“But the ship was supposed to have landed in fifty years. We’ve only been flying for two hundred and fifty years,” I say.
Amy stops pacing, turns, and faces me. Her eyes are wide, boring into mine.
“How do you know for sure?” she says. “Let’s look up the charts after the Plague. If we count how many generations were born after the Plague, maybe we’ll be able to figure out how long this ship has really been traveling.”
It feels as if there is a rock in my stomach, pulling me down, pulling the entire ship down. “There are no genealogical charts after the Plague. I just remembered: Doc told me once that the Plague wiped out so many people that they quit making the charts after that.”
“The Season,” Amy whispers more to herself than to me. “The Season started after the Plague, right?” She is staring hard at nothing. “This can’t be a coincidence. That thirteenth generation, Benita’s generation — that was when the ship was supposed to land. It must have been close to three centuries then, surely. But then this Plague happened, and the Season was started, and they quit doing genealogical charts—”
“And photography was banned,” I add. “There are no pictures of the ship from the year before the Plague till now. I was fascinated by the Plague when I was younger — it’s one of the first things Eldest taught me about — but there aren’t pics or vids of it at all, and now only the scientists on the Shipper Level can use photography, and only then as a record of their discoveries.”
“Something happened during that Plague,” Amy says slowly. “Something so bad that all the records of it were destroyed. And everything after — the Season, the way people act here — it all comes back to the Plague.”
59 AMY
ELDER STARTS TO SAY SOMETHING TO ME, BUT JUST WHEN he opens his mouth, the door to the Recorder Hall flings open.
“Elder!” Eldest��s voice, strong and cold, rings out across the empty hall.
Elder lunges for the control panels. All the forbidden images of the people and places of my home disappear. The telltale genealogical chart fades to black; the stuck image of the engine slides away.
“Don’t bother,” Eldest growls. He taps one finger behind his left ear, where the communicator is implanted. “I keep tabs on what you study on this ship. I know what you’ve used your access to open.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Elder says automatically, but I can tell he doesn’t mean it, and he regrets saying it altogether. He stands straighter and regains some of his composure. “But since when do you keep ‘tabs’ on me? And honestly, I’m surprised you even noticed. The last time I saw you, you were dru—”
My head whips around to Eldest. Drunk? Was Elder about to say Eldest was drunk?
The movement’s not lost on Eldest. He doesn’t address me, though, just Elder when he says, “A true leader is never out of control, nor drunk on anything.” Now he looks at me. “I seem to remember believing that you have the potential to disrupt my ship. Clearly, I am right.”
“I didn’t do anything!” I say. There is a hint of panic in my voice. I haven’t forgotten his original threat.
Eldest waves his hand dismissively at me. “Your presence is enough. It’s completely distracted my… student.” He says this last bit with a sneer in his voice, as if he equates a student with an annoying, yapping little Chihuahua. He returns his gaze to Elder. “It’s time to resume your studies. I’ve been busy with the Season and let you play with your little girl here, but if you have time to look up what I saw you looking up, then clearly it is time to refocus your studies to something more productive.”
He walks back to the door. Elder chews on his lip, unsure of whether to follow or not.
“Wait!”
Eldest turns at my call, but does not come back.
“I want some answers, dammit,” I say, striding toward him. “You and I both know there’s some crazy crap going on. That Season was bad enough, but now the doctor’s calling me crazy, and I’ve got to take that pill Elder takes, and this place has—”
“Enough.” Eldest cuts me off with cold authority. “I told you not to become a disturbance. You clearly did not listen.”
“I think this ship needs some disturbance!”
“The last man who thought that way no longer thinks anything at all.”
Other than Elder’s sharp intake of breath, the Recorder Hall is silent. We are facing off, Eldest near the door, me near the clay planets, and Elder in the middle, our mark in a tug-of-war game for the truth.
“Come on, Elder.” Eldest turns again for the door.
“What happened in the Plague?!” I shout at him. “What are you not telling us? You know — I know you know! Why can’t you just tell us the truth?”
At this, Eldest crosses the hall in three long strides and faces me. “This ship is built on secrets; it runs on secrets,” he says, tiny droplets of spittle flying from his mouth to my face. “And if you keep asking about them, you’ll see how far I’m willing to go to keep mine. Go to your chamber; I’ll have Doc deal with you this time. Come, Elder!” he bellows. Elder jumps and follows Eldest out the door, shooting me an apologetic look just before the doors close, leaving me in the darkened hall with the dusty models.
I don’t realize that my fists are clenched until I relax my grip, letting my fingers stretch out. I am shaking with rage. There is one thing I know for sure: I will find out whatever secret it is that Eldest is so determined to keep, and when I do, I’m going to shout it from the rooftops.
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.