A Million Suns

12 AMY

THE NEXT MORNING, I GO STRAIGHT TO MY PARENTS. I STARE at their icy faces until my eyes hurt, then I squeeze them shut. But whether I see them or not, the truth remains: They are frozen. I am not. And Godspeed is stopped.

Stopped.

I force these thoughts from my head. Instead, I try to think of something to say to my parents, some memory I miss. But I can’t concentrate. I sigh, stand up, and slam my parents back into their cryo chambers. Nothing’s been right since Elder’s fight with me, and I can’t dwell on both their past and ours.

It’s strange. On Earth, I’ve been called a lot worse than freak. But here, that word carries a different meaning, and when shouted at you by one of the few people you trust, it carries a different hurt.

As I straighten, something digs into the side of my leg. I reach into my pocket and pull out the small rectangle of black plastic that I found yesterday in the Recorder Hall. I almost showed it to Elder, but… I couldn’t. When I got to the Keeper Level, I just wanted to be with him, without ominous messages from Orion to distract us. And then all I wanted was to escape from him.

The black rectangle looks like a small version of a floppy, so I swipe my fingers along the top of it. A glowing box lights up in the middle of the screen. Words flash across it: RESTRICTED ACCESS.

I glance up. Without meaning to, I’ve meandered past the cryo chambers and toward the gen lab on the far side of this level. Beyond that door are vats of genetic material Doc and Eldest used to manipulate pregnancies during the Season, the water pump used to distribute Phydus… and Orion. What’s left of him. A frozen shell like my parents.

I roll my thumb across the biometric scanner that locks the door to the gen lab and step inside once the door zips open. Someone’s placed a chair right beside the closest cryo chamber in the room, facing the thick glass window, like a Father positioning a chair to speak to the bedridden ill. I kick the chair out of the way so that I’m face-to-face with the man behind the glass.

Orion.

“I hate you,” I say.

His eyes bulge, his fingers claw, but he can’t reach me. He can’t respond, he can’t blink, he can’t even move. He’s frozen, as good as dead.

But I still hate him.

This is Orion’s punishment. For the murders of the frozens and for the death of Eldest. When — if — the ship lands and the other cryogenically frozen people awake, they are to judge him for his murders and do with him as they see fit. That is the sentence Elder laid on him when he pushed the button to freeze him. But I know — in ways that no one else on this ship does — the real punishment is in being frozen. My mind remembers what it’s like to be asleep but not asleep. My body recalls the way my muscles wouldn’t — couldn’t — move. My heart will never forget what it’s like to fade in and out of time, to never know if one year or a thousand have passed by, to torture yourself with the idea of your soul trapped behind ice for all eternity.

I know what torture there is behind ice.

Behind the glass window in the cryo tube, I can see the red veins popping in Orion’s eyes. I imagine myself mirrored in his pupils, but he’s blind. His hand is pressed against the tiny window in the cryo freezing tube. For a moment, I place my warm, living hand over his. Then I glance at his eyes and snatch my hand away.

In my other hand, I still hold the small floppy thing I found in the Recorder Hall. I look at the handprint I left on the glass in front of Orion’s face, then back at the box on the screen and the words across it: RESTRICTED ACCESS. Some information on the floppy network is restricted — Elder has to use his thumbprint, like on the biometric scanner, to unlock it. I doubt my thumbprint will be enough, but…

I press my thumb against the glowing box.

The entire screen lights up.

And I find myself looking into Orion’s face.

<>

On the screen, Orion looks exactly as I remember him just before he was frozen: unkempt dark hair that could do with a wash, eyes that seem oddly kind given his quickness to kill, and an easygoing, friendly curve of his lips that belies the lines in his face. He sits on the bottom of a staircase so large that it extends past him well out of view, up and up. I’ve never seen that staircase before, a fact I find oddly comforting. I like that there are still some things about Godspeed I don’t know.

The image wobbles as Orion adjusts the camera.

ORION: If you’re seeing this, then something went wrong.

I glance up at the frozen Orion. Yeah, something went wrong. The ship is stopped, Elder’s already hiding the truth from everyone else, and I don’t know how much longer we can survive.

ORION: I hope that no one ever sees this. I hope that all went as I had planned, that Elder joined my side, and that together we defeated Eldest and started a new system of rule on Godspeed based not on tyranny, but on working together.

Orion sighs heavily.

ORION: But I’m not certain Elder’s on my side, and I know Eldest isn’t, and there’s too much at stake to leave anything to chance. I have to have a contingency plan. And Amy — you are my contingency plan.

Orion turns toward me, as if he knew I’d be a little to his left, his eyes boring into mine.

ORION: I hope Elder’s the leader I need him to be — that this ship needs him to be. But if he isn’t and if I’m… well, if I can’t be there to help, all that I have left is this video and the hope that you, someone from Sol-Earth, will know what to do. I can’t leave this information for just the shipborns. They don’t know enough. They can’t make a choice about what to do when they only know one thing. But you — Amy — you know both the ship and a planet. You can be objective. You will know which is the greater evil. When you know all that I know, all that Eldest tried to keep hidden, then you will also know what to do.

I stare up at frozen, immovable Orion, then glance back at the screen.

ORION: Amy, you’re going to have to make a choice. And soon. Look around you. The Eldest system has been dying for generations. I was not the first Elder to rebel, and Elder won’t be the last. Whatever control the Eldests had before is slipping away. The ship is dying. You can see that, can’t you? You can see the rust. You can see how the solar lamp isn’t as bright as it should be. How the plants take longer to grow… if they grow at all. How the only thing that had been keeping the people calm and in check was Phydus. I know Elder. I know he’s going to try to rule without Phydus. And nothing could be more dangerous. When the Feeders are off it, when they see what is becoming of their world — then you’ll have a true rebellion on your hands.

I think of the way Luthor’s voice rang, loud and angry, throughout the Recorder Hall. We can do anything we want!

ORION: Godspeed won’t last much longer. It wasn’t designed to last forever. It’s a miracle it’s lasted as long as it has. Here’s the thing — here’s why I need you, Amy, and I need you to make the choice that, for whatever reason, I can no longer make. I know you hate, you must hate me.

Orion leans forward, his face filling the entire screen.

ORION: But did you ever ask yourself why I was unplugging frozens now, of all times?

I suck in a shaky breath; I’d forgotten to breathe.

ORION: Why didn’t I just wait and let some future gen take care of that problem?

Even though he’s on the screen and not really here, I can feel the urgency in his voice all the way deep inside me, in my very bones.

ORION: The choice is coming! And it is a choice. And you — you must decide for everyone.

For a long moment, Orion pauses.

ORION: But I can’t tell you what it is. You’re going to have to find it.

Orion runs his fingers through his hair, in exactly the same way Elder does when he’s worried.

ORION: It took me years to discover the truth, and just as long to accept it. When I met you… I know you must hate me because I left people from Sol-Earth to die…

Left them to die? It was so much more than that. He pulled them from their chambers and watched them die. There’s a big difference there. He killed them.

My eyes narrow so that Orion’s recorded face is nothing but a blur. I glance up at the real Orion, frozen behind the glass of the cryo chamber. You have no idea how much I hate you, I think. I could lay at his feet everything that’s wrong in my life now.

ORION: But Amy, you are so special. You’re from Sol-Earth. But you don’t have an agenda like the others… like your parents. You didn’t come here with a mission. You — and only you — will be able to determine what choice needs to be made, if the risks are worth it. I can’t trust anyone else to make this choice, not even Elder or those I once counted as friends. I’m going to hide the clues so that only you, someone from Sol-Earth, could find them. Trust no one, Amy. Not Elder, not Doc, not anyone from my past. They’re from Godspeed, not Sol-Earth. They won’t know — they can’t know — that there even is a choice to be made.

I don’t like the way Orion tells me not to trust Elder. I don’t like it at all. But — I think back to yesterday, and the way I have kept my darkest secrets from him. I am already doing what Orion wanted me to do before he asked it of me, and I hate myself a little for that.

ORION: You’ll need to begin with the first piece of the puzzle. But here’s the thing, Amy. I already gave it to you. So: go find it. Find all the clues I’ve left for you. And I have to hope that when you do, the choice you make is the right one.

Orion looks straight behind him, then back to me.

ORION: Because you’re running out of time.

<>