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.
“No, not Orion. But… someone else has his videos. Someone else knows the codes to the locked doors. I think Orion’s been trying to tell us the way off the ship all along, but someone else found out his secret before we did and they’ve been trying to stop us.”
I hand Elder the floppy with Orion’s video. In the first video I found, Orion seemed certain that there was a choice to be made and that I would make it. But by this last video, he sounds the same way he did in the video of him just after he ran away from Eldest — scared and unsure. Whoever found these videos of Orion clearly agrees that the planet isn’t worthwhile — and will murder anyone who tries to land the ship. The explosion on the Bridge is proof enough of that — it has ensured that even with Centauri-Earth so close, we’ll never land.
I can’t read Elder’s face as he watches the short video — grief, anger, doubt, something else, something empty and painful. But when he looks up at me, all that’s left in his eyes is a hollow sort of nothing.
“None of this matters,” Elder says. “With the Bridge gone, we’re going nowhere.”
Once he says it, it becomes real for him. I see the sixteen years of his life trapped on the ship, and the decades of his future fall on him like a weight — he literally sags with the realization that Godspeed can’t land. He’s got everything on him now — the ship, the people, the deaths, the disappointment. And I realize: he has always had them. Always.
Elder looks behind him, to the Engine room, and beyond to the sealed doors. “Shelby was in there. In the Bridge.”
And just like that, the terror’s back. I push it down, try to drown it under the waters of my soul, keeping it under with both hands and watching it die.
“Why?” Elder’s eyes search mine. He’s not asking why someone would blow up the Bridge. He’s asking why someone would let Shelby die for it.
59 ELDER
“NO, NO, NO, NO, NO,” SHELBY SAID.
The words circle my mind, and I know they’ll never leave.
Amy kisses me.
“No, no, no, no, no.”
Amy tells me that someone did this because of a stupid video Orion made. That whoever did this just wanted to make sure that we would never, ever leave the ship. Ever.
“No, no, no, no, no.”
Amy leads me to the grav tube and takes me to the Feeder Level. She shows me the hidden door and the stairs behind it.
“No, no, no, no, no.”
Amy pushes open the door, and light fills the hidden space behind it. It creaks open, but all I hear is:
“No, no, no—”
BOOM!
Another explosion, this one deeper than the first, rumbles the ground and shakes the foundation of the Hospital. Shingles fall from the Hospital roof and clatter down the sides of the building, smashing against the ground. The doors fling open, and people stream out, a pillar of gray and brown smoke chasing after them. Emergency ladders flutter from the upper stories, and people start climbing down, dropping a few feet to the earth and racing toward the Recorder Hall for cover.
“The frex—” I start, as Amy grabs my arm. Even from here, we can feel the rumbling under our feet.
“Why would someone blow up the Hospital?” she asks. Her words are hollow, but her eyes are filled with fear.
Smoke drifts from the doors on the ground floor but nowhere else. There’s no evidence of fire, no evidence of damage.
Amy’s face drains of color, and she’s paler than ever. “Oh, God. It wasn’t the Hospital that exploded—”
“It was the cryo level,” I finish for her.
“My parents,” she whispers. Her eyes lose focus; her mouth is slack. “There are stairs; they go down to the cryo level. I know where they are. I could—”
“Go to them,” I say, gripping her shoulders until she comes back to me. “Go now — but be careful. Whoever did this could still be there.”
Amy swallows.
“I don’t think that was a big enough explosion to destroy the cryo level.” I shake my head, considering. “No, I’m sure of it. They’re fine. They’ve got to be fine.”
I can feel her pulling away, but she’s still holding on to me, her fingers gripping my sleeve.
“Go,” I say gently. “I can do this. I’ll take care of the ship — you take care of your parents. But…” I pause. “If you see anyone… or anything — if it’s not safe down there, come back to me. Right away.”
She gives me a slight nod and runs to the stairs without a word.
I turn and face the ship.
60 AMY
MY HEART THUDS IN MY THROAT, AND IT MAKES ME WANT TO throw up. I’ve been so focused on everything else — Elder, the murders, the mystery — I’d nearly forgotten the most important thing.
My parents.
Trapped in ice, in the cryo level, sleeping.
Helpless.
I race down, down, using the handrails to leap the steps two at a time — and the deeper I go, the more the smoke wraps around me.
It’s an acrid scent, like burning metal, a smell so sharp it cuts my tongue like a knife. A snot-yellow dust covers my skin. It’s as fine as baby powder, but it stings like bites from fire ants, and I use my sleeves to beat it off. I tug my tunic up over my face so it covers my nose and mouth, and I let my hair down, hoping I can get at least a little protection on the back of my neck from it.
My foot slips, and — fortunately — I grab a handrail. Just in time. There are two more steps — and then nothing.
I lean down, gripping the handrail for support. The bomb was centered on the elevator that extends from the Hospital to the cryo level, just as I’d suspected. Shrapnel and the force of the explosion have ripped through the metal stairs here as easily as if they’d been made of paper.
We’re cut off from the cryo level.
For one crazy moment, I consider jumping. How many feet could it be to get to the bottom? These steps don’t go directly into the cryo level. I’m a couple of feet above a solid metal surface. There must be a hatch or something leading down to the cryo level. There’s a pillar between the stairs and the elevator — maybe there’s a door built into it. But the yellow smoke is heavy and impenetrable, and judging by the ragged edges of the metal on the stairs, I bet there’s plenty of debris below that could kill me. I stare as hard as my watering eyes allow me to, but all I can see is a mangled mess of shattered metal, twisted beams, and blown rivets.
My throat burns, making me cough; the yellow powder must be affecting me in ways I can’t even tell. I shiver; it’s colder here than anywhere else on the ship. I creep back up the stairs. I can feel my heartbeat thudding in my ears, and I’m cold with sweat. I grasp at air. I remember the way Victria thought she was dying, overwhelmed by the idea of a world beyond the ship. I feel the same panic surging inside me, overwhelmed by the idea of still being trapped behind walls, forever behind walls.