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“Hey, Harley,” I say, hoping the quaver on my voice doesn’t carry through the wi-coms.
“What was wrong with you earlier?”
“I’ll tell you later. ”
“Who’s the new girl? Where’d she come from? I thought Doc already ID’d all the loons. ”
“I’m busy, Harley. ”
Harley crows with laughter. “Busy! Ha! You just want to keep her to yourself!”
That’s too close to the truth, so I disconnect the link.
Eldest’s door stands in front of me, mockingly.
This time, my hand doesn’t shake. The door swings open. Although there’s an old-fashioned Sol-Earth lock built into the door, Eldest has—luckily—forgotten to lock it.
I look around. This is not what I expected. Eldest is something of a slob. Like me. I smile. Stepping over a pile of dirty clothes, I make my way to the neatest area of the room—the desk. There are only three things on the top: a small, dark plastic bottle like the kind Doc uses for meds, a large glass bottle filled with clear liquid, and a box. A box that I recognize: the one that Eldest came to fetch the other day, just before I opened the ceiling and revealed a canopy of false stars. This is the box I was trying to look at then—this is the box that I had thought held all the answers to my leadership.
I rip the top of the box off expecting. . . something brilly at least. But all that’s inside is a scale model made of resin that resembles an engine, but it’s more cylindrical than the ones the tractors use on the Feeder Level. The replica is fascinating in its level of detail. When I push a button on the side, the engine breaks in half, exposing its insides. I poke at the pieces. From my studies, I’d guess this is a lead-cooled fast reactor, the same kind of engine Godspeed uses. But if so, this is the closest I’ve ever been to the heart of the ship I will one day lead.
I snap the engine closed, perhaps more forcefully than I should have.
This is just one more secret Eldest is keeping from me.
I examine the bottles on the desk. The big one is filled with liquid that smells like fumes—the drink some of the Shippers make. Eldest has never let me taste it. When I sip it, though, I nearly spew the stuff all over Eldest’s unmade bed. The back of my throat burns, and all the little hairs in my nose shrivel. When it hits my stomach, I gag.
The small bottle contains twenty or so mental meds.
Well, now I know why Doc and Eldest didn’t let me step down from being Elder after I started taking the Inhibitor pills. Eldest is as crazy as I am! I crush the bottle against my hand. Eldest knew how upset I was when Doc made me stay in the Ward for the year. I used to fight so hard against taking the pills.
Why wouldn’t he just admit that he was on mental meds, too?
I hate his secrets and lies.
I slam the door behind me and head to my own room for a drink of water—an old Feeder wives’ remedy for nerves.
Good thing, too—a moment later, Eldest bursts through the hatch, calling for me.
“Come with me,” he says. “We’ve got a situation. ”
19
AMY
EVERYTHING ABOUT THE ROOM I HAVE BEEN GIVEN BY THE doctor is an odd mixture of personal and industrial. The colors ar
e bland—gray and white—but someone has stenciled in a peeling green ivy chain around the doorframe and hand painted a vine of flowers along the baseboards. The attached bathroom is cold and decorated with plain white tile and chrome, but the towels smell of lemons and lavender.
The best way to clear my head of all these disturbing thoughts is to take the hottest shower I can stand. I peel off the clothes the doctor gave me earlier. They are shades of brown, a pale taupe tunic and chocolate pants. I think they are homemade. Although the stitches are even and clean, they’re not machine made. The cloth is smooth and not itchy, but there are tiny pricks and flaws in the fabric that imply craftsmanship, not manufacturing. It’s so weird. I kind of expected space suits and shiny material. The weekend before we were frozen, Mom and Daddy and I stayed up all night watching ancient sci-fi movies—Star Trek and Star Wars and Star-something else. I envisioned everyone wearing uniforms or with crazy hair or something, but I’m wearing stuff that could have been made for a Renaissance fair.
It takes me a moment to figure out the shower. There are buttons, not knobs, and more steam than water pours from small mesh squares embedded in the walls of the shower stall. Two bars of soap line a tiny shelf near the top of the shower. There are no shampoo or conditioner bottles, but the round bar of soap lathers in my hair when I test it.
I mash buttons, trying to figure out how to get real water—the steam’s not rinsing the suds from my hair. Suddenly, I hit the right one, and a jet of cold water shoots out of a nozzle near my face. I sputter, and for one horrible moment, the shower reminds me of when Ed and Hassan filled the glass box with cryo liquid before I was frozen. I have to remind myself I’m not drowning, I don’t have to breathe in the liquid, I won’t be frozen again. It happened centuries ago, but the memory is still fresh to me. My knees wobble. I have to lean against the warm tile for several minutes, breathing deeply, before I can stand on my own again.
When I leave the shower, I stand in the room, a towel wrapped around my body, my hair dripping. It feels very quiet and alone. I think back to the boy who was here when I woke up, Elder, and I’m surprised to realize that I actually miss him. Now that he’s gone, this room makes me feel like a trespasser.
I wrap the towel tighter around me. Nothing here is personal, other than the ivy decorating the baseboards in chipping green paint. No books, no TV. There is a desk, and on it is a floppy piece of plastic about the size and thickness of a legal-size sheet of paper. When I was on the yearbook staff in high school, I took the drama club picture. They all posed with these things called color gels—really thin pieces of plastic they could attach to the stage lights to change the color. This piece of plastic on the desk is just like the color gels, but clear, and when I touch it, a screen flashes on, requesting my ID. This is a computer?
