Page 58 of Across the Universe (Across the Universe 1)

“Sorry,” I say absently, more distracted by who could have left the print if it wasn’t Eldest and it wasn’t me.

Harley snatches the floppy from my hand and throws it on the desk at the end of the aisle. “Can I see the hatch now?” He picks up his art box, and I notice that he’s also brought along a fresh—albeit small—canvas.

“If I open the hatch for you, will you spend the night down here and make sure no one messes with the frozens?”

Amy’s smile is more than enough reason to ignore the voice in my head warning me that Eldest won’t like me leaving Harley here, alone.

“Sure,” Harley says.

I tell Harley the location of the hatch and the access code as I retrieve the floppy he’d tossed away. Tapping quickly, I set up access approval for both him and Amy so they can come and leave the cryo level as they please, and I add in access for Amy to use floppies. Harley runs straight to the hatch as soon as I scan his thumbprint, not bothering to hide his eagerness. Amy’s still laughing at him when I press her thumb into the scanner on the floppy. When she stops laughing, I realize I’ve been holding her thumb down for a full minute.

“Sorry,” I say, snatching my hand back.

Amy smiles at me.

“Wannagogardenwime?” I ask all in one breath. My eyes grow wide. What came over me? Why would I blurt that out like that?

“What?” Amy asks, her smile widening. She leans against the metal table behind her.

“Want to see the garden?” I ask, speaking much slower than my heart is pounding. “With me?”

She bites her lips, and although she doesn’t look away from me, her gaze grows distant and unfocused. Her hands grip the edge of the table, and she looks as if she’s afraid I’m going to drag her from this cold, dark place against her will. It’s not hard to guess why. She wants to stay close to her parents. Her eyes flick to the right, where Harley ran off. She wants to see the stars, too.

My heart sinks. How can I compete with that?

Then her eyes focus on me again, and she smiles. “Sure,” she says.

And in her smile I see something more beautiful than stars.

31

AMY

ELDER TAKES ME TO A SPRAWLING GARDEN BEHIND THE Hospital, the one I ran through this morning during my jog. I hadn’t noticed its beauty—before, I’d only ever seen the walls surrounding it. But really, it’s lovely. It has a chaotic feel to it, like it has grown wild, but there are paths and clusters of plants and no weeds, all indications that a true gardener has had his hand in the development of this contained beautiful mess.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“A statue of the Eldest during the Plague. ”

“So everyone who’s leader around here is called Eldest?” He nods. “That’s a stupid way of doing it. It gets confusing who’s who. How many Eldests have there been, anyway?”

“I. . . er. . . I don’t know. ”

I look up at the face of the statue. It’s not carved from stone. I think it was made of concrete, or something very similar to it. Makes sense. Where would they get stone? It’s not like they could just dig into the ground to extract some.

A drop of water splashes on my head. I glance up, expecting for one crazy moment to see rain clouds. I have always loved rain, but, looking up at the plain metal ceiling, I think I will not like this ship’s version of rain. It reminds me, once again, of how false Godspeed is. There are no rain clouds, no dark sky punctuated by lightning. Here on Godspeed, when it rains, water just falls from the sprinkler system attached to the ceiling. I taste a drop of it on my tongue. It’s cool, like real rain, but there’s a slightly stale, recycled taste to it, and it smells very faintly of oil.

The “rain” is not heavy now, though, just a few drops sprinkling down, so I continue down the path, closer to the statue.

“I’m surprised you have rain,” I say.

Elder smiles at me, a sort of half-smile that looks like a smirk.

“What?”

“You talk funny,” he says, which is ironic since his words sound like “ya tal-funnae” to me.

“Ha! You’re the one with the weird accent!”