Page 20 of Across the Universe (Across the Universe 1)

As we run, the path curves around. We start to circle back. And I see our house, a mixed-up house that looks a little like our home in Florida where we lived when I was young, but it’s brick like the one in Colorado, and Grandma’s on the porch, waving and calling us in.

And Mom leaves the path and goes to the house.

“Come on,” Daddy says, and he jogs up the steps of the porch.

But I can’t quit running. My feet won’t turn toward home.

I can’t stop.

I have to race, round and round, in a world that’s beautiful and serene and perfect.

I try to stop. I circle back to the house, and Mom and Grandma and Daddy are there, eating pancakes, and sometimes Jason’s there too, and my dog from when I was little, and my friends from high school.

And I can’t stop.

Because sometimes the dreams of the new world turn into nightmares.

10

ELDER

ELDEST HAS APPARENTLY DECIDED TO PUNISH ME WITH LESSONS. He was silent during the long ride up the elevator, and did nothing but grunt at me in disdain when I tried to question him about the girl as he led me down the path from the Hospital to the grav tube. Now, in the Learning Center, he throws me into the hard blue plastic chair beside the faded globe of Sol-Earth.

I start to ask about the girl again, but Eldest collapses in the chair opposite me, shifting his weight uneasily. He grimaces as he props his leg up on the globe. His shoe covers Australia.

“Well?” Eldest growls.

“What?” I am unable to keep the whine from my voice.

“Well, did you figure out the third cause of discord?”

“No,” I say, my eyes on the mountainous bumps on the globe.

“Oh, so you had plenty of time to go poking around places you don’t belong but not to do the one thing I asked you to?” Eldest’s sarcasm is cruel; he spits the words out at me.

“Why didn’t you tell me about that hidden level filled with frozen people?” I shout back. “I’m the next frexing leader of this ship! I should know everything about it!”

“You should know everything, huh? Then why don’t you tell me the third cause of discord?”

“I don’t know!” I shout.

“Then stay here and learn!” Eldest roars, and he thro

ws a floppy at me, its screen already flashing Sol-Earth history. Before I can hurl it back at Eldest, he tears from the room, knocking over the globe on his way out. Sol-Earth spins in his wake, a blue-green nothing, clattering against the table’s leg.

Eldest’s temper is worse because he’s held it in until we were in private. I know that if we weren’t here, in the Keeper Level, alone, he wouldn’t have spoken like that.

Eldest leaves the Learning Center door open, and as he storms away, my eyes drift up to the metal screen, behind which are the twinkling lightbulbs I thought were stars.

Why lie about the screen, about the hidden level of the ship?

And what other lies has he been telling?

I tap my fingers on the table made from real Sol-Earth wood in front of me, trying to drum up new plans. If Eldest isn’t going to tell me what’s going on, I’ll just find out for myself. My eyes drift to the metal circle covering the grav tube in the corner of the room. I could escape, take the tube back to the Feeder Level, see what else I could find. Maybe Orion knows something more. I can’t think in this tiny room. I’d like to just walk about the fields a bit, visit the sheep pastures, wander aimlessly on a ship whose path was determined centuries ago. Gather my thoughts together so I can see them all in a straight line.

But to disobey a direct order from Eldest?

Even I don’t have the chutz for that.