A Million Suns

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.

30 AMY

I STARE AT THE PRINTED LIST AND CURSE ORION ALOUD. Another puzzle.

I glance behind me, but Victria’s still in the gen lab. Orion’s clue was simple: 1, 2, 3, 4. Add it up to unlock the door. I run my finger down the list, counting. Twenty-seven people on the list. The doors on this level are locked with a keypad — maybe punching in 27 will unlock one of them.

My hand goes immediately to the wi-com on my wrist. I know Elder would want to open the door with me. But I don’t push the button. All I can think about is the anger in his voice when he ordered a curfew. And — I cringe — I promised him I’d go straight to my room and lock the door. How mad will he be if he finds out I came here instead?

Still clutching the list, I rush past the rest of the cryo chambers and head to the hallway on the far side of this level. There are four doors here — each made of thick, heavy steel and sealed shut with its own keypad lock. The hatch that leads out to space is through the second door — the keypad is smeared with red paint, a reminder of Harley’s last night. There’s one door to the left of it, one door to the right. At the end of the hallway is another door, the largest of all.

I start with the door to the left of the hatch. The keypad has both letters and numbers. I try typing in 27 first, but an error code flashes across the screen — ERROR: PASSCODE MUST BE FOUR DIGITS OR MORE. I try 0027 next, and when that doesn’t work, I spell it out: t-w-e-n-t-y-s-e-v-e-n. Nothing.

I move to the right, past the hatch, and try the password on each of the other two locked doors.

Still nothing.

Frustrated, I recount the number of the people on the list, but it’s still twenty-seven. I run back to the elevators and grab a floppy from the table there, checking the official record of frozens against Orion’s list. Twenty-seven.

The significance of who Orion listed isn’t lost on me — he’s trying to remind me that the number of frozens in the military indicates trouble for those born on the ship. He thought this was a good enough reason to try to kill them all, including my father. And while, yes, twenty-seven military personnel out of a hundred frozens may be large, Orion’s still a psycho to think my father would be okay with enslaving anyone.

I try the stupid doors one more time, but they still stay locked. Whatever the passcode is for opening the doors, it’s not 0027 or t-w-e-n-t-y-s-e-v-e-n.

Frustrated, I take the elevator back up to the Hospital and — after locking my door, just as I promised Elder — I stare at the wrinkled paper until I fall asleep.

For the first time in a long time, I dream about Jason, my old boyfriend back on Earth. In my dream, Jason and I are at the party where we met. Even though in my memory, the party is full of laughter and dancing and fun, in my dream all I see is cigarette smoke and jocks who splash their red plastic cups of beer on me. When Jason and I meet outside, it starts to rain — but it’s not romantic warm summer rain. It’s spitty, cold, sharp rain. My father would have called it “pissing rain,” and it stings my skin and gets in my eyes.

When we pull apart, Jason says, “I love you now that I can’t have you.”

And I say, “You were my first everything.”

But Jason shakes his head. “No, I wasn’t.”