Bright Star (16 page)

I have no way to save Phae.

“I’ll kill myself!” I shout to the ceiling. “Can you hear me, you bastard?”

“He can’t.”

The enormous guard. He has spoken. I turn around to face him, motionless in front of the door.

“He can’t hear you,” the bodyguard says, his voice so deep it vibrates in my belly. “His private rooms and those of his wives and husbands are the only clean places in the whole colony. The senator doesn’t like being spied on during his embraces.”

Slowly, I approach the clone. He’s awfully tall; I barely reach his diaphragm. And his shoulders are broad like a wardrobe, his biceps as big as my torso. He raises his visor and I startle. His eyes are thin and completely black inside. But the giant tilts his head, and his mouth contracts into a semblance of an unexpected smile.

“I have seen strange things in this room, sir,” the bodyguard says. “A human showing his love for a clone. A clone who used the password. He said the password doesn’t work with the royal guards, but it isn’t exactly the truth. We’re just more cautious. And in any case, what I saw between you two is stronger than the password.”

I open my eyes wide. Perhaps the senator has made a mistake, letting his bodyguards attend our reunion. “The password? Which password are you talking about?”

“Freedom,” the clone says.

I run to the clone and put my palms on his chest, as high as I can get. “Tell me. Tell me you clones have a resistance. A secret revolutionary current. Tell me!”

“Unfortunately freedom is only a concept,” the huge clone says. “At least for now. We know one day freedom will come. If a clone speaks the password, he’s sure he can get help. But that’s all.”

“Well, Phae needs help. Can you take him away and hide him?”

The guard shakes his big head. “We don’t have an organization. We don’t have a place to hide him.”

“Can you help him escape away from here? To an uninhabited part of the planet?”

“The planet outside the dome is too hostile for human life, and the city is fully scanned to maintain control of each clone.”

I groan in exasperation. “There must be something we can do!”

The home OS emits a sound signal. “A visitor for you, sir.”

“Not now!” I cry.

“It’s your doctor, Dr. Rais. Should I send her away?”

I’m going to send anyone away, but then I remember Phae had said he arrived along with this Dr. Rais.

I rub my face. Maybe the doctor is on our side?

“Let her come in!” I shout to the OS.

I
HAVE
to be strong.

I have to think I was lucky seeing him one last time. Blasius used to say we are different from humans. Humans are greedy; clones can rejoice in the little they have. Prince filled my life, so now I can face my recycling straight on.

I remember what Solartrance said about recycling. He wanted to think of falling asleep and opening his eyes in the body of another clone. But I don’t want that. Please, not
another life of hardship, suffering, and loneliness. What I want is Prince. I would like to wake up in a world just for the two of us. Without hatred, without separation between humans or clones. The path full of grass and trees inside Book. I want to imagine the two of us walking along that road, hand in hand, and I want it to be the last image that passes through my mind.

I don’t pay attention to where we’re going. I’m pushed inside an elevator that drops down indefinitely, perhaps underground, but I become indifferent to the surroundings. One of the guards mumbles something through the devices implanted in his neck and ears, but I don’t listen and try to think of Prince. The serenity I’m looking for is ruined by the anguish of having to leave him in the senator’s clutches. But at least my sacrifice will allow him to live.

They push me into a cold and dark corridor, but I close my eyes and try to recreate in my mind the grassy, mysterious path.

“Come in here, clone.”

I climb into the recycling capsule. The tool that tightens my hands opens suddenly, I lie down, and I feel a soft padding against my back. I think it’s a strange gentleness making this thing so comfortable. Then the puff of cold air and the familiar smell of refrigerant surprise me, and I open my eyes wide.

I realize this capsule, with its glass lid, is pretty damn similar to a sarcophagus.

I blink. We are in a small, dimly lit room. A cocoon. And this
is
a sarcophagus. Two huge bodyguards, forced to keep their heads down under the low ceiling, stare at me with their inscrutable black eyes.

“This is an emergency sarcophagus for high-ranking humans,” one of them says. “In case there is some problem with the terraforming reactors, VIPs have to come in here. There are more or less a hundred of them. But one will disappear, with you inside. At Dr. Rais’s suggestion.”

“What?” I ask in total amazement.

“We have to get you off for a while. The rest of the planet is uninhabitable and all the dome is scanned, so this is a good hiding place.”

I don’t understand. “Why are you helping me?”

“Because you say the password,” the second guard responds. “Because we believe one day we’ll be free. Because a human loves you and you are the first.”

I’m too stunned to understand his words. And suddenly a third guard enters the cocoon, making it look really crowded.

“Wait,” the third clone says. “He gave me this.”

The guard squeezes his enormous frame between the other two to slip something in my coffin. It’s a bundle of soft, white fabric. I recognize the robe Prince was wearing.

A cry of wonder and contentment escapes my mouth. I take the garment and press it against my face, but something rolls out of the crumpled robe and falls between my legs.

The alien ball.

“Your human lover said this thing would make the hibernation process less traumatic for your body,” the guard says. “He says to hold on. He says he’ll make sure to fix things. And he says he will find a way to keep the promise he made to you.”

“But… but… I cannot leave him alone at the mercy of the senator!”

“Your human needs some time to understand how to deal with the senator, and you cannot help him in this. The senator has control of the reactors that change the atmosphere, so it’s necessary to think carefully about how to act in order to avoid war and destruction and the extinction of the human race.”

The huge clone raises his visor to look in my eyes. He smiles. “Let me tell you, your human is quite wise, despite his young age. And he’s not alone. Now he knows the password, too.”

“But he’s not a clone,” I state. “I thought the password would work only for clones.”

The gigantic guard tilts his head. “I think the password applies, if it’s a clone’s lover using it.”

I’m stunned. “What is your secret name?” I ask the clone.

He startles a little. He hesitates, but eventually reveals it. “My name is Souldancer.”

“Will you take care of him, Souldancer?”

He nods. “I’ll do it.”

“All right, then,” I say hoarsely. I take the robe in one hand, the alien orb in the other hand, and I lie down in the sarcophagus. I stare at the three guards directly in their bug eyes. Their insensible look genetically designed to maintain the distance between the two races, makes me sad. “Please. Watch over him.”

“We’ll do our best,” Souldancer repeats. Then, in religious awe, he adds, “He says he loves you.”

So our love became somehow a symbol of their freedom, of a possible union between humans and clones. And I’m okay with this.

I close my eyes when the lid drops on me.

I’m not going to be recycled after all. Maybe one day I’ll awake.

And Prince will be there.

F
IRST
THING
in my mind: I was so good at imagining the path inside Book I made it real.

Oh, Corp, trees and grass. Their deep green color fills my eyes. I’m in a dazzling room with a low ceiling and glass walls wide open on what seems like the luxuriant path of my dreams. There’s a bright, vast Outside. It looms over me without domes, and a surge of dizziness makes me clench my hands on the metal edge, sure I’ll be sucked away. A strange, fragrant sigh shakes some light piece of fabric hung in front of the open glasses. Behind, grass and vegetable life forms of a breathtaking green rustle gently at the huge whisper of this bright Outside. There’s water flowing briskly between the plant forms, forming a quiet, deep pool. I never saw so much water in my life. I never saw anything like that. It’s not like Book; it’s better.

In a stupor, I lower my gaze to my hands, to my skimpy body. I am here. My body is real. I’m not dreaming. I sit in the padded foam of the sarcophagus. I’m cold. I tremble, but I feel good. I feel full of energy.

Someone puts a warm, soft garment over my shoulders. “Quietly, we have time. Take all the time you need.”

His voice is a little changed, a little shaken, but I recognize his scent.

My heart skips a beat.

He turns around the sarcophagus and sits at my side.

My Prince.

I’m blinded. His beauty, his colors. Petals on his lips and gold in his hair. I can’t talk. My eyes fill and tears run down my cheeks.

“I’m dead?” I can ask, incredulous. My voice is so hoarse. “I’m recycled?”

“No, honey.” He takes my cold hand and squeezes it, narrowing his eyes to study me. “Can you remember me, Phae?”

“How could I forget you? You are my Prince.”

“And you remember this?”

He takes an object from the padding of the sarcophagus. He slides it in my hands. It’s irregularly round, pulsing. “The alien ball,” I say.

Prince tilts his head to gaze at me. “It was in my sarcophagus when you put me back inside. Do you remember?”

I close my hands around the sphere. A rush of energy hits me, and my body drinks it like water. My palms warm up and start to tingle. The heat spreads throughout my body.

I smile. “Sure I remember, Prince.”

He caresses my cheek. His hand is warm and soft. I close my eyes for the pleasure of his touch. “Look at me, Phae. Open your eyes.”

I do it.

“Do you notice anything different in me?”

I blink. Prince is a little changed, but his beauty dazzles me. His hair is longer than I remember and falls on his shoulders. His eyes of deep green are different. Wiser.

“I’m thirty-seven years old now,” Prince says.

I gasp in surprise.

He grins. “I got rid of the senator. It took me a bit of time. But the wonderful thing is that now we are exactly the same age.”

I study him, bewildered. Only a few marks around his eyes, his voice a little deeper, his gaze wiser, and a single, long strip of silver in the gold of his hair give a hint he’s no longer in his twenties. But if possible, the touch of mystery and wisdom makes him even more beautiful. He smiles at me. “How do you feel, Phae?”

“I… confused, but extraordinarily good.”

“It’s the alien sphere.” Prince puts his hands on mine, around the ball. “We were right: it’s a medicine. I felt like a rag the first time I woke up from suspended animation. You brought me around the entire ship and hours had passed before I could stop shaking and manage to talk.”

I blink. “Indeed….”

Prince raises his hand and touches my chin, waking me up from the hypnosis of the pulsing light.

“It helped us and will help us again.” Prince’s face lights up in a hint of his cheeky smile. “I believe it’ll ensure us a healthy, long, and sexually satisfying life.”

I take his hand and kiss his palm. I look at him, I fill my eyes with him, and my cock fills as well. Through the sphere, a shiver of well-being crosses my spine.

I’m alive. I want to live.

I place three small kisses into Prince’s palm, and then one on the inside of his wrist. He’s real. He’s not a dream. His flesh is warm beneath my lips, the thin blue veins that show through his skin pulsing with life.

Prince is real.

I let go of his hand, which remains on my face, and take a lock of his long hair. I twist it around my fingers. Silk.

I search for his new, wiser gaze. His eyes are filled with tears, but he waits patiently. He sits and waits for me to grasp the concept.

He’s alive. I’m alive. We are together.

This is all I need to know.

I forget the ball upon my thighs and drag him to me. I smell his neck. I rub my lips on his skin. His eyes well up and tears run down his cheeks, and I kiss them away. I cover his face with kisses while his fingers wander on my skull, and he laughs, crying.

It’s him. He’s my Prince.

I search for his mouth in the exact moment he looks for mine, too.

Oh yeah, I remember this. A humid, secret oblivion.

Our mouths glued, our breath blended, Prince slips his palm under my clothes, on the tingling skin of my chest. His hand sneaks down and closes around my cock.

Oh,
Corp
.

Too little. Prince lets go of my shaft and slips away from my grasp, leaving me astounded, dazed. He stands up, his bare feet on the smooth floor of this strange, dazzling room. He grabs the sphere from my thighs, then takes my hand. “Come on. Can you walk?”

I could follow him anywhere.

I stand up and the garment Prince put on my shoulders remains on the sarcophagus, forgotten. I follow him, my cock hard and swollen as it hasn’t been for whole broad cycles. Prince drags me toward a soft piece of furniture, large, covered in white fabric, flanked by four columns, a small roof, and other thin floating curtains around. When Prince lies on the mattress, I understand it’s a cot, but the largest and most elaborate cot I’ve ever seen. But I pay only brief attention to the bed. Prince absorbs me.

“Come on,” he says, placing the shimmering sphere on a pillow before dragging me down. “All the explanations will come later. But first I need you so bad.”

Yeah. I would like to treasure him, take time to discover him again, but we have been separated for so long and my body is thirsty and hungry for him. I tear off his clothes and cover his skin with kisses. His soft, white, scented skin. “Phae,” he moans. “I missed you so much.” He drags me up abruptly to devour my mouth. We roll on the soft padding of this large cot.