/News/Astronomy/16.06.98/Goiania, Brazil: Mysterious shadow over South America. For the past two nights, the night sky over Brazil has gone completely dark. Despite little to no cloud cover, neither the stars nor the moon have been visible to the naked eye. It's as if a black shadow has blanketed the sky - a shadow that appears to be spreading. Goiania's citizens lost sight of the night sky not long after midnight, June 14th; last night, observers as far north as Fortaleza, Brazil, and as far south as Buenos Aires, watched as their stars failed to appear at nightfall. Even the powerful telescopic arrays at the Northeastern Space Radio Observatory are unable to penetrate the shadow.

According to a press release by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, citizens have nothing to be concerned about. Satellite feeds are lost as they cross over the area, but they return once passed. While the underlying cause of the phenomenon has yet to be determined, thus far it doesn't appear to be dangerous. There has been speculation of a link to the recent unusual solar activity; however, the daytime sky appears to be unaffected.

What will happen if this nighttime shadow continues to spread outward until it eventually engulfs the entire globe, the experts have not yet commented./

The last few weeks before summer vacation seemed to drag on forever. It wasn't that Tian didn't like school; he had a group of friends that he played football* and basketball with during breaks, and he did alright in his classes. He just got so bored sitting in the same seat for hours on end, stuck in a crowded, stifling classroom. And as the weather got hotter, classes became even more unbearable.

Today it worse than ever. Not the heat - the feeling of being trapped inside. The strange phenomenon that the other side of the world was experiencing had been all over the news last night. Tian didn't normally watch the news, but he'd been sitting in the kitchen working on his homework with Xing when Mother had turned on the television and they'd seen the first reports.

Tian gazed distractedly out the window at a clear, cloudless sky. He had been finding it hard to pay attention to his teacher all day; now so close to dismissal, it was almost impossible. Who cared about some dead old emperor? He couldn't wait to get home. Father had promised that they could set up the telescope tonight, even though it was almost impossible to see anything in the middle of the city. Tian didn't like the idea of the stars vanishing from sight; he wanted to reassure himself that they were still there.

"Mr. Chun, sir?"

The question drew Tian's attention back to the classroom. The girl in the desk next to his, Mi Song, had her hand raised.

Their teacher looked up from the book he was reading from, surprised. Students didn't usually interrupt him when he was in full flow. "Yes, Mi?" he said, frowning slightly over the tops of his bifocals.

Song blushed a little at being the center of attention. "Um, I was wondering - I saw on the news last night, about the stars? Did they - did they really disappear?"

The rest of the class was listening in rapt attention now. It had been a hot topic at lunchtime, at least among those students who had heard the news; the general consensus was that aliens must be involved somehow. That idea was a little spooky. Tian had spent hours upon hours gazing up at the stars, imaging what it would be like to travel to other worlds. Sometimes he'd wondered about whether or not there were aliens out there; but somehow, he thought not. The stars just looked too cold and lonely to be home to any life. Though if aliens did exist, they probably looked at Earth through their own telescopes, and thought the same thing.

Mr. Chun glanced at the clock, and sighed wearily. "I suppose the legacy of Qin Er Shi can wait until tomorrow." He closed his book, then folded his arms. "Did the stars disappear? Well, what is it that the news reports are saying?"

"They say that the stars above South America are gone. You can't even see them with a telescope," Song said, worry in her voice. "Does that mean they fell, like meteors?"

Tian spoke up before he could stop himself. "Stars can't fall," he said. "Where would they fall to?"

"A very good point, Li," Mr. Chun nodded. "Meteors are pieces of space debris, that fall through our atmosphere. Stars are huge gaseous bodies with strong gravitational pulls that have existed for billions of years. When they change, it's over time, astronomers are able to observe them; if they somehow suddenly 'fell', entire galaxies would fall apart."

"But then why are they vanishing? And the moon, too," Song persisted.

Mr. Chun gave an uncomfortable shrug, and Tian began to suspect that their teacher didn't actually have all the answers. "I'm sure the astronomers have a good idea, and we'll hear the answer when they figure it out. It sounds more as if the stars are still there, just blocked from view. After all, the moon vanished when it was over Brazil last night, but how many of you saw it this morning?"

Tian raised his hand, but he was one of only a few. He heard a snort from Jiang in the seat behind his. His cousin considered Tian to be very nearly as nerdy as Jiao-tu.

"Well, for those of you less astute observers, it was there," Chun said. "Which means that it didn't suddenly cease to exist while it was over Brazil."

"Maybe it did, and the one here is just a fake," Jiang suggested with sarcasm in his voice.

Their teacher folded his arms. "And how could we tell if that was the case, Xu?"

"Uh," Jiang stammered, clearly not expecting to be put on the spot. Song turned in her seat in expectation of an answer.

Tian bailed him out. "The tides," he said. "The moon makes the tides rise and fall; if the moon was really gone for Brazil, the ocean would be all messed up." Jiang kicked the back of his chair in thanks.

"Not the most technical explanation, but essentially correct. The moon's gravitational pull on the Earth is responsible for the tides; if that force were to vanish, well, so would the tides. As far as I know, the oceans have been behaving normally since the moon disappeared from view Sunday morning. So, Xu, what does that tell us?"

"That, uh, the moon didn't, um, go away? I mean, it was always there, even if they couldn't see it?"

Mr. Chun nodded, but before he could respond, the clock rang out the hour. There was a rush of activity as the students packed up their things and bolted to the door, Tian and Jiang among them. "Don't forget your history reading tonight!" Mr. Chun called to the backs of his departing pupils.

No one besides Song was really much concerned about what was happening, Tian realized. South America was on the other side of the world, a place where most of them had no desire go, and even fewer were ever likely to; half of his peers had trouble remembering that it was a continent, not just some large, vague country. Tian didn't even know what language they spoke there. He idly thought about looking it up, but that was one of those facts that you learned in school to pass an exam, then forgot. There was no practical reason to know it.

Jiang punched his shoulder as soon as they were outside. "Why'd you have to go asking questions?"

Tian punched him back. "I didn't, it was Song. You wouldn't have been called on if you weren't being obnoxious."

His cousin shrugged off the charge. "Well, it was a dumb question anyway. It's going to be aliens who are causing it, I bet you anything."

"Do you really think so?"

Both boys turned in surprise. Song was standing right behind them, her eyes wide as she clutched her binder to her chest. Another girl was with her, wavy black hair pulled back into an intricate braid; Na, Tian thought her name was. She had only recently moved to the area and was in a different class, so Tian didn't know her well. He always saw her with Song, though.

"I mean, aliens?" Song continued as the four made their way across the schoolyard. "Why? What would they want with South America?"

"Who knows," Jiang said loftily. "Maybe they're looking for gold. That's why the explorers all sailed to Portugal in the first place."

Song listened to Jiang with rapt attention, but Na rolled her eyes. "Portugal is in Europe, dummy," she said. Tian tried not to laugh.

"Then why do they speak Portuguese in South America?" Jiang demanded. Of course, Tian thought, Portuguese. How did Jiang know that?

"Because the explorers were from Portugal," Na explained with all the patience of someone whose dog had just chewed up their favorite pair of shoes for the tenth time. "And that's just Brazil; everywhere else speaks Spanish."

Jiang opened his mouth to protest, when Tian spotted their sisters up ahead, just inside the school's gate. "What's going on with them?" he asked out loud, before Jiang had a chance to dig himself into a deeper hole.

Xing and Jiao-tu were standing with a boy who looked to be Jiao-tu's age. The boy was laughing while Jiao-tu shuffled her feet, her face turned away. Xing had her hands on her hips, and looked, of all things, angry. Tian and Jiang watched as the boy reached out and pulled Jiao-tu's glasses from her face and dropped them on the ground.

"Hey!" Jiang sprinted to the gate; Tian was right behind him, Song and Na forgotten. Jiang reached the boy and gave him a hard shove; the boy stumbled back into the block wall. "Beat it, and leave my sister alone!" Jiang raised his fist in a not-so-subtle threat. The boy looked as though he wanted to fight back; but at the sight of Jiang's fist he quailed, then turned tail and ran.

"Dog fart," Jiang muttered under his breath.

Tian bent down and picked up Jiao-tu's purple-framed glasses and handed them back to her. She wiped her running nose on her sleeve and took them, examining the lenses for scratches.

"What was that about?" Tian asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets uncertainly. He hoped that she wasn't going to start crying.

It was Xing who answered. "Ma Sheng was teasing her about having to wear glasses," she said. "He wouldn't stop, even after I asked him to." Tian had to smile at the puzzled tone in her voice; Xing wasn't used to people ignoring her.

Jiao-tu, apparently satisfied that her glasses hadn't come to harm, shoved them into her school bag with a scowl. "Boys are so stupid," she said. She seemed to be addressing the universe at large, so Tian felt alright not answering her.

Song and Na arrived at the little group. "That was very brave," Song told Jiang, her eyes shining.

Jiang shrugged off the compliment, and turned down the street, the others falling into step behind. Song hovered at his elbow. "Nah," he said. "Little twerp like that - I could take him with my eyes closed." But his chest puffed up a bit with pride.

"Your cousin is kind of a bully," said a soft voice beside Tian. He hadn't realized that Na had come up to walk beside him.

"No he isn't," Tian protested. "That kid started it, picking on Jiao-tu like that."

Na didn't look convinced."He was only a little kid; Jiang didn't need to push him so hard."

Jiang had pushed the boy kind of hard. But that didn't make him a bully; Honglian was a bully, shoving people down for no reason at all. "I would have done the same thing if I'd gotten there first," Tian insisted, shifting his book bag on his shoulder.

"Would you really?" Na had a slight smile on her face, like she didn't believe him.

Truthfully, Tian didn't know what he would have done, had he reached Jiao-tu before Jiang. He would have told the boy off, maybe; he probably could have threatened him without actually hitting him. That was probably what Grandfather would have wanted him to do. Tian thought back to their conversation two weeks ago; he hadn't been able to think of an answer to Grandfather's question yet, and the old man hadn't brought up the subject again. Tian figured that he still had some time. Honglian went to the high school, and they only ever ran into each other at wushu competitions; the next one wasn't for another month.

"Well, it doesn't matter," Tian said. He suddenly realized that with Jiang and Song in front, and Xing and Jiao-tu trailing behind, the two of them were practically alone. He scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Um," he said, for lack of anything better to say. He was terrible at talking to girls.

Fortunately, Na was a better conversationalist. "So what do you think?" she asked. "About the stars?"

"I don't know," Tian admitted. " I don't think it's aliens, though."

"Hm, me either. Song's right - it doesn't make any sense for aliens to be screwing around with stars in South America." She looked up at the clear, bright sky. Tian followed her gaze, even though there was nothing to see. "I hope that whatever it is, it doesn't reach here. I'd miss the stars too much. Not that I can see many of them here anyway."

She sounded slightly wistful. Her eyes were kind of pretty, Tian realized. Dark brown. And there was a smattering of freckles across her nose…his stomach twisted uncomfortably, and he grasped at something to say. "Did you live out in the country before you moved here?"

"Mm-hm. Moshang, out in the mountains to the west. My dad got a good job here with his brother, so we had to move. I can't get used to how bright the lights are at night."

Tian shrugged. "It's not so bad; with a telescope, you can still see a few stars."

"Do you have a telescope?" Na turned to him with interest.

"Yeah - well, it's my dad's. He said I could set it up tonight, if he gets home early enough. It's not as good as being out in the country, but it's better than nothing."

Tian became aware of a giggling, snorting kind of sound behind him, as if someone was trying desperately to hold in laughter. He turned back to see Jiao-tu biting her lip, a crooked smile on her face. "What?" he asked suspiciously.

"Nothing," his cousin said, and let out a giggle. "You should ask Na if she wants to watch the stars with you."

"Uh," Tian said, his face heating slightly.

Xing smiled brightly. "That would be fun! Na, do you want to come over to our house and look at the stars?"

Na was looking a little embarrassed as well. "I have a lot of history reading to do tonight," she said, suddenly shy. "But…maybe another time?"

"Sure," Tian said as nonchalantly as he could manage. "That'd be nice."

~~~~o~~~~

Tian and Xing didn't get home until dinner time. The boys had wushu practice after school every day; the girls didn't have dance class on Tuesdays, so Xing passed the time alternately doing her homework with Jiao-tu, or joining her cousin in watching the practice and cheering on their brothers. To Tian's embarrassment, Jiang had invited Song - and therefore Na - to stay and watch the wushu as well. Jiang did even better than usual, but for some reason Tian felt even more self-conscious than he had at the Dragon Boat Festival. Grandfather reprimanded him sharply whenever his focus slipped; Uncle would give him a wink every time he caught Tian determinedly not looking at the little cluster of observers. He kept up a constant mantra in his head about avoiding distractions - though it didn't help much.

The door to their apartment was locked when Tian turned the handle; he retrieved a spare key from under the mat and let Xing and himself in. Father had a lecture on Tuesday evenings so his absence was expected; Mother was usually home by now, though.

The phone rang almost as soon as they walked inside. "I'll get it!" Xing exclaimed, and raced ahead of him into the kitchen. Tian dropped his school bag down by the door and followed her.

"Hello? Hi, Mama!" His sister held the phone with both hands, a habit from her toddler play-phone days that she still hadn't grown out of. "Yes, we just got home. Yes, he's here. Okay, bye Mama." She held the phone out to Tian.

"Hi sweetie," Mother said when he'd answered. "I'm sorry I missed you at Grandfather's; Yafang said that you didn't eat before you left?"

"No," Tian said. "She hadn't finished cooking yet, and we wanted to walk home before it got too dark." When Mother had to stay late or cover someone else's shift, she would call ahead so that Tian and Xing could stay at the Xu family residence for dinner; then she or Father would stop by to walk them home when they got off of work. It wasn't safe for Xing to walk alone at night of course, but Tian was more than old enough to be out on his own; he wished that his parents would stop treating him like a little kid.

"Well, I won't be home for another two hours, and Father has his class tonight. Do you think you can fix something for your sister and yourself? I was going to make beef noodles. The beef steak is already in the refrigerator, it should be thawed by now."

"I can do that," Tian said, perking up. Noodles were easy - you just put them in the water and turned on the heat. The electric stove could be a little tricky, but he'd lit the burner by himself plenty of times. Even so, Mother walked him through each step until she was sure that he knew what he was supposed to do.

"I have to get back now - be careful, and don't burn the place down," she cautioned him.

He sighed impatiently. "Don't worry, I won't. Bye, Mom."

"Mama's not coming home?" Xing asked when he hung up, disappointment in her voice.

"Not until after dinner." Tian started opening cupboards, looking for the tools that he would need. "She said I could cook it - want to help?"

Xing's mood brightened back up once she started helping him with the food. She measured out the water and the noodles, and found the pan to cook the beef in. The place felt a little lonely with just the two of them, so Tian turned on the old black and white television that sat in the corner by the table. He was hoping for more details about the disappearing stars, but at present the news anchors were discussing some political decision in Hong Kong that didn't sound interesting at all.

It wasn't until the noodles were well on their way to being done and he was working on slicing the steak that the topic turned to astronomy. He'd gotten out the big knife that Mother always used for slicing meat, but it was awkward in his hands; he could never figure out how to hold it right. And the steak wasn't as easy to slice through as Mother always made it look.

He was carefully trimming off a piece of squishy white fat when the news reporter said, "And in news from beyond the Earth today, American astronauts are counting their lucky stars." They then played a clip of an astronaut giving a press conference interview. Tian squinted at the translation on the bottom of the small screen. The space shuttle Columbia had landed successfully on June 12th, just two days before South American satellite communications began having problems; if the shuttle had been scheduled to land this week instead and lost contact with the space center, that could have been disastrous.

"This is boring," Xing complained, sitting at the table with her chin in her hand. Her snake charm dangled against her wrist.

Tian pressed the knife into the tough beef, looking up distractedly at the screen. "No it's not," he said. "How often does something crazy like the stars vanishing happen?"

Xing considered. "It would be more fun to go into space and watch from there," she decided.

Now they were talking about a Russian satellite launch…it had been intended to send the satellite into a high, geosynchronous orbit yesterday, but something went wrong and the satellite ended up in low Earth orbit instead, whatever that was. The expert they were interviewing said that low Earth satellites were unaffected by the strange shadow over Brazil, and the scientists were debating whether or not that could have affected the Russian launch. That didn't make any sense to Tian. If the shadow was over South America, how could -

"Ow!" He dropped the knife with a loud clatter and looked down at his hand dumbly. Blood was gushing from cut along the side of his finger; he'd sliced his hand instead of the steak.

"Oh no!" Xing jumped up from the table and ran over to look. "Wait, I'll fix it!" she said, then darted from the room.

The sight of all the blood momentarily froze Tian in place. Then his finger started throbbing painfully, jolting him back to his senses. He turned on the tap and ran water over the cut, gritting his teeth against the sting of the cool stream. What were you supposed to do with a bad cut - put pressure on it? He squeezed the base of his finger, but the blood still kept pumping out. It hurt bad; he might have cut all the way to the bone, but he was too afraid to look. He was feeling a little dizzy; how much blood could you lose before you died?

Xing raced back into the kitchen, clutching her first aid kit. Mother had put it together for her for her last birthday; it wasn't a toy, even if so far her only patients had been dolls and stuffed animals. Xing set the little plastic box onto the table and rooted around in it. She pulled out a roll of gauze. "Here," she said, "wrap this around your hand so it stops bleeding."

Tian turned off the water and did as she said, trying to squash down his panic. The bleeding was slowing down a bit; maybe he hadn't cut so deep after all. He pressed the gauze against the gash; once the blood had slowed to a trickle, Xing inspected the cut with the serious demeanor of a professional.

"You don't need stitches," she declared, not fazed by the blood at all. "Just a band-aid." She instructed him on how to apply an antibiotic cream to "kill the germies", then carefully positioned a bandage over the cut and made sure it was secure.

"Why don't you want to be a doctor?" Tian asked, admiring her handiwork. "They're much more important than nurses."

Xing didn't look up from replacing her materials in the box. "Mama says that it's nurses who do all the work of helping people, and doctors get all the thank yous. I don't want thank yous, I just want to help people."

Tian smiled.

It was even more awkward trying to slice the steak with his bandaged finger, and he eventually gave up. He wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, but he was a little afraid of cutting himself again. So, he replaced the beef in the refrigerator and he and Xing split the pot of noodles between them. At least, Xing ate some, and he ate the rest. It wasn't very satisfying, and by the time Mother got home his stomach was growling again. She cooked the steak, after examining his cut and deciding that Xing was right, and he didn't need stitches.

"What time is Dad getting home?" he asked later, when they were all on the sofa watching Tian and Mother's favorite television show, about a gang of outlaw bandits during the Song Dynasty. Well, Tian and Mother were watching it; Xing was asleep, her head resting on Mother's lap.

Mother combed her fingers through Xing's straight black hair. "Well, if he missed the eight-thirty bus, probably not until almost ten. I know you wanted to set up the telescope tonight, but that's really too late; you have school in the morning."

"Yeah," Tian said glumly.

"There's always tomorrow night."

He shrugged. "I know. But…what if the stars disappear here too?"

"You don't need to worry about things like that," Mother said gently, reaching over to pat his cheek. "If they disappear, then they disappear. We have to take the world as it is, changes and all."

"That sounds like one of Grandfather's zen things," Tian said suspiciously.

Mother laughed her familiar laugh, soft yet full of life. "It probably is; I certainly heard enough of them growing up for one or two to stick. Why don't you help me get your sister to bed, then you can stay up and watch the rest of the show with me?"

~~~~o~~~~

Later that night, Tian lay in bed, still wide awake and unable to sleep. His bed was next to the window in the room he shared with his sister; a light breeze blew in, twisting the tassels on his good-luck medallion and doing nothing to dispel the heavy summer heat. Xing's soft, even breathing was scarcely audible, but Tian always listened for it anyway.

The only view from the window was of the apartment building next door; but even if it had been unobstructed, the glow from the city's lights was usually too great for even the brightest star to be visible. It was so much better out in the country. Father had a little house in the Wangshun Mountains south of the city, that he'd inherited from his parents. They usually spent a couple of weeks up there during the summer when school was on vacation. Facing away from Xi'an, there were tens of thousands of stars that could be seen, maybe even more. Tian could spend all night lying outside, staring up at the night sky. He didn't blame Na for having trouble adjusting to the city.

The thought of the girl from his year left him with an uncomfortable knot in his stomach, and he rolled over and buried his head under his pillow. Why did he have to be such a dunce when it came to talking with girls? Na had come up to him after wushu practice and told him what a great job he'd done even though he knew that he'd been terrible; all he'd been able to do was stammer out a pathetic 'thanks'. And Jiao-tu had only made things worse, trying not-so-subtly to get him to invite Na over for star-gazing. He hoped that she and Song didn't come to practice again tomorrow. But still…she had complimented him. And when Shi had tried to insinuate himself into their conversation (such as it was), Na had politely said hello, then ignored him completely in favor of Tian.

Tian smiled to himself.

After a while, he heard Father come home. He didn't know what time it was, but it must have been late; the soft voices of his parents drifted in from the main room for only a few minutes before the strip of light beneath his bedroom door went out and all was quiet in the little apartment.

Tian was just beginning to drift off into a soft, warm sleep when he became aware of a quiet whimpering noise. He sat up and looked over at Xing; a narrow strip of light from the window illuminated her small form across the room. She was curled up on her side, shaking. A nightmare, he was sure.

Tian got up and crossed to her bed. He put a hand on her shoulder and rolled her onto her back. She was sound asleep, still whimpering softly, eyes moving rapidly beneath their lids. He shook her shoulder gently. "Xing, wake up - Xing."

His sister's eyes fluttered open. "Brother?" she asked uncertainly; then she blinked as if seeing him for the first time, and flung her arms around his neck, almost pulling him onto the bed.

"Were you having a bad dream?" Tian asked, sitting down beside her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

Xing buried her face in his neck, her cheeks wet with tears. "I dreamed I was Bai Suzhen," she said in a quavering voice.

"What's wrong with that? I thought you liked the White Snake Lady." There was a poster of it above her bed, a print of the ink drawing that she'd been admiring at the festival. It depicted Bai Suzhen being forced to transform from a human into a snake in front of her love: a tragic part of the story. Tian didn't really understand why Xing loved it so much.

"Yes," Xing said, sniffing. "But in my dream, I wasn't good, I was bad. I ate my little sister the Green Snake, and then I ate all the other people in the world, Jiang and 'Tu and Mama and Papa and everyone, and then I ate the actual world."

Tian detached her arms from his neck. "That must have given you a pretty bad stomachache."

His attempt at lightening the mood and cheering her up had no effect. "It didn't. I was still hungry, and so I ate all the stars, even the moon."

"Well, it was just a dream. Go back to sleep, I'm sure you'll dream about nicer things now."

Xing pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them tightly. "I don't want to go back to sleep. I don't want to turn into Bai Suzhen again."

"You won't," Tian assured her, even though he had no way of making it true. "Anyway, the White Snake Lady isn't evil; if you dream you're her again, just keep telling yourself that you're good."

Xing plucked absently at her snake charm. "Will that work?"

"Of course. Now go back to sleep."

Tian returned to his bed and settled in, yawning widely. He didn't hear Xing move to lie back down though, and after a minute she asked softly, "Brother?"

"What?"

"Are you asleep yet?"

He sighed to himself. She was getting too old for this, but Xing could never go back to sleep after a bad dream, not if she was alone. And he could never bring himself to say no. "Alright," he said. "Come on."

Xing's bare feet pattered quietly across the floor and she climbed into bed with him. He turned onto his side so that they lay back to back, the warmth of her almost unbearable in the summer heat.

"'Night, Brother," Xing said, her voice already heavy with sleep.

"'Night, Xing."

*European football, not American