Across the Universe - Beth Revis [84]
Victria doesn’t look at me. “Luthe walked me over. Orion’s here now; he can walk me back.”
Shrugging, I turn back to the wall and am surprised to see that the old painting of Eldest hid a plaque.
Hall of Records & Research Built 2036 CE Funded by FRX
Underneath that are letters I don’t recognize—from the Cyrillic or Greek alphabet, I’m not sure which. Then, beneath that:
“If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.”
—Aristotle
There are eight other lines of text, each in a different language, two of which are nothing but unrecognizable symbols, but it’s not hard to guess that it’s the same quote in other languages.
“This is old,” I tell Victria, who doesn’t seem to care. “Really old. This has been here since the ship’s creation.”
She grunts to acknowledge that she’s heard me.
I think about the plans of the ship Orion showed me a few days ago. How once, the Feeder Level was focused on “Biological Research” and this “Hall of Records & Research” was its hub. The couple I had to walk over to get to the Recorder Hall are moaning, loudly.
This can’t be the kind of records and research the ship builders intended.
Eldest talks so much about how we’ve progressed, how much better we are with monoethnicity and our strong system of leadership. But right now, it seems to me that the austere words of this Aristotle sneer down at us, at how our research isn’t more than fornication.
I wonder at the timing of the new painting. This is twice now that Orion has led me to discover something new about the ship. How much do I know about him, really? I’ve hardly ever seen him anywhere except for the Recorder Hall, and even there he mostly stays hidden behind books and shadows, a ghost among words and digitized information. I may know everyone aboard this ship—their names, even their faces—but do I really know any of them? He could be anybody.
“You think they love each other?” Victria’s voice cuts through my thoughts. She’s not looking at me—she looking at the couple finishing on the Recorder Hall steps.
“No,” I say.
“It’s disgusting,” Victria mutters. “Can’t they control themselves?”
No, I think. They really can’t.
“Orion says it’s human nature.” It’s not, I think.
“It’s not,” Victria says.
I look at her, surprised.
“If it was, I’d be like them,” she says, nodding at the couple by the steps. Well, frex. She’s right. “But I’m not. I have no... desire to be like that. Not with anyone I don’t—”
She cuts herself off, but I can guess what she’s going to say. Not with anyone she doesn’t love.
A week ago, I would have snorted at those words. Love was no more real than the “god” Amy worshipped. I’d heard of “love” in the same context that I heard of those religious fairy tales—as stories Sol-Earth people used to tell to make themselves feel better about the imperfect world they helped to create.
But now...
“’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” Victria says.
“Is that from your new book?”
Victria snorts. She shifts in her seat, and I notice a stack of books—real books, from Sol-Earth—sitting on the porch floor beside her rocker. I frown. Orion, as a Recorder, should know better. Even Recorders are forbidden from messing with the ancient books. If Eldest catches him...
On the lawn in front of us, the woman’s hand rests on her bare belly, her fingers curling against her skin, as if she were clutching something invisible but precious.
“Do you think they’re happy, at least?” she asks, nodding her head at the couple. Before I can answer, she adds, “Because I never am.”
“Okay, let’s get this brilly painting hung!” Orion says cheerfully as he emerges from the Recorder Hall. The canvas he’s holding is so new that I can still smell the paint on it—it reminds me of Harley.
Orion twirls the canvas around to position it on the hook over the plaque, and I gasp. He looks up at me and smiles knowingly.
It’s not Eldest on the canvas.
It’s me.
“This Season is the start of your gen,” Orion says, sliding the wire on the back of the