Page 129 of Shades of Earth (Across the Universe 3)

“But it was. ”

“I’m trying to apologize,” Chris says in a small voice.

“You’re not doing a very good job of it. ” I can barely stand to look at Chris. I wonder if the bullet he put in Dr. Gupta’s head was supposed to grant him a merciful death or to ensure that he couldn’t tell us the truth.

“I told them that the Earthborn doctors didn’t know about Phydus, that only the shipborn doctor did. . . . ” Chris’s voice trails off.

“I guess Kit couldn’t answer all your questions well enough. She was barely a doctor herself, you know—she’d been an apprentice until just before the shuttle launched. So they just killed her?”

“It wasn’t like that!” Chris starts to protest, but I can see from his face that it was exactly like that.

“And Emma?” I ask.

Chris is looking at the sleeping ptero on the other side of the glass now. “She knew too much. ”

I frown at this. Chris starts walking again, away from me. He pauses, and I can tell that he hopes I’ll follow, that he hopes I’ll forget about all this.

And then I realize what he doesn’t want me to know. “She didn’t know anything about Phydus. She knew too much about you,” I say. “She didn’t trust you. You were the one she tried to warn me about. She guessed that you were a traitor. ”

“I wasn’t a traitor!” Chris says immediately, and I know he wants to believe that. He did what he had to do for his people, the rogue hybrids.

“You were a traitor to her,” I say. “And to me. ”

“No,” Chris says, his voice pleading. “Amy, just listen—”

“You listen. ” I glare at him. “If you had been honest from the start, none of this would have happened. None of it!” Emma would be here still. And Lorin and Dr. Gupta and Juliana Robertson. And Mom and Dad.

And Elder.

“We didn’t know!” Chris is nearly yelling now. “Your father worked with the FRX military; he trusted them blindly!”

“But I didn’t. And Elder didn’t. ”

“How was I supposed to know that?” Chris asks in a desperate tone.

I shrug. “You could have asked. ”

“But—”

I stop. I’m tired of hearing excuses. I’m tired of words. “You could have tried,” I say in an even tone. “You could have valued our lives more than your secrets. ”

I walk off silently.

77: AMY

Sol-Earth—and the FRX—tries to contact us one last time. Zane comes to fetch me in one of his trucks.

“I don’t know how they did it. There must be a smaller communication satellite still in orbit around the planet, or they found a way to boost the signal from their end. All the communication systems in the city turned on at the same time. It’s a sign—they’re trying to reach us. ”

He takes me to the communication center in the compound. The auto-shuttle, now empty, still stands on the asphalt, overshadowing the communication building. I’d nearly forgotten the shattered glass, the hole in the wall. We step through it to enter the building. The biometric lock would have kept both of us out.

Red lights flash on the communication bay. Not much still works—the space station housed the biggest satellites—but when we turn the dial for the ansible, we hear a voice.

“—trying to reach any remaining survivors of the Godspeed mission. Message repeats: this is the FRX, trying to reach any remaining survivors of the Godspeed mission. Message repeats—”

I press the intercom button. “Hello?” I say. “This is Amy Martin, daughter of Colonel Martin. ”

The message on repeat dies. “Hello?” the voice barks into the intercom.