Atlas
by Nala Ren
His friend was in the sky tonight.
Rigel saw his call sign; it was an obvious one, not hard to find. He was always looking, anyway. Betelgeuse-Meissa-Betelgeuse-Meissa-Rigel. Be mine, be mine, Rigel. The projected lines between the stars glimmered, moving through light years in milliseconds. His friend’s Projector was calibrated for a distinct, ethereal blue.
The same message came almost every night, and when those sweeping, succulent lights flowed across the sky, Rigel flushed with joy. Collecting his thoughts, he calibrated his own Projector. Like a violin, it had to be tuned, delicately, and with sophistication. Years of practice made him an expert, and his fingers flew over the dials and switches, instinctively knowing when to turn, when to tweak, until the instrument hummed with pleasure. He used to have to look in the dictionary, but nightly communication with his friend had improved his star-speak. His own Projector lines glimmered orange, like embers.
Another path in the sky lit up.
Atlas-Saiph-Atlas-Saiph. I am yours, I am yours.
It came naturally to him now, the layers of meaning behind the stars, the intercelestial language of the universe. Rigel used to struggle through lists of definitions, subtleties, never knowing which star to use. There were so few with names, after all, but each star had hundreds of meanings. Atlas meant world, sometimes, as in the Greek. Or it meant heavy, or burden. But here it meant I am. And Saiph came from the Arabic saif al jabbar: sword of the giant. So it meant weapon, or here, or this belongs to you. The stars flowed under Rigel’s fingertips as he lit up the skies, in blissful communication with his friend.
Leo was his name, Rigel had discovered only recently, and with much reluctance from the opposing party. Leo was an embarrassing name, Rigel was told—a foolish name, a name made for old souls and desperate new-ageists, but Rigel thought the name was glorious. It was filled with the spirit of the stars, a bounding strength that elevated their messages to one another from something mundane into something heavenly. Few could speak the language as well as they did. It was tedious to learn all the meanings, and it was a challenge to master the subtleties of the foreign tongue. But some nights the sky was lit up like fireworks. At the turn of the year on Earth, for example, when governments across the globe sent their well-wishes to the sky, Rigel and Leo fought for the brightest lights on already-lit stars, but the game of following a single glimmer of light amongst the thousands of Happy New Year’s and Well Wishes to All’s elicited excitement and a sort of guilty lust, sneaking amongst the gleaming rays. The sky wasn’t theirs, after all. Never private, never alone. But nonetheless it was a luscious secret between them, and Rigel treasured their correspondence.
While he waited eagerly for Leo’s response, Rigel turned away from the window, gazing into his darkened room. It was awash in shades of blue. Ever since Leo had painted his nightly responses in the sky, Rigel had never turned on the lights in this most sacred of places, preferring the way the moon- and star-light made everything sharper, clearer. His enormous bed, his piles upon piles of books, his towering wardrobe, all tinted with blue hues. The Projector, a stately contraption of dials, switches, and lenses, perched like an elegant woman beside his window, inviting Rigel into its embrace. Through the crack underneath his bedroom door Rigel could see the yellow glow of the party his parents were hosting downstairs—bright, vibrant, and alien. That glow had never been friendly; it was a cold-hearted light, filled with layers upon layers of deceit. The tinkle of wine glasses being toasted, the dull dim hum of empty compliments… My, how you’ve lost weight, Rigel could have sworn he heard his mother say, in her most sincere falsetto. Darling, you look wonderful! Oh, Mr. Catterall, that suit makes you look 10 years younger!
There was a separation between Rigel and his family, one that could not be bridged with increasing allowances or new cars, but he was thankful for their wealth, if only because their suburban home was preferable to the city centers that rushed by. The love of cities was too swift, Rigel thought, sudden and fierce, but not deep. It wasn’t for him. What he felt with Leo had been building for years, slowly, and now it was as vast and bottomless as the sky they painted.
For Rigel, it was the stars, in their infinite mystery, that held his warmth, because in those lights was contained the mind of his friend. The night-high Rigel experienced, the cool comfort of the glass of scotch sitting on his windowsill, combined with the vibrations he could feel from the stars and from the Projector under his fingertips, all worked in harmony to keep him from the ugly laughter leaching in from downstairs.
Rigel turned back to the sky.
He had a surprise planned for Leo that night, one that he had been planning for weeks. Rigel had poured himself over astrological predictions and star charts, searching for the perfect lines to connect. So when Leo’s words made Rigel’s heart thump in his chest, Rigel calibrated his masterpiece—a fiery, glowing rose that bloomed across the sky. Rigel knew Leo had seen his proclamation when admiration gushed forth from the stars, turning Leo’s normally swift, sweeping lines into timid ones. Leo was blushing, and Rigel was blissful with the quiet joy he felt in making Leo happy.
---
Atlas, his friend blinked at him on one particularly clear night, with not a cloud in the sky. Atlas-Atlas-Atlas. World, world, world? Rigel’s breath caught in his throat. He had been waiting for Leo to ask, never wanting to intrude, not wanting to pry, but bursting at the seams to discover more about the one he so loved.
Carefully, and with the intoxicated feeling of bubbling excitement, he found the sun on his instrument, though it was hidden from view. Flicking a switch, he blinked his ember-light around it. The sun meant origins—Earth. Rigel was always eager to share new insights, and to form new connections with Leo, and he knew with a quiet and undemanding satisfaction that Leo felt the same way.
What Rigel thought was a contemplative silence followed his declaration. Then the ethereal blue light of Leo’s Projector flitted onto Zaniah. The star meant third. It was Mars, then. Leo was a child of the third colony of Homo sapiens sapiens. As much as Rigel had daydreamed that Leo would be on Earth, with him, he had been careful not to instill false hope. Yet his disappointment could plainly be felt over the distance—before he managed to calibrate a response into his Projector, the stars lit up again.
There is a ship, they said, importantly. She will carry me from here. Then, as if they had misspoken, Leo’s streaks of light were extinguished, gone in an instant.
Rigel could only stare in confusion at the sky. He had never heard of any ships Earthbound from Mars. As far as he remembered, they weren’t allowed—interplanetary travel was rare altogether, and illegal if unfacilitated by the government. Besides, only individuals of the middle-class or higher were permitted to become citizens of the colonies. He understood exactly why Leo might want to escape the grip of his social status, but he could not imagine leaving his planet altogether. Gingerly, quite nearly afraid, Rigel raised his question to the sky. The answer came in the faintest glimmer of light, hesitantly, and scared beyond doubt.
It is not what you think, Rigel. Bill 34c.
With those small words, a world of horror that had until then escaped Rigel’s notice came into sharp focus. The words unfolding before him struck him deep, and his hand froze, hovering above the surface of his computer.
The Regression of Social Movements Elicited by the Second & Third Colonisations
Human rights agendas are said to have dangerously deteriorated, necessitated by the advancements in aerospace which cultivated the second and third colonisations of Homo sapiens sapiens, on the Moon and Mars, respectively. Due to the highly volatile and unstable nature of these colonies, the presiding interplanetary governments passed Colony Repopulation Bill [34c], banning the demonstration of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) conduct and the active expression of LGBT standpoints on the Moon and Mars. In addition, the controversial laws permit the prosecution of LGBT individuals by a court of law, and permit the government to arrange marriages amongst non-complying individuals. All protests carried out by human rights groups were promptly diffused and declared strictly illegal, the official reason stated by the interplanetary government being that “[T]he importance of population growth of the second and third colonies warrants these measures. Basic human repopulation outweighs social needs such as individuality and self-actualization.” (Refer to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.)
The outrage continued when the government announced an artificial insemination program and three additional bylaws. The regressive mandates dictated that women were to carry one child to term by their spouse or by an anonymous sperm donor for every ten years spent on the second or third colonies, between the age of twenty to their individual menopause, and eliciting a steep fine or a prison sentence for failure to comply.
Rigel closed his browser and shut his eyes against the dull pain that flared up in his skull. He would be ashamed to let anyone see the guilt that now spread through his veins—guilt at his own ignorance, his own naivety. As he felt the pangs in his chest that he knew signalled the approach of tears, tears for their hopeless endeavour, he once again turned to the stars for comfort. And there, miraculously, one beautiful blue message came through. It blinked again and again, endlessly, unceasingly.
I’m coming.
Rigel sat at his window and watched it, not daring to send a message back, back against the air of finality of Leo’s words. It looked like he had
abandoned his Projector, calibrated for those two stars, then left his post altogether. It repeated like a glowing, celestial telephone on hold. The correspondent was away. Rigel watched until his eyes were burned and bloodshot, ‘til his head swam from his lack of sleep. He watched until it was daylight and the stars could no longer be seen. The next night it was gone, but it had sparked a hope in Rigel’s heart of hearts. Rigel was a romantic, after all, and his love-trodden heart would not have believed any alternative to the reunion that must surely be approaching. Despite the ache behind the brilliant joy, despite the creeping disquiet in Leo’s words that flitted at the edge of his mind, Rigel dared to hope. He clung onto his dreams.
Nothing appeared in the sky for weeks.
Rigel searched, as desperately as he had ever done. His eyes flickered and burned following the streaks of light, leaping from star to star, peering through his Projector, praying one of the dancing lights would be for him. He slept rarely, and ate even less. His heart ached with his eyes, and his hands grew tremors from their lack of use. After the second week, the hope that had been blossoming turned into something cold and hard, ready to break with a touch. After the third week, there was only emptiness.
Twenty-eight days after the sky-silence, Rigel lit up.
Once, twice, thrice, it blinked, demandingly, but wrong, as if through bad reception.
Rigel, snapping awake and blinking the blurriness from his eyes, stumbled to his Projector, his fingers fumbling as he sped to mirror the lights. Rigel-Rigel-Saiph. Rigel, Rigel, here!
Agonizing minutes dragged by until the not-quite-so-pure blue shone again. The lines zigzagged across the sky, disappearing for moments and reappearing halfway across the celestial plane. It was all Rigel could do to follow them. They were haphazard, inelegant, not Leo’s smooth swift lines. And when their meaning became clear, Rigel wished he had never seen the message. His heart dropped to his stomach, and the emptiness that he had thought was already vast and never-ending grew until it enveloped him entirely.
Chara-Mirach-Chara-Mirach.
Chara: Greek, for happiness and joy. Mirach: Renown and good luck in matrimony.
Who? Rigel blinked back, his fingers struggling with the Projector for the first time in years. Who? His desperate call blazed across the heavens.
Chara-Mirach-Chara-Mirach-Chara-Mirach— Chara-Mirach-Chara came the message, ripping apart the sky. Rigel’s stunned and devastated silence did not translate across the light years. The only response was those same two stars, in that stuttering impure blue. The lights blurred as tears gathered in Rigel’s eyes, and still the stars blinked, again and again, as if daring Rigel to refuse. Daring him to speak up. When his fingers were beaten into submission by the pulsing, robotic light, too limp to calibrate his Projector, a final message came through. The light streaks, the mockery of his friend’s voice, spoke loud and clear through its corruption.
Cease contact.
---
The beautiful, ethereal blue glow never again blinked around the star Rigel.
He lasted for one-hundred-and-eight days before he broke, hurling his Projector to the ground and smashing the lens. Then he kneeled amongst the crystalline powder of his broken instrument, his only connection to Leo, and cried until he lost himself. He was a coward, he knew, and he hated himself for not blazing his love across the skies, for not proclaiming it to the heavens, for not staking his rebellion in the stars. But in some twisted world, Rigel also knew that he was right. His love was what held back his anger, as surely Leo would only suffer greater for his righteous insolence. The stars that had once been so warm and comforting glared at him now. He could not bear them.
A news article emerged a few weeks later.
A recent Interplanetary Colonization Stability and Peacekeeping Council (ICSPC) leak exposed an ICSPC report regarding a refugee aircraft, nicknamed “Moxie” and piloted by the prominent LGBT rights activist Alexei Antonov, which was boarded by Martian governmental officials. The aircraft had been detained, and all of its forty-two passengers had been arrested. Over half of the passengers had been sent to a Martian institution for anti-LGBT rehabilitation, and the remaining had been steeply charged for their digressions.
The names of individual passengers had not been included in the report, but Rigel knew, if only through closeness of spirit, that Leo had been one of those aboard the Moxie. Neither his beautiful mother nor his rich father could coerce Rigel into leaving his blue-washed room, and he thought perhaps it would be his deathbed. By the window, in the pain that the stars brought, was where he sat vigil night after night with his glass of scotch. Rigel was a romantic, after all, and the warmth of the stars was lost.