Wattys shortlist 2021. One morning the sun rises a few hours early, striking levitating skyscrapers in Soliara ahead of schedule. People in the streets stop to look up at the sky and then down at their watches. Most of them, puzzled but disbelieving...
Whether it was a good idea to bring Nova Dasilva with him became the last question — and he had already brought her this far.
He stopped and turned to her, and she stopped her stream of questions. "I bought us some time," said Cristo, "at potentially a very high price, and not a lot of time — you might say it wasn't a very good deal. I know you don't understand and you want to know where you are and why — maybe it's faster to just tell you, unless of course you'd be willing to do me the huge favor of just holding your questions, keeping quiet and trusting me?"
Her mouth fell open and sound started to come out.
"I guess not," he said before the sound could become words. "But before I tell you what you think you need to know, it's more important to tell you the cost I just paid to answer all of your questions and prove I'm not lying." As if the point of this journey was to answer her questions and not his. "I had to open a link through time to bring you here so you could see, and so you'll stop getting in my way, maybe even help me instead. A time link requires approximately the energy of an entire star, Nova. That's what I spent to bring us here — energy equivalent to approximately the entirety of an average-sized star, and that's where the energy comes from, stars. It's possible that I — killed — a star. Understand?"
"Not in the slightest!" Nova said. She had herself under control, though, and quickly took that back. "I mean, yes, I understand what you said. But a time link to where? The future?"
"From your perspective. However, it's the present. I opened the first time link to the past — to one hundred years ago — which used the energy of a whole star — to go back to the night Exequi Ilan Potestas was murdered. To stop the election of Justin Marius as president of the Constellation Company. But I'm lost and confused, so I've killed another star to bring you to the present and ask Stephen Potestas for help — I hope he knows what to do. I need to regain Ilan's trust, I have no clue where Milana Nox is held captive or if Diana Aemilia will vote against Marius if Milana isn't returned to her safely, the sun is setting fast, and I only have a very few hours to work on three more of Marius's manipulated electors: Claudia Solace, Ignatius Varian and Novus Fortunato. Then I need to persuade undecided electors and some new converts and flaky bets. There's only one of me and I need to ensure dozens of votes in six hours. I think Liao Cytheria is a sure thing, but that's it. Everything else is going wrong. Not to mention, there's you. You're my biggest problem. Your very existence is a problem."
He didn't even know whether she was on Potestas's side or about to stab him in the back and betray Gaia Solin.
She ignored that. "So it's not my fault you had to open another time link to the future. You're here to stall."
"You're right. I only said that to make you feel bad."
"What's so wrong with the present that you have to kill stars and rescue an executive who's been dead for a century and track down missing girls and whatever else it is you're up to? And where is everyone and why is it so quiet?"
"I brought you here," said Cristo, "because you don't exist. You're an anomaly — you're not real." What he wanted to say was, "The real Nova is a Potestas and I grew up running after her, always just a few years behind, but even so, when I was born, 97 years ago, she was only three, so you, Nova Dasilva, are a fake or a copy." He couldn't tell her that out loud. Instead he was vague. "I only need you to trust me. I don't need you to understand, to have all the answers — just don't even think, okay? We have to go talk to Stephen now, even with the time link I don't have unlimited time, if only because I don't want to be here when it ha— Never mind." He stopped himself and instead said, "Will you come with me now?"
"No," said Nova. "I won't come now. I'll make a deal. Tell me what's so bad about the future. Answer my question, with no holes and no aversions, in one minute or less, and then I will do everything you tell me to do without question. I think you'll agree that everything will go much faster if you give me one minute of your time in exchange for my unquestioning obedience going forward."
She had a point, and Cristo seemed to have come to a crucial point in making an ally who could help him with the rest of the operation — as long as she actually held up her end of the deal. And as long as she wasn't secretly working for Justin Marius.
"It's taken a century," he said, "but Justin Marius, president of Constellation, figured out how to fix the flaw in our immortality: that the power source is the mother's life energy. Marius wants there to be families in Soliara. New life, a new generation. He doesn't want to give up his own immortality of course — so he needs a new power source, and he needs to make some alterations to the system. It'll be wonderful, though — new children brought into the world who will live forever, with eternal youth, of course. And in a hundred more years no one will remember the people whose lives he took to become president — there's only two of us left who remember the name of Milana Nox today and one of us is about to die tomorrow — but then again, she wasn't anyone important. You'd think as great a man as Ilan Potestas would be remembered, and maybe he will be, but no one will miss him. A hundred years after that, maybe less, no one will remember who had to die for the rest of us to live forever. The streets will be clean, there won't be any poor cluttering them, that's why it's so quiet — the lower class were the first to be ... disconnected from the stars. Their immortality was revoked. So Marius could save up.
"Now everyone who's left can walk the streets of downtown Soliara without being asked for change by panhandlers detracting from the city's majestic architecture and ambiance. No one will remember them either, no one will mourn their deaths any more than they mourn the soldiers of historic battles — it'll be history, not tragedy.
"The only difference is that the people who survive don't get to eventually die themselves and leave it to the next generation to remember or forget — we're going to have to live with this. And Marius's alterations and improvements are about to be completed. It won't just be the bottom rung of society who lose their immortal life, but anyone Marius doesn't like, anyone who isn't among his network of loyal followers, who hasn't been connected to his personal star dial after an extensive screening process, swearing of allegiance, passing of tests, at least three letters of reference and a century of pretending that what he's doing is right. Marius is going to take the star dial in Soliara down and everyone that isn't connected to Constellation's new dial — his private star dial — will lose their access. They'll lose their immortality, and if they're old they will die. Marius's entire opposition, the whole resistance will die. Literally. My father-in-law Stephen Potestas and my wife Nova Potestas will die.
"The whole resistance, except me."
He stopped and waited for Nova to object, argue with him and ask questions, but she let his words sink in and then said, "I'll come with you to see Exequi Stephen Potestas."
"He's not an exequi anymore," said Cristo, and a link to Potestas Tower opened in front of them. It didn't look very different in the snowy courtyard — the facade was still a structural marvel of more glass than stone, an edifice on architectural stilts, and when Cristo stepped into the courtyard in Invernali they looked up at a healthy building kept in repair.
The penthouse still soared above.
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Thank you for reading Stars Rise. I hope it's an entertaining ride. What do you think of the revelation? Any stars or comments to spare?
