Page 9 of Star Struck

‘Sir. Ma’am.’

We found ourselves hustled over the threshold, but with the tiny advantage that Gethryn’s party had all stopped ordering to watch. A couple of walkie-talkie radios were laid upon the table looking like potential trouble.

‘And that was your fault.’ Felix marched crossly away towards the reception area. ‘If you hadn’t tweaked my underparts like that, we’d be stuffing our faces with egg and bacon right now. I’m bloody starving.’

‘Then why are we heading this way? There’s a vending machine on the corridor near our room, get some crisps or chips or whatever they call them.’ I stomped after him.

‘Checking on the programme for today. See if there’ve been any changes. Don’t suppose your ruthless studies of all things Fallen Skies told you anything about the timetable of events?’ Felix chewed the side of a thumbnail and then held his fingers away from him, examining his hands.

‘Well, sort of, but it did say that everything is subject to change. I guess they’re never quite sure exactly who is going to turn up, after all the actors can’t commit for definite and one of the writers had to cry off because she had a baby. So I know there’s all kinds of things going on but I never read a complete timetable. There’s all sorts of stuff . . .’ My voice fell away at the end of the sentence and I really hoped that Felix was adept enough to understand the dropping tone. Even until I’d got on the plane I’d been wavering. Could I do it? Really? Leave my safety nets, my carefully cultivated self-protection to step out into a world that had shown itself capable of turning and savaging me? I’d not truly believed that I’d ever get here, which had meant that my presence on the Fallen Skies forum had been nebulous and my convention studies had held a certain edge of ‘yeah, right. Great stuff, but not for you, Skye. Seriously, not for you.’ Yeah, Skye, you look away, you avoid the subject . . .

‘Never mind.’ There was a curious tone to his voice, one I didn’t recognise, but sounded as though it was almost relief. ‘It’ll all be here somewhere.’ And sure enough, there in the middle of the reception area stood a peg board. In white pegs against a black dotty background, and with an almost life-threatening disregard for punctuation, it announced:

THURSDAY.

AUTOGRAPH SIGNING IN MEETING ROOM, ONE ELEVEN AM.

SALES MEETING ROOM TWO FIGURE’S; PICTURE’S DVD’S.

TONIGHT DINNER — YOU’RE CHANCE TO RELAX WITH FALLEN SKY’S STARS

‘I think I just fell into hell,’ I moaned. ‘A “Meet the Stars” dinner? In a place that now thinks you wank under tables and I’m some kind of flop-bodied drug taker?’

‘Well, you are.’

‘Only when it’s necessary.’

‘Well, I only . . .’

‘No! Let’s keep some mystery. Look, I need some breakfast; shall we go get some disposable food from the machine?’

He huffed but followed me, and we took several packets of assorted convenience foods to our room. I lay on the bed while Felix ripped open unfamiliar packaging and spread the potato- and corn-related products over the table.

‘Okay. You want the greasy orange things or these flat white ones?’

I chose a fistful and munched as I lay. Felix sprawled himself at my feet and dipped idly between crisps. ‘Skye.’

‘Mmmm?’

‘You’re really into Fallen Skies, aren’t you?’

‘What do you mean?’ I’d found something that tasted exactly like Wotsits and was sucking the coating off.

‘I mean, you’ve been a fan since the beginning, but the series started just after the accident, right?’

‘Six weeks after I came out of hospital.’

‘Yeah. So, you know, with the surgery and all that . . . how much do you really remember about the early stuff? I mean, you had quite a bit of brain damage, didn’t you?’

‘That was the operation.’

‘Yeah, but how much memory did you really lose?’

I stared at him. ‘Fe, you know all this.’

I got a single raised-eyebrow comment. ‘Humour me.’

I found that I was rubbing my scar, feeling the warped skin on my fingertips against its puckered surface. ‘My childhood is more or less intact. Everything from my teens onward is . . . fuzzy. I can remember bits and pieces but nothing really clearly, and I’ve lost the whole of the year leading up to the accident completely.’ I shrugged. ‘Everything I remember about Michael, about us, comes from photographs.’

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