Starglass (4 page)

“Sure you don’t,” she said.

“Move it along, girls,” came a firm, clear voice from behind us. We turned—Rachel opened her mouth to offer a sarcastic word in return. But her expression softened when she saw who had spoken. It was Silvan Rafferty, and a smile curled up one corner of his lips. I felt my heart stutter in my chest, but his dark-lashed eyes were firmly on Rachel.

All we’d ever shared was that one kiss. But just the season before, he’d turned sweet on my friend. They walked through the atrium together, just like the older couples, holding hands and making out in beds of dry leaves. She was smitten, and so I never told her what had happened between me and the doctor’s son just before Momma died.

I pretended I didn’t care. But Silvan had grown handsome, well muscled and tall. His amber skin was smooth. Shining black curls tumbled down his shoulders. A smirk was always lifting his lips, as if he were secretly laughing at his own private joke. He grinned at us now.

“We’re not ‘girls,’ Silvan,” Rachel said as we stepped into the crowded lift. Silvan stood between us. I could feel the heat of his arm right through his shirt. “We’re practically women.”

“You look like a bunch of silly girls to me,” Silvan replied. Rachel
darted her tongue out at him and then exploded in a fit of giggles. He whispered something to her. I couldn’t hear his words—only the heavy murmur of his lips against her ear.

My face burned. I turned away, watching through the glass walls as the pastures disappeared beneath us as we flew up into the bow of the ship.

•  •  •

The captain’s stateroom was at the bow of the ship, far from the atrium and the shops and the busy traffic of the day. Despite the name, Captain Wolff didn’t live there. Her family occupied a house in the ship’s stern, surrounded by other Council members. This was meant to illustrate how she stood on equal ground with other Asherati. But of course, no other citizen had a personal guard standing watch over his front door.

The suite was reserved for ceremonial purposes—vocation ceremonies, retirement parties, things like that. Rachel had told me how some couples were married there, but only if their families were in good standing with the captain. I’d never been invited to such a wedding.

I’d visited the stateroom only once, at our school convocation when I was six. I remembered how dark it was and how the ceiling was made of glass, but my memories didn’t do it justice.

For one thing, everything was clean. Most of the ship felt ancient,
rickety, and dusty. We had a few computer terminals in school, but the old tech was mostly too important to waste on ordinary citizens. There were rumors that the Council families had their own terminals, though most of us were stuck with books and paper. But in the hall that led to the captain’s stateroom, little blinking lights and computer screens were set into the walls. Everything felt strangely new. No expense had been spared.

We filtered in. The ceiling panels here weren’t lit to simulate daylight. It was midmorning, but the sky above was star splattered. Hazy illumination spilled out of sconces in the wall. The black marble floors beneath our feet seemed to shine as much as the dark space above.

Our families were waiting for us. Rachel spotted hers and gave a wave of her slender hand to her mother, who waved back from her seat in the crowd. But when I found my father, he only turned away—muttering something under his breath to Ronen.

My brother had brought Hannah with him, of course. We never saw Ronen alone anymore, not since their wedding four years before. They moved together like a freakish two-headed lamb, her hand firmly glued to his arm. But she was the only one who smiled at me, waving. I forced myself to wave back. In truth, I felt bad for her—married to someone like my brother. But at least the marriage had been good for
him
. A gold thread was laced through the brown cord on his shoulder, marking him as a Council member now. It was only honorary. I don’t
think he’d ever been to a meeting. But it made our father happy.

Beyond our seated families, at the far end of the room, a pair of metal doors gasped open. The captain’s guard stepped through, resplendent in their pitch-black uniforms, brass buttons gleaming against wool. I recognized the woman who led the pack. It was the guard from the night before. She carried a woven basket in her arms, weighted heavily by sealed rolls of paper.

Captain Wolff followed on their boot heels. Her uniform matched theirs—all black and brass. But where they wore bloodred braids on their shoulders, the cord on hers was violet, threaded with gold. Supervisory staff and a Council member, too. She was the only one to wear those colors.

At the center of the room sat a podium, ready and waiting. Captain Wolff marched right up to it, smiling. But the way the scar twisted her lip made it look more like a grimace. She rested her hand on the hilt of her ceremonial knife as she spoke.

“Dear children,” she said, leaning hungrily forward, “and honored citizens. Remember that today is not simply the day that your sons and daughters earn their vocations, taking the last step toward becoming full citizens in the eyes of our society. No, indeed today is the day we all see our last class of children begin to ascend to adulthood within the confines of our ship.” Captain Wolff pointed a knobby finger straight toward us. I was too close
to the front for my liking. I squirmed, letting my hair veil my face.

“
You
, children, represent the pinnacle of our journey. You are the reason our ancestors departed from Earth so many years ago. As we begin the next step of our voyage, your loyalty is of the utmost importance. It is the work you’ll do that will cement our meager colony’s future on our new home. You are the foundation of everything that will follow. Through each mitzvah you perform, the dutiful execution of your work assignments, and the fulfillment of your marriage contracts, each of you will bring us closer and closer to repairing humanity’s uncertain future.”

She was staring at us. Everyone was—an audience of steady, piercing gazes, and my father’s eyes among them, most piercing of all. I could practically feel the weight of his expectations bearing down on me from above.

“And now . . .” She paused, folding her hands in front of her. “It’s time to give you what you’ve been waiting for. Aleksandra, the scrolls?”

The woman beside her stepped forward, hefting the basket in her arms. I saw now that each scroll was made of white paper, the smooth kind that cost a fortune. Each was tied with a ribbon and sealed with a bubble of wax. Some of the ribbons were brown and green. Those would go to the laborers—fieldworkers, shepherds, granary assistants, carpenters. I saw scattered silver ribbons, for merchants, and a dozen
curling blue ribbons for specialists, too. I leaned forward, searching for a flash of bright color. But I didn’t see any tied with the yellow bow of an artisan.

The woman came to stand by the captain’s side, holding the basket by its handles. Captain Wolff hesitated for a moment; then her lips parted into some semblance of a smile.

“You know,” she said to the audience, her cold eyes sparkling and sharp, “I was so proud on the day when my daughter received her own assignment as a guard member. I knew she would serve our ship well—always dutiful, always obedient. She works so that we may all achieve
tikkun olam
. As I’m sure your children will.”

There was an appreciative rumble of voices in the crowd. I glanced between Captain Wolff and Aleksandra. If it hadn’t been for the scar, I would have noted the family resemblance more readily. They had the same hawk nose, the same sharp features. The look was almost pretty on the younger woman. I wondered if Captain Wolff had been pretty once too, before the thresher did its work.

She looked only scary now—scarier as she reached in and lifted the first scroll. We all sucked in our breath as she read off the name that was sewn into the brown ribbon—

“Jamen Dowd. Granary worker.”

—and exhaled when we realized that we weren’t the one being summoned to the podium. We watched as Jamen marched forward,
his hands balled at his hips. Once he’d been a soft, silly boy, but the years since his bar mitzvah had hardened him. When Captain Wolff stopped him before he could stamp off, a frown creased his wide mouth. Still, she took his hand and gave it a stout shake.

“Congratulations, Jamen,” she said.

Jamen lowered his unkempt eyebrows and stalked off.

Granary worker will fit him
, I said to myself.
Wouldn’t want him to have to talk to anybody.
I scolded myself for the thought. Every assignment was important, no matter what my father always said. That’s what we’d learned in school.

But it was hard to be happy for Deklan Levitt, a rail-thin, weasel-faced boy who was told that he would be a plowman. Or happy for the families who would be assisted with deliveries down in the hatchery by Ada Wyeth, a notorious bully who always wore a vicious scowl.

But then Rachel’s name was called, and it was announced that she’d gotten the shop job she’d been hoping for. Her parents lifted their fists in the air, pumping them victoriously. My heart twisted in my chest. Sometimes it was hard to be friends with someone who always got whatever she wanted.

I tried to steady my smile as Captain Wolff moved on to the next name and Rachel slid into the line beside me.

“Koen Maxwell,” Captain Wolff said, holding a blue-ribboned scroll. Her inky eyes searched out a gangly chestnut-haired boy who was
known for being good at math and not much else. She added, “Clock keeper.”

I bit the insides of my cheeks in surprise, keeping my smile tight. That was my father’s title. I’d no idea that he’d requested a
talmid
. Out in the audience Abba’s expression was flat, unreadable.

But even my father glanced up at what transpired next. Captain Wolff reached into the basket and pulled out a scroll tied with a purple ribbon.

“Silvan Rafferty,” she said, and then added, in a tickled tone, “captain.”

Rebbe Davison, who had spent most of the ceremony nodding his silent approval from a chair in front, dropped his jaw.

“You’re retiring?”

His words cut through the confused murmurs of the crowd. Captain Wolff glowered at our teacher. Her lips drew back a touch, showing teeth.

“This is Silvan’s moment,” she warned. And then she looked at her new
talmid
, taking in his tall, muscular figure and proud jaw. She reached forward, gripping his hand in one hand, touching his shoulder with the other.

“Congratulations, Silvan,” she said. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I saw tears dot her eyelashes. The boy just gave a small, bored nod. There was no gratitude in the gesture, as if he’d been expecting this
all along. When he strolled over to where the rest of us stood, clutching the only purple-ribboned scroll in the whole basket in one proud fist, we all turned to stare. He was blushing faintly, red along the bridge of his nose and the tops of his ears, but that was the only indication he gave that he knew we were gawking at him.

Beside me, Rachel looked like she’d just swallowed glass.

“Silvan?” she whispered, and her hand groped out for mine. “Captain?”

I knew what she was imagining. It was a possibility grander than she’d ever considered: Rachel, the captain’s wife.

I began to picture it. Beautiful Rachel, her coarse curls pulled up, revealing her long, slender neck and the dark skin of her throat above a harvest-gold wedding dress. Silvan would wear his navy-blue uniform. Maybe they’d be married here, beneath the star-dotted sky, the way that the Council members’ children so often were.

My best friend, married to the captain. That would make her a Council member.

A lump began to rise in my throat. I could see it so clearly—the two of them kissing on their wedding day. Would I even be invited? Rachel might want me there, but I couldn’t be sure. Why would Silvan want the scrubby daughter of the clock keeper at his wedding? I was certain he didn’t remember that day in the dome. It had been so long ago and hadn’t meant anything, anyway. We were just
kids. The thoughts swirled in my mind. I wasn’t listening to Captain Wolff’s long, droning list of names.

Rachel tugged at my hand.

“What?” I asked. My voice cut through silence. A few of my classmates tittered. When Rachel spoke, it was through laughter too.

“Terra! That’s you!”

“Oh!” I felt my cheeks grow hot. Everyone had turned to me, watching and waiting. I took clumsy steps toward the podium.
I don’t even know what she said!
I thought in a panic as I took the rolled paper in one hand and barely touched the captain’s fingers with the other. I noted the color of the bow.
A blue thread. Blue. So much for art. A specialist position . . .

“Congratulations,” the captain said. Her tone was droll as she snatched her hand away from mine. I guess I’d held on a moment too long. She wiped my sweat off her hand by pressing her fingers to her wool-wrapped hip. I watched, frozen at first. Then I hurried to slip in again beside Rachel. At the front of the room, the captain continued to call my classmates to her. But I tuned her out again, scrambling to peel away the seal with my nail.

I scanned the lines of black calligraphy. The date was at the top. My name was inked below it. Then there was the captain’s name, and her title, and a long line of words—
On this sacred day
and so on and so forth. I skimmed to the bottom of the page.

I couldn’t help but spit out the word that I found there.

“Botanist?”

It tasted bad on my tongue. Before I could turn to Rachel, to whisper to her of my confusion, I heard a sibilant
shhh
of air rise up from the audience. I looked out across the jumble of smiling faces, searching for the source of the sound—until my eyes fixed on a familiar glower.

My father glared at me across the sea of heads. His jaw was set firmly, his lips pursed. I felt the searing burn of blood rise up across my cheeks and throat. Blushing furiously, I crumpled the paper into a ball in my fist.

•  •  •