“Ready!” Tear shouted, and the computer tech near Lily began to chatter into his earpiece in their strange language.
A hollow boom echoed on Lily’s left, followed by distant screams. When she craned her neck to see over the beams that covered the deck, she found that one of Tear’s ships was on fire, its back end flaming, gouts of black smoke billowing up into the night.
“Torpedo!” someone cried. A second explosion echoed, and then the ship wasn’t even half a ship anymore, only a smoldering ruin on the heaving ocean. Everyone on the deck of Lily’s ship had run to the railing, but Lily could not leave Jonathan, so only she saw William Tear turn away, clutching something in his outstretched right hand, all of his attention focused on the eastern horizon.
“We’re not even armed!” a woman cried.
The destroyers were closing now, less than half a mile away. Lily wondered why they hadn’t fired as well, but after a moment’s consideration, she knew: they meant to take the rest of Tear’s ships, to board them. Security loved its prisoners, after all. Lily’s burn wound throbbed, even though her palm had scabbed over with a dark crust, and she knew that whatever happened, she wasn’t going back.
Bright light suddenly engulfed the ship, blinding. Lily threw her hands over her eyes, a low squeal escaping her throat, thinking of the halo device that Tear’s people had used in the Security compound. Terror suddenly overwhelmed her, the terror that it had all been a dream, that she would wake up and find herself back in that room, facing the accountant, the box. But when she peeked through her fingers, she saw that this light wasn’t electric. It was plain old daylight, a soft glow on her arms.
Lily turned toward the light and screamed.
There was a hole in the eastern horizon. Lily had no other way to describe what she saw. The black shawl of night still covered the sky above her head, but as it dipped east, the shawl tore open, its jagged edges surrounding the hole like a broken portrait frame. Inside the frame was day, a pink and orange horizon above the azure water, as though the sun were about to rise. The light bathed everything, and Lily could see all of the other ships around her now, clearly, their flying sails stained orange in the dawn.
Thunder boomed behind them, shaking the deck.
“Get down!” a man cried, and Lily ducked, covering her head. But the whistling shot went right over them, over all of the ships, toward the hole in the horizon. Hatred blazed inside Lily, so strong that if any Security officer had appeared in front of her in that instant, she would have torn his heart out with her bare hands. They were trying to close whatever doorway Tear had opened … trying to take the better world.
“Tell them to get through!” Tear shouted from the prow. “We don’t have long!”
Their ship was in the lead, nearing the hole, and now Lily could feel warmth on her arms, the heat of sunlight against her skin. A cacophony of screams rang across the deck, wild screams from the people at the railing, and now Lily was screaming herself, feeling as though her entire body were tethered to that open horizon. As they passed through, she let go of the rope and hoisted Jonathan up, shaking him awake.
“The better world!” she shouted in his ear. “The better world!”
But Jonathan did not open his eyes. All around her, on the deck and on the other ships, Lily could hear them, her people, their cries of jubilation echoing across the open ocean. Behind them, the hole still remained, a dark stain through which nothing was visible against the western horizon. At least fifteen ships had made it through, but now the edges of the hole were collapsing inward, its circumference beginning to shrink. Lily didn’t know if the last ships would make it. Turning back to the east, she found William Tear clutching the railing, his face white as a sheet. For a moment, his entire body seemed to glow pure blue against the rising sun, and then he collapsed to the deck.
Lily turned to tell Jonathan, but Jonathan was dead.
LILY.”
She looked up, squinting in the dim moonlight, and scrambled to her feet.
Tear looked exhausted. Lily hadn’t seen him in two days, not since that night, and she was relieved to see him up and about; the longer he was absent from the deck, the more certain Lily became that he had somehow killed himself performing his miracle, that he, like Jonathan, would not wake up. Lily had asked Dorian about Tear, but Dorian was noncommittal. Lily had tried to make friends with several of the other passengers and found them kind but cautious; no one knew who she was. A younger woman, perhaps Dorian’s age, had patched her wounds, but for the past two days there had been nothing for Lily to do but sit by herself, watch the horizon, and wait for Tear.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he replied, but Lily still had her doubts. He looked like a man who had suffered some sort of wasting illness. “But I need your help. Come with me.”
She followed him toward the stern, trying to tiptoe quietly among the sleeping people who covered the deck. Tear, as always, seemed to make no noise at all, and he led her down the ladder to the deep hold belowdecks. The hold had a strange medieval feel, for only lamps and firelight lit all of its rooms; no electric lights anywhere. A broad, dormitory-like area lined with empty cots took up the bulk of the hold. There were over a hundred people on this ship, but most of them didn’t want to spend time inside. They preferred to stay on deck, their eyes scouring the horizon. Tear had prepared for this eventuality; at the far end of the dormitory was a room that contained not only plenty of food and water but about fifty gallons of sunscreen. Lily thought this room was where they were going, but Tear bypassed it for the next, which was understood to be private, for his use only. As they walked in, Lily saw that the room’s walls were lined with bookshelves, each of them filled with hundreds of books. But Lily had no time to marvel at these. In the center of the room, Dorian was standing over a table, staring down at what could only be a body wrapped in a sheet, the shroud sewn together by hasty fingers.
“It’s time, Dori.”
She looked up, and Lily saw, even in the dim glow of firelight, that her eyes were reddened from long crying. She looked a question at Lily.
“He would want her here,” Tear replied. He levered an arm beneath the corpse’s shoulders, hauling it up. “Come on. All together.”
Dorian grasped Jonathan’s waist, leaving Lily to take the legs. Together, they heaved the body off the table, balancing it carefully on their shoulders. Lily could smell the corpse now, a hint of decay that seeped right through the sheet, but she ignored it, thinking of Jonathan, who had thought she was worth saving, who would never see the better world. Her eyes watered, and she wiped at them savagely, stinging her corneas, as they started up the stairs.
On deck, everything was quiet except for the waves lapping gently at the sides of the ship. In the moonlight Lily could just glimpse the other ships on either side of them, not too far off, keeping pace. In the end, only seventeen of them had made it through; three were lost, sunk forever in Hudson Bay. From overheard conversations, Lily knew that not all of the ships were packed with people, like this one. One ship carried livestock: cows, sheep, and goats. Another carried horses. Still another ship, its boards bleached nearly white, was carrying medical supplies and personnel. But all Lily could see now were the sails, little more than faint gleams under the dying moon.
They carried Jonathan to the rear of the ship, a place where few people chose to sleep, because the rigging blocked the view of the eastern horizon. At Tear’s direction, they balanced the body carefully on the railing. Lily’s arms ached, but she gave no sign of it. The burn on her palm had broken open again, oozing pus, but she hid that as well, surreptitiously blotting it on her jeans. She wished she had some clean clothes. She hadn’t showered in days. Other people were still wearing the same outfits as the night they’d launched; what would they do for clothing in the new world? There were so many uncertainties, and the only man who could answer them was Tear … but now wasn’t the time. Beyond the helm, the eastern sky was turning pale, but when Lily peeked over the railing at the stern, she could see nothing but darkness.