Across the Universe (Across the Universe #1)

Across the Universe (Across the Universe #1) Page 39

“I can’t stand it,” she whispers. “I can’t stand these people, I can’t stand this ‘world.’ I can’t live here. I can’t spend the rest of my life here. I can’t. I can’t.”

So. Enough of Eldest’s speech on the Keeper Level penetrated into her mind. She knows how trapped she—all of us—are.

I want to take her into my arms and hold her tight. But at the same time, I know that is the exact opposite of what she wants. She wants to be free, and all I want to do is hold her tight against me.

“I think I know something that will help,” I say.

57

AMY

AS WE WALK ALONG THE PATH LEADING AWAY FROM THE Hospital, Elder is very mysterious. He won’t tell me anything, and I suppose that’s what really lifts my mood—he is like a little kid, eager to show his friend a new toy. That alone is enough to make me forget about the weird, fuzzy, slogging-through-water feeling of the day.

A couple sitting on the bench by the pond wave at us as we pass. The woman’s face is aglow, and she leans against the man’s chest with a look of utter bliss. Her right arm is wrapped around her stomach, and the man’s arm cradles hers.

The woman bends her head down, and I realize she’s talking to her unborn baby, not the man she’s leaning against. “And the stars all had streaks of light chasing them, all shining down on us, on you.”

“Eldest told me it wasn’t for me,” Elder says under his breath as the couple’s chatter fades behind us.

I give Elder a confused look.

“The star screen in the Great Room. Eldest told me it wasn’t there for me when I found out they weren’t real stars, just lightbulbs.” He looks away from me and says in a very small voice, “That was the day you woke up.” His words hang in the air between us. It feels like a long time ago, for both of us.

Elder motions back at the happy couple on the bench. “Eldest said the fake stars were for them.”

“Oh, I see.” Typical that Eldest would want to control even the stars. He used them to manipulate the people of the ship, so that when they were told they would not be alive at planet-landing, they could at least have a taste of the stars to tell their children about. I look behind me at the woman sitting on the bench, holding her stomach with gentle hands and whispering to her unborn child about the stars they saw, promising it a lifetime under the heavens.

“It’s cruel,” I say. “To tantalize them with the outside, and then to take it away.”

Elder shakes his head. “It’s not like that. It gave them a story to feed their children. It’s the way hope is passed down.”

I stare at Elder. “You sort of agree with Eldest, don’t you?”

“Sort of.”

I want to argue. Eldest is like a spoiled child throwing his toys around. Waiting for an excuse to break us, watching for any sign that we don’t want to play his game. Always watching, with eyes that remind me of Luthe’s. He’s not helping people, like Elder almost seems to think—he’s twisting the situation to make no one really care about the fact that we’ll all be dead or super-old before we land on the new planet. But before I can say anything, Elder announces, “We’re here!”

He’s so proud of himself that I don’t have the heart to tell him I’ve been to the Recorder Hall before. Then again, the last time I was here, I was a mess, covered in mud and tears. I remember the man who helped me then, Orion. His kindness kept me sane.

One of the rockers on the porch moves slowly, as if someone has just left it, but there’s no other sign of life. Elder reaches to open the door for me. I see eyes then, and I smile, expecting Orion, but instead, Elder’s painted face peers up at me from the brick wall.

“Oh!” I say, leaning over to inspect the new portrait by the door. Elder’s face has replaced Eldest’s dour one.

“Yeah.” Elder sounds sheepish. My first thought was that he was going to show off with the painting—that’s what Jason would have done, hammed it up—but I can tell he wishes I hadn’t noticed it.

“Come inside,” Elder says. The Recorder Hall is empty except for us, silent and dark. Elder shows me the big model of Earth and the ship that I saw earlier. I pretend to pay attention, but I’m distracted by the flashing images on the walls. The last time I was here with Orion, these were blank; I’d barely noticed them.

“Wall floppies,” Elder says when he notices my distraction. “This is what Godspeed has been doing while you slept.”

He grins at me, but I barely notice. I’m fascinated by all that’s flashing in front of me: a diagram of how wi-coms work, and more of grav tubes. Art: I can pick out several scans of Harley’s artwork—several of them koi fish, which seems to be his favorite subject—but there’s more: sculptures, pottery, drawings, hand-sewn quilts. One of the floppy computers lists different titles, and when Elder taps on the screen, music fills the entryway.

For the first time since I woke up, I feel as if this is a place I could learn to love. It’s not Earth, not by any stretch of the imagination—but I’m seeing art and inventions and life that Earth will never know.

And all this happened while I dreamt nightmares below generations of people’s feet. They didn’t know about me any more than I knew about them.

“That’s odd,” Elder says, rapping his knuckles on one of the big wall computer things.

“What?”

“The image won’t change,” Elder says.

If it weren’t for the label at the top—LEAD-BASED FAST REACTOR PROTOTYPE—I wouldn’t know what it was at all. Not that the name helps me. I still don’t know what it means.

“It’s locked,” Elder says. “Let me see if I can ...” He steps over to one of the black boxes on the wall and runs his thumb over the scanner. “Eldest/ Elder access granted,” the computer chirps.

All around us, the pictures change. Now, images of Earth intermingle with images of Godspeed. A landscape painting of the Hospital and garden are replaced with a photograph of Monument Valley. Although I didn’t live there, it does remind me of the place out west where the space lab was, an hour from Colorado, where I met Jason, the last place I called home.

“Most people aren’t allowed to see this,” Elder says, still trying to get the one monitor to show something other than the engine schematics. “Whenever the new gen is born, school will start again. The children will see the model of Sol-Earth and the model of Godspeed. But they aren’t allowed to see this.”

“Why not?” I ask, brushing my fingers against the screen showing Monument Valley just before it melts into the Sphinx in Egypt.

“Eldest says it’s best for people not to dwell too much on Sol-Earth. That we should think about the future, not the past.”

“But he lets you see it.”

Elder turns to stare at the screen, and for a moment, he looks a photo of Kim Jong-il in the eyes, but then the picture fades into one of the old presidents. I can’t remember which one it is, the fat one with the big mustache.

“It’s part of his lessons. He wants me to learn about Sol-Earth, so that I can prevent its mistakes. Why won’t this frexing thing work?”

I want to say that Earth did not have mistakes, but I know that’s not true. And I want to say that Eldest’s method of running a world isn’t right, but I’m not sure that’s true. There is so much about this world inside a ship that I just don’t understand.

“Orion!” Elder calls. “One of the wall floppies is stuck!”

“Is he here?” I look around—the place looks empty except for us.

The screen behind Elder shifts, fading from one old president to another.

“As I was saying, Eldest wanted me to learn from Sol-Earth. A lot of your leaders had it right—they just didn’t get their people to follow. Like him.”

I glance back at the image on the screen. “Who? Abraham Lincoln?”

Elder nods. “Sixteenth governmental leader of the United States of America, located in the northern hemisphere of Sol-Earth, between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He was leader during the Civil War, a war between the states.”

“Yes, I know.” I am wary now. There is something in the way Elder speaks of Abraham Lincoln, so cold and disconnected, that makes me unsure—either of what he knows, or of what I know. I see a flicker of movement in the shadows near the door.

“He is the kind of leader Eldest wants me to be like.” The picture starts to fade, but Elder touches the screen, and Lincoln’s picture stays. I wait for him to continue. “When the states wanted to break up into discord, Lincoln provided the strong central leadership that kept them together.”

“Yes.” The word drawls out of my lips, long and low. Half my attention is on the door—is that Orion listening to us, or someone else? And why won’t whoever it is come out of the shadows and talk to us?

“And when the differences that existed between the states were too strong, Lincoln was the one who eliminated the cause of that discord.”

“I—what?”

“Monoethnicity. The cause of the war was that two races could not live in one country. Lincoln sent the black race back to the continent of Africa, and the war ended.”

I sputter. “What are you talking about? That’s not what happened!”

Elder taps on the screen, and the picture of Lincoln is replaced with text. He reads the words aloud, a hint of reverence in his voice.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation dedicated to the proposition that all men must be equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation can long endure if men are not equal. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war to determine the future of one nation, one people, free of discord, at peace through sameness. Our nation will now discover the strength of unity and uniformity.”

The text scrolls on. Elder takes a deep breath, about to continue reading.

“Stop.”

Elder looks at me, surprised.

“That is not the Gettysburg Address,” I say.

“Of course it is.”

“It’s not.”

“Then what’s the Gettysburg Address?”

I dig in my brain, trying to remember. “The four score part was the same. But this one is saying things like everyone should be the same—that’s not in there.”

“Then what does the Gettysburg Address say?”

“Er ... Four score and seven years ago ... um ... Okay, look, I don’t have the thing memorized, but I know enough to know that one’s wrong.”

Elder looks at me doubtfully, and I realize how weak my argument sounds. Inside, I’m beating myself up: how could I have left Earth without knowing this?

“That’s—this thing is basically racism,” I say. Elder doesn’t seem to know what “racism” is. “The speech you just read—that was all about dividing the races. But that’s not what the Gettysburg Address is about. And besides—look at you.” I wave my hand at Elder’s tan skin, almond eyes, high cheekbones, dark hair. “You’re like the ultimate in mixed races.”