Laura Nolen - The Remnant

Harper Voyager an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper Voyager 2016

Jacket layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Laura Liddell Nolen asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008113636

Ebook Edition © March 2015 ISBN: 9780008113636

Version: 2016-08-10

For Ava and Liam

I must walk without the sun, darkness must cover the path of my feet.

— The Pilgrim’s Progress

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page The Remnant Book Two of The Ark Trilogy LAURA LIDDELL NOLEN

Copyright Harper Voyager an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk First published in Great Britain by Harper Voyager 2016 Jacket layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016 Cover images © Shutterstock.com Laura Liddell Nolen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008113636 Ebook Edition © March 2015 ISBN: 9780008113636 Version: 2016-08-10

Dedication For Ava and Liam

Epigraph I must walk without the sun, darkness must cover the path of my feet. — The Pilgrim’s Progress

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-seven

Chapter Thirty-eight

Chapter Thirty-nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-one

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Laura Liddell Nolen

About the Publisher

They came for me at dawn, and all I could think was, it is way too early for this.

And actually, it might have been. Adam’s programming tended to be erratic at the best of times, and downright scary at the worst. Looking back, I guess we should have been grateful. Surely any dawn at all, however cruel, is better than the endless night of space.

Hindsight, and all that.

“Charlotte Turner.” The judge glanced at me over the top of her delicate, silver-rimmed glasses. The crowd quieted down, just for a moment, in spite of itself, but when rough hands shoved me up onto the platform, giving the Remnant its first good look at me, the shouting cranked right back up again. Death to the traitor! and She’s a terrorist! Worse than the Commander! echoed through my mind. I stopped trying to make sense of the words, letting them roll over me like pebbles on a riverbed, until I heard one I couldn’t ignore: Throw her out the airlock.

Something like fear, or horror, made me tilt up my chin and square my shoulders. My tongue was nearly numb, so I turned up the corners of my mouth to keep from crying.

“I’m glad to see that we amuse you, Prisoner.” Her voice was warm and sure, like a kindly librarian, and sounded older than her face appeared. “You got any last words before we vote?”

“Vote?” I twisted around to look at her. Gray hair. Wrong side of forty, especially up here. Slightly heavy in her chair, but thin to the point of frailty around the shoulders. Nothing about her qualified her for a spot on the Ark. But then, this was the Remnant: the Earth’s last rebels. So she fit right in.

She returned the favor, sizing me up before responding. “On your sentence.” She raised her eyebrows, anticipating my reaction. “Life or death.”

From my new vantage point, I could see the upturned faces of the crowd, and I scanned them as fast as I could, a growing sense of desperation gnawing at my lungs.

No Isaiah, which stung. No Adam, thank goodness. There was the gardener, a withered old man who’d taught me how to grow potatoes, and maybe a couple hundred strangers, including a large group of feral-looking children whose faces I searched more thoroughly.

No West.

The thought of his face, his wide brown eyes, flared through my mind, and I felt a weird sense of disconnect, like trying to laugh and gasping for air all at once. It had been years since I’d seen my brother, and I was so close. I searched and searched, but the room grew smaller as my panic expanded, and I ran out of places to look before I found him.

I pressed my lips together. In my experience, these things tended to go a lot better if you dropped the act and showed a little vulnerability, but again, there was my brother’s face in my mind, so my ribs were like steel around my lungs.

The crowd shouted louder, and the sounds merged together in my mind, until all I heard was a single accusatory voice. I tried to imagine what that voice would sound like when it sentenced me to die.

I didn’t have to wonder long.

“Nothing at all?” The judge regarded me dispassionately. “Then I’m afraid it’s time for the sentence.”

“Your Honor, I never meant to betray the Remnant.”

“She speaks,” said the judge, and the other voice quieted to a low buzz. “Is it your position that your actions on the day of the Battle for Sector Seven were undertaken with the interest of the Remnant at heart?”