Across the Universe

She cuts herself off, but I can guess what she’s going to say. Not with anyone she doesn’t love.

A week ago, I would have snorted at those words. Love was no more real than the “god” Amy worshipped. I’d heard of “love” in the same context that I heard of those religious fairy tales — as stories Sol-Earth people used to tell to make themselves feel better about the imperfect world they helped to create.

But now…

“’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” Victria says.

“Is that from your new book?”

Victria snorts. She shifts in her seat, and I notice a stack of books — real books, from Sol-Earth — sitting on the porch floor beside her rocker. I frown. Orion, as a Recorder, should know better. Even Recorders are forbidden from messing with the ancient books. If Eldest catches him…

On the lawn in front of us, the woman’s hand rests on her bare belly, her fingers curling against her skin, as if she were clutching something invisible but precious.

“Do you think they’re happy, at least?” she asks, nodding her head at the couple. Before I can answer, she adds, “Because I never am.”

“Okay, let’s get this brilly painting hung!” Orion says cheerfully as he emerges from the Recorder Hall. The canvas he’s holding is so new that I can still smell the paint on it — it reminds me of Harley.

Orion twirls the canvas around to position it on the hook over the plaque, and I gasp. He looks up at me and smiles knowingly.

It’s not Eldest on the canvas.

It’s me.

“This Season is the start of your gen,” Orion says, sliding the wire on the back of the canvas over the hook and straightening the picture. “It’s almost time for Eldest to step down. For you to be the new leader.”

Painted me looks out on Godspeed from exactly where painted Eldest had looked. Harley’s done this — I recognize his style — although I never sat for a painting. He must have done it by memory — which would explain why he’s added all sorts of things into painted me that just don’t exist. The same confident tilt of the head that Eldest has, not me. The same clear eyes, the same assured posture. It doesn’t look like me at all. Is this how Harley really sees me? It’s not me at all.

“It looks exactly like you,” Victria says. She’s abandoned her rocker and stands behind me, peering over my shoulder to look at the painting.

“It looks like a leader,” Orion says.

A leader? No. A leader would know what to do.

47 AMY

THE NEXT MORNING, I SHOWER — THEN SHOWER AGAIN. BUT I cannot scrub away the bruises on my wrists or legs, and I cannot wash away the memory from my mind.

Fewer people populate the fields. Almost none.

People are animals, Harley had said.

They are. Luthe and the two Feeder men proved that. And that man and woman, who were right beside me, who didn’t even notice, or care….

Elder kissed me in the garden, just as the Season began. Was that a real kiss — or would any female lips have done in my place? My face burns. It had been real to me. But probably not to him.

I don’t care what sort of plague happened on the ship, or what sort of rules Eldest has made: the Season is not normal human behavior. There has to be some reason for it. Something in what they eat, or a chemical in the recycled air — maybe even a disease to make people act like rutting animals.

Then it occurs to me: the doctor. He should know this isn’t normal, he should know how to isolate — and stop — whatever trigger makes the people so barbaric.

I jump up and stride to the door, but my hand shakes as I reach for the button to open it. In here, I’m safe. Out there…

No.

I will not stay in my hidey-hole like a scared rabbit. The whole point of finding the doctor is to prove people aren’t animals. I can’t hide like one.

The doctor, however, can. He’s not on the third floor, or the fourth. A nurse in the lobby directs me to the second floor.

“But he’s busy,” she calls after me.

Dozens of women line the hallways on the second floor, some wearing hospital gowns and sitting by doors, apparently waiting for a room to open up, some wearing their plain tunics and wide-legged pants, holding neatly folded hospital gowns and waiting to change. This entire floor looks like a gynecologist’s office. In each room, there is a bed with stirrups, and nearly every bed is occupied. My steps slow. Why is a gynecologist’s office so crowded now? These women can’t think they’re pregnant already, can they? Not after just one day. I shake my head. I can’t be sure of that. On a ship where phones are built into your ears and paper-thin plastic is a whole computer, it’s not that crazy to think that maybe you can know if you’re pregnant as quickly as this.

None of the women talk.

“Get in line,” a nurse says, handing me a folded hospital gown.

“Oh, but I’m just here to see the doctor… ” I start, my voice trailing off. Obviously I’m here to see the doctor — obviously all the women here are. “I mean,” I add at the nurse’s impatient look, “not the, uh, gynecologist, but the other doctor, the one who’s usually on the third floor.”

“Only got one doctor,” the nurse says. She eyes my red hair and pale skin a little closer. “I take it you’re not here because of the Season?”

“No!”

She sighs. “Follow me.”

The nurse leads me down the hall, weaving in and out of clusters of women. Many of the women look up and stare at me with a surprised sort of curiosity, as one would look at a strange person on the bus. None of them speak; they don’t seem too greatly bothered by me.

“Only one doctor, with this many patients?” I ask the nurse.

“He’s got us nurses, and he’s got assistants — several of the scientists have been working under him directly for years.” The nurse sighs again. “But Doc won’t pick any as his apprentice. Not the trusting type.”

I wonder what trust has to do with hiring more help, but there’s no time to ask. The nurse stops by an open door and jerks her head for me to go in. I enter. The doctor is sitting at a chair between the stirrups of a bed, with a woman’s legs propped up in the bed’s stirrups. Everything the woman probably doesn’t want me to see is right there.

“Oh my gosh! I’m sorry!” I cover my eyes and turn to go. Why did the nurse let me in the room in the middle of an examination, a very personal, private examination?

“It’s okay,” the doctor says. “What did you need me for?”

“I don’t think she wants me here….”

“She doesn’t mind. Do you mind?” he asks, peering up at the woman over her knees.

“No, of course not,” she says. She sounds bored.

All I know is that if I were lying on a stirrup bed with my legs in the air and my private bits just out there for everyone to see, I’d be mortified. My mother made me go to the gynecologist after I first started getting serious with Jason, and I have never had a more uncomfortable half hour in my life. I didn’t want anyone in the room with me, up to and including the doctor, the nurse, and my mother, let alone some stranger.

But this woman couldn’t care less. I risk opening my eyes, and she meets my gaze with a calm look. She doesn’t seem bothered in the least by my presence.

“I, um…” I try to ignore what the doctor is doing with that clear goo and that metal thing that looks like a