Every Saturday I post a chapter or two of my young adult science fiction novel Star Song. Coming in in the middle? The whole thing starts here with Chapter 1 and an explanation.
Enjoy!
Star Song
By Edward Willett
Chapter 20
That night Kriss took up the touchlyre for the first time since leaving Farr’s World.
He uncovered the instrument and let it float freely, slowly spinning, in the centre of his cabin, watching the light play across each surface, glowing in the polished wood, shining on the burnished copper, glittering off each silver string. Finally, hesitantly, he gathered it in and touched the copper plates, tensing, ready to fling it away if those immaterial fingers reached into his mind again and tried to turn his anger at Rigel into a weapon. He wanted—needed—to play it, but whatever Rigel did to him, he would not allow the touchlyre to hurt him, or anyone else in the Family. He had felt no threat of that when he had played for Tevera just before leaving Farr’s World—and the memory of that warmed him even as he thought of it—but his feelings then had been considerably more benevolent than they were now.
He felt the touchlyre in his mind, as always since his grief at Mella’s death had broken whatever barrier had kept it out in the years before that, but it was firmly under his control. It still built its music from his thoughts and emotions, but this time he was able to choose which thoughts and emotions it would draw on; and rather than feed it his anger at Rigel, he gave it his memories of Mella and his childhood home, and for an hour or two lost himself in his past. When at last he set the touchlyre aside, he felt better: better about himself, and better about the touchlyre. It’s changed, he thought. I can control it now. He wrapped it securely again, and as he did so the thought crossed his mind that maybe the changes weren’t in the touchlyre at all, but in himself.
The change in Rigel, at least, seemed permanent. The next morning, and every day thereafter, he treated Kriss with absolute regulation courtesy, cold and impersonal as a computer. To be sure, he corrected even the slightest deviation from Family Rule that Kriss committed, but as the days passed he found less and less to correct, and Kriss settled, if not comfortably at least obediently, into the tightly woven net of regulations in which members of the Family lived their lives aboard ship. But as the weeks passed, he thought more and more about getting off the ship and exploring a bit of a new world, without having to worry about who to salute or which side of the corridor to travel or how much water he could use in his shower or the proper way to scrub Type 47 residential-area decking or the correct procedure for acid-scouring the auxiliary life support bionetic filtering system…
It didn’t help that he saw Tevera only rarely. Their personal watch schedules never seemed to coincide, so that she was always free when he was on duty, or asleep when he was free. Tevera assured him, during one of their rare meetings in the rec area, that Rigel had nothing to do with setting watch schedules, but that didn’t make him feel much better. What if the Captain herself were trying to keep them apart? She might have officially accepted him, but she might still very well feel, beneath her regulation exterior, that “once a worldhugger, always a worldhugger,” and no worldhugger was good enough for her great-granddaughter.
That fear he didn’t even mention to Tevera; even though she’d stood up to Nicora for him on Farr’s World, he’d discovered since that she responded to any criticism of the Captain, however slight or oblique, by changing the subject and growing remarkably cool to him for minutes or even hours.
Six weeks out from Farr’s World, and still two weeks from their first planetfall, all non-essential watches were suspended for one day to allow everyone to celebrate the Captain’s birthday. The livestock hold that Kriss had come to know so well in the first days of the journey was decorated in the colorful gossamer veils the Captain liked and the entire ship’s company crowded into it for several hours of feasting, music and dancing, which took on a breathtaking dimension in zero-G. Kriss allowed Tevera to pull him out into the middle of the dance globe but his best efforts to mimic the graceful moves of the others only succeeded in setting him spinning, which threatened to result in a repeat of what had happened inside the spacesuit, so he quickly retired to a secure handgrip and contented himself with watching Tevera.
When the music ended she arrowed over to him, face aglow and eyes sparkling. “They’re starting the talent show in about ten minutes,” she told him breathlessly. “You should play.”
“The touchlyre?”
Tevera laughed. “What else?”
“But—”
“No buts. I’ll go tell Cousin Thellis. She’s the emcee.” Without giving Kriss another chance to protest, Tevera leaped away.
It will be just like playing in Andru’s, Kriss told himself as he headed to his cabin. A lot of them even heard me play there. There’s nothing to worry about. And I’ve played for Tevera since Salazar, and in my cabin…I’ve got control, now. There’s nothing to worry about…
But even that first night in Andru’s his hands hadn’t shaken like they did when Thellis called his name half an hour later and he made his way to the performance space, aware of how clumsy he must still appear in zero-G to all these offworlders—
He caught himself. They weren’t “offworlders” any more than he was a “worldhugger.” They were Family—his Family. Andru had made them so.
But some children giggled as he carefully maneuvered himself into position, and whispers ran around the room, and just as had happened in Andru’s that first time, when he put his hands on the copper plates the first sound the touchlyre made was a harsh, unmusical squawk. Someone laughed unpleasantly. Kriss closed his eyes, shutting out the encircling Family. It’s just like Andru’s, he told himself again, and took that as his starting point.
He called on the memories and emotions he wanted to share, and felt the touchlyre take hold of them and turn them into its unique mixture of music and empathy. He played of Andru, and the way he had felt when Andru made his sacrifice; he played of those first glorious moments of lift-off, when he looked back and saw Farr’s World receding behind him; he played of the struggles he had had fitting into the Family Andru had given him, of his loneliness and uncertainty; and he played of Tevera…and there he ended, because he opened his eyes and saw her face, and the feelings that welled up in him then were for the two of them alone.
Silence met the ending of his music; silence that stretched out for thirty seconds, almost a minute—and then erupted with applause. He looked from face to face, many of which he still could not put a name to, and for the first time sensed no barriers between them and him, no “offworlder-worldhugger” distinctions. He felt their acceptance, and when Tevera came arrowing out of the crowd and hugged him exuberantly, sending them both twirling end-over-end, the Family members only laughed and applauded more. Even the Captain, watching from her place of honor at the exact center of the hold, smiled and nodded, and Kriss felt guilty for having suspected her of deliberately trying to keep him and Tevera apart.
But beyond Nicora, in the semi-darkness near the hatch, he saw Rigel watching, expressionless, his eyes coldly reflecting the light that was focused on Kriss.
Two weeks later they made planetfall on a world called Fortune, in the capital city of Try-Your-Luck, where they were to discharge the fuzzychips Kriss had helped inspect in the NLS hold and pick up a cargo of holographic slot machines for delivery to an out-of-the-way planet trying to boost tourism by promoting gambling.
Such a strategy seemed to have worked on Try-Your-Luck, Kriss reflected as he read up on the planet shortly after they landed. Aside from near-Earth atmosphere and gravity—gravity he found surprisingly difficult to get used to, after six weeks in space; he’d already dropped a half-dozen things from absent-mindedly letting them go and thinking they’d float where he’d left them—the planet Fortune had even less going for it than Farr’s World. But it was within a week’s travel of some of the most heavily populated worlds in the Commonwealth, and had made a fairly infamous name for itself as a pleasure planet.
Kriss couldn’t wait to get off the ship and test that reputation for himself. His first new world—and this time he would walk the streets as an offworlder, wearing his Family crewsuit proudly, one of the select few who called the whole galaxy their home. He planned to take the touchlyre with him and find a place to play. If he could do as well as he had in Andru’s, with a clientele drawn from only a couple of ships, he figured he should be able to really rake in the feds on a planet like Fortune, where novelty was king and no one would ever have seen anything like a boy from a Family ship playing an instrument like the touchlyre.
He checked the time, killed the reader, and headed for the elevator. His watch’s twenty-four-hour shore leave was about to officially begin…and in eight hours, Tevera’s watch would begin its shore leave, which meant they’d have sixteen hours to spend together off the Thaylia and out of sight of brothers, cousins, second cousins, uncles, aunts-in-law…well, he reminded himself wryly, you wished you had a family. This’ll teach you to be careful what to wish for!
When he reached the exit hatch, Rigel was waiting, checking out the members of his watch. Kriss joined the line of a half-dozen men and women. “Looking forward to your first new planet?” the man in front of him asked as he stepped into place.
“It’s a dream come true, Philix.”
Philix laughed. “Well, brace yourself for a culture shock. You can end up lying in a back alley stark naked, flat broke and drunker than a wobblewing inside an hour and never know how it happened. Believe me, I know!”
“I’ll be careful,” Kriss promised. “No drinking, no gambling, and no—”
Philix looked dismayed. “Hey, I didn’t say you couldn’t have any fun!”
“You’re up, Philix,” Rigel said. He handed Philix his pass. “And please don’t make me have to carry you back to the ship this time. You’ve put on weight.”
“I promise to remain ambulatory, sir!” Philix said, and saluted smartly before adding, “And anyway, that made up for the time before last when I had to carry you!”
Rigel laughed. “Get going.”
Kriss, grinning at the exchange, stepped forward—and Rigel’s smile disappeared. “Yes, crewman?”
“Ready for shoreleave, sir!”
Rigel shook his head. “I’m afraid not, crewman.”
Kriss stared at him. “What?”
“You are not authorized for shoreleave.”
“But I’m in this watch—”
“You are not authorized for shoreleave,” Rigel repeated. “Return to your quarters.”
Kriss couldn’t believe it. “You can’t deny me shoreleave just because—”
“You’re approaching insubordination, crewman.”
“With respect, sir,” Kriss said, in a voice that had no respect in it at all, “I request to know why I am being denied shoreleave.”
“I am not required to give you reasons for my orders,” Rigel said coldly. “If you will refer to the Family Rule, you will discover that it is my prerogative to withhold shoreleave from anyone in my watch. That is all you need to know. Return to your quarters.”
“Sir—”
“Return to your quarters, crewman!”
Kriss glared at Rigel, then spun and pushed past the two women who had come into the exit lock behind him. Once in the elevator, he banged his fist against the wall. Oh, Rigel was within his rights, no doubt about it—and he knew exactly how to use those rights to get at Kriss.
Kriss stopped the elevator short of his deck. “I won’t let him get away with it,” he muttered. He punched new orders into the elevator’s controls, and sank swiftly downward again, this time emerging in the cargo section. The two men working in the NLS hold, loading the fuzzychips onto the big cargo elevator, greeted him amiably as he joined them for the ride to the base of the ship and took at face value his explanation that he just wanted to see first-hand the process of unloading cargo. “All part of learning how the Family works,” he said, and as a result had to endure a twenty-minute explanation of the finer points of cargo handling before escaping onto the huge Try-Your-Luck landing field.
“Enjoy yourself!” one of the cargo-handlers called after him.
“I intend to!” Kriss yelled back, and with a final wave, set out toward the beckoning towers of the city.
#
Chapter 22
Kriss sat in the dim, blue-lit bar and played; played of the magic and mystery of the endless Void, of the far-flung stars burning within it, and of the fragile vessels that sailed its infinite reaches; played the essence of his childhood dreams, and the reality he had come to know—and when the last note faded, no one moved for a long time.
Kriss cradled the touchlyre in his arms and looked out at the small crowd of Union spacers until at last they burst into table-thumping applause. Finding a place to play in Try-Your-Luck had been harder than he’d expected, but in the silence, knowing he had touched his audience deeply, he realized he already had more reward than however many feds came his way. He glanced at the dour, thin-faced barkeep, who had been dubious about allowing a strange Family youth to try to entertain his hardened clientele, and the man nodded his approval.
But then Kriss looked the other way, toward the door, and saw Tevera sitting alone at a table, not looking at him, and suddenly he felt guilty. Every minute he spent in Try-Your-Luck without a pass he dug himself deeper and deeper into a hole on board the Thaylia. He’d hoped Tevera, when she came out of the spaceport for her own shoreleave, wouldn’t know that he had left without a pass, but in the eight hours between when he’d emerged and she did, his absence had been discovered. She’d tried to convince him to go back right away, but he wouldn’t give Rigel the satisfaction. “I’ve got twenty-four hours coming to me and I’m going to take them,” he told her. “I’m going to enjoy myself with you and Rigel can go eat vacuum, for all I care.”
“It wasn’t Rigel’s idea,” she said. “It was on order from the Captain. They’re worried that Vorlick could still be after you. His ship was faster, he could be here somewhere waiting…”
“Did Rigel tell you that?”
She nodded reluctantly.
Kriss snorted. “I don’t believe it, then. It’s just an excuse. He wants to spoil our shoreleave together, and now that he knows I’ve escaped he’s trying to spoil it through you. Well, it won’t work!”
Except, of course, it had; he hadn’t been able to fully enjoy his time with Tevera, not with the specter of what would happen on his return to the ship hovering around them. He’d managed to put it out of his mind while he played, but now…
He jumped up from the hard plastic stool and strode through the metal tables to the barkeep, who willingly paid the hundred feds Kriss had asked for “on approval.” But then he had to face Tevera.
“Feel better?” she said sardonically as he came up to her.
He began wrapping the touchlyre in its white leather. “Everyone else gets shoreleave when we make planetfall. Why should I stay locked up like a prisoner?”
“Everyone else doesn’t have Vorlick out to kill them.”
Kriss jerked the leather wrapping’s thongs tight, and shoved the touchlyre into the pack he’d brought from the ship. “I haven’t seen any assassins.” He slammed out through the swinging glass doors.
Though it was nearly midnight, the street was bright as noon in the glare of the garish light-signs of the bars, nightclubs, gaming halls and other spacer traps that lined it. Kriss walked toward the spaceport, thrusting his arms through the straps of the backpack and settling it on his back with a vicious tug. Tevera had to almost run to match his long, angry strides, but he hardly noticed. “What can he do to me, anyway?” He had to shout to be heard above the roar of the traffic and the competing music from the bars. “Confine me to the ship? He already has!”
“Only to port—and not even there, not indefinitely! With a proper escort, you could have—”
“An escort. Bodyguards!” Kriss shoved his hands into the pockets of his crewsuit and walked even faster. “I thought once I got off Farr’s World I’d be free. Instead I have rules and orders and regulations wrapped around me like baling wire!”
Tevera grabbed his arms and jerked him to a stop, pulling him around to face her. “But you’ve got the Family—and me!”
He said nothing, and looked away.
She let go of him. “What’s wrong with you? Everything’s been so good since the Captain’s birthday—you’ve been fitting in so well. But now—”
“Fitting in? Oh, I fit in all right. Just one of the Family. Except all of a sudden I find out I’m not one of the Family. I’m more like a prisoner of the Family! And when I get back I’ll be punished for daring to try to escape.” He spun away from her and strode toward the port, yelling, “I’m sick of being told what I can and can’t do every minute of the day!”
“You’re Family now!” she shouted after him. “You have to live with Family discipline!”
“Then maybe I was better off alone!” He took half a dozen more steps before he realized she was no longer following him.
He glanced back to see her leaning against a building, her back to him. Remorse hit him like a punch to the stomach, and he hurried back to her. “Tevera…” Tentatively he touched her shoulder, but she jerked away.
He spread his hands helplessly. “You know I didn’t really mean that, Tevera. It’s just that…” He groped for words. “Sometimes I feel like…like I’m in a cage, a cage of rules and orders and yessirs and no ma’ams, and I’ve got to break some of the bars just so I can breathe. I had my hopes set on this planetfall, on shoreleave, and then Rigel…”
Silence.
“Tevera?”
Still no reply.
Shoulders sagging, Kriss turned away. “Come on. We’ve got to get back.” He moved away a couple of steps, heard Tevera start to follow, and walked on without looking around.
As they neared the spaceport the clubs and bars petered out into quiet, dark warehouses and widely spaced streetlights. “Wait, Kriss,” Tevera finally said. He stopped without turning around, and heard her move up close behind him; then, with a gentle hand on his arm, she made him face her. “I understand,” she said softly. “Sometimes I feel the same way. But you have to realize the Family is more than just a group of relatives. It’s also the crew of a starship. We have to have rigid discipline—it could save all our lives someday.”
Kriss started to speak, but she hushed him, touching a finger to his lips. “Every time you break a regulation they bind you with two or three more. If you keep trying to break free so you can ‘breathe,’ you’ll end up suffocating—or you really will break free and lose the Family.”
He pulled her hand from his mouth and clasped it. “And you?”
She shook her head. “No. Never. I said on Farr’s World I’d choose you over the Family, and I meant it. But it doesn’t have to come to that, Kriss!”
He pulled her slim body to him. “It won’t,” he said. Her short-cropped hair was soft against his cheek, and smelled as sweet as fresh-mown hay. “I promise.”
An hour later Kriss sat glumly in his tiny cabin on board the Thaylia. It could have been worse, he reflected; Yverras, the officer on duty when he returned, could have locked him in his cabin instead of just re-confirming his confinement to port, assigning him disciplinary work-duty for the remainder of their stay on Fortune—and, worst of all, declaring Tevera off-limits until they were once more in space.
Rigel had told her the truth, he’d learned; the order to refuse him a solo shoreleave pass had come from the Captain. He would have had his chance, under guard, as Tevera had said—but instead he’d acted hastily, out of his anger at Rigel.
He suspected Rigel had hoped he’d react in exactly that way.
During the next few days he did his best to be a model crewman, performing his duties promptly and conscientiously, even sending a formal apology to the Captain via intraship communications, and receiving an equally formal acknowledgment.
He spent little time in his cramped cabin, preferring to wander around the port; boring compared to the temptations of Try-Your-Luck, but better than four blank walls. At least the spaceport offered a little variety. Several ships were scattered across its miles of landing field, among them two other Family ships, the Athabasca and the Coronach, both somewhat smaller than the Thaylia. Their captains had visited the Thaylia for a banquet their first night in port.
Kriss wished he could have roamed the spaceport with Tevera, but though she wasn’t with him, he gradually realized he wasn’t exactly alone.
At first he put the feeling down to imagination, but day after day he saw the same person, never very close, but not far away, either: a wiry man with a black beard, dressed in a dirty, patched crewsuit a couple of sizes too big.
Vorlick’s man, Kriss decided. Keeping an eye on me. He considered reporting it, but put the idea aside. He was under enough restrictions without adding more fuel to the “we’re-only-doing-this-for-your-own-good” fire. Let him watch me, he told himself. He won’t dare do anything.
That seemed to be true; by the end of the week, when Captain Nicora summoned Kriss, he had almost forgotten his shadow.
The summons, coming while he was being disciplined, made him uneasy. He put on his best blue crewsuit, carefully brushed his blonde hair, shorter than it had been on Farr’s World but still longer than most Family men wore theirs, and made his way to the central elevator for the journey to the Captain’s quarters. Nicora’s black-clad bodyguards gave him only cursory glances when he reached her door, then waved him inside.
The Captain stood looking out over the spaceport via a viewscreen in the wall, but she turned as he entered, her shimmering robe rippling with color. “Good morning, Crewman.”
“Good morning, ma’am.”
She sat behind her desk and motioned him to sit down opposite her, her clear green eyes piercing him. He sat, but only on the edge of his chair.
“You are confined to port, I understand,” the Captain said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You realize the original restriction on your movement was for the safety of you and the Family.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry.”
“You showed a disturbing disregard for Family discipline in this matter, Crewman. I also have reports of other breaches of Family Rule. Most of them have been minor, and I have put them down to your unfamiliarity with the Family—but this latest incident causes me to reevaluate them. I feel that you are not fully comfortable with our way of life, Crewman. I remind you of the sacrifice made so that you might be a part of this Family—the sacrifice, I might add, you played of so movingly at the celebration of my birthday. I trust we shall see improvement in the future.”
“I’ll…” try, Kriss started to say, but then thought better of it. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Very well.” She glanced at a display on her desk. “I have changed the duty roster tonight so that you are free at 2030. You will report at that time to the Coronach with your instrument. The captain of the Coronach is returning the hospitality I showed him on our first night here, and is interested in hearing you play. The Captain of the Athabasca will also be present.
Kriss’s heart beat faster. To play for three Family captains! “Yes, ma’am!”
“Dismissed.”
He stood, bowed, and strode happily back to the elevator, even smiling at the dour guards. This would be far better than playing for a few spacers in a dingy bar, or even playing for the Thaylia’s crew. This would be the kind of audience he’d only dreamed of!
He only wished Tevera could be there, too.
At 2000 he inspected himself for the third time in his cabin mirror, then made his way to the exit hatch and down the ramp to the spaceport landing field, the touchlyre tucked under his arm. The Coronach stood half a mile from the Thaylia, beyond a dark, empty portion of the field.
He hadn’t gone far when he heard someone else nearby, and suddenly remembered the man who had been watching him. Gripping the touchlyre tightly, he stopped and called, “Who’s there?” His only answer was the clatter of running footsteps—footsteps between him and the Thaylia!
He dashed toward the Coronach. His unknown pursuer shouted something after him, but he ignored it, pounding across the hard pavement. The gleaming spire of the Coronach grew nearer. I’ll make it! he though.
Then two men leaped out of the darkness ahead of him, silhouetted briefly against the brightly lit ship. One clamped a rough hand over his mouth and threw him to the ground; the other jerked the touchlyre away from him and whipped plastic cord around his ankles and wrists.
Then, taking his arms and feet, they carried him across the darkened port.