A Million Suns (5 page)

She snatches her hand away. Sweat beads on her face and arms, and she's panting hard. “Luthe—Luthor. He's . . .”

Him.

My stomach drops.

He's the one. The one who held me down three months ago, who used the Season as an excuse to try to rape me. He was like Harley and Elder—aware of the world around him without Phydus dulling his mind. He knew what he was doing when he slammed me to the ground and pressed his weight against me. When he watched hope leave my eyes. When I gave up struggling.

He told me his name was Luthe, but Victria called him Luthor. Like Lex Luthor, Superman's arch-nemesis . . . but the exploits of a bald super-villain seem comical compared to the evil that lies behind this Luthor's skin. I realize then—Luthe is his nickname. The name his
friends
call him. The idea of calling him that fills me with revulsion. I don't like to think of him in the same terms his friends do.

The door zips open again. Victria whimpers softly, hiding her face. I jump up.

He stands in the doorway, scanning the room.

His eyes lock on me.

And he smiles. Slowly.

 

Seductively.

7

ELDER

THE DOOR IS LOCKED. JUST THE WAY I LEFT IT.

 

After—after everything—after

Orion was frozen and

  Amy found out the truth and

    Eldest died and

      I watched him die . . .

 

I watched him die.

 

After all of that, I crawled back up to the Keeper Level. The empty, hollow Keeper Level. And I broke into Eldest's room, and I found his stash of alcohol, and I stayed drunk for two days straight. Then I threw up for two more days, and then I relocked his door, one of the few doors that even has a lock.

And I put a table in front of it.

 

Now I shove the table out of the way so forcefully that it tips over on one side and crashes to the ground.

Before, the Keeper Level seemed too big, big enough for everyone on the ship to stand in it at one time so they could be lied to while they looked up at the ceiling and gasped at the light bulbs called stars.

When it was Eldest and me, this place felt huge, the space between us filled with emptiness and silence. Now that it's just me, the Keeper Level feels claustrophobically small.

My wi-com beeps. I jab it with my finger to silence it.

And before I can talk myself out of it, before I can walk away and promise to go into his room later—

—I unlock Eldest's door.

Dust particles swirl in the light as I enter. I breathe deeply, expecting to smell Eldest's musky soap, but instead it smells like mildew. My feet stick to the floor. Near the door lies one open and spilled alcohol jar, dried into a gummy mess. That's my mark on Eldest's room.

The room itself is messy and cluttered, but that's the way Eldest kept it. The bed's unmade, the blankets a swirl of cloth at the foot. Spilling out from underneath the bed is a pile of wrinkled clothes. A dirty plate that's still littered with a few crumbs rests perilously close to the edge of his nightstand.

I feel like an interloper, a trespasser in Eldest's private space, but I remind myself that, technically,
I'm
Eldest now, and this is more my room than a dead man's.

On the desk are the scattered remains of a model engine. I pick up the small resin nuclear reactor core, wiping the dust carefully from the surface. The first time I saw the frexing thing was when Eldest hid it from me. I weigh the model engine in my hand. He knew something was wrong, even then. If he had just
told
me the truth from the start, maybe we could have worked together to solve the engine's problems. If everyone would just be frexing honest, we'd probably be at Centauri-Earth by now!

I hurl the model engine across the room. It crashes over Eldest's bed, sprinkling cracked resin across his pillow, still dented from where he laid his head.

Shite.

I rub my hands across my face.

Shite.

With the hacked message on the floppy network and Marae's eagerness to form my police force, I'd pushed from my mind the hardest truth of all.

We're not going anywhere.

Stopped.

Staring at the broken engine bits on Eldest's bed, I realize something. I'm not going to tell the rest of the ship. I'm not. I never thought I'd get tangled up in the lies Eldest wove around
Godspeed
 . . . but I can't tell them. I can't tell them we're not just going slowly. We're stopped. If just taking them off Phydus has calls for revolution leaking through the floppy network, then surely they'll rip this ship apart if I tell them we're not going anywhere; they'll tear through the metal with their teeth and let themselves be swallowed into the black of space.

Just like Harley.

I run my fingers through my hair, snagging them on tangles. What am I doing here? Eldest might have suspected we were stopped, but it's not like he hid the secret to reviving the engine in his bedroom.

A floppy on Eldest's desk flashes. The bright white words fade to black. The floppy beeps and reboots itself. After a moment, it shows the start-up screen as normal. Whatever Marae and the first-level Shippers did worked, and the hacker's message is wiped from the screen.

My wi-com beeps again.

I start to answer the com when I notice something—another door. I silence the beeping in my left ear and move toward the door, stepping over piles of Eldest's dirty clothes. Why is there another door here? There's the one to the bathroom, of course, but I've never noticed this one before—I've only been in Eldest's room twice, and both times I was focused on finding something else: first the model engine, and then later the alcohol.

There's a rainbow scratch along the floor; Eldest used this door frequently. My hands shake as I reach toward the old-fashioned knob—it's metal, from Sol-Earth. It won't twist, but when I pull, the door opens anyway. I stare curiously inside.

A closet.

Closets are rare; most bedrooms have wardrobes instead, but I must admit I was hoping for something more here. Disappointed, I turn away, but something catches my eye. A rag pokes out from the top box on the floor of the closet. It's an odd sort of greenish blue, a color I remember in the deepest part of me.

I suck in my breath, then forget to breathe out again. When I reach down and pull the scrap of cloth from the box, my hands are numb.

When I first moved into the Keeper Level, one of the only things I brought with me was a blanket. Small, stained, and worn threadbare in spots. A particular shade of greenish blue.

This blanket was the oldest thing I owned. At the time, I thought that it had come from my parents. As Elder, I was never allowed to know who they were, because otherwise I'd be biased toward them. Or so Eldest told me. In reality, I'm a clone, manufactured, not born.

Eldest had me moved from family to family until I was twelve—six months with the shepherds, six months with the butchers, six months with the soy farmers.

And with all that moving, I never knew which family belonged to me.

But the blanket was mine.

My earliest memory is hiding under the blanket when I was told I'd have to move again. I don't remember which family I was with or which I was moving to, but I remember cowering under the blanket and thinking that maybe, when I was a little baby, it had been my mother—my
real
mother—who had wrapped me in it and held me against her.

After the first few days on the Keeper Level, Eldest and I got in a fight, and he called me an impossible child, babied and spoiled. I promptly stormed into my room and punched the walls, knocking everything in sight off my shelf—and then I saw my blanket. The epitome of being a baby.

I'd tried to rip it in half but couldn't, so I chucked it in the trash chute.

And, somehow, Eldest saved this piece of me. Kept it for years. I press it now against my face and think about all Eldest was, and all he wasn't.

 

The only thing hanging from the rod in the closet is a heavy robe, the ceremonial robe Eldest only wore on important occasions. I drop the blanket back into the box and reach for the robe. It's much heavier than I expected. Definitely wool—I've carded and spun enough from my time before Eldest began training me to recognize the waxy-rough feeling of the cloth. The embroidery spans the entire length and breadth of the robe. Stars dance along the top, crops grow along the hem, and between them is a band of horizon that never ends.

The clasp opens at my touch, and I slide under the robe. The weight of it pushes my shoulders down, makes me hunch over. The hem drags the floor by a good inch or two, and my chest isn't broad enough to fill out the robe; the stars cave in around me.

I look ridiculous.

I pull the robe off and shove it back into the closet.

8

AMY

I HAVE TO GET OUT. I HAVE TO LEAVE. NOW. I CAN'T STAY here. Not with him. Escape. Must escape.
Now.
NOW. But there's nowhere to go. He crosses the threshold and is at me in two strides. Luthor draws closer to me, so close that I can feel the heat of his body burning my skin. When I suck in a lungful of air to scream, I suck in some of his exhaled breath too. Luthor reaches toward me, and the scream in my throat dies, choking me and leaving me breathless.

Luthor flips the hood away from my face. He grabs hold of my maroon head wrap, and I jerk away, my hair spilling out over my shoulders. The bookshelf behind me is an unyielding wall. Luthor slides his hand down the side of my face and grabs a fistful of my hair. He yanks it, hard, pulling me closer to him. I strain against his grip. I don't care if he rips the hair out of my head, I am not going to let him control me. I reach behind me and grab two books from the shelf by their spines. As Luthor twines my hair around his hand, forcing me to face him, I whip out the books, slamming them on either side of his head.

“Augh!”
Luthor shouts, an inhuman roar of pain. He clutches the sides of his head, a string of curse words—some I know, some I don't—following me as I drop the books and duck under his arm.

“Come on!” I yell at Victria, who is still hiding behind the last bookcase. She steps out and I grab her wrist and drag her behind me, out of the fiction room and toward the hall.

Luthor follows quickly, but we've got enough of a head start that we make it to the crowded entrance hall before he reaches us. I stop when we reach the center. The message that had filled all the screens before is gone, and the floppies have returned to normal. A short woman wearing the immaculately starched dark clothing favored by the Shippers stands near the
Science
floppy, deep in conversation with the group that had been studying the engine schematics earlier. A few people look up, startled by our sudden entrance, but for the most part, no one notices us.

Luthor stands with both arms gripping the doorway that leads to the hall, glaring at us. He won't do anything now. Not with everyone else here. It's not the Season anymore; there's no more Phydus. He doesn't have an excuse.

Victria yanks her hand out of my grasp. “Thanks,” she mutters, the sound more like a growl.

“Hey!” Luthor's voice echoes throughout the entrance hall. Most people turn to look at him, but Victria dips her head low and hurries for the exit, abandoning me in the center of the hall as Luthor pushes up from the door frame and heads toward me.

“You think you can just walk away from me?” Luthor shouts.

“I know I can,” I say, and I actually make it a few steps closer to the exit before he grabs me by the elbow and spins me around.

I scan the entrance hall. Everyone's watching us. A few have drawn closer, and from the worry in their eyes, I can see that they're on the verge of coming to my aid. Still—they hesitate. Because he's one of them. And I'm not.

“Things are different now,” I hiss at Luthor, yanking my arm out of his grasp. “You think you can take whatever you want, but you can't.”

I step away quickly, determined to escape this room without him laying another finger on me. His laughter rings out, a disgusting sound that sends chills down my spine. “Things
are
different!” he bellows after me. “We haven't got a leader anymore!”

I spin on my heel. “Elder is leader!” My voice is high and loud; it comes out as an angry screech. I can't help but remember the message that flashed across the floppies earlier.

Luthor snorts in contempt. “You think that boy can stop me? You think that boy can stop any of us?” He sweeps his arms wide, indicating the entire crowd of people who are now staring avidly as we scream in the middle of their usually silent hall.

“We can do anything we want,” Luthor says in a low voice only I can hear. He grins broadly and looks around him, then lifts his voice in a mighty roar, “We can do anything we want!”

I see it in the faces of the people around us.

The realization that what he's said is true.

9

ELDER

“ELDER?” A VOICE CALLS OUT AS ELDEST'S DOOR ZIPS SHUTS behind me.

“The frex?” I mutter, peering around. No one has access to this level but me.

Red hair swings around the door frame of the Learning Center. “Amy?” I ask, shocked, rushing forward.

She smiles—not a grin, just a gentle curve of her lips that doesn't quite reach her eyes.

“I hoped you'd be here,” she says.

“How—how did you get here?”

She steps all the way out of the Learning Center and into the Great Room with me. She raises her left hand.

“Doc gave it to you!” I say, examining the wi-com encircling her wrist.

Amy nods. “I figured . . . it used to be Orion's, so it would probably give me access to the Keeper Level, and . . .” She shrugs. “It did. I tried to com you before, but you didn't pick up. Or did I do it wrong?”

“No, I got some coms that I ignored.”

Amy punches me lightly on the shoulder. “Ignoring me, huh?”

“I couldn't if I tried,” I say.

She smiles again, another wry twist of her lips with no light behind it. We stand a few feet apart—her near the Learning Center door, me closer to the middle of the Great Room, and the silence falls between us like a tangible, awkward thing. She pulls her necklace out from under her shirt and twists the charm in her fingers.

“What's wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing,” she says immediately, dropping the necklace.

I narrow my eyes but let the moment slide by.

“I haven't seen you in a while,” she finally says. She hasn't moved away from the Learning Center door, so I move closer to her. She puts one hand in her pocket and looks for a moment as if she's going to pull something out.

“I had to go settle some problems in the City and then . . . on the Shipper Level.”

“Now it's my turn to ask you,” Amy says, withdrawing her empty hand from her pocket. “What's wrong? Did you see the message that was on the floppies?”

“Yeah,” I growl. “The Shippers were able to reverse the hack, but . . .” I shrug, and although I mean to appear nonchalant, even I know the gesture is bitter. “Damage done. I've asked Marae and the first-level Shippers to serve as my police force.”

“
Good
,” Amy says with such vehemence that I stare at her. “It's just—I'm glad you're finally doing it. Getting police I mean,” she adds when she notices my look.

“I should have done it a month ago.” I say, then wait for her reaction.

Her hand twitches, as if she'd like to reach out to me, but she doesn't. “You're still not telling me something,” she says softly.

Neither are you,
I think, but I can tell from the hardness of her eyes that she won't tell me whatever it is that's bothering her. Instead, I confess my truth. About the engines. And the lies. How we're not moving, and we don't even know where we are. I tell her what I haven't told anyone else on board.

“And we can't tell them,” I add. “If the Feeders knew . . .”

Amy bites her lip but doesn't argue. For now.

I run my fingers through my hair, trying to pull my answer up through the roots. “We've been stopped a long time. The ship's not going to last forever. It's . . .
Godspeed
is falling apart.”

When I say it now, to her, I finally realize the truth. And I finally see the things I've never seen before, and what they really mean. The dwindling food production, despite the fact that we're pumping all the fertilizer and nutrients we can into the fields. It's true that most Feeders haven't been working as hard as they did while on Phydus, but even their lack of productivity can't excuse the way the crops barely have enough strength to push their way up through the soil.

That year when we had so much rain—was it just for research, or did the irrigation system break? The chemically derived meat substitute used in wall food at least twice a week—is it really a better source of nutrition or just the best Doc and the scientists could make when the livestock was no longer enough to feed everyone?

I'm starting to see why Eldest was so . . . so desperate.

I think of the sound of the engine, even if its energy is just being diverted to the internal functions of the ship: that
churn
amid the
whirr
s. It's not a healthy sound.

When I'm done talking, I realize how silent she's been the whole time.

“Amy?” I ask softly.

She meets my eyes.

“Does this mean . . . can I wake my parents up now?”

“What? No!” I say immediately.

“But . . . if we're not going to land—if there's no hope at all that we'll ever land—then, why not?”

“We might still land! Frex, give me a chance to fix this problem.”

“Maybe one of the frozens can fix it. There are scientists and engineers frozen too, you know.”

“Amy—no. No. My people can handle this.”

She mutters something I don't catch.

“What?” I demand.

“It's not like they've done that good of a job so far! Hell, Elder, how long have the engines been dead? Since before you were born! Maybe even decades—or
longer!”

“I don't need this!” I roar. “Not from you too! I don't need you telling me what to do or that I'm not good enough.”

“I'm not
questioning
you!” Amy hurtles the words at me. “I'm just saying, someone from Earth could probably fix this problem!”

“You're just
saying
that we should wake your parents up!”

“This isn't about them!”

“With you, it always is! You can't just wake up your parents because you're a scared little girl!”

Amy glares at me fiercely, an angry flush staining her cheeks. “Maybe if you'd admit you weren't good enough to do everything on this effing ship yourself, you could see that you have people who could actually help you right underneath your feet!”

I know she said it in anger—that I wasn't good enough. But her words
do
hurt, like a hot knife slicing through the center of me. “Haven't you figured out that half my problems are because of
you?
If I didn't have to watch out for the freak, maybe I could get something done!”

As soon as the words slip past my lips, I wish I could grab them with my hands and crush them in my fists.

But I can't.

The words are there.

I've called Amy a freak, the one thing I swore I'd never do.

I was the only person on the whole ship who hadn't called her that.

And now I have.

Amy jerks her head, almost as if the words have struck a blow against her cheek. She spins on her heel and storms toward the Learning Center door—and the grav tube that would take her away from me.

“Amy!” I shout, racing after her. She ducks her head away from me, hair swinging down to cover her face, and darts through the door. I grab her by the elbow, spinning her around and pulling her back into the Great Room. She jerks out of my grasp, but at least she doesn't keep running from me.

“I'm sorry,” I say immediately. “I didn't mean that. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.” I raise my hand again, but she flinches from me, and I drop it immediately.

She doesn't meet my eyes.

“You're right,” she finally says, blinking rapidly and looking up at the artificial stars.

“No, I'm not, I'm sorry, you're not a freak, you're not.”

She shakes her head. “Not about that. About . . . I'm scared,” she whispers.

She twists the wi-com round and round her wrist, leaving a red mark. I've seen her silent before, brooding. There have been times when we'd be talking and she'd suddenly drop from the conversation, retreat within herself for a few moments before returning to me. Before, I'd always thought it had something to do with me—that she'd remembered my betrayal, or I'd said something to trigger a memory of the past she could no longer have. Now I'm wondering if it's something else.

“What's wrong?” I ask, my voice lower, the fight in it gone, replaced with concern.

She jumps at the question.

“Has someone hurt you?” I ask. “Or threatened you?”

I move closer to her. I want to reach out, take her hands in mine, draw her closer to me. But she looks as hard as stone.