“Godspeed is huge,” Elder says. The wall floppy behind him shows the giant diagram of the ship. Seeing it there, projected on the wall, I can appreciate just how huge this ship is.

“I know,” I say, “but isn’t it odd? That word choice. He didn’t say ‘on Godspeed.’ He said ‘in.’”

“So?” Elder asks. His voice is still flat, and I know that while he’s physically in the Recorder Hall with me, he’s really still in the garden, giving up, still on the Bridge, watching his people die. He doesn’t care about Orion’s clues anymore.

I strain, reaching for the tiny model of Godspeed hanging suspended between the two clay models of the Earths.

“In Godspeed,” I say. “In it.” The chair wobbles as I stand on my tiptoes on top of it, my fingers brushing the bottom of the small model ship. I noticed before that it was on a hook, as if it could be taken down and inspected. I push against the bottom, and the hook slides off. The ship falls. I reach out, grabbing it with one hand. The chair topples, and I jump off before it clatters to the ground. Elder catches me around the middle, and I gasp in surprise. He sets me down gently on the ground.

The model’s about as large as my head and caked in dust. I blow on it, and huge chunks of dust fly away and then drop to the floor, too heavy to float. There’s more dust on the top of the ship, in the grooves of the tiny model honeycomb window on the Bridge. I turn the replica over so the ship’s on its side. It almost looks like a broken winged bird—a beak for a nose and thrusters for tail feathers.

I hand it to Elder.

He weighs it in his hand as if it’s an alien thing, not a replica of the only home he’s ever known. His face is intense—a scowl so deep that the shadows seem like black marks on his face. The veins in his hand pop up, and his fingers tense. Very deliberately, he presses his thumb against the Bridge window until the tiny honeycombed glass breaks. I see a dot of blood on his thumb, but he shows no sign of pain.

“It’s accurate now,” he says, handing the model back to me.

I search his eyes, but they’re hollow inside.

“There’s more glass here,” I say, pointing to the bottom of the ship.

Elder shrugs, a sort of one-shoulder careless motion. “I saw it when I was outside. An observatory or something.”

“It has to be on the other side of the last locked door,” I say. “Why lock an observatory?”