Chasing Stars

Chapter 12

The Space and Time Institute stood at the crest of the hill, as though keeping watch over the city that lay below it. As clouds passed in front of the sun and then cleared, light glinted from its tall windows, like the warning beam from a lighthouse.

A car, with a driver and security escort, had been sent to collect me. We drove through the front entrance and turned to the left, the opposite side of the building I had visited when I arrived. This was the infamous south wing, where the Time Court was situated.

I smoothed my skirt as the car pulled into the car park. Admiral Westland had sent me a suit, as promised. It was a deep charcoal grey and fitted me perfectly. The skirt fell below my knee and the jacket was long, down to my hips. Everything about it was perfect: the opposite of girlish and love-struck. Just wearing it made me feel like a different person – a more mature, confident version of myself. Dressed in this suit, I could see myself explaining carefully and calmly that Ryan had returned to 2012 to save my life and set the timeline straight. I would hide my feelings for Ryan from the courtroom. I would not be his love interest. I would not allow Ryan to lose his freedom because of me.

The car came to a stop and the security officer guided me to the front entrance of the Time Court. I should have expected the reporters and camera operators with their lights and microphones and cameras. I composed my face into a mask of blank calm and strode alongside the security officer, ignoring their questions and the flashing of cameras.

Although it was clearly less than a century old, the building’s wood panelling and gilt-framed portraits of former Guardians gave it a feeling of ancient grandeur. My shoes clicked on the polished wooden floors as I made my way to the front desk.

‘My name is Eden Anfield. I’m a witness in the trial of Orion Westland,’ I told the receptionist.

‘Stand in front of the retinal scanner,’ he told me.

My eyes were scanned and I was escorted by a different security officer to a waiting room at the end of the hall.

There were enough seats for about twenty people, but the waiting room was empty. The security officer gave me a quick nod and walked away. I was much too jittery to sit down so I went to the window and looked out over the city down to the water. The blue of the lake and deep green of the trees were drenched in the bright light of summer. I imagined Ryan and me on a boat on the lake or swimming in the water. Was this where we would spend our life together? Or was this where I would spend my life alone?

‘Miss Anfield. The court is ready for you.’

Already. I hadn’t had time to calm myself yet. Turning around, I saw a court usher dressed in a funereal black suit standing in the doorway. I followed him down a long hallway towards the double doors that led to the courtroom. Two doormen, dressed in white suits, were positioned either side of the doors; above them was a large circular crest with the words Ad Astra engraved above it. When we were just halfway along the corridor, the doormen pulled the doors open and two men left the court. One was an usher, the other was, like me, a witness.

‘Ben?’ I said.

‘Eden! How’re you holding up?’

I shrugged. ‘OK, I guess. How was it in there?’

‘Ma’am,’ said the usher. ‘The court is waiting.’

‘Will you be here for the verdict tomorrow?’ Ben asked.

‘Of course.’

‘We’ll talk then.’

‘Ma’am,’ said the usher.

The size of the doors did not prepare me for what was inside. The doors suggested a large space, something grand, but the courtroom was bigger and more imposing than I could have imagined. It was a circular room and everything inside was curved to its shape. Five long convex windows stretching from the high ceilings to the floor framed the city below. Twenty-four enormous clocks were spaced around the room, the name of a prominent city displayed underneath each. Above the door I entered by was a high gallery filled with empty seats.

In front of me were five stone and glass chairs – thrones almost – arranged in a semicircle. Four of them were empty; in the fifth sat Admiral Wolfe. My heart sank.

Immediately I scanned the room for Ryan. He was behind a small desk on the far side of the room with Saul White, his lawyer. Like me, Ryan was wearing a charcoal suit. The trousers were cut slim and the jacket was so long it looked like he was wearing tails. He was clean-shaven and his hair had been cut shorter than I’d ever seen on him. If this had been a wedding instead of a trial, I might have mistaken him for the groom.

He turned his head and locked eyes with me. My heart hammered against my chest. He looked gorgeous. And scared.

For a moment everything else vanished – the thrones, the lawyers, the clocks on the wall – and all I could see was Ryan, a look of hope and fear in his eyes. I wanted to run across the room, pull him into my arms and tell him everything was going to be OK.

Instead, I gave him a quick smile and tore my eyes away.

‘Ma’am,’ said the usher. ‘This way.’

I followed the usher to the witness box and took my seat.

Now I was facing the five thrones. Admiral Wolfe, dressed in a flowing white gown, was calmly observing me. I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the uneasiness that was growing within me.

‘Do not be afraid,’ Wolfe told me. ‘You simply need to tell the truth. The court lawyer will ask you a few questions and then Orion’s representative may wish to ask you some questions as well. It will be quite informal.’

It didn’t feel informal. At all.

‘We have a simple truth to uncover,’ Admiral Wolfe continued. ‘And that is whether Orion Westland defied the Board of Guardians and broke one of our most sacred laws so that he could travel back to 2012 and be with the girl he loved. Or whether he was enforcing the Clemency Protocol which spares the life of someone who makes an exceptional contribution to a time mission.’

The usher placed my hands on two flat screens. I’d expected a Bible.

‘These screens will monitor your physical responses to the questions,’ said the usher. ‘Please keep your hands flat on the screens at all times. If you tell the truth, your monitor will remain in the green zone. The amber zone indicates confusion or uncertainty. The red zone will inform the court that your answer is not truthful.’

The court lawyer was dressed in a white suit with a clock symbol over one pocket. He approached the witness stand and smiled a practised smile.

‘Please state your name and date of birth for the record,’ he said.

‘Eden Anfield. I was born on 6th September 1995.’

I glanced at my screens. Green zone.

He smiled again. ‘There. That wasn’t difficult, was it, Eden?’

I said nothing. Already I’d decided I hated this white-suited man with his patronising tone. His job was to trick me into saying something that would help him find Ryan guilty.

Admiral Wolfe stood. ‘You say you were born in 1995?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you are a minor. Where is your legal guardian?’

‘I don’t have one. I’m a hundred and twenty-seven. I’m older than all of you.’

I smiled to myself; my truth monitor was green.

‘All minors are appointed a legal guardian along with their resettlement package. Did no one speak to you about this?’

‘I don’t want a legal guardian. I want to be on my own.’

‘You have twenty-four hours to find a legal guardian of your own, or the Institute will appoint you one.’

Wolfe took his seat and the lawyer approached me again.

‘OK, Eden, let’s begin by telling the court how you met Orion.’

I hated the way he used our first names, as though we were all friends.

‘We had classes together at school. We sat next to each other in Art. He asked about my friend, Connor.’

‘This is Connor Penrose, the subject of Orion’s time mission?’

‘Yes, although I didn’t know that at the time of course.’

‘Of course. So you introduced Orion to Connor?’

He continued with his questions about Ryan and Connor. He wanted to know how they met and what sort of role I had played. I explained that as I was friends with Connor – and Connor was the reason for the time mission – I had become friends with Ryan as well.

‘At what point did you become more than friends?’ asked the lawyer. His voice was quiet, solicitous, encouraging confidences.

I kept my eyes on him. ‘We were never more than friends.’

‘May I remind you that you are under oath,’ he said, glancing at my truth monitor. I was in the amber zone. ‘Let me rephrase the question. At what point did you develop romantic feelings for Orion?’

‘Just before he left.’

‘And how did those feelings manifest?’

I swallowed. Surely he wasn’t asking me for intimate details. Personal details. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘When did you start having an intimate physical relationship with him?’ he said.

To my irritation, I felt the warmth of a blush on my cheeks. Surely Ryan’s lawyer should be shouting objection across the court by now?

‘We didn’t. I knew he was leaving.’

White Suit looked at my truth screen. I was safely in the green zone.

‘But you were in love with him?’

I felt sick. This was none of his business. ‘I cared for him,’ I said, forcing myself not to look at Ryan. ‘But I was not in love with him.’

I glanced at my screen. My physical responses had elevated into the red zone.

The lawyer smiled. ‘Let the records show that the witness’s truth monitor was in the red zone for that answer.’ He turned back to me. ‘Sometimes we don’t realise the depth of our emotions for another person.’

I wanted to punch him. Evidently these truth monitors were going to make it impossible to play down my true feelings.

‘OK, Eden,’ he continued. ‘So you cared for each other. And Orion had trusted you enough to tell you about his mission.’

‘No. He didn’t tell me about his mission. I worked it out.’

I expected the lawyer to ask me how I’d worked it out, but he didn’t. Of course he had already spoken to Cassie and Ben and probably Ryan as well. White Suit seemed interested in one thing only: my relationship with Ryan.

‘Once you had worked out what Ryan’s mission was, did the two of you spend a lot of time together? When he was off-duty, for instance?’

These were not the sort of questions I wanted. I needed to tell the court concrete stuff regarding my involvement in saving the planet. I needed the court to understand that I didn’t deserve to die. That I had made an exceptional contribution. ‘He needed to be friends with Connor so I invited Ryan around when I knew Connor was going to be there.’

‘So Ryan spent time at your house?’

‘Yes. But I did more than that. I helped . . .’

‘Stick to the question, Eden. For the moment, I need to know about your relationship with Orion.’ He paused and looked at me. ‘I know it’s difficult to talk about personal, intimate matters. But this is important. So, can we agree that you were very fond of Orion?’

‘Yes.’

‘And sometimes you spent time alone together?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you ever hold hands with him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Kiss?’

I exhaled and watched my monitor moving into the amber zone. ‘Yes.’

‘Had things been different, you and Orion would probably have formed a deeper romantic attachment. But you ran out of time. Would you say that’s a fair explanation?’

I shrugged. ‘We can’t possibly know what would have happened.’

White Suit smiled. ‘You’re right. Let’s not speculate. Let’s talk about your feelings again. At the time he left, you were fond of each other. You would have liked more time together.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Yes or no?’

‘Yes.’

White Suit smirked. ‘That sort of fondness, in this time-scape, is commonly referred to as love. Thank you, Miss Anfield. No further questions, Your Honour.’

But he hadn’t asked about my part in the mission, or how Travis had tried to kill me. He hadn’t given me the chance to explain that Ryan had come back to save my life because I had made an exceptional contribution to the mission and didn’t deserve a death sentence, not just because he loved me. He’d only asked about one small part of what happened; the part that helped him prove that Ryan was guilty of stealing a time-ship and travelling back to 2012 because he wanted to be with his girlfriend.

Wolfe turned to Ryan’s lawyer. ‘Your witness.’

I took a deep breath. This was my chance to set the record straight. Saul White approached the witness box.

‘You say that you and Orion were never more than friends during his original mission. Is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you ever try to convince him to remain with you in 2012?’

‘No.’

‘Did you try to return to the twenty-second century with him?’

‘No.’

‘So you were reconciled to the fact that the two of you would never see each other again?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why do you think Orion stole a time-ship and travelled back to your time-scape?’

‘Speculation!’ said White Suit.

‘Let the witness answer,’ said Admiral Wolfe. ‘I’m curious.’

I stared at my screen. ‘Because he thought it was wrong for me to be killed by the mission cleaner. There was no need. I wasn’t a threat to the timeline. The mission leader – Benjamin Hansen – didn’t feel I was a threat. And the mission would have failed if it wasn’t for me.’

My screen remained in the green zone.

‘You don’t think it was because he was in love with you?’

‘No,’ I said. My voice shook and my screens registered amber.

Ryan’s lawyer noticed my amber response too. He frowned and then smiled broadly.

‘So let’s back up,’ he said. ‘You believe that Orion travelled back to 2012 because he knew that you had made an exceptional contribution to the mission and did not therefore deserve to be killed by the mission cleaner.’

‘Yes,’ I said, though it had been a statement, not a question.

Saul White nodded solemnly. ‘Miss Anfield, why did the mission cleaner kill you?’

‘Objection!’ said White Suit. ‘This is speculation.’

‘We can’t put the mission cleaner on the stand and ask him,’ said Ryan’s lawyer, ‘because he’s dead.’

‘Objection sustained,’ said Wolfe.

‘Let me rephrase the question. Miss Anfield, why do you believe the mission cleaner killed you?’

I knew what he was asking me. This was my chance. ‘He didn’t understand the role I had played,’ I said. ‘Without me, the mission would have failed. Benjamin Hansen knew that and so did Orion. That’s why Orion came back for me. I saved the future; I was not a threat.’

‘No further questions, Your Honour.’

‘Thank you, Miss Anfield,’ said Wolfe. ‘You can step down from the witness box.’