He was out of breath by the time he pulled himself onto the third-lowest branch, where the corn grew the thickest. Sasha had climbed nearly to the end of the branch, straddling it like a bench, and was using both hands to snap off ears of corn and toss them to the ground, which suddenly looked very far away.
Wells took a deep breath and forced himself to look up. The view was breathtaking. Wells had seen innumerable photos of picturesque spots on Earth, but none of them captured the beauty of the orchard before them. The meadow stretched out below, and provided a stunning contrast to the hazy purple outlines of the mountains in the distance. He felt his skin tingle when his eyes settled on their jagged white tops. Snow.
“I’ll have to show this to my father when he gets here,” Wells said before he had time to think better of it.
Sasha whipped her head around. “Your father? There are more of you coming?”
Wells wasn’t sure why the accusation in her voice made him feel guilty. The Colonists had spent the past three hundred years figuring out how to bring the human race back home. They had just as much right to the planet as the Earthborns. “Of course,” he said. “The ships weren’t built to last forever. Eventually, everyone will come down.” And by eventually, I mean in the next few weeks, Wells thought. All thanks to me. After Clarke’s arrest, he’d been desperate to make sure she was sent to Earth instead of facing execution. He knew that the Council was considering sending Confined teenagers, and he knew the mission needed to happen before Clarke’s eighteenth birthday—so he’d done something drastic, and dangerous. He purposely worsened the existing airlock breach. Now the remaining Colonists had little time left in space, and would be forced to come to Earth. He still felt sick thinking about what he’d done—but it had saved Clarke’s life.
“Didn’t your father want to come with you?”
Wells’s chest tightened as he thought about the last time he’d seen his father, the blood staining the Chancellor’s uniform as the door to the dropship had closed. He’d spent the past few weeks trying to convince himself that the bullet wound was superficial, that his father would recover in time to come down with the next wave of Colonists. But he had no way of knowing what had really happened, or if his father was even still alive.
“He has a lot of responsibilities on the ship,” Wells said instead. “He’s the Chancellor.”
Sasha’s eyes widened. “So, he’s in charge of everybody? Is that why you’re the leader of the group that came down?”
“I’m not the leader,” Wells protested.
“They all seem to listen to you.”
“Maybe.” Wells sighed. “But I always feel like I’m letting someone down, no matter what I do.”
Sasha nodded. “I know. My father… well, he’s actually in charge down here too.”
Wells stared at her in surprise. “Really? Your father is the Chancellor?”
“We don’t use that term, but it sounds like the same kind of thing.”
“So you know what it’s like to…” He trailed off with a frown. It was strange trying to put his feelings into words, feelings that he’d spent the past sixteen years trying to ignore.
“What? To be held to a higher standard than everyone else? To have everyone assume that you know the answers, when most of the time you don’t even know what questions you’re supposed to be asking?”
Wells smiled. “Yeah. Something like that.”
Sasha tossed another ear of corn to the ground, biting her lip. “I feel bad for my dad, but honestly, I’m sick of it too. They turn everything I do into some kind of political statement.”
“What did you do?”
Sasha laughed mischievously. “Some things I shouldn’t have. Including coming here.” She caught Wells’s eye, and the playfulness disappeared from her face. “What about you? Your father must really trust you to send you to Earth on your own.”
Wells hesitated. It was best to let her believe that. Sasha would be more likely to treat the hundred with caution if she thought they were specially trained, handpicked for the mission, as opposed to useless criminals sent to possibly die.
A gust of wind swept through the tree, whipping Sasha’s wild black hair into her face.
“Hardly,” Wells said, wondering what it was about Sasha’s bright green eyes that made him feel reckless. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you the truth.”
Sasha raised an eyebrow. “Try me.”
“I was arrested a few weeks ago. For setting fire to the only tree in the Colony.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then to his surprise, laughed and slid one leg over the branch. “I guess I’d better hurry up before you take a dislike to this one.” Sasha lowered herself into the air, then let go, landing lightly on the ground. “Come on,” she called. “We have enough corn. Or are you scared?”
Wells shook his head. It didn’t matter that he had no idea how the hell to get out of the tree. For the first time since they’d landed on Earth, he didn’t feel afraid of anything.
CHAPTER 12
Glass
“You can’t do this,” Luke said, finally breaking the silence that filled the small repair room. They were in the now-abandoned guard station that stored the suits Luke and his fellow engineers used for spacewalks. “It’s beyond dangerous—it’s suicidal. If anyone goes out there, it will be me. I’m trained to do it.”
Glass placed her hand on Luke’s arm and was surprised to feel him trembling. “No,” she said, looking him in the eye for the first time since she’d told him her plan. “It would be insane to have you risk your life on a spacewalk, only to be shot once you get to Phoenix.”
“There aren’t exactly going to be guards waiting for me at the airlock. I doubt they think anyone would be crazy enough to try to get across on the outside of the ship,” Luke said. Not only were spacewalks performed exclusively by Luke and the rest of his highly trained team, they only did so when absolutely necessary, and only with everyone running support, monitoring oxygen and pressure levels, keeping an eye out for debris, providing backup in case of equipment failure. Glass tried not to think about the fact that she would be crossing without any of that.
“Opening the airlock will set off alarms. They might arrest me, but they’re not going to shoot me on sight,” she insisted.