Shades of Earth

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“It doesn’t tell us anything.” He looks at the book with disgust. “It’s just another frexing clue. And wherever this would have led us? It’s out of reach.”

“We don’t know that,” I reply, even though deep down I suspect he’s right.

Elder touches the side of his neck, where his useless wi-com is. “Amy, it’s hopeless. The answer is orbiting the planet, somewhere on Godspeed.”

“It’s not hopeless,” I say, even though I can’t really see how it’s anything but.

Elder doesn’t answer me. When I look up at him, his eyes have grown serious and concerned.

“What is it?” I ask, fiddling with my hair. His intense look makes me nervous.

“You know I didn’t want to leave you,” he says, his gaze never wavering.

“What?”

“When you passed out. I didn’t want to leave you. I wanted to stay. But your parents—”

“Elder . . . ” I feel stupid for ever having brought it up. I don’t need him by my side every second of the day to know that he wants to be there. I guess the only thing his absence this morning really proved was that I want—need—him around too.

“Speaking of your parents, we should get back,” Elder says, defeat in his voice. “Your father will want to know that the shuttle is open now.”

I nod—he’s right. I tuck The Little Prince under my arm and follow him back outside the shuttle. Even though we have the thing we came for—the clue that might give us the answers we need—it feels as if we’ve been defeated. On the bridge, Elder pauses, looking down at Orion’s body. Elder’s long hair obscures his face and his shadow casts Orion in darkness, making it seem almost as if Elder is peering into his own reflection. I clutch the book against my chest, trying to dispel the image.

“Amy?” a surprised male voice calls out. Elder steps in front of me, as if to protect me from an enemy, but any enemy on this planet wouldn’t know my name.

Chris walks out of the shadows of the trees.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, surprised and perhaps a little suspicious.

“I have every right to be in my shuttle,” Elder says loudly. “What are you doing here?”

“Colonel Martin sent me to check to see if the shuttle’s lockdown was over,” Chris says. “What’s that?”

He points to Orion’s body.

Elder explains—partially. He tells Chris that Orion was a shipborn who’d been frozen for crimes he committed on Godspeed, but he doesn’t tell him about the clues.

“You two should get back to the ruins,” Chris says when Elder is done. “Colonel Martin is having a colony-wide meeting. He’s only waiting for me to return with the voice amplifier.” He runs up the ramp and to the bridge, carefully avoiding contact with the metal table and Orion’s body. After withdrawing something—a voice amplifier, apparently—from a panel built into the shuttle, he tosses it down to Elder, and Elder passes it to me. I hold it next to the copy of The Little Prince. Chris glances at the book but doesn’t bother asking questions.

“What about—” Elder says, pausing. What about Orion’s body.

“I’ll take care of it,” Chris says gently. “I’m helping with the others.”

Juliana Robertson and Lorin.

So many.

Too many.

And we don’t even know what happened.

“Do we know more about how they died?” Elder asks, obviously on the same train of thought as me.

“The pteros.” At our blank stares, Chris elaborates. “That’s what they’re calling those bird monsters. Pteros—short for pterodactyl or pterosaur or something. Because they look so much like dinosaurs.”

I imagine what Lorin and Juliana’s last moments must have looked like—all claws and saw-like teeth. My lip curls involuntarily in disgust, and I force myself not to think about that.

“You should go,” Chris adds. “Your father hasn’t noticed you’re missing, Amy, but he will soon. . . . ”

I nod—my dad is going to be furious if he finds out I made my way back to the shuttle, especially after yesterday’s fiasco with the purple flowers. Wrapping my hand around Elder’s, I gently drag him away, back in the direction of the ruins, while Chris heads up the ramp.

“What’s he going to do with him?” Elder asks, looking back at the shuttle and nearly tripping on an exposed root.

“Who?”

“Orion.”

“Bury him, I guess,” I say. “That’s what they did with the others, the ones who died during landing.”

Elder frowns. He stops and starts back to the shuttle, then stops again and continues on the trail to the ruins. “I don’t like that,” he says in an undertone.

“What—what did your people do with the dead?” I ask, tripping over the question. I know that there was no religion on the ship, but I was never really clear on what happened to those who passed away. Harley’s death left no body, and I never saw what happened to the others. When I met Steela, an old woman who was killed merely for her age, Doc hinted that the bodies were recycled, but no one, not even Elder, knew about that, I think. And that was the closest I came to discovering the truth.

“We send them to the stars,” Elder says. “I’ve read about old religions and rituals. We didn’t make a display of it—no ‘prayers’ or anything. We might not believe in gods, but we all could see the beauty of an eternity floating free, away from the confines of the ship, drifting across the universe.”

He swallows, and I notice that his eyes are very red.

“What are we supposed to do with the dead now that they can no longer fly away?” he asks. “Burying them is the exact opposite of setting them free in the universe.”

“My mother told me once that a famous physicist said we’re all made of star stuff,” I say slowly, trying to remember the exact words of the quote. “That the particles inside us are the same that are in stars. Maybe it doesn’t matter if someone’s buried or floating in space; maybe they’re sent to the stars either way.”

“They’re still dead,” Elder says bitterly.

“We all die someday.” Maybe the only thing that makes that fact bearable is the idea that death is the only way we can return to the stars.

When we get to the edge of the forest, the people are already gathering into a crowd in the meadow that stretches between the trees and the ruins. They all mutter among themselves, the sounds loud but too indistinct for me to make out specific words. I don’t need words, though, to know what it is they’re feeling. Fear. I start to skirt the edge of the crowd, heading toward the buildings, but Elder grabs my hand and squeezes it. With a look, I know what he intends to do—stay here, where he is needed most. I nod silently and head off, dodging around clusters of worried, anxious people until I reach the buildings on the edge of the ruins.

“There you are!” Mom calls, relief in her voice. “Where have you been? Off with that Elder boy? You had me scared stiff! If you’re going to do something like that, at least take Chris or one of the other military with you.”

“I was just—um—” I start, trying to come up with a lie. Mom hasn’t even noticed the tattered copy of The Little Prince or the voice amplifier I’m carrying. “Chris gave this to me to give to Dad,” I finally say, holding out the voice amplifier while slipping the book behind my back.

Mom bustles me into the first building.

I stop short.

Two bodies are laid out on the dusty floor. One body is covered—mostly. I can still see the shock of bushy hair sticking out from under the jacket that covers half of Juliana Robertson’s face, but that’s about the only thing that identifies her. She’s mangled and bloody in a carnivorous sort of way, and I have no doubt that it was a “ptero” that killed her.

Lorin looks as if she might be sleeping.

But she’s not.

“Where’s Dr. Gupta?” I ask.

Mom sighs. “We’re not sure, but . . . it doesn’t look hopeful. There were . . . pieces . . . of poor Juliana scattered around. We thought at first that Dr. Gupta was, er, among the pieces. But it seems as if he’s missing.” I look up at her, hopeful, but the look on her face makes my hope die. “Or it could just be that there was nothing of him left . . . I mean . . . Amy, maybe he was . . . ”

“Eaten?” I gasp.

Mom looks grim.

“Amy! I was looking for you,” Dad booms, descending the steps of the building. “Have you seen Chris? Everyone’s waiting for my speech.”

That’s all what he wants to know? Seriously? I step around the covered bodies. “Here,” I say, handing him the voice amplifier. I feel sick. “Oh, and also? Elder’s got the shuttle open now.”

“Does he?” Dad actually looks pleased at this. “Well, that’s good. I’m glad something’s finally working in our favor.”

Dad goes back upstairs, and by the time I turn around, Mom is gone too. Probably outside, to listen to Dad’s speech.

It’s just me and the bodies—one ripped apart, the other untouched. Juliana has only one eye left, and it watches me as I run from the room.

24: ELDER

Colonel Martin stands on the roof of the closest building, the voice amplifier in his hand. Around me, my people shift nervously. In the shuttle, there was an invisible line dividing the people born on Earth from those born on the ship. Now the scientists stand closest to the buildings, and the military stands closest to the forest, trapping my people in the middle.

“Attention, all members of our colony,” Colonel Martin says. My lips quirk up in a bitter smile. Smart of him, calling us one colony. As if we’re united.

“It is my duty first to inform you of a sad circumstance. Last night, two members of the group—an Earthborn and a shipborn—were discovered dead.”

Colonel Martin’s words cause a flurry of chatter to rise up until he raises his hand, asking for silence. News of Lorin’s disappearance had spread quickly among my people, but to hear that she’s dead—that’s another thing entirely.

“Their deaths remind us that this planet is full of unknown dangers. Something as simple as sniffing a flower could make you sick; wandering from the group could leave you the victim of savage beasts.”

I look around me. True terror is painted on every face. I wonder if Colonel Martin knows what he’s done. Fear of the unknown is the greatest sort of fear there is, and he’s just ensured that everything on this planet is an unknown danger to my people.

“My military will be enforcing rules,” Colonel Martin continues, “a curfew, guidelines for who can go where, et cetera—for your safety.”

I realize that I’m holding my breath. Perhaps it’s my years with Eldest that make me wary of Colonel Martin’s speech, or perhaps it’s the fight with Bartie in those last days, or perhaps it’s that I know what Orion would say if he were here now. But I can’t shake the unease coiling around my stomach.