Shards and Ashes

Love Is a Choice by Beth Revis

I DON’T WANT to kill him, but I will if I have to.

A smooth plastic bottle rests in my right pocket. Inside are three pills. Only three. I have to get more. It’s as simple as that. I have to get more. Without the pills, my mind will be contaminated by the drug in the water used to control the populace. Phydus will make me acquiesce to Eldest’s rule. It will make me give up.

I grip the knife in my left pocket. It’s crudely made from a scrap of metal I found near my hiding place, but it will do what I need it to do. It will get me the pills I need.

I run both hands through my tangled, dirty hair, yanking against the matted knots. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this. But what choice has Eldest left me? I used to get one pill a day, like clockwork. That pill protected me from the drugged waters that are piped throughout the ship, the chemicals that make nearly everyone else aboard Godspeed a mindless minion of Eldest. When I started to question Eldest, though, when I started using this brain of mine that had been sheltered so long by the daily blue-and-white pills . . . that’s when Eldest tried to have me killed.

The only reason I escaped is because Doc didn’t want to be responsible for killing a kid. I’m not that much of a kid. Practically a man. Nineteen. Doc might have let me go then, to fake my death and try hiding out in a ship that’s too small to hide anything forever, but if I don’t get more pills, I might as well give myself up to Eldest now.

I take a deep breath. I’ve been hiding in the walls of the ship for so long that I have almost forgotten the scent of dirt and grass. I had not known before how the stench of metal and dust had woven into my very bones until the clean air purged me. This is the largest level of the ship, the easiest level to hide in. Ten square miles of farmland with a city in the distance, all surrounded by metal walls painted blue to simulate a sky none of us have ever seen. One day Godspeed will land on the new planet, and we’ll get a real sky.

But until then . . .

I reach into my pocket and clench the knife in my fist.

I keep close to the wall. I can’t afford to be seen here. I can’t afford to be seen anywhere.

I creep up to the Recorder Hall, a giant brick building that houses all the records of Sol-Earth: literature, history, science, all written before the ship launched, most of it before the authors even thought launching a ship across the universe was possible. The Hall is empty now—no more students, only an ancient old man to wander among the ancient old texts.

The solar lamp is turned off and darkness blankets the ship, keeping me hidden. Everyone should be asleep. Especially the old Recorder.

The Recorder is of the oldest generation, a weak man who acquiesces to any of Eldest’s demands, not because he is drugged but because he wants nothing more than to do Eldest’s bidding.

Not because he is drugged. He has the pills I need. I just have to take them.

The giant front doors squeak when I push them open. I slip inside and shut them as quietly as I can.

Inside, the entryway of the Hall reminds me of when I was younger, when Eldest favored me. He would bring me here and let me run my hands over the digital membrane screens that decorate the walls, lighting them up with images and vids and music. My fingers ache with a foolish desire to turn on the closest screen. I’ve filled my time in hiding with my own thoughts—how I can survive, how I can one day take down Eldest, how I can change the ship for the better. I’m sick of my own voice.

“Who’s there?”

I freeze. My fingers are hard and numb around the knife in my pocket.

That was not the voice of an old man. That was a woman’s voice, clear and strong.

“I know someone’s there. Don’t make me com Eldest.”

Frex.

“Wait!” I say, stepping into the center of the entryway. I let go of the knife, hold up my empty hands.

The lights flick on. I blink, momentarily blinded by the brightness.

“Who are you?” the voice demands again.

“Who are you?” I shoot back, rubbing my eyes. “What happened to the Recorder?” I try to think of the old man who used to be the Recorder—he was old, but not so old that he would need a replacement already.

The woman’s hand shakes as it hovers over her wireless communicator. She’s only a few years older than me, but a childlike fear fills her eyes.

“Don’t com Eldest,” I plead. “Just—wait.”

She steps around the desk. “The old Recorder was my grandfather,” she says. “He . . . decided to retire. He let me take his place. We didn’t tell Eldest.”

The corner of my mouth twitches up. This girl is clever—and so was her grandfather. Much more clever than I would have thought. The grandfather is probably drugged up now, whiling away his later years on one of the farms that produce the food for the ship. By swapping places with this girl, he ensured that she would get his ration of blue-and-white pills, that his granddaughter would be able to think for herself.

And they didn’t tell Eldest, who would have put a stop to such independent thinking.

Maybe . . . maybe she’ll be on my side. Maybe I don’t have to stand up against Eldest by myself.

“What do you want?” she asks, suspicion tainting her voice.

“I—I . . .” I stutter, unsure of what to say.

“I know you,” she says.

I duck my head down, hoping my bedraggled hair will hide my features, but it’s too late.

“You . . . you’re dead. Eldest told everyone you died.”

I glance up, meeting her eyes. “Eldest lied.”

She approaches me warily, but I’m not sure if she hesitates because she’s afraid of me, or afraid I’ll run. I stand very, very still. When she’s only inches away from me, she reaches up and touches the side of my face, tucking my hair behind my ear.

She gasps.

I raise a hand to cover the scar on the side of my neck. It’s still fresh, puckered and pink, and it hurts to the touch.

She touches the side of her own neck where, just behind her left ear, a wi-com button is embedded. Implanted under our skin at birth, wi-coms provide easy communication with everyone onboard Godspeed. But they also provide Eldest with a locator. When I went into hiding, I had to get rid of my wi-com. I rub my fingers together, remembering the way they were slick with my own blood as I gouged the device from my neck.

“Why are you here?” the girl asks, and I know she’s talking about more than just why I’m in the Recorder Hall.

“Eldest . . .” I swallow. I’ve held on to the secrets Eldest tried to kill me for; I’m not ready to give them up to a girl with big, innocent eyes. “I’ve been in hiding. From Eldest. But I need . . . I’m running out of supplies.”

The young woman’s face lights up. Even though she’s my elder, I feel like an old man next to her vivacity. “Sanctuary!” she says enthusiastically.

“Sanctuary?”

She darts to the other end of the room, to a desk by the wall, and grabs up a heavy book from Sol-Earth. “Just like in this story,” she says, running back to me and pushing the book into my hands. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo. “You,” she says, “are seeking sanctuary. Back on Sol-Earth, in this place called Pah-rees, if you were in trouble, you’d go to Note-ree Dame, and you could hide there in safety.”

I hand the thick book back to her. “You’re going to let the Recorder Hall be my sanctuary?”

She nods eagerly. “I’ll protect you from Eldest!”

I can’t help but smile, even though I’m worried that this young woman has no idea what she’s doing, offering sanctuary to me. Against Eldest. Eldest may look like a kind old grandfather, but he rules Godspeed more fiercely than any dictator. The few who don’t obey him because of the drugged water obey him because of their fear.

Except, maybe, this girl, alone in the Recorder Hall and ignored by all but the books.

“You can’t tell anybod—” I start.

“Of course not!” She cuts me off, looking wounded that I would even suggest that she would reveal my location.

I don’t want to trust her. I don’t want to trust anybody. But the thing is . . . I can’t live in hiding in a forgotten part of the ship for the rest of my life.

“My name is Mag,” the woman says. She searches my eyes, and I can tell that she wants me to stay.

“I’m—”

“I know who you are.”

Everyone does. I’m the heir to Eldest’s tyranny. I’m the one who was supposed to take over the ship after him.

I was the one he tried to have killed when I disagreed with him.

“I’m not that person anymore,” I say. “I can’t be.”

“You need a new name,” Mag says.

I open my mouth but don’t speak, my mind racing to come up with a name for her.

“No!” she says, her voice bouncing off the high walls of the Recorder Hall. “We’ll find a name for you!”

She turns to the giant digital membrane screens hanging from the walls and starts tapping on one. “Let’s name you after a story,” she says. “What about Quasimodo? He was in that story I was telling you about earlier. No,” she says before I have a chance to speak. “His name’s too long and weird. Maybe something from Shakespeare? Like Oberon or Puck? Or Romeo?” She giggles. Names flash on the screen she’s working on: lists of characters in the books preserved in the Recorder Hall, names of authors, charts of the most popular names used on Sol-Earth when the ship launched, a genealogy of the first generations born on Godspeed.

“I know,” Mag says, stopping her search and whirling around to face me. “I know. We’ll name you after a constellation. It makes perfect sense.”

There is something poetic in the idea: name me after the stars we’re soaring through.

“Here.” A star chart appears on the wall screen, with lines connecting the dots of stars and little name labels beside them.

She steps back, and it’s not until she’s studiously staring at the star chart that I realize how quiet the Recorder Hall is without her voice.

“What about that one?” she asks, pointing.

“Hercules?” I say.

She nods. “He was a hero in a lot of the really old stories.”

“No.” I shake my head. I’m no hero.

Mag frowns—not at me, at the chart. This is a puzzle for her to figure out, nothing more.

“That one.” I point to a trio of stars lined up. “Orion.”

“Orion? I don’t know that story. . . .”

I do. “He’s a hunter.” Much more fitting than a hero.

“Orion,” she says to the chart. She speaks slowly, as if tasting the word. Then she turns to me. “Orion,” she says, and with that, I am named.

It only takes three months for me to consider life at the Recorder Hall normal. Mag and I share the little room in the back of the third floor of the Hall—I sleep on the floor, she sleeps on the bed. We’ve slowly started increasing the food rations we take. There has never been a limit to the amount of food given out—with Phydus, people tend to only eat what they need—but we don’t want to risk some observant record keeper who isn’t on Phydus discovering a sudden spike in food consumption from the Recorder Hall.

Mag’s meds are delivered to her daily, one pill at a time, through the automatic dispenser built into her wall. She went to the Hospital with a faked stomach pain, though, and swiped a hundred-count bottle of pills for me. I keep it with me at all times. I have long since learned that if I have the choice between food and meds on this ship, the meds are more precious.

Now I upend the bottle Mag stole for me. Two pills fall into my hand. I put one in my mouth and swallow, then carefully put the remaining pill back in the bottle.

Mag pokes her finger into the dispenser in her wall and withdraws her own pill.

“I need to get more meds,” I say.

Mag stares at the blue-and-white pill in her hand. “I’m going to visit my grandfather today,” she finally says.

“Why?” I ask.

Her fingers curl over the pill. “I miss him.”

I watch her, but she doesn’t lift the pill to her mouth.

“He won’t be the same,” I say eventually.

Her fingers go lax. “I know.” She puts the pill on her tongue and swallows.

I don’t want her to go. Although it’s been months—nearly a year—since Mag and her grandfather switched places, I find it hard to believe that Eldest, who knows everything on this ship, hasn’t noticed. Going to her grandfather may draw attention to the fact they swapped roles, and that may bring Eldest here—to her, and to me.

But I can’t keep her locked up in the Recorder Hall. I can’t ask that of her. Just because I’m trapped doesn’t mean I can imprison Mag. Maybe she has escaped Eldest’s watchful eye, and she should take advantage of that while she can.

While she goes off to the farms to find her grandfather, I go down to the book rooms. I’ve been reading up on all the civic and social sciences materials from Sol-Earth. While the civics room is among the smallest of the collections in the Recorder Hall—more than twice the amount of space is reserved for mathematics, and twice that again is reserved for science—there are plenty of books on government to keep me busy.

I find that the volumes I tend to gravitate toward are not the thick, heavy tomes full of history and analysis. Instead, it’s the thin books that I spend the most time with. Plato’s Republic. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses—even though that one’s about religion, which I will admit to understanding nothing about, it’s also about who has the ability to dictate for others what is right and what is wrong. Sometimes it feels as if the shorter the book is, the harder it is to understand. The Magna Carta is tiny, but there are three books here in the Hall, each more than two inches thick, that try to explain just how important it is.

I push aside the analytical commentaries and look just at the source texts. In one stack I have The Republic, Common Sense, Ninety-Five Theses, and now the Magna Carta. I slide over Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience,” then add Thomas More’s Utopia.

On the other side of the table, I have a collection of essays written by samurai on Bushido, Machiavelli’s The Prince, an Indian book called Arthashastra, and Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung.

This is the difference. On one side are the books that advocate voting and sharing the government with the people. The other has books that Eldest would agree with: a strong leader using fear or violence to control. This is it, as black-and-white as the pages inside the books.

I draw the stack on the right side closer to me. This is where I should find the key to overthrowing Eldest, making the ship into a world where people can live freely, with the truth and without the hazy acquiescence Phydus provides.

I remember Eldest, when I first learned of the drugs he put in the water.

“Give me that bucket, boy,” he said. I was thirteen years old, and felt special that he included me in today’s work rather than keeping me cooped up with lessons.

The bucket wasn’t big, but the syrupy liquid inside was heavy, and I had to use both arms to carry it. Eldest took it from me one-handed and lifted it to a small spout built into the side of the water pump.

“I thought the vits were already distributed,” I say, watching the liquid slide down into the pump.

“These aren’t vitamins.”

I chew on the inside of my cheek. I don’t ask questions: I want to prove to Eldest how smart I am by figuring this puzzle out for myself.

Eldest seems to know I can’t, though. He sets the empty bucket down and turns to stare at me.

“What’s the biggest danger on this ship, boy?” he growls.

I think for a moment, but Eldest is emanating impatience. “Disease,” I say quickly, thinking of the Plague that decimated our population a few gens ago.

Eldest shakes his head. “We can recover from disease. The thing we couldn’t recover from?” He waits a moment, but I have no answer. “Mutiny. We’re alone out here, boy. Alone. Ain’t nothing on the other side of the ship’s walls but the vacuum of space. Nowhere to go. If this ship rises up in mutiny, we’ll kill ourselves. The mission will be lost. A revolution would be suicide for everyone.”

I think about what he says, my eyes drifting to the heavy steel walls that line the room.

“This stuff?” Eldest kicks the bucket. “This stuff prevents mutiny. This saves us all.”

I stare at the two stacks of books I’ve arranged on the metal table.

With a broad sweep of my arm, I topple them into each other, mixing the titles.

It’s not as simple as black-and-white, right or wrong.

When I first started questioning Eldest, I was doing just that: asking questions. But I realized soon enough that asking questions was the worst possible thing I could ever do.

I did it anyway.

But even now, I’m still asking questions. Only now, instead of questioning Eldest, I’m starting to question myself. Would a revolution be good? Should I risk everything—even the lives of everyone on board this ship—for what I think is right?

“What are you doing?” Mag’s voice cuts through my concentration and makes me jump in surprise.

“I didn’t know you’d be back so soon!” I say, masking my worry with a smile.

She doesn’t return my grin; her eyes are rimmed with red, her jaw clenched. “I’ve been gone for two hours.”

I bite back a word of surprise. I’d not realized I’d been in the book room so long.

She crosses the small room and sits opposite me. “Are you reading all these?”

“Already read them.”

Mag is silent for a long moment. Her eyes stare at the books, but I don’t think she’s really seeing them.

“What am I doing, Mag?” I say to the mixed-up books on the table. “I thought . . . I thought it would all be worth it.” My fingers go unconsciously to the spiderweb scar behind my left ear, where I removed my wi-com in order to hide from Eldest. “But now I’m just spending my life in hiding, not even fighting.” I pause. “Not even sure if I should fight. Maybe Eldest isn’t entirely wrong.”

“The drugs are wrong.” Mag spits out the words, vehemence making her voice rise. “And Eldest is wrong for using them.”

I look up at her. I’d noticed her red eyes when she came in, but now I see the sorrow mixed with rage behind them. “Did you see your grandfather?” I ask gently.

Mag growls.

“What happened?” I say.

She looks down at the mess of books on the table, over to the shelves behind me, up at the tiny window high in the wall. She looks everywhere but at me. “He was on Phydus.”

She finally meets my eyes. “It’s like he was dead inside.”

That’s what Phydus does. It turns you into a mindless drone, a worker for Eldest to use, and nothing more.

“Weren’t you on Phydus before your grandfather gave you his spot here?” I ask.

Mag nods. “Of course. I didn’t even know about Phydus. He brought me here and started giving me half doses using his own meds. He’d pop the capsules open and sprinkle the Inhibitor med onto my breakfast. There was a short time—maybe a week?—when I was starting to come out of the influence of Phydus, and he was starting to fall under it.”

“What did it feel like?” I ask. As Eldest’s chosen heir, I was always on the meds that prevent Phydus from controlling me.

Mag’s eyes lose focus as she remembers. “It was like . . . nothing. It was like living in a state of nothing. Nothing ever really hurt. Nothing bothered me. Everything was so . . . peaceful.”

Her answer surprises me. “It sounds nice.”

“I think it was nice,” she says. “At least, it was nice to be the one on Phydus. But now that I take Inhibitor pills, I see others on Phydus. I see Granddad. And . . . it’s not nice to see him like that.”

I try to imagine Mag on Phydus. She’s so vibrant, it’s hard to picture her with empty eyes. But then I remember the way Eldest’s face hardened when he told me about mutiny. Rage burns within Mag like a smoldering ember.

I don’t know if I fear that rage . . . or love it.

I can trace back to that day in the library as the day everything changed. I don’t know if it was my words that affected Mag or if it was seeing her grandfather on Phydus, but that smoldering ember grew into a flame. First she read the books I had spread out on the table—all of them. That took her nearly a month, but although she was silent and reserved, I could tell that her passion was only growing.

Then one morning, Eldest makes an announcement.

He coms everyone just as the solar lamp turns on the 132nd day I’ve been in hiding, ordering them to meet at the statue of the Plague Eldest in the garden behind the Hospital. Mag goes early, but even though so many months have passed and I think I would blend into the crowd, I fear getting too close to Eldest. Instead, I watch from the art gallery’s windows in the Recorder Hall.

Eldest takes the grav tube from his level to this one. He doesn’t avoid the Keeper Level, but he does make sure that every time he graces the lowest level with his presence, people notice.

He moves quickly from the grav tube entrance down the path, toward the garden. He carries something in his arms, something bundled up and wiggly. I press against the glass to see what he has—and as soon as I do, Eldest pauses and looks up at the Recorder Hall. I draw immediately back into the shadows, afraid he’s noticed me, but his attention is quickly diverted back to the thing in his arms.

The sleeves of his elaborately embroidered robe slip, and I dare to lean forward, straining to see. . . .

A baby.

He’s carrying a baby.

My replacement.

I watch as Eldest carries the baby to the garden and then raises it up for all the crowd to see. I don’t need to hear his words to know what he’s saying. He’s saying this child is the new heir. He’s saying this baby will reign after him now that I am—apparently—gone for good.

I turn away before the crowd starts to disperse and trudge down to the civics book room. The books Mag has been reading are still scattered on the metal table, with tabs and notes sticking out of many pages. She didn’t divide the books up by right or wrong, Eldest or not, as I did; instead, she’s found something in each title.

I’m just not sure what.

I hear the heavy front doors open—she’s back. I rush out of the book room and toward the hall that leads to the main entryway. I’m almost to the front when I hear Mag speak in a loud, ringing voice.

“Just this way, sir!”

I immediately press against the wall, hoping that the shadows of the poorly lit hallway are enough to hide me. Sir. That could only mean—

“Thank you,” Eldest’s voice says, much softer, but the sound is one I’ll never forget.

Another sound wafts through the Hall and into the shadows where I lurk: a whimper. Barely audible, soft and gentle. The baby.

“He’s a handsome boy,” Mag says, but her tone belies her friendly words.

The baby huffs as, I think, Eldest shifts him in his arms. I dare to glance around the doorway—Eldest and Mag are facing the other direction, toward the outer door, and the baby, over Eldest’s shoulder, is looking directly at me.

I meet his wide, dark-brown eyes. He can’t be more than a few days old. He stares intently at me, as if there is meaning behind his gaze, but there’s not. He’s just a baby. Already entwined in Eldest’s dark plots.

He will be raised just like I was. Passed from family to family until Eldest decides to start training him. Thrust into his role too young, far too young. Eldest will expect him to know everything from the moment he begins training. He’ll be punished for silly things, like asking too many questions or walking too fast or stomping too loudly in the Keeper Level. He’ll live for the rare moments when Eldest smiles or—even better—lets a compliment fall from his lips. He will spend his whole life questioning whether he’s good enough, fearing that he’s not. He’ll listen to every single word Eldest says, try to uncover meaning in every intonation, and seek with his entire self the hidden secrets he’ll need to know to be a good leader after Eldest.

And maybe one day, he’ll start to think about the things Eldest doesn’t say.

Those big brown eyes blink, and it’s only then that I realize I’ve actually stepped out, past the shadows and into the entryway. If Eldest turned now, he would see me. I suck in a gasp and throw myself back into the dark.

“I wanted to ask you something,” Eldest says, his voice snaking across the hall to me.

“Yes?” Mag doesn’t let any fear creep into her voice.

“Has anyone been frequenting the Recorder Hall in the past month?”

“No.” After a moment, Mag adds, “Sir.”

“You’ve been alone here.”

“Yes.”

Eldest says something too low for me to hear. Then: “I let you take your grandfather’s place, even though neither of you asked permission. I don’t want you to get the impression that I didn’t know, or that it isn’t only because I allowed it that you are in this role.”

“Yes, sir.” There is fear in her voice now, but still a hint of defiance.

“Someone’s been looking at some highly . . . interesting documents on the floppy network. If no one’s been in the Hall but you . . .” Eldest lets the accusation hang in the air.

Before Mag can think of an answer, the baby starts to cry. Not the fussy whimpers of before, but an earsplitting wail. Eldest shifts the baby again, but to no avail. The more the baby cries, the angrier Eldest gets; the angrier Eldest gets, the more insistent the cries. In moments, Eldest storms from the Hall.

Mag waits several minutes after the big doors close and the baby’s cries fade before she whispers, “Orion?”

I step out of the shadows.

“He knows I’ve been researching.”

“What have you been researching?” I ask. I didn’t know she’d taken her studies past the books.

“Methods of rebellion. Weapons. Strategy.”

“Mag!” Well, of course Eldest would have noticed that sort of thing.

She shrugs. “I’m just glad the baby started crying. It’ll give me a chance to think of an excuse.”

“That baby . . .”

“He’s your replacement.” Mag’s voice is blunt, harsh.

“Still, he’s kind of cute. You can’t help but like the little guy.”

“Yes,” she says, very seriously, “you can.”

That night, Mag stays in the book rooms so late that I fall asleep without her. I wake up, though, to the sensation of her lips pressed against mine.

I jerk back, surprised, sitting up.

A slow, twisty smile spreads across her face.

“What—?” I ask.

She tucks a strand of my hair—it’s getting so long now—behind my left ear. Her fingers linger on the bumpy scar there. Her touch is gentle but unrelinquishing. She pulls me closer.

Her lips touch mine, shy now, but an almost inaudible gasp slips from her mouth into mine, and I’m undone. I grab her and pull her closer, and the kiss deepens, turning swiftly into something else, something more, and we’re both lost to each other.

She’s gone before I wake up the next morning. I get out of bed slowly, hoping that, perhaps, she’ll come back, but no—she’s really gone. After I shower and dress, I search the Recorder Hall, but there’s no sign of Mag anywhere.

Everything’s changed now. How could it not?

I try to think of what the future may hold. I won’t hide forever. It’s not that I can’t—but that I won’t.

I think of the baby Eldest will raise as his, to take the place I would have had as leader. That baby holds more possibilities than I can imagine. If I’m patient . . . if I wait . . .

I couldn’t start a rebellion on my own. There’s no way. Between the controlling power of Phydus and the unremitting strategy of Eldest, any effort to reform the ship now would result in bloodshed . . . a lot of it. There are vids of the one rebellion Godspeed suffered, and the ship very nearly died out as a result. I may not agree with Eldest’s methods, but I do know that I can’t risk the lives of everyone just to take control of the ship for myself.

But maybe with Mag . . .

We could plan. Take it slow. Find a way to filter out the Phydus, bring people to our side one at a time. There is in the history books something called the Glorious Revolution. A bloodless revolt that shifted the power smoothly from one king to another.

It might take a lifetime to engineer, but if we could do it, if we plan just right—

I try to talk myself out of these thoughts, but then I force myself to stop. No. I don’t want to talk myself out of these thoughts. I want to have my own Glorious Revolution. I want to prove to Eldest that I can rule without the drug, that we can tell the people of Godspeed the real truth—and then we can all vote, decide in a fair way what to do next. . . .

I go straight to my hidden place, the place where I cowered for so long before daring to go to the Recorder Hall. No one knows where it is, no one but me. Even Eldest, who thinks he knows all, has forgotten about the secrets Godspeed still keeps.

In my haste, I don’t even think about how I should cover my face outside, how I should make sure no one’s following me. I just go, my single thought to begin the plans that will change the ship forever.

When I get to the place, I pause in surprise. While I lived here, it seemed as if the area was small, but almost . . . homey? Now it’s claustrophobic.

“This is where you hid before?”

I whirl around—standing in the door, light from the Feeder Level spilling around her, is Mag.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have been more careful. What if it hadn’t been Mag who found me?

She steps into the narrow space, closing the door behind her. I flip on the lights.

“It’s so cramped here,” she says.

But it doesn’t feel that way anymore, not with her here, too.

With the both of us here, where I hid alone for so long, I feel the urge to reveal everything to her: the secrets I learned that drove Eldest to get rid of me, the plans I have, the Glorious Revolution I want to stage. I start, though, with Phydus, and how Eldest distributes the drug through the water to ensure that what I want—change—never happens.

Mag drinks it all in, her eyes growing rounder with every new revelation. Even Mag, with her rebellious heart, has not dreamed that Godspeed holds this many secrets.

“That’s why he uses Phydus,” she says softly. “The only way to keep this much secret is by drugging people up so much that they don’t care anymore.” She turns to me then, eyes wide. “We have to make them care again.”

“I’ve been thinking,” I tell her, “about how we can change things. Together.”

Her expression lights up. “We can change things. Now. Take me to the Phydus pump. We’ll disable it right now.”

I shake my head. “We have to go slowly. We can topple Eldest’s control from within.”

“That won’t be enough,” she says, her words so fast that they blend together. “All we need to do is cut the Phydus machine off.”

I shake my head. “I can’t let you do that.”

“You don’t have a choice! Now that I know—I’ll find that frexing pump myself and blow it up if I have to!”

“Mag . . . Mag.” I wait until her eyes are focused on me. “Doing something like that—just cutting off the whole ship’s population at one time—that will lead to a huge revolt.”

She nods, excited.

“No, you don’t understand,” I say. My voice is pleading. “Mutiny on this ship would lead to . . . imagine how people will react. When they discover Eldest’s lies, they’ll want to kill him.”

“So?”

“And it’s more than that. There are some lies that . . . Eldest has a reason for keeping some things secret.”

Mag narrows her gaze. “You agree with him. He tried to kill you, Orion! You had to rip your wi-com out of your own flesh and have hidden for months from him! And you agree with him?”

“It’s not that simple,” I say. “I don’t think it’s right that he’s controlling everyone, of course I don’t. And I don’t like the lies. But Mag—we’re on a ship. In space. It would be so easy—so easy—for this to become too much, too quickly. The Feeder Level is a delicate biodome. The ship is not indestructible. We could kill ourselves out.”

She waves her hand dismissively, but I won’t let the matter drop. I grab a digital membrane screen I’d pocketed earlier and swipe my thumb over the access scanner. For a moment, I’m afraid Eldest has erased my access, but apparently he thought me dead enough to not bother with that. I bring up an old video feed, the same one Eldest showed me when he told me about the dangers of revolution.

I hand the screen to Mag when the vid starts playing. I know the video well: the way the farmers turned their tools into weapons, the way the blood stained the ground red, the way, in the end, nearly everyone was gone, a revolt so deadly we’ve still not recovered our numbers. While she watches the violent images flash across the screen, I watch her. I watch as the gleam in her eye sparkles, as the corner of her mouth slowly curls up.

In the Recorder Hall, we silently part ways—her to the civics book room, me to the gallery with the window that shows the Feeder Level. Mag still hasn’t forgiven me for not letting her switch off the Phydus, and I haven’t forgiven her for not realizing that a revolution doesn’t have to involve blood.

I stare out at the Feeder Level from my position. The glass is warm, and my face leaves a blurry print. I shut my eyes, letting my full weight rest on the window, then turn and slide down the glass, sitting with my back to the only world I’ve known.

I touch the scar on my neck.

I cannot forget what Eldest has done. I cannot forget the truths he’s covered up with Phydus.

But . . .

I cannot think that everything he’s done is wrong. I cannot believe that every truth should be known.

Why did he try to kill me? Because I questioned him. Why are questions wrong? Because questions lead to revolt. Why is revolt wrong? Because revolution would kill us all.

This is what I know is true.

There’s only one question left.

If all this is true, why did I push Eldest so hard he tried to kill me?

Because maybe a revolution would be worth it.

I wake up with my face pressed to the window, a slick line of drool dripping down the glass. My neck cracks as I stretch. I glance through the window—there is still mist on the fields; the solar lamp must have just clicked on.

And then I see him: a man, walking up the stairs to the front of the Recorder Hall.

I scramble away from the window, heart pounding. Was I seen?

I should hide. I know I should hide. But instead, I creep down the stairs. Before I reach the hallway, I hear shouting.

“What is going on?”

I know that voice: Doc. Eldest’s only real friend, who let me escape death anyway.

“Hello, Doc.” Mag’s voice is calm, soft.

“He knows, you idiot girl, he knows. He’s not stupid!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Doc growls in anger. His voice grows louder and quieter, as if he’s pacing back and forth. “Information. He keeps track of the network; he knows some very questionable documents and vids have been downloaded recently.”

Oh, shite. The mutiny vids I showed Mag yesterday.

But . . . what documents?

“And do you really think that he wouldn’t notice someone flipped the Phydus machine off?”

My eyes bulge. She wouldn’t. Would she? Would she? Did she sneak out while I slept and find the Phydus machine? It wouldn’t be that hard, not after I showed her my hiding place. Did she just stroll into the pump room and turn the frexing thing off?

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Mag says again, but her tone is a confession enough for me. She did. She did. She didn’t care about my protests, she didn’t care about what I showed her yesterday.

“It’s a frexing good thing that I caught it first and flipped the thing back on, you stupid girl. If he had seen it—”

“I don’t care!” Mag screeches. “Let him find out! Let him try to stop us!”

Us.

“Do you have him?” Doc says, panic creeping into his voice. “Are you hiding him? Is he telling you how to cause trouble?”

Doc’s footsteps grow closer. He has every right to be scared. If Eldest knew of Doc’s betrayal, of the way he let me live, Doc would face the same punishment as I did, and Eldest would watch him die.

“Who?” Mag sounds innocently curious.

Doc starts to say my name, the name I was called before Orion, but he stops himself. He doesn’t want to tip his hand to Mag if she really doesn’t know.

“He’s distracted now by the new baby,” Doc says, his voice calmer. “But he won’t be for long. And he knows what you’ve done so far. It would take weeks, maybe even months, for Phydus to completely wear off the population. Stupid girl. Of course Eldest would know first. You’re playing a dangerous game.”

“I’m not playing.”

And there it is. The threat behind her words.

The room is silent. I want to creep forward and see them, but I don’t dare move.

“You’ve doubled your food rations. I’m missing bottles of Inhibitor meds. And somehow you, a stupid little girl from the Feeder Level, suddenly know about the hidden level of the ship, about Phydus and the water pump. If I can figure it out, you better believe Eldest will. If he hasn’t already. And if he finds who I think you’re hiding, we’ll all be dead.”

Mag doesn’t answer.

“Do you know what happens when a living body is thrown into the vacuum of space?”

Mag still doesn’t answer.

“It will take several seconds for your body to lose oxygen.” Doc’s voice is cold and calculating. He’s trying to scare her. “Your eardrums will explode. Your spit will boil in your mouth. And finally, after all that, your brain will die.”

“And Eldest thinks,” Mag says slowly, “that doing this to me would stop a revolution if I started one?”

“You fool!” Doc bellows. There’s a flurry of motion—I think Doc tries to shake her, and she wrenches out of his grasp.

“You know what I think Phydus really does?” Mag says, a hint of anger in her voice now. “I think it takes away choice. That’s all. And I don’t care if it does destroy the whole ship—if that’s what we choose to do, at least we’ll have made the choice.”

After a moment, I hear footsteps heading toward the door. Doc leaves without another word.

Mag’s determination doesn’t change, but after Doc’s visit she is, at least, more careful.

I try—once—to ask her to consider slowing down her rebellious plans. Eldest’s power extends from more than just the drug. She’s risking a lot for a single chance.

We need plans. We need contingency plans for the original plans. This is all too important. One wrong move, and the ship descends into chaos. One wrong move, and people die.

But Mag doesn’t see it that way.

I was the one who questioned Eldest first. I was the one who was strapped to the table while Doc held a needle full of poison over me. I was the one who hid like a starved, beaten animal, waiting to see if my own exile would finish the job Eldest started.

And Mag is the one who will throw all that away on a haphazard plan to cobble together a revolution as quickly as possible.

“You know I love you?” she asks, both hands wrapped around the sides of my face. I remember her words about the baby, how easy it was for her not to love him.

I kiss her, the bitter taste of regret mingling on both our tongues.

“It’s important,” she adds. “Giving people a choice.”

I nod slowly. I do agree with her. But I worry that we can’t carry a whole revolution on just our shoulders.

“But,” I say, “you’re doing this so people can have a choice. What if they’re happier without one? What if they’d rather stay on Phydus? There’s that old Sol-Earth saying, ‘Ignorance is bliss.’ Maybe, when they find out all these truths, they will choose Phydus.”

She has no answer for that.

Mag spends more and more time in the book rooms. She pores over blueprints of the ship, schematics of the engine, diagrams of the Phydus pump. She studies how to build explosives and weapons. That’s stage two. First, destroy the pump. Then hand out weapons so the people can destroy Eldest. And, I think, the whole ship with him.

When I bring her breakfast, she stares at the little capsule of Inhibitor meds a long moment before she swallows the pill.

“You agree with me, right? You think I’m doing the right thing?” she asks. This is the first time she’s ever shown doubt.

“No,” I say simply. “I don’t.”

“But you were the one who first questioned Eldest!”

I nod. “And look where it’s gotten me. I was nearly killed; I’m in hiding now.”

“Once we start the revolution,” she says, “you won’t have to hide anymore.”

“If there’s one thing I learned,” I answer, “it’s that a real revolution will take much more than a bomb on a water pump to start.”

When I come with breakfast a few days later, I find Mag staring vacantly. I wave my hand in front of her face a few times before she blinks back into focus.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. “I must be tired.”

“Mag, I want to talk to you,” I say, pushing the tray of breakfast food toward her. She fiddles with the Inhibitor pill.

“I want you to know,” I say, “that I think it really would be better if we wait. There’s a lot that Eldest has kept hidden. I think his heir will ask the same questions I did, and when he does, that will be the time to bring him to our side. We can’t change anything by ourselves. But if we can crumble the Eldest system from within, we have a chance to really change the ship. We need change, but we don’t need a revolution.”

I’m thinking now of the things Mag doesn’t know, of the secrets that make me question whether or not Phydus really is wrong. I may not agree with Eldest’s methods, but at least I understand why he’s done what he’s done. And I know, I know deep inside of me, with the same conviction that led me to question Eldest in the first place, that a mutiny will fail. It will be crushed just like the first one was.

“No.” Mag speaks with more force than I’ve heard from her in a long time. She swallows her Inhibitor pill dry. “No,” she repeats. “I know the only way to do this is with a revolt.”

That’s fine.

I’m patient.

Haven’t I already proven that before?

Another week goes by. Mag’s plans crawl, then stop. She goes to the book rooms, but she doesn’t read. She just stares.

I place the breakfast tray in front of her. She looks at it, but doesn’t think to pick up her fork until I put it in her hand.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about your grandfather,” I say.

“He was the Recorder.” Her voice is meek, quiet.

“Yes, he was. And then you were.”

“And then I was.”

“Mag, remember how he switched places with you?” I ask.

She chews on a bit of her breakfast.

“Remember what you said about the baby, Mag?” I ask gently.

“No,” she whispers.

“You said you didn’t have to love it.”

She rests her hands on the table, still holding her fork.

“I realized something then, Mag,” I say, still using the gentlest voice I can muster. “I realized then that love can be a choice.”

Her big, empty eyes stare at me.

I reach across the table and pick up the Inhibitor pill capsule on her tray. I break it apart between my thumb and forefinger. White dust sprinkles out. “You gave me the idea for this. Or your grandfather did. He opened his own capsules up and sprinkled your food with the meds until they suppressed the Phydus in your system.”

I lick my finger and touch the tiny pile of white dust. “I just did the opposite.” I press the powder-dusted finger to my lips and taste the salt I used to replace the meds in her pills.

“Mag,” I say, forcing my voice into a conversational tone. “I want to thank you. You saved me. You gave me more than sanctuary. You showed me that my mild questioning of Eldest wasn’t enough, and that things will have to change.”

Her grip slackens, and the fork slides from between her fingers to the table.

I set it back on the tray. “But I can’t risk your carelessness. I’ve faced Eldest and nearly died for it. This is too big, too important, for you to throw everything away with reckless plans. It doesn’t matter if I like you or not.”

“Like? Love?” she whispers, the words struggling to escape from her Phydus-fogged mind.

“I can choose to love you,” I say. “Or I can choose not to.”

I help her stand. She follows meekly beside me as I lead her to the door of the Recorder Hall. “Go back to your grandfather. Go back to your other home. I will be the Recorder now.”

She doesn’t look back as she descends the stairs. I knew she wouldn’t. That’s what Phydus does. It makes you easy to control.

I stand in the shadow of the Recorder Hall, watching her go. I will stay here. I will be the Recorder. The Hall is rarely used, and I can stay in the shadows. As long as there’s no more trouble, Eldest won’t bother to come down here again. He hates to be reminded of the world outside his empire of steel.

And meanwhile, I will learn every single last secret that Eldest has.

When the time is ready, I will make my move.

It might be years. A decade or more. But while I wait, I will construct a plan so foolproof that, even if I die, the revolution—the freedom—Mag wants will still be ensured.

If I loved Mag the way she thought I did, I would have stood beside her and died a ridiculous, noble death.

But love is a choice.

And I can choose not to love her.