s orbit. Mara had spent all afternoon sowing cold-hardy seeds in plates I’d filled with agar. I suppose the work had finally begun to wear on her. She stifled a yawn against the back of her wrinkled hand.

“I need to get myself coffee,” she announced, standing up. “Though I’m sure the
real
coffee we’ll plant on Zehava will be a major improvement. Hardly any caffeine in our dandelion brew.”

“There is no caffeine in dandelion brew,” I said. Mara laughed and clapped me on the shoulder.

“Good! You’re learning!” Without another word she turned out of the lab and was gone, and for the first time I was alone under the buzzing lights.

It took a moment for that fact to settle in. Mara’s presence was a constant in the overcrowded lab, as expected as the tumbled seed trays and the worktables and the microscopes. Her absence left a strange gap of silence in her wake. I knew I had to take advantage now, before she returned and obliterated every chance I had to find the foxglove. I rose quickly and headed past Mara’s desk to the steel door in the rear of the lab.

The door had a panel beside it, just like the ones that were used to lock each lab in the science complex. There was a chance that it wasn’t calibrated to my touch—that the door would remain closed to me. In that case, I’d just have to return to my desk and my work. But I had to try. I pressed my hand against it, holding my breath as the light blinked to life beneath my fingers. To my relief, the door slid away, welcoming me in.

I stepped through. If the lab had been silent without Mara, then this space was practically airless. But it was a huge, echoing sort of airlessness—like the library, but sleeker. Rows and rows of white metal shelves spread out before me beneath dangling blue lights. As I
walked beneath the lights, I peered down the aisles. There had to be a thousand metal drawers, each labeled in tiny script and closed. It wasn’t until I stumbled across a computer terminal at the far end of an aisle that I had any idea where I was going.

Common foxglove.
Digitalis purpurea
. I hunted for the correct keys, slowly pecking out the name. After a moment the display lit up.
Aisle D11, shelf 14, box C.
I hustled across the herbarium, my lab coat streaming behind me.

In the lab everything was always in disarray. But perhaps one of Mara’s predecessors had labeled the shelves here. After all, the placards were yellowed with age, the paper curling. It would explain why the right shelf was so easy to find. Or maybe it was fate that pushed me down the correct aisle. I wondered if after this I’d finally be accepted by Van, by the Children of Abel. I ran my finger over the label, thinking of it. Then I pulled the drawer open.

White fog billowed out, a breath of cold that was icy enough that it burned my skin. I snatched my hands away. As the fog cleared I leaned in, looking down. The plants grew out of a layer of fortified agarose. Their gnarled roots twisted through the jelly. The leaves, jade green, shook as I pulled my hand away. The bells shook too. They weren’t all the striking violet I’d expected. A few were pale purple or snowy white. They looked delicate, lovely. Like something Momma would have plucked to put in a vase on our galley table.

“Foxglove, eh?”

I jumped, slamming the drawer shut. There behind me stood Mara Stone, sipping at her coffee. She arched her eyebrow, studying me.

“I—” I began, fumbling for some excuse. But Mara lifted her hand, cutting me off. She stepped past me and opened the drawer again. Together we peered in.

“A pretty flower,” she told me. “Useful, too. If it weren’t, we’d have only seeds in the gene banks. Every couple of years the doctors ask us for a few new plants. They’re useful medicine. Good for patients with heart problems. It’s an antiarrhythmic agent.”

“Is it?” I asked, staring down. My hands shook at my sides. I was sure that if I looked at Mara, then she would see my duplicity.

“Mm-hmm,” she said. “Risky, though.”

“Why?”

From the corner of my gaze I saw Mara look down the slope of her crooked nose at me. She fixed her hand against the drawer, slammed it shut.

“Because it’s a poison. Difficult to regulate. Difficult to dose. Dead man’s bells, they called it on Earth.”

I stared at Mara, trying to keep my gaze even. But I couldn’t. My mouth fell wordlessly open.

“Abdominal pain. Hallucinations. Tremors. Massive cardiac arrest, if you get enough of it. Not a pleasant way to go.”

“Poison,” I said, but the word echoed back too late. “Foxglove is a poison?”

Mara shook her head at me. Then she started down between the aisles, gesturing for me to follow. For a moment I stared at the closed drawer. The label’s black letters seemed to burn themselves into my retinas.
Digitalis purpurea.
Poison.
Poison.

As I went to join her, Mara clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Terra, dear,” she said. “You have
so
much to learn.”

•  •  •

That night I sat beside Koen again on the top floor of the library, surrounded by now-familiar faces. Van Hofstadter stood in front of the railing, lifting his hands high. He was orating right out of the copy of Momma’s book.

“ ‘I must trust that my sacrifices will bring my children’s children closer to liberty,’ ” he declared, his strong voice practically shaking the cobwebs from the low rafters. “ ‘I must trust that someday my descendants will set foot on the Goldilocks planet, the place the Council has dubbed Zehava, not as prisoners of these glass ceilings, not as slaves to the ruling Council, but as free men and women!’ ”

Murmurs of agreement rippled through the gathered crowd. I watched Rebbe Davison stroke his chin with his index finger, mulling over the words. I watched Deklan Levitt pound his hand against one of the study desks.

“Hear, hear!”

The mood among the Children of Abel was electric that night, far brighter than the lights that flickered from the chandeliers overhead. But this time I didn’t feel the spark of passion inside me. At the end of it, when Van touched his hand to his heart and shouted out, “Liberty on Earth!” and the rest of them saluted and bellowed, “Liberty on Zehava!” I stayed silent, my hands pressed between my knees.

Koen didn’t notice. As the other citizens began filing down the stairs, he rushed to greet Van. I watched him clap the librarian on the arm, complimenting his impassioned speech—a speech stolen from my ancestor’s journal, of course. Van smiled easily. For a few fleeting moments they spoke to each other in low tones.

I sat in one of the overstuffed chairs, pulling a long thread of stuffing out of a crack in the leather. As Van and Koen came close, I pretended not to see them, instead focusing very, very closely on the ecru tuft of wool.

“Did you bring me the foxglove?” Van asked. I didn’t want to lie, so I only shrugged. It was a sullen, babyish gesture, I knew, but it felt safe—familiar. That is, until Koen spoke up, his kind voice pained.

“Terra! You promised!” He looked sad. He wanted so badly for me to be one of them, for me to be like him.

“I couldn’t get it,” I said. “Mara caught me in the herbarium.”

Van let out a throaty grumble. He lifted his hands, ready to chastise
me. But I didn’t want to hear it. I stood, swiftly pushing past him.

“Terra!” Koen called. I stopped at the top of the narrow stairwell, my hand lingering on the banister. But when I turned, I didn’t look at Koen. Instead I looked Van Hofstadter directly in the eye.

“You didn’t tell me foxglove was a
poison
.”

“What did you think we wanted it for? Think the Children of Abel are going to start a community garden?” The corner of his full mouth ticked up. It was a self-satisfied sort of smile. “You’re a botanist. I figured you would know.”

“Well, I didn’t. I’m not going to help you poison anyone.”

Van stalked forward. His nostrils flared. “Do you think the Council deserves our mercy?” he demanded. “You saw what they did that night to Benjamin!”

I could almost still hear the librarian’s final gurgle of breath, could almost see the wild-eyed look, animal and afraid, that had crossed his face as the dagger had slid across his throat.

“These are not nice people, Terra,” Van said. And it was true. I remembered the sudden explosion of blood down Mar Jacobi’s shirtfront and the way he’d fallen forward, collapsing on the metal grate.

“I can’t,” I said at last. “I would help you if I could, but I
can’t
. Mara Stone will never let me get away with it.”

“If our leaders find out that you’ve failed us . . .,” Van began.

But he didn’t get to finish his sentence.

“Lay off her!”

Koen had shouldered his way between Van and me. He threw an arm over my back. I smelled sweat on him, cedar, the lanolin stink of his sweater. I could feel his heart pounding beneath my arm.

“If our leaders find out,” he said, “they can deal with it.”

“Koen,” Van said, his forehead furrowing in confusion. But the young clock keeper just went on.

“Terra will be my wife soon. And if they trust me, they can trust her.” High blossoms of color exploded cross Koen’s cheeks. But he didn’t look embarrassed. He looked proud.

“Are you sure?” Van asked. There was some deeper question hiding beneath his words, but I couldn’t quite suss it out.

“Positive. Now come on, intended,” Koen said, his voice a little too loud for the empty library. “Let’s go.”

We moved down the spiral staircase together. But tucked under his arm, I couldn’t help but feel that I wasn’t walking at all. Instead I flew over the creaky steps, my body suspended several feet above the floor. It wasn’t until we stepped through the iron door and into the cold night of the evening that I touched ground again.

“Thank you!” I said to Koen, reaching out for his hands. It felt like the most natural gesture in the world, to hold his hands in mine. But his cold fingers stayed slack, like dead flesh against mine.

“Sure,” he said. He pulled his hands away and shoved them down inside his pockets. They were balled into fists.

“I didn’t expect you to speak up against Van like that.”

“Oh.” I watched Koen chew the peeling skin from his lower lip. At last he said, “Well, if I’ve learned anything from your father, it’s that it’s my duty now. You deserve to have someone looking out for you.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I stood there, blushing. “Sure,” I said. “But still—standing up to the Children of Abel.”

Koen only shrugged.

We stood there for a moment under a glass sky splattered with stars. At last Koen stepped away.

“I should go. Work tomorrow. And all.”

He didn’t kiss me good-bye. He didn’t even wait for my answer. Koen turned and hustled off, leaving me alone in the shadow of the huge, dark library.

I
no longer dreamed about the atrium. Now, as the ship drew closer to Zehava, my dreams had changed, become stranger.

I’d be walking through a forest, but the shapes of the trees were all wrong. The bark seemed smooth, fleshy—and branches fanned out gently from the trunks. Indigo leaves stirred and moved overhead in what I assumed was wind. The
Asherah
’s air circulated in only one direction, from starboard to port, over and over again. This wind was different—lively, capricious—and sometimes, for whole moments, it was still, too.

I was never alone.

At first I was sure that the boy who walked beside me was Koen. I wanted him to be. His strides matched my strides perfectly; sometimes he even laced his fingers in mine. I only ever saw him out of the corner of my eye, a shadow. But night after night I cobbled together a fuzzy image from those stolen side glances. Whoever he was, he was taller than Koen, much taller. And darker, too. Even in my dreams I could tell that he
smelled
different. Sweet, like flowers. And somehow green. His body beside mine had none of the animal musk of Koen’s body.