The Knowing

by Sharon Cameron

  “Reddix,” I say, “don’t tell them. Please.”

  “I never have, Samara.” He almost smiles. “But they are coming for you.” His eyes move a little past me. “Don’t let them find you with Earth.”

  And then I feel hands pulling me up and out of the hole.

  There’s somebody down there. Lit by one of those yellow lanterns, watching the rappelling kit pull up Samara. But she’s too high, out of reach. I’ll have her in another four or five seconds. I get a good look at him. Long hair, braided, wearing clothes probably not all that different from Samara’s when hers were newer, eyes black-lined. And he’s calm, weirdly calm. Another mask. He looks right into my eyes when he says, “Don’t let them find you with Earth.” It’s practically a challenge.

  I drag Samara up and out of the hole like he might jump up and grab her legs, and my chest is slamming. He knew. He knew exactly who I was. Samara is staring down at the way she came, frozen.

  “Look at me.” I spin her around. She’s still tangled in the harness. “What do you remember about Earth?”

  “What … ” says Jill. She’s lying on the ground, trying to push up to her elbows. Samara ignores my question, pulls away from my hands, and gets to her feet, stepping out of the rope, going to press a finger against Jill’s neck. Jill tries to push her away, which I think means Jill is going to be okay. Then Samara straightens up to face me. Her Canaan face is on, like the one down in the cavern.

  “What does your city remember about Earth?” I ask again.

  “Beckett?” Jill asks.

  “She Knows, Jill. She’s always Known who we are.” Just like he did, down in the cavern. At first glance. I feel like an idiot. I turn back to Samara. “Haven’t you?” Samara doesn’t answer, but her eyes meet mine, and I feel that look in my chest. “Who was he?”

  “Reddix,” she whispers.

  “Is he one of your Council?”

  “No. He was … He was supposed to be my partner.”

  Great. “What does he Know about Earth?” He wasn’t even surprised by the little bit of technology he saw. “Tell me the truth, Samara! What does your city remember about us?”

  “That you are the enemy.”

  I stare at her eyes and try to process. The enemy. Me. And then I’m thinking back to her abrupt offer to take us to her city, because we had Forgotten. When she Knew we hadn’t Forgotten. When she Knew who we were all along.

  “You were going to hand us over, weren’t you? To your Council.” I’m almost shouting now. I see Jill’s eyes narrow. “Weren’t you?”

  Samara doesn’t answer again, but she can’t look at me anymore, either. She’s standing there in that jumpsuit, her hair hanging like a silky thunderstorm, looking a lot like someone I could have known in Austin. Only she isn’t, is she? She’s of Canaan, and she played me. Like an expert at the game. When I risked everything to tell her the truth.

  “Beckett.” Jill has managed to sit up. She’s not steady. “We need to … break contact. Now. We’re … close.”

  She means we have to be close to the city, and that we could give the Commander the coordinates of where we’re standing. I turn around, so neither of them can hear the cussing in my head. The sky is cold, red as fire, and empty, like this flat, bare land I’m standing in. But if I didn’t get the transmit setting turned off in time, it’s not going to be empty for long. I don’t know who to run from. I don’t know who to run to. I don’t know who to trust anymore.

  Yes, I do. Dr. Sean Rodriguez. He said not to give the coordinates to Commander Faye. He said not to go back to the base camp. He said to stay with the local, underground, where it’s safe. Or at least I think that’s what he said. But nothing is safe. And it’s a long way back across the plain. Even if Jill was at 100 percent we couldn’t make it on our own. We only packed food for a scant four days—for the emergency that was never, ever going to happen—and the water regenerators will not recharge without the sun. And if or when we get picked up, we’d be going straight to the Commander. I turn back to Samara.

  “What would’ve happened, if you gave us to your Council? Would they have killed us?”

  “I don’t Know,” she whispers.

  That really is just great. “So why didn’t you do it, then, if we’re the enemy?”

  She lifts her beautiful eyes to mine. “Plans changed.”

  Why? Because she felt guilty? Because I kissed her? I stare back at the sky, at the mountain range stained red, rising up from the plain. I’m so mad right now I can’t see straight. I’ve trusted where I shouldn’t have, and nearly gotten both Jill and myself killed. When Jill tried to tell me. She’s watching us right now, panting just from being upright. I can’t look at her.

  “You should go,” Samara says, “back to your … ship.” When did she hear me say that word? “You can’t stay here … ”

  “What did your plans change to?”

  “Beckett!” This is from Jill.

  “Orders,” I tell her. I see Jill’s eyes dart to the sky. I feel bad about this lie. But I didn’t say who the orders were from. She lies back on the rocky ground, exhausted.

  “What did your plans change to?” I ask Samara again. She glances over my shoulder, up at the jagged peaks behind me. “Okay. What’s up there?”

  “The Outside.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “No.”

  “Is it safer?”

  She looks at the hole, then at the mountain, unsure.

  “Do they know about Earth?”

  “Only stories.”

  “But you have a place to go there?”

  She looks me in the eye again, and I wish her gaze didn’t do that. “You have to go back,” she whispers. “Please.”

  Not an option. And it seems like there’s something in the bones of this planet that’s messing with our signals. If we get up there in the mountains, maybe they’ll go on messing with the signals. Samara is shaking her head, like we’re going to argue. I take a gamble. “How are you getting up there, Samara?”

  She blinks. She hadn’t thought of that yet. She needs me, and I need her. Which is a real irony when you get down to it, because at this point I’m thinking there’s a good chance we’re both a danger to each other.

  We head out, moving fast, Jill on my back, Samara with all three of the packs. Jill really is weak. It’s hard work for her to hang on, and for weighing next to nothing, she’s actually pretty heavy. When Samara gets a little way ahead, Jill whispers near my ear, “What are our orders?”

  I hesitate, then say, “Maintain contact and cut off communications for the present.”

  It’s a good thing Jill can’t see my face, because I’m pretty sure it’s smeared with guilt. But Jill will not understand Dad telling me to go against the Commander, or the fact that I’m putting family over the hierarchy of the ship.

  “Beck,” she whispers again, “do you think you’re getting orders from … who you think you are? Because I don’t think Commander Faye would’ve … told you to cut off … communications.”

  “What am I supposed to do, Jill? I just have to follow them when they come.” This might not exactly ring true coming from me, and I think Jill agrees.

  “You know you can’t … trust her now? That … she’s been lying … the whole time?”

  I know it. But I don’t want to say it.

  “Listen, let’s get the coordinates, and then … go. You can tell the Commander … she broke contact with us, that you couldn’t stop her. I’ll … back you up … Mom will … back us up … ”

  Jill’s voice is fading a little, her grip loosening. I think she’s falling asleep. I hike her up, and put on some speed. Her plan is so reasonable. I wish there was one thing about my life that was reasonable right now.

  I’ve got an alarm set for additional humans, and one for power sources, in case a skimmer gets near. But the glass in front of my eyes is clear and quiet. Jill has gone quiet, too, her head bobbing against my back, Samara moving fast and smooth, l
ike hiking is some kind of a dance. I wish she’d said something when I told her I was sorry back in the cave. I wish she’d said Don’t be sorry, and I know that makes me an idiot. She’s a liar. And from now on I’m going to be objective if it kills me.

  It might.

  We have to cross a river. I swim Jill across, and both she and Samara make it relatively dry in the suits. I’m soaked, and now I’m freezing again, and tired to the core. The cliffs are tall. I’ll only have just enough rope. I lean Jill against the rocks.

  “You okay?” I ask. She’s pale, but when she opens her eyes, for a second she’s the Jill I knew on the ship.

  “Oh, I’m great,” she says. “You?”

  I smile. Whatever else she is, I really am glad she’s not dead. Her eyes close again, and I find Samara about three meters away, hair everywhere in the breeze, staring down at something white among the blue-gray rocks. I stand next to her, then squat down to get a better look at the ground.

  It’s a body. Bones mostly, though scraps of dried skin and fabric still cling here and there, and some long, straggling hair. The lower leg bones are shattered, plus one femur, and I think the spine might have broken, too, unless the body has been disturbed. I don’t think it has. I glance at the clifftop, high above us, and then at the pelvis and the shape of the broken skull. Female. And this would have been instant. I wish I knew more about this planet’s weather, seasons, insects, so I could guess how long it’s been here.

  Samara bends down, barely touching a bit of blowing fabric between two fingers. I think it might have been yellow. “It’s Aunt Letitia,” she whispers.

  I blow out a breath. I’ve been considering the timeline of decay, and Samara is staring at her own dead family. “How did she fall?”

  “She jumped. Like I did.”

  “What do you mean, like you did?”

  She looks to our left, down the line of the cliffs. “It’s not as high that way, and the river is there.”

  “Have you jumped those cliffs before?”

  “Of course not. It’s out of bounds.”

  “Then how did you Know the river was deep enough?”

  “I didn’t.”

  I blow out another breath. This time it’s frustration. “And why would you do that?”

  “To escape. Only Aunt Letitia was escaping a different way.”

  Samara walks away from the body. Last time it was poison. That’s what she said in the cavern. I think of being scared enough, or determined enough, to jump when I wasn’t sure I’d live. Of being determined enough to jump when I knew I was going to die. I can still hear Samara’s scream, see that story she told with her face. Is that what this woman was trying to do? Escape her memories? Use death to Forget? Samara said she was looking for a way to Forget. How close has she come to making the same choice as her aunt?

  I run a hand through my wet hair. What is going on with this planet? What could have made them this way? I can’t trust Samara, and I’m angry about it. Hurt, if I’m being honest. She could be playing me again right now for all I know. But my gut says she isn’t. Then again, two hours ago I found out that my gut was as off-kilter as the Centauri’s scans. Either way, I wish she hadn’t seen this. So she wouldn’t have to remember.

  Jill dozes against the cliff while Samara gathers stones, and by the time I shoot the grip to the top of a cliff, she has a circle of them around her aunt.

  I hate climbing rope. But since we couldn’t bring the real gear, thanks to protocol, I guess I’m glad the trainer made me do it so often. But I’m going up clipped into the harness this time. I’ll never get all the way up without a rest, and it’s when I’m taking the second of these, about three-quarters of the distance to the top, that the power source alarm blinks in the lenses.

  I turn, dangling in the harness. And here comes the skimmer, barely a glint in the red air, and I am caught, more neatly than any commander could have planned. The skimmer flies straight toward me, flat, bird-shaped, getting bigger and bigger, a wingspan of about three and a half meters, and it is silent, almost clear, except when it catches a beam of red. I glance down, see Jill lying still at the base of the cliff, arms over her head, Samara on her knees, arranging stones over the body of her aunt. And when I look up again, the skimmer is hovering at the level of my nose, about four meters away, like it’s looking at me. Deciding what I am.

  It knows what I am. And who I am. Or it should. The skimmer hovers, flies a little to the right, to the left, away, and then back to the same place. Which is weird. Then it zips off, fast, sideways along the contours of the cliffs. I zoom the glasses, watching its path, then wince as the mountainside makes a turn and the skimmer doesn’t. It crashes straight into an outcrop of sparkling stone, too far away to hear. But I see pieces glinting as the shards fall.

  I don’t think that skimmer could see where it was going. I’m not sure it could see me. But how is that possible? I climb, faster than before, get to the top, and roll onto my back, like I did the first time I scaled a rope on this planet. Only now I’m alone up here, and the sky is red instead of purple, the plants around me tall and dark. Organized. Planted. By humans. And the alarm in my lenses hasn’t stopped going off.

  I sit up. The warning isn’t for people. It’s for a power source. I thought it was another skimmer, but now that I’m up, the lenses say the source is underneath me. Inside this mountain. What else has Samara Archiva not thought to mention?

  I look down, the lenses still zoomed, and Samara is exactly where I left her, beside the pile of stones that was her aunt, only she’s still, eyes closed. She’s in a memory. Not a bad one this time; she’s smiling, almost shy, a hand on her own cheek. I feel like I’m looking at something I shouldn’t. I think of those lined eyes in that calm face in the cave, watching Samara rise through the air. I wonder if he’s the one giving her that memory, and then I think maybe I don’t want to know the answer to that.

  She didn’t want the one I gave her.

  I am such an idiot.

  I reset the rope, and shoot the hook and harness back down, a little way away from Samara and Jill. Samara wakes up, helps Jill into the harness, and Jill lets her, and that alone tells me Jill’s not as well as she was. She comes up with her pack on her lap, and when she lies down on the cliff top I can hear her breathe, a soft wheezing. I move fast, get the rope back down and Samara up with the last two packs.

  “Should I dose her again?” I ask.

  Samara gets untangled, and comes to look at Jill, but looks at me first. “Will we have warning, if there are people?”

  I nod, and watch her feel the pulse at Jill’s neck, then put her ear to Jill’s chest.

  “She is reacting, but not badly. How much medicine do you have?”

  “One more.” I watch Samara look back through her mind, almost like she’s scanning a file. I wonder if that’s what I look like, reading the glasses.

  “We should only use it if she gets worse. She needs to be still and sleep.”

  “And will she be able to sleep, where we’re going?” I know I’m sounding hostile right now. It might be because I’m mad. I thought Jill was getting better, not worse, and I’ve put her in a position that is not her fault. Again. And lied to make it happen. She should be on the ship right now, with all the medicine she could need. I don’t think I could make a decent decision anymore if I tried.

  Samara says, “I have friends Outside who will hide us.”

  I look around at the tall, dark trees. “I thought this was Outside?”

  “No, these are the upland parks. No one comes here, usually, but this is part of the city, and we cannot be seen. The Knowing do not forget a face.”

  “And why is it better to hide with these friends of yours instead of finding a place to camp while Jill sleeps?”

  “Because we don’t have enough food.”

  This is an excellent point. I watch her hesitate, like she’s grappling with what to say. “It will be difficult. You cannot tell them who you are. Any of them, Kn
owing or Outsider. And you’ll have to do what I say. Can you?”

  She’s asking if I can trust her enough to follow her lead. I stand up, start reeling in the rope so I can pack it. The answer to her question is both yes and no, and I can’t decide which is more true.

  Samara says, “You can’t get back to your … ship. Can you?”

  I shake my head.

  “Can you … talk to them? From here?”

  I get the rappelling gear into the pack. “I’m supposed to be able to, but I can’t.”

  “Do they already know about me? And the city?”

  “Yes. But they can’t see it for some reason.”

  “They can see from a long way away, can’t they?”

  “Yes. Usually.”

  “But they’re only here to study us? Learn about us?”

  I don’t know how to answer that, and her amber eyes dart to the sky. For a second, there is no hard exterior, no mask, and the expression I see is the best argument for protocol I’ve ever been presented with. I decide not to mention the skimmer.

  “We should leave here,” she whispers.

  I agree. We move quick and quiet through the red shadows, or as much as we can when Samara has three packs and I have a half-conscious girl on my back. We go up another cliff, not near as high, but high enough, then down, through thick and tangled woods. Until we hit trees that are well-spaced, planted in rows, like an orchard, and I stop beside Samara.

  A wide valley spreads out in front of us, a table of land ringed by mountains, the sloping edges terraced with empty, harvested fields, the flat space between sprinkled with the peaks of thatched roofs and yellow dots of fire. Outside.

  I feel my pulse pick up. I know this is going to be dangerous, maybe stupid. And that blinking light in the lenses tells me that this place is hiding more secrets than just a city Underneath. But I wanted to see history. Living and breathing. I wanted to see what became of Canaan. And here is what they built. Not a theory or a scientist’s speculation. Real. The answer to a lifelong dream. Where Earth is the enemy. Where I am the enemy.

  And it doesn’t look like the kind of place you could hide in at all.