Beth Revis - A Million Suns

I will do anything to make her happy again, so I give her the stars. I type the key code in quickly— Godspeed —and the hatch door flies open, exposing the millions of glittering dots in the sky.

I remember the first time I saw the stars. I thought they changed everything. I thought they changed me, like I’d become a different person just by seeing shining specks of light a million miles away. Now when I stare at them, I feel nothing. I don’t believe in them anymore. When I first told everyone on the ship that I was giving them the freedom to be themselves, I took those interested in seeing the stars — the real stars — here. Some came. Far fewer than I’d expected. And then I realized: when you’ve lived your entire life within ten square miles surrounded by steel, it’s easier to forget the outside. It makes it less painful to be trapped on a ship if you tell yourself it’s not a trap.

That’s the whole reason why I can’t tell everyone about the stopped engine.

My gaze shifts to the red paint by the keypad. Maybe one day the smears of paint Harley left throughout Godspeed will fade, and maybe the stars never will, but I’d rather have Harley’s colors.

Harley died for… well, I don’t know what he died for. I just know he’s not here anymore, and I miss him. But Kayleigh died for a truth, according to Orion.

His words echo in my mind, and I’m grateful. I don’t want to think about hollow stars and Harley.

Instead, I think about Orion’s puzzle. Orion seems to have known more about the ship’s engine than anyone else. If I can figure out his frexing clue, I might actually figure out why the engine’s stopped, maybe get us going again. Add it up…

I turn back to the list Amy found. Beside each of those twenty-seven names is their cryo-chamber number. What if I add those numbers together…?

1,270.

“What are you doing?” Amy asks.

I try 1270 on all four doors, starting with the biggest door at the end of the hall.

The last door opens.

Everything is darkness. The room smells of dust and grease. I think about what Orion said, just before I froze him. The frozens plan to work us or kill us.

I want to see these weapons for myself.

Amy finds the light switch before me. It flickers on reluctantly, spluttering as if unwilling to show what the room contains.

And I can see immediately what made Orion fear that, when we land, we’ll be made into soldiers or slaves.

You know what’s really going to twist you? Orion had said just before I spun the dial to freeze him. The fact that Elder sort of agrees with everything I’m saying.

Pistols, rifles, larger guns than that. Blister packs of mustard bombs. Missiles — most about the size of my forearm, three that are bigger than me. Everything’s sectioned off in compartments, sealed in heavy red plastic bags that are stamped with labels and FRX symbols.

“We don’t know what’s going to be on Centauri-Earth,” Amy says, already defensive. “It could be aliens, or it could be nothing. It could be monsters or dinosaurs. We could be giants on the new world. Or we could be mice.”

“Better to be armed mice, huh?” I say, picking up a filmy bag that protects a revolver.

“I know this looks bad.”

“It looks like everything Orion said before was true,” I say.

“It’s not ,” Amy says immediately, but how does she know? I can see her thoughts warring — on the one hand, she believes absolutely that her father and the rest of the people from Sol-Earth would never use the weapons spread before us, but on the other hand, she can’t deny that the weapons are here. And they seem so much more… I don’t know, violent than I expected.

I head to the other side of the room, where the largest weapons are stored. I recognize torpedoes and missiles and bazookas from the vids of Sol-Earth discord Eldest showed me. A shelf lines the back of the room, cluttered with small round things, small cakes of compressed powder carefully packaged in clear plastic.

Amy picks one of the powder cakes up. “These look like toilet bowl cleaners we’d use on Earth, the kind you’d drop in the back of a tank.” She turns it over in her hands, the heavy plastic package crinkling. Then she notices my confused expression. “Oh, yeah, the toilets here don’t have tanks.”

On the bottom of the heavy, clear, thick-plastic packaging is a warning label etched into the container:

Anti-agricultural Biological Chemical

For use with Prototype Missile #476

Range: 100+ acres

To employ: See Prototype Missile #476

FRX

FRX… Financial Resource Exchange. The group that funded Godspeed ’s mission in the first place.

On the next shelf is a similar cake-tablet, but this one is black, and the label on the bottom calls it an Anti-Personnel Biological Chemical.

I put the things back on the shelf cautiously, careful not to set anything off. It takes all the strength I have not to throw them away, hurtle them as far as I can, shove them all out the hatch.

“Don’t tell me you still think this is all for self-defense,” I say. I don’t want to pick a fight with Amy, but surely she can see these weapons are extreme. “This is chemical warfare. It’s preparation for genocide.”

“My mother’s a geneticist and every bit as important as my father in the military,” Amy counters immediately, but her voice is guarded, and I don’t know if it’s because she doesn’t want me to question her beliefs further or if it’s because she can’t bear to let herself doubt them. “If the FRX was intent on wiping out all life on Centauri-Earth, then why would they enlist a biologist to help? Why have a scientist who studies life if all they want to do is kill everything? There are twenty-seven people in the military — but seventy-three who aren’t.”

I nod at her. She’s right. Of course she’s right. But that doesn’t mean Orion’s wrong.

Amy turns her back to me, surveying the armory. She gasps.

“What is it?” I ask.

Instead of answering me, Amy bends down and slides a mustard-colored blister pack off the shelf. “This thing looks like half a softball,” she says, handing it to me. I turn the blister pack over and read the warning label on the bottom.

Warning: explosive; mild irritant

Explosive Compound Formula M

Range: 10 feet

To detonate: depress top center;

detonation time: three minutes

FRX

I put it back on the shelf as gently and quickly as I can, turning to see what Amy found under the blister pack.

“Look!” Amy says excitedly, waving a floppy. “The next clue!”

I lean over Amy’s shoulder, wondering if this new vid will be about the weapons we’ve just discovered or if it will help us fix the ship. “Why did he use a floppy instead of a mem card this time?” I ask idly.

She shrugs. It doesn’t matter — here’s the next clue, and we’re one step closer to finding what Orion hid before we froze him. And one step closer — I hope — to discovering just what that secret is.

And if it has anything to do with bringing the engine back to life.

I barely dare whisper the thought in my mind — but — there’s no denying the fact that Orion knew much more than any of us thought he did, and it somehow revolves around the stopped engine. This giant secret he keeps hinting at — it must be the key.

“Ready?” Amy asks, swiping her fingers across the screen.

Instead of seeing Orion sitting on stairs and talking, though, the screen remains black. I lean closer. Amy’s grip tightens, making the floppy curve.

“Why isn’t there a video?” she asks. “Did I do something wrong?”