Across the Universe (17 page)

I start to protest, but her wide, innocent, and empty eyes tell me it would be pointless. I shiver, but it has nothing to do with how cold I feel as my sweat dries on my skin. Eldest’s control is absolute. I don’t know why this girl is so vacant that she won’t believe what’s right in front of her face when it contradicts what Eldest has told her. I don’t know for sure if it even
is
Eldest behind the unpluggings. But I do know one thing: if it
is
him, and he’s got the entire ship blindly following him like this, there’s no chance I can stand against him.

34

ELDER

STARLIGHT TRICKLES UNDER MY DOOR THE NEXT MORNING. When I emerge from my chamber, yawning and stretching, I see that Eldest has lowered the metal screen over the navigation chart, exposing the lightbulb stars.

“Hey,” Eldest says. He’s leaning against the wall by his room, staring up at the false stars. He scoots over when I sit down, and I hear glass clattering on the metal floor. A bottle of the drink the Shippers make. Eldest moves to hide it, but he’s too late.

We stare at the lightbulbs.

“I forget sometimes,” Eldest says. “How hard it is. I’ve been doing it... for so long.” He sighs. Although the sharp, stinging scent of the drink lingers in the air, Eldest isn’t drunk. I glance at the bottle—it’s been opened, but no more than a swallow or two are missing. Trust Eldest not to let go of control even in this.

“I know it’s hard,” I say.

Eldest shakes his head. “No, you don’t. Not really. You’re just starting. You... haven’t had to make the decisions I’ve had to. You haven’t had to live with yourself afterward.”

What does he mean by that?

Just what has he
done
?

And another part of me, the part that’s felt what it’s like to be Elder for sixteen years, not Eldest’s fifty-six, that part of me asks: What has he
had
to do?

Because I know Eldest, and what’s more, I know the job. And I know why we do the job. Why we live the job. Why we have to.

“It’d be easier, if the Elder before you was still alive. He could take care of you and the Season, and I could take care of—”

“Of what?” I ask, leaning forward.

“Of everything else.”

Eldest stands now, the light of the false stars speckling his body. He looks very old. Much older than I’ve ever seen him before. It’s not years that age him, though.

“I
hate
the Season.” Eldest’s disgust is apparent in his voice.

I start to ask why, but he’s not looking at me, and something stays my tongue. I wonder—does he hate it because he has no one to mate with? I’ve never seen him look at a woman the way Harley used to look at his girlfriend... the way I look at Amy. Maybe he had a woman before me, for his Season, but she died. Maybe... I swallow. I can’t say I haven’t wondered before, wondered if Eldest was really my—

“Don’t get proud,” Eldest says, interrupting my thoughts.

“Sir?”

“Don’t get proud. You do what you have to do, whether you like it or not. There’s nothing to be proud of, not as Eldest. There’s never a right answer. Just keep them alive. Doesn’t matter how. Just keep the frexing ship alive.”

He picks up his practically full bottle and locks himself in his dark room. The metal screen covers the false stars, and I’m left in darkness too.

An hour later, it’s time for the day to begin. Eldest emerges from his chamber. His clothes are pristine, his eyes are clear, and his breath is fresh. I guess the bottle’s still full. The conversation beneath the lying stars feels like a dream.

Eldest walks to the hatch that leads to the Shipper Level. The clatter of his steps across the metal floor—uneven from his limp—is the only sound filling the silence.

“You spent all yesterday with that Sol-Earth girl,” he says finally, lifting the hatch door.

I shrug.

“I don’t have time for lessons right now. The ship comes first. But you’ve completely ignored my assignment, haven’t you? To discover the third cause of discord?”

My head sinks. I had forgotten. It seems so long ago. When I glance up, Eldest is looking over his shoulder, not meeting my eyes. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but I doubt it could be good.

“Fine,” he says finally.

“Fine?”

“Spend your time with her,” Eldest says. “You will see firsthand what sort of trouble she can cause.”

Then he descends down the hatch, leaving me with questions I know he won’t answer.

I head straight for the grav tube and the Feeder Level. If Elder’s giving me permission to abandon his assignment and spend time with Amy, who am I to question it? Orion’s on the Recorder Hall porch (leaning with his back obscuring the portrait of Eldest, which makes me grin), and I wave as I pass.

The garden is more crowded than I’ve ever seen it before. The only sounds drifting through it are the pants and grunts of the people mating, rutting behind the bushes, at the base of the trees, at the foot of the statue, right in the middle of the path. I have to step over squirming, sweaty bodies to enter the Hospital.

The elevator, thankfully, is empty. But it doesn’t smell as if it’s been empty for long.

In the Ward, there is some semblance of sanity. Yes, Victria and Bartie are kissing in the corner, and several of the acting troupe are pressed against the glass wall, but most of them are mostly clothed.

I half expect Amy to be like the rest of them when I knock on her door—I half hope it—but she’s not. She’s dressed, looking out the window.

“Why are they doing that? In public, everywhere...” she whispers as I walk into her room.

“It’s the Season.”

“This... isn’t normal. People don’t act like this. This is... mating, it’s not love.”

I shrug. “Of course it’s mating. That’s the point. To make a new gen.”

“Everyone? All at once? Everyone decides to have sex
now
?”

I nod. Maybe her parents never told her about the Season, but surely she was old enough to know. All animals go into heat. People have a Season just like the cows, the sheep, the goats.

Amy snorts. “Must be something in the water,” she says with a weak laugh, as if it were a joke. Her face grows dark again, though, and she says in a low whisper, mostly to herself, “But it’s not
natural
.”

I don’t answer. I’m too busy thinking about how when we’re twenty, we’ll be in Season. Together. Just us.

She’s said something. I shake my head to clear it from the thoughts invading my brain.

“Will you?” she asks.

“Will I what?”

“Will you go with me to see my parents?”

I take a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Amy... they’re still frozen.”

“I know,” she says in a calm, even tone. “But I still want to see them. I don’t think I can stand watch on that floor without first seeing them properly.”

So I go with her.

The lights are already on in the cryo level. Amy steps out first and looks around at the rows and rows of square doors.

I follow her as she silently goes down one aisle. Her fingers bounce on the metal doors. At the end of the row, Amy turns to me.

“I don’t even know which one is them.” She sounds lost.

“I can look that up,” I say. I go around her to the table at the end of the row and pick up the floppy on it.

“What were their names?” I say.

“Maria Martin and Bob—Robert Martin.”

I tap their names onto the on-screen keyboard. “Numbers 40 and 41,” I say. Before I can put the floppy down, Amy’s running up the rows, counting under her breath. She stops in front of the two side-by-side doors labeled with her parents’ numbers.

“Do you want me to open it?” I ask.

Amy nods her head, yes, but when I step forward with my arm outstretched, she grabs my hand. “I’ll do it,” she says, but she doesn’t, she just stands there, looking at the closed doors.

35

AMY

I WANT TO SEE THEM.

I want to trace Mom’s laugh lines with my eyes. I want to touch Daddy’s scruffy beard with my smooth cheek.

I want to see them.

But I don’t want to see them as frozen meat.

36

ELDER

“AMY?”

Amy and I both whirl around. Harley is standing at the end of the row.

“What have you been doing down here?” I ask.

Harley yawns as he walks over to us. “Standing guard. Like we said we would. No one’s been down here but you two.”

“I’ll stay tonight,” I say guiltily, looking at the dark circles under Harley’s eyes.

“Nah, you won’t.” Harley grins at me. “You can’t. Eldest would notice. I don’t mind it down here. It’s quiet and gives me a chance to paint.” I know Harley. I know how obsessed he can get. He’s probably spent more time looking at the stars than guarding the frozens.

I lean in closer, so Amy won’t hear. “But your meds—”

I’m not just talking about the blue-and-white Inhibitor pill we both take, that everyone in the Ward takes. Harley’s been on more meds than that, for his “episodes,” ever since—

“I’ll be fine,” Harley says and even though I’m not sure I believe him, I can tell from the way he’s looking at Amy that he doesn’t want to discuss this issue in front of her.

“Why don’t you come with us? Amy’s finding her parents,” I say.

Harley hesitates—he wants to return to the stars. But when he sees me staring at him in concern, he changes his mind.

“Okay,” he says, even as he glances toward the hallway leading to the hatch. There is something in the empty hollow of Harley’s eyes, a greedy sort of longing, that makes me worry about him. It’s the same sort of obsession he fell into last time.

“I’m done here,” Amy says from behind me.

“Are you sure?” I ask. She nods.

“But... don’t you want to get your trunk?” I ask her, glancing at the floppy.

“My trunk?”

“The one you packed before you were frozen? It’s recorded here that you and your parents each have a trunk.”

37

AMY

MY HEART THUDS AS HARLEY AND I FOLLOW ELDER PAST the rows of little metal doors to a wall lined with lockers.

I never packed anything for this. Mom and Daddy never told me that I could take anything with me.

Elder pulls open a locker; a stack of ten suitcase-size trunks lines the inside.

“Here you are,” he says, pulling out three trunks.

Harley and Elder stand over me as I push the button on the first trunk. The lid opens with an audible pop—the airlock preservation seal breaks.

This one must be Mom’s trunk. Her perfume wafts up as soon as the lid opens. I breathe deeply, eyes closed, remembering how her clothes smelled of this same perfume when I played dress up so many years ago. I breathe again and realize that all I can smell is the bitter preservation gas they must have filled the trunk with, and Mom’s perfume is nothing but memory.

I pick up the clear preservation bag filled with pictures.

“What’s that?” Harley asks.

“The ocean.”

He stares at it, open-mouthed.

“And that?” Elder asks.

“This was our family trip to the Grand Canyon.”

Elder takes the picture I hand to him. He traces the stone carved by the Colorado River with his finger. He looks incredulous, as if he doesn’t quite believe that the canyon behind my parents and me is real.

“This is all water?” Harley asks, pointing at the picture of me making a sand castle on the beach when I was seven.

I laugh. “All water! It’s salty, which is gross, but the waves are always going up and down, in and out. My daddy and I used to jump in the waves, see how far out we could go, and then ride them back to the shoreline.”

“All water,” Harley mutters. “All water.”

The other pictures aren’t as exciting. They are mostly of me. Me as a baby. Me as a toddler, in my grandparents’ garden, among the pumpkin vines. First day of school. Me at prom in my black slinky dress, standing next to Jason, accepting his cornflower corsage.

I root around deeper in the trunk. There’s something I know Mom wouldn’t have left on Earth. When my fingers close on something small and hard, my heart gives a little lurch. I withdraw the round-topped velvet box from the trunk and hold it in my palm.

“What’s that?” Elder asks. Harley is still staring at the ocean.

Inside the box is a gold cross necklace. My grandmother’s cross.

Elder laughs. “Don’t tell me you’re one of the ones who believed in those fairy tales!”

His laugh dies as I put the cross around my neck, never once breaking eye contact with him. “This ship is named
Godspeed
,” I say, adjusting the cross to lie at the center of my chest.

“
Godspeed
just means luck.”

I turn from Elder, stare out at the frozen morgue doors. “It means more than that.”

I swallow and put the pictures back into the trunk. Except for the one of my family and me at the Grand Canyon.

The cross swings forward as I reach for Daddy’s trunk. It’s filled with mostly books. Some I recognize: the complete works of Shakespeare,
Pilgrim’s Progress
, the Bible,
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
. Ten or twelve books on military tactics, survival, and science. Three books filled with blank paper and a pack of unopened mechanical pencils. I set one notebook and three pencils aside.

I hesitate, then reach back in the trunk for Sun Tzu’s
The Art of War
. I’ve never read the book, but I’m judging by the title that it’ll give me some pointers on what to do with whoever’s unplugging people. I tuck it away under the notebook, hoping Elder didn’t notice the title. Somehow, some way, I’m sure his mentor Eldest is at the bottom of all this, and I’m afraid that if it comes down to it, I might have to wage a war against him all by myself.

And then I see it.

My teddy bear.

I lift her up. The big green bow at her neck is lopsided and the felt is worn off her nose. The fur on her right paw is almost gone, because when I was a baby, I used to suck on it instead of my thumb.

I hug Amber to my chest, longing for something I know felt and stuffing can’t give.

“Last trunk,” Elder says, pushing it toward me as I close Daddy’s trunk.

I take a deep breath. I squeeze Amber.

But that trunk is empty.

“Where’s your stuff?” Harley asks, leaning over my shoulder.

Tears prick my eyes.

“Daddy didn’t think I was going to go,” I said. “He didn’t pack anything for me, because he didn’t think I was really going with them.”