A Million Suns

9 ELDER

“ELDER?” A VOICE CALLS OUT AS ELDEST’S DOOR ZIPS SHUTS behind me.

“The frex?” I mutter, peering around. No one has access to this level but me.

Red hair swings around the door frame of the Learning Center. “Amy?” I ask, shocked, rushing forward.

She smiles — not a grin, just a gentle curve of her lips that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“I hoped you’d be here,” she says.

“How — how did you get here?”

She steps all the way out of the Learning Center and into the Great Room with me. She raises her left hand.

“Doc gave it to you!” I say, examining the wi-com encircling her wrist.

Amy nods. “I figured… it used to be Orion’s, so it would probably give me access to the Keeper Level, and…” She shrugs. “It did. I tried to com you before, but you didn’t pick up. Or did I do it wrong?”

“No, I got some coms that I ignored.”

Amy punches me lightly on the shoulder. “Ignoring me, huh?”

“I couldn’t if I tried,” I say.

She smiles again, another wry twist of her lips with no light behind it. We stand a few feet apart — her near the Learning Center door, me closer to the middle of the Great Room, and the silence falls between us like a tangible, awkward thing. She pulls her necklace out from under her shirt and twists the charm in her fingers.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing,” she says immediately, dropping the necklace.

I narrow my eyes but let the moment slide by.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” she finally says. She hasn’t moved away from the Learning Center door, so I move closer to her. She puts one hand in her pocket and looks for a moment as if she’s going to pull something out.

“I had to go settle some problems in the City and then… on the Shipper Level.”

“Now it’s my turn to ask you,” Amy says, withdrawing her empty hand from her pocket. “What’s wrong? Did you see the message that was on the floppies?”

“Yeah,” I growl. “The Shippers were able to reverse the hack, but…” I shrug, and although I mean to appear nonchalant, even I know the gesture is bitter. “Damage done. I’ve asked Marae and the first-level Shippers to serve as my police force.”

“Good,” Amy says with such vehemence that I stare at her. “It’s just — I’m glad you’re finally doing it. Getting police I mean,” she adds when she notices my look.

“I should have done it a month ago.” I say, then wait for her reaction.

Her hand twitches, as if she’d like to reach out to me, but she doesn’t. “You’re still not telling me something,” she says softly.

Neither are you, I think, but I can tell from the hardness of her eyes that she won’t tell me whatever it is that’s bothering her. Instead, I confess my truth. About the engines. And the lies. How we’re not moving, and we don’t even know where we are. I tell her what I haven’t told anyone else on board.

“And we can’t tell them,” I add. “If the Feeders knew…”

Amy bites her lip but doesn’t argue. For now.

I run my fingers through my hair, trying to pull my answer up through the roots. “We’ve been stopped a long time. The ship’s not going to last forever. It’s… Godspeed is falling apart.”

When I say it now, to her, I finally realize the truth. And I finally see the things I’ve never seen before, and what they really mean. The dwindling food production, despite the fact that we’re pumping all the fertilizer and nutrients we can into the fields. It’s true that most Feeders haven’t been working as hard as they did while on Phydus, but even their lack of productivity can’t excuse the way the crops barely have enough strength to push their way up through the soil.

That year when we had so much rain — was it just for research, or did the irrigation system break? The chemically derived meat substitute used in wall food at least twice a week — is it really a better source of nutrition or just the best Doc and the scientists could make when the livestock was no longer enough to feed everyone?

I’m starting to see why Eldest was so… so desperate.

I think of the sound of the engine, even if its energy is just being diverted to the internal functions of the ship: that churn amid the whirrs. It’s not a healthy sound.

When I’m done talking, I realize how silent she’s been the whole time.

“Amy?” I ask softly.

She meets my eyes.

“Does this mean… can I wake my parents up now?”

“What? No!” I say immediately.

“But… if we’re not going to land — if there’s no hope at all that we’ll ever land — then, why not?”

“We might still land! Frex, give me a chance to fix this problem.”

“Maybe one of the frozens can fix it. There are scientists and engineers frozen too, you know.”

“Amy — no. No. My people can handle this.”

She mutters something I don’t catch.

“What?” I demand.

“It’s not like they’ve done that good of a job so far! Hell, Elder, how long have the engines been dead? Since before you were born! Maybe even decades — or longer!”

“I don’t need this!” I roar. “Not from you too! I don’t need you telling me what to do or that I’m not good enough.”

“I’m not questioning you!” Amy hurtles the words at me. “I’m just saying, someone from Earth could probably fix this problem!”

“You’re just saying that we should wake your parents up!”

“This isn’t about them!”

“With you, it always is! You can’t just wake up your parents because you’re a scared little girl!”

Amy glares at me fiercely, an angry flush staining her cheeks. “Maybe if you’d admit you weren’t good enough to do everything on this effing ship yourself, you could see that you have people who could actually help you right underneath your feet!”

I know she said it in anger — that I wasn’t good enough. But her words do hurt, like a hot knife slicing through the center of me. “Haven’t you figured out that half my problems are because of you? If I didn’t have to watch out for the freak, maybe I could get something done!”

As soon as the words slip past my lips, I wish I could grab them with my hands and crush them in my fists.

But I can’t.

The words are there.

I’ve called Amy a freak, the one thing I swore I’d never do.

I was the only person on the whole ship who hadn’t called her that.

And now I have.

Amy jerks her head, almost as if the words have struck a blow against her cheek. She spins on her heel and storms toward the Learning Center door — and the grav tube that would take her away from me.

“Amy!” I shout, racing after her. She ducks her head away from me, hair swinging down to cover her face, and darts through the door. I grab her by the elbow, spinning her around and pulling her back into the Great Room. She jerks out of my grasp, but at least she doesn’t keep running from me.

“I’m sorry,” I say immediately. “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I raise my hand again, but she flinches from me, and I drop it immediately.

She doesn’t meet my eyes.

“You’re right,” she finally says, blinking rapidly and looking up at the artificial stars.

“No, I’m not, I’m sorry, you’re not a freak, you’re not.”

She shakes her head. “Not about that. About… I’m scared,” she whispers.

She twists the wi-com round and round her wrist, leaving a red mark. I’ve seen her silent before, brooding. There have been times when we’d be talking and she’d suddenly drop from the conversation, retreat within herself for a few moments before returning to me. Before, I’d always thought it had something to do with me — that she’d remembered my betrayal, or I’d said something to trigger a memory of the past she could no longer have. Now I’m wondering if it’s something else.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, my voice lower, the fight in it gone, replaced with concern.

She jumps at the question.

“Has someone hurt you?” I ask. “Or threatened you?”

I move closer to her. I want to reach out, take her hands in mine, draw her closer to me. But she looks as hard as stone.