Harley backs up to the hatch door. He places both palms against the door and presses his face to the glass window.
“No good, no good,” he mutters.
“What’s no good?” My voice is even, calm now. I’m remembering how Doc locked Harley up for weeks last time, certain that he’d try to follow Kayleigh in death. How closely the nurses watched his meds, how Doc always made sure Harley took the extra ones.
“Harley, why don’t you come with me? I’ll spend the night down here; you go back to your room and rest. ”
“You want it all to yourself, don’t you?” Harley snarls.
“What? No!”
His face crumples. “I know, I know. You’re my friend, I know. ” He turns back to the window. “But still, it’s no use. There’s no frexing point. ”
“No point to what?”
“Doesn’t matter how long I stare. We’re never going to land, are we Elder? We’re never going to get off this frexing ship. We’re all going to live and die in this metal cage. 74 years and 263 days. Too long . . . too frexing long . . . This is the closest I’ll ever get to the outside, isn’t it?”
I want to tell him no, that he’s wrong, but I know that’s a lie. And I understand now, oh, how I understand why Eldest lies and makes the people all raise their children with the hope of planet-landing. If we don’t have that, what do we have to live for? Does it matter if it’s a lie if it keeps us alive? Taking away the chance for planet-landing has left Harley nothing more than an empty, desperate shell.
Harley has sunk all the way to the floor. He has a canvas there, but it’s covered with muslin, and I don’t have the heart to ask him what he’s painting. Instead, I leave him here, the closest to freedom he can ever be.
I’m not going to be the one to drag him away from the stars.
Back by the cryo chambers, I hobble together a pile of lab coats and a stray blanket and make something of a nest for myself in front of the big open room. I cannot stay awake, but I hope my presence forestalls the murderer—and if not, I hope that I’ll at least awake when the elevator dings. I’m so exhausted—so exhausted—and the weight of the ship, the stars, the hopelessness, Phydus, Amy, and Harley all crash on me at once.
I wake to the smell of paint.
Harley, I think.
I struggle with the lab coats I am lying on. Their arms drag me down, but I eventually disentangle myself from them.
“Harley?” I ask, breathing deeply.
I turn from the elevator to the cryo chambers behind me.
At first I think it is blood, but as I step closer to the cryo chambers, I see that it is only red paint—thick, not-yet-dry red paint. Dripping giant Xs mark some, but not all, of the cryo chamber doors. I touch the one closest to me—number 54—and leave a red fingerprint in the paint. Looking down this row, I see six doors marked with Xs; the next row only has three, but the row after that has twelve.
My immediate thought is that this is the killer’s doing, that he has marked the people he plans to unfreeze next.
I shake my head. Could the killer have been down here, while I slept beside the elevator? No—it must have been Harley.
But just in case . . .
I creep down each hall, looking for someone who might still be here, counting the marked doors. Thirty-eight doors are marked in total, and none of them give any indication of who painted them.
I envision the killer here, silently marking the doors of his victims while I slept. I shake my head again. Paint means Harley. This is Harley’s revenge for our shouting match last night; this is Harley trying to scare me or spook me, or he’s just being stupid.
Harley, it has to be Harley.
I can’t have let the killer stroll past me while I slept. I can’t have.
“Harley?” I call.
Nothing.
I run straight to the hallway, to the hatch, but before I get there, I know something is wrong.
The muslin-covered canvas is gone. Paint is splattered everywhere. For one sickening moment, I think that this is a crime scene and that the paint smears all over the floor and wall are blood splatters from a murder, but then I shake myself all over, and I whisper, “No,” because if this was a murder, then Harley would be dead, but he’s not here.