Spinning Starlight (4 page)

I wander for a while, reacquainting myself with everything, climbing the stairs and testing my memory with which room was whose. When I get to mine, I realize I won’t be able to sleep
there. The bed is tiny.

Dad said at six years old I was getting big enough for a new one. Mom agreed and said she’d take care of it as soon as they finished trials on whatever they were working on. She never had
the chance. One wrong move during a delicate experiment. One mistake. One accident.

One is such a deceptively small number.

I could sleep in the master bedroom, but after a peek in there, I close the door. That won’t work. Durant and the twins, being oldest, were full-grown when we left, so their shared room
will be fine. Everything smells a little sterile. Fitting for a place that’s been kept clean but unlived-in for ten years. Still, Durant’s bed is soft and his blankets warm, and I
don’t care that it’s midmorning and the sun’s out. I curl up and try to keep the images of gunmen at bay when I close my eyes. To silence the questions of where my brothers could
be. It doesn’t work very well at first, setting me into a fitful doze, but eventually my exhaustion decides it’s more powerful than my dread.

When I wake up, it’s dark outside. Night again. And I’m not alone.

Durant stands at the window, moonlight illuminating him.

I grin and roll out of bed, ready to tackle him with a hug and demand to know where he’s been. I’ve only crossed half the room when he disappears. It’s impossible. He was right
there, then faded, like an image being deleted.

Except maybe he wasn’t right there. Something didn’t look quite right, just like Vic—or Luko—hadn’t looked quite right in the clearing. Less than solid.
Ghostlike.

Spirits pass on to Ferri, some damned to serve the Wraith in the Abyss, others sent to live with the Sentinel.

A spike of pain jars me as my knees hit the floor and knocks sense back into my head. Everyone knows those ancient stories are superstitious nonsense.
I
know it. The names survive as
meaningless words that make old ladies scold us for our lack of manners.

But I saw Durant. I did. No confusion about my mind playing tricks on me this time—he was right there. Unless I’m having a full psychotic break, but I can’t let myself believe
that. And if spirits aren’t an option, what does that leave? Things that look like ghosts, that people have mistaken for ghosts. Nothing to do with gunmen and their bullets.

I force myself to my feet and tap a touchscreen to activate the computer. “Link Domestic Engineer and Itinerary Keeper from country estate to current location. Dom, you there?”

“Yes, Liddi. I see you’re at the townhouse. Is everything to your liking?”

“Well enough. I’m doing some research. Get me everything you can find on phenomena that make people look like ghosts.”

“Could you please clarify what you mean by ‘ look like ghosts’?”

“Translucent. And transient. Like appearing and disappearing.”

“Compiling…done.”

I’m already heading upstairs to the top floor. “Cue it up in the workshop.”

Once there, I sit down at my old spot and narrate my observations into the computer—the time and place of each sighting, my brothers’ behavior, everything I remember. Then I have Dom
start playing his findings on the wallscreen.

I watch media-casts of people who claimed to have seen ghosts in “haunted” locations, like the site of an old concert hall collapse on Yishu. Maybe I was wrong about
no one
believing the old legends. The witnesses always sound either mentally disconnected or more interested in the attention than anything else, so I quickly dismiss them. Listening to treatises on life
after death is a little more enlightening, but the philosophers on Tarix are still just theorizing without any thought to evidence or hard facts.

It takes hours to sift through everything, and nothing helps. Finally, though, Dom cues up a technologist’s working notes from centuries ago when the conduits were first being tested.

“The conduits are holding now that we’ve attuned the energies at each end. Several trips to each Point have been completed successfully. The dimensional shift from the origin
Point and the shift back into phase at the target Point are separated by an average of eleven seconds. We’ll continue to monitor stability, but it looks good. A side note: some of the
conduits on Erkir have outdoor exit points for now, since the citizens prefer we not build facilities until success is confirmed. When making transit on moonlit nights, we’ve observed a
strange visual phenomenon. The traveler appears before he’s arrived, while he’s in the neither-here-nor-there hyperdimensional state. ‘ Appear’ may be too strong a word. More
a ghost of an appearance. May be linked to the frequency variance we’ve observed. We’ll try to tighten that up.”

Both times I saw my brothers, it was at night. In the moonlight, even. And “neither-here-nor-there” sounds similar to what I witnessed. But not exactly. My brothers aren’t in
transit. I don’t think. Or if they are, they’re not completing the transition, getting back into phase with our reality’s dimension.

Like they’re stuck.

I go up the final flight of stairs and out onto the roof. Still the middle of the night, still dark. Luna Minor has set, but Luna Major is high above me. I sit on the bench where Mom and I used
to look for the stars against the city lights, but now I watch everything else. Every corner of the roof, every flicker of movement. Nothing.

But just because I can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

“Boys, I have an idea where you might be…maybe.” It feels weird, talking into the nothing, but I keep going. People hear voices on the other end before completing a conduit trip
all the time. It might work here, too. “If I can see one of you again, here while I’m talking to you, I’ll know it’s not a coincidence. And I’ll find a way to help
you. Please, I need to know I’m right.”

More silence, more nothing, but only for a moment. Then a patch of moonlight takes shape. It’s Anton. Since I’m watching carefully this time, expecting it, I see the effort it takes
from him. He smiles, but it’s not one of the easy smiles I’ve known all my life. It’s strained, its tightness echoing across my chest. He opens his mouth like he’s going to
say something, but he slips away again before he can.

It’s the beginning of an answer that only creates a hundred more questions. I hate that Anton couldn’t tell me anything, that I can’t solve the problem
right now,
but
this beginning is more than I had. “Okay, I’ll figure it out. I’ll get you home.”

I race downstairs and change into some of the clean clothes Ms. Blake—Minali—had sent over from the estate yesterday. As much as I don’t want to, I take an extra five minutes
to brush and braid my hair. After everything Minali said about spin, she’ll be more likely to listen to me if I’m not running around the city looking like a lunatic…again. I scarf
down a protein bar, too. I’m starving.

The sun is barely teasing the horizon when I leave the townhouse, my security-cam humming along behind me. Much too early for anyone to be in at JTI, but I told Dom to send an urgent message for
Minali to meet me right away. The alert will wake her up if necessary.

It isn’t far, so I walk, even though that means picking up plenty of vid-cams on the way. Their presence is so common, it gives the illusion of everything being normal. Almost comfortable
when everything is so definitely
not
normal. Some aren’t on autopilot, it turns out, because the voices of their media-grub owners come out of minuscule speakers.

“Any comment on yesterday’s unusual events, Liddi?”

“Not yet.” I keep my eyes on my destination. Just a few more blocks.

“Doesn’t seem like you to head into the office so early in the morning. Or at all.”

That’s true in a way, but I bristle. I don’t come in to JTI, but I’m in the workshop at all hours, usually trying not to smash my head against the bench. “Let’s
face it. How much do you guys think you
really
know about what is or isn’t like me?”

“We know you prefer clubs on the east side of the entertainment district, and fashions from the aquatic zones of Yishu.”

Several other cameras prattle off bits of minutiae gleaned from my attendance at parties and galas and whatever else qualifies as “not working for JTI.” I don’t say anything
until I’ve reached the door.

“Exactly. You know what I’ve wanted you to know. And that’s how it stays.”

I wave to the guard at the security desk—he knows better than to slow me down—and go straight to the elevator bank. Minali’s office is empty, but not for long. She arrives
three minutes after I do. Every hair is in place, her pants are perfectly pressed, so only the weariness in her eyes betrays the early hour.

“What is it, Liddi?” she asks. “Did something happen?”

“I think I figured it out.” I quickly summarize everything, from seeing Vic-or-Luko as I ran from the house to the technologist’s notes I stumbled on. “Could that be it?
Could they be in the conduits, stuck in transit without an exit point?”

My words spilled out so quickly, Minali’s face didn’t have much chance to react until the conclusion. Now her eyes widen and her hands flex.

“No. I mean yes. It makes sense. I should have thought of it.”

She should have? I thought the way-out-there nature of the idea explained no one figuring it out. “Why?”

After another moment of thought, Minali taps and swipes a few commands on her desk, activating the wallscreen. Seven icons are arranged with a web of thin lines connecting all of them. Off to
the side is some kind of fluctuating meter.

“Is that the conduit network?” I ask.

“It is. This is how it looked when the conduits were first established.” She swipes the panel again. The lines connecting the Seven Points turn fainter, flickering. The meter
fluctuates more wildly, and at a higher level. “This is how it is now. Has been for a while.”

“What does it mean?”

“The conduits have never been very efficient. That over there?” She points to the meter. “It’s the energy intake per trip, making the hyperdimensional shift and back
again. It’s quadrupled. Yet even with all that energy, the conduits are destabilizing.”

I try to swallow against the dust that seems to coat my throat. Destabilizing does not sound good. “What does it have to do with my brothers? How did they get stuck?”

“I’m not sure exactly. But I do know they’ve been working on this destabilization problem for almost a year. It’s obviously a top priority.”

That feels right. Just after the triplets moved out, all of the boys got busier than ever, more distracted…and that was saying something.

But none of them told me anything. They kept me in silence, and I don’t know why, but I refuse to stay in it now.

“Okay, fine. Maybe they were doing some experiments and got stuck. How do we get them out?”

“That’s the question. And I don’t know if there’s an answer.”

Nevi Jantzen was the most important man on Sampati—and arguably on all the Seven Points—with near-constant demands on his attention.

That didn’t stop him from sneaking away from the office during lunch to spend time in the park with his kids. Especially baby Liddi and the triplets. Ciro, Marek, and Emil had been
born after Nevi’s father died, passing the reins of JTI officially into Nevi’s hands. They would have no memory of life before their father was the head of the company, but he was
determined to ensure they would have memories of him being their father.

One day brought such a lunch hour with Nevi in the park with Liddi. The boys hadn’t wanted to stop their work, and he wasn’t going to force them to. So Liddi had him all to
herself, squealing with exhilaration as he pushed her on the swings, or going down the slide on her own as long as he caught her at the bottom.

As she went to climb to the top of the slide again, her little face screwed up and she waved a hand by her ear like she was shooing a bug away.

Her father spotted it, though. Not a bug.

“Hey,” he said sternly. “I’ve told you to stay away from my kids.”

The vid-cam persisted, barely moving out of range of Liddi’s hands.

“Have it your way.”

Nevi reached in his pocket and pulled out a tiny device he’d been meaning to test. He touched the button to activate it, and the vid-cam fell to the ground, dead. The device in his
hand likewise sparked and shorted out, though.

“Bad
bzzz-bzzz
, bad!” Liddi said.

“That’s right, Liddi-Loo. And this thing has some promise. Daddy’ll work on it this afternoon. But first, one more time down the slide!”