The image of everyone cheering me as I sail the ship to Centauri-Earth fades and dies.
“The Shippers are here to take care of the ship, but the ship is just cold metal. You’re the one who has to take care of the people. ”
He taps the zoom-out box, and for a moment, the three levels of the ship all light up at once, a dizzying maze of crisscrossing lines. The interior of the ship itself is mostly round. A tiny sliver on top is the Keeper Level. Below that, slightly larger, is the Shippe
r Level, all chopped up into offices and labs. By and far the largest part of the ship is the Feeder Level. There are two blinking dots for me and Eldest on the Keeper Level, fifty or more on the Shipper Level. Eldest taps on the Feeder Level. On the right side of the circle there are several dozen dots for the people at the Hospital, but none at all in the Recorder Hall. In the middle, dozens of dots are scattered around, each one representing the people living at the various farms. Eldest taps the left side of the screen, where the City is. There are so many dots there that it would be impossible for me to count. Not that I need to. I know everyone on board the ship, all 2,312 of them.
Each one of those 2,312 blinking red dots feels like a pounding weight on my shoulders, each one crushing me down just a little bit more. They’re all, each one of them, my responsibility.
Eldest pulls the Shipper Level up again and rests his fingers on the level’s largest room, just where the engine is. “Between the engine and computers and the nav system and everything else, there’s a lot that can go wrong. This journey. . . it’s long. ” He says this as if he’s felt all 250 years of travel. “The builders of the ship knew this; that’s why they named her Godspeed. ”
I mouth the name with him, tasting it like metal on my tongue.
“It’s an old Sol-Earth expression for good luck. ” Eldest snorts. “They shot our ancestors into the sky, wished them all good luck, and forgot about us. We lost com with Sol-Earth during the Plague, and have never been able to regain it. We can’t go back. They can’t help us. All the people on Sol-Earth could give us was Godspeed. ”
I’m not sure if he means that they gave us luck or the ship, but they both seem a bit inadequate right now.
“But we need more than luck. The ship needs someone to protect the people, not just the ship itself. You will be that leader. ” Eldest takes a deep breath. “It’s time for you to learn the three causes of discord. ”
I scoot my chair closer. This is new. Finally—finally—Eldest is really going to train me to be the leader after him.
“On Godspeed,” he says, “do we all speak one language?”
“Of course,” I answer, confused.
“Do we have any differences in race?”
“Race?”
“Skin color. ”
“No. ” Everyone on board has the same deep olive skin, the same dark brown hair and eyes.
“You’ve studied the myths of Sol-Earth: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam. Does anyone on Godspeed ‘worship’?” He says the last word with dripping derision.
“Of course not!” I laugh. One of the first lessons Eldest gave me when I moved to the Keeper Level was about Sol-Earth’s religions. They were magic stories, fairy tales, and I remember laughing myself silly when Eldest told me how people on Sol-Earth were willing to die or kill for these fictional characters.
Eldest nods once. “The first cause of discord is difference. There is no religion on Godspeed. We all speak the same language. We’re all monoethnic. And because we are not different, we don’t fight. Remember the Crusades I taught you about? The genocides? We will never have to worry about those types of horrific events on Godspeed. ”
I am on the edge of my seat, nodding, but inside I’m hoping Eldest can’t see what a chutz I actually am. I remember those lessons. They were among my first lessons, when I was thirteen and had just moved to the Keeper Level to live with Eldest. Stars, I was such a kid then. I remember pictures on the floppies of people of different skin color and hair color, of people dressed in long gowns or loincloths, of the sounds of languages whose words I could not understand. And back then I thought it was all kind of brilly.
I slouch further down in my seat. No wonder Eldest has been slow to train me—clearly I never picked up the real lessons he’s been teaching me.
“The second cause of discord,” Eldest continues, “is lack of a strong central leader. ”
He leans forward, reaching his gnarled, wrinkled hands toward me. “Do you understand the importance of this?” he says, his eyes watery from old age or something else.
I nod.
“Do you really?” he asks more urgently, gripping my hands so hard that some of my knuckles crack.
I nod again, unable to take my eyes from his.
“What is the greatest danger of this ship?” His voice has fallen into a raspy whisper.
Um. Maybe I didn’t understand. Eldest stares at me, expecting a response. I stare back.
“Mutiny. It’s mutiny, Elder. More than technical error or ship malfunction or outside dangers, mutiny is the greatest threat to this ship. So, after the Plague, the Eldest system was created. One person, born ahead of the people he would lead, to act as patriarch and commander to the people younger than he. Each generation has an Eldest to lead. You will one day be an Eldest. You will be the strong central leader who prevents discord, who preserves every living person on this ship. ”