Eldest stands at the pump, holding a bucket of clear viscous liquid.
Doc stands opposite him.
I grab Amy and we whirl back around the corner of the room. Neither of them has seen us — yet. I put my finger to my lips, and Amy nods. We both duck low and peer around the corner to watch them. A chair blocks our vision, but also gives us some level of cover.
“I’m sorry!” Doc shouts over the noise of the pump.
“You shouldn’t have let her see!” Eldest storms toward Doc, his uneven gait making the bucket in his hands swing. Doc eyes it nervously.
“I thought it would make her more willing to behave.”
“Nothing short of Phydus will control her. Why did you give her the Inhibitor pills?”
Eldest sets the bucket down.
“They’re talking about me,” Amy breathes in my ear.
Doc says something else, but his back is to us, and I can’t catch it.
“Well, we’ll just get her tonight and take her to the fourth floor,” Eldest says, picking the bucket back up and lugging it to the pump.
“I don’t think—”
Eldest throws the bucket down. The clear liquid inside sloshes, but it’s denser than water, like syrup, and it doesn’t spill over the side.
“You know what?” Eldest shouts, striding toward Doc. “I don’t really care what you think. If you’d just listened to me the first time, with the other one, we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“What do you—”
“You know what I mean!” Eldest roars. “Elder! You let Elder live!”
Amy grabs for my arm. I had been leaning forward, dangerously close, trying to catch their words.
“Elder is fine,” Doc says.
“Not this Elder. The other Elder.”
Doc stares at Eldest, his face emotionless and cold, but I can tell he’s restraining himself. There’s a thin line of white around his lips, and his jaw clenches.
Eldest is oblivious to Doc’s reaction. “The Elder before this one! The Elder that is supposed to be assuming his duties now so that I can retire instead of wasting the last of my life on a teenager who’s thinking with his chutz and not his head!”
“You told me to take that Elder to the fourth floor, and I did.” Doc stands straighter, defiant.
“But you didn’t kill him like I told you, did you?”
“I thought — the Phydus—”
“I think you should take some more Phydus.” Eldest growls. “Are you protecting him, even now? Are you hiding him?”
“I thought…” Doc looks small and scared. “He disappeared off the wi-com map. I thought he killed himself.”
Eldest snorts. “You never did check to make sure, did you? Now look where we are. Frozens being killed, one of them awake.”
“He’s dead, Eldest. I swear he’s dead.”
I don’t know if Eldest believes him or just wants to believe him. He turns around and picks up the bucket again.
“What is that?” Amy whispers, jerking her head slightly toward the pump.
“It connects to the water supply,” I say, my mind racing. And in that bucket…
Phydus.
I stand up. Amy tries to hold me back, but I shake her off. I can’t let Eldest drug them anymore. I can’t let any more Phydus sink into the water. I’ve got to destroy that pump.
I grab the chair Amy and I had been crouched behind.
“What are you doing here?” Eldest asks with a sneer, catching sight of me.
I raise the chair over my head.
“What are you doing?” Eldest’s voice rises.
My hands shake. I can see the future laid out in front of me — a future with me as leader, not Eldest. And no Phydus.
Do I really want to rule without Phydus? I think of the fading bruises on Amy’s wrist, of the conflicts I’ve seen in the Ward, amplified over the whole ship. Can I rule without Phydus?
Then I think about Amy’s eyes when she was drugged.
I hurl the chair at the pump. It clatters against the metal and bounces onto the floor. The water pump continues to whirr-churn-whirr.
“What are you doing?” Eldest screeches. “You’ve gone mad! Just like the Elder before you!”
“What are you doing?” I yell back. “That’s Phydus, isn’t it? Just getting ready for another day of manipulation and mind-control?”
“YOU ARE NOT FIT TO BE ELDER!” Eldest screams. His white hair flies behind him, and he is the one who looks mad. “If you cannot do this, you cannot lead the ship! You are not strong enough to be leader! You never will be good enough!”
In three strides, I cross the room to Eldest and punch him right in the face. Eldest drops the bucket and falls flat on the ground. His nose is bleeding; the thin skin on his cheek is red and broken. I bend down, grab him by the shirt, and yank him back upright. He opens his mouth to speak, so I punch him again, but I still hold his shirt with one hand so he doesn’t fall.
“I am not weak,” I say. My voice is shaking, not with fear, but with suppressed rage. “I am strong enough to know that Phydus is wrong, and that your attempt to control people with it is nothing but weakness. If you were really strong, you’d lead this ship without drugs to do your dirty work.”
It is not until I am done talking that I realize my voice is the only sound in the room.
“What have you done?” Eldest screams, but not at me — at Amy.
I look up. While I was punching and yelling at Eldest, Amy snuck around the pump, found a tiny door in the side of it, and quite simply ripped out all the wires.
She holds the brightly colored wires in her hand. “Well, that did the trick,” she says, smiling.
73 AMY
I WOULD HAVE FELT SORRY FOR ELDEST’S BROKEN NOSE AND bloody mouth if he weren’t such an evil, twisted tyrant to start with. But considering he’s planned to kill me before — and again, just now, when he told Doc to leave me on the fourth floor — well, let’s just say I didn’t have too much sympathy for the old jackhole.
The doctor puts a hand on Elder’s shoulder. “Elder, we need the drug. This ship won’t operate without the control it affords us.”
Elder almost agrees with him, I can see it in his eyes. “That’s not true,” I say, willing Elder to look at me, to remember how the drug killed me inside. “Yes, it will be harder without the drug. Yes, it may be easier for us all to bear a lifetime without the sky if we’re doped up beyond thought. But that’s no life, not really. In amongst all this sorrow”—I meet Elder’s eyes then, and we both know I’m talking about Harley now—“there is also joy. You can’t have one without the other.”
Elder stumbles away from Doc and Eldest, closer to me.
“I can’t be the kind of leader you want me to,” he says. “I will never, ever be the kind of leader you want me to be. And I will be better because of it.”
Eldest whirls around to Doc. “Do it.”
“Do what?” I say.
Eldest has Doc’s full attention. “We’ll make another. Use different DNA replicators. We’ll get rid of this one and make another.”
“Do what?” Elder says. His eyes are wide, as if he’s afraid of his own thoughts.
Eldest turns on Elder. “You frexing idiot. I can’t believe we share the same DNA!”
“What are you talking about?” Elder’s voice quavers. “Are you… my father?”
“There, there!” Eldest says, pointing. Beyond that wall is the table with the needles, and the big cylinder with golden-yellow liquid and tiny circles of embryos inside.