The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera

Author:Donna Barba Higuera
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Levine Querido

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I SNEAK TO WHAT WAS ONCE the teen stasis room and find a metal calibration tool from the drawer below the ship’s atmospheric monitor, still glowing purple. Where most could just look at it in the dim light, I have to run my finger along its edge. Thinner than a flathead screwdriver, it’s perfect for prying open a domed cover to a lock.

Even though the elevator would save me time, I sneak to the back stairs to avoid curious eyes through the elevator’s open glass. Just as I had before, I count the two hundred and eighteen steps and open the door. My footsteps echo across the hold until I reach the flashing blue light above the metal door. It blinks as brightly as it did three hundred and eighty years ago on the first day, when Ben pointed out the supply room. I pull out the calibration tool and jimmy it under the lower edge of the cover. But instead of the resistance I’d expected, the plastic dome pops off immediately. It falls to the floor too fast for me to catch. Bouncing twice, its clinks echo in the hold. I flatten my back to the wall and wait. When no one comes, I turn back to the door.

I must feel like la Vieja did, picking the diamond out of her heel and finding the jewels. My hand trembles as I reach out to pull on the latch. Unlike all the others on the ship sliding open easily, this door creaks open slowly from disuse. My footsteps echo as I step inside. The dim overhead light flickers to life.

My stomach plummets. The back wall, which should contain a hundred lifetimes of food, is empty.

I tiptoe across the space until I reach the shelves. Bare. Not a single meal remains. The parasites have already scavenged even the last emergency rations meant for the passengers when we arrived on Sagan. I think of my few boxes of stolen bioloaf and wonder how we’re going to feed ourselves.

On the lowest shelf, at least, purification straws are stacked neatly. I unzip my sample collection bag and scoop straws into the bag until I have enough to filter water for our entire lives.

If my suspicions are true and the lake plants I saw are edible, maybe we can survive. Except, of course … we’d be eating lake plants. I take a deep breath and turn to leave.

A door just outside in the hold slams shut.

Now, I am Glish. Frozen like a deer as the slim figure walks slowly toward me.

The same deep voice I’d heard in the hold the night I found the empty pods calls out. “You are not supposed to be in here. The Collective has restricted this area.”

A man with wrinkled brown skin and a long white beard blocks the path to the elevator. It takes a moment for me to scan him from head to foot and process what I’m seeing. He’s wearing Collective-issue boots and jumpsuit, but is also wearing gloves and has lab goggles on the top of his head like a hat.

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