Bright Star by Talia R. Blackwood

what happened to Earth,” Prince interrupts him. “It’s an order, clone.”
    The clone blinks and hesitates, but only a couple of seconds. “Thirty-six years ago, terrestrial years, Earth underwent what was called the Last Judgment. A group of terrorists had given way to a nuclear war. The nuclear winter kicked off climate change and earthquakes have shifted the axis of rotation. Currently, Earth is reduced to an uninhabited rock.”
    Prince staggers. I grab him around his waist.
    That insensible clone doesn’t wait for Prince to digest the news. “What is the reason for your emergency?” he asks.
    Prince is dazed. “We had an… alien contact.”
    A pause.
    “Did you say alien contact?”
    “Yes, dammit, yes! Listen to me, soldier. I am the son of the last Prime Minister of Earth and I want to talk with the senator currently in office in your colony. I am the betrothed of his son, or his grandson.”
    “Yes, sir,” the clone says without hesitation. “I’ll pass your request to my superiors. Hold on, please.”
    The wall turns blue. Prince leans on me. “I can’t believe it. He was telling the truth? And why would he lie? Earth is really gone? Everybody is dead?”
    He’s pale, on the verge of fainting, and looks at me with eyes big and scared. I massage his back. “Listen, Prince. That is, Kian Jaymes… and everything else.”
    He smiles, perking up a little. “Call me Prince, I prefer it. I love how you say it.”
    I fight the urge to lift him off the ground and bring him back to my cubicle, where he can be only mine. “Listen, Prince. Don’t think about what happened to Earth right now. First we have to get out of this situation. You have been able to contact Otherworld. In any case it’s closer than Earth.”
    He smiles at me, grateful. I want to kiss him, and I see the same need in his eyes, but the wall in front of us suddenly comes to life. Prince and I jolt.
    I can’t believe my eyes.
    In front of me, on the wall, in the midst of interference shocks, opens up an absurdly colorful world. All those colors hurt my eyes. I see a huge room with walls that aren’t made of metal, but of other materials I can’t recognize. The seats are soft and swollen. In a kind of hole in the wall is burning a small cluster of flames similar to those one can see when opening the incinerator hatch. And at the bottom, the very bottom, opens a chasm coated in glass, and behind the glass looms an Outside that isn’t black, but a color I’ve never seen and to which I can’t give a name, furrowed with fluffy things made—perhaps—of steam. I get dizzy and stagger.
    A man, a purebred, is sitting on the soft furniture in front of the small fire. I hadn’t even noticed him, distracted by everything else. He’s a rather young man, not young like Prince or me, but definitely not as old as Blasius. In addition to having hair, he also has hairs on his chin. He’s semireclining on the soft furniture, holding something in his hand that looks like a transparent cylinder with liquid inside. “Kian?” he calls, narrowing his eyes to focus on us. “Kian Newell? Is it really you? The military base has contacted me right now, but I couldn’t believe it.”
    “Yes, I am,” Prince says. “Who are you?”
    “Reinhold Coburn, Senator of Otherworld.” He raises and leans forward, resting his arms on his knees to focus on Prince. “And your future husband, according to the agreement my grandfather had with your father. Here on Otherworld, we have schools and streets named after you. But I was sure you were a legend and you had never left Earth.”
    Prince takes a step forward, straightening his back and trying to hide the fact that he has to hold up his pants. “I still have about sixty years until I arrive. I think I could be promised to your son or grandson.”
    “Maybe,” the man says, tilting his head. “But I could find the last terrestrial, the legendary son of the last Prime Minister of Earth, too interesting