Sing Down The Stars - Nerine Dorman

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song became jubilant, more urgent here, and Nuri hurried along the side of the building, keeping flush with the wall. How much closer did she dare go? The sun was nearly up, and there’d be more people up and about soon. Would she be able to leave without being detected? Mouth dry, she worked her way round to the back, where a door stood ajar.

      How bizarre that the door was open, its electronic lock flashing the amber light of malfunction. Her curiosity dug its claws in deep, and Nuri slipped through the entrance into a reception area where a few desk terminals stood on standby. A coffee mug on one desk told her there were folks here during the day, so she’d better hurry up.

      The tugging in her very soul had her crossing into a passage off to the left of the front desk. It was all rather industrial, with slick brushed-metal surfaces and faint strip lights running along both sides of the ceiling. Nuri passed three doors on her right. As she arrived at the fourth, the lights on the lock turned from red to flashing amber, and the door slid open.

      As if someone was expecting her.

      Cold all over, she halted, her heart about to jump out of her throat.

      What am I doing here?

      That moment of doubt didn’t have time to gather dust because the siren song dragged her over the threshold and into a cavernous room, empty but for the bizarre object situated on the floor in its centre.

      If an enormous blob of liquified stone had been dropped to the ground from a great height, that would be an apt description of what she could see. In the low light, the malformed ovoid pulsed with swirling blues and greens edged with violet. The ground in and around a smallish crater in which the object nestled bristled with an array of jagged crystal javelins, many easily twice as tall as Nuri. The psi-energy flowing off it was so strong it set Nuri’s teeth on edge. Still, she couldn’t help but approach.

      As she neared the thing, which was the size of a train carriage jutting diagonally out of the ground, the siren song became one of exultation. Rightness.

      Puzzled, Nuri reached out; she was almost within arm’s reach. Everything hummed with power, warmth, beauty. Another step and –

      A hard force struck from her left, driving the air from her lungs. Her instincts kicked in enough for her to roll, but then the pain hit, and all her muscles cramped as one.

      Stun-bolt. She’d felt enough of those in her short life to know what it was that had hit her.

      All she could do was lie there while men and women shouted, and bright lights flashed so that she had to squeeze shut her eyes against the sudden glare.

      The siren song that had lured her ended so abruptly its absence hurt her head.

snake

      3

      Stars above, everything hurt.

      Nuri came to in a tiny, windowless room. She’d been laid down on a blanket that was folded over twice, but the ceramic floor was cold and hard beneath her, so she sat up.

      Crippling pain pried at her skull with the sharpest blades every time she tilted her head, and her stomach felt as though it was full of acid eating at her insides. She dry-retched a few times until she got her breathing under control. Her mouth tasted weird and metallic, and her memories wriggled out of her grasp. Ancestors, what had happened?

      Bit by bit she recalled her journey through fen and forest. Scraps of vegetation and dried weed were encrusted in her clothes. Dried mud flaked off her tights and her grip-boots looked like even a good scrub wouldn’t lift the dirt.

      An inescapable siren song had brought her here, and she cursed herself roundly for allowing her curiosity free rein. It had been like a weird, twisted dream. Only now, the dream was over, and she was here in what was little more than a broom closet, wherever that was.

      She didn’t get much more time to wonder, because a door opened, and two humans entered. Both wore the dark-grey uniforms she’d seen the security guards wearing, and they went to stand on either side of the entrance. A Heran stood on the lintel, a positively ancient individual, judging by his wrinkles. He was garbed in a black formal suit and sported an elaborate AR unit that fit his head almost like a visor.

      Nuri had no words. He stared at her, and was most likely scanning her, so she stared back. Not that it did her any good. The silence was awkward.

      “Ah,” he said with a sharp nod. The Heran snapped his long fingers. “Bring her,” he instructed the guards, and then he turned and departed before Nuri could even consider what question she wanted to ask.

      The female of the pair of guards pointed her stunner at Nuri. “C’mon, you heard the facilitator.”

      Facilitator?

      With a groan, Nuri rose. Every bone and muscle ached, but she wasn’t in the mood for a second dose of shock therapy, so she allowed the guards to herd her along the passage behind the facilitator.

      “What’s going to happen to me?” she called after the Heran.

      He didn’t answer, and one of the guards behind her jabbed her in the small of the back with the muzzle of their stunner, and growled, “Shurrup, you.”

      Nuri bit back the retort that she wanted to fling at the guard. Until she had a better idea of how much trouble she was in, she’d do best to keep her mouth shut.

      Keep calm. Keep calm.

      She’d experienced worse. There was that time she’d spent a long weekend in juvie until her pack had sprung her just before she was admitted to an off-planet detention facility. Nuri would have figure something out by herself now. No one knew she was here. Cursing herself wouldn’t achieve anything.

      One passage led into another, the same unpainted pale ceramic walls set with featureless doors. They climbed into a lift, which, by her estimation, descended about six floors, underground most likely. Because there were no ancestors-damned windows anywhere that she could see.

      A bunker then?

      Nuri could almost imagine the weight of the earth pressing down from above, and the mere thought of so much mass made her chest tight. She concentrated on breathing, on giving the appearance of being calm at least.

      The Heran had his back to her, and the moment the lift doors sliced open, he swept along, and she was prodded out into a reception area.

      The same unfinished ceramic walls. A row of benches down one side that seemed an afterthought to all the bareness. She was ushered through the door directly before her into an unfurnished office and made to sit down on a broken chair at a plastic table covered in singe marks. Three chairs had been positioned facing her, on the other side of the table, and she could only assume this was where her interrogators would be seated. Because, oh, something gave her the feeling there would be many, many questions. Nuri sighed deeply and clutched at her sides. If only she’d headed straight to her hammock instead of going for that run. If only she’d not climbed the stupid aerial. If only she could touch the stars …

      She allowed herself a bitter smile.

      Maybe that siren call would’ve hit her anyway, even while she was sleeping. Impossible to refuse. Maybe she should’ve practised her psi-shielding a little more when Vadith had suggested it, and she wouldn’t be in this mess.

      The two guards stood behind her, while she waited for the ancestors alone knew how long.

      The cameras were easy to spot – one in the corner of the ceiling to her right, and another diagonally behind her, in the other corner.

      “I’m thirsty,” she said after some time had passed.

      “Shut your mouth,” snapped the woman guard.

      “I know I’m in the wrong, but if you don’t want me dead, can I at least have some water?

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