Star Wanderers: Tales of the Far Outworlds (Omnibus V-VIII) Read online

  She found Jeremahra staring at the monitor, a melancholy expression on his face. He turned and frowned at her, but when she handed him the bowl, he took it.

  Come on, she thought to herself as she knelt beside his chair. It’s good—try it. He poked at it for a while, then stirred it as if unsure whether he’d like it. Noemi bit her lip and gripped the hem of her jumpsuit as he lifted the spoon to his mouth. To her relief, his eyes lit up almost immediately, and he nodded in approval.

  “Yes!” she whispered under her breath, pumping her arm.

  Jeremahra laughed, making her look up at him in confusion. He swallowed another spoonful, then pointed to her and spoke. The meaning was beyond her, but the last word sounded very much like “star.” She cocked her head, and he pointed out the window as if to confirm this.

  “Stars,” he said.

  “Stars,” she repeated.

  His eyes lit up again, and he nodded vigorously. “Stars! Varigood.”

  “Varigood,” she repeated, imitating his voice a little clumsily. Her eyes fell on the main display screen, and she recognized the array of dots as a starmap. “What’s this called?” she asked, pointing to her home star.

  Jeremahra nodded. “Home,” he said. “Noemi home.”

  She pointed and repeated. So that’s another word we share, she thought to herself.

  The screen on the right showed a close-up of the main starmap, on a region that she didn’t recognize. She pointed to the star in the center and looked at him inquisitively.

  “Jeremahra’s home?”

  He nodded and answered yes.

  Where’s the planet with the forest? she wondered, peering forward to get a closer look. “Home?” she asked again, lightly touching the screen.

  Jeremahra stiffened a little and hit a series of commands on the main board. The starmap shifted on the central screen, zooming in to Noemi’s home star. She watched entranced as the view passed like a camera to Megiddo. After circling the planet a few times, it zoomed in on the station.

  Noemi squealed and clapped in delight. “Home!” she said as the camera panned toward a small black dot outlined by the blue cloud decks of Megiddo.

  As the station took shape, however, her expression fell. The hydroponics module on the hub was missing, as well as a number of newer towers. She frowned and pointed. “Not home,” she said aloud. That’s not the way I remember it.

  Jeremahra spoke quickly, pointing to the image. “Old?” she said, picking up the term from what he said. He nodded vigorously and repeated the word. Apparently, it meant that the database was out of date. She shrugged.

  “Jeremahra home,” she said, pointing again at the screen. He shook his head and waved his hand, but she insisted. I want to see your home now.

  With a deep breath and a few muttered words, he brought his hands back over the display. The image on the screen shifted to a yellow-orange star. Four rings marked the orbits of the system’s planets, fading into black as the camera zoomed in on the second one from center. His body tensed as it came into view: a solid yellow world shrouded in clouds and haze. The camera rushed at the surface, making Noemi gasp, but soon the image was hovering over a glass dome, just like the one from the simulator. Inside was the same thick forest.

  So this is your home, she thought to herself, leaning forward with her hands under her chin.

  “Earth?” she asked, pointing as the camera panned down to the interior. Jeremahra nodded, but his expression was wooden. Something told her she was treading on unstable ground. Still, she couldn’t stop now—not when her curiosity had only just been piqued.

  The image passed through the canopy to a footpath in between the trees. The level of detail was amazing—there must have been a great deal of feedback between the database and the simulator. If she looked closely enough, she could—

  Jeremahra stiffened. Noemi immediately sensed that something was wrong and turned to face him. For a moment, she feared that he would lash out—at her, at the computer, at anything and everything. Instead, he switched off the screen and stormed past her to the bathroom.

  Wow, Noemi thought, letting out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. That didn’t go over well.

  She rose to her feet and clenched her fists, staring out at the stars. Things couldn’t go on like this much longer. If it did, then in his mind she would be nothing but a temporary passenger to him, no matter what other connections she managed to make. Risky or not, she had to find a way to break him out of his prison of guilt—even if it meant shattering his world in the process.

  * * * * *

  That night, after Jeremahra had retired to the cockpit and shut off the lights, Noemi pulled down the dream monitor and prepared to reenter the simulation of his homeworld. This time, she switched off all the safeties on the neurological interface and ramped up the settings to their highest level of intensity. It might render her virtually comatose while she was under, but it would enable the kind of connection she needed to overcome the rogue threads of data and fundamentally rewrite the simulation. If her message was to have any hope of getting through to Jeremahra, this was the only way to do it.

  She took a deep breath and closed her eyes as the monitor hummed above her head. Her fingers tingled, and a sharp jolt shot down the back of her neck—

  —and then she was falling peacefully through a sea of infinite blackness.

  Blackness wasn’t exactly the right way to describe the way she saw it, though—it was more like a sea of intangible data, perceived entirely through intuition. Noemi ran her mind over it the way a swimmer might dip his fingers in a pool to test the water, or the way a starfarer might skim over a starmap. However, since data in its pure form lacked any physical stimulus, it appeared to her eyes as blackness.

  Gradually, though, forms began to appear and a coherent image slowly took shape. It was the forest dome of Jeremahra’s homeworld, exactly the way she’d left it. As her subconscious melded with the deeper workings of the program, the subtler details began to coalesce: the freshness of the air, the wetness of the soil, the earthy scent of the redwood pines. A deep emotional resonance filled the space around her, bringing back a cold recollection of her experience before. Longing, loneliness, and guilt—it sent chills down her back and arms, but the only way forward was to face it unshielded.

  She took a step, her small feet bare against the scratchy mulch. The leafy ferns tickled her legs while her simple white dress fluttered against her knees. There was no breeze to toss her hair, however—no sun to warm the skin of her arms and shoulders. Instead, the twilight was as thick and as dark as the echoes of the memories that infused this place—the ones that had tortured Jeremahra for so long. She had no way to erase them from his mind, but perhaps she could do something to alleviate the pain.

  No, she told herself. I’m not here to manipulate him—I’m here to send a message. But here in the dream world, where the lines between observation and imagination often blurred, it was all but impossible to rewrite the data without also impacting the users.

  He has to keep his basic mental associations with this place, she decided. If not, then anything else would just be playing with his emotions. And he has to come away from here with the ability to still say no. Otherwise, any other answer he gave her would be meaningless. How, then, was she to proceed? The only way that made any sense was to overlay the place with a world of her own creation and hope that it had the right emotional resonance.

  Right, she told herself, taking a deep breath. Let’s do this.

  She closed her eyes and stretched out her arms to either side of her. Home, she thought, conjuring up a host of familiar associations with the word. The chug of the ventilator fans, the slightly smoky taste of the half-recycled air—but no, that wouldn’t do here. She needed something more natural, something more … Earthy.

  She walked to the edge of the dome, where the forest gave way to a short, grassy meadow. It was strikingly similar to the one from her private simulation back home
—the one at the top of the mountains. She waved her hand, and the dome disappeared, giving way to the image from her memory.

  No, she thought to herself, don’t disappear entirely. The concrete foundations of the dome reappeared, this time as a dilapidated ruin marking the line between Jeremahra’s forest and her own mountain meadow. The edges of the canyon appeared, too, but this time they were covered in grass and flowers. The hazy sky parted, and a warm yellow sun peeked through the clouds while a gentle breeze toyed with her hair.

  Much better, she thought, nodding in satisfaction. Now, for the message.

  “Jeremy?” came the voice of the ghost projection. The space behind her shimmered, and the voice changed.

  “Noemi?”

  She froze where she stood and slowly glanced over her shoulder. Even though she couldn’t see the girl just yet, she knew that it wasn’t Jeremahra’s sister anymore—it was her own.

  “Marta?” she called out, turning to face the sound of the voice. A hole opened in the lines of data—an invisible eddy, merging with the projections of her own subconscious.

  The ferns at the edge of the forest parted, and Marta stepped out. Their gaze met, and time itself seemed to stop.

  “Marta?” Noemi asked. A lump rose in her throat, and the full weight of Jeremahra’s guilt pressed down on her chest like a hundred-pound weight. Not all of the guilt came from the simulator, though—some of it was her own.

  “Noemi,” Marta cried. “Noemi, why?” The word was as much an accusation as a question.

  “I’m s-sorry,” Noemi stuttered. “I’m sorry, Marta, I—”

  What was she saying? What was she apologizing for, exactly? She had to keep her mind perfectly clear, otherwise the projection would collapse and she’d never get through to Jeremahra. The guilt pressed down, threatening to overwhelm her, but she closed her eyes until the worst of it passed.

  “I wish it had been you instead of me, Marta,” she said softly. “I don’t know why it happened this way, but everything happens for a reason, and only God knows the end of all things.”

  “Noemi?” Marta asked, her voice wavering. “Noemi, where are they taking you?”

  “I don’t know. It’s in God’s hands now—that’s all I can say.”

  “Don’t go, Noemi. Please don’t go.”

  “I’d stay if I could, Marta. Honest, I would.”

  Her sister sniffled and wiped her eyes. “I’m going to miss you, Noemi.”

  “Me too. Come here.”

  She knelt down and opened her arms, and Marta ran up to her with tears streaming down her cheeks. Noemi’s breath caught in her throat as they embraced. How could the simulation feel so real? It was almost as if she was back home again, embracing her sister before the starfaring stranger whisked her away.

  “Goodbye, Marta,” she whispered. “I’m going to miss you.”

  In that moment, several things happened at once. The eddy in the data swallowed her, making her gasp. For an instant, she lost all sense of consciousness, returning to the empty place between simulations. And then, she was above herself, staring down at her and her sister embracing each other. A bright flash like a newborn star flared between the two of them, and the eddy was gone.

  The next thing she knew, she was lying on her back, staring up at the deep blue sky. Goodbye, she whispered soundlessly—that was the answer! Jeremahra couldn’t forgive himself because he’d never said goodbye. He hadn’t rejected her at all—he’d rejected himself, and didn’t want to drag her into that.

  “Jeremahra!” she shouted, rising to her feet. “Jeremahra, can you hear me? It’s okay—you don’t have to punish yourself any longer.”

  A stiff breeze rose from the east, and dark clouds billowed on the horizon. The ruins of the dome took on the appearance of the wreckage from her dream, while around her, the flowers bloomed a deep turquoise.

  “Jeremahra!” she shouted, running against the wind. “It’s okay—you don’t have to keep reliving the past. We all have to say goodbye.”

  The skies opened, and a heavy wet rain fell all around her. At first, it came cold and hard, pelting her skin and making her gasp for breath. The guilt and loneliness threatened to sweep her away, but she stood her ground and refused to be moved. Just when she thought she couldn’t withstand it any longer, the storm broke, and the rain turned warm and gentle, nourishing the earth like a healing balm.

  She opened her eyes and saw that her clothes had disappeared, leaving her naked. She didn’t feel embarrassed, though—far from it. It was as if a weight had been lifted from her—and from the simulation as well.

  That’s all I can give, she thought, walking calmly back through the grassy meadow. The sun peeked through the clouds, turning the rain into a fine mist. She smiled as the water ran over her skin and soaked her hair—it was all she could give, but that was enough.

  All that was left was to see if Jeremahra would accept it.

  * * * * *

  When Noemi jacked out, her body felt stiff and sore. She pulled the monitor off of her head and yawned, stretching to work the kinks out. The lights in the cabin were still dark, but the wall clock read 0552 hours—she’d been under for most of the night cycle.

  In the cockpit, Jeremahra moaned and whimpered. She frowned and rose groggily to her feet. What was going on? He’d never made any noise before—none that she’d heard, anyway. Was he having nightmares?

  I should help him, she thought. She took a step toward the cockpit doorway, but he cried out suddenly, making her stop cold. Did she really want to risk upsetting him? Perhaps it would be better if she waited for him to wake up on his own. After all—

  He caught his breath and started whimpering again, turning her heart to water. No—she couldn’t let this go on any longer. Whether or not he showed it, inwardly, he was torturing himself.

  She stepped gingerly up to the pilot’s chair, careful not to hit any switches or equipment. Jeremahra lay on his side, his body contorted with his arms pulled up against his chest. Sweat plastered his brow, and his jumpsuit was partially open, revealing a small tuft of hair on his chest.

  Noemi fumbled at the wall until she found the switch for the cabin lights. The brightness made her squint and cover her eyes for a few seconds, but failed to wake him. As she stood awkwardly over him, his mouth fell open, and a low moan escaped his lips. His arms and shoulders began to shake as the nightmare returned in full force.

  “Jeremahra?” she said. “Jeremahra, are you okay?” The sound of her own voice surprised her.

  His arms grew stiff, and his shoulders began to tremble. He shivered, but it was too warm in the cockpit for him to be cold.

  She took a deep breath and put a hand on his arm. “Jeremahra, can you hear me?” She shook him—gently at first, but then with more force.

  “Wake up!”

  He drew in a great breath and snorted. She jumped back in surprise just as his eyes flew open. He glanced around him dazedly, still moaning from the dream. When she tried to calm him by putting an arm on his shoulder, he looked up at her for a moment, then pushed her away.

  “Ow!” she said, stumbling against the doorway. She grabbed a nearby handhold to right herself while he sat up and buried his head in his hands.

  “Why’d you do that?” she asked, rubbing her arm. When he failed to answer, she sighed and took hold of his sleeve. “Look, I’ve got something to show you—something that might help. I know you can’t understand what I’m saying, but—come on!”

  He growled and pulled himself free from her grasp, snapping out with some snide reply. She stood back and hesitated for a moment, then bit her lip and came forward to try again.

  “Just trust me,” she said. When he threw up his hands and made as if to ask what she was doing, she swallowed her fear and pointed to the cabin.

  “Look, I’ve got something to show you—something important.” For both of us.

  She tugged at his sleeve again, and he rose to his feet, muttering to himself.

&nb
sp; “That’s right—that’s very good! Now, come with me.”

  He reluctantly followed her to the cabin. She brushed the bedding aside and inclined the back of the cot, motioning for him to sit. She had to push him a little to get him down, but a stern glance kept him there. Satisfied, she reached up and pulled down the dream monitor. He responded by rolling his eyes and making another snide remark.

  “Just shut up and plug in,” she said, giving him another sharp look. He bit his lip and took the monitor from her hands.

  As he pulled the visor over his face, she reset the simulator to normal and stepped back. Moments later, his body went limp, the blinking lights on the monitor’s control panel the only sign of any activity.

  Now that she was alone with herself on the ship, the creeping doubts began to slowly set in. Had she been too pushy in getting him to the simulator? What if that colored his reaction to the dream? Would he be moved enough to forgive her for invading his secret world, or would he come away even angrier?

  It doesn’t matter, she decided. There’s nothing I can do about it now anyway. It was all in God’s hands—just like it always had been from the beginning.

  But the waiting—that was enough to kill her. She sat down at the other end of the cot and pulled her knees up to her chest. If he rejected her after all this, what would she do? She’d be alone then—completely and truly alone. Jeremahra would leave her at the next port, where she’d likely slip through the cracks—or worse, fall prey to a human trafficker. She knew he didn’t want to hurt her, of course, but she knew she’d never make it on her own. Not as a Deltan who couldn’t speak the language of the Coreward Stars.

  Besides, after everything they’d shared together, she didn’t want to leave him. Even though they didn’t speak the same language, he no longer seemed like such a stranger. He was a good and decent man who needed her, perhaps as much as she needed him. Deep down, they weren’t so different from each other. In a cold and lonely universe filled with so much guilt and pain, what they had was the start of something tender and beautiful. Providence had brought them together for a reason, and now she knew clearly what that reason was.