“What are you doing down here? And how did you get down here in the first place?” Pause. “How did you even know about this place?”
“I took the elevator. ” I try to appear brilly, but my heart’s banging around in my chest.
“You shouldn’t be down here. ” He frowns. He touches the wi-com button behind his left ear. “Com link: Eldest,” he says.
“No! Don’t com Eldest! I’ll go!” I say, but I don’t want to go, I want to look more at the girl with sunset hair.
Doc shakes his head at me. “It’s dangerous down here. Touch those buttons,” he nods toward a little black electrical box at the frozen girl’s head, “and you could wake her. ”
I look at the box. It’s simple. On the top are three buttons: ELECTRICAL PULSE, CHECK DATA, and, under a clear protective case with a thumbprint scanner, a yellow button labeled “REANIMATION. ” Wires extending from it go back into the glass box; I follow the tubes with my eyes to her perfect cherry mouth.
“I won’t touch it,” I say, but Doc’s already turned away from me.
“Elder’s down here,” he says, and I know those words aren’t for me, but for Eldest, who must have connected to Doc’s wi-com. “Yes,” Doc says. Pause. “I don’t frexing know. ” He eyes me again, a cold, evaluating look I have not seen since the days I was his patient. Doc touches the wi-com, and Eldest is disconnected. I know it won’t be long before Eldest comes down here and drags me back to the Learning Center.
“Who is she?” I ask. I want to know all I can, while I can.
Doc narrows his eyes at me, but he bends down, looks at the front of the metal door. “Number 42. I was examining all the forties today, just a visual check that all is clear. ” He shakes his head. “I should have finished before going up to the Ward,” he mutters to himself.
“The forties?”
Doc looks up at me. “They’re all numbered. ”
“Yes, I can see that. ” I can’t keep the impatience from my voice. “But what does it mean? Why are there numbered doors and frozen people here?”
Doc stares down at the girl with sunset hair. “You should ask Eldest that. ”
“I’m asking you. ”
Doc turns to me. “I’ll tell you if you tell me how you got down here. All the doors that lead to that elevator are locked. ”
“Not the one on the fourth floor,” I say. “It was unlocked. ”
He narrows his eyes. “And you just happened to come across an unlocked door on the fourth floor?”
I hesitate. “I found some blueprints of the ship in the Recorder Hall. I saw the second elevator there. ” I’m not going to scamp out Orion. It’s not his fault I got caught.
I can tell Doc’s thinking fast—his face has become blank and emotionless.
“So,” I say, looking down at her again. “Who is she really?”
Doc walks past her glass box to a work desk on the far wall and comes back with a floppy. He slides a finger on it to open a program, punches in a code, and presses his index finger on an ID square. Then he types one-handed.
“Number 42, Number 42. Ah. She’s nonessential. ”
“What?” I crouch down so that my face is even with her face. Her hair looks as if someone has poured yellow, orange, and red ink into a glass of water; the strands swirl around, pouring from her head, curling up at the ends at the bottom of the glass box. How could anyone say someone with sunset hair is nonessential?
“Her parents, apparently, put in a special request for her to be included,” Doc continues, scrolling down the floppy. “They seem important enough—mother in biological engineering, father rather high up in the military. Lucky her. Not many nonessentials were allowed on. Not enough cargo space. ”
I blink. She’s “cargo”? Nonessential cargo?
“Why is she here? Why are any of them here? Why is there a level full of frozen people?”
“That,” Doc says as he puts down the floppy, “is for you to ask Eldest. ”
“I don’t think I can trust Eldest,” I whisper to the girl with sunset hair, but Doc doesn’t hear.
I wonder what color her eyes are. I squint through the ice. I can see that her eyelashes are long and reddish-yellow—frex! I didn’t know they made eyelashes like that!—but they are sealed firmly shut. All I know is if a girl can have skin that pale and hair that red and eyelashes that sunshiny, then who knows what colors live in her eyes?