Starlight by R.H. Berry
3300 words, ~16 minutes reading time
Issue 4 (Spring 2024)
Their ship’s bio-engine was wilting. The cables, thick vines that sprouted off the entwined trees encasing the containment unit, were drooping and decayed. Teles continued to prune at the branches, the bones of their vessel’s power source. A bead of moisture dangled from one of the little stubs she left behind. She absently caught it on a fingertip.
She loved the feel of water. So few planets had an abundant supply, and ever fewer spaceships carried it. They tended to conserve water, for growing food or for their engine. Most was kept for their rest, tanks full of the essence to transform into their full siren selves while they slept. Raidne–or Wife Alpha– was up on the bridge, crooning over every comm frequency they could possibly tap into to replenish their stores.
Their ship would be dead in the void without the same materials once abundant on Old Earth, resources that were much scarcer on the other planets they’d visited.
Something to note aloud, for whenever Wife Prime finished complaining.
“I’ve still got it, you know.”
Leaning against the steel wall, Teles’ beloved Ligeia was meant to be lending a helping hand. Instead, Ligeia was too disgruntled at being relegated to an assistant instead of on comms. Their songs were powerful things, but Raidne wouldn’t be able to sing on, keep their unwilling benefactors hypnotized, while hovering in the void.
“No one said you didn’t.” Teles tried to sound breezy rather than mocking. Ligeia was in a mood as of late, pondering mortality and the like, self-conscious in new ways. The humans used to call these bouts a ‘mid-life crisis’. Teles would sooner have swallowed glass than suggest that’s all it was.
“Maybe I’m no classical mermaid, but my voice is as powerful as it ever was. I once drew in five different ships from different galactic segments, you know.”
Teles’ shears bit through wild-growing wood, crisp in the throes of its decay. “I know, Li. I was there.”
“What?” Ligeia was snappish in her surprise, shaking her silvering curls. “No. That can’t be right.”
“It was almost seventy thousand sleep cycles ago. I was definitely there,” Teles chuckled.
“No. Seventy thousand? I was sure it was longer than that,” Ligeia insisted. “Eighty thou, maybe…”
“I still would’ve been here. Do the math.”
Ligeia paused, and Teles awaited her dismay.
“We’re so old,” Ligeia groaned.
“You are,” Teles agreed. “I’m at my peak.”
Ligeia rounded the bio-engine to inflict the full force of her indignation on Teles. Coming to her side, she had the sense to wait until Teles put down the shears to give her a nudge. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re older than I am.”
“Not at heart.”
Ligeia squawked. Teles turned, easing her arms around Ligeia’s hips, meeting her gaze. Ligeia’s eyes showed her age more than her streaked hair or the fond tales she told of the ocean that no longer existed; wrinkles fanned out like eyelashes, separating the gleaming scales that painted her skin.
“It’s alright,” Teles teased. “They had a saying on Old Earth, didn’t they? Something about wine?”
“Wine never had to worry about gravity and its impact on sagging body parts.” Ligeia probably would have preferred to keep the spaceship’s gravity on low, if it had to be on at all.
“Nothing wrong with hanging low,” Teles raised herself to her toes first to kiss Ligeia’s forehead before she went on to pepper love down both her cheeks. “I certainly have no complaints. You’re as gorgeous as ever.”
“Flattery gets you everywhere.”
“I count on that.” It worked with Raidne too.
“So!” Ligeia exhaled. Reluctant as she may have been to be soothed, Teles loved that she could melt some of Ligeia’s vigilance away. Ligeia caught her lips, brief and grateful, before asking, “What’s the verdict on the engine?”
“We do need more water, but it’s a bit worse than we thought.”
Ligeia eased herself out of Teles’ grasp, running her hand along the twisting dome of bark with a flash of concern knitting her brow. Teles could tell it was too brittle, that there should have been more leaves sprouting from the shoots, but there was no such recognition on Ligeia’s face. It didn’t need much more in the way of water, and oxygen was still abundant; it was the solar energy their engine was desperate for. “In what way?”
“We’re going to need a whole new star.”
They found the bridge vacant, no Raidne waiting at command. There were no windows, only massive screens displaying the clusters of dust and space debris by way of the cameras on the hull. Their trinkets were scarce, but everything they’d salvaged from home had its own little display: seashells, shiny bits and bobs from seafaring vessels they’d scavenged, a perfectly preserved oyster fossil. Ligeia leaned over one of the three comfortable seats and activated the monitors; Raidne was still out floating between their beloved S.S. Homer and the immense militia-grade vessel she’d managed to draw in when she’d hypnotized the crew. Raidne had already tethered their water tanks, so Homer was surely in the process of filling up.
Teles sank into the chair by the radar screen. “Looks like another vessel’s on its way. We’ll be stocked soon, and then we can get a move on”
“Water won’t mean anything without a star,” Ligeia fretted.
“The one we have won’t be finished for a while,” Teles attempted to soothe her, knowing damn well it was in vain. Both of her wives worried too much. It couldn’t be good for them.
“I hope she hurries,” Ligeia murmured.
“Relax, my darling. We’re not going to shut down within the next few parasecs,” Teles laughed, covering her own unease about it.
Finding the necessary star–one on the brink of collapse– would be the real challenge. S.S. Homer had probably three, maybe four, warp jumps left. If they triangulated wrong…
“It’s not only that,” Ligeia dismissed. “I worry when either of you are out there.”
They were definitely more vulnerable outside their ship than inside. Space was unforgiving in many ways, but the deadliest was a lack of sound. If their siren’s song wore off too soon, those aboard the hijacked ship wouldn’t take kindly to being liberated of supplies. Not all species were friendly, and even the ones who were could be tight-fisted when it came to sharing. If they decided to retaliate, Homer wouldn’t stand a chance against this ship’s military weaponry. They would be reduced to atoms in the blink of an eye.
“Take over communications?” Teles suggested.
Ligeia nodded, dropping herself into the chair and hooking herself up to the mic. Once she ensured the frequencies to the other ship’s comms were still open, she began to sing:
“Frigid oceans, warmth in rain,
Stone underfoot, sky above.
We shall sail from plane to plane,
From planet Earth, sent with love.”
Teles kept her eyes on the radar, trying to calculate how quickly the second ship would get there. It would be ideal if the ship was close enough that Raidne wouldn’t have to waste time coming back inside, spraying down in the decontamination airlock, and waiting out their arrival only to suit up and start the process again.
No such luck, though; it would be almost an hour away at its current pace. Raidne released the tether on the militia ship and brought herself back in towards Homer. Ligeia sang on, right up until the instant Raidne stepped foot on the bridge.
“You were right,” Teles told Ligeia mildly. “You’ve still got it. The other ship’s jumping in order to get here sooner.”
“Well, obviously. I did tell you.” Ligeia rose, unhooking herself from the mic. The crews would be enthralled for hours more. Raidne accepted a kiss from her in greeting, making a fond little noise in the back of her throat.
“Another one coming?” Raidne's voice was deep and soothing despite the tension.
Teles nodded. “Maybe three hundred parsecs away and coming in fast.”
Raidne ran a hand through her coarse white hair, as though sheepish. “Should’ve stayed out there then, shouldn’t I?”
“You didn’t know.”
“The ship isn't important, or…We can talk about the ship when it gets here,” Ligeia interrupted, speaking over Teles in what was easily her worst habit when she was anxious. Teles didn’t fault her; she had good enough reason.
“What’s wrong?” Raidne looked between them. “It’s the engine, isn’t it?”
“We don’t have much juice left,” Teles confirmed, careful to appear calmer than she was for her wives’ sake. “Rot got its way into some of the roots. An entire section of the engine needed regrowing, and that took more solar energy than I realized it would need. If I’d suspected that… I don’t know. I would have said something a lot sooner, though, to be sure.” They all thought of Teles as the carefree one, but even she knew how unlikely they were to survive being stuck in the void if nothing came along to rescue them.
Raidne didn’t waste time. She flocked immediately to her seat, summoning a holographic display with the touch of a finger. The scales on the back of her hand and her wrists glimmered as they caught the light. “I’ll get Homer scanning. How long do we have?”
“I was telling Li, a few more jumps, at least. If we’re accurate–”
“It’s hard to be accurate about this sort of thing,” Ligeia pointed out.
“Li, I love you more than life itself, but if you keep cutting me off, I’m going to divorce you.”
Ligeia startled, then rolled her eyes. “Oh, you will not.”
“If we’re accurate enough to get us to an ancient star, we can release the last of the star we’ve got and rope in the new one right as it’s collapsing.” Teles spread her hands in front of her, like she was exposing the cards they’d been dealt. “It’s a better bet than chasing dying stars and arriving too late. It’ll take patience, but we’ll avoid black holes.”
Raidne massaged her temples, closing her eyes. “Safer, yes, but… There’s only so long we can wait before we run out of supplies.”
They’d also have to put the power output to survival levels, which was… uncomfortable. There would only be enough oxygen output to keep them alive, the gravity would be shut off, and the water almost entirely diverted to the living matter the engine needed to thrive.
But last time they nearly run out of star power, they had to narrowly escape not two, but three black holes, upon getting to the new star just shy of on time. It wasn’t an experience Teles wanted to repeat, the inescapable void still cropping up in her most stressful nightmares.
“It’s not risk-free,” Teles acknowledged, “and there’s still a lot of research involved, figuring out where to jump to before we start star-combing…”
“How likely do you think we are to get to one that’s close to dying but not actively dying? That’s a lot harder for our sensors to pick up,” Ligeia fussed. “The energy readings are entirely different.”
“How many more grey hairs do you think you’ll sprout if we have to flee another black hole?”
Ligeia paused. Raidne sighed, covering her mouth with one hand to conceal a faint smile. Teles still glimpsed it with a bit of pride.
Outside, the monitors showed them the arrival of the second ship. Raidne lifted her gaze to it and did a quick assessment. “Might as well jump away from here. I’m not raiding an exploratory vessel.”
Teles couldn’t tell the difference between ships designated for peaceful charting and the military, or fellow pirates, but she trusted Raidne’s judgment. Ligeia sat down in the pilot’s seat to input coordinates–nowhere specific, to start, but they didn’t want to be tracked when their song’s spell broke.
The universe bent around them as they made the leap, and the monitors went blank.
Once, they’d lived in the water, so near to a star that the entire planet basked in its warmth and light. The star–the sun–gave off energy, and from it, life sprouted. All different kinds.
It was beautiful.
But it only lasted so long. The planet went dark when the sun dimmed, and the sirens stole humankind’s ships to launch themselves into the universe beyond.
That’s what they did, after all. Throughout history, they sang, drew the humans and their boats over to them, and salvaged whatever was left from the resulting crash.
There were other sirens and so many ships, but Teles marvelled at the luck that put her on the S.S. Homer with the sirens she fell in love with. Raidne started as their captain; Ligeia, their communications expert. Teles could have wound up anywhere, a bio-engineer learning on the job. Her talents were coveted. She chose to escape on the Homer at random.
As other sirens drifted away or jumped ship to live on planets they discovered, the three of them dispensed with ranks, sharing the work on equally strong shoulders. It helped them realise how strong their feelings for each other were. They were instilled with confidence and comfort, because they knew with certainty that they’d always be together. Until death do us part, the humans used to say in their commitment ceremonies.
But Teles wasn’t ready to lose what they had. She had many more cycles with her wives to experience.
With utmost care, Teles removed herself from Raidne’s embrace and brought herself out of the water tank where the three of them slept. Her long tail transformed as she climbed out, rivulets cascading down her bare, scaly legs. It would dry by the time her wives woke, and they’d never know she was up during their sleep cycle again, charting stars.
Teles sat in front of the constellation map until her eyelids went leaden and her calculations nonsensical. She closed her eyes.
They opened again as Raidne was carrying her back to the tank. Raidne eased Teles into the cool, comforting bath, climbing in after her and stroking her hair until Teles fell asleep.
By the time Teles was even halfway confident that she’d found a star close enough to snuffing itself out, they only had energy for one last jump. Things could go disastrously if she was wrong. She chewed her lip and prayed it was the only tell that she was as nervous as her wives. Teles could be strong for them. She had to be.
Raidne paced with her hands folded behind her back, debating with herself under her breath. It was the same old pros-versus-cons list, and there was nothing new to tip the favour on either side. Ligeia gave up trying to reason one way or another, terrified of taking any action for fear it was the wrong one.
Teles had to make the call–she knew that. The pressure bore down on her, as if they accidentally hiked the gravitational pull in the ship up to max.
She took a deep breath, then a second one. All she needed was a moment, before she was ready to speak.
Just a moment.
“Raidne?” Teles drew herself up, softly taking Raidne’s hands as she passed by. She eased them apart and turned Raidne around to face her. There was something a little wild in Raidne’s eyes, rooted in indecision. Raidne must have thought the burden was on her. In most cases, she would have been right.
But this called for faith over sensibility, and that’s where Teles came in.
“I’ve pinpointed the spot. Last leap, and we’ll be the perfect distance from the star to net it once it starts to supernova.”
Raidne wavered.
“Trust me,” Teles said, and watched as the last of Raidne’s reservations broke.
They did all they could to prepare, but there was a sense of inevitability in telling Homer to reduce their oxygen levels and their water intake to survival conditions. When the gravity went down, Raidne reached out for her lovers, drew them both in the way they used to do when they were young and earthbound in the ocean’s depths. They used to float on the current, under the waves.
But that was hundreds of thousands of sleep cycles ago. Over five hundred years, they would’ve said back in the day.
And Teles couldn’t imagine staying so sane, so content, with anyone else. She clung to Raidne and Ligeia, and for a time that passed at a crawling pace, they simply held each other. Eyed the flickering star on the monitors. Waited.
Breathing the minimum oxygen level left all three of them weak. Teles existed in a fog produced by sluggish delusions. They took turns with the water, letting it slide over their gills, replenishing their connection to the world they left behind lifetimes ago. Raidne supervised the division of resources. Ligeia watched the star.
Teles, with the strength she still had, tended to the bio-engine. Without the natural light, the vines weren’t looking good, shrivelling to the width of gnarled threads. She was confident they were getting enough water and that had to be enough to keep the ship alive.
To keep them alive.
The bio-engine didn’t need pruning over the course of ten, twenty, thirty sleep cycles. It couldn’t flourish that way, so Teles double-checked the water level and watched their dwindling power source.
When she returned to the bridge, she found her wives huddled together outside of the tank, heads bowed as they slept despite the brightness coming off nearby star–their last hope. Teles let them rest and drifted through the emptiness over towards the diagnostic screen.
Her eyes faltered. Grey crept over her vision, no matter how hard she blinked. Teles pulled herself into the seat and struggled to strap herself in with her numb fingers.
Thirty-one sleeps. That was what her rest would bring the count to, if and when she allowed herself to pass out. Honestly, that was longer than Teles had thought they’d last if the star didn’t work out.
She tilted her head far to the side, gazing at her unconscious wives. She should try to wake them, at least long enough to tell them how grateful she was, how honoured she was since the first day they all decided to share their lives together, how they made her life something full and real and beautiful.
Teles’ eyelids drooped.
The star ignited, spitting flares every which way, a myriad of colours that only existed in the vastness of space. Teles’ heart jumped, marvelling at the sight without entirely registering what it meant for her–for them–in her exhaustion-addled condition.
It was mercifully automatic the way Teles dragged her hand aloft to deploy the containment.
Encased in trappings of energy, the star shrank down and railed against its prison, captured in a never-ending instant–the net hauled it in, brought it into Homer’s engine in a series of pre-programmed movements they installed eons back.
Renewed gravity cradled Teles, returning in increments. It pulled her wives to the deck, as gentle as the ocean’s depths, and Teles took a deep breath.
Raidne and Ligeia made soft sounds as strength and alertness returned. Teles didn’t open her eyes as she reveled in her other senses–the sharp, clear scent cutting through the carbon dioxide; the song her lovers sang as they drew themselves upright, grunting and groaning wearily, finding their consciousness in the sea of relief.
Teles smiled slowly. Whatever came next, wherever the S.S. Homer’s next destination was, they were still in it together.
Every leap of faith Teles ever took had paid off in the end. Waiting out the dying star, boarding the S.S. Homer. Choosing the clever, beautiful, incredible sirens she’d spent so much of her life with, and would be until the very end.
Regrowing from grateful roots, the bio-engine unfurled new leaves, and turned them towards the sun.