I turn, looking toward the genetics lab across from the elevator. Orion’s body is frozen inside.

I could wake him up. It wouldn’t be as easy as pushing a reanimation button, like waking my parents would be, but I could do it. Elder showed me how the cryo chambers were different; he showed me the timer that could be set for Orion’s reanimation, the order of the buttons that needed to be pushed. I could wake him up, and as he sputtered back to life, I could ask the question that hollows me out every time I look at his bulging eyes through the ice.

Why?

Why did he kill the other frozens? Why did he mark my father as the next one to kill?

But more importantly, why did he start killing now?

Orion may believe that the frozen military personnel will force the people born on the ship to be soldiers or slaves… but why did he start unplugging them when planet-landing is impossibly far away?

He’d hidden from Eldest for years before Elder woke me. He could have stayed hidden if he hadn’t started killing.

So I guess my real question isn’t just why, but…

Why now?

3 ELDER

I STARE AT MARAE, MY MOUTH HANGING OPEN. “WH-WHAT the frex do you mean?” I finally stammer.

Marae rolls her shoulders back, straightening her spine and making herself appear even taller. My eyes flicker to the other Shippers, but I notice that hers do not. She doesn’t need them to affirm who she is or what she believes. “You have to understand, Eld… Elder,” Marae says. “Our primary duty as Shippers is not to fix the engine.”

My voice rises with anger and indignation. “Of course your frexing duty is to fix the engine! The engine is the most important part of the whole ship!”