Ninety Lines

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Of course, those who say that have never been to the vacuum of space, so how would they know?

Draka’s thoughts were loud and consistent. Screams echoed in her head all day and peppered her dreams at night. They haunted her, but she could always hear them. The empty void that lay beyond the stars containing open mouths locked in silence filled her with cold dread that froze her blood.

It was better to hear the screams.

“Do you think they’re still alive up there?” Dayne whispered.

Draka sighed. Dayne asked the same pointless question every night. Every night they lay on the side of a grassy hill far enough outside of town that the sky could be magnificent without the aid of telescopes or satellites or computers. There, they looked for a sign or a message, something, that proved her brother and the group he led were still out there. That, somehow, they were still alive.

Draka’s chest hurt. Her chest always hurt but sometimes the pressing, unbearable weight moved up through her windpipe and burned her nose. She forced down a swallow and wiped the moisture out of the corners of her eyes. There was no point in crying because she refused to believe they were dead.

Echoing across the field they could hear the steady scrape of a knife against a tree.

“I bet they can hear her in town, too.” Dayne said, pushing himself up from lying on his back to sitting cross-legged in the grass and referring to the figure that scraped a line for every day. “Makes it so nobody can forget.”

“They shouldn’t forget.” Draka spat. “If they forget then there’s no hope of a rescue. They’ll be sending someone after them any day now. They just have to fix what went wrong the first time.”

She hated that pitying look in Dayne’s eyes. She’d seen it so many times that now she did not have to look at him to know it was there.

“Dray…”

“No! You can’t tell me there’s no hope because you don’t know that! They’re still out there!”

“They found pieces of a helmet, Draka.”

But it wasn’t his.

Draka had to bite her tongue to keep from saying it. The helmet had belonged to Dayne’s cousin. Sometimes she forgot that he was grieving too.

Not too. I’m not grieving yet.

“If Ben were alive, don’t you think he would have found a way to contact us by now?”

Every night that they came out here, they rarely spoke. Each sat staring at the sky with their own private thoughts. Now Dayne asked the question Draka had dreaded, the one she had pushed to the back of her mind, stuffed down, ignored.

“You clearly know nothing about space.”

Draka and Dayne exchanged wide-eyed stares before whirling around.

A woman had crept up behind them, blonde, fine-boned, and dressed in a dirty, crumpled wedding dress. It was Anais, Ben’s fiancée.

“Just because we can’t hear them, doesn’t mean they’re not communicating.”

“You’re both delusional.” Dayne muttered under his breath but made sure he was loud enough to be heard.

“What, you think I’ve been wearing this dress these past ninety days out of hope that he’ll show up and we’ll be married on the spot?” Anais spat back. She turned and looked at Draka. “I love your brother, but I am not one to ignore the rules of basic hygiene, nor to wait around when there is no hope.”

Draka narrowed her eyes. Anais’s gaze held steady.

“You know something, don’t you?”

“Do you want to find your brother?” Anais’s voice was low, but it was excited.

“More than anything.”

“Then follow me.”

Anais turned and began walking across the field in the direction from which they had heard the scrape of the knife. The air was eerily silent now and the stars were bright enough to aid their eyes in adjusting to the dimness.

Tiny sparks of electricity zipped through Draka’s veins, making it hard to breathe. Little pops exploded in her brain, causing spots to dance in front of her eyes as they followed Anais’s purposeful stride through the grass.

She had never really liked Anais, though Ben was crazy for her. Draka had allowed herself to believe the tiny blonde woman was as delicate and mentally fragile as she looked and had scoffed when Ben proposed.

“Come on, Ben. Anais? Really? You want to marry Anais?”

“Yes, Draka. I want to marry Anais. Why is that so hard for you to believe?”

“She’s just so, so…”

“So what? Spit it out, Little Sister. I know you have to have a good reason for acting like this, for talking like this about the woman I love.”

The fight had been brutal and had ended with Ben saying he would gladly never talk to her again if it meant spending a single extra day with Anais.

Then the next day he was sent on an exploratory mission into the depths of space-nothing too dangerous, just a routine trek- and she never saw him again.

“He can’t be dead.” She whispered as Anais led them into a grove of trees.

Line after line after line was carved into the tree trunks.

“Ninety lines. Ninety days.” Anais said with a wide gesture toward the cluster of trees. She began to rummage through a pile of odds and ends that were stacked up against the tree furthest into the grove. “Ben is alive.” She called as she pulled something heavy from the pile. She turned and looked at Dayne. “And I truly believe your cousin is alive as well.”

“But they found pieces of her helmet all charred and broken. No one can live up there without a helmet.” Dayne said wearily. He was tired of hoping, tired of trying to rationalize what he knew to be impossible.

“A decoy from the Corporation.” Anais said.

“The Corporation wouldn’t do that.” Dayne said.

“How do you know Ben is alive?” Draka asked, not willing to discuss conspiracy theories or debate the benevolence of their leaders. She believed her brother was alive, but her hope was wearing thin.

“Unzip this for me, would you?” Anais lifted her hair and offered the back of her dress to Dayne.

Dayne glanced uneasily at Draka before tentatively reaching clumsy fingers up to pull on the small zipper. When it would not budge, he became more forceful until both he and Draka were pulling at it in frustration while Anais patiently allowed them to tug.

“You can’t do it, can you?” She finally asked.

“No, it’s stuck! We’ll have to cut the dress off you.” Dayne said, his face red.

“That is how I know Ben is alive.” Anais had a small, triumphant smile on her face. She crossed her arms across her chest as if the matter was settled. “The zipper will not budge so long as his heart beats unless he himself is here to undo the latch. I designed it myself for just such an occasion as this.”

Draka’s mind was reeling. “But it was just an exploratory mission. He was just going to be gone a day or two. How did you know he wouldn’t come back?”

Anais rolled her eyes. “Think about it, Draka. Use that brain you are so proud of. What is there left to explore? Why send a team as advanced and qualified as Ben’s on a trek that kindergartners could do?”

“A couple of days is not enough time to find anything worth finding.” Dayne said as if an epiphany were exploding in his head. He looked between the two girls with wide eyes. “Everything that’s within a couple of days away we’ve seen already.”

“And there’s nothing that could have torn up your cousin’s helmet like that.” Anais’s eyes narrowed and she stepped closer to the pair. “If their ship had exploded at such a range, we would have heard it. If it had simply broken down, we would have picked up their signal without it having to put out any rays.”

Cold sweat broke out on Draka’s forehead.

Why haven’t I thought of this before?

Anais paused and put one hand on Draka’s shoulder and the other on Dayne’s. “At such a close range, why has the Corporation not sent a rescue team to bring them back?”

“What are you suggesting?” Draka did not like the look in Anais’s eyes. She did not like the anger, the determination, or the understanding she saw there. It made her feel like a child in the presence of a genius.

“We go after them ourselves.” Dayne answered for her.

“Yes, we do.” Anais whispered with a smile.

“And you don’t think my cousin is really dead?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Wait a minute.” Draka’s voice came out with more of a shriek than she intended. Suddenly, instead of the desperate hope-filled dreamer, she felt sick and left behind. “We can’t just go get them. How are we supposed to get there? None of us has any training in exploration. And what if the Corporation finds out and doesn’t like it? Or maybe it would be better to go to them first and see if they’ll back it up.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Draka.” Anais was dismissive, and it incensed Draka.

“Why would we go to the Corporation if they’re the reason we’re in this mess to begin with?” Dayne asked. He was very quickly willing to risk life and limb for every word coming out of Anais’s mouth. “But it is true that we don’t have a ship.”

“Is it?” Anais was back amongst her pile of stuff, rummaging around and placing things in seemingly incongruous order. “Step back please.”

Dayne obediently took two huge steps backward, but Draka stood her ground with arms crossed and lips pressed in a defiant purse.

Anais rolled her eyes and pressed hard on a hidden part of a tree trunk.

Draka was thrown backwards as, from within the grove of trees, hot air whooshed out of a small, camouflaged ship.

Anais walked to where Draka lay on the ground and offered a hand to help her up. As she did, she whispered in her ear. “You do not have to come with us, but you will not turn us in to the Corporation. Your brother is alive and if you are not willing to put in the effort to help us find him, then I consider you an enemy.”

Draka wanted to cry and was suddenly overcome with exhaustion. All she wanted was to close her eyes and forget that this was her life. The anger was gone. The fear was gone. The hope was gone, though it would seem she had more reason now to hope than she ever had before. All she felt was defeat. “I’ll come with you.” She murmured.

“Excellent.” Anais practically skipped over to where the ship hovered just above the ground. “We’ll leave immediately.”

Neither Dayne nor Draka moved.

“The ship is already packed. Let’s not waste time.”

Slowly, uncertainly, Dayne and Draka boarded the ship.