The Star Dwellers (11 page)

A thought occurs to me. “Why were
you
here in the middle of the night?”

“Rounds,” he says simply. I don’t believe
him. He doesn’t look like a doctor, or a nurse, or a guard, or
anyone that should be watching over us while we sleep. He was here
for a reason. Either an order or his own agenda. As if sensing I am
not satisfied, he hurries on: “Get some sleep, Adele. There are
clean tunics under your beds to change into in the morning.”

“How did you—” I start to ask, but he is
already up and floating away, a ghost in the dark, his lantern
casting eerie shadows in his wake. Darkness returns, but my eyes
have adjusted and I can still see.

“He seemed nice,” Tawni says, putting her
typical positive spin on things.

“More like a creep.”

Tawni looks at me and laughs. “I can tell
you’re feeling better.”

I can’t help myself. Seeing my lost friend
safe and healthy is enough to coax a smile to my lips. “I guess
so,” I say. “Are you okay?”

Tawni nods. “I feel fine. They must have
given us medicine.”

I return her nod absently. Something doesn’t
feel right about this whole setup. Trevor’s tone; the all-powerful
General; our miraculous recovery; Trevor knowing my name: I can’t
seem to make sense of it all.

Tawni reaches out a hand. “What are you
thinking about?”

I take her hand and she gives mine a light
squeeze. “Nothing,” I say, not wanting to worry her with my muddled
thoughts. “Let’s get back to sleep.”

Although I hope Tawni will be able to sleep,
I know I won’t. I have too many questions, too many puzzle pieces
to make sense of. It feels like my entire life is a mystery all of
a sudden. Trevor must know my name because we were all over the
news after we broke out of the Pen. So he must know Tawni’s name
too. But that doesn’t explain why his tone was so dark, why he kept
using the word
dead
. I mean, I guess he only said it a
couple of times, but still, it was creepy. My thoughts cause me to
shiver under my thin sheet.

What keeps me going is my dad’s confidence in
me. Before we parted ways, he told me I was courageous and strong
and that he was proud of me. He also told me trust my heart. Now my
heart is telling me that I have to find my mom and get out of here
as quickly as I can. But not tonight. Tonight Tawni needs to sleep,
even if I cannot.

With hours to kill, my thoughts turn to my
dad, my sister, and then Tristan, in that order. I am afraid to
start giving Tristan priority in my thoughts to the detriment of my
own family. Somehow I know if I do it will put them in danger.
Ridiculous, I know, but I can’t help it.

I fear for my dad. He will do everything in
his power to protect Elsey, but he’s also not very good at picking
his battles. If he sees an injustice he’s compelled to do something
about it. It’s a rare quality to have these days. In my world, it’s
a dangerous way to be. It’s what got him and my mom in trouble in
the first place. And Elsey and me too, indirectly. I hope he’ll
focus on taking care of Elsey and staying out of trouble.

I’m worried about Tristan, too. He was
injured when I left, and although he seemed capable of taking care
of himself—very capable actually—as the President’s son he is a
target for the star dwellers. Which is why I need to get my mom and
get home, so I can look after the ones I care about. Besides Tawni,
they’re all I have left, and I can’t trust anyone else to do the
job.

For the first time I notice the sounds of the
infirmary. It is spooky, lying in the dark with the hushed whirs of
breathing all around you, like the sounds of tiny waterfalls
plunging into the depths. I try not to think about the multitude of
diseases and ailments that likely afflict those around us.

My mind wanders as I try to unlock the
mysteries of the universe, the things that have troubled me for
days. Like what was Tristan trying to tell me? And who convinced
the star dwellers to attack the Moon Realm? Was it this General
that Trevor kept referring to? I roll these questions around in my
head for hours, until behind my closed eyelids I sense the room
lightening.

I open my eyes and jerk back against my
mattress, which isn’t thick enough to prevent my head from thumping
off the stone beneath. Trevor is standing over my bed, grinning.
“What the hell?” I bark angrily. “Were you watching me sleep?”

“Good morning to you, too, Adele.”

I stare at him, eyes narrowed, as I try to
decide whether to drive my foot into his ribcage. That’ll wipe the
grin off his face. The room is indeed lit by dim panels on the
ceiling. Although not bright by any means, relative to the abject
darkness of the night the room appears luminous.

“I wasn’t watching you sleep, because you
weren’t sleeping. You were flopping around like a fish out of
water. Not like your friend, Tawni. She slept like the
dead
.” There it is again—the word “dead.” What a creep.

I don’t want to admit he’s right. “Maybe I
was just dreaming heavily,” I say.

“Maybe not,” he says.

“In any case, you should get another hobby.
Something you’re better suited to, like knitting or something.”

Trevor shrugs and ignores me. “It’s time to
go meet the General.”

“Fine.” I gingerly swing my legs over the bed
and get to my feet, hiding my discomfort beneath an indifferent
expression. Although the aches from the Flu are gone, I’m stiff
from all the bed rest. Ignoring Trevor, who watches me the whole
way, I coax Tawni from her deep sleep with a gentle hand on her
shoulder.

Her eyes roll open lazily. “Mmm.”

“Time to go.” I stand up and point a finger
at Trevor. “You—out.”

Trevor’s eyebrows rise in surprise, but he
recovers with a quick grin. “I’ll be back in five. Be ready.”

He turns robotically and weaves his way past
the other beds. While I watch him to the door, I take in the room.
Dozens of beds litter the room, strewn haphazardly at strange
angles, no attempt made to line them up. There are bodies
everywhere. Even in the light, they look dead. We are the only ones
moving, so they might be, although like before, I can hear the soft
sounds of sleep.

“Why were you so mean to him?” Tawni asks
from behind me.

I turn to face my friend. “That was
nothing—you should have heard me earlier, before you woke up.”

“He’s just trying to help.” She’s on her
feet, hands on hips, her face tight and frowning. She’s taking this
pretty seriously.

I sigh. “I don’t know, something about him
just bothers me. He was watching me sleep.”

“He probably just walked up when you woke
up.” Ahh, Tawni who sees the best in people. I can’t fault her for
it. She saw the best in me even when I could not.

“You’re probably right. I’ll try to be more
civil.” I don’t promise because I know I can’t keep it.

I scoop a folded tunic off the floor under
Tawni’s bed and hand it to her. Her lips curl into a smile, as if
she can’t stay mad at me. Not after everything we’ve been through
together. I retrieve my own change of clothes and hurriedly remove
my sweat-stained tunic, catching a whiff of its Flu-stained scent.
I make a face, toss it on the floor, and replace it with the new
one. Tawni does the same and we’re ready to go.

Across the room, the door thuds open, sending
echoes bouncing off the walls, unlike before when Trevor managed to
sneak in and to the foot of my bed. The previously dead bodies
stir, producing a cacophony of wake-up sounds. Groans, stretches,
and yawns create a symphony of exhaustion.

Trevor stands between the door jambs. “Let’s
go,” he says.

Cutting a path through the beds, I try to
avoid looking at the faces of those we pass, but I can’t help it.
It’s like the more you try not to look at something, the more your
subconscious forces you to. I spot a woman with red pustules all
over her face. Her eyes are an unnatural white, all color wiped
from them by whatever disease assails her. She stares unseeing.
Another man twitches again and again, wrought with seizures. I find
it odd that we haven’t seen any nurses yet. Perhaps this is the
place where they leave people to die. But not us. They helped us.
Why? I do not know.

Without acknowledging either of us, Trevor
leads us from the room, which leads directly to the outside, to the
cavern that is subchapter 30 of the Star Realm. You can hardly call
it a cavern. Compared to our massive caverns in the Moon Realm,
this subchapter is set in a cave that’s more like a shoebox, the
roof rising a mere fifty feet above our heads. The Sun Realm must
have deemed the cost of further excavation not worth the
benefits.

We pass through a cracking, crumbling
courtyard surrounded by cracking, crumbling stone buildings. A
statue of President Nailin stands pristine in the center. It is the
only thing I see that is well maintained.

From the courtyard we enter an alley barely
wide enough for three people to walk astride. Well, not an alley,
apparently. Various similar-sized streets shoot off on either side.
Evidently these are the standard roads in this subchapter. The
buildings on either side rise up only three or four stories before
connecting with the rocky cavern ceiling, almost like the buildings
grew from the stone, like roots. There are no good views in this
town.

At first Tawni and I walk side by side in
Trevor’s wake, but are soon forced into single file as we pass
beggars camped out with their backs to the buildings. They raise
their jars and try to grab the bottoms of our tunics while
muttering incoherently. I feel sick as I step over and around their
legs, scraping past their outstretched fingers. They are gaunt,
pale, dying. Things are bad in the Moon Realm, but nothing like
this. I never realized.

I never realized.

Now I see that the gap between the moon and
star dwellers is as big as the gaping crevice between the sun and
moon dwellers. If the gap between the Sun and Moon Realms is a
mile, then the gap between the Moon and Star Realms is more like
two miles. Life seems to be hard enough as a star dweller without
having to conduct a full-scale rebellion against the Moon Realm. I
mean, if they barely have resources to keep their people alive, how
can they afford to fight a war? Where are they getting the money
for bombs and weapons and supplies? Based on the poverty around me,
it seems impossible. Even the medicine required to cure us of our
Bat Flu would’ve cost a fortune. A fortune that these people don’t
have. Trevor must know the answers to these questions and more.
Instead, I ask something else.

“Why is the General here and not fighting in
the Moon Realm?” I blurt out.

Trevor stops and turns around slowly, his
lips curling slightly as he looks me in the eyes. “Feeling chatty
all of a sudden?” he says.

“Look—cut the crap. We appreciate your help
and all, but we need answers. Something bigger than all of us is
happening here.”

“You think?” Trevor says.

He turns around and keeps walking and we’re
forced to follow. I don’t think he’s going to answer my question
until he says, “Not that it’s any of your business, but the General
has just returned from a successful campaign in two moon dweller
subchapters.”

“Which ones?” I ask, pushing my luck.

“Fourteen and twenty-six.”

My breath catches and I glance back at Tawni.
Her wide, blue eyes tell me that she realizes, too. The General
happened to be in the same subchapters that we were during the
bombings. A coincidence? I don’t believe in them.

I nearly trip on another beggar who’s
squirmed his way into the center of the thin laneway. “A Nailin for
the poor,” he croaks. Feeling bad as I do it, I tiptoe around him.
We still have money left from Tawni’s little prison trust fund set
up by her parents, but we can’t afford to use any of it
frivolously.

“Did you say fourteen and twenty-six?” I
ask.

“Yeah, so what?” Trevor says without looking
at me. “Ah, we’re here,” he adds as the alley empties out into
another circular courtyard. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or
reason to the layout of the subchapter. Another perfectly manicured
statue of President Nailin rises majestically in the center. He has
his leg raised and set on a stone block, like he’s looking out upon
his kingdom. I don’t understand why these people would have so many
monuments to the dictator that rules them.

Before I have a chance to calculate the odds
of being in the same two subchapters as the general we’re about to
meet, especially because they’re separated by hundreds of miles,
Trevor ducks into a stone entryway, motioning with one hand to
follow him.

I glance up at the building before I enter.
It’s a monstrosity—not beautiful by any reckoning, but sturdy,
fortress-like, with heavy stone columns supporting a cement
overhang. The walls are huge, undecorated stone blocks,
straightforward in their utility.

Like everywhere in this town, it’s dimly lit
inside. We pass through a thin passageway and then follow Trevor up
a flight of stairs. An empty foyer welcomes us with more of the
same stark stone solidity. From the foyer, Trevor moves without
hesitation to the far side of the room. A heavy stone door bars our
way.

“You’re expected,” Trevor says with a wink,
like we should be impressed.

I roll my eyes at Tawni while Trevor drags
open the door. We enter and I crane my neck to see past the
chestnut waves on Trevor’s scalp.

The General is sitting behind a desk.

My heart flutters and a shiver rolls down my
spine as pure elation fills my soul.

The General is her. The General is my
mom.

“U
hhh!” I groan as
my back slams into the rock wall.

“Let go of him!” Roc yells, rushing at Ram.
With a lazy swipe of his big left hand, Ram backhands Roc in the
face, knocking him back a dozen feet while holding me in the air
with his right. He’s even stronger than I expected.