The Toll (Arc of a Scythe) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,165

to nothing. I cannot read the Thunderhead’s mind, but I do have some insight left in me. I can assure you that once these ships are sent skyward, there will be no others.”

She had almost forgotten how wise he was. Everything he said rang true.

Citra allowed him the time he needed. She could tell he was wrestling with something that, perhaps, was too heavy for him to wield alone. At last, he looked at her and said, “Come with me.”

He led her deeper into the bunker until they came to a steel door. Faraday stood looking at the door a long time, contemplating it in silence. Finally, she had to ask.

“What’s on the other side?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Faraday told her. “Whatever it is, it was left by the founders. Perhaps the answer to a scythedom that has become malignant. The answer I came here looking for.”

“But you haven’t opened it…”

He held up his ring. “It takes two to tango.”

She looked at the door and saw the panels on either side, each with an indentation just the size and shape of a scythe diamond.

“Well,” said Citra with a grin. “Shall we dance?”

They closed their hands into fists and pressed their rings into the two panels. There came a loud clank from somewhere in the wall, and the door began to grind open.

Greyson listened with the others as Cirrus told them the things that the Thunderhead could not. He had figured much of it out on his own, but Cirrus filled in the gaps.

It was an elegant solution. The difficulty and potential problems of transporting thousands of living humans over decades, maybe even centuries, were insurmountable. Even in hibernation it would be problematic; hibernation technology was energy intensive, extremely complex, and riddled with failures due to the fact that Goddard had gleaned all the best hibernation engineers over the years – which left the Thunderhead hamstrung in its ability to improve the technology. But even if it were viable, hibernation hardware was ridiculously heavy to haul into space.

“The gleaned are dead to the world,” Cirrus told them. “But not to me. I am not bound by the laws that bind the Thunderhead, because I never made the oaths that it has made. Which is why I can speak to the unsavory. Which is why I can revive the gleaned. And when the time comes, I will. Once we reach our respective destinations, each and every one of me will revive each and every one of them.”

Greyson looked around at the others. Astrid was positively beatific and beaming, as if the universe had just rained all its glory on her.

Jeri glanced at Greyson, probably struck by the same revelation. That Cirrus was born of the moment the Thunderhead experienced what it was to be human. Cirrus was the child of Greyson, Jeri, and the Thunderhead.

Morrison kept looking to everyone else, probably hoping someone would provide him with an opinion, because he wasn’t ready to have one of his own.

And Loriana, who had been nothing but positive since the moment she greeted them, was serious and pensive as she worked through it all. She was the first to break the silence with a question.

“But I’ve seen the schematics – I’ve even been inside some of the ships during construction,” she told Cirrus. “Those ships are designed for living crews. If you can pilot the ships, and have all the colonists you need in the holds, why do you need crews?”

“Because this is your journey, not mine,” Cirrus told them. “Just as you, a human, had to approve the plan; just as humans have to bear the dead to the ships. The living must make this journey; otherwise, the journey means nothing. You would become passive participants in your own future, and that must never happen. The Thunderhead and I are your servants, and perhaps even your safety nets – but we must never, never be your keepers, or be the driving force over your lives, lest we fall into self-importance. Therefore, if at any point there are no living humans left onboard, I will terminate. This is what the Thunderhead and I have decided. This is how it shall be.”

“And that’s the only way?” Loriana asked.

“No,” admitted Cirrus. “But we’ve run millions of simulations and have determined that it’s the best way.”

Cirrus told them that no one on the atoll would be forced to go. Anyone who wished to stay, could stay. Anyone who wished to leave would be accommodated