And I know for sure now, I know it deep down inside me—I’m not going to get out of this. I don’t fit in with Doc’s plan because I don’t fit in on Godspeed, and Doc can’t stand to have something—someone—stick out. He needs everyone to be perfectly the same, perfectly calm, and perfectly obedient to the proper Eldest, and I never, ever, will be.

I am so certain that Doc won’t let me out of this room alive that I half expect Victria to pull the trigger and end it all now. Instead, Doc punches a code into Orion’s cryo chamber.

Doc turns back around. “Amy, I’m no leader. I know that. I only want to do what I’ve been trying to tell everyone else to do.”

“Follow the leader,” I say softly.

“Exactly. There’s no hope anymore,” Doc says. “We can’t land on the new planet. And we can’t survive up here without Orion. Don’t you see? We need a real leader. Not Bartie, not Elder. We need our Eldest. It’s our only hope.”

Victria looks up at Doc, but he isn’t looking at her; he’s looking at me. “I just want Orion back,” she says, but he doesn’t pay any attention to her.

“We’re not talking about hope,” I tell Doc, but my eyes are on Victria. “We’re talking about faith. Faith that the new world will be better than this. And faith that even if it’s not, it will be worth the risk to go down there and see.”

Orion’s cryo chamber beeps, a loud echoing sound.

“There,” Doc says, “the regeneration process is beginning.”

“What?” I snap.

“Really?” Victria says, turning.

And that’s my chance. Elder’s not the only one who’s been carrying things in his pocket—I still have Phydus patches of my own. In one swift motion, I rip one from its packaging, slap it on Victria’s arm, and snatch the gun away from her unresisting fingers.

Doc eyes me, trying to determine if I’ll shoot him.

“It’s too late,” he says, almost casually. “I’ve already begun the regeneration process.” The light above Orion’s face stays green. “Even if you shoot me, he’ll still wake up.”

I move slowly to my right, near Bartie, but even if I could rip the patch off him, the Phydus would still be in his system. No help there.

“Amy, you’re being ridiculous,” Doc says in the same sort of voice he used when we first met, when he threatened to drug me for the rest of my life. “You’re not thinking straight.”

“I am,” I say. “I don’t want Orion ruling this ship.”

“There’s a chance Elder won’t use the escape shuttle, you know.”