Page 13 of Across the Universe (Across the Universe 1)

Ah. I’d forgotten. These are images approved for everyone, but the information Eldest wants me to find is restricted. I step over to the biometric scanner against the wall and roll my thumb over the scan bar. “Eldest/ Elder access granted,” the computer’s female voice chirps.

The images change. Now there is art from Sol-Earth, not just Godspeed . The people aren’t monoethnic. Unlike the images of Centauri-Earth, those of Sol-Earth are not an artist’s rendering. I stand back, staring into the paper-white face of a woman with a mountain of powdered hair and a dress so wide it borders each side of the screen. I wonder about the time and place she is in, the person she was. I am looking into the face of another world, one as unreachable to me as Centauri-Earth.

“Perhaps Genghis Khan’s campaign is what Eldest wants you to learn about?” Orion mutters. He taps on the screen, and the woman’s white-painted face melts into a screaming brown man with almond-shaped eyes and matted, dirty hair. “Or the Armenian Genocide?” A map of Sol-Earth replaces the terrifying man, and the outline of a small country flashes, inviting me to tap on it and learn more.

Before I can touch it, though, Orion taps something else on the screen. The map fades, replaced with a chart. I squint up at the tiny words and jumbled lines. A genealogical chart, tracing parents to children. My eye roams the chart, jumping from name to name, and it isn’t until Orion murmurs, “Oops,” and changes the screen to another map that I realize the name I was seeking on the screen was my own, even though I know that’s silly—that chart was way too old.

I breathe deeply, ignoring whatever war or genocide Orion is now pointing out to me on the screen.

As Elder, I am not allowed to know my parents. It would make me partial and biased; it would lead to sentimental feelings that would impede my leadership and decisions as Eldest. I know this. I even agree with it.

But still.

I’d like to know who they are.

“Elder?” Orion asks, concern filling his voice. “Is something wrong?”

I shake my head. “Nothing. ”

Orion searches my face, but I’m not sure what he wants to find.

And then I find myself searching his face in return, and I know what I’m seeking. Is that my nose on his face? My eyes? My lips? I’ve never really noticed Orion before. He’s always been in the background, fading into the records he keeps. But now that I really look at him. . .

Could this man be my father?

My breath catches, and I have to shake my head again

before I can get a grip on myself. Sure, Orion reminds me of me. But on a ship where everyone’s monoethnic, that’s not hard to do. I can as easily see myself in Eldest as I can in Orion.

I just wish I could see myself in me.

Orion smiles at me, as if he understands what I’m going through, but he can’t possibly. “So,” he says, in such a fatherly tone that I flinch, “Eldest is having you do research? Sounds like he’s really focusing on training you now. ”

“Yeah. ”

“Has he taken you below the Feeder Level yet?” Orion leans forward, his eyes eager.

“Below? There’s nothing below the Feeder Level. ”

Orion’s face slips into a blank mask. “Oh,” he says, leaning back, disappointment evident in his down-turned mouth. “Well, let’s get on with that research. ” He turns back to the screen.

“No, wait! Did you mean there’s another level below this one?”

Orion hesitates. He brushes his long hair behind his ear, and I notice that the left side of his neck is marked by a peculiar spiderweb scar. “I’m not sure,” he says. “I was going through the floppies recently, and I saw something. . . . ” He taps his finger against the floppy, and the screen speeds through images. “I found some diagrams of Godspeed. But I shouldn’t have been looking at them. Besides, surely Eldest will go over all that with you in your training, when it’s time for you to learn about those sorts of things. I was just curious. ”

Of course he is. As a Recorder, his home and work is on the Feeder Level. Everyone’s constrained to the Feeder Level except the Shippers, who have access to the Shipper Level, and Eldest and I, who also have the Keeper Level. Orion’s probably spent his whole life on this one part of the ship.

“Can I see the diagram?”

Orion’s hand twitches toward the screen, but he doesn’t tap anything in. “Eldest would probably not want. . . ” His voice trails off, indecision making him waver.

I smile back at him. “Let me,” I say. “Then you can’t be to blame. ” Orion looks a little guilty, but also eager and curious as I knock his hand aside and tap in “Godspeed ship diagram. ”

A list shows up instead of an image. Two options. Two different diagrams.

BEFORE PLAGUE

AFTER PLAGUE