A Million Suns atu-2

by Beth Revis

  But no one’s inside. Just in case, I step over to the closest rack, where the smallest guns are stored. At the top are tiny pistols. I wasn’t kidding when I taunted Luthor. My father raised me to know what a gun is and how to use it. I pick up one of the red protection plastic bags and slide my finger through the seal. Gun oil wafts around me as I tip the bag open and the revolver falls into my hand. It has a small frame and a snubbed barrel, but it can hold.38 caliber bullets. The bullets are stored in a separate box, sealed with plastic. I press the grip into my palm as I load the gun. My hand’s too small to fit it comfortably, but the gun’s a double action, and all I’ve got to reach is the trigger.

  I look closer, behind the shelves, the gun firmly in my hand. But no one is here.

  Then I remember — I came here because I heard a door slam shut. Whoever was here may have started in the armory, but he slammed another door — on this hallway full of doors that are supposed to be locked.

  I go back out and check the hatch through the bubble window, then open the room with the space suits. Nothing. I press my ear against the big door at the end of the hall, the last locked door, but it’s too heavy for me to hear anything.

  What’s behind that door anyway? I briefly consider staying here to guard it. Whoever went in will have to go out. No one passed me as I raced through the hallway, and the only doors that can slam shut rather than zip open are these. Whoever it is has to be here.

  Except… if this person knows how to unlock the doors, then whoever it is must also know about the stairs I found behind the walls… they go down too. They must reach the cryo level. And since there are no stairs here — they have to come out behind this last locked door. If I go up to the Feeder Level right now and run down the stairs, maybe I can catch whoever’s been tampering with Orion’s clues and discover what else is behind the locked door! If only Elder were here with me…

  I’m halfway down the hall when I remember the armory’s still open, and even with a gun in hand, it’s still not safe. I turn back and start to shut the door when I notice something: a floppy flashing near the shelf of explosives. I set the gun down and pick up the floppy.

  Orion’s face fills the screen.

  <>

  This video wasn’t done on the staircase. Instead, Orion sits in a chair bolted to the floor in front of a long, curved control panel. The room is dark, but I can see something glittering in the background.

  This must be the Bridge, although it’s much smaller than I would have expected.

  ORION: Amy, you’re nearly at the end. You’re nearly at the choice you need to make. Have you seen it yet? The planet?

  No. Not yet. But I know it’s there.

  ORION: Do you see now why I need you to decide? Because you’ve been on a planet; you’re the only one on Godspeed who’s been on a planet. And so you’re the only one who’ll be able to judge whether or not it’s worth it.

  Orion touches his neck, his fingers sliding against the bumpy scar where his wi-com used to be.

  ORION: Before — before Eldest, and everything else… before this [indicates scar]… I thought that the truth was an important thing. I’m not so sure now. Maybe it’s better if we all remain ignorant. I know I would be happier not knowing.

  And to think, I’d nearly allowed myself to forget about Orion’s clues in the face of Elder’s discovery. The planet just seemed so much more important than this mystery. Now I’m filled with curiosity.

  ORION: But, perhaps, there are reasons why you need to know the truth. This ship is old. Eldest sent me outside to help with repairs, and I know that Godspeed is showing her age. So — maybe it’s time. Time to get off the ship.

  Orion leans forward and picks up the camera. The image wobbles, scanning the cramped, small area and the solid metal floor before spinning around toward the control panel.

  The camera focuses on the window. The image, blurry and bright, adjusts into focus. Through the honeycombed glass window, a curving, glowing ball of green and blue crests over the horizon of the ship.

  I touch the small screen, making the blue and green of the planet on the screen look like an ocean’s wave heaving and flowing.

  ORION: When I first discovered Godspeed was in orbit around Centauri-Earth, I wanted the whole ship to know the truth. I tried to tell them. I tried to tell them everything. And because of this, Eldest tried to kill me.

  Orion turns toward the window and stares at the planet. His scar is prominent on the screen.

  ORION: He didn’t kill me, though. I escaped. I hid for… for a long time… and then I snuck into the Recorder Hall. I integrated myself back into the ship. But it was in the Hall that I found even more secrets and lies. And it’s because of this that I’ve decided to hide the truth, just like Eldest.

  Orion’s face turns back to the screen.

  ORION: There’s still the contingency plan. That’s still here. If the ship has to land, it can. If you haven’t figured it out, the last thing you need can be found in Godspeed.

  Orion pauses, staring straight at the screen, as if he’s given me some enormous clue. But Godspeed is huge, and everyone is already making preparations to leave. How am I supposed to find one tiny clue in the whole ship?

  ORION: But if it doesn’t have to… if there is any way to survive without landing the ship. You must. You must. I can’t protect this truth forever, I know that. You have to. If there’s any possible way for this ship to survive, you must do whatever it takes to stop the planet-landing.

  What is Orion saying? I thought the whole point of his messages was to bring me to a point where I could make some big important choice. But now it’s like he’s saying the opposite.

  ORION: No matter how bad things are on the ship, if you’re not dying out, if the solar lamp still works… stay here. And make sure the ship stays too. Amy, you’re my little contingency plan — but that’s just it. You must only lead the ship to the planet as a last res—

  Orion doesn’t even get the last word out before his face disappears into loud static. I’m so surprised that I almost drop the floppy. The abrupt cut-off makes my stomach twist with dread, a feeling that doesn’t go away when the static fades to black. Heavy white letters scroll over the dark background, spelling out a phrase I’ve come to fear.

  Follow the leader.

  The video cuts off.

  That phrase—follow the leader. The static. The fact that this video was on a floppy, not a mem card. This clue must also have been tampered with. I don’t know if Orion’s message continued — maybe he was going to tell me the code to get behind the locked door? — but I’m certain he wasn’t the one who left those words.

  I look up now, carefully examining the armory. Before, I’d rushed in there looking for someone. Now, I look for something… and I find it. An empty shelf, a row of missing explosives.

  “Oh, God,” I whisper, my hand unconsciously going to the cross at my neck.

  I race out of the armory, straight to the elevator.

  I’ve got to get to the Shipper Level. Now. I’ve got to get to Elder. If I’m sure of anything, it’s that whoever’s telling us to “follow the leader” doesn’t mean Elder — and those explosives are going to wipe out anyone who tries to land the ship.

  57 ELDER

  ALTHOUGH IT IS BARELY TIME FOR THE SOLAR LAMP TO TURN on, the Shipper Level is crowded. I look around, half-expecting to see Amy’s bright red hair peeking out through the throng of Shippers, but no, she’s not here. Of course she’s not. Even if she’s the one I want to share this with the most, it’s loons of me to think of her now, when I need to focus on planet-landing. I haven’t seen her since I almost died — and so much has changed since then. Amy was the first person I told about Centauri-Earth, but she may very well be the last person I see once we land.

  I shake my head to clear my mind. This isn’t the time to get sentimental; it’s time to land the ship.

  The Shippers cheer as I walk down the corridor toward the Bridge, my fee
t clanging against the metal grate floor. They reach for me — to shake my hand, to slap me on the back, to just touch me in awe and thanks. When I push through the Energy Room into the Engine Room, the scientists and Shippers give me a standing ovation.

  I beam at them.

  It’s everything I dreamed it would be.

  First Shipper Shelby and the rest of her cadre stand in a line in front of the giant decorated doors that lead to the Bridge. They all salute me when I approach.

  “I — uh,” I say, and it’s not until I’m uh-ing that I realize the room is completely silent and they now all want me to make a speech. A speech that consists of more than “uh.”

  Frex.

  “I — uh — I mean…” I swallow, shut my eyes.

  “This is not our home,” I say. “We have lived on Godspeed all our lives, but it is not our home. We didn’t choose to be born on a ship, trapped by the walls that keep us safe. But we do choose to be the ones who decide it is time to land. We choose to take the risk, to leave behind this shell, and to see what the rest of the universe has to offer.

  “We choose our future. Let’s go home.”

  “Home!” Shelby booms, and everyone repeats her word and cheers.

  And then it’s time.

  Shelby opens the huge doors. She stands to the side, letting her crew — the remaining first-level Shippers — go first. There’s an air of ominous gravity to the whole production; we’re making history, and we’re all aware of it.

  I watch them enter the Bridge solemnly, and it feels so wrong that Amy’s not among them. I knew when I first saw her, frozen, that she would change me forever. But she’s changed the whole ship too, the fate of everyone on board.

  As the last Shipper enters the Bridge, Shelby turns to me, and she smiles, and I step forward.

  “Sir!”

  I turn. One of the Shippers runs up to me. “Sir,” he says, “the girl, the red-haired girl — she’s here.”

  “Amy?”

  He nods. “She’s beating on the Energy Room door, yelling for you.”

  “Elder?” Shelby asks, her hand on the Bridge door.

  I step back, away from the Bridge and toward the Energy Room door.

  And then—

  — an explosion rips open the ship.

  It feels as if my eardrums have burst, and I lose my footing, crashing to the ground. My head cracks against the solid metal floor, but I’m moving — sliding toward what remains of the Bridge. Someone screams, and the sound is violently cut off. I twist around, and a chair soars across the room, the leg of it skidding across my shoulder, ripping my tunic and the skin underneath. There’s shouting all around, but the sound is drowned out by the ringing metal crashes as tables and desks fly up from the ground. A stab of pain shoots up my leg — a screwdriver is embedded in my calf. I reach down and yank it out, but I’m still sliding across the floor.

  I lift my head as high as I can—

  The window on the Bridge is gone.

  The metal seam that connected the honeycombed glass is twisted, ripped apart, scraggly at the ends like the paintings from Sol-Earth of creepy dead trees in winter. The vacuum of space is sucking the air out of the Bridge and the Engine room so violently that we’re all caught up in its maelstrom, the chairs, desks, tables, tools — and people.

  Shelby’s crew is hit the worst — some have caught onto the control tables or the bolted-down chairs, but I don’t see everyone. I do see blood and bone and organs at the front, near the hole — whatever blew apart the Bridge’s window also blew apart the people sitting closest.

  A Shipper — Prestyn — tries to stand but stumbles, lunges, and flies through the doors. His body catches on the metal fingers of the broken seams, ripping through him. Great globs of blood float off him in crimson spheres.

  I slam into the wall by the Bridge’s doors so hard my bones rattle, but the wall stops me from also flying out the window. I stand, pressing against the back wall for support, trying to breathe through the rushing wind. It won’t take long — minutes maybe — for the vacuum of space to suck out all the air from both rooms.

  Clutching the metal supports on the wall, I twist my head around to peer inside the Bridge.

  It’s too late — the gaping maw that was once the window has destroyed the Bridge. Shelby clings to a chair that’s bolted to the floor. Her hair is plastered back, and her eyes are red and streaming.

  “Don’t!” she screams. “Don’t!”

  She means the button. This one, here, by my hand.

  The one that would seal the Bridge doors.

  The one that would protect us from space — but leave her in it.

  She’s reaching for me with one hand, straining, but she’s too far away, she’s just barely too far away, and I’ll never be able to get to her, it’s too late. Too late.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” she pleads.

  She reaches toward me. Her fingers are almost within reach. If I reached out — maybe I could pull her to safety before I seal the doors shut?

  But I can’t take that chance. I can’t risk the whole ship to save one person.

  “No,” she whispers.

  But I push the button anyway.

  The Bridge doors swing shut.

  The violent winds die.

  It takes a moment before everyone left can stagger back up. Some are bleeding — a few broken bones, a dislocated shoulder, a limp — from the debris that crashed into them. More than their physical injuries, though, is the horror that twists each face, a hollowed-out shocked expression that I doubt will ever fully fade.

  It is silent here, but nowhere near as silent as the other side of the door.

  58 AMY

  I HAVE NEVER RUN SO HARD OR SO FAST AS WHEN I RACED from the Hospital to the grav tube. Still, I knew I would be too late.

  And I was.

  When I finally got to the Engine Room, I could hear the explosion from behind the door.

  And the screams.

  Now, the Shipper Level — already packed from the events of the day — falls into a sort of hushed horror. People crowd around me in the Energy Room. The door to the Engine Room dents inward, like a monster is trying to claw it out, but the steel reinforcements hold. We fall back against the far wall anyway, and some people race out of the Energy Room, heading for cover, as if they think Godspeed will continue to protect them even as it’s being ripped apart.

  We all stare at the door, but it gives us no answers.

  Red lights fade in and out along the edges of the floor and ceiling. The ship’s computer announces, “Breached hull: Bridge,” in a pleasant, cheerful sort of voice.

  We wait. A woman opens her mouth to speak, but I quell her with a look. We’re all listening to the silence. Wondering if anyone still lives on the other side of the door.

  If Elder survived.

  Something smacks against the door. A woman behind me screams, and a man near the hallway shouts, “Frex!” The door moves again — not with the force of a tornado, like before, but instead with a rattle and shake.

  Fingers pop out at the door edges.

  “They’re alive!” shouts the same woman. And as one, we all rush to the door, prying our fingers into the open crack. Together we strain against the mechanics to slide the damaged door open. The door moves an inch. We all push harder. With a screeching metal-on-metal sound, the door finally, finally gives way.

  I see the blood on him first — dripping from a gash in his shoulder, staining his dark skin red. Sweat makes his hair cling to his forehead. His arms strain to cast aside the remains of the door, and he staggers through.

  “Elder,” I whisper. My voice cracks in the middle. I feel tears stinging my eyes, but they don’t fall. I almost lost him. Again. It wasn’t until I saw his body on the hatch floor yesterday that I realized how much I cared about him, but even then I couldn’t define my feelings.

  A part of me has been holding back from him since I first started to see how devoted he was to me. That part of
me wove words into my soul, words like doubt and can’t trust and lust and not worth it. All those words break, all at once, like strings ripped from torn cloth.

  Now, though, staring at his grief-stricken face, I don’t think with words at all.

  Beyond him, the Shippers are helping each other up. They cry in joy for those who lived and begin to mourn for those who died beyond the sealed Bridge door.

  But I’m just looking at Elder, and he’s just looking at me, and everything else disappears.

  My hands are shaking. My legs are too — in fact, I’m shaking all over. I want to rush to him, but I can’t. Instead, he’s the one who makes a move. He barrels through the mangled doorway (although he’s limping; why is he limping?) and wraps his arms around me. I collapse into him, but he supports me, lending me his strength when I don’t seem to have any more of my own.

  “Oh, God, Elder,” I mutter into his chest, and it’s not much, but it’s the best prayer I’ve got.

  He strokes my hair soothingly. The world continues around us—people rushing into or out of the Engine Room, more cries, more reunions — but we are a silent stalwart amid the chaos.

  “How did you know?” Elder asks, his nose buried in my hair. The question is so the opposite of everything I am right now — logical words formed into a logical question — that it confuses me at first. I lean back and look up at him. Elder leads me past the remains of the door and through the crowd to a quiet corner in a room nearby. Beyond his shoulder I can still see the chaos of the explosion — Kit has arrived with a posse of nurses and taken charge, corralling the wounded to one area and commanding everyone else to leave. A group of engineers examines the seal-locked door of the Bridge, ensuring that there’s no more danger of exposure.

  “The explosion,” Elder says, drawing me back to him. “You knew before, didn’t you? You came here to warn me.”

  “I found another one of Orion’s videos. In the armory.”

  “Orion — Orion did this?” Elder’s eyes are befuddled; he’s still reeling from the explosion.