Shades of Earth (Across the Universe 3)

“I don’t know,” I say, echoing Elder. I am only starting to realize how much I just don’t know. Like, for starters, what the hell was that thing? It looked kind of like a pterodactyl, with a pointed head and massive wings and jagged claws, but there was also something distinctly alien about it.

Alien. That’s what everything on this planet is to us. I suppress a shudder, my hands instinctively gripping the still-warm gun.

I should have been able to hit that creature; I should have killed it. But I was too scared, afraid that I might accidentally hit Elder.

And afraid of it.

Elder takes the gun from me. “I’ll put this back in the armory,” he says. “And I think I should take a closer look at what we have there. ”

I try to push the image of the beast from my mind as I head back to the cryo chamber, but I keep seeing the way it opened its mouth, lowering it toward Elder’s face. . . .

Kit grabs me as soon as I re-enter the cryo room. A few people look up fearfully—they know Elder was outside, and they heard the monster’s scream after he left the shuttle. They think whatever it was got him. “He’s fine,” I manage. “Everything’s fine. ”

They are happy to believe the lie, at least for now.

“Nearly done,” Kit says, pushing the hair out of her face and leaving a smear of blood on her forehead. “Two bones that need setting, and then the nurses and I will check the women, just as a precaution. . . . ”

My stomach sinks. I’d nearly forgotten—the pregnant women.

“Anything else I can do?” I ask.

Kit gives me a watery smile. “You’ve already been a huge help. ”

I watch as she walks toward the last group of people waiting for medical aid. My hands are bloody, my arms are tired, and I want nothing more than to curl up in bed and forget about this day. Maybe this was all a huge mistake.

“Amy?” asks a voice I know, a voice I love, a voice I never thought I’d hear again, oh God, oh God, oh God.

I turn around, and standing there, looking exactly as I remembered him, is my father.

“Daddy!” I scream, and launch myself at him.

And his arms, his arms, they wrap around me, they pull me tight to him, and everything is fine, everything is wonderful, because I finally, finally have my dad back.

I’m sobbing and laughing and choking and sputtering and crying and speaking all at the same time.

“Amy,” he says, a chuckle in his voice. “What’s going on?”

I step back. My father’s wearing a green surgical gown, not unlike the one that Doc tried to wrap me in when I first awoke. I can see that nearly every one of the cryo boxes is empty now that people are starting to get up, to pull the gowns off the little metal arms over the boxes to clothe themselves with. And Mom—

I run to her. I skid around the open cryo boxes and the other frozens starting to wake up. Mom. And though I’ve dreamed about seeing her with my eyes open a million times, my dreams were nothing, nothing compared to actually seeing her.

Mom’s laughing—her voice cracks from disuse—but the music of her laughter is there, and it wraps around me just the way her arms do. “I told you that wouldn’t be so bad,” she whispers in my hair.

I choke out a sob. She doesn’t know. She thinks I just woke up too. She thinks I’ve been sleeping beside her. She doesn’t know about the three months I lived on the ship, the three months I thought I’d never see her again.

Mom’s hands frame my face, and I notice that they’re still as cold as ice. I glance past her shoulder, toward the hallway that leads to the armory, the bridge, and outside. I want Elder to be here; I want to introduce him to my parents. I want him to understand why I needed them, how everything is better now that they’re with me. But he’s not here.

“Oh, baby,” Mom says, her eyes brimming with joy. “We made it! We finally made it!” She pulls me close to her again, squeezing me in a tight hug. “There’s a whole new world for us to discover together,” she says into my hair.

“I missed you so much,” I whisper, the sound cracking as my voice catches.

Mom pulls back, tucking a piece of my hair behind my ear. “What do you mean?”

Suddenly, I notice the silence permeating the room. The people from the ship are watching the frozens awaken warily, and the frozens are eyeing the people from

the ship with something like fear, something like caution.

My father steps closer, and this movement brings every eye to us. “Why are you dressed like that?” he asks, taking in my homespun tunic and pants.