Page 22 of Across the Universe (Across the Universe 1)

My heart.

Thump-thump.

Water leaks onto my left eye’s lash-line. I twitch involuntarily. The yellow crust that has sealed my eyes for who knows how long cracks as—for the first time since I was frozen—I move.

OhGodohGodohGod.

12

ELDER

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

I jump, then grimace. Nothing could have given away my guilt more.

“It’s almost dark,” Doc continues. “Does Eldest know you’re here?”

“Don’t!” I say as Doc reaches for his wi-com button. “Look. . . I snuck out. I was tired of reading! C’mon,” I add when Doc doesn’t lower his hand. “I just. . . needed to get out for a bit. Don’t scamp me out. Give me a break. ”

Doc’s smirk tells me he’s not happy with me, but at least he doesn’t call for Eldest. I breathe a little easier.

For a moment, we both just stand there, me on the path that leads deeper into the garden behind the Hospital, Doc on the steps. I love this garden. When Eldest sent me to the Ward for that year, I spent a lot of free time here in the garden. Steela, an old woman who lived in the Ward long before I moved there, had made the garden blossom from a grass lawn with hedges around it into a veritable jungle of flowers and vegetables and vines and trees.

“So, looking for inspiration?” Doc nods to the statue in the center of the garden.

The Plague Eldest, his concrete face upturned and his arms spread wide, stands benevolent guard over the garden. Time and scheduled rain has smoothed the face and hands, blurring the details of our greatest ruler.

“Oh! Uh. . . yeah. ” I seize onto his excuse. “You know, Eldest wants me to learn leadership, and I figured, Plague Eldest did it the best. . . . ” The Plague Eldest was the first and greatest Eldest. He’s the only person I’ve ever seen my Eldest admire, and he’s more of a leader than either of us ever will be.

“You just came here to look at the statue?”

I heave a sigh. “I wanted to see her. ”

“Don’t go getting obsessed, boy. Not good, not good for anyone. She’s frozen, and that’s that. ”

“I know, but . . . ”

“But nothing. Get her out of your mind. ”

A resounding low-pitched alarm fills the air. Urk. Urk. Urk. The warning tone that sunset is about to fall. A flash of green catches my eyes. On the other side of the ship, the Shippers are taking the grav tube from the offices and labs on the Shipper Level to the City here on the Feeder Level where they live. From here, they’re tiny blurs of color zipping through the tube: brown, white, black, green. Doc raises his face to the center of the sky. That’s not the sun there, it’s an inertial confinement fusion container, a solar lamp providing both light and warmth to the Feeder Level, as well as the fuel for the ship’s internal function. It flashes once—warning us that night is approaching—and then the tinted shield slides over the container. The world is dark now. We call it sunset, a word leftover from Sol-Earth, but this sunset is nothing more than turning off the light. There is no red-yellow-orange-gold in this sunset.

“Come on, boy,” Doc says as he hangs his arm on my shoulder, pulling me down the garden path. “You need to get back to the grav tube before Eldest notices you’re missing. ”

“But. . . ”

“The doors are all locked, even the one on the fourth floor. Come on. There’s no point obsessing. ”

I turn away, letting Doc’s words drag me from thoughts of the girl with sunset hair. Eldest taught me about ancient religions that worshipped the sun. I never understood why—it’s just a ball of light and heat. But if the sun of Sol-Earth swirls in colors and lights like that girl’s hair, well, I can see why the ancients would worship that.

The path leading from the Hospital seems ominous in the shadows of dark-time. Doc’s arm tightens around my shoulder, his fingers digging into my arm. “Who is that?” he hisses.

I squint into the darkness. A man walks down the path a few paces ahead of us. When he reaches the steps of the Recorder Hall, he bounds up them with jaunty cheerfulness. A snatch of a whistled tune—an old Sol-Earth nursery rhyme—flitters through the air.

“That’s probably Orion,” I say. Only a Recorder would know songs from Sol-Earth. Doc’s grip on my arm doesn’t relax. “A Recorder. ”

“The same Recorder who showed you the blueprints of the ship?”

I jerk my head around. Doc’s still staring at Orion, who’s completely oblivious to us, just standing on the porch of the Recorder Hall. I tear myself from Doc’s tense hold.