Kiva’s eyes widened as she slowly rotated, unable to believe her eyes. She stood on a hill of grass, looking down at an orchard of fruit trees about seventy yards away.
Seth had run and already reached them. “Apples!” He plucked a juicy red one and bit into it. “Delicious!” He disappeared between the trunks.
“Wait!” Kiva tripped over her boots, then plopped down. She untied her boots and slipped off her socks. The grass was soft and warm under her bare feet. She walked in circles, her face up toward the sun. The sun! “How is this possible?”
Seth popped out from between the trees. “It’s a greenhouse program, has to be!” He held the bottom of his shirt up, the resulting pouch a pile of red and yellow. “There are pears too!”
To their left lay a field of tall, amber stalks. Kiva pointed. “What’s that?”
Seth turned. “I think it’s wheat.” He frowned.
She jogged closer to him. “What’s wrong?”
“I just realized. If they have wheat, then they can make bread. And real noodles. This is amazing.” He jogged up and dumped his find by Kiva’s boots, then headed for the field.
Kiva followed him, striding slowly into the wheat. Her hands brushed the stiff stalks as the sun shone warm on her face. A breeze came up, blowing her hair out behind her. She stopped, closed her eyes, and held her face up to the light and warmth.
This reminded her of Alexandria, even though that hadn’t been real. This, this was far closer to being so. She smiled. “I don’t want to leave.” Kiva opened her eyes.
Seth gazed at her, but not like he studied the console or a problem to be solved. He watched her as if … he liked what he saw. But he looked away. “We can’t stay.”
“I know.” She sighed. “But this place is so…”
“Beautiful.” He glanced at her when he said the word. He cleared his throat. “We should go.”
“But why?” Kiva raised her arms to the sides. “We could gather more fruit.” Something sparkled a short way beyond the wheat field. “Look!” She began to run toward it.
“Kiva! Wait!” Seth followed.
“Race you!” She pumped her arms, muscles responding like they’d been waiting for the exercise. As she got closer, she realized that the sparkle was the sun reflecting off a pristine lake. At the shore, she yanked the bottoms of her pants up to her knees, then splashed in. The refreshing water cooled her hot feet. She turned, laughing. “It feels wonderful!”
Seth stood on the bank, smiling at her.
“What?” She put her hands on her hips. “Do not even tell me to get out.”
He sat down and unlaced his boots. Then he pulled his shirt off, splashed past her, and dove in. A few strong strokes sent him nearly to the middle, before he turned around and headed toward her.
“Don’t get me wet!” She backpedaled, going deeper and getting wetter.
He stopped in front of her and stood up, dripping, a goofy smile on his face. He shook his head, drops from his hair splattering her.
She shrieked and covered her face, then dropped her hands. She grinned. “Where did you learn to swim?”
“The Krakatoa.”
“There’s a pool?”
Apparently done with the lake, Seth headed back to shore. He grabbed his shirt and wiped his face. “There’s a lot of things on the Krakatoa.”
A sudden chill sent goose bumps down Kiva’s arms. She glanced skyward. A cloud passed over the sun.
“We really should go.” Seth headed up the bank without waiting for her.
Kiva didn’t get it.
One moment he was the Seth of old, her friend, someone she could actually stand to be around. But then, like a light, he switched back to the new Seth.
She started to wade out, but was still waist deep when her foot snagged on something below the surface. “Hey, wait. I’m caught on something.”
Seth turned around.
Kicking didn’t free her foot.
“Can you see what it is?” Seth sounded annoyed. “Probably some roots from the trees.”
“No.” She reached into the water and her hand brushed something soft and slimy. The cobras in the jar came to mind. She gasped and jerked her leg. Her foot didn’t move, so her momentum sent her backward into the water.
Her head went under.
Kiva stood up, sputtering.
Seth laughed.
“Great.” She coughed and spit out some water. “Thanks for the help.”
“Hold on.” He started back down the bank.
“Don’t bother.” She leaned over, foot still immobile under the surface. “I can do it myself.”
“Fine.” He sighed and sat down. “I’d like to leave sometime today, though.”
She shivered.
Well, she was already wet. Might as well find out what she was caught on. She took a breath and plunged her head under the water, blinking until her vision cleared enough to see her foot.
A long, ragged end of a rope ensnared Kiva’s ankle.
Thankfully, she didn’t see anything slimy. Hopefully she could drag the rope ashore and cut herself free.
Kiva surfaced for a moment to catch her breath.
Seth was lying back on the grass, eyes shut.
Fine. She didn’t need him anyway.
Mustering new determination, she yanked on the rope and reeled it closer. She took a quick breath and ducked back under, blinking until she could see clearly.
Next to her foot floated pale bloated hands, bound at the wrists by the other end of the rope.
She lurched and started to flee.
But the rope tightened and tripped her up. She fell sideways into the lake and found herself staring right into the dark, dull, sightless eyes of a corpse.
Kiva screamed, a silent yawn that filled her mouth and throat and lungs with water.
Hands grasped for any purchase.
Arms churned the water, trying to escape.
Her face surfaced for a second, enough to choke, but not enough to gasp any air before being dragged down again.
She kicked and splashed, inadvertently moving deeper, farther from salvation.
Suddenly, strong arms lifted her up out of the water and she coughed, spitting up water as she gasped for air.
“I’ve got you, Keeves.” Seth carried her toward shore.
The rope around her ankle became taut, and dragged the body along in the water behind them.
Kiva wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as she hacked more water up and began to cry.
At the shore, he laid her on the grass, then grabbed the knife.
She squeezed her eyes shut, tears leaking out. “Please don’t cut me!”
Seth sliced the rope and freed her foot.
Kiva lay there on the grass, her clothes and hair soaking wet.
On his knees, Seth leaned over her. “Are you okay?”
Still crying, she rolled her head from side to side. “I want to go. I want to go now.”
“We will.” He set a hand on her arm. “Wait here.”
She sat up and wiped her eyes with the back of her wet hand. Useless.
He gaped at the corpse floating a few feet offshore, the rope drifting along beside it.
Kiva got to her feet and hugged herself. Her hands shook so hard that she made fists in an attempt to stop. Water dripped off her hair and down her back. She shivered.
Seth tried to block her view.
“Is it a man?” She started to move closer.
He held up a hand. “Just stay there.”
Kiva swallowed. She didn’t want to be frightened of everything in this new world. Not even death. She stepped closer.
He held his arm out to stop her going any farther, but she saw the dead man was bald and a little chubby. She asked, “How long do you think he’s been dead?”
Seth wiped his knife on the grass. “I don’t know.”
She couldn’t stop gawking. “Why was he tied up? Who did that?”
Seth took a step sideways so that he was directly in front of her. “We’re leaving before we find out.” He held her shoulders and turned her around, then gave her a slight push.
Seth grabbed their boots and let Kiva exit in front of him. Once they were out in the corridor, Seth shut the doors.
They were both breathing hard and dripping water onto the floor. He held out her socks and boots.
“Who do you think he was?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He pointed. “Get your boots on.”
She sat down to put them on, wondering how to ask Seth to help tie them.
But he knelt before her to lace them up without being asked.
She watched him. “Thank you.” She wasn’t sure if she meant for tying her shoes or for freeing her from a dead body. She was grateful for both.
Seth said nothing as he tightened the lace on the second boot and scooted back to put his own back on.
Kiva pulled her drenched pants back down from where they were still rolled. “Do you think there are more bodies?”
Seth’s gaze snapped to hers. “In the lake?”
Suddenly, she didn’t want an answer. “Never mind.”
He stood up. “Let’s go.”
They walked back down the circular ramp, neither in any mood to race as they had on the way up.
They took the same route back. He paused at the hall of torpor chambers and jabbed a thumb at the door. “We need to change. There should be extra clothes in here, it’s a lot closer than running up to the private cabins.”
Kiva kept walking. “I just want to go to my cabin.”
Seth took her arm. “We’re leaving our wet clothes here. I’m not taking any chances with what … might have been in that water.”
She frowned. “Do you think he was sick? Did they tie him up and throw him in there because he was contagious?” What if she had caught whatever it was, what if it was too late and—
“I don’t think so. But dead bodies aren’t exactly clean. We need to be cautious.”
Kiva took a deep breath and followed Seth inside the hall of torpor chambers. She rubbed her hands together to try to get them to stop trembling.
“There must be some clothes in here.” Seth walked farther into the massive space. “Be right back.”
Kiva was too far away to see the contents of the chamber nearest her, but didn’t want to stand there, cowering at the fate that belonged to these people, the same that befell her for the better part of her childhood. She gazed fully at the case before her.
The woman inside was a little shorter than she was, and naked but for strips of cloth wrapped across her chest and hip area. Kiva’s face grew warm as she wondered if she’d been afforded that same scant amount of modesty all those years.
“Got lucky.” Seth handed Kiva a stack of folded clothes and pointed at a chamber a few feet away. “You can go change behind there.”
Eager to be rid of her wet clothes and anything that may have brushed up against the corpse, she found her hiding spot and quickly stripped, yanking the pants down over the boots. This place made her nervous and she didn’t like being alone. The underthings were a little big, but they’d do for the moment. “So how do these things work? The chambers?”
From the sound of his voice, Seth wasn’t very far away. “Each has a small control panel up at the top that basically monitors their vital signs. You can tell with a glance if everything is okay or not.”
Kiva sat down. Getting the clean, dry pants on over the boots took some muscle, but she managed. When she was in the new clothes, she ran her fingers through her damp hair, trying to get out some tangles as best she could. Then she stepped back out.
Seth stood a few feet away, also in dry clothes. His wet hair hung loose to his shoulders.
She asked, “How can you tell with a glance that everything is fine?”
He pointed at a small screen at the top of the case, and a button beside it. “You push that and it flashes green.”
“They only flash green?”
“No. Also yellow.”
“What’s yellow mean?” she asked.
“There’s a problem.” Seth added, “And if it’s red…”
Kiva frowned. “Worse problem?”
“Much. Red is … dead.”
Kiva shivered. “So that’s why they don’t need that many people to watch over the people in torpor.”
“Yeah. Once you’re used to it, you can check about ten, fifteen people in a couple of minutes.” Seth knocked on the front of the case. “Pretty efficient.”
Kiva stared. The woman appeared to be asleep, a look of peace on her face. “Is she in virtual reality?”
“I don’t think anyone else besides my mom came up with the program. And since their Versa Space is the orchard and the”—he seemed about to say lake, but instead simply added—“my guess is no.”
Kiva stepped closer, then her gaze went down the row. “How many people are in this place?”
Seth went a few yards down the aisle. “I’d say at least four hundred. Maybe more. Definitely not all.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
Kiva brushed past him and meandered a bit more. She passed dozens of the cases, dozens of faces, all like the woman. Sleeping. Peaceful.
She scrunched her eyes shut and imagined herself in torpor, next to Ada and Rem and Rom in their own cases.
How could Seth have seen them, day after day, and not wanted to let them out?
She opened her eyes. “How hard is it to bring someone out of it?”
“Easy, actually. You just have to choose the awakening protocol on the panel and—” Seth came closer. “I wouldn’t try it if I were you.”
She glared at him. “I meant me. How hard was it?”
He looked away. “I wasn’t there.”
“But was it? I mean, it must have been difficult, right? Otherwise, it seems to me that you might have tried.”
He set a hand on his forehead and shut his eyes. “Gods, we have to go, Kiva. Don’t start this—”
“Start what?” Kiva set her hands on her hips. “You tell me how easy it is to take care of all these people, how simple everything is, but you can’t manage to let me out?” She marched over to one of the cases and stared at the man inside, dark beard reaching nearly to his chest. “Should we see how hard it is to free this guy?”
Seth frowned. “It’s not funny.”
“What? I push the button, right?” She held her hand up.
“Kiva, don’t!”
Kiva pushed the button. The screen flashed red.
Her hand froze in midair.
Red meant …
Seth pushed her out of the way. “Wait over there.”
“What did I do?” Kiva gulped. “Seth, what did I do?”
He grabbed her arm. “Wait. Over. There.”
She backed off, heart pounding.
“Come on.” Seth tapped the panel. “It’s just a glitch.” He hammered on the panel with a fist. “Has to be.”
Kiva finally tore her gaze off the man’s face and turned around.
More faces.
She twirled in another direction.
More.
Dozens of faces within feet of her, no matter which way she turned.
Was this a ship of death? Was nobody alive?
She had to know, she had to know that they weren’t corpses floating in the glass. She had to know that they weren’t dead too.
The closest chamber was a foot away. Please be green. She tapped the panel.
Red.
She walked to the next. Green, please please please.
Tap.
Red.
The next.
Tap.
Red.
“No.”
The next and the next.
Tap tap.
Red, red.
“No. No.”
The next and the next and the next …
Tap tap tap …
Red red red …
“No. No. No.”
Red meant …
Dead.
She screamed.
“Kiva!” Seth was there, in her face. “Come on. Stop.”
“They’re dead!” She sobbed. “Everyone on this ship is dead!”
Seth crushed her face to his chest, his hold so tight she couldn’t move.
“They’re all dead.” Her words were muffled.
He cradled her head with one hand and murmured in her ear, “Keeves, it’s a mistake. They can’t be dead. Not all of them.”
“The boy is right.”
Seth released her and whirled around.
Kiva gasped at the thin man in thick, black-framed glasses who blocked their exit.
His clothing matched theirs, but his face was pale, and his hair jet-black with streaks of gray. “They’re not all dead.” Behind the glasses his dark eyes appeared to enlarge like a bug’s. “Just the ones I didn’t like very much.”