A Million Suns

When as many people as possible are crowded near the statue, I jump up on the base so I’m a little above them. I can spot individual faces, despite the fact that the garden is so crowded. Bartie stands in almost the exact center of the crowd. Doc and Kit stand by the Hospital. Amy’s near the pond, standing a bit away from everyone. She’s wearing a jacket, the hood pulled up over her face, but I know it’s her. She glances up just in time to meet my gaze, and the pride in her eyes gives me the strength to speak.



“Hello,” I say, because I can’t really think of anything else to open with. “I have terrible news,” I add, raising my voice when I notice the people straining to hear me better. I turn on my wi-com instead of shouting—now I can speak like I’m having a normal conversation.



“I have terrible news,” I repeat, my voice transmitting directly into their ears. “But I suspect that most of you have already heard about the devastating events I’m about to discuss.” I take a deep breath, preparing myself. Rather than trying to look at everyone, I seek out Amy again. It’s easier if I can pretend I’m only talking to her. “The Bridge was blown up today. We—I—don’t know who did it, but the attack was done purposefully. It resulted in the deaths of nine Shippers, including First Shipper Shelby.” Now I look away from Amy. “It also prevented us from ever being able to land Godspeed.”



I pause. No one speaks. I let the silence stretch out to the edges of the ship.



“Since I have assumed leadership, I have abolished the practice of contaminating the water system with Phydus. I have attempted to work with you, to find a way for you to carry on your lives aboard the ship without the drug. When I discovered that Centauri-Earth was within our reach, I attempted to fulfill the mission of Godspeed and land the ship.”



I swallow hard, forcing myself to look at the whole crowd.



“But in this—as in all aspects of my leadership—I have failed.”



There are gasps of surprise, angry looks, confused looks, murmurs of questions. But as soon as I open my mouth, everyone’s silent again.



“I’ll be honest: I thought my leadership would be as strong as Phydus had been. Clearly I was wrong. Since I took on the role of Eldest, the ship has spiraled into chaos. People have died. Not just from today’s bombing, which led to nine deaths, but murders done in my name, calling others to follow the leader. And before that—suicides I could not prevent, injuries, and worse.”



Many of the people in the crowd are crying now. I can’t help myself; I look to Amy. She stands straight and tall, her gaze unwavering. I straighten my spine and throw back my shoulders.



“This is why”—I take a deep breath—“I am offering now, before you all, to step down from my role as leader of Godspeed.”



My words are met with stunned silence. They gape at me, shocked and unsure of how to respond. I let the silence grow. Slowly, one by one, everyone starts to turn, searching through the crowd to see who my gaze has shifted to.



Bartie.



But he stands wordless, watching me.



After a while, when nobody moves, I say, “If no one else wishes to lead Godspeed, I will continue to do my best to serve this ship. That is all.”



I disconnect the wi-com link and walk away.



62



AMY



THE CROWD DISSOLVES SLOWLY. THIS ISN’T OVER; I KNOW that much. Bartie may not have seized power tonight, but I think that stemmed more from shock than anything else. That—or he had some other reason for not yet assuming control. I don’t trust him. If we don’t get off this ship soon, Bartie will take over—or destroy the ship trying to.



Once everyone else has left, I wander up the path toward the statue. I used to think Elder looked nothing like the water-streaked concrete statue of the Plague Eldest, but now I’m not so sure.



Elder emerges from the shadows and starts walking beside me.



“How did you know?” I ask him.



“Know what?”



“That Bartie wouldn’t ask you to step down then? That he wouldn’t take over leadership of the ship when you offered.”



Elder meets my eyes. “I didn’t.”



I try not to show my surprise at his words.



Although the Hospital has been cleared for occupancy, I steer Elder the other way, toward the Recorder Hall.



“I’ve been thinking,” I say as we plod up the path.



“About what?” Elder’s voice sounds tired and weak.



“How different you are from Orion.”



Elder huffs out a breath of air.



“No, really,” I insist. “Orion had backup plans for his backup plan. You don’t. You just do what you think is right at the time and wait to see what happens.”



“Maybe I should have a plan,” Elder says. “Things might work out better if I did.”



“You can’t plan for everything. Orion couldn’t have known some nut job would blow up the Bridge.” I steal a glance at Elder and notice his frown. “And neither could you,” I add, but I don’t think he quite believes me.



We don’t speak again as we mount the stairs to the Recorder Hall. It’s quiet here. The artifacts inside are just a reminder of everything we can’t have, and no one wants to be reminded of that.



“I’m sorry,” Elder says. Light spills into the dark Recorder Hall from the open doors, then fades to nothing as Elder silently pulls them shut.



“For what?”



“You’ve lost your chance to leave the ship, to have your parents awoken—all of it.”



I can wake them up. I don’t say this aloud, but I know it’s true. If we really have no chance of landing the ship, I will wake my parents up, no matter what.



“I’ve still got you, haven’t I?” I say, reaching for his hand. Elder snatches it away. He doesn’t want to be comforted.



“It’s all my fault. I didn’t think any of this would happen. . . .”



“It’s not your fault,” I say immediately. “No one could have known. . . .”



My voice trails off. But someone did know. Someone did guess. Orion. He really did have a plan for everything. A contingency plan . . .



I point to one of the giant wall floppies. “Can you bring up the blueprints of the ship?”



“Why?” Elder just stands there, begging me with his eyes to stop, to not make him think there’s any hope left.



Except there is.



I push Elder to the wall floppy and don’t leave his side until he starts tapping on the screen to bring up the blueprint. Once he does, I rush off to the other side of the hallway and grab a chair resting against the wall. I slam it down under the clay models of the planets and the little replica of Godspeed.



“In the last video, the one that I found when I discovered the missing explosives,” I say, climbing up onto the chair, “Orion told me that the last thing I need to find will be in Godspeed.”



“Godspeed is huge,” Elder says. The wall floppy behind him shows the giant diagram of the ship. Seeing it there, projected on the wall, I can appreciate just how huge this ship is.



“I know,” I say, “but isn’t it odd? That word choice. He didn’t say ‘on Godspeed.’ He said ‘in.’”



“So?” Elder asks. His voice is still flat, and I know that while he’s physically in the Recorder Hall with me, he’s really still in the garden, giving up, still on the Bridge, watching his people die. He doesn’t care about Orion’s clues anymore.



I strain, reaching for the tiny model of Godspeed hanging suspended between the two clay models of the Earths.



“In Godspeed,” I say. “In it.” The chair wobbles as I stand on my tiptoes on top of it, my fingers brushing the bottom of the small model ship. I noticed before that it was on a hook, as if it could be taken down and inspected. I push against the bottom, and the hook slides off. The ship falls. I reach out, grabbing it with one hand. The chair topples, and I jump off before it clatters to the ground. Elder catches me around the middle, and I gasp in surprise. He sets me down gently on the ground.



The model’s about as large as my head and caked in dust. I blow on it, and huge chunks of dust fly away and then drop to the floor, too heavy to float. There’s more dust on the top of the ship, in the grooves of the tiny model honeycomb window on the Bridge. I turn the replica over so the ship’s on its side. It almost looks like a broken winged bird—a beak for a nose and thrusters for tail feathers.



I hand it to Elder.



He weighs it in his hand as if it’s an alien thing, not a replica of the only home he’s ever known. His face is intense—a scowl so deep that the shadows seem like black marks on his face. The veins in his hand pop up, and his fingers tense. Very deliberately, he presses his thumb against the Bridge window until the tiny honeycombed glass breaks. I see a dot of blood on his thumb, but he shows no sign of pain.



“It’s accurate now,” he says, handing the model back to me.



I search his eyes, but they’re hollow inside.



“There’s more glass here,” I say, pointing to the bottom of the ship.



Elder shrugs, a sort of one-shoulder careless motion. “I saw it when I was outside. An observatory or something.”



“It has to be on the other side of the last locked door,” I say. “Why lock an observatory?”



I step over to the wall floppy. Elder stays where he is, by the chair, but his eyes follow me. I place the now-broken model on the ground and zoom in on the blueprints on the floppy. I use both hands to manipulate the image on the screen, sliding over the cryo level until I get to the section that shows the locked doors. Not all the doors are marked—the armory isn’t—but behind the last locked door on the level is one word.



Contingency



“He keeps calling me—this—his contingency plan,” I say under my breath. I turn and meet Elder’s eyes, and notice there’s a spark in them again.



“This bit of glass here,” I say, picking up the model of Godspeed and pointing to it. I run my fingers from the broken Bridge to the bottom level of the ship. It’s the same basic shape, a beak protruding from the front of the ship. The only difference is that the cryo level beak is smaller.



On the replica ship, a tiny metal line runs along the bottom, all around in a circle.



“This isn’t Orion’s contingency plan,” I say slowly, turning the model over in my hand, “it’s Godspeed’s. I can’t believe we didn’t think of this before! What ship doesn’t have a backup plan? What ship doesn’t have an escape shuttle? It’s so obvious—the answer has been right in front of us the whole time!”



I carefully pull against the metal line on the replica Godspeed. The bottom half breaks apart from the ship.



Elder’s eyes widen. “The cryo level . . . the whole frexing cryo level—can break away from the ship? The entire level is an escape shuttle?”



I toss the bottom part of the replica—the escape shuttle—at Elder. It soars through the air in a graceful arc, free from the rest of the ship. Free to find a home on the new planet.