The Knowing

by Sharon Cameron

Hidden. No one could have seen it. I pour water into a glass, spilling half of it. “Rinse your mouth,” I say. “Can you feel your fingers? Do your arms and legs hurt?”

  Nita spits in the basin and then sinks to the floor. This time when she looks up, there is a certainty there that freezes me to the core. She grabs my injured hand and pulls me to my knees. I Know there must be pain, but I don’t feel it.

  “Sam,” she whispers, “when this is over, you have to get rid of me. Swear it. My family … ” If Nita is caught eating food from the city, even if it’s food that has killed her, Grandpapa; Nathan; her mother, Annis; the children, they will be the ones to pay. “Get rid of me,” she says, “and then … you have to run. They’ll try again, until they get it right. Promise me … you’ll run.”

  I can’t think. I can’t even breathe. Only a moment ago I was trying to decide whether partnering with Reddix would save me from Judgment. But Judgment has come now. And it’s fallen on Nita. Her voice is shaking.

  “Sam, I swear, I didn’t know. I never thought … they’d hurt you … Not you … ”

  The Council? Why wouldn’t they hurt me? And then the first spasm hits, sudden and violent. Nita’s back arches, lifting her from the floor, and I have to wrench away my hand before she breaks it. Memory tugs, and then yanks me down, and for a moment I am six years old, in the corner behind a door, listening to Adam die of bitterblack.

  I thrust the memory back so hard it leaves me dizzy. Nita’s body is easing. I cradle her head, use the sleeve of my tunic to wipe away the blood and tears from her face. She’s bitten her tongue.

  “Go out … on the terrace now,” she whispers. She’s shuddering so hard the words are difficult to understand. “Shut the … door and don’t … listen. Please … ”

  I shake my head. I’m not leaving her.

  “I don’t want you … to remember … this. Sam, do not … remember this … ”

  The second spasm hits, more violent this time. Nita’s body goes rigid, writhes, and goes rigid again, and with all my Knowing, I cannot fix it. No better than the child crying behind Adam’s door. I hear a snap, a sharp crack, and when Nita’s flailing subsides, her left arm is limp. Her humerus is broken.

  There will be more broken bones, many more. But Nita isn’t screaming like Adam did. She only sobs, her right hand stifling her cries. She doesn’t want them to hear, to realize that the wrong person is dying. She’s giving me time to run.

  I do leave her then, but only to go to my bed and throw back the coverlet. The dress for Reddix slithers down into a red puddle on the floor as I grab a pillow and hurry back to her. The spreading cold has numbed me inside, a chilly kind of fog, clouding my thinking. Nita stares at the pillow, frightened. And grateful. Tears run down her cheeks.

  “Don’t … let them find you,” she whispers. “Take the book … ”

  I nod, clutching the pillow. I don’t think I can do this. She grabs my arm with her good hand.

  “Go … to the city. Find the Cursed City, and make yourself … Forget … ”

  The next spasm is coming. I can see the trembling.

  “The Cursed … City. You have … to Forget this. Swear it, Sam!” she yells.

  “I swear!”

  She lays back her head. “Then do it now. Please, Sam. Hurry … ”

  I press the pillow over her face. Hard. The thin scabs on my palms break, soaking the fabric, and when the third spasm hits I have to use my body to keep the pillow in place. Nita struggles beneath me, seizing, both wanting and not wanting to die, and the cold inside me has spread until I am numb with it. I listen to Nita’s voice. Over and over in my memory.

  “Go to the city. Find the Cursed City, and make yourself Forget … ”

  I loved the desert. Not the one where we trained on the fake Centauri III. The one outside the fences of Austin, Texas, where I grew up. Especially the bomb craters. Mom said I shouldn’t go out there, that the deserts were dangerous, but Dad pretended to be reading every time she brought it up, so I went anyway. There was nothing biological left, not after so many years, and it was a great place to take a bike. Plenty of sun to hold a charge, ten- and twelve-meter holes to jump, no people to avoid running over. And it’s not like a bike will let you fall off or get lost.

  Channing used to go with me. We were both ten years old, same housing complex and same school, though I was two grades ahead of him. He didn’t care. His bike was at least three grades ahead of mine, zero to eighty so quick you’d think you left your guts behind you. I was eating his dust when I saw Channing’s shirt flapping, sliding up with the wind, a web of black bruise spreading down from his neck.

  I knew what it meant. I knew what I should do. But an hour later, lying with our arms behind our heads on the hot sand, I didn’t want to. Did he even know? Having a parent or grandparent with Lethe’s meant you should, but lots of people don’t know who their families are since the war. Did the tests miss it? Or did he manage to miss the tests?

  I did what I was supposed to. I told Mom, and then Channing wasn’t at school the next day, or any day after, and his family moved away from the complex.

  I don’t know why I’m thinking about Channing today. Maybe because I still don’t know if I did the right thing. Or because this ship is nothing but metal, and I miss dirt. Maybe because the tutor program gave me this assignment. Or maybe I’m hoping that we will find Canaan, and it will be the world they meant for it to be. One where we haven’t made so many mistakes.

  FROM THE LOG BOOK OF BECKETT RODRIGUEZ

  Day 89, Year 2

  The Lost Canaan Project

  Jillian!” I yell again. “Move!”

  She grabs her pack and scrambles, but not fast enough. The pool explodes with a boom like an audio file of World War IV, erupting in a fountain of white water and spray.

  Jill screams. I think I do, too, both of us tripping over the rocks to get away. Water shoots four, then seven, maybe eight meters straight into the air, flying jets arcing across the waterfall, the pool roiling beneath it. I get one quick glimpse of the planet’s most perfect rainbow before water comes down from high in the sky, dousing the two of us like somebody emptied a bucket.

  I pick myself up and splutter, shake out my hair, snatch the speckled lenses off my face. Jill is standing statue-still, openmouthed, pack still in her hand, hair flattened to her head and water dripping down the end of her nose. Chaos spews up from the pool behind her.

  “That water,” she says, “was hot!”

  I laugh, hard, and after a minute, so does she, running a hand to spike up her hair. Whatever turned the pool into a geyser is still happening. The spray isn’t quite as high as before, but everything is wet with falling water drops and mist. I decide to remember this planet is not always as innocent as it looks. And that kills my laugh, because we do not have a signal.

  I unzip the suit, clean the lenses with my still-dry T-shirt, and check again. Still no connection. I look at the geyser with the glasses. At the center of the fountain the water is boiling. I guess it’s a good thing it was too hot to think of swimming. It’s not a good thought. “Is the cartographer working?” I ask.

  Jill looks up from her pack. The packs are waterproof, like our jumpsuits, just not waterproof if you upend a bucket inside them. She fishes out the cartographer, unlocking the case that hides the screen.

  “Yes,” she says slowly, standing up to face back the way we came, and then, “No.” She holds the cartographer up toward one side of the canyon. “I can only see back to what I’ve already mapped. Could something have gone wrong with the satellite?”

  I shake my head. The cartographer doesn’t need the satellite. “Something must be messing with our signals … ”

  Jill’s brows draw down, and I look with the glasses, trying to see inside the mountain we just climbed. But I can’t scan its subsurface at all. Which is weird. Then I really can’t see anything, because the lenses are wet. I wave a hand.

  “Grab your pack,” I yell, shouting ove
r the noise of the geyser. “And let’s climb out the other side.”

  “Why the other side?”

  Because it was back the way we came that our signal first stuttered. And because I want to stay, not get yanked back to the base camp. “Because it’s half the climb,” I say. “Let’s get out of the canyon as quick as we can, and see if the connection comes back.”

  Jill doesn’t like this plan. I see her glance over her shoulder. She looks scared.

  “Come on,” I say. “That break on the other side of the canyon needs an eye on it anyway. And the longer they think we’re dead, the less they’re going to want to let us camp.”

  It’s the word “dead” that does it. Jill shoulders her pack, and we leave the erupting pool, heading at a fast clip toward the canyon break.

  When I was on the ship, all I wanted was to be off it. The Centauri III is big, almost too big, but there’s something about being with the same people in the same space when you know you can’t open the door. I couldn’t wait to be out here on my own, and Jill was the same. And now, for a few minutes, we really are on our own, and here I am, practically at a run without that umbilical cord of a signal. We thought we trained for everything, but we didn’t train for this, and I think that’s what has me so off-kilter.

  But deep down, it also feels just a little bit good not having Dad call the shots.

  There’s some thick growth to push through, more of the bizarrely bendable trees, and then we find the break and we’re climbing again, pushing up against the gravity of the planet. I was right about the way we’re following. It really is regular and wide, just like I tried to tell Dad, rising at a steady, even slant. Water could have done it, maybe, but so could hands.

  I pause every now and then, trying to see if the rock is showing any evidence of human cut marks, but Jill huffs, impatient, and finally she just grabs my hand and pulls. She wants that signal. I wonder just how many times in her life Jill has been out of connection with Vesta. Maybe not often. Maybe not ever. Jill was with her mom all the time on the ship. When she wasn’t with me.

  We’re both winded when we get to the top, the land going grassy, still rolling and undulating its way upward. I’ve got our connection status visible in the corner of the lenses, so I’ll see the change when we get the signal back, but there’s nothing yet. Jill still has my hand, and suddenly we tug on each other. We’ve tried to walk in opposite directions, Jill circling the canyon, back the way we came, while I’ve spotted a wide, shallow depression in the landscape that might match the trajectory of the canyon break. She frowns at me.

  “You said we were headed up high, to get the connection back.”

  “I just want to see whether that depression is natural. How it’s cutting through … ”

  “Beckett, first priority has to be communication!”

  “Actually, first priority is fulfillment of the mission.”

  “You know we’re not cleared to move forward, no matter what our objective … ”

  “Forward is only about fifteen meters that way, Jill.” I watch her eyes narrow, and sigh inside. “Look, we’re going that way to look at the evidence, because looking at the evidence is why we came. It’ll take ten minutes.”

  She drops my hand. “Are you pulling rank?”

  I ought to be scared of that look she’s giving me, but right now I’m just annoyed. I could pull rank. Technically. I’m older by a year and I’ve trained longer. Jill and Vesta didn’t join the project until we were six months in. And now, in view of my earlier revelations, I’m suddenly wondering if Jill and Vesta were brought on in the first place at the direct request of my parents. Not for the good of the mission. For me. Does the Lost Canaan Project have requisition applications for “female, suitable mother of my grandchildren”? Because Mom just might have filled that out. I’m irritated with all of them.

  “Beckett,” Jill repeats. “Are you pulling rank?”

  She is definitely scared. “Jill, you know I don’t operate that way. But once we get that connection, they’re probably going to pull us straight back to base camp, and then somebody’s going to have to hike all the way out here to look at that depression. Or, we could take ten minutes and check it out now.” Jill bites her lip. “Look, you don’t think the Commander would ignore the objectives of a mission for a technical problem, do you?”

  I regret this argument the second it’s out of my mouth. Dad doesn’t like Commander Faye, and the feeling is mutual, so two years on the same ship and I’ve never had more than a curt nod out of her. But Jillian loves the Commander. Admires her. She’s risen fast through the ranks, knows how to get things done, and how to deal with the military, which is what most of the Centauri’s crew is. But I’ve heard stories about Juniper Faye. Most of them fact. And Dad says the way she dealt with the Canadian rebels was ruthless. Patient. Like a spider. And with all the ethics of a patient spider, too. A brilliant success if you’re interested in crushing your enemies. A disaster if you’re interested in cultures and history. Or humans. I don’t plan on running anything the way the Commander would.

  But the idea has worked on Jill. She readjusts her pack. “Okay, let’s just hurry and get it done, then.”

  I look back to the canyon break and take some measurements with the glasses, then start along the depression, doing the same, sometimes from the vantage point of my stomach on the ground. I am getting a regular width sometimes, which is exciting until I lose it. But that could be erosion. Seismic activity. And then the depression crests the final ridge and we’re at the top of a gentle slope, tall grasses flowing down into a valley that is surrounded by mountains.

  I squat down to look, searching, but the depression has disappeared, and that makes me think water or erosion after all. Disappointing. Or maybe I just can’t see it beneath the ground cover. I take one step forward, and a cloud of tiny, lace-winged mothlike things rises up suddenly from the grasses, thousands of them, making swirling patterns in the air as they fly. I turn my face from their dusty wings, wait for my vision to clear, and then Jill’s hand is on my arm, pulling.

  “Oh,” she breathes. “Oh, Beckett … ”

  The valley is a shallow scoop in the land, and in the center is a forest, trees spreading their limbs like a canopy. But it’s a circular forest, unnaturally so, and clear along the edges, reflecting the sunbeams here and there, are gleams of shining white.

  A wall. A wall of white stone.

  What I’m seeing is a city.

  I stood for a long time on the edge of an overhanging rock, a green river running slow beneath me. Deciding. I’d climbed down as far as I could, lucky not to have fallen before I meant to, but it was still a long drop, and I had no Knowing of how deep the water would be. I felt my heart beat, and beat, breath pumping in and out of my lungs. I couldn’t see a path sideways. There was no way back. Only forward, and I’d promised her I would run. That I would find the city. Forget. I held my breath and stepped off the rock. And the feeling was like falling into memory.

  I hit with pointed feet, and the whistling air became a gurgle and a roar. I slowed, the world going quiet, and when I opened my eyes, it was peaceful beneath the water, sun streaking down in bright beams, surface sparkling above me. Like being inside a drop of green molten glass. And I was alive.

  And now I am running, skirting the edges of thick-growing groves, skimming the rims of deep clefts that open like cracks in the land, water gurgling in their depths. It’s been three days and nine and a half bells since Nita died in my bedchamber. Since I left the note for my parents, telling them I’d gone into seclusion. Since I jumped the cliffs. There’s little more than a day left to find the Cursed City, the Canaan we abandoned, before the sun sinks and the sky stains red and the dark days come.

  They have a day of light left to stop me.

  I look over my shoulder, without slowing my steps, at the sunbaked plain I’ve just crossed. Dust rises against the backdrop of the mountains. They’re coming. Someone Knows I’m not in seclusion,
maybe everyone does, and the Council seems to have a better way out of our mountain than jumping cliffs. But they can’t come much longer. It’s dangerous to travel in the red light of sunset, foolish to attempt in the long dark, when the rains fall and the last of the wild-growing food will be gone.

  I’ve been gathering what I could find as I go, fallen breadfruit and the occasional spicemelon. The Knowing can live on very little when we have to, and it’s a sick sort of irony that we of the city are overfed while the Outsiders, who need every bite of their rations, are the ones who go hungry if the harvest is bad. But fifty-six days is a long time to live on a few pieces of breadfruit.

  I’ll just have to live as long as I can.

  I wonder how long it took them to realize that Nita was missing. If Annis and Grandpapa know. What did the Knowing tell them when Nita didn’t come back from the Underneath?

  And then I drop to my knees, as if a hand reached up and snatched me to the ground. Memory clutches at the edge of my mind, dragging. I fight, and then I fall …

  … into the light of many mirrored walls, to my crumpled red dress and broken plate scattered across the floor. Nita is seizing, writhing beneath me, and it’s taking all my strength to keep the pillow pinned over her face. And suddenly, there is no struggle. I’m relieved to feel her go still, then so revolted by my own relief that I scramble away on my hands and knees, retching. The pillow falls away and Nita’s blue eyes are open, empty, staring at nothing. My stomach heaves, and the cold inside me melts, boils, burns beyond belief, and I am consumed by a single, silent scream …

  My eyes snap open and I gasp. I’m on my knees in the orange shade of a pine tree, still panting from my run. But I can feel the scream inside me, and when the grief comes, it doubles me over like a blow.

  I squeeze the hair on either side of my head. Breathe in. Out. Wrestle for control. Always I’ve been taught that Knowing is everything. That the truth of my memory is what makes me special, the lack of it why people like Nita are not. But I have lived Nita’s death twenty-seven times since I left the city, three during the four bells I dared to sleep, and I am tainted by it. Made dirty by what I’ve done. And I will have to live with the memory of it. Like Adam. Again. And again. For a lifetime.