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The Remnant
Laura Liddell Nolen
The earth-shattering sequel to Laura Liddell Nolen’s THE ARK.As she stands before a jury about to sentence her to death for betraying the Remnant to the High Commander, it’s easy to say that stuff didn’t go to plan for Char. But as she prepares for the promise she made herself of reuniting her family to dissolve into space with her, an unexpected help gives her a second chance to make everything right again.Isaiah is still fighting for the Remnant’s independence in the Ark, and Char’s only choice is to help him if she is to find her brother. But a far larger conflict is brewing out in space, and Char’s promise is about to be tested like never before.
The Remnant
Book Two of The Ark Trilogy
LAURA LIDDELL NOLEN
HarperVoyager an imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk (http://www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2016
Jacket layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Cover images © Shutterstock.com (http://www.Shutterstock.com)
Laura Liddell Nolen asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008113636
Ebook Edition © March 2015 ISBN: 9780008113636
Version: 2016-08-10
For Ava and Liam
I must walk without the sun, darkness must cover the path of my feet.
—The Pilgrim’s Progress
Table of Contents
Cover (#ucc44b33c-5399-5249-ba71-30ded150db0b)
Title Page (#u6e27002d-d775-5b5b-b5c7-7b2ac7c7cf36)
Copyright (#ue07ddbab-2155-5d99-81ca-b15521a2af47)
Dedication (#u506a1f37-a2a4-52c5-b9fd-0d118006e84c)
Epigraph (#u5d53b58e-35d9-530f-a7cd-0cecd999ae86)
Chapter One (#u42224cec-3b24-5f02-bd3b-814fadd693f5)
Chapter Two (#u2e01ba12-f4cf-5665-a8cc-63cbabda889d)
Chapter Three (#ua1ab46aa-8e41-5289-8512-11c1ef5cda2f)
Chapter Four (#u354da099-88f9-548d-8513-a5495893ffa3)
Chapter Five (#u6590f098-14fb-5b12-b380-7624b65a1e47)
Chapter Six (#u00049659-db83-5d5f-9544-f50ab3466e0c)
Chapter Seven (#u5c6ca594-295b-5fe4-a901-148e6d5710e3)
Chapter Eight (#u5734cb46-aff2-50e9-a65b-329a805bab31)
Chapter Nine (#u820a1cfa-0929-51db-8f0e-fe5345ff2fcf)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-one (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-one (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Forty-one (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Laura Liddell Nolen (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
One (#uedf41452-0d56-538b-8bd8-88a075fda840)
They came for me at dawn, and all I could think was, it is way too early for this.
And actually, it might have been. Adam’s programming tended to be erratic at the best of times, and downright scary at the worst. Looking back, I guess we should have been grateful. Surely any dawn at all, however cruel, is better than the endless night of space.
Hindsight, and all that.
“Charlotte Turner.” The judge glanced at me over the top of her delicate, silver-rimmed glasses. The crowd quieted down, just for a moment, in spite of itself, but when rough hands shoved me up onto the platform, giving the Remnant its first good look at me, the shouting cranked right back up again. Death to the traitor! and She’s a terrorist! Worse than the Commander! echoed through my mind.I stopped trying to make sense of the words, letting them roll over me like pebbles on a riverbed, until I heard one I couldn’t ignore: Throw her out the airlock.
Something like fear, or horror, made me tilt up my chin and square my shoulders. My tongue was nearly numb, so I turned up the corners of my mouth to keep from crying.
“I’m glad to see that we amuse you, Prisoner.” Her voice was warm and sure, like a kindly librarian, and sounded older than her face appeared. “You got any last words before we vote?”
“Vote?” I twisted around to look at her. Gray hair. Wrong side of forty, especially up here. Slightly heavy in her chair, but thin to the point of frailty around the shoulders. Nothing about her qualified her for a spot on the Ark. But then, this was the Remnant: the Earth’s last rebels. So she fit right in.
She returned the favor, sizing me up before responding. “On your sentence.” She raised her eyebrows, anticipating my reaction. “Life or death.”
From my new vantage point, I could see the upturned faces of the crowd, and I scanned them as fast as I could, a growing sense of desperation gnawing at my lungs.
No Isaiah, which stung. No Adam, thank goodness. There was the gardener, a withered old man who’d taught me how to grow potatoes, and maybe a couple hundred strangers, including a large group of feral-looking children whose faces I searched more thoroughly.
No West.
The thought of his face, his wide brown eyes, flared through my mind, and I felt a weird sense of disconnect, like trying to laugh and gasping for air all at once. It had been years since I’d seen my brother, and I was so close. I searched and searched, but the room grew smaller as my panic expanded, and I ran out of places to look before I found him.
I pressed my lips together. In my experience, these things tended to go a lot better if you dropped the act and showed a little vulnerability, but again, there was my brother’s face in my mind, so my ribs were like steel around my lungs.
The crowd shouted louder, and the sounds merged together in my mind, until all I heard was a single accusatory voice. I tried to imagine what that voice would sound like when it sentenced me to die.
I didn’t have to wonder long.
“Nothing at all?” The judge regarded me dispassionately. “Then I’m afraid it’s time for the sentence.”
“Your Honor, I never meant to betray the Remnant.”
“She speaks,” said the judge, and the other voice quieted to a low buzz. “Is it your position that your actions on the day of the Battle for Sector Seven were undertaken with the interest of the Remnant at heart?”
“I—no. But I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. I only wanted to save my family. I’d just started to belong here, and my family, my blood family, was still living in Central Command. When I found out what the Noah Board was capable of I—”
“Was? Where are they now?”
It was a good question. “I’m not sure, Your Honor. My brother joined the Remnant, but I haven’t seen him since…” my voice caught, and I stopped talking for the space of several heartbeats. When I spoke, it was in a low, even tone, my face carefully composed. “I haven’t been out of my cell for six weeks. And my father is… somewhere in Central Command, I think.”
“And your mother?”
My throat tightened again, and my volume was reduced further. “She died. On Earth.”
It was a common story, but her voice softened. “Charlotte Turner. You placed every life in our sector in peril when you betrayed us to the High Commander. You’ve been found guilty of high treason.”
