Across the Universe (Across the Universe 1)

But now. . .

“’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” Victria says.

“Is that from your new book?”

Victria snorts. She shifts in her seat, and I notice a stack of books—real books, from Sol-Earth—sitting on the porch floor beside her rocker. I frown. Orion, as a Recorder, should know better. Even Recorders are forbidden from messing with the ancient books. If Eldest catches him. . .

On the lawn in front of us, the woman’s hand rests on her bare belly, her fingers curling against her skin, as if she were clutching something invisible but precious.

“Do you think they’re happy, at least?” she asks, nodding her head at the couple. Before I can answer, she adds, “Because I never am. ”

“Okay, let’s get this brilly painting hung!” Orion says cheerfully as he emerges from the Recorder Hall. The canvas he’s holding is so new that I can still smell the paint on it—it reminds me of Harley.

Orion twirls the canvas around to position it on the hook over the plaque, and I gasp. He looks up at me and smiles knowingly.

It’s not Eldest on the canvas.

It’s me.

“This Season is the start of your gen,” Orion says, sliding the wire on the back of the canvas over the hook and straightening the picture. “It’s almost time for Eldest to step down. For you to be the new leader. ”

Painted me looks out on Godspeed from exactly where painted Eldest had looked. Harley’s done this—I recognize his style—although I never sat for a painting. He must have done it by memory—which would explain why he’s added all sorts of things into painted me that just don’t exist. The same confident tilt of the head that Eldest has, not me. The same clear eyes, the same assured posture. It doesn’t look like me at all. Is this how Harley really sees me? It’s not me at all.

“It looks exactly like you,” Victria says. She’s abandoned her rocker and stands behind me, peering over my shoulder to look at the painting.

“It looks like a leader,” Orion says.

A leader? No. A leader would know what to do.

47

AMY

THE NEXT MORNING, I SHOWER—THEN SHOWER AGAIN. BUT I cannot scrub away the bruises on my wrists or legs, and I cannot wash away the memory from my mind.

Fewer people populate the fields. Almost none.

People are animals, Harley had said.

They are. Luthe and the two Feeder men proved that. And that man and woman, who were right beside me, who didn’t even notice, or care. . . .

Elder kissed me in the garden, just as the Season began. Was that a real kiss—or would any female lips have done in my place? My face burns. It had been real to me. But probably not to him.

I don’t care what sort of plague happened on the ship, or what sort of rules Eldest has made: the Season is not normal human behavior. There has to be some reason for it. Something in what they eat, or a chemical in the recycled air—maybe even a disease to make people act like rutting animals.

Then it occurs to me: the doctor. He should know this isn’t normal, he should know how to isolate—and stop—whatever trigger makes the people so barbaric.

I jump up and stride to the door, but my hand shakes as I reach for the button to open it. In here, I’m safe. Out there. . .

No.

I will not stay in my hidey-hole like a scared rabbit. The whole point of finding the doctor is to prove people aren’t animals. I can’t hide like one.

The doctor, however, can. He’s not on the third floor, or the fourth. A nurse in the lobby directs me to the second floor.

“But he’s busy,” she calls after me.

Dozens of women line the hallways on the second floor, some wearing hospital gowns and sitting by doors, apparently waiting for a room to open up, some wearing their plain tunics and wide-legged pants, holding neatly folded hospital gowns and waiting to change. This entire floor looks like a gynecologist’s office. In each room, there is a bed with stirrups, and nearly every bed is occupied. My steps slow. Why is a gynecologist’s office so crowded now? These women can’t think they’re pregnant already, can they? Not after just one day. I shake my head. I can’t be sure of that. On a ship where phones are built into your ears and paper-thin plastic is a whole computer, it’s not that crazy to think that maybe you can know if you’re pregnant as quickly as this.