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ELDER

MY ARMS AND LEGS FEEL SLOGGED DOWN AS IF WALKING through ’s muffled in the suit Amy shuts the door that leads into the ship; I can see her pensive face through the , the worry exaggerated by the rounded glass The lock creates a dull, almost-imperceptible click that nevertheless reverberates

Then I’m alone with just the sound of the life-support syste in my ears

The back hatch opens, and the universe explodes around s jerking painfully as my body flies out into space The movement winds me, and I can’t breathe Just as I start to panic, I feel cool oxygen flowing through my helmet

The cord tethering ainst it, er stiff in the suit I look up And I am surrounded by the universe

A Million Suns: An Across the Universe Novel

A Million Suns: An Across the Universe Novel

Athe darkness The ship see for whatever massive secret Orion told me I would find

The ship itself isfrolass covers the arching protrusion Beneath that, then, must be the Feeder Level I stare at the s how only a few ers over dusty rivets There’s a line of thick, darkthe bottom of the ship, about where the cryo level starts, and a pointed ridge sticks out froe’s beak There’s glass there, too—an observatory must be hidden behind the last locked door on the cryo level

There’s nothing here that stands out as unusual, except maybe the as yet unseen observatory I recline in space, e cracks or , but I already knew that Was that the great secret Orion wanted ?

It would be disappointing to learn that after all this, that was Orion’s great mystery But how can I be disappointed in space?

I stretch outthat there are no walls here that can contain theet about whatever pointless aze out, to the stars I reh the hatchThey were beautiful then, but now, seeing them here, all around me, beautiful feels like an inadequate word I see the stars as a part of the universe, and having spentnone fills h nificant, a tiny speck surrounded by a million stars

A million suns

Centuries away is Sol Circling around it is Sol-Earth, the planet Amy came from And one of these other stars is the Centauri binary syste for us

And here we are, in the middle, surrounded by a sea of stars