Page 52 of Across the Universe (Across the Universe 1)

Harley snorts, and Amy turns her glare on him. Eldest is not a laughing matter to her.

“What in the uni could he have said to make you not like him?” He laughs.

“You know that hatch Elder was talking about?” Amy holds back the rage in her voice, like a man holding back a snarling dog on a leash. “He wanted to throw me out of it, just so I wouldn’t create a ‘disturbance’ on the ship. ”

Harley laughs. “He wouldn’t do that!”

Amy doesn’t crack a smile.

“Yes, he would,” I say. Harley’s laughter dies and he looks at me.

“Maybe he said something as a threat, but he’d never—”

“Yes,” I say as firmly as I can. “He would. ”

Harley attacks the canvas with paint again, a frown creasing his forehead.

“He doesn’t like ‘disturbances,’” I tell Amy. “He doesn’t like anyone to be different at all. Difference, he says, is the first cause of discord. ”

“He sounds like a regular Hitler to me,” Amy mutters. I wonder what she means by that. Eldest has always taught me that Hitler was a wise, cultured leader for his people. Maybe that’s what she means: Eldest is a strong leader, like Hitler was. The turn of phrase is unusual, another difference between us, another difference I’m sure Eldest would hate.

Amy hops up from her seat at the window. She twirls her hair into a quick bun and secures it with two dry brushes she snatches from the desk before Harley can protest. She paces the room, an animal unsatisfied with the smallness of her cage.

Harley snorts again, but images flash in my mind: Eldest, walking throughout the Feeder Level, showing all the farmers and workers his kind-grandfather face, and then going up to the Keeper Level with me, and snarling with distaste at their stupidity. Eldest, pounding lessons into me that stressed control above all else. Eldest, revulsion souring his face when I first came to the Keeper Level and did anything out of the ordinary. In my mind’s eye, Eldest’s face is growing twisted, just like I suspect his soul has become.

And I realize that, yes, this man who I have lived with for three years, who is leader of this entire ship, whose control over everyone on board is absolute. . . this man is capable of killing whomever, whenever.

He could have. “But why would he?” I ask.

“Dunno. And—why me? I’m not important. Why try to kill me?”

Harley’s brush is paused midair. Silence permeates the little room.

“You weren’t the only one,” I say, my words like arrows slicing through the air. “A man was killed. That’s where I saw the hatch—I was helping Doc and Elder send the body to the stars. ”

“Who?” Amy breathes, terror in her voice.

“Mr. William Robertson. ”

“I didn’t know him. ” Amy sounds relieved. It is only then that I realize she was afraid it was one of her parents floating dead amongst the stars.

29

AMY

“WHAT KIND OF SECURITY IS THERE ON THIS SHIP?” I ASK, turning to Elder. “Do you guys have cops or anything?”

Elder and Harley look confused. “Cops?” Elder asks.

I nod. “You know, policemen. Cops. ” They stare blankly at me. “People whose job it is to keep the bad guys under control. ”

“That’s what Eldest is for,” Harley says, turning back to his canvas.

Great.

“We don’t have a need for ‘cops’ like on Sol-Earth,” Elder says. It takes me a moment to remember that the “Sol-Earth” he’s talking about is my Earth. “On Sol-Earth, there was more discord, because there were more differences. There aren’t differences on Godspeed, so there aren’t problems. ”

I bristle. “The problems on Earth didn’t stem from people being different—”