A Million Suns atu-2 Read online

  BACK IN MY ROOM, I CAN’T QUIT PACING. ORION LEFT CLUES — for me? About something important, something life or death, apparently. Could it be about the death of the ship? The stopped engines?

  And — how has he already given me the first clue?

  I stop pacing and stare at my bedroom wall, catching sight of the chart I’d painted there. It’s been three months since Elder stopped Orion from murdering the frozens in the military. Before that I’d tried to identify the murderer by painting the list of victims on my wall. I trace the sloppy letters, the paint so thick that the edges leave tiny shadows on the white wall. Thin lines of black drips have dried like witches’ fingers reaching for the floor. One line is longer and thicker than the others. It cuts through the dusty ivy Harley had once, long ago, painted for his girlfriend, whose room this once was.

  Black scrawls on a dirty wall. That is all Orion ever gave me, other than the bodies of victims.

  I close my eyes and breathe deeply, remembering the way the paint smelled as I dipped Harley’s paintbrush into it.

  Paint.

  Harley.

  That’s what Orion gave me. The only thing he ever really gave me. Harley’s last painting. When Harley was in the cryo level, piecing together bits of wire so he could open the hatch and slaughter himself in the vacuum of space, he gave his last finished painting to Orion — who gave it to me. After Harley’s death, I was too sad to look at it and asked that Elder take it to Harley’s room for me.

  Which is where it must still be… I race out of my room and down the hall. Harley’s room is easy to find — smudges of color create a rainbow path straight to his door.

  His room smells of dust and turpentine, like old mistakes. The slats over his window stream artificial light over a small plant in a homemade pot that has long since died. Speckles of dust glitter in the bars of light.

  It feels like a violation, stepping into this room. My hand lingers by the door frame, my thumb still resting on the biometric scanner.

  I step inside slowly, still holding onto the door frame with one hand, reluctant to dive fully into this den of Harley’s past. My fingers slide from the wall to the dresser pressed against it, leaving four shiny paths in the dust on top. Is this three months worth of dust, or more? I never saw Harley in his room, only saw him leaving it once as we passed in the hall. I cannot picture him in it now. It is too small, too cramped. This is more like storage than a home.

  But Harley was an artist, a true artist, and his storage is more precious than anything I’ve seen in a museum. Canvases are stacked against the wall. I flip through a row of them, all facing the room. One is nothing but splatters of paint and black ink, an experiment failed, I think. There’s another koi fish, the same kind of painting Harley did for me, but this one is more cartoonish and less realistic, with lighter colors that would be pastel if they weren’t so brightly clashing.

  The last painting faces the wall, but even before I turn it around, I see the rips in the canvas, ragged edges leaking threads.

  It’s a painting of a girl. There’s a smile on her lips, but none in her deep and watery eyes. She looks like she’s just emerged from a bath or a swimming pool; her hair is dripping wet, and droplets leave dark stains trailing down her face.

  The cuts on the canvas were made in anger — they’re jagged and rough. Someone — Harley? — has gone back and tried to repair the canvas, but no one could put her face back together again.

  Kayleigh. It has to be. My fingers run down the thick paint of her hair. This is the girl Harley lost, the one that made him lose himself.

  Suddenly, I feel like a trespasser, violating Harley’s sanctuary. It doesn’t matter that he’s gone: this room is still his, and I do not belong.

  I came for the painting. I should get it and go. I scan the room, looking for the one painting that belongs to me. There, there, under the window — the black black sky. The silver-white sprinkles of stars. The orangey-gold koi swimming around his ankle. Harley.

  I rush across the room toward the canvas, and my hip knocks into a ruler on the edge of the table, sending the papers stacked on top of it flying. I drop to my knees and try to gather as many as I can. I can see sketches — a girl swimming, a girl floating, an empty pond filled with belly-up fish — but while I want to take my time and look, really look, at the drawings, I feel like I shouldn’t, that it’s forbidden to even be touching them.

  “What are you doing here?” a voice hisses from the doorway, and all my fears are confirmed. The wrongness of being in this room tugs at my navel.

  I look up. Victria is outlined by the light of the hall. She steps inside, and a blanket of shadows falls over her.

  “Well?” From the angry impatience of her voice, I can tell that whatever happened between us in the library doesn’t count. What counts is that I’ve violated the sanctity of one of her only friends’ rooms.

  She clutches a small leather-bound book so tightly that her knuckles are white. I can’t understand this girl — she hates me for telling her about the sky; she ignores the fact that I saved her from Luthor; she despises me for just being in Harley’s room.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she spits out.

  “I know — I—”

  Victria crosses the room and snatches the papers from my hand, gripping them so forcefully that the thin sheets crumple and a few rip. “These aren’t yours!”

  My eyes narrow. “This is.” I draw the canvas closer to me. It is mine.

  “Whatever.” She gingerly starts to pick up Harley’s scattered drawings. I could not be more clearly dismissed.

  I start to leave, lugging the canvas with me. When I turn around at the door, Victria’s ignoring me. She’s replaced the papers on the table and is smoothing one down. I glance over her to see the sketch. It’s supposed to be Elder, I think, but he looks older, and there’s a smirk on his charcoal lips that I’ve never seen on Elder’s real lips. It’s odd for Harley’s drawings not to be spot-on.

  She doesn’t notice me as I step closer. I have never seen that look of longing on Victria’s face before. I haven’t seen it on anyone before — except when Harley told me about Kayleigh.

  “Victria?” I ask.

  She jumps, jerking her hand and sending Harley’s sketch of Elder skidding across the table. “You have your painting, now go!”

  I study her face. Her eyes flick once more to the table and the drawing, betraying the love I see hidden there.

  I go without saying another word.

  It’s not until I’m back in my room, dipping the brush into the thick white paint, that I realize the sketch wasn’t of Elder at all. The wrinkles at his eyes, the crooked twist of his lips — that had to be Orion.

  15 ELDER

  Doc coms me as I leave the Recorder Hall.

  “Where are you now?” he asks.

  “Recorder Hall.”

  “Good. Come out to the wall near the garden.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t explain it. Just come on out.”

  “But — I wanted to speak with…”

  “Speak with Amy?” he asks, biting off each word.

  Yes. I did. All Bartie’s outburst and the slashed painting have done is remind me that Amy is one of the few people on this whole frexing ship who isn’t waiting for me to fail. I have to apologize — again — for calling her a freak. I want to tell her that I don’t care what she needs to feel safe on Godspeed, I’ll give it to her. I want to tell her that if the only thing that will bring the smile back to her eyes is waking up her parents, maybe we should do it. And even if I know I can’t actually tell her that last bit, I want to look her in the eyes and make sure she knows that I would if I could.

  My silence is answer enough for Doc.

  “Elder, this is your job. You can’t decide when you’re Eldest and when you’re not. You. Are. Always. Eldest. Even if you don’t take the title.” Ah. There’s the berating I’d been waiting for.

  I sigh. “Fine. Be there soon.”


  Doc’s apprentice, Kit, meets me in the garden. Doc didn’t want to take on an apprentice, but he’s of the age that he will need a replacement, and I insisted. Of all the nurses that applied for apprenticeship, Kit was the best. Not the best with medicine — Doc constantly complains about what a slow learner she is — but she’s the best with the people, and I decided that Doc needs someone more human beside him as he works. Doc wasn’t happy with my decision, but he accepted it.

  “Thank you,” Kit says. “We just weren’t sure what to do.”

  “What’s going on?” I ask, following her down the path, past the hydrangeas and the pond to the metal wall behind the garden.

  Doc crouches on the ground, for once negligent about the dirt and grass stains that must be seeping into his pants.

  A woman kneels in front of the wall. She looks a little like some of the pictures of people praying on Sol-Earth — her hands rest on the ground, palms up, and her body bends forward, her face resting on the metal wall.

  “She won’t get up,” Doc says.

  I squat down beside her. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Doc shakes his head. “She just won’t get up.”

  I put my hand on the woman’s back. She doesn’t flinch — she doesn’t acknowledge my presence at all. My hand creeps up to her shoulder, and I apply as gentle pressure as I can until her body weight shifts back. She leans away, sitting on her ankles.

  I know her.

  I try to know everyone on the ship, but I can’t. There are too many of them, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t know them all. But I do know this woman.

  Her name is Evalee, and she works in the food storage district in the City. I stayed with her family when I was a little kid; I don’t remember exactly when. I don’t think she was on Phydus when I lived with her family, but she definitely was on it later, when I visited her before moving to the Keeper Level. Even so, she was always kind to me. She put salve on my hand when I burned it while learning how to can string beans, and she ignored the way I cried even though I was old enough to know that such a small burn didn’t deserve tears.

  “Evie,” I say. “It’s me. Elder. What’s wrong?”

  She looks at me, but her eyes are as dead as if she was still drugged. Deader. Evie doesn’t turn away as she reaches one hand up and scratches against the wall in front of her.

  “No way out,” she whispers.

  She turns her head, slowly, to the wall. Like a child sinking into her pillow, Evie rests her face against the metal. Her fingernails scrape slowly down the wall, so softly I can barely hear it. Her hand hits the dirt and relaxes, palm up.

  Doc watches us with a grim expression on his face. I look up at him.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  Doc’s mouth tightens as he breathes a heavy sigh through his nose, then he speaks. “She’s one of my depression patients. She went missing yesterday; I think she was just walking along the wall until she got exhausted and wound up here.”

  I glance at Evie’s feet. They are stained reddish brown, even in the arches, and dark lines of mud cake under her toenails.

  “What can we do?” I ask. But what I really want to know is: Will everyone else react this way when they find out that the ship is stopped? I always thought the worst that could happen was a rebellion, but this dead-inside depression makes me feel hollowed out too. Would it be better for us to rip the ship apart in rage or silently scratch at the walls until we simply quit breathing?

  Doc glances at his apprentice. Kit reaches into the pocket of her laboratory coat and pulls out a pale green med patch.

  “This is why I commed you,” Doc says as Kit hands the patch to me. “I’ve developed a new med patch for the depression patients.”

  I turn the patch over in my hand. Doc makes them himself, with the help of some of the Shippers in the chem research lab. Tiny needles adhere to one side like metal filings stuck to tape; when you press the patch into your skin, the needles stick to you and inject medicine directly into your system.

  “So use it,” I say, handing it to Doc.

  Doc takes the patch, holding it carefully. “I have to ask you — I wanted you to see why it’s necessary, but then I have to ask you — I made the patches using Phydus.”

  I stare at Doc. Phydus? I’d told him to destroy all the stores of the chemical. Clearly he hasn’t — and he doesn’t fear me enough to lie and say he has.

  But he does have enough chutz to ask my permission before using it.

  Kit shifts nervously behind us. Even Doc looks worried about my reaction to the illicit drug. Only Evie, her face mashed against the metal wall, her feet muddy and calloused, doesn’t care.

  “Use it,” I say, standing. Doc rips the med patch open, and I can hear the sigh of submission from Evie as the chemical seeps into her system. Doc asks her to stand and follow him to the Hospital, and she silently obeys.

  I trail behind them. Evie’s emptiness was worse than the mindlessness I’d seen in the Feeders when they were still on Phydus. I think back to Amy’s dull, Phydus-drugged eyes — Doc said she had a bad reaction to it. Is Evie having a bad reaction to being off it?

  “Take her up to one of the rooms on the fourth floor,” Doc tells Kit.

  I shoot Doc a look as Kit walks Evie to the elevator.

  “The fourth floor just holds regular patient beds now,” Doc says firmly. He knows what I’m thinking — about the grays, and the clinical way Doc killed them under Eldest’s orders to make room for more younger people. “Would you like me to give you my weekly report now, while you’re here? We can go to my office.”

  I nod and follow him silently into the elevator. When it reaches the third floor, we both get off, leaving Kit and Evie to continue to the fourth floor. Doc leads me to his office. I pause at one door — Amy’s. I want to turn right and go to her. I just want to give her my apology over and over until she accepts it. But instead, I turn left and enter Doc’s office.

  “The Hospital’s been so busy lately,” Doc says. “This is the first time I’ve had a chance to come to my office in two days. I’m sorry for the mess.”

  I snort. The office looks immaculate, but that doesn’t stop Doc from immediately straightening the papers on his desk.

  The Hospital has been busier than usual, though. Bruises and cuts from fights. Injuries from farm equipment when the operators were distracted from their jobs by senseless daydreaming that never would have happened had they still been on Phydus. A few people just doing stupid things to show how much chutz they had. And some… some pretty strange cases. Where people hurt themselves or each other, just because they suddenly had the capacity to feel, and they didn’t care what they felt as long as it was something.

  Amy said that she could mark how quickly the effects of Phydus wore off the Feeders by how many more people would come to the Hospital each day.

  My gut twists at the thought of Amy. She’s just down the hall, probably sitting in her room, hating me.

  “My report,” Doc says, sliding a floppy across the desk as he sits down.

  Before I look at it, I say, “Will Evie be okay?”

  Doc nods. “The Phydus patch is just like any other med patch — it’s just that the meds inside it are a variation of Phydus. It’s strong enough to act quickly, but I’ve also developed an antidote patch, just in case.”

  I’m still hesitant about using Phydus in any form, but at least there’s an antidote. I let the subject drop.

  For a moment, I consider telling Doc what I now know about the ship, how we’re stopped. If Eldest had known, he would have told Doc. But I’m not Eldest, and Doc’s not my friend. Instead of speaking, I examine the report Doc handed me.

  SHIP HEALTH EVALUATION REPORT

  Previous ship population: 2,298

  Current ship population: 2,296

  Fluctuations in population: -2

  Jordy, Rancher: suicide

  Ellemae, Greenhouse Keeper: complications in external injuries
r />   Disease and injuries:

  +3 infection due to previous wounds

  +18 gastroenteritis due to improper food preparation

  +6 workplace injuries +9 self-inflicted injuries and violence

  +43 alcohol-related problems (poisoning, injuries, etc.)

  +24 malnourishment +63 overfeeding

  Psychological and health issues

  — 1 depression

  +8 hoarding

  +6 hypochondria +2 deviant sexual behavior

  Medical notes: +2 pregnancies

  I click on the deaths and read the names carefully, memorizing them. Because here’s the simple truth — if I hadn’t taken the ship off Phydus, people like Jordy and Ellemae would still be alive. And while I could say that a shorter life with feelings is better than a longer life without, the dead can’t tell me their side.

  I pause at the malnourished and overfed. Some of this is linked with the hoarding, I’m sure. People are afraid they won’t have enough food later, so they’re saving it now rather than eating it. Or they’re eating as much as they can before supplies run out.

  I can’t help but think of Bartie’s warning. The way to a revolution is through people’s stomachs.

  When I get to the end of the report, I ask, “Two new pregnancies?”

  Doc takes the floppy back and reads over it, even though he must know what’s on it. “Oh, yes,” he says. “Both had lived in the Ward and chosen not to participate in the Season. They have, however, since decided to procreate.”

  “Doc,” I say, curiosity making my voice rise. “If we wanted to increase the ship’s population, then the Season’s not very effective, is it?”

  Doc swipes the floppy off and sets it on his desk, poking one side until it’s square with the desk mat. “I, er, why do you say that?”

  I lean forward, sitting on the edge of my chair. “I used to think that the Season was just the way things were, like how the animals mate on schedule. But it’s pretty obvious now that the Season isn’t natural. And if it’s something engineered by you and Eldest, and if we’re still trying to rebuild our population from the so-called Plague… well, the Season doesn’t make sense, does it? One mating Season per gen? That would reduce our population, not recoup it… ”