Chasing Stars Read online

  The door to the apartment complex was open so I climbed the stairs and knocked loudly on Peg’s front door.

  He answered the door dressed in nothing but a pair of brown trousers and a loose vest. His feet were bare and his hair was mussed up in such a way he looked like he’d just got out of bed.

  ‘Did I wake you? I’m sorry. I was just passing.’

  Peg smiled. ‘I wasn’t sleeping. Come in.’

  He held the door wide open for me. I crossed the threshold just as someone came wandering out of his bedroom dressed in nothing but a red satin bra and pants, a dress trailing across the floor in her hand, an unlit cigar in the other. Lyra.

  My face burned. ‘You have company. I didn’t realise.’

  ‘Lyra’s just leaving,’ said Peg. ‘She has to get back to work.’

  Lyra stared at me. She seemed unembarrassed by her near nakedness and perhaps if I’d had a body as lean and taut as hers, I wouldn’t have rushed to cover it up either.

  ‘She works around the corner,’ he said. ‘She comes here to do her physio during her break.’

  ‘How was the trial, Eden? I saw you on the com-screen,’ said Lyra. ‘Did you prove that you’re exceptional or whatever it is you’re supposed to be?’

  ‘I’m really not sure how it’s going,’ I said. ‘I was only allowed in the courtroom for my questions.’

  ‘What did they ask you?’ she said, as she slipped her dress over her underwear.

  ‘The prosecuting lawyer just focused on our relationship. He wasn’t interested in hearing the whole story. It had nothing to do with discovering the truth. All he wanted to do was prove that Ryan went back to 2012 because he loved me.’

  Lyra straightened her dress. ‘That’s a given surely. That’s always been their angle.’

  ‘Ryan’s lawyer asked the right questions. I think he did a good job. But Wolfe is the judge.’

  Lyra swore. ‘That is bad news. Anyone else and he’d have a fighting chance.’

  ‘It’s not over yet.’

  ‘Wolfe’s been all over the news saying that the children of wealthy, influential families should be treated no different to anyone else. I think he made his mind up before the trial began.’

  ‘He can’t do that. He has to listen to the arguments,’ I said.

  She grabbed her bag from the floor. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Eden. After the verdict. Are we meeting at your hotel?’

  ‘Yes, at the hotel.’

  Peg walked her to the door. ‘Come here as soon as you finish work and I’ll drive us to the Lakeview.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, placing one hand on his shoulder. She glanced at me and I quickly looked away. ‘See you later, Pegasus.’

  The door slammed shut and I turned back to Peg.

  ‘I’m so sorry I interrupted the two of you. I didn’t realise –’

  ‘You didn’t interrupt us,’ said Peg, walking towards me. ‘We were finished before you got here. Lyra was leaving.’

  ‘Right. So does she usually do her physio in her underwear?’

  ‘She wears shorts and a T-shirt. She was just changing – it’s not the way it looked.’

  I held up my hands. ‘It’s none of my business.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Lyra is not interested in me.’

  I smirked. ‘She called you cute.’

  ‘From what I remember, that was a backhanded compliment – something about slumming it?’

  ‘She likes you.’

  He turned away. ‘I’m not interested in Lyra, Eden. For a start, she’s Orion’s ex-girlfriend. That would be weird.’

  My heart raced. ‘What?’

  ‘They were together for over a year. That’s a long time. I wouldn’t be comfortable. But it’s irrelevant, anyway, because I’m not interested and she’s not interested.’

  ‘Peg,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that Lyra used to date Ryan?’

  He shrugged. ‘I dunno. It never came up.’

  ‘It never occurred to you that I might want to know that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is that why she doesn’t like me?’

  Peg threw himself down on one of the couches. ‘She doesn’t dislike you. She’s just not the warm and cuddly sort.’

  My stomach tied itself in knots.

  ‘What does it matter?’ said Peg. ‘It’s old news. Ry broke up with her before he even accepted the mission to 2012.’

  ‘That’s something, I guess.’

  Peg yawned and stretched. ‘I’m starving. Shall I get some take-out from downstairs?’

  It was getting dark outside. Peg was stretched out on the couch, one eye on a baseball game playing on the com-screen, the other on a maths problem he was working on for college. I was reading a fashion magazine that Lyra had left behind, despite the fact that fashion had never interested me. I dropped the magazine on the floor and checked to see if Peg was still working.

  ‘I can put something else on,’ he said, when he caught me looking at him. ‘I can find out the score later.’

  I shook my head. ‘I should probably leave, anyway. You’ve got work to do.’

  Peg dropped his essay on the floor and sat up. ‘I’ll drive you. I need a break from the mathematics of portal creation – it makes my head hurt. I can drop by the shipyard on my way back.’

  ‘What exactly is your job?’ I asked.

  Peg stood up and stretched. ‘Why don’t I show you?’

  His car was parked a couple of streets away, wedged between a fire hydrant and large recycling container.

  He checked his rear-view mirror and groaned. ‘Belt up. We’re going to need to lose that lot.’

  I turned around just as a camera flashed. Stupidly, I’d left the baseball cap at Peg’s.

  ‘How did they find out where you live?’ I asked.

  ‘I guess it was only a matter of time.’

  He whipped around the corner and took several quick turns, navigating the back streets of Lakeborough rapidly. Once he was sure that no one was on our tail, Peg headed for the highway out of town, the same highway that led to the Space and Time Institute. The large building glimmered under its lights, a white fortress against the dark sky.

  Peg turned off the highway a couple of miles out of town and we drove along a single lane road that was surrounded by trees.

  ‘I promise you, this is going to be the most spectacular thing you have ever seen or done in your life,’ he said.

  ‘You seem very confident.’

  ‘If you’re not blown away, you have no soul.’

  A few minutes later we pulled up to a security checkpoint. Peg handed over a pass.

  ‘Can I get a visitor’s pass for my friend?’ he asked. ‘I’m gonna put in some flight time. She’ll be in the viewing area.’

  The woman glanced at me and passed over a lanyard with a bright red Visitor sign hanging from it. ‘Wear this at all times,’ she said.

  He continued driving, slowly, our windows wound down. The road was narrow and we were surrounded by trees, their trunks gently creaking in the light breeze.

  ‘This is where you work?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m going to take you to the repair yard. I’m training to be an engineer. One of the perks is that I get some flight time. It helps to supplement the time I get at the Academy. The Elite students get most of the flight time there. This helps me to keep up.’

  The road split and he took the left turn. We passed a sign that said Repairs and kept driving.

  ‘This place is huge,’ I said.

  ‘Nearly there.’

  A couple of minutes later he parked the car next to an ugly concrete office block. A large sign said All visitors must report to reception and remain in the building at all times.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Peg, locking the car.

  He started walking across the yard, a torch in his left hand lighting the ground in front of him.

  ‘Shouldn’t I report to the reception?’ I asked, pointing at the sign.

  ‘Techni
cally. But then you wouldn’t get to see the ship I’ve been working on.’ He grabbed my arm. ‘Come on.’

  ‘Won’t we get seen?’

  ‘No. This place is huge. All the important equipment is at the front near security. Out here, it’s just old ships, waiting for repair or to be sold for parts.’

  We jogged across the yard until we reached a gate in a metal fence. Peg swiped his ID card through the gate key reader. At once, it swung open.

  ‘I can’t afford to get in any trouble,’ I said.

  ‘Stop worrying. I’m allowed to be here. And no one knows that you’re here.’

  We entered another yard, Peg’s torch beam illuminating several ships until he found the one he wanted. They were all about the size of a small bus. The one Peg selected was gunmetal grey, and shaped like a giant bug.

  ‘This is a lovely little ship,’ he said. ‘Known in the trade as a space hopper, because she’s only used for little hops to the Inter-Planetary Spaceport. She’s still got lots of life left in her. I spent the last six weeks helping the engineer tweak her engines. Isn’t she lovely?’

  ‘I guess,’ I said.

  I couldn’t even identify a car beyond its colour; did he really think I would get excited about a hunk of grey metal?

  Peg pressed a button and a hatch opened up. A small metal stairway slowly lowered to the ground.

  ‘After you,’ he said.

  I climbed up the clangy metal steps to the hatch. Inside was a small cockpit with two seats. Behind the cockpit were several rows of seats, facing forward like on a bus. It was much bigger than the time-ship.

  ‘Where should I sit?’

  ‘Right up front. You can be my co-pilot.’

  Peg pulled himself through the hatch and sat next to me in the cockpit. He pressed a button and the stairs collapsed and tucked themselves inside the ship. Another button closed the hatch.

  ‘You ready for the best ride of your life?’

  ‘You’re not really going to fly this thing are you?’

  Peg smiled. ‘You surely don’t think I brought you here just to show you the ship I’ve been working on?’

  ‘But won’t people see? I mean, this is a spaceship. Won’t it have fire and flames and lots of noise?’

  Peg looked at me as though I was insane. ‘Fire and flames? I hope not. If this thing sets alight, I’ve seriously messed up its engines.’

  ‘But, on the TV, when rockets and spaceships lift off . . .’

  ‘Ahh, the tee vee,’ said Peg with a smile. ‘It has a lot to answer for. There’s no fire or flames or rockets involved in a twenty-second century spaceship.’

  ‘You’re sure we won’t be seen?’

  ‘Of course we’ll be seen. I’m allowed to do this. I’m just not qualified to take passengers yet.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  ‘Is it safe?’

  Peg didn’t even bother to answer the last question. He pulled on a headset and began speaking to someone. He listed coordinates and tapped away at buttons on the console.

  ‘OK,’ he said, turning to me. ‘We’re cleared for a twenty-minute flight. Are you strapped in?’

  I nodded and took some deep breaths.

  He tapped away at some more buttons on the console, and moved a big, cross-shaped controller. I felt the ship vibrate in the same way the time-ship had. The world outside was all darkness, but even so, I had the strangest sensation of moving backwards, which I knew was impossible as there was a big shed behind us. And then I felt we were moving forwards. A tiny beam appeared in front of us, like a pinprick of light at the end of a long dark tunnel. We moved rapidly towards it.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I asked.

  ‘Not very far,’ said Peg. ‘Just far enough to give you a magnificent view.’

  The pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel grew wider and larger until it filled the view in front of the cockpit window. Just as quickly as it grew, it shrank and then disappeared into nothing.

  ‘Where are we?’ I asked. I couldn’t keep the unsteadiness out of my voice. Peg was only eighteen. He was still studying engineering and just a little earlier he’d told me that portal mathematics made his head hurt.

  ‘Close to home,’ he said.

  He jerked the controller to the left and the ship slowly rotated until a huge mass of blue and white came into view.

  ‘That’s not really, that can’t really be . . .’

  ‘Planet Earth,’ said Peg. ‘We’re passing over Egypt right now. It’s just about dawn down there. Right below us is the River Nile.’

  I looked down through the ship’s window. From this height, the shape of the continents was clear. I could make out the eastern end of the Mediterranean, the top part of the African continent.

  ‘We’re really in outer space?’ I said, although the view through the window answered the question for me.

  Peg smiled. ‘Low Earth orbit,’ he explained. ‘You get the best views of the planet from here. Further out you get to see the whole planet and sometimes the moon, but you don’t get the detail that you get from this orbit.’

  A swirl of white cloud obscured the shape of the continents and I lost sense of where we were.

  ‘How fast are we travelling?’

  ‘Thirty-four thousand miles an hour.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s safe. You have to travel fast at this height or else gravity will pull you in. But it’s actually perfect because you can circumnavigate the globe in forty-five minutes.’

  ‘I thought you were exaggerating, Peg. But you’re right. This is the most incredible thing I’ve ever done.’

  ‘Well, it’s not like travelling through time . . .’

  ‘It’s better. Much better.’

  ‘I love it,’ he said with a smile. ‘It’s better than the moon or Titan or any of the other planets. This planet’s alive.’

  I leant forward in my seat and tried to pick out features beneath me. The land below looked tan and dry, with swathes of white muslin swirling above it.

  ‘Eden,’ said Peg.

  ‘Just a minute.’

  If that was the Nile and we were heading east, then below must be Saudi Arabia? Iraq?

  ‘Eden,’ said Peg again.

  The view from the window disappeared behind a fog.

  ‘I can’t see,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve been trying to tell you, you’re fogging up the glass,’ said Peg. ‘Sit back.’

  ‘Shall I wipe it off?’

  ‘No, just wait.’

  I sat back and watched the screen gradually clear. And then I remembered Eden.

  ‘Do you think we’ll ever find another living planet?’ I asked.

  Peg looked at me. ‘Of course. The universe is unfathomably large. There must be millions of living planets out there.’

  ‘So why haven’t we found one yet? Don’t you think that by now we’d have found another planet with life, if one existed?’

  ‘It’s expensive to travel through space to investigate possible planets. And all our efforts so far have yielded nothing. People don’t want to pay more taxes to fund dead-end exploration. But that doesn’t stop me believing there’s life out there.’ Peg tapped my elbow. ‘Look. There’s India. Can you see it?’

  I leant forward; the triangular shape of the subcontinent angling down into the Indian Ocean was unmistakable.

  ‘It looks thinner than I expected,’ I said.

  ‘Its landmass is smaller than it was in your time. Sea levels have risen quite a bit.’

  He moved the controller. ‘I’m going to take us over the North Pole now. You’ll get to see the dark side of our planet briefly before we go home.’

  Home. That reminded me.

  ‘Peg, I need to ask you something,’ I blurted out.

  It was now or never. The Institute had only given me until tomorrow to find a legal guardian myself; after that, they would choose someone for me.

  ‘
What is it?’

  ‘I need to ask you a favour.’

  He shrugged. ‘OK.’

  ‘It’s a lot to ask, so I won’t mind if you say no.’

  ‘This sounds serious.’

  ‘I’m kind of embarrassed to even ask, but . . .’

  ‘Just ask.’

  I swallowed. ‘Well, the thing is, I’m sixteen.’

  ‘I thought you were a hundred and twenty-seven?’

  ‘The court wouldn’t accept that. I’m supposed to have a legal guardian. The Institute said I could find my own guardian by tomorrow or they would appoint one and put me in a care home. It can be anyone, so long as they’re over eighteen.’

  Peg laughed. ‘You want to move in with me?’

  ‘Just for a while.’

  ‘And you want me to be your dad?’

  ‘No! Well, I suppose. Sort of. I would have to live with you and you would be responsible for my welfare until I’m eighteen. But as soon as Ryan is free, I can live with him.’

  There was a sudden jolt to the ship and the view through the window wobbled. For a second or two we lost sight of the planet. Peg frowned and pulled the controller to one side until Earth was clearly in our sights again.

  ‘Space junk,’ said Peg. ‘You can’t afford to lose focus for a second. Sorry about that.’

  ‘What’s space junk?’

  ‘Mostly bits of obsolete space stations,’ he said. ‘But you also have to watch out for dead satellites that haven’t entered the atmosphere and burned up yet. And then there’s the debris from shipwrecks. They’re the worst.’

  ‘Shipwrecks?’

  Peg laughed. ‘You’re quite the stress freak, aren’t you? We’re in a stable orbit, with a sound ship and a very talented pilot. Relax and enjoy the view.’

  He hadn’t answered my question. My chest tightened. I wrapped my arms around my middle and looked out of the window as we flew north.

  ‘We’re flying over the Himalayas now,’ said Peg.

  I leant forward again, but the mountains were obscured by thick cloud cover.

  ‘Of course I’ll be your fake dad,’ said Peg.

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Eden, it’s not a big deal. I’d actually like a room-mate. I spend a lot of time alone.’

  If he wasn’t responsible for flying this spaceship, I would have hugged him. ‘Thank you, Peg. I really didn’t want to be sent to some stupid care home.’