Across the Universe

60 ELDER

NO SURPRISE: ELDEST LEADS ME STRAIGHT TO THE GRAV TUBES and the Learning Center. I take a seat at the table as if I am waiting for my lesson, but my mind is racing.

I know Amy thinks that I just meekly followed Eldest, an obedient dog trailing after his master. I could see the disappointment in her eyes as I left her in the Recorder Hall. I will have to let Amy think me weak; I will have to sacrifice her image of me.

Because that is what a leader must do.

I must play this game a little longer. Rely on Eldest’s perception that I am stupid and ignorant, on his contempt for my weakness. Not forever. Just long enough to break down the wall he keeps up between me and my role as leader on board this ship.

Eldest is crumbling. The argument with Amy, the way he’s so quick to lose his temper now, the sudden bursts of shouting and violence that have surfaced since the Season — Eldest’s cool, grandfatherly exterior is cracking, and his true self, his petty, power-hungry self, is leaking through.

When he was arguing with Amy, he looked foolish in his anger. He is just an old man clutching his power as tightly as he can. And all I have to do is poke at those cracks, and I will be able to break through and discover what it is he’s kept hidden from me for so long, why he never felt that he could share the secrets of the ship with me.

Although I was born Elder, for the first time I finally feel as if I can one day be Eldest.

Across from me, Eldest pinches the bridge of his nose between his eyes. “Why are you looking for this kind of information?”

“What kind of information?”

“Sol-Earth history, engine schematics, the Plague — what are you looking for?” His voice is tight and controlled, but barely.

“Why does it matter?”

“IT MATTERS!” Eldest roars, slamming his fists onto the table. I do not jump.

I force myself into the picture of calm. If I have learned one thing from Eldest today, it is this: Losing my temper will make me look foolish and childish. Instead, I speak slowly, calmly, and clearly, as if I were explaining something very simple. “I have begun to look for the information that you have refused to teach me. I am supposed to be the Eldest one day. If you don’t tell me what to do or what I need to know to rule, then I’ll just figure it out another way. If you’re going to stand there and be mad at me for looking for answers to these questions, then you have only yourself to blame; it’s your job to teach me these things first.”

Eldest’s face flushes pale, then purples. “Have you never thought I had a very good reason for keeping information from you?”

“No,” I say simply. “I have known you since I was a kid; you had a hand in every part of my growing up; I have spent the last three years living with you. What possible reason could you have for not trusting me with any information at all about this ship?”

“You think you know everything,” Eldest sneers. “You’re still just a kid.”

“You’re losing it,” I say calmly, tilting my head up at him. “You’re not in control anymore. Look at you. You’re raving. You’re not fit to be Eldest.”

“And you are?” Eldest is practically screaming, his voice rising to a painfully high pitch.

I shrug. “There must have been something in what Amy and I were looking up to make you get so angry. I wonder what it is….”

Eldest is seething. I think to myself, Orion was wrong. You don’t have to be sneaky to get around Eldest. You just have to make him really frexing mad.

“It can’t be the history floppies; you’ve shown me them before. It must be the Plague.”

Eldest raises his head and faces me. His anger now is deep inside him, a burning coal in his stomach, one that he’s swallowed so I can’t see it anymore. “I haven’t talked about this in a very long time.”

I suck in my breath. “The Elder before me?” Eldest nods. “Did he die? Or did you…” I can’t bring myself to ask the question.

“You want to know about the Plague?” he says in a terrible monotone. “Fine. Let me tell you about the Plague.”

He jumps to his feet, then shifts his weight off his bad leg. With both fists on the table, he looms over me, and I can do nothing but look up at him with meek eyes, waiting.

“Let me start with this,” Eldest says. “There was never any Plague.”