Chasing Stars

Epilogue

The Southern Desert of Eden, three days later

‘I promise it’s worth it,’ he says.

I nod; my mouth is too dry to waste words. We’ve been walking across the desert for about an hour by now, only it’s not like the endless sand in the deserts of my imagination. Here the desert is bare, brittle rock. Thin sliver of rock upon thin sliver of rock. It snaps and splinters underfoot, like walking across thin ice. I peel my shirt from my damp skin and squint against the bright sunlight, wishing I had sunglasses or sunscreen. Or both.

And then, abruptly, the rock turns to sand. We turn a corner and I see why. We’ve reached the ocean; its surface is like blue silk.

‘It’s so still,’ I say, as I unscrew the lid of my water bottle. The water inside is hot and offers almost no refreshment.

‘Perfect for swimming.’

‘We’re going to swim?’ I say, looking down at my kitchen tunic. I’ve cut off the sleeves, but they’re still kind of heavy to swim in. Beneath, I have nothing but the set of underwear I’ve washed overnight every day for the past three days.

‘Yes, we’re going to swim. There’s something I want to show you.’

He pulls his green prison shirt over his head and I’m glad to see that he’s already filling out again, that the sunlight is washing away the grey pallor that comes with being locked inside for three weeks.

‘So you know this place?’

‘Dad used to bring us here every year for a vacation,’ says Ryan.

I peel off my tunic, feeling the sun leaching the moisture from my skin.

‘It was different then of course. Not as mind-blowing as this.’ He sweeps his arm, encompassing everything in its arc: the spires and towers of pink sandstone that rise like petrified trees from the ground; the flat expanse of ocean ahead of us; the vastness of blue sky above.

‘How was it different?’

‘Well, there was a huge hotel at the top of the bluff behind us,’ he says, turning back and pointing at the stone cliff. ‘A thousand suites. Eight restaurants. Three swimming pools. Utter luxury.’ He looks at me. ‘Water piped in from the oasis, seventy kilometres away. A big white blemish on the landscape. And then down here on the beach there were hundreds of loungers for sunbathing and moon watching. Stalls selling cold drinks and snacks. You could rent all-terrain vehicles to go and destroy the desert. They took an unspoilt paradise and turned it into a beach resort just like everywhere else. It was pointless.’

I wouldn’t mind a beach shack selling cold drinks and snacks right now, but I get what he’s saying.

We’re walking across the hot sand to the water’s edge when something occurs to me. ‘How could your dad bring you here to a hotel when you were a child, when that hotel never existed?’

Ryan shakes his head rapidly, like a dog shaking off water. ‘I still have memories from the original timeline. But I have new memories too. Like, I remember spending my childhood on Eden, but I also remember spending it on Earth.’

‘So it’s like you’re two people?

‘Sort of. I’ve had two different sets of experiences, but those different lives are beginning to converge.’ He dips his foot in the sea, sending ripples through the still water. ‘I wish I could explain convergence theory to you, but it’s a really tricky concept.’

‘Are you saying I’m not smart enough to understand it?’

He shakes his head, laughing. ‘I’m saying I’m not smart enough to understand it. It messes with your head. Come on – let’s swim.’

The water is much warmer than the sea at home in Penpol Cove or the icy lake water in the mountains of Lakeborough. It coaxes you in, slips over your skin, relaxes your muscles. I lie on my back, letting it hold me, watching the sky turn bluer.

‘We’re gonna swim over to the rocks,’ he says.

He swims ahead of me, his arms and legs streamlined, his movements clean, unlike my splashy attempt at front crawl. He waits for me by the rocky headland, reaching out for my hand.

‘Follow me under the water,’ he says, ‘and open your eyes.’

Maybe the sea is less salty on Eden, because it doesn’t sting my eyes at all. The sunlight reaches deep below the surface, giving the underwater world its colours. The pink rock of the desert is a deeper rose down here, the weeds that sprout within its cracks as green as English grass. But it’s the fish that are most captivating. There are blue and yellow stripy fish, no bigger than goldfish. Black and orange fish the size of small sharks. Fish every colour of the rainbow, darting in and out of the rocks.

I surface for air. Ryan shoots up next to me.

‘Are they . . .’ I begin.

‘All safe,’ says Ryan. ‘Nothing predatory here.’

We stay in the water for what feels like hours, swimming through arches of pink rock, around spires that point up from the ocean bed like wrinkled fingers. We spot hundreds of different fish, weird turtle-like creatures with large curious eyes, fat black animals that look something like a cross between a dolphin and a cat. By the time we decide to head back to camp, my skin is puckered and white and the suns are low on the horizon.

Back at camp, Ryan heads into the ship to sort out something to eat while I finish building a fire with the small pile of dead leaves and twigs I’ve managed to scavenge. There’s not a hell of a lot to burn out here in the desert. Once I’ve got the fire in a rough pyramid shape, I strike a match to the dry grass and leaves at the base. It crackles and spits, quickly catching the small twigs. Smoke coils upwards into the empty sky, smudging its clear blue with grey.

Ryan comes back out carrying two foil trays of food. ‘I think it’s some sort of mashed potato thing,’ he says, passing one of them to me.

By the time we’ve eaten, dusk has fallen. Purple shadows race across the ground, swallowing up canyons and spires in mere seconds. The second sun sinks below the horizon and the safe blue sky disappears, revealing the enormous immens­­­ity of space. The first of the stars peeps from the darkness.

‘That’s Eden’s third sun,’ says Ryan. ‘It’s much further away than the other suns, but it’s still technically a part of this solar system.’

‘This is how we first began,’ I say. ‘Alone on a clear night – you teaching me about the stars.’

‘There’s one more I want to tell you about.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Lie back. This constellation is high in the sky.’

I do as he asks, lying there while my eyes adjust.

‘You’re looking for a square with a triangle above it,’ he says. ‘Like a child’s drawing of a house. You see it?’

At first I see nothing. And then pale stars emerge from the blue-black sky.

‘Do you see the one that forms the apex of the tri­­­angle – the roof?’ asks Ryan.

‘I see it.’

‘That’s our sun. That’s home.’

I can’t say anything. I fix my gaze on that one yellow star and think of all the people back there on Earth circling it. All the people we love. I think of Pegasus and Ben. Ryan’s mother and father, his brothers and friends. And before them, in a different time, Miranda and Connor and Megan. I think of all that empty space between us, all those burning stars scattering their light across the universe.

‘It’s ninety-three light years away,’ he says softly. ‘You know what that means.’

I do. The light we see now actually shone on the Earth ninety-three years ago, when Miranda and all my friends were still alive. I’m looking into the past and we are connected by this beam of silvery light.

‘I’ll be right back,’ Ryan says.

He gets up. I hear his footsteps crunching over the ground towards the ship.

Seeing our sun so many light years away makes me think about all we’ve been through. How we’ve stepped through time again and again. Together. We changed our Fate – if Fate is nothing more than the passage of time – and made the world a better place. On Ryan’s first trip through time, he and I prevented Connor from discovering this planet with its deadly parasite, and the destruction of Earth. On his second trip, he saved my life. When I jumped through time, I saved him from spending the rest of his life on the moon. We’ve both given up so much to be here. Me: my time. Ryan: his home.

Yes, we’ve given up a lot, but we’ve gained more.

Ryan sits back beside me on the ground, two glasses of champagne in his hands.

‘More champagne?’ I say. ‘We’ve been celebrating a lot since we got here.’

‘Every day we’re together is a reason to celebrate.’

‘Actually, I think I’ll just stick to water tonight,’ I say, sitting up. ‘I’m kind of dehydrated.’

‘That’s something we need to talk about,’ he says. ‘We’re down to our last six litres of water. We can’t stay in the desert any longer. It’s decision time.’

I’ve thought about staying here. I really have. The whole time Ryan and I have known each other, we’ve been told we can’t be together or we’ve been forced apart. Now we have a whole planet to ourselves. We could travel to the place where Ryan spent his childhood, in a wooded valley surrounded by pink mountains and four converging rivers, and build a treehouse. We could forage for food and tell stories around the fire at night. We could swing in hammocks and swim in warm seas and just be together. A little part of me wants to do just that.

But I’m too much of a pragmatist at heart. I’m much too used to indoor plumbing and buying my food at the shops to be comfortable spending eternity in paradise. Eden is beautiful, but it’s a wild, untamed planet. Ryan has told me stories of lizards the size of dogs and birds with wingspans the breadth of pterodactyls.

We have discussed the possibilities of course. We’ve imagined living here or back on Earth. Not present day Earth of course; that would be much too dangerous. But if we jumped well into the future or into the past, where no one knows us, we could start again. Neither of us has stated a preference. He looks happy – hopeful – but I have no idea what he’s hoping for.

‘So,’ he says. ‘Where do you want to live?’

‘What do you want to do?’ I ask.

‘I asked first,’ he says, smiling and shaking his head. ‘Tell me where you want to live.’

I take a deep breath. ‘I really like it here,’ I begin. ‘It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.’

‘OK.’ He’s holding my gaze, as though trying to read my thoughts.

‘But I think I’d like to go back to Earth.’

His eyes close and my fears are realised. ‘I do love it here,’ I say, trying to reassure him. ‘It’s just, you know, what if one of us got sick?’

His eyes flick back open and he smiles. ‘I was terrified you were going to want to stay here. I love a good metaphor as much as the next guy, but the thought of the two of us alone, like Adam and Eve in paradise for ever . . .’

‘It would be pretty intense,’ I say, relief flooding through me.

‘And it would leave our children in a sticky situation, genetically speaking.’

‘Our children?’ I say, raising my eyebrows.

He smirks. ‘How else would we pass the time? There’s no com-screen in paradise.’

To my amazement, I’m not blushing. ‘So it’s Earth,’ I say. ‘I know a little farmhouse by the sea.’

‘I’d like that. I never did get to finish decorating that place. And I know a loose floorboard with a whole wad of cash hidden underneath it.’

‘So the question is, when. In the past? Or in the future?’

‘You decide. Either choice is fine with me. But whatever we choose, we stick with it. I’m done jumping back and forth through time. Like I said, it messes with your head.’

I stand up and stretch. It’s such a big decision. And yet – and yet, no one knows what might lie ahead of them. I thrust my hands into my pockets and one of them bumps against something small and warm. And then I know exactly how I’m going to decide. I take out the lucky penny I found just before leaving 2012 and turn it between my fingers. ‘Heads is the future. Tails is the past,’ I say.

Ryan stands up next to me. ‘Are you serious?’

‘This seems as good a way as any to decide.’

He takes a deep breath and nods. ‘Let’s do it.’

He’s still holding my gaze, still waiting to see where fortune will take us, as I flip the copper coin into the air and leave our destiny to chance.