The New World Read Online Free

we’re all looking at it too much?’
    I turned and closed up the coolant tube cases. ‘But what if it isn’t?’
    ‘But what if it is?’
    ‘What if it isn’t? ’
    ‘What if it is? ’
    ‘Yeah, this is getting us somewhere.’
    ‘Haven’t we raised you to be hopeful?’ he said. ‘Wasn’t that the whole point of your great-grandmother agreeing to be a caretaker on this ship, so that one day you could have a better life? She was full of hope. Your mum and I are full of hope.’ He was close enough now for a hug, if I wanted it. ‘Why can’t you share some of that?’
    And he was looking so caring, so worried, that how could I tell him? How could I tell him how much I hate even the sound of the word?
    Hope. That’s all anyone ever talked about on the convoy, especially as we got closer. Hope, hope, hope.
    As in, ‘I hope the weather’s good.’ This from people who’d never actually experienced weather except in immersive vids.
    Or, ‘I hope there’s interesting wildlife.’ From people who’d only ever met Scampus and Bumpus, the ship’s cats on the Delta. 10,000 frozen sheep and cow embryos didn’t count.
    Or, ‘I hope the natives are friendly.’ This always said with a laugh because there aren’t supposed to be any natives, at least according to the deep space probes.
    Everybody was hoping for something, talking about our new life to come and all that they hoped from it. Fresh air, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Real gravity, instead of the fake kind that broke every now and then (even though no one over fifteen would admit that it was actually really fun when it did). All the wide open spaces we’d have, all the new people we’d meet when we woke them up, ignoring completely what happened to the original settlers, super-confident that we were so much better equipped that nothing bad could possibly happen to us.
    All this hope, and here I was, right at the very edge of it, looking out into the darkness, the first to see it coming, the first to greet it when we found out what it really looked like.
    But what if?
    ‘Is it because hope is scary?’ my father asked.
    I looked back at him, startled. ‘You think so, too?’
    He smiled, full of love. ‘Hope is terrifying , Viola,’ he said. ‘No one wants to admit it, but it is.’
    I feel my eyes go wet again. ‘Then how can you stand it? How can you bear even thinking it? It feels so dangerous, like you’ll be punished for even thinking you deserved it.’
    He touched my arm, just lightly. ‘Because, Viola, life is so much more terrifying without it.’
    I swallowed away my tears again. ‘So you’re telling me the only choice I have is which way I’m going to be terrified for the rest of my life?’
    He laughed and opened his arms. ‘And at last a smile,’ he said.
    And he did hug me.
    And I let him.
    But in my chest, there was still fear, and I didn’t know which kind it was. Fear with hope, or fear without it.
    ***
    It takes what seems like forever to unbuckle my belt, hard to do when you’re hanging upside down against it. When it finally comes undone, I fall away from the seat, sliding down the wall of the cockpit, which seems to have folded into itself.
    ‘Mum?’ I say, scooting over to her.
    She’s facedown on what used to be the ceiling, her legs twisted in a way I can’t really look at-
    ‘Viola?’ she says again.
    ‘I’m here, mum.’ I push away the things that have fallen on her, all the files and screenpads, everything broken as we tumbled, everything that wasn’t fastened down broken to pieces-
    I pull up a large metal plate off her back-
    And I see it-
    The pilot’s chair was torn from the floor, tearing away the back panel of it, turning the backrest into a shard of metal-
    A shard that’s gone right into my mother’s spine-
    ‘Mum?’ I say, my voice tight, trying to lift it further off her-
    But when I move it more, she screams, screams like I’m not even there-
    I stop.
    ‘Viola?’ she says one