A Million Suns (23 page)

49

ELDER

“ELDER, THERE'S—YOU NEED TO COME TO THE CITY.”

Doc's com arrives just when I don't need it to. I'd gone to confront Luthor as soon as Amy had told me everything he'd done. I'd never been so mad in my entire life. I can still feel the rage coursing through my blood, although it's somewhat cooled now.

“Frex!” I shout. “All I've done is run across the ship from one place to another! I'm frexing tired of this!”

Doc's silent on the wi-com a moment. “You won't be doing that soon.”

For a moment, I think he's talking about the planet, but no—I've not told him about that yet. Only Amy and the first-level Shippers know.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Elder, it's chaos. It's—mutiny.”

“Frex!”

“I think it's Bartie, but—look, you've got to come out here.”

 

It takes me a while to get from the cyro level to the City, but I race as fast I can, driven by the urgency in Doc's voice. I can tell before I'm at the City that something is very, very wrong. I hear it first—or, rather, I
don't
hear it. I don't hear the regular noises of the City, the undercurrent of sound that is always there during the day merely from the people living. Instead, muffled voices and footsteps reverberate.

That's when I see it.

The Food Distro is at the end of the main street, and that's where everyone's pressing together. They're all looking at one thing.

Fridrick, dead.

His body is plastered with so many med patches that they cling to his skin like scales. Someone's taken a great swath of cloth, probably from a bolt in the weaving district, and hung it from the windows of the third floor of the Distro. Fridrick's body hangs from the center, sagging the cloth down precariously, his arms and head flopped over the front.

In big bold letters painted in black across the front of the impromptu banner:
Follow the leader
.

“This is a message!” a voice roars. My eyes drop from the banner and the body down to the front of the Food Distro, where Bartie stands.

I realize that the people hadn't been silent in order to observe Fridrick's death. They had been silently waiting for Bartie to speak.

“Anyone who won't blindly obey the
leader
”—he sneers the word—“will be dealt with! Have we not seen it with Stevy? As soon as he protested against Elder—dead!”

“Protested against me” is a bit of an understatement—the man beat me across the face.

“And we all know Fridrick's protests! He was trying to save us all, keep the food stores in check—and look! Elder forced him to distribute food, and now there isn't enough! And Fridrick's protests”—he pauses dramatically, swooping his arm up to the body above him—“have been silenced!”

If Bartie's trying to stir up a revolution, it's not working that great. Although the front of the crowd cheers him on, I can't help but smile smugly at the fact that at least two-thirds of the crowd is silent—worried, but not ready to overthrow the only government they've ever known.

Still, I'm not going to let him stand there and frexing lie about me.

I push my wi-com and order an all-call.

“Attention, all residents of
Godspeed
,” I say. The group at the front of the crowd stills. Many turn to look at me. “As you are well aware, the Eldest system has worked on this ship for countless gens. I chose to work a little differently from my predecessor. I chose to give you the ability to make choices for yourself.”

 

Beep, beep-beep
.

 

“Attention, all residents of
Godspeed
,” Bartie's voice says in my wi-com. My head snaps up. Bartie's looking over the crowd, straight at me. “Elder is not the only one who can control the wi-com system. But he is right. He gave us a choice. And for that, I thank him.” He bows his head a fraction of an inch in my direction. “Because he gave you the ability to choose someone other than him.”

The crowd's attention is entirely on Bartie now. How the frex did he break into the wi-com system? Only a few select members of the crew—me, Doc, the First Shipper—have the permissions needed to do all-calls. Bartie must have hacked into the system.

I slam my hand into my wi-com. “System override,” I order, then begin another all-call. “People of
Godspeed,”
I say in as loud a voice as I can. “Calm down. This is not the time for mutiny and dissent. This morning, I discovered we are much closer to Centauri-Earth than we ever thought. We will begin planet-landing—soon. Very soon. You only have to—”

“LIES!” Bartie roars, not through his wi-com, but from his perch at the Food Distro. His face is twisted, enraged, and the word expels from him like a rock thrown into the crowd.

“It's not a lie,” I insist, my voice crackling over the wi-com. “Please, everyone, calm down. The mission—”

 

Beep, beep-beep.

 

“Frex the mission!” Bartie roars into the wi-com all-call system. “This is just one more way that Elder wants to manipulate you! Look around you, friends! This—
this
—is all we have!
Godspeed
is our home, there's no point in trying to reach Centauri-Earth anymore! There is only this—and freedom!”

“I gave you freedom!” I shout, then remember to use my wi-com. Before I can, though, Bartie overrides me.

“He may say he's given you freedom, but think about how much he still controls. He makes all the decisions. He controls who eats, and how much. He controls who gets what meds—and he is the one who let the poison Phydus back on this ship. That was his decision, his choice, and you paid for it.”

I remember that day I found him in the Recorder Hall.
Technical Instruction on Communication Systems
. And a history of the French Revolution. He was probably the one who hacked into the floppy system—but I wonder, if I had handled things differently, would his rebellion have stopped there rather than escalating into a mob gathered around Fridrick's dead body?

“What about the food?” someone calls from near the back.

Bartie pushes back the doors of the Food Distro. “Take what you can,” he shouts. “There's little left.”

And that does it.

The people stampede into the Food Distro. The windows in the front are smashed open and people start running through them. The mob swarms forward in a surge so fast that Bartie has to dive out of the way. People fight their way out of the building, rolling barrels or hefting heavy sacks of food on their backs. Others start fighting them, ripping open the sacks and brawling over the contents. In the rush, Fridrick's body flops out of its tenuous hold on the banner, crashing into the ground. The mob swells back, then washes over where he landed, ignoring the body in the rush for food.

Fighting breaks out. It starts out as shoving as people wrestle their way to the front of the crowd, closer to the food stores. Shoves turn into punches, punches turn into brawls. Food is forgotten as two men turn on each other. The larger man punches the smaller one in the mouth, and an arc of blood sprays out over the crowd. The smaller man's friends leap into the fight, and soon there are so many punching and kicking and shouting that I can't even find the original two fighters amid the fists and blood, the sound of flesh hitting flesh.

I've seen the chaos of Sol-Earth from vids and pics on the floppy network. But this is different. I'm in it here.

A woman shouts, “Get out of the frexing way!” as a barrel of milk rolls down the street. She chases after it, screaming at anyone who gets too close to it.

“The Greenhouses!” a man roars, leading a group of twenty or so off the main road toward the produce section. Shite. They're going to kill every crop we have.

I try to do another all-call. No one even notices.

A man shoves a woman out of his way; the woman crashes to the ground. Another man leaps to her defense, slamming his fist into the first man. Before I can even respond, two more men enter the fray. The woman scrambles out of the way as the fight grows. The bag of produce the man had been carrying crashes to the ground, spilling its contents—tomatoes and peppers—out onto the street. Some of the others pick up the smashed vegetables and start hurtling them at the fighters. The circle of fighting grows and grows.

And then one of them turns to me. I had lingered at the back of the crowd, away from the surging masses, when I should have run away.

“It's Elder!” he roars. “Get him!”

They turn as one, a multi-headed monster ready to strike.

“Fire!” someone screams. A trail of smoke rises through the windows, snaking out around the
Follow the leader
sign.

In the distraction, I run for it. As I turn down a side street, I press my wi-com.

“Amy,” I say as soon as she answers. “Get to your room. Lock your door.” I disconnect before she has a chance to respond.

I head straight to the grav tube. As I go, I see others running too, hiding, going for their homes or the fields, racing, like me, to some kind of shelter. A man pulls a woman behind him into the butcher's block. He grabs a cleaver and stands in the doorway, daring anyone to attack. Another woman collapses on the steps leading to her home, clutching her stomach and screaming.

As the grav tube sucks me up, I see the chaos spread out before me. The Food Distro is truly in flames now, the smoke heavy and black, already making the painted sky above it gray.

My eyes adjust slowly on the Shipper Level. It seems dark compared to the brightness of the solar lamp on the Feeder Level. And quieter. While the Feeder Level was all boiling action, the tension here feels like a dense fog.

Shelby rushes to me; she'd clearly been waiting for my arrival.

“What do we do?” she asks.

The entire level seems to come to a standstill as everyone waits for me to answer.

“Get the first-level Shippers—meet me at the door to the Bridge,” I say.

“But sir—what about the Feeder Level?”

“That's an order,” I say. “Immediately.”

I stare her down. I try to assume the cold, impassive face that Eldest wore so well, the look that demanded obedience. I don't know if I can make that face work, even though Eldest and I share the same DNA. I should be able to arrange my features—the same as his—into an identical look of power and command, but the more I think of it, the more I feel like a little kid trying on Daddy's shoes.

She does it, though. She pushes her wi-com, gives the orders to the First Shippers, and then strides down the hall toward the Bridge.

Before I follow her, I have some coms of my own to make.

“Com link req: Bartie,” I say, pushing my wi-com.

A moment later, Bartie answers my com.

“You're going to destroy us all,” I say.

“You opened the door.” Bartie's voice is strained, as if he's running—running from the mob he himself created. “I just pushed them through it.”

50

AMY

I HEARD THE WI-COMS FIRST.

Then I saw the smoke.

Then I could hear, far in the distance—the sound of the ship in revolt.

Elder coms me and at first I'm relieved—at least I know he's escaping the mob—but he sounds as if he's running—fleeing—and the com cuts out before I can say anything.

I run straight to the Hospital, to the elevator, to the cryo level.

 

It is silent here, and cold.

Above me there is rage, and fire, and chaos.

But here: stillness and ice.

 

I pull my parents out at the same time, relishing in the feel of cold metal on my skin, the
ch-thunk
sound the cryo chambers make as they settle on their stands.

“Today,” I whisper, “I miss
you
.”

I know it's stupid, I know it's pointless, but there is still within me a tiny part of my mind that believes my parents can fix anything. Even a mutinous ship, even people who are tearing apart the only home they've known. Even me, caught in the eye of this storm.

Elder said the ship would be landing soon,
a voice whispers to the piece of me that still cries for them.

When the ship lands, they'll be woken up anyway. Why not wake them up now?

Why not?

Why not?

 

Why not?

51

ELDER

THE FREX AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH A SHIP IN REVOLT? IF they'd just
listen
, we could be discussing preparations for planet-landing. Instead, the people seem intent on ripping the ship apart at the seams.

I storm into the irrigation room first.

“Drop the strongest rain program we have,” I order the Shipper on duty, Tearle.

“Elder,” Tearle protests. “That has the potential to cause minor flash floods on the streets.”

“Do it,” I order.

“How long should the rain be?” He sounds reluctant, but he moves over to the water controls regardless.

“I'll tell you when to stop it.”

I go across the hall to the solar lamp operations. The solar lamp is automated, but the level of heat is regulated by one Shipper, a mousy woman who looks as if she'd be more comfortable on one of the farms. Her name is Larin.

I take out a floppy and pull up the security vid feeds from around the City. The vids show the Food Distro—the rain is flooding it, and the fire is already turning into smoldering ruins. I swipe my hand across the screen to vids of the farms, the Greenhouses, the main street of the City. People are fighting and screaming through the rain. Although there's no sound on these vids, I don't need it. I know what a rebellion sounds like.

“I want you to cover the solar lamp,” I tell Larin. She's been watching me, worried, waiting for my command.

“It's the middle of the day, Elder!” She looks at me as if I'm crazy.

I suppose I am. The solar lamp is never cut off, but a heavy metal screen covers it during the ship's version of night. It's all scheduled, so dark time lasts exactly eight hours and only happens when it's the proper time. Not now.

“Cover the lamp,” I order again.

“But—”

“Cover it.”

She stands up and crosses the small room to the control panel. Larin's fingers hover over a switch. She mutters something.

“What was that?” I demand.

“Maybe Bartie is right,” she says clearly.

I stride across the room and slam my hand against the switch. Beneath us, the Feeder Level is plunged into darkness. But here we're not. I lean in close to Larin's face. If Marae were here—frex, if Eldest were here . . .

She stares back defiantly.

Then looks away.

“Uncover the lamp,” I order.

Her hand shoots forward, flicking the lamp back on. She stares back at me, hoping that I'm about to leave. But I don't. Instead, I wait another minute.

On the floppy, the vids show the people staring at the sky, trying to peer through the torrential downpour to see the solar lamp. It has never gone dark other than at scheduled nighttime. At least I've shocked them enough to stop the fighting.

“Cover the lamp again,” I say.

She hesitates, but doesn't protest this time.

I watch the screens black out once more.

And I push my wi-com and do an all-call. “Attention, all residents of
Godspeed
. Everyone on board the ship—every single person—is to report to the Keeper Level Great Room this evening at dark time.”

“Bring back the lamp,” I tell the Shipper when I disconnect the wi-com.

She flips the switch immediately, but she doesn't take her eyes off me.

I press my wi-com button one more time. It won't take Bartie long to come up with his own sort of all-call, something about how I have no right ordering everyone to come to me or something like that.

“Wi-com, Eldest override,” I say. “Authorization code: 00G. Disable all communication; exception: Eldest device.”

I turn around and leave the solar lamp room, order Tearle to stop the rain, and then head down the hall. Now Bartie can't com anyone. None of them can but me. At least Amy's safely locked in her room.

As I cross the Shipper Level, I can feel them all watching me. The Shippers stop their work until I pass, eyes following me down the hall.

Before, I would have felt that their eyes contained questions and doubt, and that would have made me crumble.

But now, I don't care. I'm taking the authority that should have been mine from the start.

For the first time in my life, I feel as if I am truly Eldest.

•••

Shelby and the first-level Shippers are waiting for me at the Bridge. I stride straight to them and lock the door behind me.

“What have the scans shown?” I demand. If it's going to take a planet-landing to stop this shite from Bartie and his so-called revolution, I'll land the frexing ship. But I won't do it unless I know the ship can make it.

While Shelby brings up the scans on a floppy, I seethe. It's irrational, but I can't help but blame Orion for some of this. Maybe there really is something in his frexing clues that would get us to the planet easier, but the man was so loons he hid the information.

Shelby hands me the floppy. “All the scans indicate that the planet's environment is habitable. The planet has water, breathable air, vegetation. . . . There's nothing to indicate that we can't land,” she says.

There's a catch in her voice.

“What's wrong?”

“Our records indicate that there are supposed to be a set of deeper-level probes on the Bridge,” she says. “We've looked everywhere and can't find them.”

“Why do we need probes if the scans are clear?”

“We don't
technically
need them. But—it's in our records that the probes should be deployed. Besides, I'm worried. . . . Why have we been here, in orbit, all this time? Why didn't we planet-land when we got here? And . . . not only are the probes missing, but so are the communication boxes.”

“The what?”

“There was a system set up to communicate with Sol-Earth. In our records, we have diagrams and manuals for operation and how to fix them if they break . . . but they're not there. It's not just that we lost communication with Sol-Earth—it's that our only method of communicating with them is entirely gone.”

The other first-level Shippers all look nervous behind Shelby; they're worried too. Something's not right.

“Whatever the reason,” I say, “it doesn't matter now. Now we're at a point where we need to land. And we can. So we will.”

Shelby nods.

“Are you all prepared for planet-landing?” I ask.

Shelby straightens her shoulders. “I've gone over several sims with the first-level Shippers. We are good to go.”

I glance at the elaborate control panels at the front of the Bridge. “It looks complicated.”

“It's not. Actually, there's an autopilot—” Shelby finally leans up and points to the center of the long control panel, where there are only a few controls. “The ship is designed to land itself when directed. The rest of the controls are for if something goes wrong. This?” She points to a large black button. “Initiates the planet-landing launch.”

“But you said the engine's thrusters weren't working.”

Shelby laughs, and there's relief in the sound of it. “They're not—but we don't need those. There's a different set of thrusters with a separate fuel system for planet-landing—short, high-powered burst thrusters just for breaking orbit. It doesn't matter at all that the main thrusters are out. We'll . . . never need them.” There's wonder in her voice. She's only just realizing just how much has changed with the introduction of this planet.

“So, I just push this button,” I say, pointing to the big black one, “and we land?”

“Technically. But it's not as simple as that,” Shelby explains. “You'd need that throttle to help direct where the ship goes after re-entry. And there's always the chance that the re-entry doesn't go smoothly; then you need—” She indicates the rest of the Bridge. “But don't worry. Me and the other Shippers know how. And the controls work. Our records indicate that we've had to use the Bridge controls at least six times throughout the flight—we crossed an asteroid belt many gens ago, and our ancestors before the Plague had to adjust the flight plan.”

She meets my eyes and, despite herself, a grin spreads across her face. “We're going to land this thing, aren't we?”

“Oh, yes,” I say. “But before we do that, I'm going to show everyone what they almost lost.”