The Knowing

by Sharon Cameron

  I look around the cavern through the glasses, at the roots on the other side of the lake, the one we jumped from sticking out pale gray from the others. We must be just beneath the surface.

  I run my hand over the boulder. Black rock, but marbled with the glittering blue I saw so much of in the mountains around Old Canaan. Like the door I blew up, that Samara said was made of mountain rock. Metallic hydrogen. Naturally occurring. The resource that had the original New World Space Exploration company so excited when they started the Canaan Project. We can make it now, much easier than hauling it across space, but I wonder if there’s a difference between the metallic hydrogen we make and what is actually here. Something that’s messing with our communications.

  But the signal did come. For a second. And when we leave these caves, I think there’s a good chance I’m going to get communication. And when I do, I’ll be hearing from Commander Faye. Guaranteed.

  Suddenly, I’m not exactly sure just how bad I want that signal.

  They don’t understand Knowing.

  I take my pack and my light to the opposite side of the flat stone space from Jillian, and sit with my back against a natural column. I’m mad. At myself. I lost my temper in a way the Knowing are never allowed. But he made me feel strange. Abnormal. The specimen under glass. What does he think has been happening to me, when I go to my memories? He must think I’m insane. They both must.

  Maybe I am.

  I knew Jillian and Beckett were without memory. That was obvious. But I assumed Earth would be something like Canaan, with the privileged and the not. Those who had Knowing, and those who didn’t. But they’ve never even heard of it.

  I think of Grandpapa Cyrus, telling me that fading memories were good, normal. That we of the Underneath were the ones who were different. Have we not always been like this? The idea is incredible, as monumental as the concept of technology that can heal. Maybe the Forgetting really is a cure, because Knowing is an actual sickness.

  I wish I could write this in my book. In case it’s the truth. But right now I’d soak it.

  Beckett comes out from behind the boulder, back to being the alien with his technology and baggy cloth. He doesn’t look at me, or at Jillian. He just wrings out his wet clothes, slapping them out to dry on a rock, hair slicked back, showing the healing cut on one side of his forehead.

  I scared him when I hinted in front of Jillian that I Knew he could see his way through the caves. As usual, the emotion was clear on his face. I haven’t really considered what kind of rules Beckett might be breaking until now, or what might happen to him if he’s caught. Something as bad as Outside? As bad as Judgment? Earth is supposed to be cruel. More cruel than we are. I wonder what I’ve done.

  And then I jump. Beckett is standing right in front of me, holding out his blanket.

  “Here,” he says. “You’re cold.”

  I am cold. I’m shivering.

  “Take off your wet clothes, and you can wrap up in this until they’re dry.”

  I’m not certain I should.

  “Take it, Samara. I don’t need it.”

  The allure of being dry is too much, and to refuse makes it seem as if I’m still angry. I take the blanket and go behind the boulder without making eye contact, yank off my wet things—I’m not sure they deserve to be called clothes anymore—lay them out, and wrap the blanket around my body like a dress without sleeves, holding it together with one hand. It’s thin, red, and very warm, and there’s a lot of it. I can’t imagine what kind of plant would make the material. It trails the ground as I go and sit again next to my pack, back against the blue-black stone.

  Beckett doesn’t look up. He’s on his side, head propped on one hand near the light jar. Jillian is asleep, or at least still, a meter or two behind his back. There’s a waterbug crawling up his finger, the skates it uses on the surface of the water splayed delicately across Beckett’s tan skin. He lets it walk off onto the ground, then puts his finger back in its path and peers at it, perched tiny and black on his knuckle, before setting it down again. The waterbug keeps coming to the light, keeps climbing back onto his hand.

  And for the first time, I really comprehend that Beckett has lived on Earth. Seen moons up close and the stars from their other side. How brave do you have to be to let yourself fall off the ground and into the sky? To leave your own planet? I don’t understand why he would come all this way, and break his rules for me. Pull me out of the street when the Council was coming.

  “I saw a map once,” I say. Beckett blinks, but he doesn’t look up from the waterbug. “In the Archives, with my uncle Towlend. In an old book. It showed the way through the caves. I looked at it in my memory, and that’s how I Knew.”

  When his voice comes, it’s low and resonant. Avoiding the echo. “Can you remember the whole map?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can see it, in your head?”

  “Yes.”

  Then he asks, “How old were you when you saw it?”

  “Four.”

  He laughs just a little. I smile, though I don’t really Know what’s funny. He reaches up and takes off the glasses, setting them on the stone beside him, and only then does he glance up. I think he’s giving me privacy. So I won’t worry that he’s looking through the blanket. Jillian doesn’t move.

  “I’ve been thinking,” he says, “that it must be hard to have so many memories.” He watches the waterbug scrabble against the glass of light. “Is it?”

  Yes, Beckett Rodriguez of Earth. Knowing is one of the worst things that can happen to you. But I only say, “Yes.”

  He doesn’t ask me anything more. And I think he wants to. And then I blurt out, “What is a Rodriguez?”

  He lifts a brow. “What do you mean?”

  “What does a Rodriguez do?”

  He grins. “It’s just a name. Not an occupation.” He sees when I don’t understand the word. “It’s not a job.”

  “So it doesn’t have … You don’t work in a field?”

  Both his brows are up now. “No. Why would you think that?”

  I don’t Know what to say. I adjust the blanket, tightening it across my chest.

  “Okay, then I want to ask you something.” Beckett sits up, hands hooked together in front of his knees, wet hair curling against his neck. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

  I’m instantly on edge.

  “Would you please, for the love of all that’s holy, tell me what a bell is?”

  Now I’m smiling. “You don’t know what a bell is?”

  “No. And I might actually die of curiosity.”

  “It’s time,” I say. “A length of time.”

  “How long?” he asks. I can’t think of a good way to answer him. His brows come together. “How do you keep time?”

  “I remember it.”

  “Really? Every second?”

  I’m not sure what a second is, but I can see him considering. Then he grins and picks up the glasses, putting them on his face. “Okay, I’ll tell you when to start, and then you tell me when a bell has gone by.”

  I nod.

  “Ready? Three, two, and go.”

  I note the moment, and he sets the glasses aside again.

  “Can I ask you something else? And if you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to.” This time, I think, he’s serious. “What happened to your arms?”

  I don’t Know what he’s talking about until I brush one of the little divots above my elbow. I feel self-conscious again. “Just … wellness injections.”

  “Injections, like with a needle? Can I see?”

  I nod, and immediately regret it. I haven’t forgotten that I’m naked under a blanket. I wish I could. But I did fail to consider the fact before I moved my head. Beckett steps over the waterbug, across the stone space, and squats down beside me. I turn a little, so he can see the scars on my right arm, three rows of three. This is convenient, because he can’t see my face. He moves my hair from my shoulder, but h
e doesn’t touch my skin. He doesn’t have to. I can feel his gaze.

  “Is it a big needle?”

  “Are there different sizes?”

  “What are they for?”

  “Health. We get them once a year. At the first sunrising. To make our bodies more efficient and boost our immune systems. We don’t get sick Underneath. Not like Outside.” Unless we’re all sick Underneath, that is. I thought once to learn to make the injections myself after I was a physician, and smuggle them to the Outside. The loss of that dream goes slicing through my memory, leaving a fresh cut behind.

  “How many do you have? In all?”

  “Eighteen.” I remember the pleased look on my mother’s face when Marcus Physicianson pushed in the needle. But I already Knew then that I would be the last of the Archivas.

  Then I think Beckett must be able to see my face after all, because he asks, “What is it?”

  I shake my head. “When you have eighteen marks, you’re ready to find a partner. That’s all.”

  “Do you have a … partner?”

  Memories flash over the surface of my mind. Sonia’s body lying on the stones, and Reddix telling me to go home. What was he doing in the Forum? I’d just left him in the medical section. And for the first time I wonder if Mother struck that deal with the Physiciansons, or if it could have been Reddix who made an agreement with my mother. Surely not. And it will never happen now.

  “No, I don’t have a partner,” I reply. I feel the prick of Mother’s disappointment from kilometers away. “When do you get partners on … ”

  I stop. Earth. That’s the word that was coming next. That’s twice I’ve done that, and the unsaid hangs in the air.

  Beckett says, “Do you want to ask me something?”

  I drag my eyes to his. Dark, and with the shape that is the only thing out of place from my dream. Yes, I want to say. I want you to tell me you’re from Earth. And then I understand why I will not ask. Because I’m afraid. If he lies to me, it will hurt. Forever. If he doesn’t, then I’m not sure I can justify what I’m about to do.

  I shake my head no, and he says, “Okay,” gives me one corner of his grin before going back to his waterbug.

  I watch him play with it, gently, until it springs away, skating off across the surface of the water, and after a time, I say, “It will have been a bell in three, two … ” He picks up the glasses. “Now,” I tell him.

  Beckett looks at me, and now his smile is huge. “That’s an hour. Exactly.”

  “An hour?”

  “Exactly. Sixty minutes. With sixty seconds in every minute.”

  That seems like a difficult way to keep up with time. Beckett lies back on the stone, arms behind his head, and I think he wants to ask me more. But he doesn’t. He is beautiful. And there is an ache inside me. An echo in an empty room.

  This is the sort of thing that can ruin you.

  We sleep. Or at least Jillian does. I cache, carefully and precisely, but it’s not working. Beckett thinks. After four bells, I rouse them. I don’t Know how long we’ll be in the boats, or exactly where the boats are going to take us, and we were in this cavern longer than I’d planned. They eat while I put on clothes that are somewhat dry, and when I let Jillian have the place behind the boulder, I decide I was wrong to think she was sleeping. Her eyes are red.

  We find the passage by the sound of water pouring back into the river on the other side of the cavern. No need for the glasses. I set a pace that doesn’t leave much room for talking, and after a bell and a half we lose the Torrens, gushing down beneath chunks of fallen rock, and the ceiling opens, sprawling up into a narrow, tall room of stone. On the far end, carved into a flat space of sheer, black rock, is a rounded arch, fog roiling out of it. A tunnel. A human-made tunnel.

  Jillian and Beckett follow me inside. The way is hazy in our pale lights, the air we breathe partially water. I look back and see Beckett, hair frosted with mist, running his hand down the smoothness of a wall. He wants to know how the tunnel was made. I want to Know why it was made. Maybe my ancestors came this way, I think, the people of Canaan, to build my city in the fog and dark.

  The tunnel spills us into another cavern that is roaring with falling water. The stone is almost completely black here, like the insides of the city, everything dripping from spray and swirling haze. We’ve found the Torrens again, bigger, faster, more like the Torrens I Know at home, and I see that it’s really two rivers, joined by a waterfall emptying down from above, one of them much colder than the other. The temperature has dropped enough to make me shiver.

  And then, where the water eddies around to a shallow pool, I see the boats. Three of them, tied to posts driven into stone, made of treated fern wood, silver-gray in our light, big enough to seat four, maybe five. Much like what we use on the Darkwater beneath the city, only sleeker, slimmer. The boats are half in the pool, half pulled up onto a slanting slab of black rock that disappears beneath the lap of water.

  Beckett is already moving toward the nearest boat, but I put out a hand, making him pause. He remembers without me saying it, and puts just a bit of weight into the shallow part of the water. When he discovers the bottom is solid rock, he wades in to the tops of his odd shoes to examine the nearest boat, caressing it with his eyes and his hands. Jillian shakes her head.

  “We’re not really taking boats?”

  Beckett looks up, stares at the way forward. I see his eyes looking at something that isn’t behind the glasses. “There might be another way,” he says. He gives me a quick glance. “But it could be longer, less direct. I would guess there’s a way for cartage. To haul the boats back.”

  And I see that he’s right. There are five mooring posts here and only three boats, and the current of the Torrens is too fast for traveling in more than one direction. The boats must be carried back, and that means these caverns have been used not only to leave the abandoned city, but probably to go to it as well. The danger of walking right into one of the Council suddenly seems very real.

  I wade into the cold water and look over the boat in the light of my jar. It’s not new. There’s a change of color in the wood at the waterline that says it’s been sitting like this for a long time. But it isn’t ancient, either. It’s watertight, the rope better than the one I took over the cliff. I look at where the current is moving, whitecapping in the fog. If it was dangerous, they wouldn’t have bothered to bring all these boats down here, would they? Or is the danger that these boats will take us straight into New Canaan? I’ve never seen a boat on the Torrens. The origin of the river in the city is a black stone arch in the Forum, water shooting out like a fountain.

  I go back into my mind, moving between the memories. There is Uncle Towlend, the tattered book, the delicate pages, and the red ink. I can’t see the cartage way, though I think Beckett probably can. I leave the map, think back to our steps through the cave, the time that has passed, each pound of my sandal on the dry and dusty plain.

  I open my eyes. It’s hard to say how much extra walking up and down we’ve been doing underground. I’m sure I ran the plain faster. That the Council probably did, too. But my best guess is two more days to get to the city if we’re walking. Maybe three. I’m not sure where these boats are going to land, only that it can’t be in the city, and that it will be impossible to meet another person on the way. “We should take the boats,” I say.

  Jillian looks at Beckett, defiant, and a kind of silent conversation begins. No matter what Beckett says about not having a partner, he really must know her well for them to understand each other this way. Beckett shrugs, drops the pack from his shoulder into the boat, and with only an instant of hesitation and an abundance of pique, Jillian walks to Beckett’s boat and throws her pack in as well. The conversation, it seems, is over.

  I climb into the boat without rocking it much, sitting in front of Jillian. There are no seats, so I cross my legs in the bottom, trying to keep my pack out of the puddle I’ve already made. Beckett opens his pack and pulls
out the folded red blanket. “Here,” he says. “It’s waterproof. For your book.”

  I have a piece of oiled canvas, which is the only thing that saved it from my jump over the cliffs. But this will be better. “Thank you,” I say without looking at him.

  I am in so much danger.

  “Samara,” he says, working at the knot of the mooring rope. “How far is it to New Canaan?”

  He’s asking the same question I asked myself. And because Beckett is not stupid, it occurs to me that he is never going to enter my city willingly without information. I don’t want to think about this. Or bargains. I cache the problem for later, and just say, “Not yet.”

  He accepts this, hands me his light jar, and shoves us away from the shelf of rock, hopping over the side and nearly tipping us. He’s not used to boats, I see. Maybe they don’t have water like this on Earth. As soon as he’s in, I hand him his jar and hold up my own. The boat is turning in the current, toward the main force of the river beyond the reach of my light. There are no oars, no way to steer or paddle. The water is going to take us where it wants now, and there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s scary. And a bit of a thrill.

  “Hang on,” Beckett says. I don’t Know what he means, but when I see him put the light between his legs and grip the sides of the boat, I do the same.

  We pick up speed, a smooth glide, and then we are in the main current, moving fast through the mist, the river funneling us into another tunnel. The fog thins into wisps and is gone. I smell rain and soil, and for a long time we are a circle of light speeding through darkness, casting shadows against walls of water-smoothed rock. I don’t Know what Beckett sees through the coming dark, but he sits still in front of me, concentrating, hair damp on his neck, Jillian tense and silent behind us. The boat tilts, slapped by a wave, water spraying over the sides, the walls narrow, my hair blows, and the sound of splashing becomes a roar. I clutch my pack tight between my legs. We shoot forward and Beckett yells, “Down!”