“Well?” Eldest says. “Was it a malfunction? Another one?”
“Give me a minute.” Doc is bent over the electrical box. He pushes a button, and a door springs open. He pulls out a tiny round metallic object that rests on his fingertip. Eldest hands Doc the floppy he had taken from me, and Doc presses the computer chip into it.
“Well? ”
“… It was turned off.” Doc’s voice is hollow.
“Turned off?”
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“This.” Doc points to the blinking black box near the head of the glass coffin. The light flashes red. “Someone opened the cover and flipped the switch.” He shoots Eldest a look. “Someone with access.”
“This was done on purpose?” I ask, but I suspect the answer already.
Doc glares, and I hope that the anger in his eyes is not directed at me. “Someone came down here. Pulled this drawer out. And flipped this switch. Then walked away as the cryo liquid melted, walked away as the man inside slowly revitalized, slowly died, drowning in his own liquid.”
I want to look away from Doc, but what else should I look at? Eldest, whose rage is burning behind his stony face? Or the dead man with unblinking eyes that shimmer under the blue-speckled cryo liquid?
“Who would do that?” I ask.
“Who could do that?” Eldest asks, his deep voice rumbling behind me like the roar of the centrifugal machine in the labs.
“Few people know about this level,” Doc says. He looks away, and I can already see him slipping into his scientist-doctor mask, the one that’s cool and calculating, the one he wears when he diagnoses in the Ward. “Us,” he says, looking at both me and Eldest in turn. “But also some of the scientists. The ones who have worked in the”—he pauses, flicks his eyes from Eldest to me—“in the other lab, they know, of course.”
Other lab? I think, shooting Doc a look. I bite back the question — I’ve got to be careful what I say, or they won’t tell me anything. “Why?” I ask instead. “Who cares who knows about this place — why would anyone want to do this? Why would anyone intentionally kill someone frozen?”
Silence.
Then: “Why it happened doesn’t matter. What’s important is to find out who — and to take it from there.” Eldest’s voice is cold and horrible.
“But—”
Doc steps in front of me, drawing Eldest a few steps away. “Promise me,” he hisses. “Promise me this isn’t some sort of sick test you’ve devised for Elder.”
Eldest gives Doc a quelling, disgusted look, as if he’s affronted Doc would even think it.
But he doesn’t answer.
“Let’s take care of this,” Eldest says to me. He shoves past Doc and fiddles with a latch near the table that I’d not seen before. The table breaks away from the little door that had held the dead man’s box, and Eldest wheels the table down the aisle. The cryo liquid sloshes back and forth with his pace, spilling bubbles of sparkling liquid onto the ground. I can hear a soft thump, swish, thump over the thuds of Eldest’s feet, and I know it’s from the body hitting the glass, muffled by the liquid.
“Come on,” Doc says. We follow the splatters of liquid like bread-crumbs in that Sol-Earth children’s tale.
Past the rows and rows of little doors. Past three rows of narrow metal lockers, each with a simple combination lock on the door. Past a series of tables with papers and diagrams on them. Down a hallway. And at the end of the hallway: a hatch door, made of thick metal painted a dull yellow, with a round bubble glass window in the center.
The lock on the door looks old — it’s a keypad, not a thumb swipe. It must be original to the ship; we’ve upgraded a lot over the years. I watch as Eldest types in the code. It’s simple enough to remember: Godspeed.
Eldest swings open the door and pushes the table inside.
“What are you—” I start, but Eldest has already lifted the edge of the table and let the thick glass coffin and the body inside it crash to the floor. Mr. William Robertson, Number 100, bounces as half the liquid sloshes out. His body hangs over the edge of the box, twisted around in a position that would have hurt if he were still alive. His open eyes stare at the ceiling, and both his hands curl up from the floor.
Eldest shoves me back out into the hallway and slams the hatch door shut after him.
“What are you doing?” I say again.
Eldest pushes the button on the keypad, the big red one without any markings on it.
Through the bubble glass window, I see the hatch door on the opposite wall fly open, and then Mr. William Robertson, Number 100, is sucked out into the stars. And I see them — the stars — real stars, millions of pinpoints of light, like glitter thrown into the air by a child. Now that I have seen these, I can never be deceived by lightbulbs again.
These stars, these real stars, are the most beautiful things I have ever seen. The stars make me believe there is a world out there beyond this ship.
And for just a moment, I envy Mr. William Robertson, Number 100, who is floating in a sea of stars.
21 AMY
THE WALLS OF THE ROOM CAVE IN AROUND ME. WITHOUT realizing it, I have begun to pace, back and forth, back and forth, but this room is too tiny to contain me. The window is solid, thick, and cannot be opened. I begin stretching my calf muscles without realizing what I am doing. My body has decided for me: I need to run.
I wasn’t kidding when I told the doctor I liked running. I joined the cross-country team as a freshman, but what I really wanted to do was run marathons. Jason used to laugh at me — he could never understand why anyone would want to run when there are video games to play and TV to watch. The closest he came to exercise was VR games.
I smile, but almost as soon as the corners of my mouth curve up, they sink again.
I can’t let myself think about Jason.
I need to run.
The clothes I am wearing are wildly inappropriate for running: loose trousers and a looser tunic paired with thin moccasin-like shoes. I smile. My mom, at least, would be happy. I always ran in these really short, tight running shorts and a sports tank, and it drove her mad. She would say it was like I was inviting the wrong sort of attention, but I just did it because I ran better in those clothes. We had a fight about it, once, a real screaming, yelling fight. It got so bad that Daddy had to jump in the middle and say I could run naked if we’d both just shut up about it. It was such a stupid thing to say that all three of us just laughed and laughed.
It hurts to think about that now.
On Earth I had short socks and Nikes. I always ran with a wide hair band on my head and music plugged into my ears. This wardrobe has only more of the same handspun clothes. I stretch my foot — the moccasins are certainly not $200 running shoes, but at least I have flexibility. It would have to do. I braid my hair and wrap the end with a bit of string I yank from one of the more raggedy pairs of trousers.
It takes me a couple of wrong turns to find my way out, but I soon discover a large room with glass walls and a pair of heavy glass doors. It’s a common room of sorts; there are tables and chairs scattered casually around the room. There’s only one person in the room, a tall man with biceps as big as my head. His gaze devours me, and his eyes pause too long in places I don’t want him looking. I glare back at him until he turns back toward the window, but I can tell he’s staring at my reflection. I don’t breathe properly until the elevator doors close.