Starcrossed (12 page)

Of course, Bri and Deb both wanted to know what was going on as soon as we joined them in History, and I’d totally forgotten to come up with something to tell them. Luckily, Bri made a guess of her own before I could say anything too stupid.

“It’s something to do with Rigel’s party Saturday, isn’t it?” she asked as I stammered.

I immediately seized on that. “Yeah, actually, it was. He, um, had an idea for something kind of crazy, and I needed to talk to him about it, make sure he didn’t commit to anything without asking his parents. I didn’t want him to get in trouble on his birthday. Right, Rigel?”

“Yeah, and she was right, just like she usually is,” he said, managing a chagrined smile. “I think we’ll keep things simple after all.”

“But if you can’t go crazy on your sixteenth birthday, when can you?” Bri protested. “Don’t wimp out.”

I sensed Rigel tensing beside me and knew he was thinking of Sean instead of his party. Quickly, I changed the subject.

“Trust me, it’s better this way. Hey, did you do the reading last night? I’m betting Rosa Parks will be on the final. Don’t you just love everyday heroines like that?”

Deb jumped in with an enthusiastic agreement and a tidbit about Rosa Parks she’d found on Wikipedia, which kept us on safe topics until class started.

Molly, I noticed, didn’t say a word during any of this and seemed preoccupied all during class. I wondered if she was still worried about the possibility of Sean and Rigel fighting—and whether she had a reason to worry that I didn’t know about.
 

Sean was on the other side of the room, which meant at least I didn’t have to worry about him saying anything that might blow my cover story or get Rigel upset again. Not for the next forty-five minutes, anyway.

fine
(feen):
genetically related subsets of Martian population, each with certain attributes

I wanted to talk to Molly privately to find out what Sean’s problem was, but I didn’t get a chance that day or the next. She had cheerleading, and I was trying to spend every moment I could with Rigel. Besides the usual reasons, I wanted to keep tabs on his emotions . . . and keep him away from Sean.

Then, on the the bus ride home Friday afternoon, Molly sat with Trina (no cheerleading practice on Fridays) while I sat with Bri and Deb. I started to wonder if Molly was avoiding a one-on-one chat, but the moment we both got off the bus, she turned to me.
 

“M, I think we need to talk. Would it be okay if I came over to your house for a little while? Your aunt won’t be home, right?”

I was surprised she suggested my house instead of hers, then realized it made sense. If we were going to talk about Sean, we wouldn’t want her parents overhearing us, or Sean himself coming home from practice right in the middle of things.
 

“She won’t be home for at least an hour. And . . . I think you’re right.” A minute later, I unlocked the front door. “Let’s talk in the kitchen,” I suggested. “I’ll get us some milk and cookies.”

My aunt might be a pain in a lot of ways, but she did like to bake and kept the cookie jar filled most of the time. Today it was chocolate chip-walnut cookies that she’d made just last night.

“So,” I said, settling myself across the table from Molly, “what’s going on with Sean? Why is he so . . .
hostile
to Rigel? I really though they were going to get into a fight the other day.”

To my surprise, she blushed. “I was afraid they would, too,” she admitted. “I’m so glad you managed to talk sense into them before they did anything really stupid. You were amazing, by the way, how you handled them both.”

Now it was my turn to blush at the frank admiration in her eyes. “I mostly just distracted them long enough for their brains to start functioning again,” I said. “They’re both smart guys. Way too smart to let their emotions get them in trouble. I know why Rigel was upset. He’s basically jealous, no matter how much he denies it. But Sean seems to be deliberately saying stuff to
make
him jealous. That’s what I don’t get.”

Molly’s gaze slid away from mine. “It’s . . . complicated. And hard to explain to someone who didn’t grow up on Mars. Like, what a huge deal it was to find out you were alive after all, when everybody had thought there was no legitimate heir to the last Sovereign. So Sean feels—all of us feel—kind of . . . protective of you. Especially after the story came out about how close we came to losing you again last month.”

“But Rigel has done a super job of protecting me! Seriously. He literally saved my life twice last month. You’d think Sean would be
grateful
to him. Instead, he acts like Rigel’s the enemy or something.”

Molly bit her lip. “Not the enemy, no. But it does seem disrespectful, the way Rigel acts around you. To someone from Mars, I mean, especially someone Royal. Sean’s a really, really great guy, I swear, so please don’t think he’s—”

“Is it because he doesn’t believe in the
graell
?” I interrupted her. “He thinks it’s what you told me Tuesday night, just a . . . a line Martian boys use on girls?”

“Pretty much.”
 

I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. “And you don’t believe me either. You acted like you did, but . . .”
 

She shrugged, not quite meeting my eye. “I didn’t want to get into an argument, especially where Sean might overhear us. But that’s the main reason I wanted to come over. I need to explain to you why this thing you think you and Rigel have can’t be the
graell
.”

“Why it—” I stared at her, confused. “But it is! It’s not just that we felt drawn to each other—I know that can happen between Martians apart from the
graell
. But honestly, Molly, you should have seen what I was like before I met Rigel. I was such a loser. A total klutz, with acne and glasses and a permanent bad hair day. I’m practically a different person now—because of my bond with Rigel.”

Molly smiled, though she didn’t look any less skeptical. “Yeah, Trina mentioned that. She thinks your aunt and uncle paid for contacts and a dermatologist. She also, um, thinks you and Rigel are sleeping together.”

I sucked in my breath. “That little—! Well, we’re not. Shoot, we hardly ever even get to be alone together, my aunt is so strict. Not that we would if we could, of course,” I quickly added. Though I couldn’t pretend I’d never fantasized about what it might be like to—

“Oh, I didn’t believe her, and I told her so,” Molly assured me. “I just thought you should know what she’s telling people. But, M, if you were never around any other
Echtrans
before Rigel, it wouldn’t take the
graell
to make you change. We all tend to resonate with each other to some extent. It’s why most
Echtrans
live in villages and neighborhoods together, and why we can feel it when others are nearby.”

“The
brath
. I know. But it’s
different
with Rigel. It’s hard to describe since you haven’t felt it, but I . . . I just know what we have is special.” My words sounded lame even to me.

“No, I can’t know exactly what you feel, but there’s still a lot you don’t know about our people—how we’ve evolved, how our society works, all kinds of stuff. Once I explain some of it, maybe you’ll get why Sean is so upset.”
 

Mystified, I just motioned for her to go ahead.

“Okay. You know that we’ve been evolving independently of Earth humans for more than two thousand years, right? Ever since the original colonists were abducted from Ireland or thereabouts by an alien race we know almost nothing about.”

I got up and refilled our milk glasses and the cookie plate, since I had a feeling this might take a while. “Rigel and his folks told me that part, yes, and your parents told me more. They said those aliens did genetic experiments?”

“That’s what we think, yeah. But after they left for good, fifteen hundred years or so ago, we continued with what I guess you could call eugenics—selective breeding—to enhance our natural abilities. It’s why we’re mostly stronger, smarter, more empathic, et cetera, than the
Duchas
. Over time, our society developed a structure based on our genetic differences.”

“Wait—selective breeding?” I repeated, recoiling at the idea of arranged marriages, or worse. Nobody had mentioned that! “You mean you’re forced to . . . to breed with whoever some scientist or computer program says you have to, for the good of the, uh, race? That sounds awful!”

“No, it’s not like that! Not really,” she assured me, her gray eyes wide and earnest. “It’s more like . . . I guess you could call it tribes, or clans. A long time ago, like a thousand years, our people divided into different
fines—
” she pronounced it
feens
— “or bloodlines, according to innate genetic abilities.
 

“The smartest, most talented people formed the very first one, and became our natural leaders. A few generations later, that first group split into the Royal
fine
and the Scientific
fine
, which still form the basis for our two-party government system. Then those
fines
split into sub-
fines
. Nowadays, besides the Sovereigns, the Royal
fine
includes all our administrators, legal scholars, historians, and local government officials. The Scientific sub-
fines
are physicists, healers, engineers, geneticists, things like that.
 

“Meanwhile, everyone else separated into
fines
and sub-
fines
, too. Agriculture, manufacturing, mining, maintenance, arts, communications, systems management, groups like that. This must sound pretty complicated, huh?”

But I was fascinated, if still somewhat appalled. “So people are expected to marry within their own clan or, uh,
fine?
” I asked, trying to get back to her original point.

She nodded. “Abilities are stronger when both parents are from at least the same
fine
if not
sub-fine
. Everyone wants their children to be successful, so that’s a real incentive to stick to tradition.”

“Okay, I get it. Rigel’s parents aren’t Royal, so we aren’t supposed to be together. But we’re on Earth, not Mars, so what difference does it make? And what does it have to do with the
graell
? Other than the fact that you think it’s fictitious, I mean.”

She set down the cookie she’d just picked up. “Not fictitious, exactly. My mom says there have been a
few
documented cases over the centuries, though it’s really, really rare. I mean the, um, fairy tale kind that happens fast, like love at first sight. The other kind, which a lot of people also call
graell
, is more common, though still pretty rare. That’s where people, usually married couples, gradually form a physical and psychic bond over years together. A few have supposedly even developed the
shilcloas
, um, a telepathic link, though apparently only in the Royal family.”

I opened my mouth to tell her that Rigel’s parents had that, and that Rigel and I were getting close, but she went on without pausing.

“But the instant kind of
graell
? Even though there are fairy tales about it happening between way different
fines,
the few
documented
times it’s ever happened have all been between people of the same
fine,
even the same sub-
fine
. And of really pure blood, besides. You and Rigel—”

“I know. He’s Scientific and I’m Royal. Whole different
fines
.”

“Not only that, according to Uncle Allister, his parents are from different Science
fines
—his dad from Informatics and his mom from Healing, which means he’s not even from a pure-blooded sub-
fine
.”

Now I was confused again. “But his grandfather, Shim—his dad’s father—is a geneticist. Isn’t that a kind of doctor, too?”

“That’s what he does here, but Mum says he was Informatics back home, analyzing genetic and astrophysics data. But even a pure genetics researcher on Mars would be a separate
fine
from Healing. Healers—what you’d call medical doctors—have innate healing abilities that go beyond using treatments and medicines.”

I blinked. “Wow, like . . . laying on hands? I didn’t know that.” Could Dr. Stuart really do that? I realized I’d never had an opportunity to find out—and since she was an OB/Gyn, I probably wouldn’t. Though I supposed I could ask.

She nodded. “Most people have some kind of special,
fine
-related ability that no
Duchas
would have.”

Not exactly like choosing a college major, then. Mars was apparently a society of savants, with very deep but very narrow skill sets born into them. I found that both cool and disturbing. “Like what?”

 
“Well, Engineers have super precise spatial skills, Mechanicals have an affinity with machines, Informatics instinctively understand computer languages and data sets, Agriculturalists make plants grow—though, um, I never have. Things like that.”
 

“Wait, you’re not a Royal? I thought—“

“No, my real parents were Ags, farmers in Glenamuir. They died when I was a baby. The O’Garas adopted me and assumed their identities—in the database, anyway—so Faxon’s people couldn’t track them down as Royals. Though I’ve more or less been raised as one.”

Molly didn’t seem upset about it, though I wondered if she really was. “So what about Royals?” I had to ask. “Do they have any special abilities?”

“Well, duh!” She grinned. “Most Royals are good at influencing people—like what you did Wednesday in the courtyard. And the closer you are to the Sovereign line, the stronger that ability tends to be, which makes sense, since the Sovereigns always have the purest gene pool.”

“Influence people how?” I asked. “Like, clever with words?” I’d never considered that one of my talents—certainly not in the sense of ever having a snappy comeback when I needed one.

“Partly. Also charisma and intelligence and the ability to quickly analyze a situation and make snap decisions. Oh, and a sort of psychic ‘push’ that makes people more likely to agree with you. It’s why hardly anyone ever argued with the Sovereigns—until Faxon.”