I lean up so my eyes are level with my father’s, even though his are sealed shut and behind inches of blue-specked ice. I trace my finger along the glass of the cryo chamber, outlining his profile. The glass, already fogged from the heat of the room, smooths under my touch, leaving a shiny outline of my father’s face. The cold seeps into my skin, and I flash to the moment — just a fraction of a second — when I felt cold before I felt nothing.

I can’t remember what my father looks like when he smiles. I know his face can move, his eyes wrinkle with laughter, his lips twitch up. But I can’t remember it — and I can’t envision it as I stare through the ice.

This man doesn’t look like my father. My father was full of life and this… isn’t. I suppose my father is in there, somewhere, but…

I can’t see him.

The cryo chambers thud back into place, and I slam the doors shut with a crash.

I stand slowly, not sure of where to go. Past the cryo chambers, toward the front of the level is a hallway full of locked doors. Only one of those doors — the one with the red paint smudge near the keypad — opens, but through it is a window to the stars outside.

I used to go there a lot because the stars made me feel normal. Now they make me feel like the freak that nearly everyone on board says I am. Because really? I’m the only one who truly misses them. Of all the two-thousand-whatever people on this ship, I’m the only one who knows what it is to lie in the grass in your backyard and reach up to capture fireflies floating lazily through the stars. I’m the only one who knows that day should fade into night, not just click on and off with a switch. I’m the only one who’s ever opened her eyes as wide as she can and still see only the heavens.

I don’t want to see the stars anymore.

Before I leave the cryo level, I check the doors of my parents’ chambers to make sure they locked properly. A ghost of an X remains on my father’s door. I trace the two slashes of paint with my fingers. Orion did this, marking which people he planned to kill next.