“I don’t design weapons,” I say.

  “Oh, but you do,” says the Admiral. “And if we bring you to Palingenesis, that will be your job.”

  If they bring me to Palingenesis? It’s a place?

  Whatever Palingenesis is, I want no part of it.

  “Wherever it is you’re going,” I say, “I don’t want to come.”

  “I’m afraid it’s not up to you.” The Admiral pulls out the small, leather-bound notebook he carries in his shirt pocket. “We’re wasting time. I’ll keep a tally. Who would like to go first?”

  “I withhold my vote,” says Sister Haring. “They’re all compromised. The space would be better given to someone else.” She presses her mouth into a thin line. Will the Admiral indulge her in her slight defiance? He makes a mark in his notebook and moves on.

  “Those in favor of bringing Brig Tanner.” One vote. From General Dale.

  “Those in favor of bringing Naomi Moran.” One vote. Bishop Weaver.

  “Those in favor of Poe Blythe.” One vote. General Foster.

  “I see it’s up to me to break the tie,” the Admiral says.

  “We all know which way you’ll go.” Naomi’s voice is bitter. “She ruined the ship and betrayed us all, but you don’t seem to care.”

  The room goes still. My throat knots. I have no love left for Naomi after what she did to Tam, but I don’t want to see her die. Why is she challenging the Admiral like this? No one moves or stirs. All eyes are on the Admiral, on his weather-beaten, commanding face. Not a flicker of emotion crosses it.

  And then, he smiles. Right at Naomi. “My vote is for Captain Blythe.”

  The air goes out of my lungs. No.

  I know the Admiral might notice my frantic, desperate glance at Brig, deep into his eyes, but I can’t help myself.

  “I need someone with an innovative mind more than I need a boy who’s good at following, or an old woman,” says the Admiral. Brig doesn’t flinch, but Naomi draws in her breath sharp.

  “You promised me,” she says to the Admiral.

  “You’ll still live,” he says. “That’s all I promised. And you’re lucky to have that. You can make your way back to the Outpost.”

  “But then I’ll never see it,” she says. “Palingenesis.” For the first time, this voyage or last, I hear tears in her voice. She wants to see that place, whatever it is, as much as Call and I wanted to see stars. “Didn’t you ever get sick of the same old story?” Tam asked me, and I remember the book of fairy tales we found in her room.

  No. Naomi will not undo me. She was right. I did trust her. She betrayed that trust. I harden my heart against her.

  Two guards yank me to my feet and haul me toward the door. I don’t make it easy for them; I imagine I’m a dead bag of gold, dragging my weight.

  “You shot Tam,” I say to Naomi as they shove me past her.

  Sister Haring flinches and Bishop Weaver presses his hands together as if in prayer. Didn’t they know that Tam died? Who killed him? Has anyone in the Quorum bothered to look at the bodies?

  “Tam betrayed us,” Naomi says.

  I’m livid. She’s trying to rationalize that cold-blooded murder, that point-blank shot that took Tam down. “Tam fed you,” I spit at Naomi. “He looked out for you. We all did. I trusted you more than I trusted anyone else.”

  “Of course you did,” Naomi says. “I was with you on the other voyage. With Call.” She meets my gaze. “At least I didn’t forget who killed him.”

  CHAPTER 43

  THE GUARDS HANDCUFF ME TO THE RAIL at the back of the ship. I’m not sure why they lock me up on the deck and not in one of the rooms. Is the Admiral hoping that exposure to the elements will wear me down even more? Maybe voting for me showed a weakness he now has to offset.

  A single settler guard stays with me.

  The deck is a scarred landscape, mangled from where we tore up the armor and stained with blood from the battle. The Admiral doesn’t visit me, and the guard doesn’t speak to me or answer any of my questions.

  The sun rises and crosses the sky. The ship churns on.

  At noon a guard brings me medicine and food—tack and water—and I try to find out more. “Porter?” I whisper. “Lily?” Though that’s not her real name, I remember too late. I can’t ask her now. “Brig? Eira? What’s happened to them?”

  The guard looks right through me as if I were a ghost.

  The handcuffs chafe against the burn on my skin, which isn’t healing quite right. There’s no infection anymore, but the skin is coming together in a puckered, uneven way.

  Doesn’t matter, I tell myself. I’ve got the use of it. I’m alive.

  Who else is alive on the ship?

  When I look down over the railing, I see that the wagons seem to be on the east shore now, keeping pace with us. How did they get them all across the river?

  There are no signs of any of the other drifters, the ones who went on before.

  The sun beats down. I duck my head to try to keep my face from getting too burned. I can feel the heat on the part in my scalp, on my shoulders. My lips are chapped and peeling, the end of my nose is bright red. How much longer will the Admiral leave me up here? Does he want me to see all of this—the inexorability of the settlers’ wagons and numbers? Does he think that will make me go with him, wherever this Palingenesis place is?

  * * *

  • • •

  The Admiral comes to the deck at the end of the day, at dusk.

  Two guards follow him through the hatch to the deck, dragging a drifter along with them. Porter. He looks awful. Battered and beaten, black eyes, split lip, knuckles bleeding. He doesn’t recognize me at first. Then, something clicks in behind his eyes and he smiles.

  At me. After everything.

  “Isn’t this wonderful, Captain Blythe?” the Admiral says. “We’re doing exactly what you wanted. Destroying the raiders.”

  I shut my eyes. I can’t watch whatever is about to happen. I feel the thrum of my ship, the way its pitch is changing. How much longer? it seems to ask. But it’s not pleading, yet. I smell river water, sweat, metal.

  I have to watch. I can’t abandon Porter.

  I open my eyes and look at him. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know.”

  “What didn’t you know?” the Admiral asks.

  “Anything,” I say to Porter, and there are tears dripping off my cheeks, my jaw, though I’m not sure when I started crying. “I didn’t know anything.”

  There are tears in Porter’s eyes too.

  “What do you know now?” the Admiral asks. He unties the silk handkerchief knotted casually around his neck and wipes his forehead, tucks the silk square into his pocket.

  My tongue finds the hole in the back of my mouth where my tooth used to be. “That you stole the drifters’ children.”

  “We gave them good lives,” the Admiral says. “They live longer with us than they would have out here.”

  “You don’t know that,” I say.

  “I think I do.” The Admiral turns so it’s his profile I see, his face burnished by the setting sun. “Look how quickly Call died when he went out on the river.” He stretches his arms high overhead, a show of ease, of power. “Or was Naomi right? Have you forgotten who shot him?”

  Of course not. I will never forget. “They didn’t know who he was.”

  “But you did,” says the Admiral. “And so you set about killing them. You did an excellent job of it, and your designs kept our gold safe. It’s too bad you lost the ship, but you can make that right. You can make it all right, now.”

  He motions for the guards to bring Porter closer, and I taste bile rising in my throat. What is the Admiral going to make me do?

  I think I know and my knees are trembling. My handcuffs rattle against the rail. I try to still them.

  The Admiral nods to the guard nearest me, and the guard presses a gun into my locked-together hands. It’s a revolver, an old, heavy gun that I think might be the Admiral’s own. It has a heft and quality to it. I’ve never fired one before.

  “Don’t drop it,” the Admiral warns. “It’s loaded, and you don’t want it to go off. In fact, it’d be best if you didn’t move at all for the moment.” Two of the guards have rifles trained on me.

  I try to hold the gun steady. I’d have a single chance to shoot the Admiral. One quick movement.

  “I’d like you to take care of Porter,” the Admiral says. “It won’t take long. Are you a good shot?”

  I am, from far away. Up close I have the colors of Porter’s eyes, the texture of his skin, the sorrow in every line on his face.

  “If you try to shoot me instead,” the Admiral says, his voice patronizing, “or one of the other guards, we’ll take you down before you can kill anyone else. And we’ll kill First Mate Tanner and Eira Clyde. Naomi tells me you care about both of them.” The Admiral smiles. “In fact, if you don’t shoot Porter, then we’ll go ahead and eliminate Brig and Eira. You might be more effective in your task knowing that.”

  “It’s all right,” Porter says. “Better this way than another.” He takes a long, ragged breath. “Think of it as being for Call.”

  “It would never be for Call,” I say. “He would never want this.” My hands are shaking and shaking and shaking.

  The tears slide down Porter’s dirty, beaten face. The Admiral would never let anyone see him cry, I think. But Porter doesn’t lead like the Admiral.

  “I shot Call,” Porter says. “I couldn’t see his face. But he was unarmed. Whether he was ours or not, I shouldn’t have done it.”

  My heart catches. He’s said the words. And so, I know. I’m looking into Porter’s haunted, living eyes.

  This is the man who killed Call, who made him nothing. Deep inside, something dark in me wants to take the shot.

  “I need the guards to move away,” I say. “I don’t want to shoot them by accident.”

  “You may have a point,” the Admiral says. “All right,” he tells the guards. “Take a step away. I don’t think Porter is in any condition to run.”

  They lean him up against the railing. Porter was always in motion. Never still. But now, he looks straight into my eyes. We are face-to-face. I know who he is. What he’s done.

  I will shoot to kill.

  Before I can take my shot, before I can fire at the Admiral and feel the guards’ bullets in me, Porter turns. He seems to lift off the ground in a single motion, a kind of stunning arc of flight, but it’s really just a leap, a final movement, one last, decisive act.

  He goes over the edge of the ship.

  “Porter!” I’m straining at my handcuffs, sliding them as far as I can along the rail. Please don’t let Porter have gotten caught on the jagged remains of my armor. It would be a terrible, tearing way to go. Please. Please. Please.

  Who am I talking to?

  The ship?

  Please.

  There he is. In the river below. Then gone. The wake of the ship is strong enough to push someone under, turn them until they can’t rise to the surface, force their lungs full of water, batter them against the unforgiving rocks of the riverbed.

  He doesn’t come up.

  CHAPTER 44

  THEY LEAVE ME UP ON THE DECK all night. As punishment for not killing Porter? Because there’s no other place to put me?

  The night guard takes pity on me and clips my cuffs to the bottom of the railing so I can at least lie down as I shiver in the cold, my knees tucked up against my chest, not sleeping, thinking of Porter’s jump into the water below. Did he know I wouldn’t shoot him? What did he see in my eyes? There is no way to know. There is never a way to be sure what happens in those final moments.

  As the sun rises, the guard has me stand, clips my handcuffs to the top railing again.

  Just in time. I hear boots on the steps. The Admiral strides onto the deck. “How was your final night on the ship?”

  “Long,” I say, and he throws back his head and laughs.

  “There’s something I need to show you.” He motions for the guard to unlock my cuffs. The bliss at being able to move and stretch is counteracted by cold and hunger and anger and loss.

  What can you show me? I want to scream. What more can there possibly be? Is he going to bring everyone up to die, one by one? Make me kill them?

  “No,” he says, as if he can read my mind. “This is something beautiful.” The Admiral leans his elbows on the eastern railing in an almost comradely, companionable way. “Amazing what this boat has done to the river. We noticed it the entire time we traveled upstream to find you. The ruin. The rocks.” He turns to look at me but I keep my eyes on the water below us. “But this ship is nothing compared to what you’re about to see.”

  He wants me to ask what it is. I won’t.

  “Watch the sky,” he says. “Near us, to the northeast.”

  I swear I won’t look, but then there’s a sharp shimmer in the sky, a light so bright and sudden that I can’t help myself. From beyond the woods, something huge and glimmering is rising, golden in the morning light.

  What is it?

  The Admiral was right.

  Beautiful.

  “What is it?” I ask the question aloud. I have never seen anything like this. It’s the size of a dredge, but so much more streamlined, so elegant. It’s in the air. And it moves. It’s enormous, but lithe. Fast.

  It soars over us and I find myself reaching up, trying to touch it, snatch it out of the sky, my fingers tracing the arc of its passage. When it disappears beyond the western horizon I feel the loss deep in my stomach, in my heart. Make it come back, I want to tell the Admiral. I need to see it again.

  “That’s Palingenesis,” says the Admiral. “Magnificent, isn’t it?”

  It is.

  A ship. A golden ship in the sky.

  “Where did it go?” I ask around the lump in my throat.

  The Admiral laughs. “This is what I like about you, Captain Blythe,” he says. “You’re practical. One minute, you’re sick with guilt over the death of someone you cared about, the next, you see something shiny and you want to play with it.”

  I should bend my head in embarrassment. I should tear my eyes from the sky. But I can’t. “Will it come back?”

  “Yes,” the Admiral says. “This is a test flight. When it leaves the next time, we’ll be inside of it.”

  “We’ll be inside of it.” My heart soars. I’ll be on that ship, in the sky? That’s what the Admiral has planned for me?

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “To start a new Outpost,” the Admiral says. “In a place far away, one that’s been unoccupied for generations. It’s a long flight. To the other side of the world. And we won’t be coming back.”

  He laughs again at the expression on my face. The warm, booming sound that has so charmed his people for as long as I can remember. My whole life long, he’s told us the story of the Outpost, how we were abandoned and gathered in. And now the Admiral’s leaving?

  “All this time, you thought you were working on the most important ship,” he says. “But the dredge was a means to an end. This is the end. This is what it’s all been for.”

  He’s right. The dredge is nothing compared to what I’ve just seen.

  “Is it made of gold?”

  The Admiral leans closer. He smells like soap and menthol, clean. I want to pull away, to put more distance between us, but I have to know everything there is to know about the flying Palingenesis. “No,” he says. “That was the sun, reflecting off the ship’s surface. But gold has been very useful in building some of the components of the ship. It’s also paid our passage. And we’ll bring some with us.” He smiles. “It’s a currency that has proven valuable across many cultures. And through time.”

  “You’re deserting the Outpost,” I say.

  “The Outpost,” the Admiral says, his expression turning to disgust. “All our broken-down buildings, the scraps we have to use to build anything. Where everyone’s tired and dull and dirty.” He pushes away from the railing, stands with his arms braced against it. “It’s time to start over.”

  “You’re doing the opposite of what the other Admirals have done.”

  “No.” He folds his arms. “I’m doing exactly what they’ve always done, but on a grander scale. I gathered in the raider children. And when I learned about this ship, I gathered up the best of the Outpost to take with me.”

  And then I understand. He wants to build something he can take credit for. He can be immortal as the founder of something new and glorious instead of the protector of something old and broken-down.

  “Who made the Palingenesis?” I ask. “Why would they let us on it?”

  If the ship were mine, I wouldn’t let anyone on it. I’d fly so far so fast.

  “A group from a society beyond our maps,” the Admiral says. “We paid to help them repair it. We paid for our passage. And we’re giving them some of the gold from this voyage.”

  “They could leave us behind.” I look at the sky. “Maybe they’ve left you already. Maybe it’s not coming back.” Again, that pang in my heart. That strange feeling of loss.

  What is wrong with me? It’s a ship, not a person.

  “They won’t,” he says. “It’s not only the gold they need from us. It’s more than that.”

  “What?”

  “Ourselves,” he says. “The things we know. It’s been a long time since they’ve had to live the way we have.” He smiles. “And we’ve got new genes to mix with theirs. That can’t hurt.”

  “They’re not going to let you rule,” I say. “They’ll have their own leader.”

  “That remains to be seen.” The Admiral shields his eyes against the sun. “We’re taking the best of the best with us. Our finest machinists, soldiers, physicians, builders. And the Quorum, of course.”