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Three children, school-age, lay on the ground, heads centered together and legs splayed out like wheel spokes. They could have been looking at clouds. Or stars. In reality, they were looking up a volcano shaft.
“Do you think there's anything left up there? On Outer-Earth?” Bethany asked. Blue eyes. Brown hair. Too-pale freckles spattered over a too-pale face.
“Nah,” said Aaron. “Everyone says the flare burned it all up.” Red hair. Green eyes. He’d never worried about sunburns.
“But how do they know?”
Sarah finally chimed in. “Cause great-grandpa told mama about it. He heard it all from his great-grandpa. He was the one who saw it all.” Brown eyes. Blonde hair. The type of girl who would have maintained a tan – if anyone even remembered what those were anymore.
“But it's been hundreds of years now…” Bethany wondered aloud. “What if it's safe to go back?”
There were no high school graduations anymore. They didn't have the luxury of years of learning. Instead, students were expected to choose their scientific specialty (or more than one, if they desired) and turn in their apprenticeship applications by the age of fourteen. Then, at the beginning of each year – And really, what were years and days anymore? There were only clocks counting hours in the strictest sense of time. – the Apprentices' Ball was held, and the Master Scientists would announce their picks for 1st Apprentice.
Sarah chose geothermal manipulation and political science. She was the daughter of the Head Scientist, after all. There was a significant chance she would be the leader of the human race in a couple decades.
Aaron chose medicine. He liked people more than rocks and magma.
Bethany chose structural engineering. It was the closest there was to the now-dead, ancient science of aeronautics.
Aaron was fairly certain he was falling for both girls. He loved Sarah’s calm confidence, her precise focus whenever she set her mind to something. But watching Bethany talk about her dreams was magical, and made him wonder if his own dreams were large enough.
Well, it didn't matter right now, anyway. Sexual activity was regulated; the chances of reproduction were too high, especially for teenagers. Nothing would be happening in that regard until they were each seventeen, and even then, he may not have to choose between them…
Sarah, now eighteen and at the awkward phase between apprentice and master, had never heard a machine beep before. So when the core regulator started squawking, she stood frozen. Audible signals were an unnecessary energy waste, or so she’d always been told.
Her mother brushed past, flipped open a screen, and started frantically punching numbers into another machine.
The entire laboratory had fallen silent, watching. Scientists never panicked; they observed.
After several long minutes, Sarah heard her mother sigh. “Our time is up. The core is collapsing. We have, perhaps, a century – two, at the most – before it goes cold.”
Sarah's eyes met her mother's. “This doesn’t leave this lab. Not yet.”
Screw that. Sarah would be telling Aaron and Bethany, no matter what.
They were partners, after all.
“It's been six months since you told us, Sarah! Don't you think the rest deserve to know?” Bethany in her rage was a glorious sight. It stunned both Aaron and Sarah to silence as they found their lover's eyes had been replaced with sparkling sapphires, and her silky brown hair whipped through the air like fine, steel cables.
“My mother is Head Scientist, I'm sure she'll announce it when it's best. It's not like it's going to happen in our lifetime, anyway.”
Aaron felt uneasy with how readily Sarah brushed that aside. It may not happen in their lifetime, but what about their children's lifetimes? And he agreed with Bethany – the others deserved to know as well.
“Have you talked to her about it, Sarah?” He asked.
“No. Not yet.”
Sapphire eyes blazed again. “If she hasn't spoken up by the end of the week, I will.”
The door slammed behind Bethany. So much for their date that night.
Bethany and her organization – the Outer-Earth Exploration Society – had made Sarah's mother's political dissident list. Sarah wasn't quite sure how to react to that. For five years, the OEES had been working on plans to breach through to Outer-Earth again. Why stop them now, when hope had been kindled in the people? Why not stop them five years ago?
Aaron was sympathetic with Bethany, but he understood Sarah's concern. There was still time for a solution to be found, for there to be some way to extend the core's life. But Bethany was determined the answer to their survival lay with breaching the crust to Outer-Earth, and then beyond, to the stars.
No one had seen the stars in five millennia.
Who was to say they even existed anymore?
The only stars he cared about were the ones the three of them saw as they moved together, skin against skin.
“I am not a traitor!” Sapphire eyes now drowned in tears. Bethany couldn’t believe the Head Scientist – the woman she had come to think of almost as a mother – had placed her under house arrest. The hand-scanners were already reprogrammed, they now only opened to Sarah or Aaron's handprints. Sarah had, at least, been able to prevent the destruction of Bethany’s crust exploration vehicle, or CEV. Aaron was forced to mark her medical file with “mentally unstable”.
If they all believed the core was dying anyway, what did it matter if she tried to reach the crust, or the stars? Sarah didn’t know, but she couldn't just ignore her mother, either.
Aaron shifted uneasily as he observed the two girls. No, not girls. They had both become incredible women since they last sprawled on the ground and pretended to gaze at a sky.
“I know, Beth-Ann,” Sarah crooned her pet name for the other female, “I'm trying to talk sense into her. I really am. But we can't have the people panicking, either.”
“Well, someone better panic because the core is dying, Sarah. Remember?”
Aaron walked across the kitchenette, pulling Bethany into his arms, her back cradled against his chest. Their fingers laced together as her head fell back on his shoulder. “Shhh, darling. We'll figure something out,” he attempted to calm her.
Sarah moved forward, her own eyes wet with tears, and reached out to cradle Bethany’s face in her hands. “I'm sorry,” she whispered with a gentle kiss. “I wish I could do more.”
Bethany cried.
Nothing would be the same after tonight. No one had said as much, but the tension in their small, shared apartment was palpable. Aaron tried to pretend it wasn't there. He could see Sarah and Bethany were trying as well, but the clink of silverware against plates almost echoed in the silence.
Aaron finished eating first, took his dishes to the cleaner, and found himself leaning in the doorway. Sarah and Bethany still sat at the table, but they were no longer even pretending to pick at their food. A tear slipped down Sarah's face. Bethany scooted her chair back, stood up, and glanced over at him. Their eyes locked even as she reached over to run her fingers through Sarah’s blonde curls.
“Come to bed, loves,” Bethany pleaded, eyes desperate and filled with soul-deep ache.
He walked back over to them. Bent down and brushed Sarah's hair aside to press a kiss to her neck. Wove his fingers between Bethany's. Tugged both women away from the table. If they had one last night before Bethany's hearing, then they were going to make the most of it.
None of them slept. The need to become each other was more important.
All three of them were in shock. Sarah had expected her mother would be harsh, but not to that extreme. Aaron stormed out of the hearing as Bethany's hands were bound. There wasn't any specified place for holding those deemed unfit for society, so Bethany would at least be returned to their quarters for the night, before…
Sarah couldn't bear to think of it.
But capital punishment had been reinstated nearly two millenia ago. They couldn’t waste resources on those who no longer contributed to their survival.
Bethany kept shying away from Sarah. From Aaron. They all had tear-stained faces and red, irritated eyes. How do could they say goodbye like this?
“It's not right.” Aaron was the first to speak that night. It was late, nearly 0000 hours. None of them had made a move toward the large bed they’d all shared for almost a decade. It hurt too much.
The guards would come for Bethany at 0600.
“But… there’s nothing we can do,” Sarah murmured.
Bethany just sat huddled in the corner of the room.
“Is the CEV ready, Beth-Ann?” Aaron asked. He'd taken to calling her by Sarah's pet-name a long time ago.
The mention of it brought a small spark back to Bethany’s eyes. “Yes, if it hasn't been dismantled after they confiscated it.”
A look of resolve firmed itself across Aaron’s face. His eyes grew cold and determined.
“Aaron, what are you thinking?” Sarah gasped. She'd never seen him like that before.
He didn't answer before he left the apartment.
It was almost an hour later when Aaron returned, and both girls screamed as he stormed in the door. He was covered in blood, and Bethany paled when he threw a severed hand at her feet before grabbing a knife from the kitchen and cutting the bonds off her wrists.
“We've got to go, now,” he ordered, and picked up the severed hand again.
Sarah caught sight of the ring on the hand and screamed again. “What have you done? What have you done to my mother?”
“Nothing near as bad as she was going to do to Beth-Ann.” His lip curled in a cruel smile, but it was more astonishing how quickly it turned tender when he gazed at Bethany. “This will get us to the CEV and out of the settlement. The Head Scientist is cleared for all the hand-scanners, after all.”
Bethany wanted to vomit, but she couldn’t deny that she wanted to leave this place. Holding back a shudder, she let Aaron take her hand.
“Are you coming, Sarah?” Aaron asked.
Sarah sobbed and turned away from them.
“Let's go, Beth-Ann.” Aaron pulled her through the door and they broke into a sprint. “We're going to fly through the stars.”