Lights in the Deep Read online

  When I could see again, the station was gone, and the gee pressing me into my seat was so strong I had a hard time breathing.

  Irenka’s sobbing had quieted to a whimper and she gripped my hand so hard I thought her little tendons would snap.

  Our ship was moving. Fast.

  The Earth’s night side was covered with huge splotches that glowed dull red, like a giant, angry rash.

  Occasionally, flashes could be seen through the massive, roiling clouds.

  An adult, clad in a spacesuit and with a helmet under his arm, shuffled past our couch. I tapped him on the arm and pointed out the window.

  “What’s going on?”

  The man paused just long enough to lean over us and look outside.

  “Orbital stuff’s been hit,” he said in American English. “Now they’re using antimatter warheads in-atmosphere. Jesus almighty….”

  The man bolted aft while I kept looking out.

  Somewhere down there, I knew my cousins and grandparents were in trouble. The smoky clouds were too thick for me to see the continents clearly, but I looked for Europe anyway. Poland was by the sea, and I thought that, maybe being near the sea, it wouldn’t be so bad.

  Until I saw the day-side limb come up, and wherever the glowing splotches touched the ocean, the water exploded into hurricanes of white vapor.

  The angry splotches also expanded visibly, like the sped-up films in school that show how mold grows in petri dishes.

  Then, the ship rolled over and I could see nothing more, the additional gee shoving me back into my seat.

  I looked away from the window to see Irenka slumped against me, exhausted and eyes closing.

  Her little breaths became regular and gentle, and before long I also felt my eyes close, and then there were only memories of Mama and Papa, gone forever.

  • • •

  Irenka woke up crying, and the adults in crewpeople jumpers had to come and get her and take her to the bathroom. When they brought her back she was in night pants and nothing else. They said she’d had an accident, and her clothes wouldn’t be clean for an hour. My sister’s eyes were puffy and wide and she now looked at everything as if it might bite her.

  I asked if it was okay if she sat in my lap, and after some conversation, they told me yes, as long as we both stayed buckled in together. Being unbuckled in zero gee would be dangerous. But I already knew that.

  Irenka snuggled into my lap, the night pants making a gentle crackling sound. I had us both buckled up and I wrapped my arms around her.

  I put my head back and closed my eyes, hoping for additional rest. I felt more tired than I’d ever felt in my life.

  “I want Mama,” Irenka said in a low voice.

  I opened my eyes and looked down into her small face.

  “I want Mama too,” I said. “But I think Mama and Papa aren’t alive anymore.”

  My sister stiffened and began to whimper again, burying her face in my chest.

  I hugged her tightly, feeling the lump move into my throat. I wasn’t sure who I felt sorrier for: my little sister, myself, or my parents.

  I fought back the swell of grief and tried to stay calm. I could still feel Papa’s hand on my head when he looked me in the eye and told me to take care of Irenka—because he’d known Mama and he wouldn’t be around to do it anymore. Papa had looked resigned when he’d said those words to me. Resigned, and yet full of dignity. While the other adults on the station had panicked, he’d made sure Irenka and I were safe.

  Now, my sister needed me to be the strong one. And I needed me to be strong for us both.

  I swallowed thickly and let my tears be silent tears while I gently stroked Irenka’s golden hair.

  An hour later, an adult appeared near our seat. She was older than many of the other adults we’d seen onboard, with short hair that was going gray. She seemed motherly and smiled at my sister and me, patting our shoulders.

  “Do you speak TransCom?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good. Can you please tell me your names and ages?”

  “Miroslaw Jaworski. This is my sister, Irenka. I’m eleven, she’s four.”

  The kindly crewperson noted our names on her PDA.

  “Do you know where your parents are?”

  “Yes. You wouldn’t let Papa come onboard. He’s dead now.”

  The woman’s mouth sank to a frown.

  “I am sorry, honey. The captain wouldn’t let us bring any more adults than we already had. The ship was full.”

  Her words were small comfort. But I worked to remain strong. Something told me that my childhood had suffered an abrupt ending, and the sooner I acted like a man, the better.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Ummm…did you watch the news these past few months?”

  “No.”

  “There was…they…no, maybe it’s better if I don’t explain it. Honey, someone started a war. A very terrible war.”

  “Why?”

  The woman paused, her eyes un-focusing and her frowned lips beginning to tremble.

  “I have damn no idea,” she whispered.

  Then the woman seemed to remember who she was speaking to, apologized for cursing, and went back to recording information. She took down where we’d lived, the names of extended family, what we liked to eat, if we had any favorite videos we liked to watch, and if we had anything special the adults on the ship would need to know.

  “I don’t have my chair,” I said.

  “Pardon me?”

  “On the ground, I can’t move without my chair.”

  I pantomimed using the little joystick that commanded my electric chair, without which I couldn’t move except to drag myself across the floor with my arms.

  “You’re a paraplegic?”

  “Yes.”

  The woman’s lips quivered again, and she reflexively reached out and stroked a lock of hair off my forehead.

  “I’m OK,” I said. “When there is no gee, I don’t need legs. It’s one of the reasons Mama was at the conference. She thought she’d get a job with one of the settlements in the asteroids, where I’d probably never have to worry about a chair again.”

  “Of course. I’ll pass it on to the captain. Can you handle your sister, or should I see if one of us can take her?”

  “I want Mirek,” Irenka said, not looking at the woman and reflexively wrapping her arms so tightly across mine, I think there was nothing more that needed to be said.

  The woman stood up, her special shoes gripping the floor, and affectionately stroked my hair one more time.

  “If you need any help, press the blue button on the seat in front of you. My name is Elaine, and I am one of the crew. Otherwise, the screen below the button is a computer you can use to look at shows or play games.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “But what I really want to know is, where are we going?”

  “We’re not sure. The captain has to decide. The war didn’t happen only at Earth.”

  • • •

  Our ship was a common interplanetary liner. The kind that are so common, they don’t have names, just numbers. The captain did his best to inform us of what was going on, but I don’t think he was used to talking to kids, so I had to keep asking Elaine to explain it to me. She said that the captain had decided to take us to Jupiter, where we might find other refugees at the Jovian space settlements.

  There was near-constant thrust because we had to go as fast as we could to get away from the war satellites that were still hunting between Earth and the moon.

  This meant I had to spend the first half of the trip on the couch to which Irenka and me were assigned, which would have been fine except that I needed Elaine’s help whenever I had to go to the lavatory. Some of the younger teenagers laughed and called me a baby when Elaine carried me up and down the aisle. I could handle that. You don’t live life as a child cripple and not get used to the fact that a lot of other kids are always mean.

  But when they star
ted picking on Irenka, I knew I had to do something.

  I waited until we were at mid-point, when we got a few hours of freefall before deceleration. It was the one time during the trip when the other kids were awkward, and I felt comfortable. I’d spent the previous months onboard our station using the zero gee exercise rooms in the station’s hub, in preparation for Mama’s hoped-for assignment to the asteroids. Now I used these skills to maximum advantage.

  A few black eyes and fat lips later—both theirs and mine—and the troublemakers and I reached an understanding.

  When Elaine found out, she scolded me hotly of course. Adults always have to do that, so that it seems to everyone like they’re not taking sides. But when we were thrusting again and I was back to needing Elaine’s help to use the lavatory, she quietly told me she was glad I’d stuck up for my sister, and that some of the rowdier kids had stopped being so rowdy.

  There was no more teasing, and the people who had been bothering Irenka didn’t say another word.

  Which was good enough for me.

  • • •

  Jupiter was gorgeous outside our liner’s cabin windows. The huge planet had hung there for a week now, growing steadily larger while we adjusted and burned in order to drop into a rendezvous orbit with one of the Jovian stations the captain had spoken of shortly before we fled the inner system.

  I’m not sure what all of us were thinking. The Jovian settlements had grown into a sort of mythic destination in our minds, and we’d all begun to place various—and later, I would think, unrealistic—expectations on the place. Irenka especially seemed fascinated with Jupiter.

  I felt bad, having to keep reminding her that Mama and Papa wouldn’t be there at the door to greet us when we got off the ship. Every time I did it, Irenka got mad at me and told me she hated me because I was happy that Mama and Papa were dead, so that I could take Papa’s place and boss her around. At which point she’d take off for the little indoor playground the crew had built in the lower cargo hold, and I wouldn’t see her for an hour. Until she’d come sulking back to our couch, apologize for being mean to me, and we’d end it with a great big hug.

  Irenka was up front using the lavatory when the lights in the cabin went red and the klaxon sounded over the speakers.

  The captain’s voice roared, temporarily drowning the screams of the other kids.

  “WE ARE UNDER ATTACK BY AN AUTOMATED DEFENSE SATELLITE! BUCKLE IN AND PREPARE FOR SEVERE GEE!”

  My immediate thought was of Irenka, stuck in the bathroom. I used my arms to propel myself out of my seat, but was promptly shoved back down from behind by Elaine’s hands on my biceps.

  “Do as you’re told!” Elaine yelled at me.

  “But my sister!”

  Elaine looked to where I stared wide at the lavatory, then nodded once and said, “You stay here, I’ll go get Irenka!”

  The older woman almost ran down the aisle, her grip shoes making rip-rip sounds as she went. I managed to get my harness buckled around me when the gee kicked hard. We all slammed from side to side, up and down, screams and shouts and crying filling the cabin. Elaine stayed upright through all of it, and I saw her reach the lavatory door and use the special key card on her lanyard to open it. She vanished inside for a moment, then emerged with Irenka, whose eyes were searching frantically while her legs kicked in the air. Elaine was yelling, “Calm down! Calm down, honey!”

  Another series of violent maneuvers battered the occupants of the cabin. I saw one girl come loose from her partially-buckled harness and crash into the ceiling. She floated limply for a moment before being catapulted over my head and out of sight, followed by a sickening thump.

  Elaine held Irenka tight, however, and began making her way back to my couch when there was a horrific concussion that made my teeth rattle, following by groans and shrieking from beneath the floor.

  My ears suddenly felt like they might pop, and for an instant I realized that the ship had been hit. Elaine and Irenka simply looked at me, their mouths forming twin oh-shapes while their hair ruffled in the rush of escaping atmosphere.

  Then the orange decompression shield slipped out of its compartment on the headrest of my couch and dropped down over me like a shroud, sealing at the edges.

  I screamed Irenka’s name and fought to undo the chest buckle on my harness, watching through the shield’s small window while the cabin became a nightmare of flashing red lights and debris exploding from the floor. My little sister and I were able to exchange one final look, her little mouth shrieking, Mirek! Then the world tilted over and I was crushed into my couch, the decompression shield flapping and billowing.

  • • •

  When I came to, I was numb to the core. My ears hurt a lot and my nose had bled all over the front of my shirt. I didn’t care. For the longest time I just sat and kept my eyes closed tight, re-watching the image of my little sister noiselessly screaming my name.

  Eventually I felt the rumbling of a terrible cry struggle up in my chest. Once it broke the surface, I howled for many minutes, snot and tears and blood caking my face and hands. By the time I went silent I was so spent physically and emotionally, I could only muster a few last sniffles, and then I was back to simply feeling nothing much at all.

  Hours passed. I didn’t move until my bowels complained, and I used the small LCD in the armrest of the couch to read the emergency instructions. The decompression shield had snapped taut as a balloon, affording me some elbow room. So I unlatched myself from the harness and, per direction, pulled the seat cushion up to reveal the orifice for an emergency zero-gee toilet, which I used. Then I simply sat and stared out the shield’s window, watching the blackness of space and the stars beyond roll slowly past.

  I figured I’d been blown free of the wreck during the decompression, or the couch was designed to eject in an emergency. It didn’t matter, really. Irenka had died five meters from me, and all I’d been able to do was watch.

  I’d failed Irenka. And I’d failed Papa, who’d told me to take care of her.

  I wished very much that I could cease to exist.

  Another cry rumbled, but I didn’t have anything left for it.

  I fell back asleep.

  • • •

  I came awake with a start.

  The decompression shield was slowly deflating around me.

  I hurried punched at the LCD on the armrest, wondering why the system hadn’t sounded an emergency alarm, only to find the decompression shield lifting back up into the headrest on its motors.

  I flinched for an instant, expecting the vacuum of space, but instead found the illuminated, metal-ribbed interior of…another ship?

  There were no people present in the high-ceilinged, rectangular space. It dwarfed the passenger cabin of the ship Irenka and I had originally escaped on.

  Irenka. A wave of sudden depression washed over me and I brought my useless knees to my chest, burying my face. The repeating images of her frantic death began to replay across my mind, and I slowly beat my forehead on my kneecaps, unable to make the horror stop. Would it be like this forever? Always seeing Irenka, dying a million deaths, with me unable to help her?

  There was a clanking sound from across the large compartment, and I snapped my head up. I saw a circular hatch swing open.

  My heart began to beat rapidly in my chest. I stayed put on the couch, watching a small figure in white, flowing, pajama-like clothes float through and attach to the deck with grip shoes.

  To my surprise, it was an old woman.

  Her skin was wrinkled and coal-black, and her eyes were wide with dark irises.

  She looked at me, unblinking. Then she quickly walked rip-rip-rip across the deck.

  “Boy’s a mess, Howard,” the old woman said, but not to me. Her speech was American English, but heavily accented in a way I’d never heard except on television. When she drew near I noticed the tiny device in her ear—a headset. I just looked at her while she knelt down slowly near the coach and examined my face, the
dried blood on my shirt, and the way my balled fists gently trembled while I hugged them over my knees.

  “You got a name, son?”

  “Miroslaw,” I said, the dried mucus and blood in my nostrils making it sound as if I had a bad cold.

  “That’s…Russian?”

  “Polish”

  “Well you can thank the Lord that your little lifeboat here crossed our path, Miroslaw from Poland. The killsats didn’t leave much left when they hit Jupiter. Howard and I kept the observatory dark until the killsats moved on. Then we did a slingshot burn, and now we’re away.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Everything has gone on automatic. The military doesn’t exist anymore, but their machines do. To the killsats, everyone has become a target. So Howard and I decided it would be best to cut loose and go.”

  “Where?”

  “The Kuiper Belt, boy. Only place left. We’re going to find the Outbound.”

  Outbound. There had been stories about them in school: privately-funded deep space missions that had been sent to determine if the space beyond Neptune provided fertile ground for colonization. None of them had ever sent back any data, once they passed the orbit of Pluto. Common sense said the Outbound had perished.

  But had they really?

  As long as Irenka’s death was foremost in my mind, the Outbound didn’t matter to me. I kept hugging my knees, and stared past the old woman, looking at nothing.

  “I’m Tabitha,” the old woman said, sticking out her hand.

  “Thank you for finding me,” I said, weakly shaking it.

  “You don’t seem too happy about it, Miroslaw.”

  “Mirek. My sister called me Mirek. She’s…she’s….”

  I couldn’t say it, but it didn’t seem like I needed to. Tabitha just put a gnarled old finger to my lips.

  “Hush child. You’ve survived the Devil’s Day. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”