I can tell it in his eyes. Most of the people — the Feeders — they’re acting like animals. But this guy’s not acting at all. He knows what he’s doing.
And he likes it.
It’s hopeless.
The man holding my ankles starts to tug at my pants.
I kick him, and I’m fairly certain that my heel connects with his teeth. He shouts, and his shout is not one of lust but of pain. But Luthe has gotten hold of his idea and starts yanking at the waist of my pants.
I open my mouth to scream, and the man holding my arms presses his mouth against mine, his tongue delving deep into me, rooting around against the soft palate of my mouth.
I bite until I taste blood. I bite even as he tries to jerk his tongue away. When he finally escapes, I spit his blood from my mouth, and scream.
“Little Fish! Amy!” Harley’s voice is panicked.
“
And then he’s there, and he bangs his easel against the man straddling me, and his easel breaks apart, and now he’s pummeling the men with his fists. And I curl up into a ball, holding myself with myself, and choking back my tears. The Feeder men run away, but Luthe stands to fight. He and Harley circle each other like vultures circling a carcass, and I know I’m the carcass. Luthe hits first, but Harley hits harder. Luthe sprawls down, but he’s not knocked out. Harley grabs my wrist.
“Come on. Come
42 ELDER
ORION TOLD ME THAT THE ONLY WAY TO GET AROUND ELDEST was to be sneaky. I have never had a reason to be sneaky before now.
But it’s not like I don’t know how.
As soon as the elevator doors close, taking Amy, Harley, and Doc back to the Hospital, I turn the floppy over in my hand.
First I check the biometric scan logs. The elevator opened to Harley’s biometric scan last night, and he spent all night here on this floor. Doc was down here and back up again early in the day, just before the solar lamp turned on, and he was only here for a few minutes. But another name is logged between his name and mine.
ELDEST/ELDER, 0724 HOURS
I wasn’t down here at 7:24 a.m. That just leaves Eldest.
Now to find out where he is.
It’s a simple enough thing to do. Override the access with my thumb scan and upload the wi-com receiver locations.
I zoom in on the screen. There’s Doc, in his office. Bartie and Victria are in the Ward common room, close together. Harley’s going down the path toward the fields — from his speed, I guess he’s running. Wonder why. Amy’s not on the screen — she doesn’t have a wi-com.
“Find Eldest,” I command. One of the dots starts blinking blue.
He’s here. On this level. Past the aisles of frozens, behind the door on the far wall. Doc’s “other” lab.
The door is closed, and I’m not sure Eldest would let me in if I knocked. Orion had told me that the rules don’t apply to Eldest, that he doesn’t follow the rules. So why should I?
A sterile disinfectant smell greets me as I enter the cramped room. Rows and rows of refrigeration tubes line one side of the wall. Inside the clear tubes, I see more cryo liquid with bubbles of goo and solid masses floating inside. Although I know I should be looking for Eldest, I cannot help but get a closer look at the gelatinous material. The chunky stuff inside each of the bubbles looks like curled up, malformed beans.
“They’re embryos.”
Eldest has found me. But he isn’t glowering at me. He actually looks a bit pleased to see me. If anything, that just puts me more on edge.
“When we land, we’ll artificially birth them.”
“Embryos of what?” I ask. I slip the floppy into my pocket. No reason for Eldest to know I was looking for him, not when he found me first.
“Animals. You’re looking at the cat tube. Cougars, I think, maybe bob-cats. I’d have to look it up.”
I struggle to remember what a cougar is. I think it’s something like a lion, but the pictures I’ve seen on the floppies in the Recorder Hall all run together.
“What are they here for?”
“When we land. We don’t know what animals from Sol-Earth we’ll need. There may be animals on the planet that are detrimental, and we’ll need predators to eliminate them. We’ll introduce ones from Sol-Earth. Or there may be animals that are good, but require new traits to make them useful to us. We’ll attempt crossbreeding or genetic splicing.”
I’m not interested in big lion-cats. I want to know why Eldest was the last one in the cryo chamber room, just before another frozen person drowned.
Before I can speak, Eldest strides past me to a table on the other side of the room. There is only one glass tube on this side, halfway empty. The embryos float in the cryo liquid like bubbles in gel, scattered throughout the tube. I lean in closer to look at one, examining the little bean-shaped fetus inside the amniotic sac. When I look up, I see Eldest watching me intently, a furrow of concern creasing his brow. His gaze doesn’t waiver when our eyes meet.
“What have you come here for?” he asks finally. “I didn’t think you even knew about this lab. Did Doc tell you?”
I shrug, unwilling to scamp out either Doc or myself.
“It doesn’t matter. I should have brought you here sooner. You’ll only have this one Season to prepare, then you’ll have to teach the Elder after you what to do.”
“What to do?” I ask.
Eldest picks up a big needle from the table beside the refrigeration tube. The actual metal part of the needle is nearly a foot long, and there’s at least twenty ounces of liquid inside the cylinder.
“You know that one of the biggest concerns on a generation ship is incest.” Eldest puts the needle down in a basket, picks up another one, and places it in the basket next to the first. “It is inevitable that, with a limited population of people, eventually the bloodlines will become too intermingled.”
He selects a needle from another stack this time. There is a tiny black-and-yellow label near the plunger of each needle. The one in Eldest’s hand now states simply “visual art.”
“I know all this,” I say. “It’s why the Plague Eldest developed the Season. So that you — we — could monitor reproduction.”
“Yes, that’s part of it.” Eldest is distracted as he selects more needles to put into the basket. “But another problem isn’t just preventing mental and physical handicaps from incest. Another problem is that this ship’s mission is so important, we cannot afford a generation that has no genius or talent.”
Now the needles he’s selecting are from another stack, one labeled “mathematics.” He takes five of these needles for the basket.
“The founders of the ship never intended us to be just idle farmers while we waited to land. We need
