Starfall: A Starstruck Novel (2 page)

“I’ll do my best.” I began with Eric Eagan’s insistence on coming to the Palace to help me find and use the device, even though he was at death’s door. I was determined that these few, at least, know and remember the heroic final act of his three-hundred-plus year existence. When I paused, Devyn nodded respectfully.
 

Nels, however, shifted impatiently. “But did the Grentl agree not to cause any more power outages?”

“Not…exactly. At first, the device bombarded me with images, memories, of others who’d used the device. My great-grandmother, Sovereign Aerleas, my grandfather Leontine, even Faxon. Then it went the other way, with them pulling out
my
memories. Replaying my whole life.”

“This all happened in the space of two hours?” Mr. O looked slightly dazed.
 

I nodded. “But I only got bits and pieces, everything flashed past so quickly.”
 

“Amazing,” Mr. O marveled. “What an interesting way to communicate. And what happened the second time the device activated?”

“Second time?” Nels exclaimed, clearly startled.
 

“Yes, just a few minutes after the power failure, er, didn’t happen. That time they did send a message.” I took a deep breath, bracing myself for their reactions. “They said…‘We are coming.’”

Everyone in the room paled visibly. Mr. O found his voice first. “Coming. Here? To Nuath? When? To do what?”

“I don’t know. They just stuck that single thought into my head: ‘We are coming.’ No where, when, why, nothing.”
 

“But what does it mean?
Why
would they be coming?” Nels’s fear was palpable. “Can’t you stop them, talk them out of it? Should we evacuate the colony?”

Mr. O made a calming gesture. “You didn’t ask for more details?”

“I tried to, but they just…pulled more out of my head.” Now I guiltily realized I’d let go of the device in mid-recall when hit by that final, devastating memory—something Eric had cautioned me not to do. I hadn’t tried touching it again after that. Should I have? I shivered at the thought but Sean put a supporting arm around my shoulders.
 

“Without more answers, it’s difficult to know how to prepare, or if we even should.” Devyn sounded more thoughtful than scared. “Perhaps they merely wish to assess our status firsthand.”
 

“We also have no idea of a time frame,” Mr. O pointed out. “I know very little about the Grentl, but apparently they are exceedingly long-lived?” he glanced at me and I nodded. “It could possibly be decades, even centuries, before they arrive.”

“Or hours,” Nels interjected, still on the verge of panic.
 

“In which case I doubt there is anything we can do. If their intentions are hostile, even decades of preparation might not be enough to stop them.”

I wasn’t sure what Mr. O was suggesting. “But…shouldn’t we at least get Scientists working on it? You said yourself that Eric should have told a few others.”

“Eventually, perhaps. First we’d need to determine who can safely be trusted with the information. If the mere fact of the Grentl’s existence is likely to panic the populace, imagine what news of their one communication would do.”

“I didn’t mean we should tell the media. Besides, Gordon Nolan already knows, at least about the Grentl and the device. And Rigel’s grandmother, and all the Healers who were there when—”
 

I broke off abruptly, jerked back to excruciating awareness of the gaping hole in my heart. That memory extraction was the very last time I’d seen Rigel. Was it really only three days ago? It seemed like another lifetime. One that still had hope in it.
 

Mr. O seemed not to notice my sudden distress. “That was unavoidable. In any event, they have all sworn complete secrecy.”

“You need to go back to the device,” Nels insisted, his eyes still wide with fear. “Now. Find out when they’re coming and what they mean to do when they get here.”

Sean tightened his grip on my shoulders, speaking for the first time. “What she needs to do is rest. She’s told you everything she knows so far. If you want to keep arguing or planning or whatever, you can do it without her.”

Though Mr. O seemed as startled as I was by Sean’s forceful tone, he didn’t protest. “Sean is right. We appear to be safe enough for the moment, thanks to the Sovereign. Perhaps after some well-earned rest she will be able to enter into further discussions of our options. Gentlemen.” He rose, pointedly adjourning the meeting.

With obvious reluctance, Nels and Devyn bowed and departed. The moment the door closed behind them, I sagged where I sat, my last bit of energy gone.

“Let’s get you to bed.” As he had in the Grentl room, Sean gently helped me to my feet, then supported most of my weight as we returned to my apartment. After helping Molly get me into bed he hesitated, regarding me searchingly. “You sure you’ll be okay? I can stay if—”

“No, go on. I’ll see you later. Probably tomorrow.” I kept my voice steady by sheer force of will.

Sean watched me for several more heartbeats, then gave a little shrug. “Okay. Call if…if you need anything?”

I nodded, not quite meeting his concerned gaze, and he finally followed his father from the apartment.

Molly lingered, her brow still furrowed with sympathy. “Can I do anything else for you, M?”
 

“No. But thanks.” She was the only one in her family who’d ever been at all sympathetic to Rigel and me as a couple, but right now I desperately wanted to be alone with my heartbreak.

Once she was gone and my bedroom door shut, I dragged myself to a sitting position against my pillows and switched on the vidscreen, the volume low enough it wouldn’t be heard from the other room. Even knowing what it would do to me, I felt a compulsion to replay that awful final message from Rigel. Maybe I’d missed some loophole, some shred of hope…

“I’ve decided to go back to Earth immediately,” he told me again in that terrible, emotionless voice. “You need to be with Sean now, for the good of Nuath. But because it will hurt too much to see you two together from now on, I’ve asked to have the last year of my memory erased before I go. I know I’m taking the coward’s way out, and I’m sorry for that, M, and sorry I can’t tell you a proper goodbye. I hope in time you’ll be able to get over me and be happy with Sean. He’s not a bad guy, you know, even if I haven’t always been his biggest fan.

“By the time you get this message, the procedure will already be done, and I’ll already be on board the
Luminosity
. I’m bringing along a letter for my parents explaining what I’ve done and suggesting we move away from Jewel, so please don’t try to come after me. Your focus right now needs to be on keeping Nuath safe, both from this immediate threat and into the future. Please do your best to stay safe and to be happy. Goodbye, M.”

Destroyed all over again, I curled myself into a tight ball of misery and let the tears come.

My crying jag eventually exhausted me enough to fall into a fitful sleep filled with nightmares—but every time I jerked awake, it was to a reality even worse than the awful dream that woke me. Then I’d swing wildly between desperate determination to ignore Rigel’s request and go after him,
make
him remember, and such despair that I again cried myself to sleep. When I finally dragged myself into the shower hours after daybreak, I felt like I’d been run over by a truck.
 

Sean came for breakfast, again cajoling more food into me than I really wanted, then he and Molly spent the next few hours trying to draw me out of myself, inch by painful inch. While I appreciated that they cared, their very sympathy, which I sensed all too clearly, was a constant reminder of my loss.

By the time their father joined us for lunch, I’d reached a fragile equilibrium between dissolving into tears and a detached numbness where nothing mattered at all. Even so, Mr O’Gara’s smile when he greeted me was jarring.
 

“You’ll be pleased to know I’ve spoken again at length with both Nels Murdoch and Devyn Kane and we’ve agreed that until we know more, we should proceed normally.”

I hadn’t progressed far enough to smile back. “So Nels isn’t still calling for the colony’s immediate evacuation?”

“Devyn and I were able to calm him somewhat. We also pointed out the logistical impossibility of such a thing, which he was forced to acknowledge.”

Molly paused in the act of setting out food from my recombinator. “Why is it impossible?”
 

“Simple mathematics,” her father replied. “Think. We have but four ships, all built along the same lines as the
Quintessence.
Even by cramming passengers in to the point of discomfort, each has a capacity of perhaps two hundred. An average round trip between Mars and Earth is ten days, allowing for repairs, refueling and restocking of supplies, which allows a maximum of twelve round trips per ship in a typical four-month launch window. Only three months remain in the current one.”

Grasping at the distraction, I did some quick mental calculations. “So we can only get ten thousand people from here to Earth during a full launch window? At that rate, it would take more than fifty years to get everyone off Mars. Shouldn’t we have already started, Grentl or not? According to Shim, our power will only last another century or so.”

“Indeed.” Mr. O waited for me to sit, then took his own seat at the table. “Unfortunately, that project was still in the planning stages when Faxon seized power. So many were in denial, even in the Legislature, that more resources were devoted to research on extending the colony’s power supply than to implementing a measured emigration.”

“So how did Faxon plan to invade Earth with only four ships?” Sean asked.

“He conscripted Engineers, Metalworkers and Mining resources to build more ships. None are yet complete but it’s possible his efforts may allow us to speed up emigration in a decade or so. Meanwhile, we must look to the
current
welfare of Nuath and its people by putting a proper government in place. It’s what I’d originally hoped to do upon my return here.”
 

Before he’d known about the Grentl, in other words. A matter he now seemed eager to dismiss. Between bites, Mr. O read aloud from his omni screen, listing the dinners, meetings and audiences he’d lined up for me over the next week or two. It was every bit as packed a schedule as when he’d managed my campaign to be Acclaimed Sovereign. Just listening to it made me tired.
 

“Of course, once you designate a Regent, much of this sort of thing can be delegated to him. Or her. We can’t have our new Sovereign working herself into poor health—though perhaps just now it’s good you’ll have so much to occupy you.”

The implication made my heart hurt.
 

After lunch, Mr. O switched on the big vidscreen to see the latest news. The top stories were still mainly about my recent Acclamation and Installation—nothing to hold my interest. I was starting to retreat into misery again when a news story came on about potential Regents. They displayed a long list, nearly a hundred names, each with a favorability rating. Some I recognized from my studies or my campaign for Acclamation, but many were unknown to me.
 

The names of the four Royals on the
Echtran
Council were listed, and those who’d been on the
Quintessence
with us—including Quinn O’Gara, with a favorability rating of 76, second only to Devyn Kane’s.
 

“Hey, good showing, Dad,” Sean exclaimed, grinning.
 

I turned to Mr. O in surprise. “You’re in the running for Regent? I didn’t know that.”

“Technically no one is
running.
It will be your prerogative to name any qualified person you choose—that is, any Royal of the requisite age and experience who has lived on Mars. In other words, anyone from this list.”

“You’re a really popular choice, Dad.” Molly sounded impressed and proud, but Mr. O shrugged.
 

“Perhaps, but I would never presume on my acquaintance with the Sovereign to put myself forward when she’s met so few of the other candidates. Many will be attending tonight’s reception and dinner, including those who arrived last week aboard the
Luminosity
.”
 

I flinched at the name of the ship Rigel had taken back to Earth. Without me.
 

Mr. O didn’t seem to notice. “More will be returning over the next month or two, though many are sending video presentations ahead for your consideration. I recommend you begin reviewing those as soon as possible.”

I supposed he was right. The sooner I named a Regent, the sooner I could go back to Earth. “Would you
want
to be Regent?” I asked curiously. That would make my choice pretty easy.

He shrugged again but I sensed he wasn’t nearly as indifferent as he pretended. “I’m flattered you would ask. Of course, there would be a fair number of details to work out.”

“Like Mum.” Sean was clearly startled that his dad would even consider such a thing. “She’s stuck on Earth as part of that
Echtran
Council isn’t she?”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” I admitted. “I guess my Regent will have to stay on Mars, especially since we all need to get back to Earth before anybody realizes we aren’t still in Ireland.” My heart lifted slightly. Maybe I couldn’t hunt Rigel down and make him remember me, but at least on Earth we’d both be seeing the same stars. And someday maybe, just maybe…

Mr. O raised an eyebrow, almost like he guessed my thought. “Surely you realize, Excellency, that there will be strong resistance to you leaving Nuath, even with a Regent in place?”

“
What?
”
 

Sean and Molly gaped at their father, too, but he took no notice.
 

“Did the Council not talk to you about that?”
 

“About me never coming back? No! I even asked them about it point-blank and Malcolm admitted it would raise lots of questions on Earth if I didn’t return. If they’d even
hinted
I’d have to
stay
on Mars, I never would have come at all. Especially—”