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Without a second thought Nellie followed him through the doorway, then froze, broadsided by shock. “Lierin!” she gasped, riveted by the sight of her friend lying on a stretcher and bleeding from several wounds in her abdomen and left thigh.

“She’s unconscious,” said Col. Jolsen, stopping beside Lierin’s head. “Bad maze run. I brought you in here for a special demonstration.”

“Of the Flesh Healer?” Frantically Nellie scanned the room for the small, lifesaving device.

The colonel shook his head. “Could be done, but there’s no point. She lost her left hand.” He held up Lierin’s left arm, and Nellie’s eyes fixed on the casually wrapped stump. “We sent in several drones to retrieve it, but one of the maintenance drones must have thrown it to the dogs. You know the rules, Kinnan. Without a hand, a cadet isn’t functional.”

The room took a dizzy half-swing. “But can’t she do office work?” Nellie stammered wildly. “Or—”

Col. Jolsen shook his head again. “Rules are rules. The Goddess chooses each cadet for a specific task, and if that breaks down—”

He raised a hand as another protest burst from Nellie’s lips. “No arguing,” he snapped. “I didn’t bring you in here for a loose
display of emotions. I’m disappointed in you, Kinnan.” He glared at her, his face tightening, then leaned forward and shouted, “Focus, cadet! FOCUS!”

White-hot fear surged up Nellie’s spine and she stiffened, staring wordlessly at a spot above the colonel’s head. But inside her head, a tiny voice whispered,
Lierin dying? Lierin dying when she doesn’t have to, just because she lost her hand? Anyone could lose their hand. And her wounds aren’t fatal, anyone can see that. Plus, she’s a soldier of light ...

“Focused?” hissed Col. Jolsen, still leaning into her face. Keeping her eyes on the spot above his head, Nellie nodded. Carefully she licked a smudge of sweat from her upper lip.

“Now, as I said,” the colonel continued grimly, stepping toward the wall and dimming the overhead light, “I brought you in here for a demonstration. I don’t have to do this, but I think you’re ready. Are you ready, Cadet Kinnan? Ready to make the Goddess proud?”

Again Nellie nodded, tensing as a single tear slipped down her cheek. Ignoring it, Col. Jolsen said, “Watch this.” Lifting Lierin’s left arm, he removed the bandage. As the bloody stump came into view, Nellie flinched. How could this be happening, why was the Goddess permitting it? Another tear slid down her cheek. She wanted to reach out and cup Lierin’s bloody wrist between her hands, she wanted to whisper to it, somehow find the words to make what was missing grow back. Just to somehow make everything missing come back.

“Cadet Kinnan!” yelled Col. Jolsen, stepping toward her. “Get focused!” Abruptly he slapped Nellie hard on the cheek. Stunned, she stepped back, her hands flying to her face. “Are you finished with the dramatics?” the colonel hissed.

Eyes fixed on his throat, Nellie sucked in her lips, trying to control their trembling. She nodded.

“Good,” he said. “I’ve got better ways to spend my time than babysitting weak-kneed cadets. Now watch this.” Pulling a device that
resembled a TV remote control from his pocket, he held it above the stump at Lierin’s wrist and pressed a button. Immediately the stump was suffused with a deep red glow. Then, as Nellie stared incredulously, the red glow extended itself into the shape of a hand.

“What d’you see, cadet?” the colonel asked tersely, studying her face.

“It’s, uh ... ,” Nellie faltered, groping for the correct words. The apparition at the end of Lierin’s arm was obviously a hand composed of vibrations. She’d seen this sort of thing before, whenever her mind leapt its usual barrier and everything dissolved into a landscape of energy. But how could Lierin have a vibratory hand when her flesh-and-blood one was gone? How could Col. Jolsen make it appear with a small handheld device? And of equal importance, how was she supposed to fake her way through this so the colonel had no idea that she understood what she was seeing?

“It’s like a ghost hand,” Nellie whispered, fighting the chaos in her head. “Except it’s ... red.”
Like blood,
she thought shakily.
The color of a moan.

Col. Jolsen nodded soberly. “Now watch this.” Holding the device above Lierin’s chest, he pushed a button and her entire body dissolved into a human-shaped field of energy. Various colors swam and mixed in her energy field, with murky, red-brown patches at her abdomen, left thigh and wrist. Then the colonel shifted the device back to the stump at Lierin’s wrist and the shifting mass of colors on the stretcher solidified into her physical body, except for the hand-shaped glow at her left wrist.

Leaning toward Nellie, Col. Jolsen spoke rapidly. “What you’re seeing here, cadet,” he said earnestly, “is one of the deeper mysteries. We are made of light. This,” he said, touching the glow that emanated from Lierin’s wrist, “is part of this cadet’s soul. Her soul existed before it entered her body, and it will continue to exist after her body dies. The body is just a form worn by the soul so it can enter the physical world.”

“Riding the light,” whispered Nellie, staring at the red spirit hand.

“You’ve got it,” grinned the colonel, as if congratulating her. Catching an odd note in his voice, Nellie glanced up and her eyes widened in shock. Col. Jolsen’s face was glowing, as if filled with an inner light, and his features seemed to be shifting. Then, as she watched, someone entirely different took over his face. It was just for a moment, a few brief seconds, and the colonel’s face had grown so brilliant, she could barely make out what the alien presence looked like, but it seemed to have narrow slanted eyes and a long jutting jaw. Heart thundering, Nellie stared, openmouthed. This was crazy,
impossible
. If she ever told anyone, it was K-Block for sure.

Within seconds, the colonel’s face lost its brilliance and returned to normal. “We ride the light, cadet,” he said, turning off the small handheld device and pocketing it. “Our true bodies are made of light. This,” he added, poking Lierin’s abdomen, his face twisting with contempt, “is a piece of shit. Nothing about it matters. This cadet will leave it when I release her, and her soul will return to the stars. The physical body doesn’t matter, death is just a game we play. We’re all beings of eternal light, star to body, body to star. Never get yourself trapped into thinking the body is important, d’you hear me?” The colonel leaned closer, his face twisted bizarrely. “I said, did you hear me, cadet?” he repeated ominously.

Afraid to move, afraid even to breathe, Nellie ducked her head slightly.

“Good.” Col. Jolsen’s face relaxed and he straightened. “We
endure
the physical body, cadet,” he said, releasing a long slow breath. “It’s a tool, a weapon, nothing more. Your body will lie to you, it’ll give out on you, it’s full of crap, piss and screaming disappointment, but remember — your true self is your soul. Your soul burns in the darkness of your body like a star in the night sky, got it? That is one of the deepest mysteries of all.”

“Yes, sir,” Nellie said softly, blurring her gaze so she could look at his face without seeing it, without seeing anything at all.

“Now,” said the colonel, coming around the end of the stretcher and putting his hands on Nellie’s shoulders. “I want you to go deep inside yourself, back to your earliest filing cabinets. Code
MK
one through six. Are you there?”

“Yes, sir,” said Nellie, as a row of cabinets surfaced in her head.

“What number are you at?” asked the colonel, his fingers tightening.

“Number three,” said Nellie.

“Too early,” said the colonel. “Try number five.”

“Yes, sir,” said Nellie.

“Create a new filing cabinet,” said the colonel. “MK5DZ. Open all the drawers.”

“Drawers are open, sir,” said Nellie.

“Place every memory you have of Lierin McNearn into that cabinet,” said Col. Jolsen.

Stiffening, Nellie fought the cry that rose up her throat.

“Go on,” said the colonel, his fingers digging into her shoulders. “The Goddess gives and the Goddess takes away. It is not for you to claim what belongs to the Goddess.”

Slowly Nellie filled cabinet MK5DZ with two years of memories of her best friend — food fights in the cafeteria, giggling chats while watching
Star Heat,
successful maze runs they’d accomplished as a team.

“Done?” asked the colonel, squeezing her shoulders. Nellie nodded, and he squeezed them again. “Remember, cadet, we’re all stars from the heavens, trapped for a time in human form. It’s our duty to shine with the Goddess’s light until She decides to release us back to the stars.”

“Released,” whispered Nellie.
Not dead. Dead dead de —

“Now, close all drawers to MK5DZ, lock it and put it away,” said the colonel.

A sleepy wave passed through Nellie’s brain as the filing cabinet sank out of sight, deep into her mind. For a long blurred moment she seemed to be hovering in limbo, some gray murky place, and then she opened her eyes to find herself walking down the hall that led back to the gym office. A thick dullness lifted from her brain, and she realized Col. Jolsen was right behind her. Creepy-crawlies skittered up her spine.

“Good work, cadet!” said the colonel as they entered the gym office. He clapped her heartily on the shoulder. “Only four hits in that free-for-all. I’ll have to put a commendation on your file. Now off to the showers with you.”

Col. Jolsen?
thought Nellie, feeling suddenly dizzy. Why was she in the gym office talking to him? Wasn’t she supposed to be in Weapons with Lt. Neem?

“C’mon, Kinnan, off to the showers,” repeated Col. Jolsen, giving her a playful shove. “You smell like you need it.”

“Yes, sir,” said Nellie, and then she was passing through the office doorway and heading across the empty gym toward the girls’ locker room. She felt funny, her throat thick with something she couldn’t name and her brain seemed lopsided, as if it was spilling down the right side of her head. Behind her came the sound of the office door closing, its quiet click echoing through the gym. In a surge of panic Nellie whirled toward the sound, her heart thudding, but it was only a closed door, no sign of any danger, whoever had closed it gone now.
Gone gone gone.

“Get a grip,” she hissed under her breath. “What the fuck is the matter with you?”

A shudder heaved through her, and another. Breaking into a run, she bolted for the locker room door.

Eight

S
LOWLY
N
ELLIE FILED
with the other cadets into the Advanced chapel, a high-ceilinged chamber flickering with candlelight and thick with the scent of incense. The only room in the Advanced complex that had been painted anything but off-white, the walls were a deep twilight blue arcing toward a ceiling studded with stars and centered by the Red Planet and the Twin Moons.
Lulunar,
thought Nellie, staring at the moons.
The month when those who truly love each other are reunited. Not in this life perhaps, but if the Goddess shows favor, there’s the afterlife—

A slight frown creased her forehead and she glanced upward a second time. Why was she thinking about the Twin Moons again? The thought of them kept showing up in her mind like a door that wouldn’t stay closed. And with it came such a deep wave of sadness that she wanted to crumple to the floor and never get up. What was
wrong
with her?

Slipping into a pew beside Phillip, Nellie knelt on the prayer bench and laid her forehead against the pew in front of her
. Sweet Goddess Ivana,
she prayed silently.
Mother of us all, Mother who precedes all mothers, Mother who rules the stars, hear my prayer, this plea from one of your devoted soldiers of light—

A tear slid down her cheek and she brushed at it impatiently. This simply could not go on. It was shameful. Advanced cadets did not cry. Sniveling was for Black Core initiates, still missing their mothers. It was for
civilians
. But bewilderingly, no matter how often she’d told herself this during the past few days, the tears continued to roll down her cheeks. She would be sitting in a class or the cafeteria, her throat and eyes would begin to smart and then there they would be, taking over her face again. At first she hadn’t even been sure what they were. She’d cried before certainly, when wounded severely in the maze or a weapons demonstration, but never like this — weakly, insipidly, a few meaningless tears appearing out of nowhere and dripping down her face. More than once she’d mumbled a quick excuse in the halls and taken off so other cadets wouldn’t have to look away, embarrassed. In class she’d had to come up with ways to dry and compose her face without anyone noticing.

Here in the dimly lit chapel, her forehead pressed against the next pew, she could let the tears flow unnoticed. Aching with bewilderment, Nellie enclosed herself within the shadowy fall of her hair and sobbed quietly. What in the Goddess’s name was wrong with her? Nothing in her life had changed — she was still one of Advanced’s best cadets, acing her classes and racking up successful maze runs. And yet she was swamped with the constant feeling that something was missing, as if an invisible hole had been torn open in the air. As if she’d lost part of herself, like a hand.

The body is shit,
she reminded herself half-heartedly.
Full of crap and piss and screaming disappointment, like Col. Jolsen said.

Sudden confusion hit Nellie and she scowled. What was she thinking? The colonel wouldn’t have said that — instructors never used foul language. She must be making it up, but the memory of his voice was so clear. She could even feel his breath on her face as he spoke.

Time for another visit to the Mind Cleanser,
Nellie told herself grimly. Straightening, she saw that the service had not yet begun, the room still softened by the whispered voices of praying cadets. With a sigh, she slipped out of the pew and approached one of the many small alcoves that dotted the chapel walls. Here she knelt again and pressed her lips to the feet of a small statue of the Goddess that stood, hands and eyes raised toward the star-studded heavens and the souls of Her dead sons.
We’ll all be joined together in the afterlife,
Nellie thought dully, brushing a fresh rush of tears from her face.
It doesn’t matter if we’re separated now, I’ll see Lierin again someday and she’s happier now—