Annis keeps her eyes on the floor. “Tell us how it happened.”
I go still. Jasmina is nearly asleep, her chest rising and falling against mine. If Annis knew everything, I wonder if she would even let me hold her. And I am struggling again. I can see Nita, tears on her cheeks, her left arm limp, at the same time as these plain, wooden walls. But if I were Annis, I’d want to know, too. I push the pain of my memories toward the high shelf.
“Bitterblack,” I say. “It was supposed to be for me. But we were sharing … ”
“For you?” Nathan scoffs.
“Hush,” Grandpapa says without lifting his head.
I close my eyes. Fighting. Caching.
“But it wasn’t … long?” Annis asks.
“No,” I whisper. “It wasn’t long.”
I open my eyes at the sound of a latch, and Beckett is in the doorway, in a tight, undyed tunic and leggings, barefoot, no glasses, looking very Canaan.
“This is Beckett,” I say.
He lifts a hand, a little uncertain. “Hi.”
And that, I think, was not very Canaan. I need to tell him no one knows what that means. Grandpapa’s head comes up. He doesn’t turn to look at Beckett, but he’s listening.
“You are welcome here,” Annis says, passing over the awkwardness. She swipes away tears with the back of a hand. “Does your friend do well?”
“Better, yes.” He gives me a swift glance.
“Are you hungry?”
I catch Beckett’s eye and give my head a quick shake. He needs to eat whatever he has left until I talk to Annis. Nita’s family is on rations. “No,” he says. “Thanks.”
Grandpapa turns in his chair. “Where did you say you were from?”
“He’s one of … ” I glance at the loft, where the boys are. “He’s like me,” I say quickly. “He’s been … helping me.”
“If you’re here for waking, Nadia,” Annis breaks in, “then we may send a person or two to see you, if that suits.” She means the sick. The Outsiders have their own remedies and medicines, but not like Underneath.
“Of course,” I say. “But after, I have to go back.”
“I’ll find some clothes for you at waking, then. Nathan, I’ll take Jasmina in with Grandpapa. You see to the boys.”
Nathan throws me a hot glare, and it hurts. And it’s probably no more than I deserve. But when Annis comes and takes the sleeping Jasmina, she spares one small brush of her hand for my cheek. And that’s when I Know, truly Know, that Annis has forgiven me. That she holds nothing against me. I Knew Outsiders could forgive, and I Know Annis has loved me when she didn’t have to. But I have not been raised with forgiveness, and now my eyes are stinging, and Nita’s loss aches like a deep bruise.
I stand up to go, before I cry like Annis, and as I pass, Grandpapa catches my hand, gives it one quick squeeze. I squeeze back, then slip inside the resting room, and Beckett shuts the door.
I sit on the edge of Jillian’s bed. She’s peaceful now, deeply asleep, her wheezing stopped and the swelling around her eyes already gone. I’d like to Know what’s inside that technology of Beckett’s. It seems like a good thing to have.
“Why do they call you Nadia?” he asks.
It’s strange to hear his voice indoors, in a room like this. The resting room always was small, but now it feels tiny. I pretend I’m feeling Jillian’s pulse.
“It’s my name Outside. Nita gave it to me. Nathan, Annis, and Grandpapa all know I am one of the Knowing. The younger children, and the rest of the Outsiders, do not.” If they had, I might have died two seasons ago. I feel Beckett come and stand just behind me.
“We need to talk.”
I don’t answer. I’m making a decision, and I have to be certain it’s a decision I’ll be willing to remember forever.
I think I have to. I’m already ruined.
I cross the room and dig inside my pack, find the bundle I want, and pull it out. My book is dirty from the Cursed City and the caves, stained from my jump off the cliffs. But it’s all in one piece, still with the scarf Nita used to bind my hair tied around it like a strap. This book is the truth, and it’s mine.
And I hold it out to Beckett.
It might be the bravest thing I’ve ever done.
I turn the book over in my hand. This is hand sewn, and the paper is coarse, also handmade, but different from other ancient paper I’ve felt. Mostly because it hasn’t had time to become as ancient as I’m used to.
I think what I’m holding is answers.
Samara goes to the other empty bed and lies on it with her back to me, hair cascading down to the floor. I don’t know what to make of her right now. She set my ankle, but this is at least twice she’s come close to getting me killed. She lied to me, ran from me, has barely tolerated me since, and I would’ve sworn when we were under the floor, if I’d kissed her then, she would have let me. I wanted to. I couldn’t help it. And now she’s handed me a gift, and we’re back to no eye contact.
I sit in the corner with the rounded wall, my back to the warm clay, run a dirty hand over the stained cover. When I open to the first page, I say, “You wrote this?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you want me to read it?”
“Because I want you to understand.”
Well, that makes two of us.
A lamp hangs from the ceiling, flickering in a draft, and I forget that its light is dim, that I’m hungry and tired, or that this floor is cold. The words are precise, some in ink, some in a kind of soft black that reminds me of charcoal, but what I don’t see are mistakes. Nothing crossed out. Nothing rewritten. Samara thought about what she wanted to say in here, and a lot of it is personal. Really personal. And I’m looking through her words into a world where the safety valves of the brain have been taken away. Where everything you do or say is so permanent that it’s paralyzing. Where good memories are the painkiller that can kill you. Where bad memories can make you not want to live. How did they get this way?
Some things are familiar. Like this bit of social injustice I’m sitting in right now. A copy-and-paste from the history files of Earth. And the stories about Earth and the first colonists—they’re like so much I’ve read, fables spun to explain the facts, but always with the truth hidden somewhere inside. But which is the truth, and which are the lies? I can’t tell yet. But I think it has to do with the Forgetting, the sickness Samara thinks of as a cure. It can’t be a cure. Not like that. Not by losing what you are.
I turn the last page and shut the book. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here, but it’s been a long time. If I was on the ship right now, or in a classroom in Texas, what I just read would have been considered a document of incredible importance. A firsthand account of a newly discovered culture. Dad and I could have debated the evolution and ethics of New Canaan for hours. But this is real, not some abstract concept. And people are living it and dying it. Right now.
This is Samara.
Jill’s breathing is quiet, even, the house silent around us. Samara is exactly as she was, head not half a meter away on the bed. She hasn’t moved, but I don’t think she’s sleeping. I try to decide if I would have the guts to do what she did the day she ran, when I knew I wouldn’t be able to forget it. When I knew I’d live it again. I’m not surprised anymore, that she screamed in the cavern. I’m surprised she isn’t screaming all the time.
“What would you have gotten in return,” I ask, my voice low, “if you’d given Jill and me to your Council?”
She doesn’t move. “The life of my parents.”
I lean forward, elbows on knees in the itchy cloth. I don’t know what to say.
“I thought I could make a bargain,” she whispers, “a trade for my parents and my life until Judgment, that I could buy enough time to find out how the Forgetting works, so I could heal the Knowing. So the Outsiders would see through the lies and rebel. And the city could be warned.”
About me. The coming Earth.
“But
in the cave, I remembered … ”
Her back is still to me, but I see what’s going to happen. Every muscle has tensed, the speed of her breathing doubled. “Samara,” I say, “look at me.”
She hesitates, and then turns over. Her mask isn’t on, and I see raw fear. Terror of what the memory is going to make her feel.
“Keep looking at me, and just say it,” I tell her. “Don’t go there. Just say the fact, and put it away.”
She looks at me, still breathing hard. I watch her fight to keep her eyes from closing. She whispers, “My brother. Adam. Before he died, he Forgot. I didn’t Know then. I didn’t understand … ”
And to have one of the Knowing Forget would rock their social order. Exactly like what Samara wants to do now. “Did they poison him?” I ask. “Like they tried with you?”
She blinks her beautiful eyes. It’s answer enough. And now I’ve come full circle. Because I’m not angry at Samara Archiva anymore. I’m angry for her. She never asked for this, and what’s the first thing that happens when she tries to make it right? She walks straight into two kids from Earth who should’ve never been there in the first place. I run a hand through my tangled hair. What a mess.
“Hey,” I say sharply. “Samara, stay here.” Her eyes snap open. “Look at me, and tell me what you need to do.”
She whispers, “Most of the Knowing think I’m in seclusion. If I go to the Changing of the Seasons, no one would have to admit I’ve been gone. There wouldn’t be any reason for Thorne to condemn my parents, and I would have time to get into the Archives, maybe find the Forgetting, before Judgment … ”
Because she’s not going to live past Judgment.
“How long before the Changing of the Seasons?”
“Two days after the next waking.” She keeps her eyes on mine. “I’m going to do it.”
What she’s going to do is walk back into that city and get killed. At Judgment, or by poison, or some other way first.
She closes her eyes again, but I think she’s just exhausted. I lean back against the warm wall. She could be right. If public perception is what her Council is counting on, then a break in that perception might be all that’s needed to drive them out of power. Like the United States in the Fifth World War. And it might be best for all of New Canaan, Outside and Knowing alike. The fear I saw in this house and that body at the bottom of the cliff are enough to convince me of that, even without her book.
These thoughts might be the opposite of protocol.
And then I think, really think, what it would mean to Samara to Forget. To have the Knowledge of her book, but not the burden of her memories. I don’t want it just for her people. I want it for her. I watch her face, and I’m glad she has her eyes closed, because she is so beautiful and I know I’m being an idiot and there’s really just nothing to be done about it. And there’s no way she’s going back down into that city alone.
“Beckett,” she whispers.
I lift my head.
“Some people … call me Sam.”
“Really? Which do you like better?”
“Sam.”
She’s smiling, almost asleep, and I wish she wasn’t half a meter away. I wish we were in a hole in the floor.
“Which do you like better?” she asks slowly. “Beck? Or Beckett?”
I haven’t thought about it. I just take what comes. But then I say, “Beck. When somebody says Beckett, usually they’re mad at me.”
She smiles bigger, which I think is a funny reaction, and then I watch the expression fade into something still. Peaceful. So she likes to be called Sam. I shake a blanket loose and spread it over her. She doesn’t move. I put my elbows on my knees, back against the warm wall.
I am dead tired, and way too keyed up to sleep. There’s too much to think about. I reach beneath the rough cloth shirt, unclip the glasses from my T-shirt, and slide them onto my face. The alarm for the power source is still showing, faint, somewhere deep beneath me. I turn it off for now, to save the charge, switch to the database, and start a search for brain diseases.
The standard information scrolls past my eyes, almost what I could have guessed off the top of my head. The Lethe’s mutation messes with your memories, so it comes up. But Lethe’s was a biological weapon that altered DNA, an engineered toxin passed by air and touch, causing the cells of the brain to rewire their own connections. So, symptoms like paranoia. Psychosis. Distorting memories instead of erasing them. Nothing like Samara.
I think about Channing, riding that bike when we were ten. Amanda. All those people that disappeared from our complex. Lethe’s will kill you, but not quick enough. And the mutation, as it turned out, can be passed to unborn children before the symptoms ever show, no exposure necessary. It’s the only way it can be passed now. Supposedly. But this was a long time after the original colonists left for Canaan.
I keep searching for “brain disease,” only I change the parameters to conditions that take away the ability to forget. And there is nothing. I delete the word “disease” and restructure the search for any kind of anomaly with memories. I come up with photographic memory—an interesting, early tech side trail—developmental issues, aging issues, and none of it looks like Samara. Not even close.
I rub my eyes beneath the lenses, pull off the glasses, and gaze at the bed. Sam. She’s lying so calm in her sleep, one long black curl across her cheek. I wonder what Mom and Dad would make of her. Of all of this. They’d have theories, different ones, probably, and spend a happy night arguing them. It’s what we do best. Or what we used to do best.
If Mom and Dad have crossed Commander Faye, then they’re not in much better shape than Sam’s parents. And then I’m seeing Dad, on a dig in the Mexican Peninsula, with that horrible hat on his head, using his old field set. Radio waves and code, because satellites can be hacked …
And I hear Jillian saying, “Beckett.” This doesn’t seem all that significant, until I hear it again. “Beckett!”
I open my eyes. I’ve been asleep, my neck stiff from using Jill’s pack as a pillow. Samara isn’t on the bed anymore, and there’s a baby crying in the other room. Then I see Jill. She’s sitting up, eyes wide, one of the little boys from the loft last night, six or seven years old, standing behind her on the mattress, rubbing what are probably grubby hands all over her shorn blond head. He’s giggling. And when I cut my gaze to the side, there’s another one, older and more serious, his big brown eyes only a few centimeters away. I move to snatch the glasses off my face, but they’re not there. They’re inside my shirt again, next to my chest. I’m about 90 percent sure I didn’t put them there.
“We’re supposed to be waking you up,” says the boy next to me. His expression hasn’t even twitched.
Jillian is making a pretty valiant effort to stay calm while her head is rubbed. Then Nathan appears in the doorway. He’s about to say something but stops. Jill blinks her eyes once.
Nathan nods to her, almost formal, then tilts his head at his brothers. “Mum wants you.” The boys scamper, slamming the door shut behind them.
Jill is still for a minute. Then she whispers, “Who was that?”
“Nathan.”
Two more seconds and she says, “Hand me my pack.”
I get to my feet, wincing as I stand. I’m still bruised from my fall. I did three climbs yesterday, carried Jill across half a planet on newly mended bones, and slept on a floor. I hand over the pack and out comes the sanitizer. She starts spraying, rubbing her head and arms and legs.
“You’re going to run out of that,” I comment.
“I don’t want to hear it.” She glances around the plain, windowless room, at the flame near the ceiling, wavering in an open dome of glass, at the chains of dried herbs draped in loops along the walls. The many times washed, and yet not soft blanket over her knees. Her nose wrinkles.
“So where are we, exactly?”
I sit on the edge of Samara’s bed, rubbing the ache from my neck. “We’re Outside. These are friends of Sa
mara’s. They know she’s one of the Knowing, but nobody else does, and they think we are, too. Do you remember getting here?”
“Not much.” Jill lowers her voice. “Are we safe?”
“I think so.”
“Why do you think so?”
“They kept us from getting caught last night. And Samara trusts them.”
Jill huffs once at that. “So is the city below us?”
I nod. I know what’s coming next.
“So we’ve got the coordinates. How soon can we get out?”
“We’ve got a food and water problem. The regenerators won’t charge—”
“But we don’t have to get far. You’ll get a signal, or the skimmers will find us and we’ll be picked up … ”
I hold up a hand. I don’t know whose baby was crying in the other room, but it’s stopped for a minute, and Jill is using words that shouldn’t be overheard. I switch beds, and she scoots up her feet to make room for me. She looks pale, weak, but alert. A lot more like Jill. Which is really good. And bad. I step carefully. Like tiptoeing through a bed of cactus in Texas.
“I don’t know if we can get picked up. The skimmers can’t see. I watched one crash straight into a mountain when I was climbing the cliffs. It looked right at me, too, and I don’t think it knew what I was.”
Jill frowns. “I don’t understand.”
“Me, neither. But there’s something else. I caught a power source. Fusion. Somewhere below us. Inside the mountain.”
Jill’s eyes open big. “There’s tech down there?”
“Has to be.”
She glances around the room. More than surprised. Like she doesn’t believe it. “But they would never live like this if they had tech, right? And there was never supposed to be fusion in Canaan. Even for the communications bunker … ”
She knows there wasn’t. It didn’t even exist. I don’t tell her what I’m thinking. The Centauri II. The ship that landed and was never heard from again. That we’ve found no trace of that missing ship gives me just as bad a feeling as the lost city.
The Knowing Page 20