They exited the ship shoulder to shoulder. One turned left, the other turned right, and each selected a viewing train going in a different direction.
“Your ticket, Mr. J. Lira.”
“Your ticket, Ms. Lumei.”
Before hopping onto the trains, they looked back, and their eyes met. Leftover anger poised itself in their gazes like burning red daggers. They broke the stare stiffly, turned their heads, and disappeared into the lines of tourists, acting as if the other no longer existed.
It was not like that at the beginning.
Then came the trivialities, the differences, more differences, and petty conflicts. There were also the hard times they had endured, shoulder to shoulder, accumulating grief. It was only after they made the serious step to spend their lives together that they discovered their personalities were like porcupines. If they got too close, they pricked one another.
Neither of them desired sightseeing in Galapade. It had happened after an argument. They both overheated and booked a tour at random. The idea was to take some time apart and find calm. But they were not actually apart.
They were on the same planet.
The viewing train started. The brown-haired man sighed and sat by a window. This line only offered window seats. The wide panes were designed to give tourists a full view of the icy world of Galapade. Temperatures outside the glass were 230 degrees below zero. But inside, it was as warm as spring. The ride was safe and pleasant.
Pumping music started blaring in the car. Irritated, he made a waving gesture and turned on the sound barrier. The surroundings fell silent. That was better, he thought, while looking out the window. It was a cold and quiet planet to begin with.
The dark sky reached deep into space. A light red halo formation ornamented the dim galaxy. It was a cluster of interstellar gas that was lit by increasingly powerful cosmic rays. Below, the flat surface of the planet was shrouded in the glowing haze, while lamplight shining from the view train illuminated crystalline sculptures.
The sculptures were not man-made, but had accumulated over millennia. Oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen crystals, even the frozen air itself, mixed in the deep cold and formed octahedral gems with corrugated edges. The gems clustered into sky-high piles with shooting apexes. Not all the sculptures were big, and most were in the shape of a steeple. The crystalline clusters went up in stacks and fanned out on the spires like peacock tails. The pinnacles were a light gold that lowered into a light green, which descended into a dark blue, which sank into a murky black. Some of the larger sculptures formed in batches, with the smaller ones sprawling out along both sides, exactly like wings spreading from a bird.
One and two and three, four, and five and six and seven, eight...
The brown-haired man turned away from the glass and rubbed his tired eyes. The first batch had been breathtaking, the second praiseworthy, but this “incredible scenery” was all there was to see along the track. It grew dull.
Like their relationship, at first the feeling was breathtaking, and then it became wearisome. It was hard to believe, but all of the hurdles only added up to a period of ten years. He still loved her. But life had ground those feelings into biting thorns. Just like the refracted glare of the sculptures now stinging his eyes. The train sped along. He called for an attendant, ordered a meal, and started to eat.
The black-haired girl was not sitting in a window seat. She had paid an extra fee to ride in the observation car at the rear of the train. Bunks were provided to lie on, and an attendant pointed her to one that looked out of a skylight. She said thanks and lay down contentedly. Sliding her hands behind her head, she saw the formation of red gas in the sky and the blue murk around the dead star.
A tour pamphlet she had read outlined the history of Galapade over the course of hundreds of millennia. It was once a fertile planet, but the galaxy’s sun had burned at a high intensity and collapsed. It contracted, compressed, and exploded, expelling its remains until all that was left was a dense nucleus surrounded by gaseous debris.
Galapade was the furthest of its sisters from the sun and was able to survive. Over time, the planet attracted remnant clouds of stellar gas, which drifted onto its surface. The gases accumulated slowly and formed crystals that were now part of the dazzling sculptures.
People had discovered the planet six years ago. They opened a tour, but were unlucky. The dead star was sweeping up its remnants, causing it to erupt every hundred millennia. Apparently, the next explosion will be soon.
The halo of interstellar cloud was clear evidence: it only turned red when the dead star’s temperatures were rising. This gave Galapade wilder and even more striking scenery. But it also put the planet in grave danger.
Danger...Is it dangerous to vacation on a planet with a degenerate sun? Is the probability of reignited nuclear fusion higher than a failed relationship?
She laughed softly, mostly at herself, and rolled over to sleep, but looking through the skylight, she saw cracks forming in the dim, blue ball of gas. They split open and emitted dark red rays.
Alarms rang.
Tourists ran up and down the aisles shouting in dialects. The view train reversed direction, shooting backwards. Lamplight swept over the sculptures, flashing and fading. Seen at a high speed, the distorted landscape had an eerie beauty.
He sat by the window, unnaturally calm among the confusion. At this point, even a lonely hero from the movies would be defenseless; a dead star was about to erupt into a sun. Either everyone escapes, or their ashes scatter in the rays. Panic was pointless, he told himself. His fate now belonged to destiny, a driver, this speeding view train, and a spaceship that was preparing to launch.
In an instant, his life became insignificant. He suddenly felt regret. Maybe they should have taken the same train. Then at least he could be next to her.
The train docked at the spaceport. She squeezed out through shouting crowds, stood on her tiptoes, and searched for that familiar face. The ship was ready to launch, but she couldn’t find him or his train.
Maybe he was already on the ship. A demon began murmuring in her thoughts. In that case, her decision was easy. If he had abandoned her, then she had nothing left to live for and might as well stay behind. If his train was still out there, then she had a reason to wait.
How many people get the chance to burn into ash with a star?
She laughed.
The last view train pulled into the port. He pushed himself first out the door and ran to her.
They stood shoulder to shoulder, looking out of a side porthole as the vessel lifted off. A fire from hell flared up on the ground below.
Rays flashed, and the dead star exploded into a blazing sun. A flame storm erupted on the light side of Galapade and expanded, wrapping around the dark reaches of the planet. Flames collided, surged into the sky, and diffused into long tails of cloud.
It took an hour for the planet to be fully submerged in the sea of flames. But it almost felt short, only a minute, and at the same time seemed long, as if a whole lifetime had passed.
In the flames below, there were life forms gliding upwards. Wings, coated with glittering crystals, flapped above the raging flames. Tails of clustered gems spread gracefully in the fire glow. The tapered necks and heads were dark black. They looked like birds, but without eyes, chasing the bright red and orange crests, soaring calmly.
The sculptures were living. Sunrays had defused the stone and crystal charm, freeing the spirits from their cold prisons. One hundred million years of evolution, soaring in one breath.
She put her hand in his palm. It was wide and warm. She felt safe.
“If they could see that moment,” she said softly, “I would love to know, when flames encircled them in the sky, what that looked like in their eyes.”
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