Shards and Ashes

  Then one morning, Eldest makes an announcement.

  He coms everyone just as the solar lamp turns on the 132nd day I’ve been in hiding, ordering them to meet at the statue of the Plague Eldest in the garden behind the Hospital. Mag goes early, but even though so many months have passed and I think I would blend into the crowd, I fear getting too close to Eldest. Instead, I watch from the art gallery’s windows in the Recorder Hall.

  Eldest takes the grav tube from his level to this one. He doesn’t avoid the Keeper Level, but he does make sure that every time he graces the lowest level with his presence, people notice.

  He moves quickly from the grav tube entrance down the path, toward the garden. He carries something in his arms, something bundled up and wiggly. I press against the glass to see what he has—and as soon as I do, Eldest pauses and looks up at the Recorder Hall. I draw immediately back into the shadows, afraid he’s noticed me, but his attention is quickly diverted back to the thing in his arms.

  The sleeves of his elaborately embroidered robe slip, and I dare to lean forward, straining to see. . . .

  A baby.

  He’s carrying a baby.

  My replacement.

  I watch as Eldest carries the baby to the garden and then raises it up for all the crowd to see. I don’t need to hear his words to know what he’s saying. He’s saying this child is the new heir. He’s saying this baby will reign after him now that I am—apparently—gone for good.

  I turn away before the crowd starts to disperse and trudge down to the civics book room. The books Mag has been reading are still scattered on the metal table, with tabs and notes sticking out of many pages. She didn’t divide the books up by right or wrong, Eldest or not, as I did; instead, she’s found something in each title.

  I’m just not sure what.

  I hear the heavy front doors open—she’s back. I rush out of the book room and toward the hall that leads to the main entryway. I’m almost to the front when I hear Mag speak in a loud, ringing voice.

  “Just this way, sir!”

  I immediately press against the wall, hoping that the shadows of the poorly lit hallway are enough to hide me. Sir. That could only mean—

  “Thank you,” Eldest’s voice says, much softer, but the sound is one I’ll never forget.

  Another sound wafts through the Hall and into the shadows where I lurk: a whimper. Barely audible, soft and gentle. The baby.

  “He’s a handsome boy,” Mag says, but her tone belies her friendly words.

  The baby huffs as, I think, Eldest shifts him in his arms. I dare to glance around the doorway—Eldest and Mag are facing the other direction, toward the outer door, and the baby, over Eldest’s shoulder, is looking directly at me.

  I meet his wide, dark-brown eyes. He can’t be more than a few days old. He stares intently at me, as if there is meaning behind his gaze, but there’s not. He’s just a baby. Already entwined in Eldest’s dark plots.

  He will be raised just like I was. Passed from family to family until Eldest decides to start training him. Thrust into his role too young, far too young. Eldest will expect him to know everything from the moment he begins training. He’ll be punished for silly things, like asking too many questions or walking too fast or stomping too loudly in the Keeper Level. He’ll live for the rare moments when Eldest smiles or—even better—lets a compliment fall from his lips. He will spend his whole life questioning whether he’s good enough, fearing that he’s not. He’ll listen to every single word Eldest says, try to uncover meaning in every intonation, and seek with his entire self the hidden secrets he’ll need to know to be a good leader after Eldest.

  And maybe one day, he’ll start to think about the things Eldest doesn’t say.

  Those big brown eyes blink, and it’s only then that I realize I’ve actually stepped out, past the shadows and into the entryway. If Eldest turned now, he would see me. I suck in a gasp and throw myself back into the dark.

  “I wanted to ask you something,” Eldest says, his voice snaking across the hall to me.

  “Yes?” Mag doesn’t let any fear creep into her voice.

  “Has anyone been frequenting the Recorder Hall in the past month?”

  “No.” After a moment, Mag adds, “Sir.”

  “You’ve been alone here.”

  “Yes.”

  Eldest says something too low for me to hear. Then: “I let you take your grandfather’s place, even though neither of you asked permission. I don’t want you to get the impression that I didn’t know, or that it isn’t only because I allowed it that you are in this role.”

  “Yes, sir.” There is fear in her voice now, but still a hint of defiance.

  “Someone’s been looking at some highly . . . interesting documents on the floppy network. If no one’s been in the Hall but you . . .” Eldest lets the accusation hang in the air.

  Before Mag can think of an answer, the baby starts to cry. Not the fussy whimpers of before, but an earsplitting wail. Eldest shifts the baby again, but to no avail. The more the baby cries, the angrier Eldest gets; the angrier Eldest gets, the more insistent the cries. In moments, Eldest storms from the Hall.

  Mag waits several minutes after the big doors close and the baby’s cries fade before she whispers, “Orion?”

  I step out of the shadows.

  “He knows I’ve been researching.”

  “What have you been researching?” I ask. I didn’t know she’d taken her studies past the books.

  “Methods of rebellion. Weapons. Strategy.”

  “Mag!” Well, of course Eldest would have noticed that sort of thing.

  She shrugs. “I’m just glad the baby started crying. It’ll give me a chance to think of an excuse.”

  “That baby . . .”

  “He’s your replacement.” Mag’s voice is blunt, harsh.

  “Still, he’s kind of cute. You can’t help but like the little guy.”

  “Yes,” she says, very seriously, “you can.”

  That night, Mag stays in the book rooms so late that I fall asleep without her. I wake up, though, to the sensation of her lips pressed against mine.

  I jerk back, surprised, sitting up.

  A slow, twisty smile spreads across her face.

  “What—?” I ask.

  She tucks a strand of my hair—it’s getting so long now—behind my left ear. Her fingers linger on the bumpy scar there. Her touch is gentle but unrelinquishing. She pulls me closer.

  Her lips touch mine, shy now, but an almost inaudible gasp slips from her mouth into mine, and I’m undone. I grab her and pull her closer, and the kiss deepens, turning swiftly into something else, something more, and we’re both lost to each other.

  She’s gone before I wake up the next morning. I get out of bed slowly, hoping that, perhaps, she’ll come back, but no—she’s really gone. After I shower and dress, I search the Recorder Hall, but there’s no sign of Mag anywhere.

  Everything’s changed now. How could it not?

  I try to think of what the future may hold. I won’t hide forever. It’s not that I can’t—but that I won’t.

  I think of the baby Eldest will raise as his, to take the place I would have had as leader. That baby holds more possibilities than I can imagine. If I’m patient . . . if I wait . . .

  I couldn’t start a rebellion on my own. There’s no way. Between the controlling power of Phydus and the unremitting strategy of Eldest, any effort to reform the ship now would result in bloodshed . . . a lot of it. There are vids of the one rebellion Godspeed suffered, and the ship very nearly died out as a result. I may not agree with Eldest’s methods, but I do know that I can’t risk the lives of everyone just to take control of the ship for myself.

  But maybe with Mag . . .

  We could plan. Take it slow. Find a way to filter out the Phydus, bring people to our side one at a time. There is in the history books something called the Glorious Revolution. A bloodless revolt that shifted the power smoothly from one king to
another.

  It might take a lifetime to engineer, but if we could do it, if we plan just right—

  I try to talk myself out of these thoughts, but then I force myself to stop. No. I don’t want to talk myself out of these thoughts. I want to have my own Glorious Revolution. I want to prove to Eldest that I can rule without the drug, that we can tell the people of Godspeed the real truth—and then we can all vote, decide in a fair way what to do next. . . .

  I go straight to my hidden place, the place where I cowered for so long before daring to go to the Recorder Hall. No one knows where it is, no one but me. Even Eldest, who thinks he knows all, has forgotten about the secrets Godspeed still keeps.

  In my haste, I don’t even think about how I should cover my face outside, how I should make sure no one’s following me. I just go, my single thought to begin the plans that will change the ship forever.

  When I get to the place, I pause in surprise. While I lived here, it seemed as if the area was small, but almost . . . homey? Now it’s claustrophobic.

  “This is where you hid before?”

  I whirl around—standing in the door, light from the Feeder Level spilling around her, is Mag.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have been more careful. What if it hadn’t been Mag who found me?

  She steps into the narrow space, closing the door behind her. I flip on the lights.

  “It’s so cramped here,” she says.

  But it doesn’t feel that way anymore, not with her here, too.

  With the both of us here, where I hid alone for so long, I feel the urge to reveal everything to her: the secrets I learned that drove Eldest to get rid of me, the plans I have, the Glorious Revolution I want to stage. I start, though, with Phydus, and how Eldest distributes the drug through the water to ensure that what I want—change—never happens.

  Mag drinks it all in, her eyes growing rounder with every new revelation. Even Mag, with her rebellious heart, has not dreamed that Godspeed holds this many secrets.

  “That’s why he uses Phydus,” she says softly. “The only way to keep this much secret is by drugging people up so much that they don’t care anymore.” She turns to me then, eyes wide. “We have to make them care again.”

  “I’ve been thinking,” I tell her, “about how we can change things. Together.”

  Her expression lights up. “We can change things. Now. Take me to the Phydus pump. We’ll disable it right now.”

  I shake my head. “We have to go slowly. We can topple Eldest’s control from within.”

  “That won’t be enough,” she says, her words so fast that they blend together. “All we need to do is cut the Phydus machine off.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t let you do that.”

  “You don’t have a choice! Now that I know—I’ll find that frexing pump myself and blow it up if I have to!”

  “Mag . . . Mag.” I wait until her eyes are focused on me. “Doing something like that—just cutting off the whole ship’s population at one time—that will lead to a huge revolt.”

  She nods, excited.

  “No, you don’t understand,” I say. My voice is pleading. “Mutiny on this ship would lead to . . . imagine how people will react. When they discover Eldest’s lies, they’ll want to kill him.”

  “So?”

  “And it’s more than that. There are some lies that . . . Eldest has a reason for keeping some things secret.”

  Mag narrows her gaze. “You agree with him. He tried to kill you, Orion! You had to rip your wi-com out of your own flesh and have hidden for months from him! And you agree with him?”

  “It’s not that simple,” I say. “I don’t think it’s right that he’s controlling everyone, of course I don’t. And I don’t like the lies. But Mag—we’re on a ship. In space. It would be so easy—so easy—for this to become too much, too quickly. The Feeder Level is a delicate biodome. The ship is not indestructible. We could kill ourselves out.”

  She waves her hand dismissively, but I won’t let the matter drop. I grab a digital membrane screen I’d pocketed earlier and swipe my thumb over the access scanner. For a moment, I’m afraid Eldest has erased my access, but apparently he thought me dead enough to not bother with that. I bring up an old video feed, the same one Eldest showed me when he told me about the dangers of revolution.

  I hand the screen to Mag when the vid starts playing. I know the video well: the way the farmers turned their tools into weapons, the way the blood stained the ground red, the way, in the end, nearly everyone was gone, a revolt so deadly we’ve still not recovered our numbers. While she watches the violent images flash across the screen, I watch her. I watch as the gleam in her eye sparkles, as the corner of her mouth slowly curls up.

  In the Recorder Hall, we silently part ways—her to the civics book room, me to the gallery with the window that shows the Feeder Level. Mag still hasn’t forgiven me for not letting her switch off the Phydus, and I haven’t forgiven her for not realizing that a revolution doesn’t have to involve blood.

  I stare out at the Feeder Level from my position. The glass is warm, and my face leaves a blurry print. I shut my eyes, letting my full weight rest on the window, then turn and slide down the glass, sitting with my back to the only world I’ve known.

  I touch the scar on my neck.

  I cannot forget what Eldest has done. I cannot forget the truths he’s covered up with Phydus.

  But . . .

  I cannot think that everything he’s done is wrong. I cannot believe that every truth should be known.

  Why did he try to kill me? Because I questioned him. Why are questions wrong? Because questions lead to revolt. Why is revolt wrong? Because revolution would kill us all.

  This is what I know is true.

  There’s only one question left.

  If all this is true, why did I push Eldest so hard he tried to kill me?

  Because maybe a revolution would be worth it.

  I wake up with my face pressed to the window, a slick line of drool dripping down the glass. My neck cracks as I stretch. I glance through the window—there is still mist on the fields; the solar lamp must have just clicked on.

  And then I see him: a man, walking up the stairs to the front of the Recorder Hall.

  I scramble away from the window, heart pounding. Was I seen?

  I should hide. I know I should hide. But instead, I creep down the stairs. Before I reach the hallway, I hear shouting.

  “What is going on?”

  I know that voice: Doc. Eldest’s only real friend, who let me escape death anyway.

  “Hello, Doc.” Mag’s voice is calm, soft.

  “He knows, you idiot girl, he knows. He’s not stupid!”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Doc growls in anger. His voice grows louder and quieter, as if he’s pacing back and forth. “Information. He keeps track of the network; he knows some very questionable documents and vids have been downloaded recently.”

  Oh, shite. The mutiny vids I showed Mag yesterday.

  But . . . what documents?

  “And do you really think that he wouldn’t notice someone flipped the Phydus machine off?”

  My eyes bulge. She wouldn’t. Would she? Would she? Did she sneak out while I slept and find the Phydus machine? It wouldn’t be that hard, not after I showed her my hiding place. Did she just stroll into the pump room and turn the frexing thing off?

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Mag says again, but her tone is a confession enough for me. She did. She did. She didn’t care about my protests, she didn’t care about what I showed her yesterday.

  “It’s a frexing good thing that I caught it first and flipped the thing back on, you stupid girl. If he had seen it—”

  “I don’t care!” Mag screeches. “Let him find out! Let him try to stop us!”

  Us.

  “Do you have him?” Doc says, panic creeping into his voice. “Are you hiding him? Is he telling yo
u how to cause trouble?”

  Doc’s footsteps grow closer. He has every right to be scared. If Eldest knew of Doc’s betrayal, of the way he let me live, Doc would face the same punishment as I did, and Eldest would watch him die.

  “Who?” Mag sounds innocently curious.

  Doc starts to say my name, the name I was called before Orion, but he stops himself. He doesn’t want to tip his hand to Mag if she really doesn’t know.

  “He’s distracted now by the new baby,” Doc says, his voice calmer. “But he won’t be for long. And he knows what you’ve done so far. It would take weeks, maybe even months, for Phydus to completely wear off the population. Stupid girl. Of course Eldest would know first. You’re playing a dangerous game.”

  “I’m not playing.”

  And there it is. The threat behind her words.

  The room is silent. I want to creep forward and see them, but I don’t dare move.

  “You’ve doubled your food rations. I’m missing bottles of Inhibitor meds. And somehow you, a stupid little girl from the Feeder Level, suddenly know about the hidden level of the ship, about Phydus and the water pump. If I can figure it out, you better believe Eldest will. If he hasn’t already. And if he finds who I think you’re hiding, we’ll all be dead.”

  Mag doesn’t answer.

  “Do you know what happens when a living body is thrown into the vacuum of space?”

  Mag still doesn’t answer.

  “It will take several seconds for your body to lose oxygen.” Doc’s voice is cold and calculating. He’s trying to scare her. “Your eardrums will explode. Your spit will boil in your mouth. And finally, after all that, your brain will die.”

  “And Eldest thinks,” Mag says slowly, “that doing this to me would stop a revolution if I started one?”

  “You fool!” Doc bellows. There’s a flurry of motion—I think Doc tries to shake her, and she wrenches out of his grasp.

  “You know what I think Phydus really does?” Mag says, a hint of anger in her voice now. “I think it takes away choice. That’s all. And I don’t care if it does destroy the whole ship—if that’s what we choose to do, at least we’ll have made the choice.”