Page 38 of Bound by Stars

Weslie

Six days to Mars

We weave through the agriculture bay with our classmates, single file, between walls of leafy greens.

Ahead of me, Asha’s pink hair is so brilliant in the room’s artificial sunlight that she could be a rescue beacon.

I hoped she would forget my bad mood. Let me off the hook for snapping at her.

But she’s been quiet since I sat next to her in class.

Not silent. But her sentences have capped out at a ten-word max.

“What’s this drama everyone’s talking about from dinner last night? Something about Ms. Lovell’s girlfriend making a scene in front of her husband on the grand staircase?” If I can get her talking, maybe she’ll get over it.

She pauses, then shrugs and keeps walking.

Oh, this is serious.

At the end of the row, the room opens to a series of pools connected by elaborate tubing to walls covered in plant growth.

I imagined there’d be troughs of dirt, but there doesn’t seem to be an ounce of earth anywhere on board.

I pull my sweater up over my nose to get a break from the briny, fishy smell in the air.

Meridian splashes Hale with water from one of the pools.

“Everyone, please be careful not to touch anything. The artificial ecosystem is fragile!” a short woman cries out like it’s a matter of life or death.

Her heavy accent is too muddled from her years in Elysium for me to place.

She runs out of the crowd ahead of us, waving her hands at Meridian and pulling a tight, thin netting over the water, scanning the rest of the potential threats around her pools.

“Please respect this space. We are guests here and this is a very real and vital part of our survival in space.” Calypso puts a hand over their heart, lowering their voice to speak directly to the distressed little woman.

The woman’s shoulders visibly loosen as her bowed lips form a tight almost-smile.

“Would you stop being mad at me if I told you about what happened after I left dinner the other night?” I nudge Asha with my shoulder.

She whips back toward me, her face bright until she remembers she’s angry with me and forces a frown. “No.”

“I promise to be very descriptive.”

She turns completely around, grabbing the sleeve of my sweater and pulling me back into the row.

We both look back to Calypso and the woman in the white lab coat, still deep in conversation.

Asha leans in to whisper through tight lips, “I have been nothing but welcoming and nice to you since day one, well two, but that’s only because I didn’t meet you on day one, but I would have been just as nice on day one.

You can be mad at Jupiter or his parents or whatever, but I did nothing but be your friend.

” She pokes me in the chest with her index finger.

It might as well be a punch in the face the way she furrows her brow and crosses her arms like she’s waiting for return fire.

“I know. I’m sorry, Ash.”

“Oh.” She releases her arms to her sides, and her face lights up. “Well, then, tell me about what happened after dinner with you and Jupiter. Every detail!”

Cold shoulder to friends in one apology. Who knew it would be that easy?

“Class, move in closer. Please give Dr. Abara your full attention.” Calypso waves us inward.

“I want all the promised details after class,” Asha whispers, widening her eyes before she moves into the center of the room.

I nod, regretting the lure. Maybe Hale will try to drown someone in one of the ponds and Asha will forget.

Dr. Abara climbs a three-step ladder by one of the pools, standing tall on the top with her hands on her lower back.

Without it, the top of her head barely reaches Hale’s shoulder.

Like we’re little kids at story time, she insists we all sit on the floor and swivels her head as she explains how the fish in the water fertilize the plants and the plants filter the water as it’s cycled through the room.

Next to me, Asha is busy examining her glittery pink nails.

Calypso stands at the end of a row, nodding enthusiastically with the lecture.

Jupiter shifts his eyes to me the second I let myself look at him.

His face is neutral, not pleading or angry.

He doesn’t flinch or look away or lower his head.

There’s something about the open way he’s staring back at me like he might as well be standing in the middle of the room, arms splayed, heart and all his other vital organs exposed, unprotected.

My chest tightens. I stare at the floor.

I can’t fall for it again. He helped his parents rip me off.

So much power in two worlds, and they had to take this from me.

A nobody Earther with nothing in the universe but a stellar bot design.

All I have to hold on to is the knowledge that my design was great enough to steal, which is about as useful as fighting a multi-trillion-dollar corporation for compensation.

“If you will stand and follow, I will lead you through a tour before you exit. Do not touch anything. This is a fragile and closely monitored ecosystem that feeds all of us on the ship. Show it the respect it deserves.” Aggressively adjusting her thick-rimmed glasses, Dr. Abara steps off the ladder and I can only see her arm waving above the heads of the other standing students.

I offer Asha a hand, pulling her off the floor.

Jupiter passes slowly, following the crowd with his eyes cast down, avoiding looking at me again.

As he’s swallowed by the herd, Asha sighs loudly. “You’re being an idiot. He’s clearly in love with you, and you’re wasting time.”

“He’s engaged, Asha. He’s engaged and he didn’t tell me. And his family…” His family ripped off my bot design. It’s not the place or time to get into it. “We should have never…” Never what? Never kissed? Never spent time together? Met? My heart sinks at the thought.

“It’s a betrothal. It’s a business deal, not love.”

I shake my head. “Call it a business deal or a relationship, being engaged means something where I come from. Speaking of, there’s also the whole ‘me being from Earth’ thing.”

“Like that matters.” Asha reaches out to brush a leaf with her finger, glances at Dr. Abara ahead of us, and pulls her hand back.

“My dad was born on Earth. Mars isn’t a closed society.

They just act like it. The population on the planet is like a quarter of Earth’s.

I did tell you how my parents met, right?

My mom was on her Earth Experience Mission.

She and her best friend met a couple of Earther boys, and—”

“Wait, your dad? You mean, Captain Nazari is an Earther?”

“Yes. Well, not really. He’s an Elysian now, but he was an Earther. I know I’ve told you this story before. When we were touring the ship.”

Now that she mentions it, I vaguely recall the long-winded story. I just never fully absorbed it.

I smile apologetically. I guess I could stand to become a better listener.

We loop around the end of the long row, along a wall of potato plants, the leaves sprouting under lamps, while the roots hang under the shelves touching the stream in the long trough below.

Asha grabs my hand, yanking my arm. “What if I tell Jupe to meet you somewhere before dinner?”

“Hope he likes waiting.”

Asha’s voice grows louder with every word, and students ahead turn back to stare.“Weslie, I love you, but will you please pull your head out of your ass and talk to him?”

What if Jupiter didn’t betray me? It wouldn’t be difficult for his family to hack his computer.

Take it while he was sleeping. Load the data without him even knowing.

And if he didn’t have anything to do with it, would he take my side against his family?

An Earther girl he’s known for three weeks? No way.

When I open my mouth to tell her what I found, the cargo bay of stolen ILSAs, my chest is hollow, and my throat seizes. I can’t say it out loud. I lower my head and whisper, “It’s over between us. I mean, it was never anything anyway.”

“His parents didn’t warn him, you know? About the announcement.”

That stupid engagement announcement. Maybe he didn’t know it was happening that night, but he knew it was a possibility.

All that time we’d spent together, and even if he really didn’t know about his family stealing ILSA’s design, he never happened to mention that the planned future he dreaded included an engagement that was as good as sealed.

In the wide hall outside the agriculture bay, Calypso thanks Dr. Abara on behalf of all of us and excuses the class.

Curran and Tar stop Jupiter in the middle of the hall, blocking my way home.

There’s a tugging sensation in my chest pulling me toward him.

Asha’s right. Every wasted second on this ship is one I’m losing with him. But it doesn’t matter. I look away, planting my feet and waiting for them to leave. He’s still engaged.

Asha’s already deep into recounting the show Ms. Lovell’s lover put on after dinner last night.

“Hey, Wesi,” Reve whispers over my shoulder, rustling my hair.

Asha’s eyes flicker between me and Reve standing behind me.

“Oh, it’s Wesi, now?” I raise my eyebrows as I slowly spin to face him. “Yesterday you decided we weren’t friends anymore, remember?”

Meridian bites her lip and her eyes wander over Reve slowly as she passes with two other girls flanking her. Loud enough for us to hear, she feigns whispering to her minions. “Figures the dust mite would attract her kind.” As though she weren’t just undressing him with her eyes.

Ignoring her, he leans closer. “You might practically be an Elysian now, but you’ll always be Wesi.” His voice is low and sweet and cuts right through me. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

I roll my eyes, tilting my head away and catching Jupiter watching us. I swallow the lump in my throat. “What are you doing here?”

“Came to find you and convince you to forgive me.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’m completely fine.”