A Million Suns: An Across the Universe Novel

by Beth Revis

  “Enough,” I say.

  “They can’t hear you.” Doc’s eyes are flashing, but his face is stony.

  I press my wi-com. “ENOUGH!” I roar, and this time, every single frexing person on the ship hears me.

  “The ship is now on curfew. Go to your homes. Do not leave them. The Shippers will be enforcing this curfew tonight. Everyone—everyone—is to leave the City streets, leave work, and retire to their own homes.” If Eldest were giving this sort of order, he would have spoken with cold authority. But not me. I’m so mad I’m shaking, and I can’t keep the quiver of anger from my voice. I turn my attention now to the mob in front of me, even though this com is going out to every single person on board the ship, “Look at what you’re doing. Look at how you’re treating the body of one of your own. This is disgusting. Leave him here so Doc can send him to the stars.”

  Silence.

  “Go. Now,” I say, and my voice sounds exactly the way Eldest’s voice used to.

  They go.

  They grumble, and they scowl, and they mutter curses . . . but they go.

  Marae moves silently beside me. “They still fear you,” she says.

  “They fear the past. They still remember Eldest.”

  “It’s enough. It worked, didn’t it?”

  But I don’t know if it did. Because I might have just enough authority in my voice to send them all home, but now what will they talk about behind their closed doors?

  28

  AMY

  WHEN I GET TO THE ELEVATOR AT THE HOSPITAL, MY HAND hovers over the 3 button, but at the last second, I press 4 instead. I don’t want to hide in my room. If something is wrong, if I need to be somewhere safe . . . I’d rather be with my parents. Besides, the cryo level is one of the safest places for me on the ship. Although Elder told everyone about the level after he took the ship off Phydus, few of them cared to see it, and fewer still can access it with their biometric scan. On the fourth floor, I race down the hall and roll my thumb over the scanner. As the elevator to the cryo level opens, my wi-com beeps.

  Even though his voice has to travel all the way from my wrist, I can hear Elder’s roar of “ENOUGH!” through my wi-com. I raise the communicator to my ear, but the sinking feeling in my stomach has more to do with Elder’s message than the descending elevator. Someone has died.

  Someone else. First the girl in the rabbit fields. And now, whoever was killed in the City.

  I have to figure out what Orion’s clues mean. He hasn’t told me what choice I’ll have to make or what he’s ultimately leading me to, but it can’t be worse than the rage and fear and anger that’s going to keep growing until the people pull the ship apart—especially once they learn the ship’s not even moving.

  I bite my lip, thinking. Orion knew this would happen. He had this planned from the start, from the moment he pulled me back out of the cryo chamber. Whatever secret he’s kept, he knew we’d need it now.

  So why the hell did he give me such a confusing clue? Go home? What does he mean by that? Doesn’t he realize that I don’t have a home anymore?

  The elevator doors slide open, and I go straight to cryo chambers 40 and 41, just as I have every morning for the last three months. Then I pull out my parents and sit down on the ground. It’s not like they can give me answers, but if I focus my eyes on their frozen faces, maybe I can focus my mind on Orion’s puzzle. Just as I start to sift through my muddled thoughts, though, the elevator dings.

  My heart drops.

  Someone’s coming.

  My first thought: Elder. But no. He’s in the City.

  My second thought: My parents. I jump up and slam them back into their cryo chambers, my heart racing. The doors to their chambers click closed just as the elevator doors slide open.

  Victria.

  “What are you doing here?” I snarl. I shouldn’t—there’s no reason for me to act like that—but I’m on edge.

  Victria doesn’t bother answering me—she gives me one quelling look, then strides straight across the room to the genetics lab.

  When she reaches the door, I call out, “It’s locked.”

  Victria doesn’t bother turning around. She just runs her thumb over the biometric scanner, types in the password, and walks straight into the lab.

  “Hey!” I say, jumping from the table. “How did you do that?”

  I jog over to the lab door. Victria leans against the workbench where Eldest and Doc used to store DNA/RNA replicators.

  “How did you know the password?” I ask. “And how did you get past the biometric scanners? The only ones who can unlock this door are Elder, Doc, and some of the Shippers.”

  “And you.” She says this as if it was an accusation. It’s true—but I don’t bother to reply to her sneer. Instead, I wait for her explanation. “Elder gave me access more than a month ago,” she admits.

  “He . . . did?”

  Victria finally turns her attention to me. “You know, Elder did exist before you came along. Frex, he even had friends and a life, all without you.”

  “I . . . I know.”

  Victria’s face is stony, but I can see the muscle in her jaw clenching from how hard she’s keeping her emotions in check.

  “Can you please go?” she asks. But she doesn’t look at me. She’s looking at the cryo chamber where Orion’s frozen, his eyes bulging, his hands clawing at the glass. I shut the door to the gen lab, giving her privacy.

  Elder said he and his group of friends broke apart after Kayleigh died. Victria, I think, as the only other girl in the group, lost more than any of them, with the exception of Harley. I can see her, the writer who loved books, spending most of her time in the Recorder Hall. Where Orion was.

  She must hate me. First I took away Elder and Harley, two of her last childhood friends. Then I took away Orion.

  I somehow never thought of anyone caring about Orion. My memories of him revolve around the last time I saw him alive. Even though I thought when I first met him that he was kind and gentle, generous and friendly, all I can really remember about him is the crazed look in his eyes as he shouted at Elder to let my parents and the other frozens die. But of course, Victria never saw that. All she saw was her friend, the Recorder, with his face twisted and frozen.

  And, on a day when Elder locks down the entire ship, when she must be scared because we’re all scared—on a day like this, she ignored the command to go to her room. She goes, instead, to Orion.

  I realize then: she didn’t disobey Elder’s order. He told her to go home. Well, sometimes home is a person.

  I turn back to the cryo chambers. Victria has unwittingly given me the answer; I finally understand what Orion meant. He told me to go home. And I did, even before I understood what he meant.

  I put my hand on the handle of cryo chamber 42. It’s where I should be. It’s the only home I have left.

  I pull open the door.

  I talk to my parents every morning, but this time, the lingering scent of the cryo liquid brings bile to the back of my throat. I gag, my body remembering how it felt to drown in the sickeningly sweet liquid. I can’t breathe, and then I’m breathing too much, and with every breath comes the scent of the cryo liquid, and that scent is killing me.

  I remember the way the liquid burned my nostrils, the way my vision blurred cornflower blue.

  The glass box inside is missing a lid—it broke in pieces when Doc and Elder dropped it in their haste to rescue me from drowning in my chamber.

  I’m thrown back into that time. I remember being in pain, but my memory of what hurt and how has faded with time. Instead, I remember Elder’s deep soothing voice. I was so scared, so disorientated, and his voice pulled me through the fog of terror.

  I force myself to quit thinking about waking up and instead focus on the actual cryo chamber. The glass is cool to the touch, and I marvel at how slender the box is, how my arms and legs pressed against the glass as I struggled to escape.

  My hands stop.

  There—r
ight where my heart would be if I were lying in the box now—is a single piece of paper, folded in half.

  My hand shakes as I unfold it.

  MILITARY PERSONNEL ABOARD GODSPEED

  1. Katarzyna Bergé

  4. Lee Hart

  12. Mark Dixon

  15. Frederick Krasczinsky

  19. Brady MacPherson

  22. Petr Plangariz

  26. Theo Kennedy

  29. Thomas Collins

  30. Ximena Roge

  33. Alastair Potter

  34. Aigus Wu

  38. Jeremy Doyle

  39. Mariella Davis

  41. Robert Martin

  46. Grace Spivey

  48. Dylan Farley

  52. Iñes Gomez

  58. Aislinn Keenan

  63. Emma Bledsoe

  67. Jagdish Iyer

  69. Yuko Saitou

  72. Huang Sun

  78. Chibueze Kopano

  81. Mary Douglass

  94. Naoko Suzuki

  99. Juliana Robertson

  100. William Robertson

  29

  ELDER

  AFTER REMINDING DOC TO STOP BY LIL’S HOME BEFORE taking Stevy’s body away, I help the Shippers inspect the City streets. Faces peer through windows as I pass. Sometimes I catch a meek glance marred by worry and fear, but more often the people glare down at me. They may have obeyed my curfew, but their eyes are defiant, angry.

  My stomach roars—my last real meal was yesterday—and I only stop to eat when Marae insists. The streets are empty, but we don’t leave until the solar lamp clicks off. As I ride the grav tube up to the Shipper Level, I can’t help but notice that nearly every light is on in the City. I’m pretty sure I can guess what they’re staying awake to talk about.

  Most of the Shippers remain in the City—they make their homes here, after all, only coming to the Shipper Level to work—but Marae follows me up the grav tube. As our footsteps ring out across the metal floor, I realize that tonight, after Marae leaves the Shipper Level and I return to the Keeper Level, I’ll be even more separated from the rest of the ship—two empty levels, all for me.

  We make our way toward the whirr-churn-whirr of the engine. It’s dark inside the Engine Room, but the engine still casts a shadow. It smells of burnt grease, but it seems smaller in my eyes, now that I know it’s not moving the ship. Marae doesn’t look at it at all as she crosses the floor and goes straight to a thick, heavy door with a seal lock.

  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.”

  And before I can figure out what he wasn’t my first of, he kisses me.