“Tomorrow we’ll be there?” he asks, facing the planet.

“Yes.”

He shakes his head, and with each slow turn, I can see the incredulity shift to belief. He was raised with the idea that the ship would land when he was an old man, then told he’d never see the planet. If it were not in front of him now, he still wouldn’t believe in it.

Bartie clenches his fists, then releases them. “When we land . . . who will lead?”

“I—what?”

“Are you still going to be the leader, or will it be one of the frozens on the cryo level?” Bartie asks.

This is a new question. No one else has thought past the actual planet-landing—including me. “I—er—I don’t know. No—I’ll lead. It’ll be me, still.”

Bartie raises his eyebrow. “But leading the colony will be different from leading the ship,” he says. “Maybe we’ll need a new leader.”

I stop fully now. “What are you saying?”

“I want you to think—really think,” Bartie says slowly, not meeting my eye, “if you’re the best leader. If you’re what we all need.”

“Of course I am!”

“Why?”

It should be such a simple question, but I find I don’t have an answer. The best I can come up with is that I was born to this job. But that’s not enough. Amy’s shown me enough history for me to know that princes born to kingdoms aren’t always the best leaders.

I’d like to say that there’s just me to lead.

But that’s not true. Bartie’s right in front of me.

Chapter 54

54

AMY

I IGNORE THE ALL-CALL ELDER SENT INVITING EVERYONE TO the Keeper Level. He couldn’t have meant that I should go too. My support would hurt him more than help, and I can think of nothing more dangerous than being crammed into a close-fitting room with every other person on the ship. Instead, I’ve spent the last hour with my face pressed against the bubble window in the hatch door, thinking about how, just beyond my vision, there’s a planet waiting for me.

I don’t move until I hear footsteps and the sound of a door zipping open on the other side of the cryo level.

My first instinct is to freeze, but then I remind myself of how few people have access to this level, and so I creep forward until I get to the main room. The door to the genetics lab is open.

“Hello?” I call out.