A Million Suns

23 ELDER

IT’S DARK INSIDE, AND IT STINKS OF SOMETHING SOURED. There are traces of Harley here still — the inside is painted white with yellow swirls along the top. A table sits in the center of the room, but all but one of the chairs have been stacked in the corner, and the top of the table is littered with scraps of cloth, scissors, and tiny bottles of colored dye — accouterments of being a weaver.

“Hello?” Amy calls. “I think someone’s back there,” she adds, nodding at the cloth covering the doorway that leads deeper into the trailer.

I step in front of her and peel back the curtain. This room is darker still and smells of musk and sweat. It’s the main bedroom — beyond this room is another curtained door leading, I know, to a bathroom and a smaller bedroom.

Curled in a tight ball in the center of the bed is Harley’s mother, Lil. Her hair is messy, but she’s fully dressed, although her clothes are stained.

“What are you doing here?” Lil asks, her voice quiet and defeated.

“Where’s—” I struggle for the name of Harley’s father. “Where’s Stevy?”

Lil shrugs without getting up.

Amy moves forward, hesitates, then sits on the edge of the bed. “Is everything all right?” She reaches for Lil, but Lil, startled by Amy’s fair coloring, cowers back. Amy’s hand drops into her lap. After a moment, she gets back up and moves behind me.

“Where’s Stevy?” I ask again.

“Gone.”

“For how long?”

Lil shrugs again.

From under the covers, I hear her stomach growl.

“Let’s get you something to eat,” I say. I step forward, reaching down for her hand. Although Lil doesn’t flinch from me, she doesn’t respond to my offer, either.

“No point,” she says. “No food.”

“No food?” I ask. I instinctively look to the curtained door; the wall food distributer is in the main room of the trailer. “Is it broken? I’ll have maintenance come and check on it.”

“No point,” she says softly. I ignore her and com the Shipper level, requesting they send someone as soon as they can.

Once I break the com link, I turn my full attention back to Lil. “What’s wrong?” I ask. “Why aren’t you working? Should I com Doc?”

She stares at the ceiling. “I can’t work. The dyes remind me of him. The colors. Colors everywhere.”

“Lil,” I say, making a mental note to com Doc later, “did you take any of Harley’s paintings from the Recorder Hall?”

Now she sits up. “No!”

But her eyes dart to the curtain.

She notices my glance in that direction. “They’re mine. He’s my son. He was my son. It’s all I have left of him.”

“We just want to look,” Amy says in a small voice from behind me.

Lil flops back into her pillow. “What’s the point? He’s not coming back. Neither of them is coming back.”

She doesn’t look up again, so Amy and I creep around the bed to the curtain on the far wall. I lift it up, and Amy follows me into the room.

A bathroom. The toilet’s unflushed and the sink is stained. We move quickly to the side, where another curtain blocks a doorway.

This is Harley’s room — or, at least, it was until he moved out to live in the Ward. There are traces of what the room used to be — a narrow mattress against one wall, a small nightstand that still holds a clock — but clearly in the years since he left, the room has become something of a storage space for his family. I maneuver past the boxes until I see what we came for: Harley’s painting, Through the Looking Glass.

“It’s beautiful,” Amy breathes. I suppose she’s right, but when I see it, I only remember the way it really happened, not the way Harley painted it.

The painting is vividly bright, even though in my memory everything was dark: the water, the mud, her eyes. Five figures stand at the top of the painting, looking down into the pond — me, Harley, Victria, Bartie, and, behind us, Orion. Harley had used some sort of reflective paint on the surface of the pond — but just beneath the mirror-like surface of the water, a girl swims, floating on her back, her laughing eyes peering up toward the surface. Koi swirl around her fingers, and a lotus plant’s roots tangle in her loose, thick black hair.

“He really liked koi,” Amy says.

“They were Kayleigh’s favorite.”

I can taste the murky pond water. I can feel the clamminess of Kayleigh’s skin. I can see the bloated way her face squished under Harley’s touch.

“Let’s look for the clue,” Amy says gently, pulling me away from the edge of the pond. “It’s probably on the back, like the other one.”

I lift the canvas up to the light, then flip it over.

“Look,” Amy says.

A rectangle is sketched in light ink on the back and, in the center of it, another tiny mem card. I pry it off with my fingernail. Another message is written on the back of the painting in the same faint handwriting as the first clue:

1, 2, 3, 4. Add it up to unlock the door.

“Does he mean the door on the fourth floor of the Hospital? The one that leads to the elevator that goes down to the cryo level?” I ask.

“I don’t think so. He told you about that door; he knows I’ve seen what’s behind it. If he left these clues for me to find, then he must mean one of the other locked doors.”

“There aren’t any—” I start, but I stop abruptly. There are few locked doors on the ship — and fewer doors still that my biometric scan can’t break through. But there is one area that is full of locked doors, doors locked with a keypad whose code even Eldest didn’t know.

“The doors on the cryo level,” I say. “The ones near the hatch.”

Amy nods. “It has to be.”

“Still got that vid screen with you?” I ask. Amy pulls it out of her pocket, and I snap the mem card into it. Amy runs her finger on the ID box on the screen. The screen comes alive with Orion’s face. After hesitating a moment, Amy leans in closer to me, close enough to see the screen, but not so close that she touches me.

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Orion is barely visible, hidden in shadow. He sits on the fourth step of a large staircase extending out of view behind him. His right hand taps against his knee in a jittery, almost nervous way.

“Where is that?” Amy asks.

I shake my head, intent on the video.

The camera wobbles as Orion adjusts the image. He speaks softly, almost kindly.

ORION: First, I want to say I’m sorry about Kayleigh. I never meant for her to die.

“He killed her?” Amy gasps.

I say nothing, but a heavy stone sinks in my stomach.

ORION: I didn’t kill her. But I might as well have. She figured it out. Eldest’s biggest secret. The one he doesn’t want anyone to know.

“What could that be—”

“Shh.”

Orion pauses, swallowing hard as if overcome with emotion.

ORION: Amy, you should know this — if you decide to keep looking — Kayleigh’s murder was a warning. Eldest may have killed Kayleigh, but there are things I can do. Locks I can change. Fool that he is — he hasn’t thought to check them.

Orion stops abruptly. His eyes lose focus.

ORION: I don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore. Not since Kayleigh died. I don’t know if what she knew was something the whole ship should know. I don’t know if she should have found the truth.

Orion shifts on the steps.

ORION: I don’t know if killing her was worth saving the ship.

He shrugs, as if there’s a possibility that killing her was excusable, or even understandable.

ORION: Maybe it was. Maybe Eldest is right. This truth… I don’t think anyone wants it.

Orion tucks a piece of hair behind his ear.

I tuck a piece of hair behind my ear.

ORION: That’s why I need you, Amy. You will know. Because you were born on a planet, but you’ve lived on Godspeed. You’re the only one on the whole ship who can know what to do with this truth.

Orion turns to face the camera, and his eyes seem to lock with mine.

ORION: I’ve seen the armory. Eldest showed it to me once. Just before… Anyway, I started asking questions. Like: If we are on a peaceful, exploratory mission like Eldest says, why are we armed for war?

I glance at Amy, but her attention is focused on the vid screen. Inside me, the stone grows larger. Amy never believed Orion had a reason to kill the frozens — she thought he was crazy and that his theory that the frozens would exploit those of us born on the ship was a delusion. I don’t think she believes there even is an armory behind one of the locked doors, even now, seeing Orion talk about it.

Orion looks over both shoulders, fear filling his face. He looks guilty or afraid or both.

ORION: So here’s what you need to do, Amy. You need to see the armory for yourself. You were from Sol-Earth, your father was in the military. You should know what is a reasonable amount of weaponry a ship like ours should have. So, go to the armory. See for yourself.

Orion shifts out of focus, then leans forward, his face filling the screen.

ORION: Oh, right. You need the code to get past the locked door, don’t you? Well, I’ll say only this, Amy. Go home. You hear me? Go home. You’ll find the answer there. GO HOME.

The screen fades to black.

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