Day 21

As the Colonel moved past Wells’s unit, Wells exhaled and undid the top button of his jacket. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that the uniforms he’d admired so much as a child were pretty ridiculous in practice. Just because soldiers on Earth had dressed like this shouldn’t mean they had to do the same in space.

“Whoa, check it out. Jaha’s going rogue,” one of his fellow cadets jeered. “Don’t you know what happens to officers who violate the dress code?”

Wells ignored him. While the other cadets always seemed energized by the training exercises on Walden, they left Wells exhausted. Not the physical component—he liked running laps on the gravity track, and sparring during combat drills. It was the rest of it that left him vaguely nauseous: conducting practice raids on residential units, stopping random shoppers at the Exchange for questioning. Why did they have to assume that everyone on this ship was a criminal?

“Attention!” the Colonel bellowed up ahead.

Automatically, Wells threw his shoulders back, lifted his chin, and pivoted into position as the cadets formed a straight line down the corridor.

“At ease, Colonel,” the Chancellor’s voice called out. “I’m not here to inspect the cadets.” Wells’s eyes were trained straight ahead, but he could feel the weight of his father’s gaze. “Which is a lucky thing, given some of their appearances.” Wells bristled, knowing exactly whom his father was referring to.

“Sir.” The Colonel lowered his voice. “Who’s in your security detail today?”

“I’m here on unofficial business, so I came alone.” Wells risked a glance and saw that the Chancellor was indeed alone, a rare sight for a high-ranking official coming across to Walden. The other Council members refused to cross the skybridge without at least two guards at their side.

“Can I send a few of the cadets with you, at least?” he said, lowering his voice. “There was another incident on Arcadia this morning and I think it’d—”

“Thank you, but I’m fine,” his father said in a tone that made it clear the discussion was over. “Good afternoon, Colonel.”

“Good afternoon, sir.”

When the Chancellor’s footsteps disappeared around the corner, the Colonel dismissed them and ordered them back to Phoenix, double time. The cadets broke into a brisk jog. Wells hung back, pretending to tie the lace on his boot. When he was sure no one was looking, he peeled off and headed down the corridor after his father.

His father was hiding something, and Wells was going to figure out what it was. Today.

Wells slowed to a walk when he caught sight of the Chancellor turning a corner up ahead—and saw something he hadn’t expected.

His father was standing in front of the Remembrance Wall, a stretch of hallway in the oldest part of Walden that, over the centuries, had become a memorial for everyone who’d died on the Colony. The oldest names were in larger handwriting, carved with knives into the wall by the loved ones left behind. But as time went on and space on the wall grew scarcer, names were carved over by newer and newer names, until the wall was so crowded that most names were almost illegible.

Wells couldn’t imagine what his father was doing there. The only times Wells could recall him visiting the wall were during official ceremonies, honoring Council members who had died. As far as Wells knew, he’d never come here alone.

Then the Chancellor reached up and traced the outline of one of the names. His shoulders slumped, radiating a sadness Wells had never seen.

Wells’s cheeks began to burn. He didn’t belong here, intruding on what was clearly a private moment. But as he started to turn around, taking care to move as quietly as possible, his father spoke up. “I know you’re there, Wells.”

Wells froze, his breath catching in his throat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I never should’ve followed you.”

The Chancellor turned to look at him, but to Wells’s surprise, he didn’t look angry, or even disappointed. “It’s okay,” he said with a sigh. “It’s time I told you the truth, anyway.”

A chill passed over Wells. “The truth about what?”

“This isn’t easy for me to say,” his father began, a slight tremor in his voice. He cleared his throat. “A long time ago, before you were born, before I’d even met your mother, I fell in love… with a woman from Walden.”

Wells stared at him, stunned. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard his father even use the word “love.” He was so unemotional, so devoted to his job—it didn’t make sense. And yet, the pain in his father’s eyes was enough to convince Wells that he was serious.

In a halting voice, the Chancellor explained that he’d met her as a young guard, during one of his patrols. They’d started seeing each other and had fallen in love, although he’d kept the whole thing a secret from his friends and family, who would’ve been horrified to learn about his feelings for a Walden girl. “Eventually, I realized that it was foolish,” his father said. “If we married, we would only cause our families pain. And by that point, there was already talk of me joining the Council. I had responsibilities to people besides myself, and so I decided to end things then.” He sighed. “She would have hated this life, being married to the Chancellor. It was the right thing to do.” Wells said nothing, waiting for his father to continue. “And then, a few months later, I met your mother and realized that she was the partner I needed. Someone who would help me become the leader the Colony needed.”

“Did you keep seeing her?” Wells asked, surprised by the harsh note of accusation in his voice. “That… that Walden woman?”

“No.” His father shook his head vehemently. “Absolutely not. Your mother is everything to me.” He cleared his throat. “You and your mother are everything to me,” he amended.

“What happened to her? The woman from Walden? Did she ever find someone else?”

“She died,” the Chancellor said simply. “Occasionally, I come here to pay my respects. And that is all. Now you know everything.”

“Why does it need to be a secret?” Wells pressed. “Why did you act like you didn’t want anyone to see you?”

His father’s face hardened. “There are things about being a leader that you couldn’t possibly understand at your age.” He turned on his heel, heading back toward Phoenix. “Now, this conversation is over.”

Wells watched in silence as his father strode off, knowing full well that when they sat down together at dinner that night, they would both act like nothing had happened.

He turned back to the wall, to look at the name his father had touched so tenderly. Melinda. He tried to make out her last name, but it was too scratched-over for him to read. As close as he could tell, it started with a B.

Melinda B. The dead woman his father had once loved, whose memory brought him back to the wall over and over again. The woman who, if things had been different, could have been Wells’s mother.

Wells reached down and rebuttoned his jacket, then turned back toward Phoenix, leaving the ghosts of his father’s past behind him.