These Broken Stars Part 30

I can't help but grin down at her, this steely a.s.surance, my Lilac through and through. "I'd pay to see that showdown."

She smiles, lightning quick, then squeezes my hand harder, holding on like she's afraid someone will come and pull us apart. "You'll face it all with me?"

The world narrows, the sounds of the oncoming search party fading, the lights blurring around us until it's just her and me, our breath condensing and mingling in the cold air. She's stolen my voice, this girl in my arms, and for a moment I can't answer. I have to gather my wits, try to remember how to breathe.

"Always."

Her smile is like the sun coming out. "Then you ought to kiss me while you can, Major Merendsen. It may be a while before your next opportunity."

Her cheekbones are still shadowed, her face still showing the signs of her weakness, but her eyes are bright too, her cheeks flushed with life once more. Her fingers curl around handfuls of my sleeves, as though she can't wait to pull me in.

I thought I'd never get to touch my Lilac again. Even when she came back, I thought I'd lost her forever.

I break away from her a heartbeat before the rescue parties burst into the clearing. I'm almost tempted to tell them to come back later.

"Why did you blow up the station, Major?"

"I could see the ships in orbit. I was hoping somebody would notice it. I didn't want to miss this little get-together."

"The damage was significant."

"Well, it didn't seem like anyone really needed the place anymore."

"That wasn't your decision to make."

FORTY-ONE.

LILAC.

THE SHIP THAT FIRST PICKED UP MY SIGNAL was a research vessel on its way to A243-Delta. The researchers didn't have any luck deciphering the static, but cleaned it up the best they could and bounced it back toward the rest of the galaxy. Then it reached a larger transport, a few days later, and then on to a junk heap of fringe theorists trying to discover structure in the background static of the universe. They were the first to clean up the signal enough to know there was a woman on it, asking for help. In the end it took dozens of ships, picking up the fragments that reached them, piecing them together.

The ship that collected us was one of my father's vessels, an advance team scrambled to get here before the image in the signal was clear enough for them to know who I was. They confirmed what we already suspected-we are the only survivors from the Icarus. Imagining fifty thousand people dead is impossible-and so instead I see Anna's face, and Swann's, and the face of the weary man in the shabby top hat who only wanted to pa.s.s a message to my father. I only have so much room for grief.

Four days after our rescue, still in orbit around the planet, another of my father's ships catches up to us. Tarver and I are bundled into separate rooms, and I don't see him again.

My meals are monitored. Someone stays at my side at all hours of the day, even when I sleep. My questions about Tarver are met with polite evasions. He's in the best possible hands. You'll see him shortly. He's doing just fine.

Your father will be here soon. Why don't you wait and ask him?

Their attempts to question me are met with floods of tears. I have my part to play as surely as Tarver does, and I do it well. Tears don't forestall the doctors, though, and I'm stripped down and inspected. They draw some of my blood, take a lock of my hair, sc.r.a.pe under my fingernails. I'm connected to machines by electrodes at my temples, on my chest. They attach clamps to my fingertips and watch some readout I can't see, staring wide-eyed, faces lit by the pale green glow of the monitors as they crowd around them.

And then I'm ushered back into the exam room, where a new round of doctors takes more blood, more hair. They check their results again and again. They're leading me back to the room with the monitors and the electrodes when the doors suddenly burst open.

"What is the meaning of this?" A voice like steel cuts through the hum of the machines.

The doctor grasping my arm drops it like she's been burned. Unsupported, my legs wobble and I drop to the floor. She and the others back away, leaving me blinking in the light.

"Sir," one of them starts, "we were only following orders-"

"Shut it down," the voice says, and the doctors scramble to obey. I know that voice well, after all, and no one hears it give an order without complying immediately. From somewhere, someone gives me a navy-blue dressing gown, a welcome change from the paper-thin hospital gown they had me in.

Someone reaches up and turns off the blinding overhead lamp, and as my eyes struggle to adjust, a face ducks down into my vision.

"Darling?"

For a moment all I can do is stare. The blue eyes, reddened with emotion; the chiseled features that don't betray his years; the close-cropped white hair he's never bothered to dye. It's a face I never thought I'd see again-a face I never wanted to see again. But here, confronted with it-I remember how safe it is. How easy, how warm. I remember how much I want him to make everything okay.

"Daddy?" I whisper.

His mouth trembles, then tightens, as if he can't believe it's really me. He throws his arms around me, and after a second I remember I'm supposed to cry-and once I start, it's impossible to stop. For long moments we sit there on the floor of the medical wing, me sobbing wildly into the shoulder of his suit jacket, inhaling the familiar scent of his cologne. I'm a child again, in a perfumed forest, secure with my father's arms around me. All I want to do is pretend to fall asleep so that he'll carry me home.

But eventually my tears dry up and he helps me stand. He leads me to a meeting room dominated by a long gla.s.s table, then sits me down in the first chair on the left. He drops into the chair at the head of the table and rolls it closer to me so he can take my hand in both of his.

"Tell me everything, my heart."

Sitting here, with my father gazing at me with red-rimmed eyes, I'm finding it impossible to connect him with the lambda symbol stamped all over the h.e.l.lish prison for the creatures that gave me back my life. For a moment I want nothing more than to tell him what's happened to us, what's happened to me, that I remember death and rebirth and everything in between.

But Tarver's words are still ringing in my ears. Tell them nothing, he said. We lie. I can't let him down.

So I sniff loudly and drop my head, staring at my lap as I shake my head. "I don't know," I stammer. "I can't. It's all too-I don't remember, it's all a blur."

"Are you sure?" He pats my hand, soothing. His skin is cool to the touch, soft and smooth. His hands always were well kept. "Perhaps it would help to talk about it."

I just shake my head again. The tears that were so easy to locate earlier have dried up as my conviction returns, and so I have to pretend, keeping my eyes on the fabric of the dressing gown.

My father is silent for a while. I know him well enough to see that he doesn't believe me. But he wants to. Eventually he pats my hand again briskly and straightens. "Well, good. We'll just put all of this behind us, then. What you need is some quiet. As long as you're safe, that's all I care about."

It's all I wanted-him to just accept me back, for all of this to go away, for my life to go back to normal. And still, I'm uneasy. There's a tension here I haven't felt since I was fourteen, and I learned that Simon was gone. Some part of me knows he's only telling me what I want to hear.

My father clears his throat. "I understand the young man in the other room is partially responsible for bringing you back in one piece?"

"Tarver Merendsen," I correct him, nodding, keeping my head down. "Entirely responsible, Daddy. He's the reason I'm here at all."

"Well, we'll be sure to reward him handsomely for it." Pause. "All of this in the papers and the HV clips about the two of you-"

"Yes?" I finally tear my eyes from my lap and look up, heart pounding. I know what's coming. "What about it?"

"When we reach Corinth you'll deliver a statement in which you'll correct the media's a.s.sumption that you're a couple. You'll thank him for his a.s.sistance, and wish him a safe journey back to his parents' homeworld. And that'll be the last of it."

My head spins. "Father-"

"We'll find our way through this, Lilac." He gazes at me, his heart in his eyes. "You and me, you know that. You're all I have. All I need. My darling girl, you have no idea what it was like to hear that you were safe."

Guilt twists in my stomach, metallic and nauseating. "I won't leave him."

"Oh, Lilac." He sounds so weary, so sad. He can't know about the planet; it's impossible. Some distant employee used my name for the keypad as a joke. My father is not capable of such monstrosity. "You think these things now. But in a week, two weeks-in a month, in a year, that will change. I'm only trying to protect you."

"The way you protected me three years ago?" The words slip out before I can stop them. My father and I have never spoken about Simon.

The eyes I used to think of as twinkling, kindly-they're steely now, paler and colder than ice. "You will come to thank me one day," he says in a voice that quietly cuts me to the bone.

And then I know. This is the man who sent Simon to his death. This is the man who discovered the first intelligent life other than ourselves and buried it. This is the man who enslaved the first amba.s.sadors of another universe for his own ends, who perpetrated a cover-up so huge that a ship of fifty thousand souls went down without a trace until one tiny distress signal caught the attention of a pa.s.sing research vessel.

This is the man who has ruled me for seventeen years.

And what's worse-with a rush of clarity, I realize that he's only ever ruled me because I let him do it.

"No," I say, standing up as the word rings in my ears. Some part of my mind points out that I have the power like this, that standing, I am taller than he is sitting, that making him look up at me gives me the upper hand. But in reality I simply can't sit any longer; a frenetic buzzing rising in my limbs drives me to action. It's all I can do not to pace. But pacing is a sign of weakness. I learned that from him too.

"You will leave us alone. Forever. In exchange, we will keep your secret."

My father's watching impa.s.sively, giving me nothing. "Forever is not a very long time for a soldier." His voice is soft as velvet, and as dark. My heart tightens, shriveling with fear.

But Roderick LaRoux is not the only one who can threaten without threatening, bully without raising a hand. He's taught me everything I know.

"You were all I ever needed in my life," I say softly, watching his face. The dynamic in the air has shifted. I can feel it. And from the minute twitch on his cheek, I see that he can too. "But people uncover buried memories all the time as they recover from traumatic events. I don't know what would happen if I began to remember what I saw on that planet."

My father gets slowly to his feet. He's a tall man, with suits tailored to emphasize his stature in dark, powerful colors. He places one hand on the back of his chair, watching me impa.s.sively. He says nothing, but I know what he's thinking.

"When we get to Corinth, Tarver and I will issue a statement together explaining how we salvaged a downed escape pod to send a distress signal. We won't mention the station. Tarver's probably in a room somewhere right now, lying, keeping your secrets. No one will ever have to know what we've seen.

"But, Father-and this is the important part-I'm holding you personally responsible for his safety. Because if something ever happens to him, I'll know it was you. If he's transferred to the front lines, I'll know. If he comes down with a mysterious illness, I'll know. If so much as a hair on his head is out of place, I'll know. And if someday someone thinks to blackmail or threaten him into leaving me, I'll know that too."

"Lilac, I'm sure I don't know what you're implying." His tone is cold, but I can see something behind it-something I've never seen before. Uncertainty. "Why his safety should be my responsibility-"

"His safety is your responsibility the way Simon's should have been." For the first time the memory of Simon's green eyes and quick laugh don't hurt. And this time, when I look at my father, he's silent. "If something happens to Tarver the way it happened to Simon, it'll be the end of LaRoux Industries. The galaxy will know what you did here. And if that happens, all the power and the money in the universe won't be enough to save you."

My vision is blurring-not with tears, but with the effort of not blinking. I can no longer see my father's face clearly, and so I stare past him. Just get through this. You faced a wilderness with monsters, a ship full of corpses, the emptiness of death itself. You can do this.

"And if something ever happens to Tarver Merendsen, you will lose me too. You'll lose me forever. And you'll have no one left."

I finally let myself blink, and when my vision clears I can see my father standing there, quite suddenly old. His white hair seems thinner, his skin looser. I can see wrinkles around his eyes that I don't remember being there. The hand on the chair back is for support now, not to strike a powerful stance. His mouth quivers.

I harden my heart. This, too, I learned from him. "I'll never speak to you again. Do you understand?"

He lets out a long breath, head bowed. "Lilac..."

"Do you understand?"

"You're free to go."

"Excuse me?"

"The door is unlocked, Major."

"You're too kind."

"Major-you realize that your story and our findings don't add up."

"I don't know what else to tell you, sir. It's what happened."

"There's absolutely no evidence to back you up."

"You really think I could make something like this up?"

FORTY-TWO.

TARVER.

MY INTERROGATOR STANDS AND GESTURES to the door, which swings open as if on command.

I stare at him for a long moment, trying to process the idea that I'm free to go, my mind desperately tumbling over itself as it searches for the trick. What's the next step, the next part of the game? My eyes are scratchy, aching, my head throbbing to a slow pulse. Hunger has faded out now in favor of a heavy nausea that sits like a weight in the pit of my stomach.

I push upright, knees protesting, muscles cramping. I walk out of the room without sparing him another glance.

Lilac's waiting outside in a long corridor lined with broad windows. It must be night, ship's time, because the lights are dimmed, and she's lit largely by the light of the planet beyond the windows. She's wrapped up in some sort of robe, but it could be a ball gown, the way she stands in it. Navy blue, the same color she was wearing the night we met. Straight and poised, skin clear and hair caught up in one of those fancy knots I'll never understand; all that's missing is her entourage. They must have attacked her face with some sort of treatment, because her freckles are already fading. It's as though the past few weeks never happened.

I've played my part. Has she played hers? Could she play hers, after having a glimpse of her own world again? I remember what I said to her once, about returning to the real world. Best not to make promises. It's not as simple as either of us would like it to be.

For an endless moment she simply stares at me, eyes raking over me, taking in my exhaustion. There's no hint of the Lilac I came to know on the planet.

My heart wants to stop, and I want to let it.

She's the one to break the silence. "Tarver, are you-"

I move toward her before I can stop myself, and halt half a pace away. "I'm fine. Are you...?"

"My father came." She's still gazing at me, blue eyes intent. I must look like h.e.l.l. "What did you tell them? Is it over?"

I drag my eyes away from her mouth, swallowing. We're alone in this corridor and yet I can feel the weight of the reporters waiting to photograph us, the incredulous people in Lilac's circles, and the soldiers too, the shadow of her father over us. Is it too much for her?

Is it too much for me?