These Broken Stars (Starbound #1)(84)

It’s locked, and I try digging my fingers in and prying it out. That doesn’t work, and after a few tries I give up. Time for a little gentle persuasion, as my first sergeant used to say.

I stomp hard on the hinges, the vibrations traveling up through my heel. The plastene cracks, but in the end I have to head out to the shed to retrieve the crowbar. In the main room, all I can see is a flash of red hair vanishing below one of the banks of controls as she tries to find out what’s underneath. She doesn’t look up as I pass by. I yank the hatch cover free. A ladder disappears down into the dark.

I’ve seen a lot of terraforming monitoring stations—this doesn’t come standard.

I take a deep breath. “It’s open,” I call out, and a few moments later she walks through to stand beside me, looking down into the dark. There’s no switch up here—the lights must be operated from down below. I grab my pack—I’ve gotten trapped in half-destroyed buildings before, and I’m not about to explore without food and water. I head down first and then reach up to steady her as she climbs after me, her breathing growing quick and shallow.

She drops down beside me and then steps away from my hand—still loath to let me touch her. I can’t see my hand in front of my face, and the air is perfectly still. It doesn’t feel close and stuffy, but that doesn’t tell me much. It’s bone-achingly cold down here.

We feel around in the dark for the lights and bump into each other, and I wince at the sound of her gasp.

“Where the hell is the switch?” I stumble against the ladder, stifling my curse as my elbow collides with the metal.

As if in answer, a light flickers on overhead. It’s a pale, fluorescent ceiling panel that does little to illuminate anything beyond arm’s reach. We seem to be at one end of a corridor; the rest of it is lost in darkness. We stand frozen by the sudden light, faces turning up toward it, blinking.

“Was that you?” I ask, despite the fact that she’s standing in the middle of the corridor, nowhere near any switch I can see.

She shakes her head no. In the fluorescent light she looks even paler than she does by daylight. “It’s like something heard you.”

The light flickers, dropping us back into darkness for the space of a heartbeat and then creeping back to life again. I turn, searching again for the switch—but she’s found it first. She stands to one side of the hallway, staring at the switch as I cross to her side.

“It’s off,” she whispers, glancing at me wide-eyed in the dim, wavering light.

“But how…”

She suddenly straightens, staring upward at the light. I know that look—it means Lilac’s thought of something. But this isn’t Lilac. It’s a copy. Not real.

“If you can hear us,” she says slowly, “blink the light three times.”

On command the light cuts out once, twice—we wait, silent. I’m holding my breath. Then the lights click out a third time, and the bottom drops out of my stomach.

“Once for yes, twice for no.” I swallow, my mouth dry. “Are you trying to hurt us?”

The lights flicker twice. No.

“Warn us?”

A brief pause, then three flickers. Is that a maybe?

“Communicate something else?”

YES.

“Where are you? Why won’t you come out and talk to us?” I don’t trust anyone who refuses to show themselves.

The lights remain even—there’s no answer to that question. I lift both hands to scrub at my face. “Are you able to come and talk to us?”

No.

I look over, catching Lilac’s eye. She looks back at me, face drained of all color. Then she takes over, her voice quieter than mine, echoing down the corridor.

“Are you what’s been sending us visions? Leading us here?”

Yes.

“Did you bring the flower back?”

Pause. Yes. No.

Flower? What flower? I want to ask, but Lilac’s riveted, her eyes on the lights, scanning them for signs of flickering.

“I don’t understand,” Lilac’s saying. “You brought it back…but didn’t? Not completely?”

Yes. “Are you even—” She shakes her head, tries a different way. “Are you capable of showing yourselves? Do you have a physical form?”

There’s a long pause, and then the lights flicker twice. No.

Her voice drops to a whisper. “Are you ghosts?”

No.

She takes a slow, wavering breath. “Are you the ones that brought me back?”

The lights flicker once. Then we’re plunged into utter darkness.

I hear her gasp. “No! Wait—come back! I have questions—what am I? Why did you bring me back?” She hits the switch on the wall and the lights come on for real, steady and cold. The switch clicks as she flips it on and off frantically. I can see her face as if flickering in a strobe light. “Please—come back!”

Eventually I tug her away from the switch. She’s so distraught she doesn’t even notice that I’m touching her for a few moments. Then she comes to life and jerks away, shoulders hunched.

“What were you talking about? What flower?”

She straightens. “Your pack—is your journal in there?”

“Yes, but—”