Across the Universe

64 ELDER

WE ARE BACK IN THE LEARNING CENTER, AND I FEEL AS hollow as the model of Godspeed in the Recorder Hall, each of us lacking an engine to propel us through life.

“Two hundred and fifty years behind schedule?” I ask. The words echo in my mind, replacing the whirr-churn-whirr of the engine’s rhythm that had still been ringing in my ears.

Eldest shrugs. “Roughly. We were supposed to land about a hundred and fifty years ago — now it looks like we’ll land in another hundred years. Maybe. If the fuel systems hold. If nothing else goes wrong.”

“And if something else goes wrong?”

“Then the ship floats dead in the water, so to say. Until the internal reactors cool. And then the solar lamp dies, and we’ll be in darkness. And then the plants die. And then we all die.”

Inside the ship, we are always surrounded by one another, so much so that we cherish our tiny private rooms and time alone. Never before have I appreciated how truly alone we are on this ship. There is no one else but us. I always felt before that we were anchored between the two planets, and even if we couldn’t reach them immediately, they were there, on the other end of an invisible rope. But they’re not. If we fail, there is no one out there to save us. If we die, there is no one out there to mourn us.

“Do you see now?” Eldest asks, his eyes bringing me back aboard the ship.

I nod, not really registering his question.

“This is why you—you—must be the leader. A strong, assured leader. The Plague was not a plague. It was what happened when the leader of the ship told the people the truth, how long it would take to land the ship. When they learned that they would never see planet-landing, that their children, and their grandchildren would not see it, that there was a chance none of them would see it… the ship itself almost died.”

I raise my face to Eldest, wetness blurring my vision of him. “What happened?”

“Suicide. Murder. Riots and chaos. Mutiny and war. They would have ripped through the walls into space if they could have.”

“That’s the Plague? That’s the three-fourths of the ship who died — the ones who learned the truth?”

Eldest nods. “So one man, the strongest leader, stood up and became the first Eldest. He worked with the survivors. They developed the lie. They came up with the idea of a Plague to explain the deaths to the next gen, and the gen after that.”

“How did they survive?” How could anyone survive this knowledge Eldest has given me? The loss of planet-landing is so much worse now than when I heard of it before.

“The first Eldest noticed that most of the survivors were members of a family — or were pregnant. People will survive anything for their children.”

Now I am confused. I cock my head and struggle to piece together this information. “You say the survivors were pregnant. But wasn’t everyone of that gen pregnant? If the Season had just happened…”

Eldest rolls his eyes. “I thought you’d figured that out from the girl. The Plague Eldest developed the Season. Before this, people mated whenever they liked. Some were pregnant; some were not. The generations were blurred. The Plague Eldest came up with the idea of establishing the Season, ensuring everyone is pregnant at the same time. Every other gen, after the Season, we inform them they will not see the new land. But their unborn children will. This is motivation enough for them not to revert to chaos and riots. This is motivation enough for them to accept the delay for one more gen. And then another, and then another…”

“The water pump on the cryo level…” I say, thinking it through. “But wasn’t that part of the ship’s original design?”

Eldest nods. “It was. Used to distribute vits directly to the populace. But the Plague Eldest figured out another use….”

Eldest smirks as he crosses the room to the tap on the far wall. He pulls a glass from the cabinet over the sink and fills it with water; then he comes back and sets the glass in front of me.

I stare at it. Clear, calm, still. Nothing like me. My first instinct is to drink from the glass before me. After all, water is the remedy all the Feeder wives use to calm their children, to placate the adults.

My eyes grow wide. “It’s not just hormones, is it?” I ask, my gaze locked on the innocuous-looking liquid. “There’s something else in there.”

Eldest sits down across from me. The glass of water stands between us like a wall.

“It’s Phydus.”

“What?”

“Phydus. A drug developed after the Plague.”

“What does it do?”

Eldest holds his hands on the table, palms up, as if asking for grace or forgiveness — or perhaps he thinks he’s bestowing it. “Phydus ensures that people’s emotions do not override their instinct for survival. Phydus controls extreme emotions, so that people won’t cause so much death and destruction again.”

I taste bile on my tongue. This isn’t right. All those times Amy paced in her tiny room, declaiming the abnormality of life aboard this ship — I was just humoring her, never understanding what she really meant. Now I do. For a brief moment, my vision goes as my rage surges, and I literally see nothing but red.

“If this Phydus is in the water, and it takes away our emotion, why am I so frexing furious right now?” I grip the edge of the table, feeling the hard, smooth wood under my fingers. I wonder if I have the strength to overturn it on Eldest.

“You’re upset? Why?”

“This isn’t right! You can’t go around taking away emotion! You can’t kill one emotion without killing them all! You’re the reason all those Feeders are so empty! You and this drug!”

“Not everyone is affected.”

“It’s in the water!” I shout, beating my fist on the table and making the water pulse within its glass. “We all drink the water!”

Eldest nods, his long white hair swishing. “But this ship cannot afford to be run by imbeciles. We need the Feeders to grow our food unquestioningly, but we need some people, people like you, to think, to really think.”

“The Hospital…” I say, thinking furiously. “All of us who are ‘crazy.’ We’re not crazy at all — we’re just not affected by the Phydus in the water. But how…” Before Eldest can answer, it hits me. “The mental meds. The Inhibitor pills. They inhibit Phydus; they prevent Phydus from affecting us.”

“We need creative thinkers,” Eldest says. “We need you to think for yourself, we need the scientists to think so they can solve the fuel system problem. We provide the genes — you saw the DNA replicators — and then we give those with inborn skills the Inhibitor pills so they can bypass Phydus. We need their minds clear.”

“Why artists?” I say, thinking of Harley, of Bartie, of Victria.

“Artists have their purpose. They provide a level of entertainment to occupy the Feeders. They may lack emotion, but even monkeys grow bored. Some artists also think outside their DNA replication. We are facing a problem in the engines that decades of intensive research have not solved. We don’t know how creativity will manifest itself. Your friend, Harley? He was given spatial and visual creativity. He became a painter — but he could have just as easily become a drafter, or even, with the right twists of mental desire, an engineer.”

“We’re just pawns. A means to an end. Toys you manufacture to keep playing your game.”

“This game is life, you chutz!” Eldest says, his voice rising. “Don’t you understand? We’re just trying to survive! Without the Season, the people would have nothing to live for. Without Phydus, they would tear down this ship in mad fury. Without the DNA replicators, we’d all be inbred imbeciles. We need this to survive!”

“What if one of those ‘brainless’ Feeders could grow up to solve the engine problem?” I ask. “But you’ve got him so drugged up with Phydus he can’t think? Why not let them all think, let them all work on that problem?”

Eldest narrows his eyes at me. “Have you forgotten your lessons? What are the three main causes of discord?”

“First: differences,” I say automatically. I don’t want to play his game, but it’s habit to answer him immediately.

“Then?”

“Lack of leadership.” Now I just want to see his point.

“And last?”

I sigh. “Individual thought.”

“Exactly. Phydus takes away individual thought, except from those specifically designed by us, who can help us. It’s our best chance.”

Eldest leans across the table and taps his fingers on the metal until I meet his eyes. “It’s very important for you to understand this,” he says, gazing at me intensely. “This is our best chance to survive.”

He pauses.

“This is our only chance.”