Elder laughs, and I notice his smirk.
“Oh, shut up and put some pants on!” I say, throwing a pillow at him.
I’m still blushing as Elder — now fully clothed — leads me back to the grav tube in the Learning Center. He pushes his wi-com to start the tube, then turns and holds his hand out to me.
Wait, what?
“I’ll go after you,” I say, stepping back.
Elder raises an eyebrow, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. “Come on, just ride with me.”
We’d done it once before, of course. But that was when I was half-drugged with Phydus, and before… before I’d started thinking about how life stuck on a ship wouldn’t be so bad if Elder walked around pantsless more.
Before I can protest again, Elder pulls me closer, the warmth of his body wrapping around me. He holds me loosely, knowing that I still don’t know what to do with his touch, but his grip is firm enough to make me certain that he’d never let me fall. Elder moves closer to the grav tube opening in a sort of sidestep-twirl. He uses his free hand to touch his wi-com.
“Ready?” he whispers. The words float around my face like a summer breeze.
I nod, because I can’t find any of my own words.
The grav tube comes alive, the cool winds rushing and swirling in and around, making my hair flutter and our clothes cling to our bodies. Elder tightens his grip around me, takes one step forward, and plunges us into thin air.
We fall for a moment, in darkness between the levels, and my heart beats in my throat — not only from the exhilarating pull of the grav tube, but also from the way Elder’s arms encircle me, holding me closer than he’s ever done before. We’re not free-falling — we’re being sucked down, fast, faster than a person should fall. I cower against Elder’s grasp, clutching my hands around his neck and burrowing my face into his shoulder, but his hold on me doesn’t falter. He’s the only stable thing in the swirling chaos.
A burst of light — we’ve gone through the entire Shipper Level and are already being sucked down into the Feeder Level. The tube bends — the Feeder Level has a curved roof, and the angle makes me feel as if I’m not just falling down, but falling on top of Elder. I think about wiggling away, but my body doesn’t want to abandon the safety of Elder’s arms.
I glimpse past his shoulder, once, and see the Feeder Level stretched out before me. I don’t feel anything seeing it, not hate or love, and so I don’t watch the fields and buildings zoom closer as we near the ground.
And then the winds calm, my hair floats down — an impossible tangled mess now — and we bob next to each other in the air for a minute before the winds stop and we’re standing on the platform on the Feeder Level.
“See?” Elder says, tucking my hair behind my ears. “Not so bad.”
I step back, off the platform, resisting the urge to smooth his hair down.
As we step onto the trail, our shoulders brush. I step away and walk a little in front of him.
“Come on,” I say, unable to meet his eyes.
31 ELDER
AMY LEANS AGAINST THE CRYO-LEVEL WALL, WATCHING AS I approach the keypad by the locked door to the left of the hatch.
“I told you,” Amy says, “twenty-seven doesn’t work.”
“Let me see the list again,” I say. Amy thrusts the wrinkled paper into my outstretched hand. My wi-com beeps, but I ignore it.
“They look like submarine doors.” The catch in Amy’s voice makes me look up at her.
My mind races, trying to remember what a submarine is. One of those underwater things. I didn’t think they were real. But then again, I used to think the ocean couldn’t possibly be as big and deep as Amy said it was.
“They’re all seal locked,” I say. “The door to the Bridge is that way, too, and the hatches that connect the different levels. In case there’s damage to the ship and one level’s exposed, we can seal it off and…” I drift off, my attention turning back to the list.
“My father took me to see the USS Pampanito when I was kid — I only remember it because the name was so ridiculous that I sang it about a million times as I raced through the tiny hallways. Pampanito! Pampanito! Pam-pa-NITO! My dad tried to catch me, but he hit himself on the head trying to crawl through one of the small doorways. Almost knocked himself out.” She gives a tiny laugh, but the sound dies quickly. I glance up from the list — Amy’s staring at the wall, her eyes glassy.
I will do anything to make her happy again, so I give her the stars. I type the key code in quickly—Godspeed—and the hatch door flies open, exposing the millions of glittering dots in the sky.
I remember the first time I saw the stars. I thought they changed everything. I thought they changed me, like I’d become a different person just by seeing shining specks of light a million miles away. Now when I stare at them, I feel nothing. I don’t believe in them anymore. When I first told everyone on the ship that I was giving them the freedom to be themselves, I took those interested in seeing the stars — the real stars — here. Some came. Far fewer than I’d expected. And then I realized: when you’ve lived your entire life within ten square miles surrounded by steel, it’s easier to forget the outside. It makes it less painful to be trapped on a ship if you tell yourself it’s not a trap.
That’s the whole reason why I can’t tell everyone about the stopped engine.
My gaze shifts to the red paint by the keypad. Maybe one day the smears of paint Harley left throughout Godspeed will fade, and maybe the stars never will, but I’d rather have Harley’s colors.
Harley died for… well, I don’t know what he died for. I just know he’s not here anymore, and I miss him. But Kayleigh died for a truth, according to Orion.
His words echo in my mind, and I’m grateful. I don’t want to think about hollow stars and Harley.
Instead, I think about Orion’s puzzle. Orion seems to have known more about the ship’s engine than anyone else. If I can figure out his frexing clue, I might actually figure out why the engine’s stopped, maybe get us going again. Add it up…
I turn back to the list Amy found. Beside each of those twenty-seven names is their cryo-chamber number. What if I add those numbers together…?
1,270.
“What are you doing?” Amy asks.
I try 1270 on all four doors, starting with the biggest door at the end of the hall.
The last door opens.
Everything is darkness. The room smells of dust and grease. I think about what Orion said, just before I froze him. The frozens plan to work us or kill us.
I want to see these weapons for myself.
Amy finds the light switch before me. It flickers on reluctantly, spluttering as if unwilling to show what the room contains.
And I can see immediately what made Orion fear that, when we land, we’ll be made into soldiers or slaves.
You know what’s really going to twist you? Orion had said just before I spun the dial to freeze him. The fact that Elder sort of agrees with everything I’m saying.
Pistols, rifles, larger guns than that. Blister packs of mustard bombs. Missiles — most about the size of my forearm, three that are bigger than me. Everything’s sectioned off in compartments, sealed in heavy red plastic bags that are stamped with labels and FRX symbols.