A Million Suns (14 page)

27

ELDER

“DON'T CROWD AROUND! GIVE US SOME AIR!” DOC'S BELLOWING does no good at all; if anything, the crowd presses closer.

“I'm glad you were already here,” I say, dropping to my knees beside Doc as he examines Stevy.

Doc touches Stevy's neck, shakes his head, and leans back.

“What happened?” Bartie says. There's no more bravado in his voice. He's my old friend again, the one who used to race rockers across the porch of the Recorder Hall. And he's scared. “What did you do?”

“I didn't do anything,” I say.

“You did something to his wi-com. Then he ends up dead.” His voice is louder now. He's no longer my friend—he's my adversary. “Is this what happens to people who protest against you, Elder? They die?”

“Don't be a chutz,” Doc says. He peels something sticky off Stevy's arm. A small pale green med patch. Our eyes meet briefly. This is a Phydus patch—one of the patches Doc developed recently.

“What kind of med patch is that?” Bartie demands. Behind us, I can feel the others' gazes. Marae, as efficient as ever, has organized her Shippers into a sort of barrier around us, keeping the crowd largely at bay. But it won't last.

“It's a specialized patch,” Doc answers Bartie. He looks at it closer, forgetting about Bartie and everyone else as he mutters to me, “Someone's written something on it.”

He holds the patch out. Bartie tries to snatch it, but I beat him to it. “Follow,” I read aloud. In heavy black ink, just that one word:
follow
.

“But how did this patch kill Stevy?” I ask.

“This one didn't,” Doc says. He pushes up Stevy's sleeve, exposing the patches hidden under his clothing. “One patch is harmless. But two more is an overdose.” He peels the remaining patches off Stevy's arm.

I frown: med patches are supposed to be fast-acting, but the concentration of Phydus in these med patches seems too strong if just three will instantaneously kill a man.

“What's written on those patches?” Luthor calls out, trying to shove Marae aside so he can get closer.

Doc starts to hand the patches to me, but Bartie snatches them from his outstretched hands. “The,” he reads off the first one, loudly so the whole crowd can hear. “Leader.” He looks up at me, and there is real fear in his eyes. He thinks I've done this. “Follow the leader. These patches—the
special
patches that
killed
Stevy—are a command. A warning. To
follow the leader.
”

Before I can explain that none of this is my fault, that I didn't write those words or put the patches on Stevy, Bartie turns to the crowd. “This is what happens when you don't follow the leader.” He spits out the words and throws the used patches on Stevy's cold body.

“This is what happens!” Luthor cries out, picking up the charge from Bartie. His words ring across the City. “This is the price you pay if you don't follow the leader! Don't follow Elder—and he has you killed!”

“Wait a minute,” I shout, jumping up. “No I didn't! No I don't!”

But it's too late. Bartie's and Luthor's words have spread like poison. I can see the fear and revulsion in people's eyes as they break past the human barrier created by Marae and the other Shippers. They spill out, sweeping past me—knocking me down and shoving aside Doc as they scoop up Stevy's lifeless body. They chant—
follow the leader—
but it's a sneering, angry sort of chant. It's mocking me.

It's a battle cry.

More and more people—those who'd been waiting on the sidelines—join the shouting crowd. Stevy's body becomes a banner of revolt. His lifeless form is passed around, raised over the crowd, roiling over the hands of the people like waves.

“Enough,” I say.

“They can't hear you.” Doc's eyes are flashing, but his face is stony.

I press my wi-com. “ENOUGH!” I roar, and this time, every single frexing person on the ship hears me.

“The ship is now on curfew. Go to your homes. Do not leave them. The Shippers will be enforcing this curfew tonight. Everyone—
everyone—
is to leave the City streets, leave work, and retire to their own homes.” If Eldest were giving this sort of order, he would have spoken with cold authority. But not me. I'm so mad I'm shaking, and I can't keep the quiver of anger from my voice. I turn my attention now to the mob in front of me, even though this com is going out to every single person on board the ship, “Look at what you're doing. Look at how you're treating the body of one of your own. This is disgusting. Leave him here so Doc can send him to the stars.”

Silence.

“Go. Now,” I say, and my voice sounds exactly the way Eldest's voice used to.

They go.

They grumble, and they scowl, and they mutter curses . . . but they go.

Marae moves silently beside me. “They still fear you,” she says.

“They fear the past. They still remember Eldest.”

“It's enough. It worked, didn't it?”

But I don't know if it did. Because I might have just enough authority in my voice to send them all home, but now what will they talk about behind their closed doors?

28

AMY

WHEN I GET TO THE ELEVATOR AT THE HOSPITAL, MY HAND hovers over the 3 button, but at the last second, I press 4 instead. I don't want to hide in my room. If something is wrong, if I need to be somewhere safe . . . I'd rather be with my parents. Besides, the cryo level is one of the safest places for me on the ship. Although Elder told everyone about the level after he took the ship off Phydus, few of them cared to see it, and fewer still can access it with their biometric scan. On the fourth floor, I race down the hall and roll my thumb over the scanner. As the elevator to the cryo level opens, my wi-com beeps.

Even though his voice has to travel all the way from my wrist, I can hear Elder's roar of “ENOUGH!” through my wi-com. I raise the communicator to my ear, but the sinking feeling in my stomach has more to do with Elder's message than the descending elevator. Someone has
died.

Someone else. First the girl in the rabbit fields. And now, whoever was killed in the City.

I
have
to figure out what Orion's clues mean. He hasn't told me what choice I'll have to make or what he's ultimately leading me to, but it can't be worse than the rage and fear and anger that's going to keep growing until the people pull the ship apart—especially once they learn the ship's not even moving.

I bite my lip, thinking. Orion knew this would happen. He had this planned from the start, from the moment he pulled me back out of the cryo chamber. Whatever secret he's kept, he knew we'd need it now.

So why the hell did he give me such a confusing clue? Go home? What does he mean by that? Doesn't he realize that I don't have a home anymore?

The elevator doors slide open, and I go straight to cryo chambers 40 and 41, just as I have every morning for the last three months. Then I pull out my parents and sit down on the ground. It's not like they can give me answers, but if I focus my eyes on their frozen faces, maybe I can focus my mind on Orion's puzzle. Just as I start to sift through my muddled thoughts, though, the elevator dings.

My heart drops.

Someone's coming.

My first thought:
Elder.
But no. He's in the City.

My second thought:
My parents.
I jump up and slam them back into their cryo chambers, my heart racing. The doors to their chambers click closed just as the elevator doors slide open.

Victria.

“What are you doing here?” I snarl. I shouldn't—there's no reason for me to act like that—but I'm on edge.

Victria doesn't bother answering me—she gives me one quelling look, then strides straight across the room to the genetics lab.

When she reaches the door, I call out, “It's locked.”

Victria doesn't bother turning around. She just runs her thumb over the biometric scanner, types in the password, and walks straight into the lab.

“Hey!” I say, jumping from the table. “How did you do that?”

I jog over to the lab door. Victria leans against the workbench where Eldest and Doc used to store DNA/RNA replicators.

“How did you know the password?” I ask. “And how did you get past the biometric scanners? The only ones who can unlock this door are Elder, Doc, and some of the Shippers.”

“And you.” She says this as if it was an accusation. It's true—but I don't bother to reply to her sneer. Instead, I wait for her explanation. “Elder gave me access more than a month ago,” she admits.

“He . . . did?”

Victria finally turns her attention to me. “You know, Elder did exist before you came along. Frex, he even had friends and a life, all without
you.
”

“I . . . I know.”

Victria's face is stony, but I can see the muscle in her jaw clenching from how hard she's keeping her emotions in check.

“Can you please go?” she asks. But she doesn't look at me. She's looking at the cryo chamber where Orion's frozen, his eyes bulging, his hands clawing at the glass. I shut the door to the gen lab, giving her privacy.

Elder said he and his group of friends broke apart after Kayleigh died. Victria, I think, as the only other girl in the group, lost more than any of them, with the exception of Harley. I can see her, the writer who loved books, spending most of her time in the Recorder Hall. Where Orion was.

She must hate me. First I took away Elder and Harley, two of her last childhood friends. Then I took away Orion.

I somehow never thought of anyone caring about Orion. My memories of him revolve around the last time I saw him alive. Even though I thought when I first met him that he was kind and gentle, generous and friendly, all I can really remember about him is the crazed look in his eyes as he shouted at Elder to let my parents and the other frozens die. But of course, Victria never saw that. All she saw was her friend, the Recorder, with his face twisted and frozen.

And, on a day when Elder locks down the entire ship, when she must be scared because we're all scared—on a day like this, she ignored the command to go to her room. She goes, instead, to Orion.

I realize then: she didn't disobey Elder's order. He told her to go home. Well, sometimes home is a person.

I turn back to the cryo chambers. Victria has unwittingly given me the answer; I finally understand what Orion meant. He told me to go home. And I did, even before I understood what he meant.

I put my hand on the handle of cryo chamber 42. It's where I should be. It's the only home I have left.

I pull open the door.

I talk to my parents every morning, but this time, the lingering scent of the cryo liquid brings bile to the back of my throat. I gag, my body remembering how it felt to drown in the sickeningly sweet liquid. I can't breathe, and then I'm breathing too much, and with every breath comes the scent of the cryo liquid, and that scent is killing me.

I remember the way the liquid burned my nostrils, the way my vision blurred cornflower blue.

The glass box inside is missing a lid—it broke in pieces when Doc and Elder dropped it in their haste to rescue me from drowning in my chamber.

I'm thrown back into that time. I remember being in pain, but my memory of what hurt and how has faded with time. Instead, I remember Elder's deep soothing voice. I was so scared, so disorientated, and his voice pulled me through the fog of terror.

I force myself to quit thinking about waking up and instead focus on the actual cryo chamber. The glass is cool to the touch, and I marvel at how slender the box is, how my arms and legs pressed against the glass as I struggled to escape.

My hands stop.

There—right where my heart would be if I were lying in the box now—is a single piece of paper, folded in half.

My hand shakes as I unfold it.

MILITARY PERSONNEL ABOARD
GODSPEED

1. Katarzyna Bergé

4. Lee Hart

12. Mark Dixon

15. Frederick Krasczinsky

19. Brady MacPherson

22. Petr Plangariz

26. Theo Kennedy

29. Thomas Collins

30. Ximena Roge

33. Alastair Potter

34. Aigus Wu

38. Jeremy Doyle

39. Mariella Davis

41. Robert Martin

46. Grace Spivey

48. Dylan Farley

52. Iñes Gomez

58. Aislinn Keenan

63. Emma Bledsoe

67. Jagdish Iyer

69. Yuko Saitou

72. Huang Sun

78. Chibueze Kopano

81. Mary Douglass

94. Naoko Suzuki

99. Juliana Robertson

100. William Robertson

29

ELDER

AFTER REMINDING DOC TO STOP BY LIL'S HOME BEFORE taking Stevy's body away, I help the Shippers inspect the City streets. Faces peer through windows as I pass. Sometimes I catch a meek glance marred by worry and fear, but more often the people glare down at me. They may have obeyed my curfew, but their eyes are defiant, angry.

My stomach roars—my last real meal was yesterday—and I only stop to eat when Marae insists. The streets are empty, but we don't leave until the solar lamp clicks off. As I ride the grav tube up to the Shipper Level, I can't help but notice that nearly every light is on in the City. I'm pretty sure I can guess what they're staying awake to talk about.

Most of the Shippers remain in the City—they make their homes here, after all, only coming to the Shipper Level to work—but Marae follows me up the grav tube. As our footsteps ring out across the metal floor, I realize that tonight, after Marae leaves the Shipper Level and I return to the Keeper Level, I'll be even more separated from the rest of the ship—two empty levels, all for me.

We make our way toward the
whirr-churn-whirr
of the engine. It's dark inside the Engine Room, but the engine still casts a shadow. It smells of burnt grease, but it seems smaller in my eyes, now that I know it's not moving the ship. Marae doesn't look at it at all as she crosses the floor and goes straight to a thick, heavy door with a seal lock.

The Bridge.

I remember Eldest's words for me before I started training—the Bridge is for the Shippers. I take care of the people, not the ship.

Marae opens the door and waits for me to enter first. An arched metal roof curves over the Bridge. The room is a pointed oval, drawing me to the front of it. There are two rows of desks with monitors protruding from them. A giant V-shaped control panel is built into the front of the room.

I sit down at the control panel and try to imagine what it would be like to steer this massive ship down to the new Earth.

But I can't. . . . The idea is so impossible to me that I can't even imagine being the triumphant leader who lands the ship.

I jump up from the chair. Eldest was right. I don't belong here.

Marae stands in front of one of the control panels. There are two screens there, both blank. One is labeled
COMMUNICATION
, the other
NAVIGATION
. “I was working on this today, as you requested, when you commed me to help with the . . . with the trouble,” she says, brushing her fingers over the metal navigation label.

“Have you had a chance to figure out where we are?” I ask, interested.

Marae scowls. “It's a mess.” She lifts up a hinged panel below the screens, showing me a jumble of wires and circuitry. “If I had to guess, I'd say this was deliberate, probably as far back as the Plague—after all, we did lose communication with Sol-Earth at that time.”

“So someone, probably the Plague Eldest, cut communication with Sol-Earth and that destroyed the navigation equipment too?” I ask, noting how both operations were housed in the same control panel.

Marae shrugs, hiding the ravaged electronics under the metal panel again. “I've been trying to sort it all out.”

Even though she tries to disguise it behind an even-toned voice, I can still hear the disdain. “I'm sorry about today. I know the Feeder Level problems interrupted your work.”

Marae eyes me. “You did well today,” she says finally.

“Did well?” I snort. “That was one step away from a riot. Next time it
will
be a riot. But—thank you. It really helped that the Shippers stood on my side.”

“The Shippers always stand on the side of the Eldest,” Marae says simply, in the same tone she'd use if she were to tell me that the name of the ship is
Godspeed
or that the walls around us are steel. “But . . . I hope you realize, Elder, that we wouldn't have needed to be down there if you'd put the ship back on Phydus. If we didn't have this kind of trouble, then the Shippers and I
could
focus on the problems with the engine and the nav system.”

“No Phydus,” I say immediately, but the determination that's usually in my voice is gone. Even if Stevy was poisoned by Phydus, Marae's still right. How much time was wasted—not just in the Shipper level, but across the whole ship—today? We
have
to work, or we'll all die. We can't afford to break down like this.

“Eldest,” Marae starts.

“Elder,” I insist.

“Without Phydus, things are going to keep getting worse. They don't care what kind of leader you are—they want someone else. Anyone else. Or no leader at all. People are, at their heart, constantly moving toward a state of entropy. Much like this ship. We're all spiraling out of control. That's why we need Phydus. Phydus is control.”

I sigh. “I admit, the way I've run things—or not—in the past three months hasn't worked well. I thought I could trust everyone to keep doing things the way they were.”

“Can't you see?” Marae asks gently, like a mother talking to her child. “That's
exactly
why we
need
Phydus. That's the first thing you need to do, if you want to control the ship like Eldest.”

“I don't.”

“You don't what?”

“I don't want to control the ship like Eldest,” I say. “Amy—” Marae narrows her eyes at the mention of Amy's name. I continue anyway, a growl in my voice now. “
Amy
helped me see that Eldest never controlled the ship anyway; he just controlled the drugs. I think I can do better than that. I hope I can.”

“You realize,” Marae says, “without Phydus, this may mean mutiny.”

I nod.

I know that.

I've known it all along.