But it’s not an overhead light that flicks on; instead, the stairs start to glow. My feet thud hollowly on the metal floor as I draw closer. Tiny LED lights race up the railings on either side of the stairs, and a thin row of lights mark the front of each step. The lights are encased in plastic tubing, almost like outdoor Christmas lights.
My mind stops.
Before, if I thought Christmas, I would have remembered my past on Earth and would have succumbed to the aching sadness for a life I can never have again.
Now, I can think the word and not feel anything but a dull ache, a phantom pain for a part of my life that’s been amputated.
I shake my head and place my hand on the railing. My fingers glow pink from the tube of lights. I mount the first step and look up — the stairs climb higher and higher, zigging up like levels in a parking deck. I try to count how many times the stairs twist and turn, but the lights jumble together at the top. Godspeed is as tall as a skyscraper. The last time I was in New York, I tried to climb the stairs of the Empire State Building. My parents and I raced to see who could get to the top quickest. I made it to forty flights before I gave up, and that wasn’t even halfway. These stairs are twice as big, reaching up all the way from the Feeder Level to the Keeper Level, where Elder is.
But what about the cryo level? Where are the stairs that go down there?
I wander away from these stairs to the wall. On the other side is space — and past that is the planet. It’s odd. The Feeder Level wall is clearly thinner — I can feel residual warmth through the metal, and the door leading out isn’t too heavy; it’s the same thickness as the wall. On the other hand, the exterior walls seem massive. Steel beams arch up, following the curve of the ship at a smaller angle than the rounding roof of the Feeder Level. The rivets in this wall are much, much thicker, about the diameter of my palm.
I press my hand against the metal, and it comes away with a reddish-brown-colored dust. The metal here is cooler, and there’s a sense of stoic, strong weight behind it.
Inside the Feeder Level, where it’s airy and bright and warm, I feel caged in and trapped. But here, beside thick, heavy walls, in a narrow, curving corridor, in dim light with nothing but the smell of metal and dust — here, I feel closer to the outside.
To freedom.
I find a second set of stairs soon after, a narrow hole leading down in this space between the heart of Godspeed and the universe. These stairs are narrower and steeper, and they go down into what must be the cryo level. I long to explore — the only place I can imagine the stairs open up on the cryo level is in the last locked room. But I can’t do this without Elder. It’s not right to explore the ship without him.
I meander back around to the door leading to the Feeder Level. Orion said he lived here, in hiding from Eldest. I can’t imagine what it would take for someone to willingly cage himself into a narrow dark hall without even the fake sun of the solar lamp to warm him. How many days passed before he couldn’t bear the darkness anymore and crept back into the Feeder Level under the guise of being a Recorder? Did he spend his time leaned up against the outside wall of the ship or against the inside wall that surrounded the Feeder Level?
Whatever he did, this was the perfect hiding place. No one else knows the stairs even exist.
Once, I stayed at a fancy hotel in Atlanta when my mom was giving a lecture at a genetics conference. I spent most of my time in the hotel’s pool. On the last day, I attempted to go back to my room and pack, but the elevator was broken. It took me half an hour to find the stairs, and when I did, they were hidden behind a door marked with a four-inch square metal placard. I’d gone an entire week not knowing where the stairs were, not even thinking about them, even though I knew, logically, that the hotel had to have stairs, somewhere.
The people of Godspeed have gone years without knowing about the stairs. And I can’t help but think: if they’ve forgotten stairs, what else have they forgotten?
45 ELDER
I SLIDE MY THUMB OVER THE BIOMETRIC SCANNER AGAIN, and the metal panels over the ceiling start to close. Shelby’s eyes stare as hard as they can until the metal clicks back into place.
“We’re there,” she says, her voice alight with music and tears. “We’re here.”
“We’re here.”
For a moment, we share a smile. Then her gaze slides down to Marae’s murdered body. I’m filled with regret that even though her eyes stare unblinkingly up, she’ll never see the planet.
“I will take Marae’s body to the stars myself,” I say. “But I need you to get the remaining first-level Shippers here, on the Bridge, and start whatever process we need to begin planet-landing.”
She nods. “All the first-level Shippers are trained for this. There are simulators, and the information has been passed down since…”
“Since the ship left Sol-Earth.”
“We were always ready for planet-landing, even when it was centuries beyond us.”
“How much time will you need?”
Shelby stares at the control panel, thinking. “The First Shipper runs scans… ”
Her eyes shoot to mine. She’d forgotten. She’s First Shipper now.
“I’ll run scans. The first level is to ensure that the planet is habitable.”
“I thought we always knew the planet was habitable.”
Shelby nods. “Before the mission, the probes from Sol-Earth indicated the planet’s environment was stable and could support life, but the first stage of planet-landing is to ensure that’s actually the case. I’m, well, to be honest, I’m a little worried. If the ship’s engine has been diverted for this long because we’ve been in orbit… why haven’t we landed already?”
My wonder at seeing the planet has slowly been replaced by this very question. It’s possible we’ve been in orbit since the Plague — perhaps the rebellion that sparked the Eldest system came about as long ago as that. Why didn’t the ship land before?
“Before we even think about landing, I want to make sure it’s possible,” I tell Shelby.
“I’ll do the scans myself. They should take several hours. I’ll know more then.”
“First,” I say, “we have to say goodbye.”
Shelby’s eyes drop to Marae’s body, still staring at the ceiling. She nods silently.
Shelby brings me a transport — a folded-up black box lined with electromagnets that work with the controls under the metal of the ship’s floors to easily carry heavy objects. She snaps the box open. It automatically spreads out, locking into shape, a large, deep rectangle with a circuit board on the side to communicate with the grav tube. This transport has been used for some piece of machinery — it’s dirty, scratched, and smeared with mechanical grease. I try to run my sleeve over it, but all I do is spread the dirt around. I don’t want to treat Marae’s body like a piece of broken machinery to be thrown away, but I can’t bear the idea of prolonging her funeral among the stars. I rush back into the engine room and grab some machinery towels to lay out on the transport.
And then it’s time to move Marae.
I lift her body by the shoulders; Shelby picks up her feet. We have to bend Marae’s knees and curve her back so that she fits completely in the box. We end up curling her into the fetal position.
Shelby’s slight body seems massive beside the shell of Marae’s. I didn’t know life took up so much space. Shelby bends down over Marae’s body, and it reminds me of the pictures of scavenger beasts from Sol-Earth, the ones that feed on the rotting flesh of carcasses.