A Million Suns

42 AMY

THE ROOM FEELS HOLLOW WHEN ELDER LEAVES. I TRY TO remember Marae — I knew she was the First Shipper, a title something like being second in command to Elder. She was tall and all business, with a severe haircut and piercing eyes, but I don’t really know anything about her other than her appearance.

And now it’s too late.

And too late for her to see the new planet too.

Guilt tugs at my navel. I shouldn’t be so happy, not when someone else has been killed. But — we’re here! The ship is going to actually land! As I pass by the common room in the Ward, I stop to stare out of the huge windows. In my mind, I replace the perfectly even rolling hills and boxed-up trailers of the distant City with forests and oceans and sky.

We’re here.

I grin in satisfaction as I drift back to my room. I may hate Orion for all he did to me after I woke up, but I can’t deny that his clues led Elder and me straight to Centauri-Earth.

And nearly killed him, I think.

My hands raise of their own volition, and I touch my lips with my fingers. That kiss… I hadn’t thought about what I was doing, I just did it. And now I can’t forget the way his lips felt against mine. Had I meant what I said, that the new planet would be pointless without him?

Yes.

But… if — no, when—the ship lands, everything will be different.

That is just as true as our kiss.

I shake my head. I can’t think about this now.

I lock my bedroom door and pull out the Shakespearean sonnet I found in the room with the space suits. Part of me wants to go back to get the copy of The Little Prince that was down there as well, but I can’t bear the thought of going back to the cryo level just yet. I can’t think about the hatch without also seeing Elder’s crumpled body on the floor. I remember that brief moment when I thought it was already too late.

I run my finger along the smooth edge of the page. I doubt Orion cut it from the book of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Someone’s tampering with the clues, I’m sure of it. I toss the sonnet on my desk as I start pacing around my room. If Orion’s big secret was the planet, we don’t even need this clue. Isn’t the planet the answer to the mystery?

He said there was a choice, though. He said I would have to make the decision. There must be something else — something bigger even than the planet.

I feel a bit like a puppet, with Orion pulling the strings to make me move. Some of the strings, though, are getting tangled.

And some cut.

I take a deep breath and try to forget the lifelessness in Elder’s lips as I tried to breathe life into him again.

Was Elder’s accident even an accident? If someone’s tampering with the clues, how hard would it have been for them to puncture the suit’s air tubes? If I were to go to the cryo level right now and check all the suits, would I find that they were all damaged in some tiny, unnoticeable way?

I collapse into my desk chair and open up the folded sonnet. I’m going to keep playing Orion’s game. Even if someone is trying to stop me.

This sonnet, just like all the others in the book, makes no sense at all. But unlike the other sonnets, this one’s marked up.

I sit up straighter, staring at the handwritten annotations. They’re all about something hidden and forgotten. And tube? The only tube I know is the grav tube, and nothing could be further from a Shakespearean sonnet than a futuristic device that sucks people up to different levels of a spaceship.

I trace my finger over the weird lines near the bottom of the poem. They almost look like stairs.

My eyes widen. Stairs. Like the staircase Orion has been sitting on in every video he left for me!

The grav tube was invented on the ship after the launch, which means that there had to be some way for the first generations on Godspeed to go between the levels. Like a staircase… a hidden staircase that everyone has since forgotten because of the grav tube! I scan the lines of the poem Orion underlined—hid and vanish’d sight must mean that these stairs are very well hidden. In the videos, the stairs are always dark. Orion felt safe there, even from Eldest, who didn’t know about them.

But… where are they?

43 ELDER

MY MIND WHIRLS AS THE WIND IN THE GRAV TUBE BEATS against my skull as I fly up to the Shipper Level. Amy has never kissed me like that before, has never looked at me that way.

I want to replay what just happened over and over in my mind, but when I reach the Bridge and see Second Shipper Shelby’s solemn face, I force myself to forget about everything else but Marae.

“We found her in here,” she says, moving to open the door. Although the Engine Room is crowded and the Shippers appear to be working, all eyes are on Shelby and me as we enter the Bridge, our footsteps echoing across the metal floor. The only light comes from a lamp near Marae’s still hand.

I look away — I don’t want to face the fact of her dead body yet. My eyes drift to the metal ceiling, high and rounded. On the other side of the steel plates is a planet. Marae had no idea how close she was. And it was always just right there.

She lies sprawled across the table, her body dripping off the chair. Her eyes are open and empty, staring at nothing. Floppies with diagrams and charts flash under her face; a printed schematic of the engine lies crushed under one arm.

At the base of her neck, just under her shortly cropped hair, are three pale green med patches. One word in black ink on each patch.

Follow.

The.

Leader.

“This doesn’t make sense,” I whisper. If someone’s killing people who disobey me, why kill Marae? She’s been my staunchest supporter from the start. She’s unswervingly faithful, and she’s led the rest of the Shippers in that attitude as well. She jumped at the chance to lead my police force. If Doc was Eldest’s greatest adviser, Marae was mine.

“Who did this to you?” I whisper, but of course she’s not going to tell me. But it has to be someone of high rank, doesn’t it? Someone who either has access to the Bridge or who knows Marae well enough that she’d be persuaded to open the door. Besides the Shippers, a few of the scientists, Doc and Kit, technicians, even Fridrick, as foreman of food distribution, could also come to this level. And with the med patches stolen, any of them could have done this.

Shelby makes a small noise behind me. She’s staring resolutely at the ceiling of the Bridge, her jaw tight.

I want to say something to comfort her, but all that comes out is, “You’re First Shipper now.” She nods once.