Beth Revis - Across the Universe

Eldest watches me mount the steps to the Recorder Hall. Not the real Eldest, of course-a painting of him, done before I was born, when Eldest was about Doc’s age. The painting is large, about half the size of the door, and hung in a little inset built into the bricks next to the entry.

Eventually, they will take Eldest’s portrait down from here, and hang it in a dusty spot in the back of the Recorder Hall somewhere, with the portraits of all the other Eldests.

And my portrait will hang here, surveying my tiny kingdom.

The painted Eldest stares past me, past the porch on the Recorder Hall, looking out over the fields and, in the far distance, the City, a towering jumble of painted metal boxes where most of the Feeders and Shippers live. The painter has given Eldest kinder eyes than I’ve ever seen in his wrinkled face, and a soft curve of his lips that seems to indicate inquisitiveness, maybe even mischief. Or not. I’m reading too much into this painting. This Eldest isn’t the Eldest I know. This Eldest looks like the kind of guy I could look up to as a leader. Not the kind of leader who rules through fear-the kind who listens to others, and cares about what they have to say, and gives them a chance. We have the same narrow nose, the same high cheekbones, the same olive skin-but this Eldest already has the authority in his eyes, the self-assurance in the tilt of his chin, the sense of power in his posture that I never have. That the real Eldest has sharpened and honed like a hunter does a knife.

I look behind me, to match the painted Eldest’s line of sight, but I can’t see Godspeed the way he clearly does. The painted Eldest is happy in ruling-that much exudes through the oil pigments. I can picture how the painting session went. I bet Eldest stood right here, where I am, looking past the railing. The painter stood on the lawn, below Eldest-of course below him-and gave shape to the paint with strong, broad sweeps. When Eldest looked at Godspeed , as I’m looking at it now, he saw the same things I see: an interior of a ship modeled like a county in Sol-Earth’s America, but in miniature, trapped in a round bubble of ship walls. A city piled on one side, with neat, orderly streets laid out in a careful grid, the center of each block stacked with box trailers that served as homes and workplaces for trade. One block for weavers, like my friend Harley’s parents. One block for dyers, one for spinners, one for tailors. Three blocks for food preservation: canners and dryers and freezers. Two blocks for butchers. Four blocks to house the scientists and Shippers who work on the level above this one. Each family, gen after gen, born and raised to work until death in the same block of the same city on the same ship.

When Eldest posed for his painting here, did he think of this? Did he look at the City and marvel at its smooth efficiency, its careful construction, its consistent productivity?

Or did he see it as I do: people boxed in trailers that are boxed in city blocks that are boxed in districts that are boxed in a ship, surrounded by metal walls?

No. Eldest never thought of Godspeed as a box. He never saw the City as a cage. You can tell that from his painted eyes, from the way he strides down the streets of the City now, like he owns them, because he does.

Even here, where fields and pastures and farms stretch out beyond the Recorder Hall porch all the way to the far wall, you can’t escape the boxes. Each field and pasture and farm is blocked off in careful fences, each fence measured out centuries ago, on Sol-Earth, before the ship launched. The blocks of land are not all equal in size, but they are all square, all meticulously measured. The hills in the pastures are designed to be evenly spaced, exactly placed bumps of grass for sheep and goats who don’t realize that their hills are just carefully organized, manufactured mounds of dirt and compost.

I’ve seen the landscape of Sol-Earth in the vids and maps. The land wasn’t perfectly laid out in neat little squares. Even grid-like cities had alleys and backstreets. Fields were fenced off, but the fences didn’t all go in perfect lines-they dipped around trees; they cut off at funny angles to avoid creeks or include ponds. Hills didn’t make even rows of bumps.

When I look at the fields, all I can see is how fake they are, how poor an imitation they are of the pictures of Sol-Earth fields.

I bet when Eldest posed for his portrait, he was reveling in the one thing I can’t stand about life aboard the ship: the perfect evenness of everything.

And that’s why I’ll never be as good an Eldest as he is.

Because I like a little chaos.

I push open the big doors to the Recorder Hall and smile at the topographical models that hang from the ceiling in the large entryway. Framed by the light pouring through the open doors behind me is a large clay Sol-Earth, thick with dust. A scale model of Godspeed shoots around Sol-Earth, designed to mimic the ship’s departure so long ago. It looks small and insignificant compared to the planets beside it, a ball with wings and a pointed nose. I step into the hallway and crane my neck up. Directly overhead is the model of Godspeed ’s goal: the big, round globe of Centauri-Earth. It’s bigger than either of the two other models, and hangs in the center of the entryway. I’m not sure if the designers intended it or not, but the shaft of light pouring from the big entryway doors spills right across the surface of the Centauri-Earth model, illuminating it with a halo of light.

Striding forward, I reach my hands up so my fingertips brush Sol-Earth’s Australia. I have always preferred the model of Sol-Earth to that of Centauri-Earth. While the model of Sol-Earth is detailed, with bumps for mountains and squiggly lines for waves on the oceans, Centauri-Earth is smooth, accurate only in terms of its relative size. We’re not sure what we’ll find there, mountains or oceans or something else entirely. We only know that the probe sent before us labeled Centauri-Earth as “habitable”-oxygen-based atmosphere, a significant amount of freshwater, and soil samples suitable for plant growth. Those are the only things we’re sure of.

I want to touch it as well, but it’s too high up.

Centauri-Earth always seems to be beyond my reach.

Eldest’s words echo in my mind: my job is not to get the ship to Centauri-Earth, but to get the people there.

“Can I help you?”

I nearly jump out of my skin. “Oh, it’s you,” I say, laughing at my own skittishness.

Orion is a Recorder. Whenever someone invents something or writes something or does something brilly, the Recorders log it away and store it here. The last time I was here was to help my best friend, Harley, move some canvases. He’s a painter-he’s got a whole room of his art hanging up on the second story of the Recorder Hall. But I’m not here for that.

“Can you help me find some information on Sol-Earth?” I ask Orion.

Orion grins. I cringe-his teeth are stained and yellow. “Of course.”

“I need to find out about…” I pause, thinking of how to phrase it. I can’t just ask him if he knows what the third cause of discord is-he’d have no idea what I’m talking about. “Sol-Earth wars,” I say finally. “Conflicts. Battles. Things like that.”

“Anything specific?” Orion rushes toward me, excitement palpable on his face. I guess with school long over, there are very few visitors to the Recorder Hall. Come to think of it, I’ve never actually seen Orion outside of the Recorder Hall. His existence must be a lonely one.

“Whatever caused the problems on Sol-Earth.”

“Oh.”

“What?”

Orion doesn’t say anything for a long moment, just contemplates me as if I were a puzzle with a piece missing. “It’s an unusual topic for you to be studying, that’s all. Bit grim.”