A Million Suns

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.