Across the Universe - Beth Revis [81]
I can’t wake up Daddy. He’s needed. I know he is, even if I don’t want to admit it. I’m proof enough that he’s needed—they wouldn’t have let me come if he weren’t. He and Mom knew what it meant when they signed up for the ship. I remember that first day. They were both willing to say goodbye to me so they could be on this ship. Daddy had already arranged it so that I could walk away from them. When he hugged me before he was frozen, he was hugging me goodbye. He never expected to see me again. He didn’t even pack me a trunk. He gave me up so that he could wake up on another planet.
I can’t take his dream away.
If he can say goodbye to me, I can say goodbye to him.
Besides, I’m not so selfish as not to remember my status. I was the nonessential one, not them. If food won’t grow or animals won’t live, Mom will make it happen. If there’s a bunch of evil aliens already on the new planet, Daddy will take care of them.
Either way, they’re the difference between a whole planet of people living and a whole planet of people dying.
I can’t take them away from that. I can’t kill their dreams, and I can’t kill the future inhabitants of the planet I won’t reach until I’m older than them.
I can wait. I can wait fifty years until I see them again.
I slide their trays back into their cryo chambers and push the doors shut, then head silently back to the elevator and my lonely room.
I can wait.
44
ELDER
“WHAT’S THAT NOISE?” I ASK, ONLY NOW NOTICING THE churning sound.
Eldest glances over his shoulder, where the room makes a hard right angle. “The water pump’s back there.”
I frown. The water processor is on the Shipper Level, not here. But then I remember the blueprints Orion showed me before Amy woke up. There was another water pump on the fourth level in the diagram.
“This is old,” I say.
“How do you know that?” Eldest asks sharply, but I ignore him.
I step forward, inspecting it. It’s nowhere near as big as the pump on the Shipper Level. There’s a control panel and, above that, a nozzle. The pump on the Shipper Level is used to recycle, purify, and distribute water. This pump is just designed to mix something into the water. An empty bucket rests beside the pump, a thick, syrup-like substance coating the inside.
“What’s that water pump for?” I ask.
Eldest looks at me like he can’t believe my stupidity. “To pump water.”
“No. That’s what the pump on the Shipper Level is for. What’s this one for?”
Eldest smiles, and it actually looks genuine. Like he’s proud of me for seeing through him. “It was a part of the ship’s original design. Godspeed is only so big. By adding nutritional supplements to the food and water, we can maintain a population rate of up to one person per two acres. Even with that, though, the ship can’t support much more than three thousand people. We’ve always had to enforce population control.” He notices my confused face. “Birth control.”
“Through here?” I ask, pointing to the nozzle.
Eldest nods. “We use this water pump to distribute contraceptives and vits to everyone. Mix it directly into the water supply, keep everyone healthy. Why do you think the Feeder wives say to drink water when you don’t feel well? And, at the start of the Season, we take out the contraceptives and add in hormones. To increase sexual desire. It works particularly well on the Feeders.”
I remember Amy’s words, how the Season wasn’t natural. She was right.
“I’m glad you’re asking these kinds of questions,” Eldest says. “Glad you’re finally starting to think like an Eldest.” He grips the basket in his hands. “It’s important for me to know that you are willing to do whatever it takes to make this ship and its people prosper. Whatever. It. Takes.”
“Are you?” My voice cracks over the words.
“I always have been.” Eldest speaks with such sincerity that I don’t question him. “Every moment of my life is spent making this ship a better place for the people on it to live. I know you don’t always agree with me, but it works.”
“Every moment, huh?” I ask. I can feel my chutz rising at Eldest’s cocky attitude. I