These Broken Stars (16 page)

“Lilac,” he begins, reaching up to curl his hand around my upper arm. Warm. Steadying.

“Please.”

He reaches up and brushes the hair back from my face, an uncharacteristically tender gesture. As he drops his thumb to my cheek to brush away the dampness there, he murmurs, “Promise me that no matter what you hear, you won’t go off on your own to investigate. I want your word.” There’s a command in his voice, soft as it is.

I want to tell him that leaving his side is the last thing I want to do right now, but my throat has closed completely, and I can do nothing but curl up more tightly and nod. He keeps his arm around me, holding me through the shivering. I ought to be scandalized at his closeness, demand he keep his distance, but my mind is too full of the things I wish I could say. His touch just feels right.

“We’ll work it out,” he says. “There’s a reason for it. Maybe when you hit your head in the pod—that was a beautiful shiner you gave yourself. At least you don’t have the taste of dead rat in your mouth, hmm? A soldier in my platoon got that on Avon. Couldn’t taste anything else for weeks after she smacked her head.”

I recognize his tone. He’s trying to cheer me up as he did before. He needs me moving, and to keep me moving he has to keep me sane. He doesn’t know that I’m tasting blood and copper at the back of my mouth. I draw in a shuddering breath.

“Well,” I manage, summoning an even voice from God knows where, “if all she had to eat were those ration bars, maybe it’s best she couldn’t taste properly after all.”

He laughs, the sound barely more than a quick exhalation by my ear. “You’re really something,” he says softly, giving me a tiny squeeze that nonetheless robs me of what breath I have left.

A thrill runs down my spine, the tiniest of sparks to remind me I’m not lost yet. The tears are still there, clawing to get free, clogging my throat and my voice.

“I think you’re doing incredibly well,” he continues. “Really, you’re coping much better than half the soldiers I know would in this situation. We’re both still on our feet, we’re heading in the right direction. We’re 
sticking together. That’s why we’ll be all right.”

The lie is so blatant that it cracks my resolve. I can’t stand his pity, not now after everything.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. My cold lips fumble the words.

“Don’t be.” His voice is a low rumble against me, the sound carrying through my bones, clearer than any of the voices I’ve been hearing. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

“I do too.” The dark of the night is like a shield of anonymity, despite the fact that we may well be the only two people on the planet. Curled up in these blankets, I might be in a confessional, and before I can stop myself the words that have been roiling around in my heart since he got me out of that tree come pouring out.

“I’m sorry I can’t do things, I’m sorry you have to keep stopping for me, I’m sorry that you have to sit and watch me go mad. I’m sorry I ever dropped my glove for you to pick up.” For a moment I’m choked by my own voice.

But none of this is what I really want to apologize for.

“I’m sorry I said those things to you on the observation deck because Anna was there, because of who I am. It was mean and petty and I only said it because I couldn’t afford to let myself say anything else.”

I can’t find the words for what I want to say next—that I’m not what he thinks, that I wish I had a picture that could make him understand, the way he showed me his life in one snapshot. I gasp for breath and fall silent.

He doesn’t answer me right away, and for a few insane moments I think maybe his ability to sleep anywhere extends to dozing while faced with semi-hysterical girls blurting out apologies.

Then his arm tightens around me, his breath warm against the back of my neck. The tangled words choking my throat ease, and let me take in a long, shaking breath.

“I appreciate the apology.”

From anyone else I’d know it was a platitude. But there’s a sincerity to his voice when he says it that tells me he means it.

I shift, trying to get comfortable, and my eyes fall on one of the moons, which has cleared the plains. It’s the first time we’ve been able to see this one clearly, unobstructed by the forest canopy.

“Tarver.”

“Hmm?”

“Look.”

He lifts his head, and I feel the moment he sees it; his arms tense around me, his breath stops.

What I’d always thought was a smaller, second moon is actually a grouping of cold blue lights, too steady to be any kind of aircraft, too regular to be any kind of asteroid cluster. Seven in all, arranged evenly in a circle, one in the middle.

“What is it?” My voice is shaking, but this time it’s not from any vision.

Tarver props himself up on one arm, staring over me at the phenomenon. He says nothing, and after a moment I turn to look at him. His face is set, jaw clenched—but he doesn’t look surprised. He looks thoughtful. “When the pod was going down,” he says slowly, “I saw something 
in orbit. Something other than the
Icarus
. Went by too fast for me to get a good look, but I could see enough to know it was man-made. How big would something like that have to be, to be visible like this?”

I draw in a slow breath, mind running through the calculations. “Each of those objects would have to be dozens of kilometers across at least, to reflect that much sunlight.”

Tarver lowers himself down again, arm circling my waist. His voice is soft and warm by my ear. “What is this place?”

I have no answer for him, and we watch the false moon in silence. For a dizzying moment I see us as if from above, a tiny lump in the blue-black sea of grass, nearly swallowed by the vastness of the plains.

At some point while we talked, the voice out in the night fell silent, and the tremors racking my body have calmed. And so I listen to Tarver’s breathing as it slows, and his heartbeat, and the breeze slipping through 
the long grass all around us, and eventually I sleep too.

“Every planet has its eccentricities.”

“That’s true.”

“What did you notice about this one?”

“The lack of company.”

“Major, that’s unhelpful.”

“I’m not trying to be unhelpful. I noticed it was a terraformed 
planet with no sign of a local population. I’ve been involved in 
six campaigns in two years, I never saw a planet without people 
before.”

“What did you think of your prospects?”

“I was realistic about them. I’m realistic about them right 
now too.”

I wake up because it’s raining. A fat raindrop lands right behind my ear, running down to somehow find a way inside my collar, freezing cold. I shiver and roll onto my back, and another smacks me right between the eyes.

Lilac’s moving, stirring as I shift away from her, and she rolls over 
with a little protesting noise, reaching sleepily after me. Then she begins to register the raindrops as they connect with her skin, and she sits up straight with a gasp. I’m busy sitting up too, because when you go to sleep wrapped around a pretty girl, there are some things going on first thing in the morning that you don’t exactly want making headline news.

So I’m shuffling into a slightly more diplomatic position and trying to look casual, and she’s staring across at me, all confusion and dawning alarm. I realize in my surprise I’ve grabbed for the Gleidel, and she thinks there’s some threat around.

“Tarver?” She looks up, eyes huge. One of them is still a little puffy, the skin bruised and dark where her face hit the side of the escape pod. Then a raindrop splats against her upturned face, and she jerks back. As I watch her flinch, lifting her fingers to her face and staring astonished at her wet fingertips, it hits me: she’s never seen it before. In her world even the climate is controlled.

“It’s raining,” I say, voice hoarse from sleep. I clear my throat and try 
again. “It’s fine. Straight from the clouds to you.”

She frowns, still huddling over and trying to shelter from it. “Straight from the clouds? Is that hygienic?”

I can’t help it. It starts out as a snicker, but I’m grinning, and there’s a tension inside me that snaps and releases, and a moment later I’m laughing so hard I can’t stop.

She stares across at me, wondering if I’ve finally cracked. I reach for her hand and wind my fingers through hers, turning them so the rain patters down onto her palm. I trace a circle there with my thumb, smoothing the water into her skin. I want to show her there’s nothing to be afraid of.

Then her lips are curving slowly, and she’s flopping back to lie down and let the rain hit her upturned face. I look across, drinking in her smile, some part of me noticing I’m still holding her hand, fingers tangled through hers. I notice she’s shaking, and for an instant I think she’s crying.

Then I realize she’s laughing too.

I get exactly ten heartbeats to live in this perfect moment, before she blinks and lifts her head sharply, looking off across the plains, a heavier shudder running through her body. She catches herself a moment later and turns back toward me, trying to recover her smile, but I know what that was. I can see how large her pupils are, the trembling of her lips.

She heard another voice.

“I thought you said the rain was on the third day.”

“No, that was the first time it rained.”

“You’re contradicting yourself, Major.”

“No, you’re trying to trip me up. I know how this works. The 
military invented these techniques. What’s your next question?”

“What did you make of your relationship with Miss LaRoux at 
that stage?”

“What does that mean?”

“How did you see it unfolding?”

“I didn’t. I’m a soldier. I’m from the wrong sort of family. I 
think it’s more comfortable for everyone when guys like me are 
out of the way.”

“Do you believe that? That you’re from the wrong sort of 
family?”

“My family wasn’t on the planet with me. I don’t see a need 
to discuss them.”

“There’s no need to raise your voice, Major.”

It’s amazing how much can change with just a few 
short hours, and a few million gallons of water.

I hate the rain and I hate this planet and I hate the cold and I hate my stupid, stupid dress. And I hate Tarver, for the way he strides ahead without a care, as if there isn’t
water falling from the sky
, as if he doesn’t even notice. I hate the way he offers me his jacket exactly when I’ve gotten so cold that I can’t refuse. Just once I’d like to look like I’ve got myself together.

The morning stretches into a frigid, never-ending drizzle as we head for the river he spotted from higher ground. The mountains we’re aiming for are concealed behind a soggy gray curtain. Darker clouds line the horizon, and Tarver glances over his shoulder to track their movement. I’m looking over my shoulder too, but there’s nothing for me to read in the weather patterns. I simply can’t keep myself from searching for the sources of the sounds I keep hearing. I keep turning to scan the plains behind us before I remember we’re alone out here.

It’s the rain
, I tell myself.
The wind, flattening the grass. One of the grassland 
creatures like that thing we ate last night.

But can an animal cry?

The sobs that surge over the rain shatter my heart, sounding for all the world like Anna, like me, like any one of the girls in my circle. With rain rolling down my cheeks and brokenhearted weeping so close at hand, I almost believe that I am the one sobbing so hopelessly. Head spinning 
and muscles shaking, I can barely put one foot in front of the other. It’s no longer one voice—now I’m surrounded by a desperate, heartrending chorus. My eyes blur and I stumble again and again, muddying my ruined dress beyond recognition. More than once Tarver has to come back and haul me to my feet.

I despise him for how easy it is for him, the way surviving this ordeal is second nature. When he catches me staring across the plains, he grins as if to say,
Yeah, it’s no big deal, I’ve been there
. His eyes, though, tell a different story. He’s worried. Worried in a way he hasn’t been since we crashed, not when the pod started to fall to the planet, not when I told him the beacon wasn’t working, not even when we saw the
Icarus
fall.

And that scares me more than anything else.

Though the strange moon has set again, it’s not far from my thoughts. It has to be a structure made by the corporations that terraformed this place—but what is it? Some kind of surveillance system, perhaps. Something to keep track of the colonists, should they rebel.

Only there aren’t any colonists here. There’s nothing to track.

There’s just us, waterlogged and freezing, trekking endlessly across this planet, lives depending on finding the search parties when we reach the wreck.

Neither of us suggests stopping for lunch, despite our exhaustion. There’s no way to make a fire in the steadily increasing downpour, no way to warm up if we stop moving. I wish I’d listened to his repeated suggestions that I put on the spare mechanic’s suit he brought with us from the escape pod—my dress is so ragged by now and so soaked that it’s as though I’m wearing nothing at all. Worst of all, I’m so cold and so tired that I don’t even care about the way it clings to my body and winds around my legs, outlining my every feature.

The river swims into sight as a black smear in the distance. Tarver stops and raises a hand to shield his eyes from the rain, the picture of a soldier saluting some commanding officer. I drop into a crouch, wrapping my arms around my knees and trying not to shiver so visibly. He’ll be making some mental calculation about how long it’ll take to get there. This isn’t a real break, I know. But it’s all I have.

I don’t open my eyes until I feel his hands on my arms, trying to 
warm skin so chilled it makes him grimace at me. “Not much further,” 
he promises, water cascading from jaw and nose and brow. His features have become so familiar in only three short days. I’m staring bemusedly at the rivulets meeting under his chin when he gives me a little shake.