Elder is staring at me as if I’m crazy, but that’s crazy, ha ha, because he’s the one who hangs out at a mental hospital for fun.
The walls are painted a nice shade of blue. So nice. Like a foggy sky.
Something rattles. I look. The doctor places a brown bottle of pills on his desk. I cock my head, staring at them. The pills lay chaotically on the bottom of the bottle. Piled up like little candies.
The doctor and Elder speak.
“You’re right,” the doctor says. “Her condition is unusually severe. Has she had any shocks recently? Trauma? Increased heart rate? These will sometimes make the reaction more severe.”
“Reaction to what?” Eldest says, his voice loud.
The doctor has a funny look on his face.
“To the ship. You’ve got to understand, things are different now from when she lived on Sol-Earth. We have different meds, different food, take more nutritional supplements and vits.”
“Vits,” Elder says, jumping on the word. “Like the ones Eldest puts in the water?”
“Yeess,” the doctor says, drawling the word out in a funny way.
I giggle at him.
Elder turns to stare at me. I giggle at him, too.
“And hormones. Eldest puts hormones in the water. For the Season.”
The doctor shakes his head. “They wouldn’t affect her. It takes time for the hormones to build up in one’s body. They need several weeks, over a month to be effective.”
“She’s been drinking a lot of water lately, though.” Elder looks at my wrists. “And maybe there’s something to that trauma you mentioned.”
I blink, and realize that time has passed, and for a moment I wonder what happened in that time, but it doesn’t matter, nothing’s changed, I’m still here, they’re still talking.
…
I blink. I was gone again.
…
Blink.
Really, it’s easier when I stay gone. It’s too hard to keep up with the words Elder and the doctor say. They are too intense. Why are they so worked up?
Everything is fine.
Elder snaps his fingers in front of my face.
“Amy, Doc thinks you need medicine,” he says loudly.
“She’s unbalanced, not deaf,” the doctor says.
Elder reaches over and grabs the bottle on the doctor’s desk. “These are Inhibitor pills, mental meds. I’m going to give you one, okay, and we’ll see if that fixes you.”
I open my mouth. The pill sits on my tongue, a bitter taste seeping into my mouth.
“Swallow it,” the doctor reminds me.
I swallow.
“Do you remember the night we met?” Elder says. “You were thrashing around in that cryo liquid, and you fought us every step of the way. I had to hold you down so Doc could give you the eyedrops that made you not go blind. And now you just sit there, swallowing the pill like an obedient dog. Don’t you see how that’s just sad?”
“No,” I say. What was there to be sad about?
“How long will it take to work?” Elder asks the doctor.
“I’m not sure,” the doctor says. “Like I said, her mental state is more extreme than many other Feeders. If it will work at all, it should only be a few hours.”
“If?” Elder asks, choking on the word.
His voice drones on and I fade out.
56 ELDER
I LEFT HER WITH DOC FOR THE NIGHT.
Believe me, I didn’t want to. But Doc wanted to give her some meds intravenously, and they knocked her out. She was just sleeping; it wouldn’t do me any good to watch her sleep. I walk around for most of the night, drifting off once in the garden by the pond, but I’m just avoiding the inevitable.
I need to see Eldest.
I take the grav tube up before dawn. The Keeper Level is empty now, but it still smells crowded. Sweat and dirt linger in the air.
Eldest is on the floor, leaning against the wall by his door, staring at the false stars.
“Feeling proud?” I snarl, remembering the last time I found him here, like this.
Eldest doesn’t look at me. “No,” he says simply.
“How can you stand to do it?” I shout. “Lie to them like that?”
“Shaddup,” Eldest snarls, standing up to face me. And then I smell it. That harsh, stringent smell. I don’t see the bottle, but I know it’s got to be somewhere — and it’s probably empty now. But why? Why get drunk now? He’s told his terrible truth, and the people still love him. This is his moment of triumph. What does he have to mourn with liquor?
“Ya don’ know what iz like. But ya will. Ya will.” He leans in close, and his breath burns my nose hairs.
I don’t have time for this drunken stupidity. “What happened to Amy?” I say, leaning in even closer to him. I don’t intimidate him, I can tell, but I don’t back down, either.
Eldest snorts, a great honking wet noise that he’d never allow himself to make when he was sober. “Amy, Amy, Amy,” he mocks. “Throw one pale-skinned freak your direction and your chutz shoots up to tha stars! You’ve forgotten ’bout the ship, ’bout your ’sponsibility!” He stresses every syllable of the last word, jabbing a finger into my chest each time.
“What’s wrong with her?” I roar.
“What’s wrong with you?” Eldest says, still mocking. “What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with this whole frexing ship?”
“Just tell me. Did you do it?”
“Do what?” he asks warily.
“Did you give her something to make her sick?” He’s not above it. I know that much. He gave the Feeders extra hormones before the Season to make them lusty. He gives babies goo to make them who they are. What did he give Amy? And how?
Eldest throws back his head and laughs at me.
So I punch him.
He stops laughing, a red mark already blossoming on his cheek.
“You’d do it too,” he hisses, the stink of his breath making me gag. “You’re more like me than you think.”
I leave. There are no answers to be had from this drunk fool.
When I get back, Amy’s awake.
Sort of.
She lies on her bed with her back perfectly straight, her arms to her side, her toes pointing up, her eyes staring at the ceiling.
I wonder how long it will be until the mental meds kick in.
I don’t use the word Doc used. If.
Tapping the bottle of pills against my leg, I pace around the small room. Finally, I sit at the desk and pick up the floppy on it. The wi-com locator map only shows Harley on the cryo level, standing still in the hallway where the hatch is. Part of me wants to com him and tell him to guard the frozens, but I don’t feel like having another fight. They’ll be fine.
It worries me, though, how obsessed he is with the stars. He hasn’t been this way since Kayleigh died, since Doc upped his mental meds.
I glance at Amy, wondering when the mental meds will fix her.
If.
I turn my back on her, and look at the wall Amy painted the list of victims on. She’s updated the roster, adding Number 63, the woman who didn’t die, and Number 26, the man who did. She’s only been able to add what information she knew at the time — Number 63 is female, black, survived. Number 26 is Theo Kennedy, male, white, bio-weaponry specialist, from Colorado. And dead.
After looking up their files on the floppy, I grab the brush and paint on Amy’s wall to add more details. Number 63 was named Emma Bledsoe. She was thirty-four and worked in the Marines as a tactician. I add Mr. Kennedy’s age — sixty-six — and that his spot aboard Godspeed was funded by the Financial Resource Exchange.