Dark Beyond the Stars Read online

  The sectilian ship designers had believed that the yoke should be deeply hidden. They alleged that the Kubodera, though an extremely intelligent people, could often be headstrong and arrogant, so they imposed restraints, checks, and balances upon the navigators to keep the sectilian population of the ship safe. Mutiny would not be tolerated in the fleet. The designers were well aware that it would be easy to transfer total control of the ship to new hands if one could convince a kuboderan to do it. Therefore they purportedly placed the yoke in a secret location for the safety and security of every individual on board.

  “Stop worrying, Pio,” Carindi said one day on the engineering deck, from deep in the bowels of yet another ship system. “I’ve got this under control. I’m going to find it any day now.” Carindi said things like this frequently.

  Ei’Pio acknowledged the thought but wouldn’t stop worrying. They had been alone together for thirteen standard years. The star had recently begun burning the oxygen layer. Less than half a standard sectilian year remained. Ei’Pio knew the teenager might find the circuits that controlled the yoke, but iad also might not. The yoke could be disguised as something Carindi would never recognize. The designers had been too clever.

  “I may have to break through the yoke myself,” Ei’Pio said softly. If she couldn’t work around it, she would have to force her way through it. She wouldn’t do it if it was just her, but she would for Carindi. She had been trying for so long, but the pain was great and she was a coward.

  “No! Promise me you won’t even try, Pio! I will find it.”

  “The rumors may not be true, little one. Perhaps they were started to keep us complacent.”

  They were true. She knew they were. A kuboderan who attempted to defeat the yoke would be driven mad from the pain as punishment for that crime. It kept the navigators in their place very effectively.

  Over a monitor, Ei’Pio watched Carindi pulling herself out of a gap in the deck plating. The child’s voice was stiff with anger. “You can’t lie to me anymore, Pio. I can see right through it. I know the rumors are true and I won’t let you risk it. What good would you be to me mad? I’d rather die than watch you do that to yourself. It nearly killed you to watch the sectilians die. What do you think it will do to me to watch you go insane?”

  Ei’Pio didn’t know what to say. The thought that she might become unreachable if she accomplished her goal—that she might leave the child alone—chilled her. Carindi needed her.

  But what other course was there for her?

  Carindi continued. “My people were wrong to shackle you this way—like some kind of pack animal. You aren’t a suesupus! You’re a person. When we get to Sectilius I will demand that this form of slavery be abolished. By the Cunabula, I will make them listen to me.”

  Ei’Pio was silent. Carindi flared with the passion of youth and spoke uncomfortable truths. But it had always been this way, and change would not come easily to Sectilius.

  Ei’Pio did not mention it again, but she still pushed herself to attempt to punch through the yoke and its realm of pain when Carindi slept.

  * * *

  Ei’Pio woke from a brief doze knowing instantly that something was wrong. Carindi’s signature was faint. She jetted to the other end of the ship, seeking, triangulating, calling out ius name.

  The child was on the other side of the escutcheon—outside the ship. Ei’Pio’s limbs thrashed in agitation as she cycled through camera transmissions until she finally located ium indulging in an untethered spacewalk. A compartment on the outside of the ship was open, and the teenager was shoulder deep in a propulsion nacelle.

  Ei’Pio throttled the klaxon control so that it transmitted a warning at full volume into Carindi’s helmet. She watched with a small amount of parental satisfaction as the child jerked in response. The tiny figure stood up on the hull and waved, then deliberately punched the button on the shoulder of the power armor to silence the alarm and went back to work.

  Ei’Pio ground her beak with worry, her suction cups kneading anything that happened to be nearby, until the child was safely back inside the ship. As soon as Carindi cleared the dampening field of the escutcheon, Ei’Pio launched into an outraged lecture about safety protocols and safe radiation exposure levels—which the child had nearly exceeded.

  When Ei’Pio noted Carindi’s dispirited mental state, she went silent.

  The child said nothing.

  Ei’Pio accessed a corridor camera and watched the child walk slowly for a few feet and then slump to the floor. Iad was sobbing.

  Ei’Pio dove deep into the child’s mind with intent to soothe, but Carindi pushed her right back out. Ei’Pio would have to wait. There was nothing else to do when the adolescent got so worked up.

  It hurt to watch ium go through this. She had never cared more deeply about another person’s well-being than she did for Carindi’s. This child belonged to her, was her soul-child. She wanted to spare ium any pain.

  “I thought I had it. I was so sure,” Carindi finally said.

  Ei’Pio didn’t have to ask what the child was talking about.

  “There is time, Carindi.”

  Iad didn’t reply. The silence between them was dark and sullen.

  Ei’Pio hummed to ium as she knew sectilian mothers did to reassure their children.

  “Stop it! I’m not a baby. I know what you’ve been doing when I’m sleeping. I can feel the echoes of your pain. It’s killing you. You have to stop. You’re driving both of us crazy. Don’t try to do it anymore, Pio.”

  Ei’Pio was contrite. “I won’t. Rest now.”

  Of course Carindi knew it was a lie. Iad cried and fretted and raged for hours, finally collapsing of exhaustion where iad was.

  But Ei’Pio didn’t dare stop. Once she was certain Carindi was deeply asleep, she thrashed against the yoke until pain made it impossible to breathe, until her mind was virtually shredded.

  There wasn’t time anymore.

  The oxygen reserve inside the star was nearly depleted.

  * * *

  On the day the star began to fuse silicon, Carindi leaned against the smooth curve of Ei’Pio’s enclosure, arms and legs outstretched, as though it were possible to reach through the glass to embrace Ei’Pio and keep her safe.

  There were less than two standard days left.

  The child hadn’t slept for days, having figured out long before how to order the suit to inject stimulants into ius body. Iad was determined to watch Ei’Pio and keep her from trying to break through the yoke.

  “Do you wish you’d had the opportunity to mate?” Carindi asked after a long silence.

  It was a painful question and one that Ei’Pio privately contemplated frequently. If she could have raised her own children as she’d raised Carindi…

  She sighed. “No. It is a tremendous expenditure, and unlike sectilian mothers, I would not be able to watch my children grow.”

  “If you could, though, here? We could keep them all safe, here, inside. We would keep you alive as you’ve kept me alive. I would make a door so I could come inside the enclosure and help you care for them.”

  Such a tantalizing fantasy.

  Carindi went on. “We could raise them together, you and I. Show me again, the day of your birth. Please, Pio. I want to imagine your babies.”

  Ei’Pio’s mantle throbbed unsteadily. It had become easier to daydream than to focus on the awful present. She showed the child again.

  Afterward, she thought perhaps the child had fallen into a light sleep. She prepared herself to break the yoke. This time it would work, no matter the cost. She would not allow Carindi to die in the supernova.

  But then the child spoke again. “I’m not sure what gender I was meant to be, genetically, but I want to be a girl like you.”

  Ei’Pio pressed her suction cups to the glass as though to caress the young face. It was Carindi’s first declaration of gender preference. In Ei’Pio’s eyes that made her an adult. Ei’Pio could now let go of the gen
der neutrality she’d carefully maintained, like all sectilian adults did, in order not to bias a child’s preferences.

  “You are a woman, my dear Carindi.”

  Carindi’s brows pulled together. “I used to think that perhaps it would have been better if I’d died in the plague.”

  Ei’Pio said softly, “I remember.”

  “I want you to know that I’m glad I didn’t. I’m glad I was able to keep you company, Pio.”

  Ei’Pio held the girl’s earnest expression. “I know.” After a moment passed, she continued. “This time has been a great gift.”

  “Borrowed time,” Carindi murmured. Suddenly the girl broke the tension with a grin. “I want to swim with you, Pio.”

  Ei’Pio’s limbs twitched with fatigue and the lingering pain she couldn’t seem to shed. “You’ve never swum before.”

  “There must always be a first time,” Carindi said with a smirk, mimicking Ei’Pio’s mental voice.

  “So I’ve said to you many times, my dear girl. How will you deal with the problem of access?”

  “I’ll just cut a hole at one end of your enclosure. Just enough to fit through. The ship will flood, but what difference does it make now?” Even through the suit, Ei’Pio could see the girl shrug.

  Ei’Pio sighed. “It doesn’t.”

  “It’s settled then. I’ll go fetch a laser cutting arc and cut through on Deck 1-C. You stay here where you’re safe.”

  “I will,” she promised.

  The young woman walked away, footsteps slow and shuffling, the shoulders of the suit hunched. Just as Carindi was about to stride out of sight, Ei’Pio saw the girl halt and heard Carindi’s mental voice muttering, “Swimming, cutting… access, draining. Wait a minute. Wait… a… minute. Praise the Cunabula!”

  The girl was running.

  She bounded to the nearest deck transport and slammed into the control, cracking the plastic the symbol was made from. She was breathing so hard she was nearly hyperventilating. “Don’t get your hopes up, Pio. We’ve been disappointed before, but I’ve got an idea!” Her mental voice was euphoric.

  Ei’Pio followed Carindi, inside and outside of her mind. Through cameras as well as the girl’s eyes, she watched the teenager bounding from place to place on the engineering deck, gathering tools.

  The girl’s momentum never stopped. Her energy had been renewed. She opened one of many engineering bays and slid the mechanicals out as far as they would go, then stuck an arm in behind them, up to her shoulder. She began to wiggle and push, grunting and straining.

  Ei’Pio asked her repeatedly for more information but was met with silence. Carindi’s attention was focused elsewhere.

  Abruptly, the girl raged, “I cannot believe this. What if all the engineers on the ship had sectilian body types and there were no atellan engineers aboard? Then what would they do if they needed to get in there?”

  “Get in where?” Ei’Pio begged.

  “I’ve found it, damn them,” Carindi spat. “The control panel for the yoke. But I can’t fit in there with the suit. Only an exceedingly thin atellan could fit.”

  The young woman paced up and down that small section of the engineering compartment. Ei’Pio could feel her mind buzzing with conflicting thoughts and ideas. It was impossible to keep up. The girl was forming a conclusion, but keeping Ei’Pio at the surface of her thoughts so she couldn’t see what it was.

  Ei’Pio began to feel an overwhelming sense of dread. “Slow down, Carindi. Let’s work through this. We’ll do it together. There has to be a way.”

  “I can’t slow down, Pio. You know I can’t.”

  Ei’Pio commanded the camera she’d accessed to zoom in on the girl. She watched Carindi pace and flail her arms around. She searched for something reassuring to say.

  The girl stopped her pacing.

  “I always knew this day would come,” Carindi said softly. Her voice was unsteady. Then she sounded more certain. “Helmet retract.”

  Ei’Pio contracted into a ball, crying, “No, Carindi!”

  But it was too late.

  The helmet was slipping back into the shoulders of the suit, revealing a mass of matted hair curling around Carindi’s head and neck. The skin on the girl’s face was so pale as to be nearly translucent, stretched tight over the bony prominences of her cheeks. Her eyes were large and brown and luminous.

  Carindi smiled at the camera through which, she knew, Ei’Pio was watching. “I’ll be fine. It’s just a few minutes. I’ll put it right back on.”

  Ei’Pio watched in horror as the front of the suit split open and fell away from the skeletal shoulders of a teenaged girl who was only three quarters of the size she should have been, had she been free to eat, exercise, and grow normally.

  Carindi stepped out of the suit and staggered, falling to her knees, catching herself with her hands on the mechanicals. She stifled a cry of pain, then said, “I don’t seem to have much in the way of muscle mass.”

  Ei’Pio quickly moved to adjust the gravity to something Carindi could tolerate, all the while begging the child to put the suit back on immediately.

  Her pleas were ignored.

  Carindi pushed her tools into the tiny crevice and eased herself in after them. The camera picked up the sounds of power tools, clattering metal and plastic, and the girl’s grunts of effort, but all Ei’Pio could see were two impossibly fragile alabaster legs sticking out into the room. Carindi’s thoughts were doggedly full of electronics—circuits, relays, networks, and arrays.

  “This. Is it. I’ve done it!” Carindi crowed. “Move the ship, Pio, with my blessing.”

  “First the suit,” Ei’Pio insisted.

  Carindi’s mental voice ground hard. “Move it. I want to feel it move. Now.”

  “You won’t feel anything. Inertial dampening fields—”

  “Now, Pio,” the girl commanded.

  But Ei’Pio was motionless. She couldn’t take her eyes from her girl.

  Carindi eased out of the tiny compartment and slumped against the housing. Streaks of dark blood ran down from her narrow nose over her pale grey lips. Her eyes were bloodshot and brimming with tears. She coughed weakly.

  “Carindi, my dear one… please.” She couldn’t say more. Her mind had turned to black static. Her limbs were cold and numb.

  The girl struggled toward the disarticulated suit on hands and knees. When she reached it, she sprawled forward against it, panting. She leaned her head against the suit and turned her face to the camera, chin tucked low. “I was never meant to live, but you were, Pio. You are my dear subidia, my surrogate mother. I want you to live free.”

  Ei’Pio’s limbs shook violently with emotion. She whispered, “What am I without you?”

  “You are free. Free… to find your own way.”

  Those were the last thoughts of the girl, Machinutorus Carindi Palset Teruvah.

  Her beloved Pio was alone again.

  Q&A with Jennifer Foehner Wells

  Where did this story come from? How does it relate to other books you've written?

  This story is set in the universe I created for my first novel, Fluency. I was keen to tell more stories in that universe and I found myself thinking about all the kuboderan officers I’d left stranded throughout the galaxy in that story. I wondered how I could write another story about one of them that would be very different from Ei’Brai’s story.

  The primary way I could make it different would be to have another survivor share the kuboderan’s experience. But I’d made it quite clear in Fluency that it was nearly impossible to survive that plague.

  I had cycled through several options when suddenly the sectilian battle armor popped into my head. What if someone had gotten into a suit just as the plague hit? Then my mind made another leap—what if that person was a child, placed there by a parent to protect him or her? Further, what if the story wasn’t about just any random kuboderan—what if it was the backstory of a character I was already writing about in Remanence (th
e sequel to Fluency)? The synergy started to work, and the story was fleshed out in no time.

  What was the most difficult goal you set for yourself in this story?

  I knew from my work on Remanence that sectilian children were considered genderless until puberty, whereupon they would choose the gender they preferred, regardless of their congenital gender.

  Prior to that rite of passage, they would be referred to with gender-neutral pronouns so that all children would have equal opportunity to develop into the person they were meant to be without undue cultural bias.

  The problem was whether or not to actually use such pronouns in the text. I wrote the first few drafts, carefully crafting each sentence without gendered pronouns. That made the text repetitive and awkward in places. I talked extensively with writing friends. We discussed the tradition in Science Fiction of using non-gendered pronouns, and I studied web pages devoted to the topic, originating from the LGBTQ community.

  My beta readers and personal editors (Thank you Wendy, Brandon, and Jeff!) urged me to go for it, so after studying Latin pronouns a great deal (Latin pronoun declension! OMG!), I created my own very simple set of pronouns to be used in my universe.

  In case you’re just as much of a word nerd as I am, here are the sectilian genderless pronouns along with ther pronunciations, parts of speech, and English counterparts:

  Iad (“eeyad”) = subject (e.g. he/she)

  Ium (“eeyoom”) = object (e.g. him/her)

  Ius (“eeyoos”) = possessive determiner (e.g. his/her)

  Ilius (“eel-yoos”) = possessive pronoun (e.g. his/hers)

  Iuse (“eeyoo-say”) = reflexive pronoun (e.g. himself/herself)

  How can readers find you?

  My website is www.jenthulhu.com and I’m active on Twitter: @jenthulhu

  Works in progress?

  I’m currently working on the sequel to Fluency: Remanence.

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