“I can’t stand it,” she whispers. “I can’t stand these people, I can’t stand this ‘world.’ I can’t live here. I can’t spend the rest of my life here. I can’t. I can’t.”
So. Enough of Eldest’s speech on the Keeper Level penetrated into her mind. She knows how trapped she—all of us—are.
I want to take her into my arms and hold her tight. But at the same time, I know that is the exact opposite of what she wants. She wants to be free, and all I want to do is hold her tight against me.
“I think I know something that will help,” I say.
57
AMY
AS WE WALK ALONG THE PATH LEADING AWAY FROM THE Hospital, Elder is very mysterious. He won’t tell me anything, and I suppose that’s what really lifts my mood—he is like a little kid, eager to show his friend a new toy. That alone is enough to make me forget about the weird, fuzzy, slogging-through-water feeling of the day.
A couple sitting on the bench by the pond wave at us as we pass. The woman’s face is aglow, and she leans against the man’s chest with a look of utter bliss. Her right arm is wrapped around her stomach, and the man’s arm cradles hers.
The woman bends her head down, and I realize she’s talking to her unborn baby, not the man she’s leaning against. “And the stars all had streaks of light chasing them, all shining down on us, on you.”
“Eldest told me it wasn’t for me,” Elder says under his breath as the couple’s chatter fades behind us.
I give Elder a confused look.
“The star screen in the Great Room. Eldest told me it wasn’t there for me when I found out they weren’t real stars, just lightbulbs.” He looks away from me and says in a very small voice, “That was the day you woke up.” His words hang in the air between us. It feels like a long time ago, for both of us.
Elder motions back at the happy couple on the bench. “Eldest said the fake stars were for them.”
“Oh, I see.” Typical that Eldest would want to control even the stars. He used them to manipulate the people of the ship, so that when they were told they would not be alive at planet-landing, they could at least have a taste of the stars to tell their children about. I look behind me at the woman sitting on the bench, holding her stomach with gentle hands and whispering to her unborn child about the stars they saw, promising it a lifetime under the heavens.
“It’s cruel,” I say. “To tantalize them with the outside, and then to take it away.”
Elder shakes his head. “It’s not like that. It gave them a story to feed their children. It’s the way hope is passed down.”
I stare at Elder. “You sort of agree with Eldest, don’t you?”
“Sort of.”
I want to argue. Eldest is like a spoiled child throwing his toys around. Waiting for an excuse to break us, watching for any sign that we don’t want to play his game. Always watching, with eyes that remind me of Luthe’s. He’s not helping people, like Elder almost seems to think—he’s twisting the situation to make no one really care about the fact that we’ll all be dead or super-old before we land on the new planet. But before I can say anything, Elder announces, “We’re here!”
He’s so proud of himself that I don’t have the heart to tell him I’ve been to the Recorder Hall before. Then again, the last time I was here, I was a mess, covered in mud and tears. I remember the man who helped me then, Orion. His kindness kept me sane.
One of the rockers on the porch moves slowly, as if someone has just left it, but there’s no other sign of life. Elder reaches to open the door for me. I see eyes then, and I smile, expecting Orion, but instead, Elder’s painted face peers up at me from the brick wall.
“Oh!” I say, leaning over to inspect the new portrait by the door. Elder’s face has replaced Eldest’s dour one.
“Yeah.” Elder sounds sheepish. My first thought was that he was going to show off with the painting—that’s what Jason would have done, hammed it up—but I can tell he wishes I hadn’t noticed it.
“Come inside,” Elder says. The Recorder Hall is empty except for us, silent and dark. Elder shows me the big model of Earth and the ship that I saw earlier. I pretend to pay attention, but I’m distracted by the flashing images on the walls. The last time I was here with Orion, these were blank; I’d barely noticed them.
“Wall floppies,” Elder says when he notices my distraction. “This is what Godspeed has been doing while you slept.”
He grins at me, but I barely notice. I’m fascinated by all that’s flashing in front of me: a diagram of how wi-coms work, and more of grav tubes. Art: I can pick out several scans of Harley’s artwork—several of them koi fish, which seems to be his favorite subject—but there’s more: sculptures, pottery, drawings, hand-sewn quilts. One of the floppy computers lists different titles, and when Elder taps on the screen, music fills the entryway.
For the first time since I woke up, I feel as if this is a place I could learn to love. It’s not Earth, not by any stretch of the imagination—but I’m seeing art and inventions and life that Earth will never know.
And all this happened while I dreamt nightmares below generations of people’s feet. They didn’t know about me any more than I knew about them.
“That’s odd,” Elder says, rapping his knuckles on one of the big wall computer things.
“What?”
“The image won’t change,” Elder says.
If it weren’t for the label at the top—LEAD-BASED FAST REACTOR PROTOTYPE—I wouldn’t know what it was at all. Not that the name helps me. I still don’t know what it means.