Wandering Star: A Zodiac Novel (8 page)

I stop to consider the legendary love story about the Cancrian and Leonine Guardians. Even today, the galaxy’s most popular holographic series—
holoshow
—is shot on House Leo, and it follows the love triangle of three Zodai—the last human survivors after the Zodiac’s been wiped out—who adventure to unknown reaches of Space searching for a new
home. The characters are named Amara, Logax, and Velia, after the three Guardians of the Trinary Axis.

The thought brings Hysan and the Taboo to my mind. I can’t even consider how people would react if they found out we broke that law, especially given how much closer the Zodiac is coming to war . . . and the worst war we ever had was triggered by the same breach. I refocus on Ferez’s report.

However, the person about whom the least is known is the Axis’s mysterious third member, Vecily Matador of House Taurus. Vecily never told her people why she joined the Axis, and she rarely spoke at any rallies. Yet, after reviewing the details of her early life, I believe that I have stumbled upon three crucial moments that point to her state of mind and reveal her reasons for taking on this fight.

The first moment occurred when Vecily was a seventeen-year-old Acolyte at the Taurian Academy. She had a best friend, Datsby, from whom she was inseparable. They were top of their class, the best star-readers at the school, and their instructors and classmates were certain both girls would make it into the Royal Guard. Until one day, a few months shy of graduating, the stars diverted their paths.

Vecily and Datsby were sun-soaking in a corner of the Academy’s grazing grounds between classes when a couple of male friends dumped water on them from a fifth-story window. Vecily’s initial shock gave way to laughter as soon as the young men ran over with towels, but Datsby’s shrieks would not be soothed. When Vecily and the boys tried to help, they discovered something strange about Datsby’s appearance. Her makeup had washed off, unmasking a deep, tawny tone far darker than the caramel color of her face paint.

Datsby was changing Houses. The young men’s playful, flirting words changed to outbursts of disgust, and they shouted ugly names at her:
Riser
!
Deviant
!
Freak
!
Soon a crowd formed around them. All Vecily could do was shield her crying friend from the gawking glares and vicious voices.

At last, a Promisary intervened. Vecily was taken to the dean’s office, where her mental and emotional health was thoroughly assessed, and where she was assured and reassured that the situation would be handled.

Later, it was noted that, earlier that same year, Datsby had started wearing long, sweeping bangs to conceal her eyes, which were no longer hazel but dark brown. And though her hair color hadn’t changed, it had started growing so fast that she had to trim it at her chin every week to keep it at the traditional Taurian length. In Datsby’s day, the Zodiac’s stance on Risers was even more narrow-minded than it is today, which means they invariably became outcasts.

Vecily is said to have spoken only once in the dean’s office, to ask if Datsby was okay and if she could see her. Nothing else is known about that day, but it has been documented that Vecily and Datsby never saw each other again. For the rest of her recorded life, Vecily rarely spoke, and when she did, she chose her words sparingly and wisely.

I let my eyes drift from my Wave, too distraught over Datsby’s fate and my renewed thoughts of the Trinary Axis to read on.

A thousand years ago, the Houses didn’t operate as separate, sovereign entities, the way they do now. Back then, the Guardians passed universal legislation that superseded the Houses’ own laws. Universal rights versus House rights was a constant source of tension and debate, and one
universal law in particular was creating controversy: a ban on inter-House marriage.

The ban had been around a few centuries, but there were rumbles that some Houses wanted to reverse it. A court case on House Libra was working its way up the ranks to a universal trial at the Plenum, and when it was finally brought before the Guardians, it was struck down, seven to five.

Two Guardians had been hoping the law would be overturned—Brianella and Blazon. Their outrage over the case’s outcome transformed their unbridled passion and unconditional love into something fearsome. They decided to secede from the Zodiac and convinced Vecily to join them. They called themselves the Trinary Axis, and they declared themselves free of Zodiac rule and able to run their Houses however they wanted.

The other Guardians didn’t honor their secession, but the Trinary Axis continued their work underground, recruiting members from every world to their cause. By the time they launched their choreographed attack on the Houses, it was no longer an issue of inter-House marriage; it was a crisis of universal rights versus House rights, and it had awoken a monster.

For one hundred years, civil war raged on in every House. The Guardians eventually stopped convening, too busy with the situations in their own worlds. By the time the war was over, new Guardians had replaced the old, and they all agreed to govern their Houses independently—with the exception of one galactic rule, which the Guardians swore always to follow in order to prevent the destruction caused by the Trinary Axis from ever happening again and to ensure no two Houses would ever get too close and gain too much power. It’s the Taboo—the Zodiac’s only unbreakable law.

And I broke it.

I WAKE UP WITH MY
Wave still in my hand. The lights of the Archer constellation wink through the windows across the aisle. We’ve dropped out of hyperspeed, so the trip will be over soon.

House Sagittarius has four planets—all inhabited—and five moons. Centaurion is its largest and most populated world, and the Capital is where the government meets and also where Nishi’s family lives. Sagittarians call their capital city simply the Capital, for the same reason they refer to their Guardian as Guardian. I sometimes think they’re the only people who use language how it was originally meant to be used—literally.

“We there yet?” asks Aryll, popping open his cerulean eye.

“Soon. I’ll wake you when it’s time.” He nods and goes back to sleep.

“You’re Rho Grace.”

I turn around to see a Sagittarian Acolyte with blue-black hair and honey-colored eyes, also just waking up. “I’m Nova Ken,” she says, reaching out to trade the hand touch with me. As soon as our fists bump, she pulls hers back to stifle a yawn. “A-are you coming to Centaurion to fight the Marad?”

“To help, if I can.”

“Your Sagittarian friend who was spreading the word about the Thirteenth House—is she why you’re helping?”

“She’s one of the reasons, yes.”

Her honey gaze is so direct it’s like staring into Helios. “How did you convince her that Ophiuchus was real when you couldn’t convince the people in your own House?”

“She trusts me.”

When I first met Nishi at the Academy, I found the clipped, back-and-forth pace of her conversational style off-putting. I couldn’t believe the way she skipped small talk and went straight to satisfying her curiosity. But after getting to know some of the other Acolytes, I realized I preferred the purity of Nishi’s speech. It was a luxury, not having to wonder what was truly on someone’s mind.

Nova looks ready to fire off more questions, so I steer her to safer topics. “Why were you on Capricorn?”

“Conducting research in the Zodiax for my graduation project. My parents want me to stay there, but they’re not evacuating, so I’m joining them.”

“I’m sorry,” I murmur. I’ll never forget what it felt like to witness the devastation of my home. That kind of horror stays with you.

“I’m sorry for you, too. After everything that’s happened to you . . . if it were me, I’d have stopped helping by now.” Her brow dips quizzically. “Either you’re incredibly committed to converting the Houses to your Ophius cult”—she uses the Sagittarian word for Ophiuchus—“or you’ve been telling the truth all along, and now you’re risking your life again, even when it’s no longer expected of you.”

I don’t say anything, and her honey eyes hold mine in their glow. “What scares me is I think you’re telling the truth . . . but I really wish you weren’t.”

We stare at each other a moment longer, and then the shuttle’s automated voice cuts through the air.
“Prepare for landing.”

I wake Aryll up, and then my body grows heavy as we cross the invisible barrier into Centaurion’s gravity. From this distance, the planet looks as if it’s infested with metallic insects: Every variety of aircraft is buzzing in and out of the atmosphere, swarming the surface with activity. It’s easy to see why Sagittarians are called the Zodiac’s wanderers—even from way out here, they look restless.

“Good fortune, Rho,” says Nova when we land, steepling her fingertips and touching her forehead. I return the Sagittarian gesture, and as we rise to disembark, she surprises me by pressing a galactic gold coin into my palm. “And thank you.”

She rushes off, and I pocket the money, shrugging at Aryll’s raised eyebrow. “It’s nothing,” I mumble, moved and humbled by Nova’s gift.

It’s rare for people to carry coins anymore—nowadays they’re mostly used for off-the-books payments and bribes. For everything legal, we swipe our thumbprints, and the sum transfers from our accounts automatically. But for some Houses, galactic gold coins have taken up a symbolic significance.

Capricorns collect currency from every galactic year to see how far into the past they can touch. The Geminin have dream wells where they toss a coin and make a wish, and Imaginarium-type technology shows them what the world would look like if that wish were to come true. Sagittarians use them literally, to pay people praise: If someone does something truly worth commending, they give her a coin. They call it a
fair trade
—exchanging gold for gold.

“RHO!”

At almost the exact moment Aryll and I step onto the crowded spaceport, I’m pulled into a body-binding hug. Nishi and I cling to each other, and I flash to Ferez’s story about Vecily and Datsby. My hold on her tightens as I remember I’ve come here to
fight
. Last time I fought, some of my friends didn’t make it back.

What if this time it’s Nishi or Deke or Aryll or Hysan?

“Come on, leave some Rho for the rest of us,” says Deke after he’s greeted Aryll, whom he met on Gemini. Deke peels Nishi and me apart and lifts my feet off the floor with his hug.

Despite the warmth of their welcome, the atmosphere in this spaceport is bleak. Sagittarians are vying for seats on any transport going almost anywhere, while holographic wallscreens scroll through the never-ending columns of names on the waiting lists for every flight. The screens that aren’t crammed with words are blasting images of wounded Sagittarians from the fighting that’s broken out between them and the migrant Scorp workers on Wayfare, one of the House’s moons. The sight brings to my mind the burned bodies on Gemini, and I have to swallow to clear the taste of ash from my throat.

As Nishi nimbly leads us to the exit, I’m jostled on every side by the tizzy of travelers tunneling in the opposite direction, all desperate for a way off this planet. We seem to be the only ones trying to get in.

Once we’ve left the spaceport, I get my first view of Centaurion’s capital city—and it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. The Capital is a vast Imaginarium come to life.

The buildings here are bizarre shapes and colors, their outer walls covered with diagrams, drawings, and questions:
If the universe has a beginning, what came before the universe? If the future isn’t written, how is it we can predict it? If the stars guide us, what guides the stars?

There are no cars on the ground, so there are no streets, just one large, lavender landing pad in the center of the city for intraplanetary flying vehicles. All around the pad are millions of narrow pathways that wind in curving patterns through the city’s jumble of buildings, storefronts, and curiosities. I can’t discern a design in the pathways—it seems they just meander through downtown, at times abruptly ending at various destinations, though some seem more direct than others.

“Depends if you’re walking or wandering,” says Nishi, observing me observe her city. “When we’re in a wandering mood, we take a more
roundabout path; but when we have a target, we’ll take the quickest route to our destination.”

I nod as I scour all the activity blooming around me. Metallic-bodied androids bustle alongside dark-haired Sagittarians in the crowds, and though I don’t see any names on the piles of pathways, everyone seems to know where they’re going. High above us is a different picture altogether.

Rows of traffic ripple the sky as vehicles imported from all over the Zodiac and spanning every time period stop at holographic traffic lights, waiting. Whenever a green light blinks on, the next vehicle shoots off. They fly so fast they vanish from view almost immediately. Sagittarians may sometimes wander on the ground, but in the air they’re like arrows: When they pick a mark, they hit it.

Nishi and Deke lead us down one of the wider pathways, past a display of decorative centaur sculptures and shops with names like Robotic Reset (a spa for androids), Startastic Tastings (a market with foreign foods from across the galaxy), and Absolutely Abyssthe (the Sagittarian economy is export-based, and Abyssthe makes up 95 percent of the exports).

Every few minutes, we come across another overstuffed souvenir station—tents filled with strange trinkets and gadgets that span everything from antiquated technologies to innovative inventions. Nishi told me Sagittarians like to collect tokens from their travels and often donate them to their city to share their curiosities with their neighbors. But today’s wanderers are hurrying up and down the street with purpose, too preoccupied to pay the stations any attention. The mood is as grim as the leaden sky.

Our pathway weaves around a triangular hotel and past an arrow-shaped archery supply store. Holographic graffiti covers the structures’ surfaces, and my gaze darts in every direction to take it all in. I think I glimpse a girl’s face drawn onto the archery store’s wall, but when I look back we’ve already turned the corner. I’m probably just seeing things, but she looked just like me.

“With everyone trying to leave the planet, we didn’t dare fly here in Dad’s
Icarus
,” Nishi explains, gesturing to the clogged airways above us.

“So how’d you get here?” I ask as we pass an ancient cannon, behind which a line of Sagittarians has gathered. Nishi stops walking, and we all turn to watch a girl wearing a helmet and protective gear step inside the cannon.

A moment later, fire flames out from the cannon’s backside, and I gasp as the girl rockets out—hugging her knees tight like a ball—and disappears into the far-off horizon.

Deke looks at me. “It’s really not as bad as—”

“Oh, don’t
even
!” I snap, shaking my head. “There is
no
way
I’m doing that!”

“Come on, Rho,” pleads Aryll. He seems to be teeming with excitement at the concept of being launched through the air like a missile. “It looks fun!”

I point to his injured hand. “If being maimed once again is your idea of a good time.” Despite my panic, I’m relieved to see Aryll looking less sad. As I watch him in this new world, I realize for the first time how little he liked Capricorn.

“Rho, you don’t have a choice,” says Nishi, shoving me in line. “It’s the only way to get home, and we need to go. People are waiting on us.”

My panic intensifies, and I feel a line of sweat forming on my forehead. I don’t say anything because she’s right, but every cell in my body is urging me to run. This is the riskiest thing I’ve ever done—and I’ve done some deadly things, especially lately.

“Sweetzer Suburb,” says Nishi to the cannon’s operator when it’s our turn. She faces me. “You should go first—just get it over with.” My mouth is too dry to form words. “Tuck everything in,” she says, helping me into protective gear, “and roll up tight.”

She snaps on my helmet, and then a tall Sagittarian ushers me
through a side door into the cannon. I tuck myself in tightly, like Nishi said, my heart bashing so violently against my rib cage that my pulse seems to echo through the chamber. Then, before I can dread it for one more second, a blast of force thrusts me through the air, and the whole world looks like the stars at hyperspeed: threads of light and a blur of textures.

I grip my knees tightly and dig my chin in, like a crab in its shell. The wind whips against the exposed skin of my neck, and my whole body aches from the strain of being so clamped up. The flight seems to last forever, and then I start to feel a falling sensation that builds until there’s a tickle in my stomach that won’t go away.

I land in a vast meadow, on a lavender bed of the most comfortable, foam-soft material I’ve ever felt. I’m helped to my feet by another tall Sagittarian, and as I’m handing him the protective gear, Aryll lands in the lavender, looking delighted, followed by Nishi and Deke.

“Wasn’t so bad, right, Rho Rho?” asks Deke, giving my arm a squeeze.

My joints are still sore from crushing everything to my chest, and my neck spasms with pain each time I move it. “Never . . . again.” My knees wobble as I speak the words.

“We’re close,” says Nishi encouragingly, and we follow a pathway far less crowded than the main route through downtown, into what looks like a residential area. On either side of us are single- and multi-family homes, each structure so strikingly different from the next in color and shape and design that the effect is dizzying.

Some homes are painted with polka dots, some with stripes; some change color depending on where you stand. Some flash films from their windows, some have chimneys branching from chimneys, and some have see-through walls. Some are built underground, some wear their staircases on the outside like exoskeletons, and some are so skinny they become almost invisible when looked at from certain angles.

After a while, we turn a corner and enter a quiet area surrounded by a sky-high hedge. We can’t see what’s on the other side, but the sight of so much gentle green soothes my eyes. I’m about to ask how much farther when Nishi turns and then vanishes into the hedge.

“It’s a hologram,” says Deke, following Nishi through.

Aryll and I inspect the greenery. The leaves look real, smell real, even feel real . . . until I touch the spot where Nishi and Deke disappeared, and my hand goes right through the green. It’s a small holographic doorway hidden within the hedge. I step through it to the other side and find myself standing before a sprawling palatial estate.

Aryll’s mouth hangs open, and I look at Nishi in awe. “That’s
home
?”

She shrugs. “I hated this place growing up,” she admits, a gust of wind tossing her hair back as she stares up at her palace. “My parents were always traveling for work, and I don’t have any siblings, so to me it seemed the embodiment of loneliness.” She looks at me with sadness glinting in her amber eyes. “The Academy was my home, Rho.”

Deke and Aryll awkwardly amble away as she and I pull each other in for another hug. I don’t think I fully appreciated until now that when Ophiuchus destroyed Cancer, Nishi lost part of her home, too.

Nishi lets us into the mansion, which is just as majestic on the inside: It’s vast and echoing and glossy, and it seems to have an endless supply of kitchens and bedrooms and bathrooms and common rooms and reading rooms and White Rooms and more. White Rooms are traditional in Sagittarian homes—completely and literally white and empty of everything, they’re places where Sagittarians can go when their thoughts or surroundings grow too loud. The starkness helps them Center.