“You kept those wires,” she says as I step beside her. “The wires to the Phydus machine. You had them the whole time. You went straight to the machine—”
“Doc had patched me,” I say. “I don’t think I could have helped but go to the machine.”
“But you had those wires with you the whole time.”
I did. “But,” I say, “I think I deserve some credit for never using them, even if I did have them.”
“Yeah,” Amy says, offering me a hint of a smile. “You do.”
We stare at Orion’s cryo chamber.
“What do these numbers mean?” Amy asks, pointing to the LCD screen on the front of the box.
I watch the numbers tick down. “It’s a countdown clock.”
“I was afraid of that.”
I bend down, examining the electronics. Apparently, Doc already started the regeneration process. Orion should be unfrozen within twenty-three hours and forty-two minutes. I try to stop the clock, but even though I turn the dial, the screen continues to tick away time.
“Just turn it off,” Amy says, bending down to look at the electronics.
“We can’t just unplug it,” I say. I’ve definitely learned my lesson about that one.
“Well, make it stop.”
“I can’t,” I say, fiddling with the dials some more. I notice the screen and keypad. “Doc’s locked up the system.”
“Reset it.”
I hesitate. “That could be dangerous. If regeneration has already started, it could damage his body if we just stop it.”
“It’s only been going on for twenty minutes,” Amy says. “It can’t do that much harm.”
But I’m remembering how I froze Orion without preparing his body. He’s already damaged from that. Messing with the cryo tube now might kill him.
“I don’t care if it’s dangerous. He needs to stay frozen.”
“Amy, it’s not that simple. I can’t. The cryo chamber is only programmed to go one way.”
“I don’t want him to wake up,” Amy says in a very quiet voice.
I look at Amy and bite my lip. Because I do.
I don’t know if it’s because of our shared DNA or because I understand the choices he’s made. Maybe it’s because of the guns in the armory or the ship records in the bridge. Maybe it’s because I’m starting to think Doc was right, and Orion would be a better leader than me. But Orion doesn’t seem as loons as before.
Amy puts her hand on my elbow, drawing my gaze away from the countdown clock and back to her. “I couldn’t kill him.”
I stare, unsure of how to respond.
“Doc. He had a gun on me. On you. I didn’t know which of us he’d shoot.”
I touch the bandage on Amy’s arm — not firmly enough to put any pressure on her wound.
“It’s just a graze. But when the gun was pointed at us, I thought, ‘I have to kill him, or he’ll kill one of us.’ But I didn’t. I couldn’t.”
“Why are you—”
“Elder,” Amy says, “I believe in the bottom of my heart that Orion doesn’t deserve to live. There are some people,” she adds, emphasizing the word, “that don’t deserve a second chance. I haven’t forgotten what it was like to drown in my cryo box. A day doesn’t go by that I don’t remember.”
I did that to her. Not Orion. Me.
“Two people are dead, and they died like I almost did. And he did that to them.”
“Amy, I can’t stop the regeneration process.”
“He doesn’t deserve to live.”
“Would you kill him?”
Amy’s eyes dance back and forth between mine. She couldn’t kill Doc. But her hatred for Orion goes deeper.
“You’re right. Some people don’t deserve a second chance. But Orion—” I pause, unsure of how to explain. “Orion was wrong, yes. But it’s not like he went on a murdering spree or something. He had a reason. He acted out of fear.”
Amy bites her bottom lip, thinking. I know she’s comparing Orion, who thought he was doing the right thing, to Luthor, who knew he was doing wrong.
I want to wrap my arms around her and erase the worry etched on her face, but I know it’s not as simple as that. “Maybe,” I say, turning back to the cryo chamber. “I can’t stop the regeneration… But I can delay it.”
Amy steps aside and lets me focus on the controls on the chamber. I feel two sets of eyes on me: Amy’s, begging me to keep Orion frozen, and Orion’s, pleading to come back to life.
“I can do it,” I say finally. “I can slow it down.”
“Do it,” Amy says.
I punch the numbers in, adjust the dial, and the countdown clock goes from one day to three.
“Can we keep doing this?” Amy asks. “Every time the countdown clock gets low, can we just add more time?”
I nod slowly.
“That’s what we’ll do, then,” she says, her jaw set. “We’ll just keep backing it up. He doesn’t ever have to wake up.”
Amy stares into Orion’s bulging eyes with a sort of fierce intensity. But I stare at Amy, unable to recognize this girl with such hatred in her heart.
70 AMY
WHEN ELDER AND I EMERGE FROM THE HATCH, THERE’S already a crowd.
“Is it true?” someone calls out.
“Is what true?” Elder asks.
“Is there still a way off this ship?”
Bartie offers me a hand, pulling me up from the last rungs of the ladder in the hatch. “I had to tell them,” he said. “It’s not like they couldn’t see the giant hatch in the middle of the pond.”
“It’s true!” Elder calls.
“Do we all have to go?” someone else shouts. I whirl around to see who asked this, but I can’t tell. The crowd here seems divided. Those closest to the mud hole that used to be the pond are jubilant. They hug each other, happy tears staining their faces as they celebrate Elder’s words.
But other people linger near the back. They look suspicious and worried, scowling and talking to each other behind their hands. Even from here, I see a few with pale green patches. Some hold the patches in their hands, squeezing the wrapper but not ripping it open. Others already have patches on their arms, already have glazed looks in their eyes.
“We’re going to have another meeting,” Elder shouts. “I’m calling everyone together now.” He pushes his wi-com and does an all-call, telling all 2,296 passengers to come to the garden immediately.
No. Not 2,296. Not anymore. I count the number down in my head. Victria. Luthor. All the top-ranking Shippers. The people who died in the riot. The ones Doc slathered in patches. The population of Godspeed, which always seemed so inimitable to me before, now seems very fragile.
Bartie approaches Elder hesitantly. “Can I… would you mind if I said something too?”
Elder shoots him a wry grin. “Going to try to start another riot?”
“No,” Bartie says. He’s completely serious.
Elder looks up at me, and I take the hint, letting them have their privacy. The two men move away from me, talking in low quiet tones. I can see the strain in Elder’s face as he listens to whatever Bartie is saying, and when they quit talking, they shake hands with a sort of finality that leaves me nervous.
It seems to take forever before everyone gathers at the pond. The people come slowly — I can see them crossing the fields toward us. I touch my hair — I’m not wearing my head wrap or even my jacket, but I don’t care. I’m not afraid of them anymore. Today I shot a man and watched a woman die. Beneath my feet is a shuttle that will take me far away from here. Their opinion of me means nothing.
I stand on the edge of the pond, on the side nearest the wall. As everyone crowds around the edges of the silty muddy remains of the pond, some of them draw closer to me. Many still keep their distance or sneer, but most ignore me. One girl accidentally brushes my arm.