Beyond the Veil of Stars Read online

  But he wasn’t thinking of Mom’s life. Cornell was concerned for himself. Riding home from the farm, watching the smooth motion of the countryside, he felt pleasantly selfish. He had lied to that boy, telling him that his mother was dead. And he was tired of lying. What if he went to the president, telling the truth until she took an interest. She could call important subordinates on her cherry-colored phone. Appeals could be broadcast to the stars. Or maybe the Air Force could give back the dead aliens they were storing in New Mexico. Whatever it took to retrieve Pamela Novak, that was his feeling.

  Cornell shut his eyes and thought of the farm boy. “I saw a bright ship,” he should have said, “and it took her away. She was there, then she wasn’t.”

  There, then gone.

  He was four years old, and the three of them had gone into the country to watch the sky. It was unusual, Mom going with them. But there they were, near a little town where odd lights had been seen all summer, and Mom had packed food and drinks, bug-spray and blankets. Dad had his long white telescope set on its tripod. Cornell remembered seeing Jupiter in the tiny eyepiece, bright and silvery. He could remember the softness of a blanket and the biting insects. A shooting star had streaked halfway across the sky, throwing sparks before it vanished, and Dad had said, “An old Soviet satellite, I bet. One of their dead eyes in the sky.”

  The alien spacecraft had appeared over a hilltop. At first it was dull yellow and slow, but as it moved it gained speed and brightness. There was no distinct shape behind the lights. He remembered a throbbing sound, felt as well as heard. Dad had tried to take pictures; Mom had held on to Corny. He could still feel the warmth of her small hands and how they shook, yet he couldn’t recall his own fear. Why be afraid of them? He felt himself floating, leaving the ground. Then he was back on the soft blanket, the ship gone, the warm air still and still smelling of Mom’s perfume. But where was she? “Mommy?” He thought he had been sleeping. Dreaming. He rose and saw Dad sitting in the grass, his back to Cornell and his voice making a low sound, strange and tired.

  “Where’s Mommy? Where’d she go?”

  Dad turned and gazed at him, tears on his face.

  “What happened, Daddy?”

  And Dad responded with a question. “What do you remember?”

  Cornell told him. Lights, and floating…and coming awake again…

  “We saw a spaceship,” said Dad. “Don’t you remember?”

  But where was Mommy? Maybe at the car, he thought, and he started to run downhill, shouting for her and crying, wiping at his eyes with the backs of his hands.

  Then Dad caught him and held on tight; and after a crushing hug, he said, “Listen,” and said nothing. He was pushing at the tears on his son’s face. Then he breathed and said, “It was a spaceship, Corny. A spaceship, and it stole her away.”

  It was the only time Dad called him by that name.

  Cornell felt as if he were sliding down a long slick slope, gaining speed and out of control. “Why would they? Why?”

  But his father had no response, rising to his feet and turning away, crying eyes toward the sky—moonless, in memory, and perfectly dark, sprinkled with the blazing cold fires of faraway suns.

  3

  Their house was small and untidy, the unsightly component in an otherwise attractive cul-de-sac. Dad had no love for lawnwork or shoveling snow. He spoke of wasting resources and distorting nature’s balance, though Cornell sensed there were other reasons. The old man didn’t like pushing mowers and snowblowers. That’s why if things got bad—and they inevitably would—Pete would offer his services, probably after prodding from the other neighbors on the little dead-end street.

  There were four other houses on the cul-de-sac. Pete’s house was largest, two stories tall with a mammoth yard kept trimmed and green even in the depths of summer. (Mrs. Pete worked in the yard every day, fighting lazy flowers and the weeds creeping over from the Novaks’.) The Underhills’ house was nearly as large, but it seemed small for their needs. They had three kids, including two boys around Cornell’s age. Their house was on one side of the Petes’, and Cornell’s was on the other side. A bachelor named Mr. Lynn had the little house on the far side of the cul-de-sac. And on the other side of Cornell’s house, at the cul-de-sac’s mouth, were surly old people named Tucker.

  The houses had been built during the last boom. The cul-de-sac straddled a long ridge, and behind it, to the west, the ground sloped down into a creek bottom. Another developer had prepared the ground for houses. When Cornell was six, he had watched the construction crews destroying pastures and an alfalfa field to lay down concrete streets and storm sewers, power lines and sidewalks. Then came the Four-Year Recession, banks dying and people going broke. Or worse. The developer went to jail for some vague crime, and the land was abandoned, weeds of a hundred flavors growing up thick and green, bugs singing from them every summer night.

  It was like living on the brink of civilization. That was the game Cornell would play. Some nights, he sat with the bedroom window open, lights off, watching the little jungle and the darkness stretching west to the Rockies.

  His room had always been his room. He could remember when it felt huge, an empire of his own, and he was small enough to climb under his bed, hugging the dusty carpeting and watching Mom’s feet. The bed had always been his bed, left behind by Mom’s father. He had a fancy clock/radio that projected the time as glowing, dancing letters suspended in the air. The longest wall had a map of Mars, complete with Rover pictures in the corners, his favorite one showing a view from the top of Vallis Marineris. Over his bed was one of Dad’s favorite pictures—a color snapshot of a silvery being floating in front of a cringing leopard, the being’s hand extended as if in peace. It was a fake, Cornell knew. But Dad approved of the idea behind the picture, saying, “That sense of communion is never wrong.” And Cornell liked the leopard, powerful and lovely and wonderfully dangerous.

  Sometimes he would wonder how it would be to live elsewhere, in another city or country. Cornell tried to imagine a different bedroom with new pictures and maps…and it made him uneasy, possibilities crowding in on him. There were times, particularly after their long trips, when he was glad to be here and ready to stay home the rest of his life. The musty smells of unmade bedding and old books meant home. He knew the red faces of Mars better than he knew his own face, it seemed. And he felt a powerful loyalty, to his room and the entire house, and even to the cul-de-sac itself. This was his realm. He couldn’t imagine outgrowing it; not like he’d outgrown the dusty shelter beneath his bed.

  They ate dinner at a Hardees, Dad paying and Pete making his usual protests. The sun was low when they finally pulled into the driveway. Cornell changed into shorts, wanting to feel cool. Todd Underhill was outside, shouting at his brother, calling him Lame instead of Lane. They were riding bikes around the island at the cul-de-sac’s center. Racing, like always. And Todd winning every race.

  Cornell’s bike was nothing special. It had old-fashioned gears and tires worn smooth and not all the padding that new bikes had to wear. It clicked when he pedaled hard, never quite in gear. “Let me adjust it,” Pete would say. “Anytime.” Except he liked the clicking. He was accustomed to it and used it as a measure of his speed. He considered himself a smart racer, knowing how to position himself and get ahead, and how to guard a lead; Todd always let Cornell slip ahead, always too confident in his own legs and his fancy bike.

  Making low motor sounds, Cornell rolled onto the circular street, hollering when he joined the race. The Underhills were blond, round-faced and a little heavy, looking as if they were carved from warm butter. Dusk was beginning, street-lamps and stars ready to come out. Todd screamed, “A new entry in tonight’s field!” and Lane said, “Killer Cornell!” They circled the island, the brothers working against each other and Cornell closing the gap. He kept close to the island’s curb, knowing from hard experience that too close meant catching a pedal and crashing, limbs and twisted spokes everywhere. But
shortening your orbit was critical, and after a lot of hard work, he found himself nearly touching Lane’s back wheel.

  Todd screamed, “A three-man race.”

  Voices filled with engine sounds and cheering crowds. “The challenger makes his move,” Cornell shouted, swinging outside and back again. Lane went outside, trying to block him. Then it was too late, and he was passed, ten years old and unable to hold the pace.

  Todd sensed the change, pumping harder and calling out, “One more lap.”

  The finish line was always the concrete seam aligned with the cul-de-sac’s mouth. That was an ancient rule. Cornell felt time slowing as he struggled with his bike and inertia. His breathing was labored, full of toxins and excitement, but he managed to close on target with half a lap to go. And Todd, like always, kept too far outside and wobbled, allowing his opponent to draw even with him before one last burst to the finish line. The world watched, and he won in the end. By the width of a tire, if that. But Cornell knew he’d won and Todd was just a poor sport, like always, saying, “You didn’t, you didn’t. You’re goddamn blind, Novak.”

  It was better to agree, Cornell knew.

  It was better to coast to a stop while Todd took his victory laps. “Okay. You won.” It wasn’t lying, since he was giving something up. He wasn’t profiting. And besides, he knew what was true. True was true despite what anyone said or wished.

  “I won,” Todd cried out.

  It was almost dark. A clear, starry night, Cornell saw, and he sat on the curb and carefully ignored his friend, watching the sky and thinking about a million things.

  The island had evergreen bushes at its center, thin grass and a few tired flowers at the edges—courtesy of Mrs. Pete—and there were places worn bare by the boys, places where they sat and talked and watched the cul-de-sac. Mr. Lynn, the bachelor, arrived home in his old Corvette—a ‘91—and a blond woman got out with him. “He’ll screw her,” said Todd, a matter-of-factness edging into disgust. Cornell couldn’t talk that way, but he felt a surge of interest. More than once, they’d dared each other to sneak around back and spy, using weeds as cover. One time, for half an instant, they’d seen one woman’s bare chest as the curtains parted, no warning given and no memory more clear. She’d had little breasts, and the breasts had intoxicated him. The blond had large ones, and what effect would they have? Chewing on a stalk of grass, Todd remarked, “I bet they’re doing it now.” He sounded worldly and unimpressed. “Right on the floor, I bet. What do you think?”

  Cornell thought he was thirsty and tired, and for a moment he considered going inside. But the urge passed. He turned the other way, studying the Tuckers’ house. The flickering colored light of a television looked like a campfire. Just like Dad said. He said that TV’s purpose and its pleasure was the same as a campfire’s, stories told around it, and gossip, and sometimes important teaching. Dad had to like TV. His own father, long dead, had made a heap of money from a local station, and it was Grandpa Novak’s trust fund that let Dad do nothing but research the aliens. Dad wasn’t rich, no. But he liked to tell Cornell they were comfortable and fortunate by any reasonable measure.

  “Where’d you go today?” asked Lane.

  Cornell told the brothers everything, in brief.

  “So,” said the worldly, disinterested Todd, “see any aliens?”

  They weren’t true friends. Lane was halfway interested in Dad’s work, but Todd didn’t care about aliens. They had an unspoken agreement not to discuss them, and Todd was being intentionally rude now.

  “What? No purple people? No talking blobs?”

  He was angry about being beaten. Cornell realized it, then his thoughts shifted to the farmer’s son. That kid was interested in the work. It was too bad he didn’t live nearby. Cornell had felt at ease with him.

  “Hey,” Todd pestered. “Aliens nab your tongue?”

  Cornell glanced at Mr. Lynn’s house. “Look. Tits.”

  “Where—?”

  Both boys were gawking, and Cornell smiled to himself.

  “You didn’t see anything,” Todd complained.

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  That confused his companions, making them fidget and break dead sticks. One of the brothers always stared at the house, his head full of images. Then Todd said, “We can sneak out back. Want to?”

  Mr. Lynn was nice. More than other neighbors, he would ask Cornell about Dad’s work and the famous glass circles. That made Cornell feel bad about spying in the past. Every time he did it, he felt as if he was breaking some promise to himself. A vow. Besides, he reasoned, on a hot night like tonight, the windows would be shut tight, curtains closed and motionless.

  “Well,” Todd announced, “I’m going.”

  Lane broke a stick. Crack.

  “You coming?” asked his brother.

  “Are you?” Lane asked Cornell.

  “Later.” He glanced at the sky.

  “You can watch for spaceships anywhere,” Todd reminded him.

  Lane stood beside Todd, ready to leave.

  “Let’s go, Novak.”

  And it occurred to Cornell that the brazen kid wasn’t. That it was an act. When he said, “Later,” the cocky face dipped, eyes narrowing and losing some of their confidence.

  “Are we going?” asked Lane.

  Todd said, “Sure.”

  Cornell was surprised how much he missed them when they left. Even when he was pissed at someone, there always was that moment when it felt like part of him was leaving, too.

  It worried him.

  He couldn’t say why, but it did.

  Sightings had been growing for years, no place was spared the odd lights, and this had been the best summer ever. Plus there were the glass circles, too. In June, without warning, a big circle had appeared in New York’s Central Park. No one saw or heard anything odd. One morning it was there, and about a hundred thousand people came to see it, chipping off bits of glass as souvenirs. The whole thing was gone in about two days, if that.

  Dad had his own collection of glass. The shards weren’t radioactive, and they didn’t make noise, and they didn’t seem to prevent cancers or make radish seeds grow faster. But Dad kept studying them, sitting down in the basement, in his workshop, working on the puzzle practically every night.

  “This is an area without experts,” he liked to say. Scientists looked as lost as anyone, it was true. Circles had been found in the middle of deserts, deep in the Amazon, and at least once inside an office building. Some days Dad claimed they were communication devices; other days they were launching pads. “The data prove nothing yet.” The data. As if this was real science. Cornell liked to read about scientists, and sometimes he could see where Dad wasn’t much of one. Real scientists didn’t lead witnesses. They didn’t have equipment that was bought secondhand and originally built for other jobs. The best scientists made graceful leaps from places well-mapped, everything managed along rigorous scientific lines.

  “It boils down to this,” said one Nobel prize winner. He was talking on CNN, telling the world, “Odd things seem to be happening, yes. But blaming aliens is no explanation. Aliens are the end product of a series of guesses. Can other worlds make life? How common are these living worlds? Is interstellar travel possible? And why treat our world in exactly this way?” A smiling pause. “Do you see my point? Guess wrong just once, and your rationale collapses. Sad as it seems, science must focus on natural phenomena to create explanations. Unseen aliens aren’t natural phenomena, thus they are useless to us. Outside bar talk, of course, and lame fantasies.”

  “But they exist!” Dad had moaned at the TV screen. “Nonetheless, they exist!”

  Cornell thought of his mother living among the aliens. Dad liked to say that extraterrestrials would differ from us in countless ways, and he had only scorn for crazy people who claimed to have fathered children with big-brained ladies from Sirius. Yet despite knowing better, Cornell would picture Mom living with an alien man, in his fancy house, figuring that
if she was abducted she might as well be happily abducted, particularly in some golden world without hunger, without want.

  Was she thinking of him now? Was she ever sad?

  If she couldn’t feel sad, he decided, then that was wrong. The golden world would seem tainted then. Sometimes Dad’s speeches about Edenlike societies and deep wisdom became suffocating; mandated joy, he could see, would be a terrible burden for its citizens. How would anyone know when and how he had done something wrong?

  Cornell blinked, looking at his worn shoes, at his right toe which stuck through the double hole of his sock and mesh top.

  Anger surged. It was directed at the aliens, but not for abducting his mother. Not this time. Now he was angry at their subtlety, at their collective shyness. Nobody would make fun of him if the critters would just step forward and say, “Hi!” Just once. Just so they became natural phenomena.

  “Mr. Novak,” said someone.

  Not a friendly voice, or unfriendly. It was Mrs. Pete. The woman walked past him, her arms working, her little headphones playing loudly enough that he could make out the thin insecty buzz of taped music.

  “Hello,” he offered, waving too late.

  Mrs. Pete continued walking, periodically glancing at her watch. She wasn’t a pretty woman, or unpretty. In the old photographs she’d been attractive in a round-faced way, but then her weight went into Pete’s gut and her dark hair showed early gray. She walked every evening, usually at dusk. This was late for her. Circling the island with weights strapped to her ankles and held in both hands, she did a reliable twenty minutes; then she finished with more weights and the stationary bike in one of the almost-empty bedrooms.