Across the Universe

Elder starts to stride toward Eldest. He turns around and looks at me. “Come on,” he says. “Aren’t you going to come with me?”

Oh, yes. Of course. I follow him.

Eldest looks at me, and my body reacts before my mind, my stomach clenching and my gut twisting in nausea. I stumble — why don’t my feet want to go closer to Eldest? Why is my breath catching, my heart racing?

Why don’t I like Eldest?

I shake my head to clear my mind. Of course I like Eldest. Why would I not like him? He is my leader.

A loud noise makes me jump. The noise came from Elder.

I have missed part of their conversation. I squint and focus my attention on them. It seems very important that I understand. I feel like I should understand, should care.

“What did you do?” Elder shouts.

Why is he shouting?

“Nothing more than what you will do.” Eldest’s voice is a snarl.

“I will never be like you! Never! This is all a lie!” My gaze follows his arm up, to the stars. They are so pretty. Sparkly. Glittering. Not like the stars at home.

My heart misses a beat, and my breath is gone for a moment. Home? This is home. Why think about other stars? I have these stars. These stars are enough. They’re pretty. Sparkly. Glittering.

“What are you playing at?” Elder shouts, and I realize I’ve forgotten to pay attention again.

I should pay attention.

But… why? This has nothing to do with me.

It does, a voice whispers in my head.

How? I ask it.

But there is no answer.

“You frexing chutz,” Eldest says, leaning in close to Elder. “They need hope, don’t they? They need to look at the pretty sparklies—”

I look up at the pretty sparklies. They are pretty. And sparkly.

I blink. Where did the sound go?

Elder and Eldest stare at me.

Should I say something to them? They look like they want me to say something.

But what should I say?

“Amy?” Elder asks, quietly.

Eldest grins with all his teeth showing. My stomach clenches again, bile on my tongue, but my lips curve up, matching his smile. Eldest leans forward. He strokes my cheek. As he reaches for me, I have a sudden urge to flinch. But that’s silly — why should I flinch? I stand there. He wraps both hands around the sides of my face and draws me closer.

“Get your hands off her,” Elder snarls.

“Don’t you see?” Eldest says. I think he’s talking to Elder, not me, but I’m the one he’s looking at. “The people of Godspeed have simple needs, simple wants. Give them some sparkly lights and they call it hope. Give them hope, and they’ll do anything. They’ll work when they don’t want to. They’ll breed when the ship needs it. And they’ll smile the whole time.”

Eldest smiles, his lips curling up. His eyes stare into mine, so warm and brown and comforting.

I smile back.

54 ELDER

SOMETHING’S NOT RIGHT. AMY’S NOT RIGHT.

“What’s wrong?” I ask her.

She blinks. “Nothing.”

I have to get her to Doc. I don’t know if I can trust Doc, but I don’t know of anyone else who can help. I sure as frex can’t trust Eldest.

I get Amy off the Keeper Level and away from Eldest as fast as I can. The fear and exhilaration she showed when we first went up the grav tube is gone, replaced with mild disinterest. She follows me down the path to the Hospital garden like a dog. Her eyes stare straight ahead, not at the flowers, not at the statue of the Plague Eldest, just straight ahead. I wonder if she’s even really seeing anything at all.

At least a dozen people litter the ground floor of the Hospital. Half of them are elderly, and the other half are their younger counterparts, sons and daughters who have brought in their mothers and fathers.

“She’s gone,” a man says, leaning in close to the flabby-armed nurse who runs the ground floor emergency room. “She’s too old to travel through the grav tubes, but I told her about the meeting — you know, the meeting on the Keeper Level. And it’s left her completely baffled. She’s gotten all confused.”

“Not confused,” the old woman behind him says in a cracked voice. “I remember it, clear as day. Those stars that trailed with light. Only time I ever saw stars.”

I pull Amy along behind me, as if she is a distracted child, but in truth, I’m more distracted than she is.

The flabby-armed nurse nods at the young man. “It’s not your fault. Many elderly get confused in their old age. We’ve got rooms for them on the fourth floor. I’ll send her there and have Doc look at her.”

“Thank you,” the young man says, a sigh of relief floating among his words. He turns to talk to his mother, then hands her over to a nurse who leads her to the elevator where Amy and I are waiting.

“You’re the Elder. The one who didn’t die,” the old woman says as she sees me. “And that’s the freak girl Eldest told us about.”

“Hello,” Amy says with a smile, holding out her hand to the woman. If I had any doubt about something being wrong with Amy, it’s gone now. Amy — the normal Amy I’d come to know — would not have put up with an old lady calling her a freak girl.

“They say I’m sick,” the old lady tells Amy.

“This is the Hospital,” Amy says. Her speech has a childlike cadence to it, simple and factual.

“I didn’t know I was sick.”

“You’re just confused, dear,” the nurse says. “You’re getting the past and the present mixed up.”

“That’s not good,” Amy says, her eyes wide.

The doors slide open and we all step inside. I push the third button. The nurse reaches over and pushes the fourth.

“What’s on the fourth floor?” I ask. I’ve noticed that Doc occasionally takes patients — usually the grays — there, but never really noticed anything special about it other than the secret elevator.

“It’s where we’ve got rooms set up for the elderly,” the nurse says. “Sometimes, they get to the point where they can’t take care of themselves, so we give them rooms there. They need rest and peace, and we have some meds for that on the fourth floor.” She pats the old woman’s hand, and the woman smiles up at the nurse, her smile shining through the deep wrinkles of her face.

My brow creases. Why were the doors on the fourth floor locked if they merely contained old people relaxing?

The doors slide open to the common room of the Ward. I step out.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” the nurse calls.

Amy is still standing in the elevator, staring vacantly up at the numbers above the doors.

“Three,” she says solemnly, reading the lit number.