A Million Suns

“Come back to me,” I whisper to Elder’s helmet, but I don’t know if he can hear me.

I step back into the hallway. The hatch closes behind me. I look through the bubble window. Elder raises one hand.

I punch the code into the keypad slowly, hesitating before the last digit. Should I do this? Is it worth it to find Orion’s big secret if it risks Elder?

The door in front of me seals shut, a grinding metal-on-metal noise as it locks. Through the window, I have one last look at Elder in his bronze suit. I am overcome with an insane urge to rip the controls out of the wall beside me and keep the hatch from opening.

But it’s too late. It opens.

And Elder’s gone.

37 ELDER

MY ARMS AND LEGS FEEL SLOGGED DOWN AS IF WALKING through muddy water. Everything’s muffled in the suit. Amy shuts the door that leads into the ship; I can see her pensive face through the window, the worry exaggerated by the rounded glass. The lock creates a dull, almost-imperceptible click that nevertheless reverberates.

Then I’m alone with just the sound of the life-support system strapped to my back, a soft whoo-sh-whoo swirling in my ears.

The back hatch opens, and the universe explodes around me. I’m launched through the doorway backward, my arms and legs jerking painfully as my body flies out into space. The movement winds me, and I can’t breathe. Just as I start to panic, I feel cool oxygen flowing through my helmet.

The cord tethering me to the ship pulls taut, and my body bobs against it, my arms and legs no longer stiff in the suit. I look up. And I am surrounded by the universe.

A million suns stretch out beyond me, their light piercing the darkness. The ship seems to glow. I scan it, looking for whatever massive secret Orion told me I would find.

The ship itself is mostly egg-shaped, with a horned beak protruding from the bridge. A honeycomb of glittering glass covers the arching protrusion. Beneath that, then, must be the Feeder Level. I stare at the smooth exterior of the ship, marveling how only a few moments ago I was on the other side, running my fingers over dusty rivets. There’s a line of thick, dark metal rimming the bottom of the ship, about where the cryo level starts, and a pointed ridge sticks out from the front, like a smaller version of the bridge’s beak. There’s glass there, too — an observatory must be hidden behind the last locked door on the cryo level.

There’s nothing here that stands out as unusual, except maybe the as yet unseen observatory. I recline in space, my eyes roving over the hull — there are no strange cracks or marks; the thrusters in the back of the ship aren’t working, but I already knew that. Was that the great secret Orion wanted me to find out? That the ship isn’t moving?

It would be disappointing to learn that after all this, that was Orion’s great mystery. But how can I be disappointed in space?

I stretch out my arms and legs, knowing that there are no walls here that can contain them. I look past Godspeed and forget about whatever pointless mission Orion’s video sent me on. I gaze out, to the stars. I remember the first time I saw real stars, through the hatch window. They were beautiful then, but now, seeing them here, all around me, beautiful feels like an inadequate word. I see the stars as a part of the universe, and having spent my life behind walls, suddenly having none fills me with both awe and terror. Emotion courses through my veins, choking me. I feel so insignificant, a tiny speck surrounded by a million stars.

A million suns.

Centuries away is Sol. Circling around it is Sol-Earth, the planet Amy came from. And one of these other stars is the Centauri binary system, where the new planet spins, waiting for us.

And here we are, in the middle, surrounded by a sea of stars.

A million suns.

Any of them could hold a planet. Any of them could hold a home.

But all of them are out of reach.

The thought makes me queasy-dizzy, a sick feeling that starts in my stomach and blurs my vision.

The stars don’t look like suns anymore. They look like eyes.

Laughing eyes. Winking eyes that mock me, forever dancing away from my reach.

I swat at them, my arms feeling funny.

My body feeling funny.

And then I hear it. Soft, barely audible.

Boop… boop… boop.

An alarm. A warning, piped directly into my helmet.

I breathe deeply — or I try to — but I can’t. The air is thinner now, and even though my nostrils flare and my mouth is open, black spots dance before my eyes. I can’t get enough air. Something’s wrong with the PLSS strapped to my back — something’s wrong with the oxygen.

My first instinct is to call for help — I raise a gloved hand to my neck and bump up against the solid helmet before I realize that, of course, I can’t reach my wi-com.

My tether to the ship isn’t more than twenty yards long, but Godspeed feels as far away as the millions of stars around me. I start pulling myself closer to the ship, hand over hand, swimming through nothing to reach the safety of the open hatch.

I can hear my heart beating in time with the alarm.

The more I think about not breathing, the more I want to breathe.

I tug on the tether, and my hands slip from it. The movement spins me off, away from the cord, jerking me around.

I have spent the whole time facing the ship, looking back at the path we have taken. But now I see behind me, toward where the ship is facing. And I realize why Godspeed seemed to glow. This… I never expected this. How did Orion keep this secret? How could anyone keep this secret? It’s — it’s everything — it’s—

There, hanging in the sky, right in front of me—

Is a planet.

38 AMY

I STARE OUT THE OPEN HATCH, MY EYES NOT ON THE STARS, but on the tether that ties Elder back to me.

I count down the seconds. The tether twitches. And I know:

Something’s wrong.

39 ELDER