Compete Read Free

your permanent bed assignments,” an Atlantean of indeterminate youthful age with the typical long metallic-gold hair tells us. “This is simply for tonight and the next few days until you are sorted and assigned to your Quadrants and decks, and in some cases, other ships. So, don’t worry and don’t get too comfortable. Your personal belongings will be located and distributed starting tomorrow. You will also be informed how to have your uniforms cleaned.”
    “What about getting ourselves cleaned? And what about bathrooms?” several Candidates say.
    The Atlantean nods and points to the back of the long chamber. “Lavatories with toilets and sinks are at the end of the room, self-explanatory. Showers are somewhat more complicated, but there are pictorial instructions. They resemble your own Earth-style cabin enclosures, but use recycled high-pressure water mist. . . .”
    At the same time, another Atlantean crewman walks the rows of our bunks distributing what looks like food energy protein bars and drinking bottles. “These are high-calorie meal rations to give you strength. Eat them now, and then tomorrow for breakfast. Fill these bottles with water from the lavatory sinks—it is sterile and perfectly clean for drinking purposes as well as any other—and keep them with you always—”
    “Wait! What is this?” a girl says plaintively. “Aren’t we getting real food at some point?”
    The Atlantean looks at her sympathetically, but also with a no-nonsense expression. “Yes, you are. And yes, I realize you just went through a tremendous ordeal and require solid sustenance. But for now, this is what you eat and drink. Tomorrow, you will learn more about your ship, and you will learn where we eat real food, what the rules of conduct are, and how we live and perform our duties.”
    The meal bars are passed out, and the Atlanteans leave two huge containers with more, near the doors, for tomorrow’s breakfast.
    Great. . . .
    I receive my meal bar absentmindedly, chew it while we all stand in a messy line of exhausted teens all pushing and shoving and trying to get water, use the facilities in the back, wash up the best we can.
    “How does this work? Where’s the toilet paper?” are some of the complaints heard immediately, mostly from the Americans.
    “Haven’t you heard of a bidet?” a British guy says. “You use the water sprayer thing to wash your bum. Same idea here. Makes sense—in space you recycle your resources.”
    Finally we get out of there. I collapse into the first available ground-level bunk, right on top of a thin blanket and single pillow. I vaguely remember Gracie taking the bunk directly overhead, and Gordie hunched over in a fetal position in the next one over, on the same first level as mine.
    Logan pauses and stands before me momentarily as I lie there. Already I am lost in a silent stupor, but somehow I can tell he’s there, hovering over me. . . . Unexpectedly he leans down and brushes his hand gently over my cheek, moving my hair out of my face with a single soothing touch. “Good night, Gwen . . .” he whispers. “We made it.”
    I turn my head slightly to watch as he then climbs up to take the next bunk above Gracie on the third level.
    Because the ceiling overhead has no direct illumination, I still have no clear sense how big the cabin chamber itself is, or how many other teens there are in this room with us, even after I get up again to use the alien lavatory in the back with all its oddball water sprayers, moving past endless rows of bunks. The lights, strange soft Atlantean illumination, fade into sleeping darkness at some point. They must be set on a day-night timer cycle. . . .
    As I fall asleep, I hear, from everywhere around me, soft complex sounds of grief and relieved gratitude—muffled sobs, whispers that sound like prayers in languages I don’t recognize, and weeping.
    Everywhere, teenagers are crying in the dark.
     
     
    I n the morning of the day