“Yeah, I just had a nice salad.” Max grinned, showing big, crooked teeth. “It was good and fresh. Not very filling, though. I think I’ll get myself some eggs when my shift’s done. My mom taught me how to scramble them. I like them with scallions.”
“Go to hell,” Kieran managed to say.
“I could make you some, too. All you have to do is tell everyone how sorry you are, and I’ll bring you a great big plate of eggs. You’d like that, right?”
“I’d like you to shut up,” Kieran rasped, “you sadistic little maggot.”
“If you confess, I’ll get you some bread. Sarek figured out how to make flatbread, and honestly, it’s not bad. Would you like some? All you have to do is admit to your mistakes in front of everyone. It will take one minute.”
Kieran wanted the bread more than anything, but if he confessed to his “crimes” the way Seth wanted him to, he’d lose the Empyrean forever. Tomorrow I’ll do it, he told himself, as he did every day. Tomorrow. Not today. I can hold out for one more day.
“Tell you what, Kieran. I’ll give you the eggs, and then you can confess. What do you say to that?” Max busted up laughing. “Nah. I’m just kidding.”
“You’re rotten inside,” Kieran spat.
“You better believe it.”
Kieran couldn’t imagine how Max justified his behavior to himself. In a way, he was worse than Seth because he enjoyed Kieran’s pain. Every time Seth came into Kieran’s cell, on the other hand, the lines on his face deepened.
“Come on, Kieran. Let’s end this thing,” he’d cajoled more than once. “All I need is for you to admit your mistakes to the crew, and we’ll give you something to eat!”
Kieran always said no, but it was harder each time.
The door opened, and Sealy Arndt came in for guard duty. “Want to take a break?” he asked Max.
“Why not?” Max said as he sauntered out the door. “Time for dinner! Yum yum!”
Sealy sat down across from Kieran, eyes glinting, and he pulled a loaf of bread from his jacket pocket.
“Oh God,” Kieran said before he could stop himself. It was ordinary wheat bread, nothing fancy, but he yearned for just one bite. He didn’t expect one, though. For the past five days (four? six?), the guards had often eaten in front of him. It was their special way of torturing him.
Something dropped on the floor next to his cot.
Struggling onto his side, he scanned the floor until he saw it: a mouthful of bread.
He didn’t even chew. His body took over and he gulped it down violently. When it reached his stomach, a horrible cramp doubled him up.
“Here,” Sealy said, tossing him a grav bag.
Kieran put his lips to the straw and released the clamp. The clear, delicious broth slid into his stomach like a healing balm. His body seemed to awaken, and though he was still horribly weak, he could feel the broth working on him, making him better. When he’d drained every last drop, Sealy dropped another bite of bread on the floor for him.
“Don’t let it linger,” the boy snapped with a quick glance at the door.
Kieran made himself chew it slowly and swallow. Now, with the broth in his stomach, it didn’t cause much of a cramp.
Bit by bit, Sealy fed him this way until the entire loaf was gone.
Kieran’s stomach rumbled. He felt as though he might throw up, but he swallowed hard. He wouldn’t let himself. He would keep this food down.
Only now did he consider that it might have been poisoned.
He sat up, trembling with effort, and asked, “Did you just kill me?”
“No.” Sealy looked offended.
“Then why?”
The boy picked up the gun resting on his knees and put it down on the floor. He fingered the trigger, turned it, admired its profile. Finally he said, “I felt sorry for you.”
So he was a human being after all.
“What are the other boys saying?”
“I’m not going to help you, if that’s what you think.”
Kieran was still so weak that he fell onto his side and just lay there, panting.
Kieran preferred Sealy to Max because Sealy was merely hostile and sullen, whereas Max was cruel. He preferred the starboard wall to lean against, because he could see the mirror from there, and he could stare at the glass, imagining that it was actually a window to another room. Odd, how these things brought him a measure of comfort. How small his world had become.
“Sarek was asking about you,” Sealy said casually.
“What did you tell him?”
“I said you’re looking thin.”
Kieran accepted this with a grim sigh. So the boy meant only to mock him.
“He said to say hi,” Sealy added with a strange tone.
This seemed so oddly social, so completely out of context, Kieran lifted his eyes to the other boy’s face. Sealy’s expression gave away nothing. Was he extending some kind of offer to Kieran?
“Well, then … Tell him…” Kieran’s mind raced. What should he say? He tried to remember back to his first day here, before he knew what hunger was. He’d had a good idea. An idea for getting out of here. What was the idea?
Kieran made a fist and closed his eyes.
Trial. The word woke up his mind. Yes. “Tell Sarek that he and the rest of the boys should request a trial for me.”
“That will give Seth a good laugh.”
“They should say they want to see my crimes exposed.”
“Yeah,” Sealy scoffed. “Seth would definitely fall for that. Because he’s stupid, right?” Sealy shook his head. “Seth would murder me.”
Kieran waved away Sealy’s words as if they were a cloud of flies. He didn’t care what Seth might do to Sealy. He was starving to death. He had to get out of here.
TRIAL
Kieran slept. Since that conversation with Sealy and his attempt to reach the outside, the days had stretched like a desert plain to the horizon. He endured occasional taunts from Max and visits from Seth asking if he was ready to confess, but most of the time there was nothing to do but think. He thought about Waverly. He thought about his parents. Sometimes he convinced himself that they were on their way home and he would see them soon.
He spoke to them in his mind. He told them what he planned to do when he finally got out of there. He asked them for advice. And sometimes he listened. Sometimes he could believe that what he heard wasn’t a fantasy. Some message was coming to him in a voice that rang like a distant bell in his mind.
Soon the voice stopped sounding like his father, or mother, or Waverly, or anyone he knew. The voice was its own.
One night, when Kieran felt death hovering in the corner of his stinking cell, he reached out to it.
Let me out of here, he pleaded silently. I don’t want to die.
You will be freed, the voice answered.
Kieran thought he’d heard it with his ears this time, not just his mind. Was someone here? He opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling over his cot. He heard breathing to the left and turned to see Max Brent sitting with his gun on his knees, dozing. The voice had not been Max’s. Couldn’t have been.
Kieran wondered if he might be hallucinating, but in truth he felt more lucid than he had in days. He closed his eyes again.
When? he asked.
When the time is right. The voice lived in the place between his ear and his mind, where sound becomes meaning.
But why do I have to wait like this?
There is a purpose to suffering.
Whose purpose? Who are you?
I am.
I’ll give my life to you, if you’ll help me.
I am already helping you.
Kieran thought maybe this was true, and his spirits lifted.
Sealy kept sneaking in bread and grav bags of broth. There had been twenty-four meals, and about a week of starvation before that, so Kieran knew that he had been in the brig for a month. The meals helped him stay alive, but they weren’t enough; he was still s
tarving and still very weak. His cramps seemed more violent now, his muscles tighter, his skin looser. He was thirsty, but he couldn’t bring himself to walk to the sink.
He could only listen to the thrum of the engines, feel the vibration of the ship. To Kieran, the hum of the engines had always been the same thing as silence. But now he listened to it as though it were a far-off drumbeat.
He was no longer afraid. After so many others had died, what was one more? He imagined his body floating into space, spinning like a pinwheel for eternity, frozen and unchanged. Something about that comforted him.
The thrumming of the engines shifted, and Kieran wondered if they were changing course or increasing speed. Seth probably had some crazy idea about chasing after the New Horizon to start a war he couldn’t win. Kieran hoped Seth would get himself and the rest of the boys killed; he was beyond caring that such savage thoughts were beneath him. If they were going to abandon him this way, and let him die in this agony of hunger, it would serve them right.
The engines got louder, and there was a new quality to the sound that he couldn’t identify. He heard the guard get up from his chair to crack the door open. Now Kieran could hear the sound better.
It wasn’t the engines; it was a chant. The boys of the Empyrean were chanting, “Trial, trial, trial,” over and over.
Had Sealy leaked his message after all?
Kieran tilted his head. Max Brent was standing by the door, listening. When he saw Kieran looking at him, he slammed the door and leaned against it.
“Don’t think we’re giving you a trial,” he told Kieran. “They can shout themselves hoarse.”
“What are you going to do, shoot them all? You need them to run the ship.”
“We don’t need anyone,” Max said, his eyes shifting nervously.
Kieran wanted to say something withering, but he couldn’t think of the words, so he closed his eyes again. He hoped that the boys would get him out, but the idea of wanting something, requesting it, and getting it no longer seemed like a logical progression. Time had broken down around him. There was only the now. Now he was in the brig. Now he was hungry. Now he was thirsty. Now he could not lift his hand off his chest. So he went to sleep.
A loud bang startled him awake, and Seth’s angry face loomed over him. “Pick him up.”
Rough hands closed around his arms, and then he was being dragged down a corridor. The motion made him sick. He tried to plant his feet, but dizziness overcame him, and he had to close his eyes.
When he came to, he was sitting in a chair, his limbs hanging, useless. In front of him were the boys of the Empyrean, all of them looking up at the stage he was on. The auditorium? He hadn’t been there since the day of the attack. They’d held pageants and talent shows on this stage. He’d sung “You Are My Sunshine” as a boy here. Now he was on trial.
Many of the boys sitting in the theater seats seemed alarmed at Kieran’s appearance, and he realized he must look pretty bad. Then again, so did they.
Arthur Dietrich, in the front row, had a nasty bruise on his arm, as though he’d been shackled or tied down. He also had a black eye, and a bloody tissue hung from one of his nostrils. As one of Kieran’s friends, he must have caught a lot of trouble from Seth and his guards.
Sarek Hassan, also in the front row, had a split lip. He might have decided Kieran wasn’t so bad after all and earned a punch in the face for it. He seemed as watchful and detached as always, until he met Kieran’s eyes. Then he scowled, his fists clenched.
It wasn’t just the older boys who were marked by Seth’s style of leadership. All the little boys looked afraid. One four-year-old was crying and pale, his arm in a sling, and he startled when another boy sat down next to him.
“Shut up!” someone yelled. It was Seth standing behind a podium. He was smartly dressed in the uniform of a security officer. It was too big, but he’d belted it tightly. Sealy and Max stood behind him, holding their guns.
Kieran might get his trial, but he knew no one would speak for him because of those guns.
So this was it, the public humiliation and then the air lock. The end.
“Shut up and listen,” Seth said testily. “We’re starting the trial of Kieran Alden. Max Brent, please read his list of offenses.”
Max pulled out a small notebook. “Kieran Alden prevented the Empyrean from chasing after the New Horizon, and now we might never find our families. Kieran prevented us from rescuing our parents from the radiation in the engine room, and now Mason Ardvale, Sheldon White, and Mariah Pinjab are all dead, and the others are ill. He damaged the atmospheric controls in his reckless shuttle flight, and we’re alive only because of Seth Ardvale’s quick intervention. Kieran Alden showed countless other instances of incompetent leadership. He is a danger to this ship and everyone on board.”
The words were terrifying, galvanizing. Kieran watched the crowd. Most of the boys looked frightened. Many of the younger ones were crying. Expecting them to rise up against Seth was asking a lot.
“The court calls the first witness, Matt Allbright,” said Seth.
It was a farce. First one boy, then the next, stood right next to Kieran and told bald-faced lies as Sealy and Max pointed guns at them. Kieran tried to listen, looking for a way to defend himself, but he was so tired and in so much pain, it was hard to concentrate, even knowing his life depended on it. After a time, he stopped paying attention to what they were saying and instead tried to form an argument of his own. But his own thoughts proved too tiring, and soon the words faded away, the room faded away. And he just sat there.
It was the silence that finally brought him around again. He looked up to see Seth coming back to the podium, his face grim. “With all this evidence against him, it seems only right to sentence Kieran Alden to death, unless, that is, he is willing to confess to his crimes—”
“Yes!” someone shouted. Kieran looked at the crowd, trying to see who it was. “I want to hear what he has to say for himself!” It was a familiar voice, but Kieran couldn’t place it. Whoever was speaking was hiding in the crowd.
“Yeah!” said Sarek in the front row, his eyes on Kieran. “Let the bastard try to explain himself.”
Kieran looked at Sarek, whose face was carefully neutral. He didn’t know if he was trying to help or not, but he could see this was his chance, because Seth looked at Kieran for the first time, trying to measure him.
“Kieran?” pressed Seth. “Are you ready to confess?”
Kieran nodded. For so long he’d been telling himself he’d confess tomorrow, but he’d run out of tomorrows. If he didn’t make his confession right now, they were going to kill him. Commanding the Empyrean wasn’t worth dying for.
The podium seemed to be a mile away. He couldn’t possibly walk there, could he?
He pivoted on his chair, placed his hand on the back of it, and pushed himself up. His body shuddered, and his knees buckled, but he caught himself and forced his legs to straighten under him. He was standing for the first time in two days, leaning on the chair. He walked around to the back of it until he could reach the podium with his other hand, and he pulled himself over to it. He had to lean on it with almost all his weight, but it held him. He looked at the boys, who had fallen silent.
So many of their faces were cut and bruised, pinched and fearful. If Kieran gave in now, that’s how their lives would be. He didn’t know if he could live with that.
No. He couldn’t give in and confess.
Instead, he searched his mind for something to say.
The truth. That’s what his dad always said. The truth is powerful.
“You don’t hold a gun to the witness’s head in a fair trial,” he croaked into the microphone. His mouth was gummy, his voice a shriveled reed.
“What are you doing?” Seth whispered. “Come on, man. Let’s end this.”
“This trial is based on lies,” Kieran rasped.
“What did he say?” a pubescent boy shouted. “I can’t hear him!”
“He said he’s sorry,” Seth lied. “Sorry for everything he did. So now we forget all this and get him something to eat.”
Kieran shook his head. “That’s not what I said,” he cried. “I won’t confess. You’ll have to kill me.”
The auditorium was silent. Even the littler boys who’d been crying stopped.
Seth shoved Kieran aside and took the podium. Kieran tilted on his feet, tried to catch himself, and fell to the ground.
“The court sentences Kieran Alden to public execution,” Seth announced. “Take him to the shuttle bay,” he told Sealy.
The boy stared at Seth, frozen.
“Come on!” Seth shouted impatiently.
“But—” Sealy’s eyes were on Kieran.
This is it, Kieran thought. He was afraid, but he would not close his eyes. If they were going to kill him, they should see his eyes. He stared at Sealy, waiting.
“Goddamn it,” Seth yelled. “Max! Get him out of here!”
But Max couldn’t move. “I didn’t think we were going to kill anybody,” he said finally.
“It’s not your job to think, Max!” Seth bolted toward Max, reaching for his gun.
Kieran was closer to Max than Seth was. He couldn’t fight, but he could tip himself over. He hit Max in the knees, and the boy toppled over, his gun rattling to the floor. Kieran used the last of his strength to lunge at the weapon and cover it with his body.
“Goddamn it, you bastard!” Seth cried. “Why won’t you give up?”
Seth pummeled Kieran with both fists, spit flying from his mouth. Kieran held on, enduring Seth’s blows, holding Max’s gun to his chest. He was either going to live or die. Live or die. He wanted to live to see Waverly again, so he filled his lungs with air and he screamed, “Help me!”
Suddenly Seth’s weight was gone. Sarek was pulling him back in a choke hold. Seth clawed at Sarek and kicked at Kieran, until a boy of about seven wrapped himself around one of Seth’s legs. Another, even younger, grabbed on to Seth’s other leg. Soon Seth was surrounded by a swarm of boys, all of them screaming furiously for a piece of him.
The crowd was electrified. A dozen fights broke out. Some boys tried to defend Seth and his guards, but they were overwhelmed by sheer numbers. A pile of boys mobbed Sealy, took his gun, and dragged him down. Max tried to make a break for the door, but a large boy of twelve tackled him and he fell hard.