Across the Universe

2 ELDER

THE DOOR IS LOCKED.

“Now that,” I say to the empty room, “is interesting.”

See, there are hardly any locked doors on Godspeed. No need. Godspeed isn’t small — it was the largest ship ever built when it was launched two and a half centuries ago — but it’s not so huge that we don’t all feel the weight of the metal walls crushing us. Privacy is our most valued possession and no one—no one—would dare betray privacy.

Which is why the locked door before me is so strange. Why lock a door no one would ever breach?

Not that I should be so surprised. A locked door just about sums up Eldest.

My mouth tightens. The worst part? I know that door is locked because of me. It has to be. This is the Keeper Level, and Eldest and I, as the current and future leaders of the ship, are the only ones allowed here.

“Frex!” I shout, punching the door.

Because I know — I know—on the other side of that door is my chance. When Eldest was called to the Shipper Level to inspect the engine, he rushed to his chamber for a box, went all the way to the hatch, then turned around and took the box back to his room. And locked the door before he left. Clearly, whatever is in that box is important and has something to do with the ship, something that I, as leader-in-training, should know about.

It’s just one more thing Eldest is keeping from me. Because stars forbid he’d actually train me instead of giving me more mindless lessons and reports.

If I had that box, I’d prove to him I could… what? I don’t actually know what’s in there. But I do know that whatever it is has been making him spend a lot more time on the Shipper Level. There’s a serious problem going on, something that’s kept Eldest more preoccupied than I’ve ever seen him before.

And if they would just give me a frexing chance, maybe I could help.

I kick the door, then turn and fall against it. Three years ago, when it was time for me to start training, I didn’t care for shite about whether or not Eldest trained me as he should. I was just glad to be off the Feeder Level. Even though my name is Elder, I’m the youngest person on the ship, and I’ve always known that I, as the one born in the off years, would be the Eldest of the generation born after me. I was never comfortable living with the Feeders and their obsession with farming. Moving in with Eldest felt like a relief.

But I’m sixteen now, and I’m tired of doing nothing but lessons. It’s time for me to be a real leader, whether Eldest likes it or not.

Defeated by a locked door. No wonder Eldest doesn’t bother to train me.

I bang my head against the wall and bump it against a piece of raised square metal. The biometric scanner. I’d always assumed it operated the lights to the Great Room. Most of the biometric scanners are there to interface with the ship — to turn on lights, start electronics, or open doors.

I turn around and roll my thumb over the biometric scanner bar. “Eldest/Elder access granted,” the computer chirps in a cheerful female voice. As Elder, I always have the same security access as Eldest.

“Command?” the computer asks.

Huh. That’s odd. Usually, a door opens automatically once access is granted. What other command does a door need?

“Um, open?”

Eldest’s chamber door doesn’t zip open like I expect it to. Instead, the ceiling moves. I spin around, my heart banging around inside my chest. Above me, the metal ceiling splits into two pieces and drops down slowly, exposing—

Exposing a window.

That shows the outside.

And the stars.

There are hatches in the ship, I know there are, but Eldest has never let me see them, just like he hasn’t let me see the massive engine that fuels the ship, or some of the records of the ship before the Plague. I didn’t even know the metal ceiling over the Great Room covered a window to the uni.

I’ve never seen stars before.

And I never knew they were so beautiful.

The entire uni stretches out before me. So big, so frexing big. My eyes fill with starshine. There are so, so many of them. The stars are abbreviated white dashes in the sky with streaks of faint colors — mostly reds and yellows, but sometimes blues or greens. And, seeing them all, I feel closer to planet-landing than I ever have before. I can see it: the ship disembarking for the first time, at night, with no moon or clouds, and before we set out to build our new world, we all stop and stare at the stars above.

“Access override,” the computer says in its still-pleasant voice. “Screen lowering.”

Screen lowering? What?

Above me, the stars glow brightly.

And then the window to the universe breaks. A thin line cracks right at the center of the window, splitting open, wider and wider.

Frex. Frex!

A rumbling sound fills the Great Room. My head whips left and right, and left and right again, looking for something to hold on to, but there’s nothing here — the Great Room is just a wide-open floor. Why did I never notice how useless it is to have a room with nothing to hold on to? It’s huge, sure, but there’s nothing here except the vast floor and the walls and the doors — nothing that can save me from a broken window that exposes me to space. And what then? The ship will rip apart? And me? I’ll explode or implode or something. I can’t remember which, but it doesn’t matter. The end result will still be the same. My tunic weighs heavily on my shoulders, sticking to my sweat, but all I can think about is how thin the material is against the ravages of space.

I’m going to die.

I’m going to be sucked out into space.

Implosion.

Death.

And then another thought hits me: the rest of the ship. If the Keeper Level is exposed, space won’t just suck me out — it will rip through the Keeper Level, into the Shipper Level and the Feeder Level below it. They’ll all die. Everyone. Every single person aboard the ship.

My feet slip on the tiled floor as I tear across the room. (For one tiny moment, my feet try to turn to the hatch door, the door that leads to life and freedom, but I ignore my feet. They’re just trying to keep me alive; they don’t care about the rest of the ship.) I throw myself at the big red lockdown button over the hatch. The floor shakes as the Keeper Level closes itself off from the rest of the ship. There’s no going back now.

I turn toward the ceiling, toward the exposed universe.

Toward death.