Oh, frex. How am I going to tell Amy this?

“How long have we been stopped?” My voice rises. I sound like a tantrum-throwing child, but I can’t help it.

“We’re… not sure. For some time. Maybe since the Plague.” Marae bites her lip.

“There was no Plague,” I say automatically. She knows this; she’s just used to calling the mutiny that happened so many gens ago the Plague, perpetuating the lie the Eldest system is based on.

Behind me, the ship’s heartbeat continues: whirr-churn-whirr. “How can we not be moving?” I ask. “The engine is still working.” Even to me, I sound desperate, a child refusing to believe the fairy tales aren’t real.

“We’ve been diverting energy since the Eldest system began, actually. We need it for the internal function of the ship. The solar lamp alone isn’t strong enough anymore.”

I force myself to meet Marae’s eyes. “So where are we?”

Marae shakes her head, thrown off by my question. “What do you mean?”

“How far away are we from Centauri-Earth? If we’ve been stopped for… for so long, then our projected planet-landing is… inaccurate, to say the least. So, how far away are we?”

“We don’t know,” Marae says. “We cannot be concerned with planet-landing now. We have to hold Godspeed together.”

The authority in her tone — the way she has given me an order — claws up my spine. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” I command. “One of you will be assigned to navigation. Exclusively. If we know how far away we are, we’ll know how big a fix we need to do on the engine. Maybe we can make the ship limp along, long enough to reach the planet. Maybe eventually we’ll have to discuss more drastic measures.” I level my gaze on Marae. “But we are going to focus more on making this ship actually reach Centauri-Earth.”

Second Shipper Shelby opens her mouth to speak, but Marae throws her hand up first to stop her. “I’ll do it myself,” she says, “but first, we want to make a request of you.”