It was always strange, in Solaris, looking at the stars.

We studied them at Jugend, of course. Even these days, any self-respecting school studies the Seven Sciences... but you could tell it was never taken too seriously. You remember Basic Astronomy, with Arensen? That would've bored anybody spitless. I heard Kahr slept through that class a couple of times. No lie. And that upperlevel class with the pretty new instructor, what was her name again? That was only interesting for the scenery. (Don't give me that look. I know you thought so too.)

Couple of hours a day, staring glassy-eyed at some complicated star charts while the prof was too busy trying to debunk a thousand years' worth of astrology to actually describe the science of the stars. Not that Solaris had much use for them, frivolous things. No energy worth harnessing, no slave labor likely to drop from the heavens.

Nothing but the history of the universe to tell, and Solaris always did its best to keep its secrets to itself.

You came by your interest in stars naturally, you said. Your name-- only thing your father ever gave you-- was a star name, and nobody'd ever explained it to you satisfactorily where your daddy'd come by it. So you dutifully sat through class, Miss Benetnasch, and watched your name blip on the holoscreen, and walked away each day without any answers.

I forget whose idea it was to look at real stars, and wasn't that a trick. Thinking on it, I'd guess it was yours-- breaking rules in the name of science. We'd had one dance, shared maybe a pack of cigarettes, and that was about all... you being a year ahead, don't think I ever even had a class with you. Sounding me out, weren't you, seeing what kind of troublemaker I could be?

Or maybe I talked you into it. But you were the one who kept me coming back.

After hours, we'd find a clear plexisteel corridor-- like the one in third sector north, behind the storage facility-- someplace nice and deserted. Got caught just that once, but the maintenance guy just laughed at our protestations of research. B and B he called us, Blanche and Benetnasch, and if you were blushing I didn't notice 'cause damn I was staring hard at my own shoes. But he waved us on, wished us luck with our "research," and tipped his hat to us.

So we could hurry on and peer down at the stars beneath our boots. You always got dizzy, didn't you, especially that first time. You'd run a hand through your hair like you did when you got bothered, and say you couldn't tell right side up from upside down. So I'd watch you sit, when you thought I was too busy counting out the astronomical quadrants or something to notice you. As if I'd bother with charting stars, with you there to distract me. Only so much endurance in a young man's heart, they say, and I was, what, a day over eighteen? The way you'd splay both your hands against the sky, like you could almost feel the heartbeats of the stars, and damn if I wasn't seething jealous of the space under your fingers, the way your hands would move.

The floor was always cold, of course, in those sectors where the government funding wasn't enough to support the insulation. We never seemed to remember to wear better clothes, the rest of Etrenank was so predictably temperate, till we'd shiver in our uniforms and curse the chill creeping right through that standard synthcotton. Only the cold brought us in, though; I wasn't going to mention the fact that loitering out in the storage sections was illegal, if you didn't bring up the point that we were breaking curfew. It was precious time, every minute, especially towards the end. A moment or two away from my office, away from Jugend and the Elements and the rest.

Soon enough you'd lie down, with your nose right against the plexisteel, and I'd hunker down with you, speaking in hushed whispers-- while we'd name the stars we'd studied, and make up names for the stars we hadn't. (The cigarette constellation, the stars in a straight line, southwest quadrant?) We couldn't make too much noise, so we'd try not to get too tickled... and fail, of course. Your hair would come loose from its clips, you'd be shaking with it, and your laugh would fog the floor so we could draw lines with our fingertips, connecting the stars.

I remember your face, when we first found Benetnasch, leading its sad and stately procession through the heavens.

You went quiet, real still like, resting your cheek against the sky, tracing the outlines with a slow finger. I wondered what you were thinking about. I wondered about your father, but not about his name-- I wondered if I would have had the guts to stand up to him, man to man, and speak my mind. Not that it mattered; his reputation outlived him by a couple of decades, and I was clammy-palmed and terrified enough by the thought of just your mama. Graduation only prepares a boy for so much, after all.

You broke the silence, my mind speeding off its track, derailing at the sound of your voice speaking my name.

I think you said you were cold, but all I really noticed was that you were leaning on me, one hand circling round my middle and the other one holding on to the front of my uniform. Not two dozen packs of shared cigarettes, in that instant, could have calmed my nerves.

So we wound up shivering in my rooms, after the stop for hot coffee on the way back. (I liked sugar, you liked cream. We both scorned the silly flavored stuff.)

I should've known that you'd spin me around till I didn't know up from down. Better than the inverse-gravity ports for turning my world on its head. Can you blame me, keeping your hands all to myself and with you looking at me like I was every bit as interesting as our illicit slice of sky? And I'd inevitably say something stupid, so your laugh would steam me up till you could have drawn constellations across my skin.

It would've happened anyway, even without the power-down. One of us should've kept our head, remembered the scheduled blackout, but we were both dizzy. You, in my room, with nothing but the uniform on your back, and that up-to-something smile when you said you guessed you'd have to spend the night.

...You said that was the first time.

To me, though, there never was a first time. I was always wanting you, upside-down with needing you, and your eyes were bright like the stars. Not too much longer till I gave you a whole new name to worry about. Hm. Seems I was never doing you any favors; Blanche was every bit as much trouble as Benetnasch for giving you a headache, and Black was worse, probably.

These days, the stars are up, the direction they ought to be... Though the only real difference is the crick in an old man's neck, and not his back, while he watches the constellations spin. On angry days I might rail and rant to the universe in general, but if there's one thing I've learned it's that the universe doesn't give a damn.

And Benetnasch's still shining.