A Million Suns

into his hand, feeling the warm roughness of his fingers against my cheek. His breath shudders.

I step closer.

I look up, and he’s searching my eyes, just like he did after kissing me for the first time in the rain. “What are you looking for?”

He doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t need to.

I know what he wants.

And it’s not fair.

“Just because we’re the only two teenagers on this whole ship doesn’t mean I have to love you. Why can’t I have a choice? Options?”

Elder steps back, stung.

“Look, it’s not that I don’t like you,” I say quickly, reaching for him. He jerks away. “It’s just…”

“Just what?” he growls.

Just that if I was back on Earth instead of on this damn ship, if I had met Elder at school or at a club or on a blind date, if I had my choice between Elder and every other boy in the world… Would I love him then?

Would he love me?

Love without choice isn’t love at all.

“Just that I don’t want to be with you just because there’s no one else.”

11 ELDER

“BUT…”

But she’s already gone.

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.

<<begin video feed>>

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-