Sing Down The Stars - Nerine Dorman

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oldies said the place was cursed, and the kids only came here on dares. The station’s single aerial was listing heavily to the west, and kaza weed had swamped the walls in a green tide. The tiny, trumpet-shaped blooms were still open, releasing their sticky-sweet scent into the muggy air, where fat white moths the size of Nuri’s hands bumped into each other – a strange mingling of ruin and nature.

      Anything that might’ve been of value had been stripped away years ago, but Nuri loved exploring the cavernous space where equipment had once been bolted into the floor and walls. In her wildest imaginings she became her own boss and claimed the station. Any runners who joined her pack would become her friends – other youngsters who’d been picked on and made the butt of jokes.

      Such dreams were what kept Nuri going.

      She came here, too, because she could climb to the top of the aerial, which was the tallest structure outside the city limits. Some nights, she fancied she could see all the way across the fen to the next city over. When it was clear, she might glimpse the shimmer of lights, and she’d wonder if there was another girl or boy sitting on a high place, thinking the exact same thoughts she was. It made her feel less lonely.

      Rust flaked as she climbed, but Nuri knew exactly where to place her hands, how much weight each bar could take before she needed to shift. The aerial was tall – more than four-hundred metres. The higher she climbed, the freer she felt, lighter even. The wind mourned through the structure, making it creak and sway. Anyone else would be sensible not to ascend, but Nuri kept taking the chance.

      Below her, as dawn broke, the barrens became a blanket of little lights skirting the shimmering, gleaming city with its gargantuan, glass-sheathed spires. Roads glittered with vehicles moving like sparks through veins, and she understood how the city itself was alive. Each day and night was an exhalation and inhalation, with the city centre the beating heart.

      Nuri reached the top and clung to her perch, feeling the motion of the aerial stirring in the breeze, loving the chilly pre-dawn air that kept her alert, despite her exhausting night. If only she could stay here, away from the ugliness below. From up here, it all was so simple, so easy …

      * * *

      The song began as a low hum, more felt than heard.

      At first, she thought it was the low whine of a power drive starting up, but the long, plaintive note rose and fell, ending in sharp blips and high-frequency clicks that went beyond her senses. The song wasn’t reaching her ears, but was resonating inside her, as if someone spoke on one of the psi frequencies. The small hairs on her nape prickled as the sound became heavier, drawing at her emotions and bringing tears to her eyes with the depth of its longing. The song was a river, dragging her in its current so that she turned her face to the north-east, across the fens.

      How peculiar. How strange. The fens stretched on as an inky flatness before meeting the grey of the sky at the horizon. There was nothing out there for miles – just a tangled wasteland of vegetation and forgotten ruins.

      The song wavered, ascending and descending, the wave-forms growing into staccato beats before ending in a plaintive whoop. A bass moan followed, drawn out and ascending again. Nuri’s teeth began to chatter as the sound vibrated in her marrow.

      Out beyond the fens.

      Come to me, it said.

      “Ancestors above,” Nuri whispered. Beads of moisture formed on her brow, and her hands grew slick where she gripped the bars.

      Another wave of the song hit her with so much force she almost let go – low howls that became bass notes died away to silence before returning as a wail. The desire, the wanting in the song was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.

      Would it hurt to investigate? If she didn’t, and this was a one-off event, would she curse herself forever for not trying?

      And if it was something dangerous? Some sort of predator that lured unwary psi-gifted?

      She’d be careful. She had to know more. So what if she upset Vadith.

      She gritted her teeth as she began her descent.

      What was out there? Nothing, really. Maybe more abandoned, half-built places. Wild things too, feral things. Nuri had no business beyond the barrens.

      But every time her resolve wavered, the siren song would hit her with a fresh wave, vibrating through her veins and begging her to hurry. Come to me.

      By the time her grip-boots hit the ground, she was already running, lungs burning as she pushed herself across the floor and out the gap. She barely paused to disentangle the thorny fronds of kaza that latched on to her hoodie.

      Gravel shifted as she pelted down the embankment and squelched into the marsh, knee deep in the mire with the mud sucking at her feet. She knew this was madness, allowing such a strong psi-call to drag her off, but every time she slowed, tried to catch her breath, the call would intensify, and she’d find herself further away and not quite sure how she’d gotten there. Reeds shushed as she pushed through them. Flurries of water birds took to the wing, cackling and hissing at the disturbance. Nuri’s breath rasped in her throat, but she didn’t stop. The notion that she verged on a discovery that was bigger than anything she’d ever known dragged her forward with every sloshing step.

      The fence, when she reached it, was rusted through in places, and much patched. Just beyond it was the true barrier – a twelve-foot ceramic panel wall, the kind that could be hastily erected. Except it had been here for a decade at least, and was shrouded in bearded moss and swathes of creeping polyp fungi.

      The siren song had her follow the barrier’s undulations until she came to a place where the ground had caved in. At some point, a fen-mole must’ve made its burrow here, and whoever had built this structure either hadn’t noticed or simply wasn’t around to maintain it.

      As it was, Nuri was just the right size to wriggle through, and she did just that – she was so far past the point of no return it hardly mattered. Besides, if she could outsmart security bots and trained militia, she could dodge whatever she encountered in this seemingly abandoned compound – she was faster than anyone else she knew, and could climb and hide better too. Also, she simply had to find out what manner of entity was broadcasting with such strength. She’d always had a degree of telepathic ability, but until now had never explored it. She could now feel so clearly …

      Nuri emerged in a forest. Apart from the times she’d worked city botanical gardens, she’d never seen so many trees all close together. They went on and on. How come she’d never heard about this place? Surely someone would speak about a fenced property out in the fens? Her feet sank into deep mulch and she continued unerringly towards the source of the call. The air was thick with the organic scent of old leaves and the looped whistles of hidden amphibians.

      The forest gave way to what looked like sports fields or training grounds. So much wide-open space – she’d seen stuff like this in the military recruitment ads. Green grass – as in the real stuff, and not synth.

      In the soft, misty light of early morning, a pair of human, grey-uniformed guards, both armed with military-grade stunners sauntered past.

      They were chatting about a sports match as they passed her hiding spot. They wouldn’t see her if they didn’t know to look for her, and as far as she could tell she hadn’t set off any silent alarms.

      What was this place? No known military bases were located within spitting distance of Calan City. Yet here Nuri was.

      The siren call pulsed in her mind, and she nearly gave herself away before the two men rounded the corner of a single-storey, prefab building constructed from the same ceramic as the exterior wall. Whatever this place was, all the buildings Nuri could see looked as if they’d been erected by one of those mass fabricating machines. Clearly they hadn’t been intended to be here permanently but they’d been here long enough for the grey walls to be splotched with lichen. Weirder and weirder.

      Using the stations of an outdoor obstacle course as hiding places, Nuri made her way towards

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