Shades of Earth

If Orion could do it, so can I. I turn back to the computers, this time looking at the key logs stored in the computer’s archives. It’s a simple enough task—other than Amy and me, very few people ever came to the shuttle while it was still attached to the ship. After a moment, I find the same code entered over and over again—K-A-Y-L-E-I-G-H. It doesn’t take that much of a guess to figure out that this is the override command Orion’s programmed into the computer. He would pick her name, little Kayleigh, whose dead body was found floating above the spot in the pond that hid the secret hatch to the shuttle.

Amy steps aside as I jump up and run to the keypad by the door. I punch in the code, and the seal locks break.

I throw open the door and am about to step through it when Amy grabs my arm. “If he’s awake,” she says, “we have to refreeze him.”

I shake my head. “Frex, no! If he’s awake, we need to question him. Amy, he’s the one—the only one—who knows what’s down here. He knew there were monsters; he must know what kind of monsters. He might be able to help us fight them.”

“Question him, then refreeze him,” Amy counters. Her voice is still cold, but there is fear and pain in her eyes. “We can’t afford to have him here. Imagine the chaos he’ll bring . . . imagine what he’ll do to the people from Earth now that they’re awake.”

I don’t bother saying anything else. Amy will never be able to see Orion as anything but evil. She doesn’t see what I see. She doesn’t see herself in him.

Amy lets me go, and I push the door open farther.

“You’re not going to abandon me again, right?”

I freeze. Her voice was calm and quiet, almost a whisper, and filled with more sadness than I’ve ever heard from her lips before.

Without waiting for my reply, Amy pushes past me and into the shuttle.

The shuttle is eerily silent. Dust motes move in the air. Even our footsteps are muted.

I half expect Orion to be casually sitting in the cryo room, waiting for us.

But of course he’s not.

“In here,” Amy says in a whisper, approaching the gen lab door. The air inside the shuttle is musty and stifling. How could we have ever considered living here instead of outside?

Amy presses her thumb against the biometric lock. She lets out the breath she’d been holding as the door zips open.

We step inside.

“Where is he?” Amy asks. She stares at the cryo chamber. Before, Orion’s face was frozen against the glass. But now—now there’s nothing behind the little window. No cryo liquid. No Orion.

“That’s impossible,” I say.

Amy looks around the gen lab, as if she thinks Orion is going to jump out from behind the Phydus pump and say “Boo!” But I walk to the cryo chamber, dread twisting me up inside. The counter on the cryo chamber blinks 00:00:00. Out of time.

The door opens with a whoosh and a hiss of released air and pressure.

Orion is crumpled on the floor of the chamber. His skin is red and raw, and he looks like a heap of flesh, not a person. But he shivers, and that is the only way I know he’s alive.

Amy gasps, and I glance at her. Her eyes are open wide with horror, her hand covers her mouth. She hates Orion, but she’s not heartless. No one could look at this shell of a man and not feel pity.

“Orion?” I say softly.

One shaking hand reaches out, still damp and shimmering ever so lightly with the blue of the cryo liquid.

I take the hand. It’s soft—not soft in a sweet way, but soft in the same way that a wet sponge is soft. When I try to help him stand by pulling on his arm, Orion opens his mouth, and a raw, gasping, breathless scream emits from his lips. It sounds like a death rattle.

He’s dying.

The idea hits me all at once, so suddenly that I nearly gag at the thought, but I know it’s true.

He’s dying.

As Orion struggles to stand, all his muscles weak and atrophied, my mind flashes back to the moment when we froze him. We—I—just shoved him in the cryo chamber and turned it on. We didn’t prepare his body. No electric pulse scanners on his skin to help him adjust to reanimation. No drops in his eyes or cryo liquid in his blood. His regular clothes still on.

Past our gripped hands, blood leaks out of the cuff of his shirtsleeve. His skin is fused with his clothing, and it rips away as easily as wet paper.

Amy shoves a wheeled metal table toward us, and as soon as Orion’s fully upright, I help him shuffle two steps so he can sit on the low tabletop.

His back hunches. His hair, still dripping sparkling blue cryo liquid, hangs down in clumps. He’s heaving, as if he’s just run a great distance, sucking at the air with every ounce of energy he has. His fingers curl like claws, and he raises them to his face.

That’s when I notice his eyes.

They are open and bulging, the same way they were when he was frozen. There’s a pale blue film over his irises, though, like cataracts but a brighter color, the same blue of the flecks in the cryo liquid. His clawed hands run down his face, over his now-closed eyes, stopping at his mouth.

He mumbles something into his fingers.

Beside me, Amy is shaking. Her own eyes are wide open, staring at this animalistic shadow of a man.

Orion’s hands drop to his side.

I lean down, trying to meet his eyes. But I can’t. His eyes don’t focus.

He’s blind.

He’s blind, he’s hurt, and he’s dying.

And there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

It doesn’t matter that I hadn’t intended this. It’s done.

And I was the one who did it.

21: AMY

I want him to rage.

I want him to roar, to fight, to flip the table and attack us.

That’s the Orion I understand.

I don’t know what to feel about an Orion who’s been tortured—whose very existence is torture—who is dying before my eyes.

“What happened?” The words creak out of his mouth. Opening his lips causes the corners of his mouth to bleed, just slightly, barely enough to dribble down the side of his chin.

Elder keeps his voice calm, as if he’s speaking to a skittish animal. “You were frozen.”

Orion’s body jerks, and it takes me a moment to realize that was an attempt at a laugh. “No shite. How long?”

“Three months.”

I watch as this information penetrates. He seems to age those three additional months in an instant.

“Where are we?”

He doesn’t mean what room is he in. He wants to know if we’re still on Godspeed or if we’re on Centauri-Earth.

“We landed,” Elder says.

“Why?” Orion asks. No anger in his voice, no accusation.

“We had to,” Elder says, but I’m starting to wonder if that’s true.

Orion’s smile is bitter, as if he doubts the need too. He lifts his head. “Why does it hurt so much?” His voice is barely a whisper. “Why can’t I see?” There is fear in him now, and dread.

Something cracks inside my heart.

“You weren’t frozen correctly.”

“I don’t . . . ” He swallows, and even that action looks painful. “I don’t feel well.”

“I know,” Elder says gently. “I know.” After a moment he adds, “I’m sorry.”

Orion’s face tilts in Elder’s direction—and mine. For a moment, his filmy eyes seem to fall on me, but no—they’re blind. “I don’t blame you for this,” he says in a voice stronger than before.

Elder dips his head. Orion might not blame him, but he blames himself.

“Maybe I deserved it. I don’t blame her either.”

My heart stops. Me. He’s talking about me.

“That girl . . . I’m glad you found her. Glad she woke up. I had tried rebelling before, you know that. Didn’t have a girl like her. Just got more scars.” He touches his neck. “I seem to be accumulating a lot of scars.” His hand drifts up toward his eyes. He covers them with his palms and his head sinks down.

“We shouldn’t be here,” Orion says.

“We had to—” Elder starts to say again, but Orion cuts him off.

“No, you didn’t.” He coughs, a wet, hacking sound. “You saw that planet and you couldn’t stay away. I know. I saw it too. But I had the sense to keep our people on Godspeed, safe.” He coughs again, blood splattering his puffy lips. “Guess I’m not worthy of seeing it now that we’re here.”

There is so much longing in his voice.

And for the first time, I realize that I have something in common with Orion.

“I have my own reasons to be sorry,” Orion says. Elder looks as if he wants to speak, but he can’t seem to get any words out.

Blood dribbles freely down Orion’s chin now, and his eyes are leaking. He’s falling apart in front of us. “I never watched them die,” he croaks, echoing my earlier thoughts. “Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t have let them drown.”

“Orion,” Elder finally says. “We need help.”

Orion’s hand pats the table, feeling the edges. “So . . . tired . . . ”

“What can you tell us about the monsters on the planet?” Elder asks, urgency in his voice. Orion’s dying—but we cannot let him die with his secrets still hidden.

“Slaves or soldiers,” Orion says. He sinks against the table, lying down, his legs dangling over one side. “I told you . . . slaves or soldiers.”

“Not the frozens,” Elder says. “I’m not talking about the frozens. I know how they’re dangerous. I need to know—what about the creatures on the planet? What did you know would be waiting for us if we landed?”

Orion’s body wheezes—another laugh? Or something worse?

“Tell us!” Elder says, his voice rising. “You have to tell us! We need to know what we’re up against! People have died.”

“So?” Orion croaks. “I’m dying.”

“You have to tell us!” Elder grabs Orion’s arm.

It squishes under his grip, and Orion’s mouth sucks in air for a scream his throat can’t give life to. Elder snatches his hand away as Orion’s body spasms with pain.

After he’s stilled, Orion speaks. His voice is weaker than before. “Don’t tell me you didn’t find them?” He coughs, a dry, papery sound. “Oh, little prince, don’t tell me you didn’t follow all the clues.”

“We don’t have time for clues.” Elder’s voice is pleading; he sounds as if he’s about to cry. “Just tell me.”

Orion struggles to sit up again but can’t. Instead, he turns his face to Elder. His blind eyes are closed, the effort to keep them open already too much. “Show me the world,” he says, making an effort to make the words come out strong. “Please.” There is no begging in his voice, just a simple plea simply stated.

Elder looks confused, taken aback. But I know what Orion means. He won’t talk unless we take him outside.

I stand and walk as quietly as I can to the door, motioning for Elder to follow. Elder pushes the wheeled table in front of him. The only sounds in the cryo room are of us walking and the table rattling over the metal floor.