Now, when Elder rolls the body in the field over so we can see the face, I can see that, once again, the girl at the rabbit farm has empty eyes.
I drop to my knees beside her. Elder has his hand on his neck; he’s comming Doc and his police force, but it’s already too late. Much too late.
My mind takes note of the details in a detached way, even though the revulsion is bubbling up inside of me. The girl’s arms are spread wide, with deep purple bruises at her wrists. Finger marks encircle her throat. Her skirt has been pulled up. Her eyes are wide and stare unblinkingly at the metal sky. A large rabbit nuzzles her bare foot. The bottoms of her feet are grass-stained, her knees muddy, as if she ran and fell more than once.
I gently pull down the hem of her skirt so that it rests straight against her knees, almost covering the mud, and then I push her eyelids closed.
“Who would do this?” Elder asks.
We can do anything we want, Luthor said.
I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out. I try to force them from me, but all that comes out is an almost inaudible sound of fear.
“What happened?” Doc calls as he rushes forward through the field. His assistant Kit follows him.
Doc starts to examine the body. I’m in the way, I know it, but I can’t seem to move until Kit puts her hand on my elbow and pulls me up. She draws me away from the body and faces me toward the walls, away from death.
“Here,” she says, offering me something. A small green med patch.
“No,” I say automatically. I never trust any of the medicines made on this ship.
“It will calm you,” Kit insists.
“No.”
I turn back to the body. Elder and Doc are both kneeling beside the girl, talking in urgent tones. Arguing.
“Elder!” A voice calls from the other side of the field. I see a female Shipper—tall and slender with immaculately cut hair—running toward us.
Elder stands. “Marae, thank you for coming.”
“You told me to come,” she says simply.
The three of them stand over the body without a second glance at me. Elder and Doc discuss an autopsy as Marae taps on a floppy rapidly, her fingers dancing across the screen. Kit runs off at Doc’s order to begin preparing an examination room. Soon other people come—each wearing the crisp, dark clothing that the top-ranking Shippers wear. They consult with both Elder and Marae before moving off to obey orders—one goes to gather the rabbits that got loose, another fixes the fence, another brings an electric cart and starts to load the girl’s body.
The whole time, I stand to one side. I can’t help but stare at the girl’s face, at her closed eyes, and remember how once she cried and didn’t know why.
Elder moves with swift efficiency. He’s the youngest person on the whole ship, younger even than me by almost a year, but every time he gives a command, the people rush off to obey. Even though I’ve been so sure that Elder’s the leader Godspeed needs, I’ve never actually seen him take charge. Not like this. And while this only proves that he can lead this entire ship like I always said he could, it also makes me feel even more detached. I don’t know him. Or—I know him, but only one him. I know the Elder who’s kind and almost like a puppy dog in his devotion, but I don’t know this Elder who commands people older than him, who issues orders that are immediately obeyed. This Elder has never been more alien to me.
“I will try to collect as much DNA as I can during the autopsy,” Doc says as two Shippers lift the body onto the electric cart.
I want to say: I think I know who did this.
“Do you think there will be enough to identify the murderer?” Elder asks. “I’ll grant you access to the biometric scanner database.”
Doc starts to follow the cart. “There might be something under her fingernails I can use. If not, I believe there will be seminal fluid present in this case. It may take a couple of days to process and run it through all the records.”
I want to say: I only met her once, but I feel like I knew her better than any of you.
As Doc leaves, Elder gathers the Shippers together. “Shelby, see if there’s any kind of vid feed of this area from when the girl was attacked. Buck, I’d like you to track down any Feeders in the area and question them; maybe there were witnesses to what happened here.”
I open my mouth. I want to say: I’m breaking, and I need someone to hold me together.
But no sound comes out. I feel the hands around my throat, crushing my windpipe. I swallow dryly. He’s not here. Not anymore. He killed her and left.
I try to speak again. I should speak, I have to speak.
But I can’t.
Instead, I run.
My body thrills at this—I haven’t run in ages. I’ve been too scared to go on my daily runs, but now I’m not running as I would for exercise. I’m running as if the force of the wind whipping around my body will be enough to keep all the pieces of me from crumbling.
Past the fence, down the path, past the soy fields. When I get to the main road that connects the Recorder Hall and the Hospital, I go straight to the Hall. I don’t know why. I should hate this place. The last time I saw Luthor, it was here, in the Recorder Hall. But I’m certain, more certain than anything else, that the clue Orion left for me is here, and maybe if I can find that clue, I can also find something to make things right again.
I’m still running as I enter the Hall, pass the groups of people pouring over the wall floppies, and head straight to the fiction room. I throw open the door so hard that it bounces off the wall, and I don’t pause until I reach the shelf that holds the book I’m looking for.
I slide the heavy book off the shelf, panting in an effort to catch my breath. An image is pressed into the front cover. A girl, a tree, and a smiling cat. The binding is cracked with age, the illustration faded. My heart races as I carry the book to the table in the middle of the room. I collapse into a chair and let the book thunk heavily on the metal tabletop. I can imagine Elder’s look of disdain at the way I let it slam against the surface. He treats books like treasured, rare things, and I guess they are, but my father used to dog-ear books and read them until they fell apart, and I like his method better.