The Knowing

by Sharon Cameron

  “Go ahead,” I say.

  She grins, dips her hand, and instantly pulls it back, mouth turning down in surprise. “It’s hot!”

  I raise a brow at her scowl, and she throws a rock at me. Dad probably enjoyed that. Along with everyone on a screen at the base camp. But Jill wasn’t really trying to hit me, that water wasn’t hot enough to burn her, and the result is we’re both feeling a little better about things. Jill gets out her hydrator, unzips the suit, and splashes herself anyway, lifting her chin to catch the cooling breeze, little streams running down her neck, soaking her shirt. Maybe camping isn’t that bad of an idea. Then I remember where I’m looking and give Dad and the base another circular view of the canyon.

  “Nothing obvious here,” I say to my father. “Though that break in the cliffs on the other side looks interesting. Very regular. Why don’t Jill and I set up camp so we can take a closer look? This is a sheltered spot, people could have easily been here. We could get some rest, then strike out farther … ”

  I pause, surprised not to have heard a protest. Dr. Sean Rodriguez isn’t a man known for keeping opinions to himself.

  “Dad?”

  The stats are scrolling, but there’s no noise. No muffled conversation from back at base. I turn to Jill.

  “We’re out of communication.”

  Her eyes snap open and she straightens beside the pool. “Really?” Then her voice goes crafty. “Really?”

  “No, I’m not kidding. We’ve got no connection.” I look again at the canyon. What could be blocking our signal? I didn’t actually know anything could. I don’t think anyone did. And it’s gone quiet, silent. No more of the chick, chick. This place doesn’t feel sheltered anymore. It feels dangerous. I turn back to Jill.

  And the pool behind her is pulsing. Like a living thing. Like it has a heart. The water trembles, sucking in and out, and there’s a rumble beneath the rocks, a shaking beneath my feet. An explosion, a roar. Like the engines of the Centauri. Like a bomb.

  “Jill!” I yell. “Move!”

  One of the first recitations we hear in the learning room is the story of Earth. How Earth is a place in the sky (suspicious), so far away the kilometers are too many to count (suspicious), and how we, in ancient times, were once the best of its people, sent flying past moons and stars (unbelievable) with the task of building the perfect city.

  Because Earth was not a perfect city. Earth was full of greed, lies, violence, cruelty beyond imagining, and something called technology. Machines, like the water clocks, only these machines were made of poisons (ridiculous), fouling the water and ruining the land. On Earth, our teacher said, no one used their hands or their minds, because technology not only did their work for them, it did their thinking for them, too (silly).

  And so we, the best of the best of Earth, accomplished our task, and with our own hands, not technology. We built Canaan, the city of white stone. A place of beauty, peace, justice, all the things that Earth was not (flattery). But Earth had lied to us, sent agents among us, ready to send a signal through the skies when our work was complete, so that Earth could come back and take our city for themselves. Use their technology to enslave us, steal the best of our best, the Knowing (more flattery), and take them away again, so that they would have to make the Earth beautiful again, too.

  But the agents were discovered, and Earth waited for a message that never came. And we of the Knowing, the best of Earth and the best of Canaan (even more flattery), left our white city and built another, deep beneath the mountain. New Canaan, the city of black stone. The city Underneath. Where our memories and our Knowing would be safe. Hidden. So that when Earth came looking, they wouldn’t find the perfect city or the best of its people, they would only find ruins, and fly away again (ridiculous). And then the teacher would whisper how Earth was still out there, waiting to come and take the Knowing, never to see New Canaan again (fearmongering).

  It was at this part of the story that I raised my hand, interrupting our teacher’s recitation, to ask why, then, we didn’t all live underground? Why did some of us live Outside, where Earth could get them? And the teacher said Earth would not care about the Outside, because Outsiders were not of the Knowing.

  There is a sign hung in the learning room, huge white letters on the black of the walls. “The Truth Is What We Know.”

  I disagree. I think that much of what we Know is a lie.

  FROM THE HIDDEN BOOK OF SAMARA ARCHIVA

  IN THE CITY OF NEW CANAAN

  There’s a sign above the murals in the Forum, above the platform of Judgment, where my father and Thorne Councilman were standing until the falling body hit the stones just a moment ago. Tall letters, bright white against the black rock walls. OUR TRUTH CANNOT BE FORGOTTEN.

  This is wrong. Truth can be forgotten. When it’s hidden. Or when you die.

  I feel a hand on my arm, a shake to wake me up. I move my eyes away from the lies painted on New Canaan’s wall. It’s Reddix.

  “Go home, Samara,” he says.

  There’s a crowd around us, a babble of noise, but I like the blur of sound. It washes away the words, so I don’t have to remember what’s being said. I let my gaze glance over the body, lying bloody and contorted two meters from my feet. I knew who she was when she was falling. I recognized the dress. I helped her choose the cloth. Sonia Tutor.

  Reddix nods his head toward the doorway that leads to my level, and I go, threading my way through the throng just as Thorne Councilman and my father cross the bridge closest to Sonia. I can feel Sampson Archiva’s eyes tracking my progress across the Forum. My very public lapse is not forgotten, of course. Sonia has only delayed how it will be dealt with. Seclusion, probably, until I’m fully in control. But since I’m never fully in control, my time in seclusion has tended to be indefinite.

  It is easier to think about this than about Sonia. I’d thought she was doing well. But we are nearing the time of Judgment, and there will be more of this.

  I pass a row of stone niches, alcoves curtained off that anyone can use for caching, and Jane Chemist comes out of the last one, snapping the curtain closed. One glance takes me in, including my hands, which are out of the cloak, crimson stains on the bandages. I tuck them away, keep my shoes covered, and mark the time as we pass each other by. Three-sixteenths past the middle bell. If we had a bell, which we don’t, because the Knowing don’t need them. Our memories keep better time than the water clocks Outside. I pick up speed, through an arched doorway, up a set of stairs that lead out of the Forum, thinking what I’m going to tell Mother—or Father, or the Council, if it comes to that—about what I was up to before Sonia Tutor took her life.

  My lies will have to match what they remember.

  I’m glad I’m thinking about this, and not what I just saw. The memory of Sonia’s fall is going to come back to me.

  I hurry down the corridor, past the learning rooms, where a teacher is reciting the methods of caching, up some stairs and through the Level Three entertaining rooms, where the mind can be stimulated, or occupied, and pleasant memories created—though not too pleasant, or you might prefer your memories to your life. Then into the dimmer residential passages, a left turn, and I am through the door of the Archiva chambers.

  The latch clicks, soft. Only two lamps are lit in our receiving room, reflecting in the many mirrors and the backs of silver chairs. And it is silent. Empty. I breathe, and rest my forehead on the door planks. My hands hurt, body aching from my fall, the pain of Sonia and Adam very near the surface. And then the terrace doors open behind me.

  “Samara. Good.”

  It’s my mother, Lian Archiva, and she sounds pleased. With me. That can’t be right.

  She says, “We are having a guest this resting meal.”

  I keep my hands beneath the cloak, facing the door like I’m about to walk back through it. As if her words are unimportant.

  “Reddix Physicianson has agreed to join us.”

  And now I understand Reddix’s comment in t
he storage room, and why Mother is overlooking my absence. She’s struck a deal. For my future. With Reddix. I have many opinions about this, and I will say none of them. Words become weapons when you cannot forget them, and they go on cutting. But that doesn’t mean I won’t do anything about it. What could Mother have done to Reddix to make him agree to this? I hear the tattoo of long, painted nails tapping against stone.

  “Samara.” The pleased tone is gone. “Turn around.”

  I spin slowly, holding the cloak together, Nita’s sandals well hidden beneath the hem.

  “Where have you been?”

  “The upland parks. Swinging on Adam’s rope.” This is the lie I’ve chosen, explaining both my route and the rope burns on my hands. It also has the added benefit of being something I actually do. But I see the tiniest purse of Mother’s brightly painted lips, and I Know I’ve disappointed her. There’s no surprise in it, and yet, I feel the sting. A sting on a pile of stings in a bed of pricking thorns.

  “Samara. You are exposing your feelings to the memory of others.”

  I put a calm expression back on my face. How does she do it, I wonder. Mother is tall, made taller by an intricate concoction of braids, graying white ends falling against skin that is the smooth tan of the potter’s clay. And she can choose memories and feelings at will, caching away what is inconvenient. Like her grief for Adam. Her love for me.

  “You will be in control tonight?” Mother asks. “The Physiciansons do not have difficulty caching.”

  I nod. I might be lying.

  “And you will be … friendly? As is appropriate?”

  I nod again. I am definitely lying.

  “You are lucky to get this meeting. Considering the circumstances … ”

  Meaning that since the Council closed the Archives, the Archivas no longer have a name or profession to offer a potential partner. Meaning I will have to take my partner’s name and profession. Meaning my decision to train in a small and specialized field like medicine without a partner in place has dangerously limited my options. Which was the point. But Mother is never going to accept my decision on this subject.

  “… and his father is Council,” Mother is saying. “And Reddix will be, too, when the time comes. You cannot afford any … embarrassments.”

  She has no idea what just happened in the Forum.

  “And I don’t need to remind you that this is a year of Judgment. You should consider that a good partnership might very well outweigh other deficiencies.”

  I blink one time, and hold the serenity of my face.

  “In fact,” Mother says, “I believe that it will. And I think you will find that beginning a partnership without emotional entanglements is preferable. It is easier, Samara.”

  Which, strangely, might be the softest thing she’s ever said to me. Mother runs a finger beneath a large silver necklace, the engraved letters “NWSE” winking in the lamplight.

  “There can be no forgiveness Underneath,” she says. “But it may be possible to find a compromise. I hope we understand one another.”

  We do. I turn and leave the receiving room, calm, like Mother taught me, careful to stay covered with the cloak. As soon as I escape into the corridor, I run. Down the passage and into my bedchamber, where I throw the cloak and then myself onto the silky gold of my bed, a move I see reflected over and over in the mirrored walls.

  So Mother thinks the Council wants more of the Knowing, and will overlook my faults if I’m willing to provide a few. With Reddix Physicianson. She could be right. There are empty chambers on every level. But I think it would be cruel to make a child live like this. Too many of us make the choice that Sonia did …

  And there is the memory of the falling body, lurking just below the surface of my mind. I close my eyes and cache. But the sadness is still there. Caching emotion, like Mother does, is not one of my skills. When feelings come, they cannot be forgotten. Like love. Love can never fade, or die, or switch to someone else. Even when it should. Love is once and forever, and so is the pain that comes with it.

  Mother was right about one thing. Love ruins you. And life is easier without it. Which is exactly what I had planned. To live without it. Until now.

  Maybe I should choose Reddix. There’s no danger of loving him. And the Council might need every reason to keep me that they can get.

  Then again, regret never dies, either.

  I throw an arm over my head, starting up the ache in my palm. I think Mother’s doing her best for me. But she’s wise to protect herself. Both my parents are. The wound that is Adam’s death has been oozing for nearly twelve years now, and will stay as raw as the day it was inflicted. And I’m the only other person in the world with the power to hurt them just as much.

  I need to cache. I can feel the swirl of too many thoughts, too many feelings. I search for the memory of stitching up Grandpapa’s leg. A bad, gaping cut from a broken pane of glass becoming a neatly sewn wound that can heal.

  There was something I could fix.

  I lift my head. Nita is coming through the door, a long red dress draped over her arms, thin and shimmering, a new pair of earrings dangling from her fingers. For Reddix. From my mother.

  Nita shuts the door, takes one look at my face, and says, “What? Did you think it would be one of my old shirts?” I only just keep from sticking out my tongue at her. And then she says, “I heard about the Forum.”

  I think our level’s kitchen help must be the most efficient means of communication the city can provide.

  “Are you okay, Sam?”

  “I’ve been talking to my mother, so not particularly.” I don’t want to think about the Forum. “What happened to the dyers after the supervisors came?”

  “Nothing,” Nita says brightly. “I told them I’d seen a goods box stored in there and that the scarf probably fell out. And Mum was so grateful you came today. Grandpapa’s leg will heal so much better now.”

  I stare at the star-painted ceiling. Nita shouldn’t lie to one of the Knowing, because I Know exactly what she sounds like when she’s doing it. Just a little too nice. Maybe I don’t want to think about what happened to the dyers, either.

  “Don’t look like that, Sam,” Nita says, misinterpreting my misery. She lays the red dress carefully on the bed, then pushes me upright, leads me to the stool at the dressing table, and drops a bottle of kojo oil in my lap. For my hands. “So what are you going to do about it?” she asks, with a nod at the red dress.

  “I haven’t decided.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “I don’t dislike him.” I frown, wincing as I unwind one of the bloody bandages. And then Nita spins the stool until I’m facing the mirror and puts a cheek against mine, smiling at our reflection. I am the brown of the linen fields at the end of the days of light, while Nita is a sunset, all pinks and reds, flushed from running up and down from the kitchens.

  “Well,” Nita says, “whatever you decide, I’ll make sure you look extremely lovely and very spoiled while you’re doing it.”

  Now I do stick my tongue out. “Fetch my dressing gown, would you, Nita?”

  “Fetch it yourself.”

  I smile, and she laughs. She’s been refusing to get my dressing gown since I was fourteen. Nita is an expert at manipulating my moods, at distracting me from the memories that hurt. But she is from the Outside, able to partner with any kind of person she likes, do as she likes, as long as doing as she likes means serving the city. She has memories that will fade. Soften. She can be whatever she imagines. I can never be other than I am, because I can never stop remembering who I’ve been. I was born special. Privileged. And I would trade this life for Nita’s in half a heartbeat.

  “Here,” I sigh, wincing as I pass her a plate with my fingertips. The kitchens sent down dewdrops for the middle bell refreshment, silvercurrants baked inside the tiniest spirals of sweetened dough. I always pass these delicacies to Nita and her brood of siblings Outside. Smuggling food out of the city is very against our laws.
But so is smuggling out myself, and Nita is good at both. She takes the plate with a wrinkled forehead.

  “Didn’t you say we need to be more careful?”

  “But they’re Nathan’s favorites, aren’t they?”

  Nita pops a dewdrop in her mouth, winking at my reflection. Her eyes are so very blue. Such an unusual color. And dewdrops are her favorite as well as her brother’s. I’m halfway through unwrapping the other bandage, thinking of Reddix Physicianson, when the sound of shattering pottery makes me spin on the stool. Nita is on her knees at the edge of the rug, dewdrops rolling across the floor.

  “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

  I’m at her side before I Know I’ve moved. She’s choking, spitting, the remains of a dewdrop cupped in her hand. Only what I see is no half-eaten silvercurrant. This is smaller, shriveled, dark like the water bugs we skim from the baths. Bitterblack. Something cold trickles through my chest. And then I shake her.

  “Did you bite it?” I yell. “Nita! Did you bite into it at all?”

  Nita lets the dewdrop that is not a dewdrop fall to the floor, a move I see reflected from every mirror on every wall and from every angle, like a bad memory. Then she’s on her feet, staggering through shards of plate to the washing table. I think once of Marcus, Reddix’s father, but I Know the timeline of bitterblack poisoning as well as any other physician. If Nita has gotten the juice in her mouth, there’s not one thing any of us can do for her. I run to the table and push her head over the washbasin.

  “Put your finger down your throat,” I order. “Now!”

  I hold back her hair while she retches, my other hand on her back. When she’s done she wipes her mouth on a sleeve, lifts her streaming eyes to my face. They are wide with terror. “They Know,” she whispers. “Sam, they Know what you’ve done!”

  She’s right. No one could mistake a silvercurrant for bitterblack. It was put there. For me. The cold spreading through my chest burns like fire.

  “The book!” she says. “Where is the book?”