The Knowing

by Sharon Cameron

  Memory is reaching up, winding itself around my mind. I break its hold, feel one moment of lightness before it pulls at me again. I don’t want to go away. I want to understand what’s happening now. Beckett looks around.

  “Sam, sit next to me.”

  I sit. The chair is soft, strangely fitted to my body. I’ve still got the two books in my arms, clutched to my chest.

  “How long do we have before waking?” he asks.

  “Two and seven-eighths bells,” I say. “But you’ll need to go Outside a bell before that.”

  “Okay,” he says, thinking. “I have an alarm set. I’ll know if there are people near, but we may not have much warning. If it goes off, I have to shut this down and you have to be ready to run. There’s the way we came in, and another door back there.” I glance behind his head and see a white doorway. “It looks like there’s some kind of hallway behind it. Do you Know where it goes?”

  I look back in my mind, fighting off the memory trying to drag me down, and see the layout of the city, measuring the distances, comparing. We’re very deep. But also close to the edge of the mountain, near the cliffs to the plain. “Does the way go up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I think it’s the caves.” Where Reddix came out, when Beckett’s technology was lifting me through the hole in the ceiling. Reddix, who Knew Beckett was from Earth.

  “I wasn’t even scanning for power then,” Beckett says. “We could have come straight here.” He shakes his head. “At least we have a chance of getting out if they come through the Archives. Now let’s see if I can figure out what they’ve been doing … ”

  I watch him touching, pressing, talking to the technology, comfortable in its company, and suddenly I remember that Beckett is an alien. A fact I’d come as close to forgetting as the Knowing can. Then Beckett grabs the chair, which glides across the floor in a way I’m startled to discover, kisses me once, and shoves me away, sending me drifting like a boat across the Darkwater.

  All right. Not that much of an alien, then.

  “Look,” he says. There are new images in the light, not letters or symbols, but images that are real. I lean forward, the books solid against my chest. I see the dim and empty Forum on one square, from up high, as if I’m hanging from the ceiling, while another shows the closed gates to the Outside. One square is so black it’s hard to make out, until I see the shadows of mountains, and recognize the plain I crossed, running to the Cursed City, and I see the Cursed City itself, from far away, white walls faintly glowing, dark tree limbs moving with the air. And then my gaze goes to the last square of light and my stomach lurches. I see my own bedchamber, two lamps lit. I sit back.

  “Explain it to me,” I say.

  “So, they’ve been watching all these places you see. They’ve got some kind of camera set up … Cameras are pieces of technology that can”—I wait impatiently while he thinks—“that can document time. So wherever the camera is looking, it makes a record of what it sees, so someone else can come back and see that piece of time later. Like this … ”

  He touches the frame of light that’s showing the Forum. The image shifts, and suddenly Martina Tutor is walking through the columns with a covered lantern, and then I see Beckett and myself, a little of my hair trailing down from the turban, slipping out from behind the curtain and across the first bridge. I reach up and find the piece of hair I didn’t Know was loose.

  “I think we’ll just be erasing that,” says Beckett, touching the light. I don’t Know what he’s doing. “I’ll loop it, but I’m not sure where else these files are being sent, or if they’ll be able to tell that I messed with it or not … ”

  Documenting time. Erasing time. How can that be? I look at the image of my bedchamber, and think they haven’t just been watching. They’ve been watching me. Beckett sees where my eyes are and touches the image like he did before.

  The picture shifts and I watch him drag me through the terrace doors, pull me out of sight of the windows. I’m crying, and Beckett holds me, stroking my hair, my back, and the expression on his face … He wanted me to stop hurting. I steal a glance at him, watch him blink slow, once. And when I look at the light again I’m taking off his glasses, and I practically attack him.

  “Okay,” Beckett says. “We’ll just be erasing that, too … ”

  I feel sick. What else has someone been watching me do, sitting in this chair?

  “There’s a whole file on you,” Beckett says. And in quick succession I see me in my bedchamber, talking with Nita. Many different days of this, then days of me on my bed, writing in my book. The image moves closer, like someone leaning forward, and I can read the words flowing out from my pen. About going Outside. Then short, clipped pieces of me passing by the gates. I’m in undyed cloth and my hood is up, but I can see that it’s me. Then we’re back in my bedchamber, the plate has just shattered, and Nita is on her hands and knees, dewdrops rolling, and I’m off the stool, at her side …

  “Don’t!” I yell. I’m doubled over, gripping the sides of the chair, panting, trying not to fall. My mind plays tug-of-war, like Outsiders with a rope. I’m with Nita cross-legged on her bed Outside, and Nathan is laughing. I’m swinging on the rope in the upland parks. I feel humiliated, happy, depressed, and triumphant in the space of a moment. I see the dream of Beckett …

  “Sam,” he whispers.

  I rise back into the present. The terrible piece of time is gone from the light painting.

  “Are you here?” Beckett asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Stay here.”

  I’m trying to nod, and he goes back to sifting through the documentation, though with one hand in my lap, where I can hang on to it. So the Council has been watching me. For a long time. And they Know everything. No wonder my punishment is being extended to my parents. But, I think suddenly, most of my sins are things the Council Knows, and no one else could. I think I see Craddock’s point when he was talking to Marcus in the Cursed City. My parents are exemplary. And there won’t be any more children. What’s the point of wiping out the bloodline, if public perception can be preserved? And public perception happens just before the next resting, at the Changing of the Seasons.

  Of course, maybe my parents won’t need to be saved from Judgment at all, because maybe I’ll have given Forgetting to the Knowing and overthrown the Council by then.

  “Is there a”—I stumble over the word—“a … camera, in the room out there?”

  Beckett glances at the light frames, then at the books in my lap. “I don’t think so. I haven’t got any documentation from that room.”

  Then how did they Know I found out about the Forgetting? They certainly do Know, because they chased me across a plain. And then I remember. My book. When I look up, I see the plain I was thinking about, and the mountainside, and I watch a dot, a person, falling like a dropped stone through the slanting sunbeams. “That’s me,” I say, “jumping the cliffs.”

  Beckett shakes his head, touches the image again. Pictures and symbols flash before my eyes, until they settle on a different view, the one that shows the walls of the Cursed City. He leans forward, peering.

  The view this time is bright, obscured by sun, but the camera has caught two figures, shadowy and indistinct, walking around the ruined walls. But I Know who they are. One of the figures lifts a hand to touch the stones, something I’ve seen Beckett do a hundred times, and then the two figures step through the ruined gates. I think they were holding hands. I wish I didn’t have to remember that.

  “That file was marked ‘unknown,’ ” Beckett is saying, almost to himself. “Right after we lost communication. So do they Know we’re here, or don’t they?” He taps his finger on the table, then slides fast in the chair, down to the next light picture. And he starts talking to it.

  “Show recording,” Beckett says.

  No file found, a voice replies, and I start so violently I nearly drop the books. That voice wasn’t even real, and it’s coming from the techno
logy. Beckett frowns.

  “Show surveillance.”

  No file found.

  “Show topographical scans.”

  The light picture changes, and Beckett says, “No, no. Too old.” He thinks and says, “Show perimeter scans. There you are … ”

  The image is like a map now, but a map that is a picture, a picture that can be turned, manipulated, made big or small.

  “Look, Sam,” Beckett says. I slide the chair closer. He’s moving his fingers, stretching and changing the image. “Here’s Old Canaan, and the mountain ring, and if you go just a few kilometers this way”—he makes the picture of land zoom by, like someone running at an impossible speed—“there’s a valley, just here, and that’s where the Centauri III landed.” He stops. “Base camp got set up right there … ”

  I stare at the map. “I don’t see anything.”

  “I know. That’s the point. This scan was taken on the same day as that documentation of Jill and me. The ship was there, and believe me, you can’t miss it.”

  “But … ”

  “It means that the Centauri III is hiding, mirroring the topography for the scans when they’re actually sitting just below it. And see, here’s the thing, when we first got here and scanned the planet, the Centauri couldn’t see either one of your cities. I think they still can’t. Because your Council is hiding your cities, too, and they’re using the exact same trick … ”

  He goes on, showing me something about perimeter scans, but my attention has been caught by the frame of light that Beckett left. The image has reverted back to the symbols I saw before, one of them a small yellow square with the letters “NWSE” entwined in the center. The same “NWSE” that are all over my mother’s bedchamber walls. On her necklace. I lift a finger, like Beckett did, and touch the square. An image leaps into being before my eyes, and I stare at it, mesmerized.

  And now I understand why I dreamed Beckett Rodriguez.

  I slide the chair down the table to Samara and stare at the screen.

  “Dad,” I whisper. He’s so young, a little younger than I am now. But he does look like me. A lot.

  “It wasn’t a dream,” Sam says. “It was a memory … ”

  The idea of my dad being in Samara Archiva’s memory for the past eighteen years is hard to wrap my head around. I touch the screen and start the visual.

  “Greetings from the newly re-formed organization of NWSE, New World Space Exploration! If you are the lost colonists of the Canaan Project, then this message is for you … ”

  Oh. You have got to be kidding me.

  “The new NWSE wants you to know that you are not forgotten.”

  Someone’s giggling in the background. Please let it not be my mother.

  “Funding is currently being sought to send a rescue mission to your planet … ”

  And I’m pretty sure that’s Granny’s cellar Dad is standing in. He leans into the camera, face serious.

  “You are not alone in the galaxy. Your former home of Earth still exists. You still have friends … ”

  Dad’s eyes are moving. Is he reading this speech off a prompter? Or has he actually written it out on a card?

  “We of NWSE look forward to extending the hand of friendship on your own intergalactic soil.”

  The screen freezes at the end, and I sit back, a little stunned. “Intergalactic soil”? I’m not sure that even makes sense. I knew Dad did stuff like this, sending out those messages with his friends, but who knew he used to be a way bigger idiot than me? The Knowing must think Earth has de-evolved or something. Thanks for that, Dad.

  And then I really miss him.

  When I look to see what Samara thought of Dad, she’s not there. She’s gone away. Into her mind. She doesn’t look like she’s going to scream this time, so I wait until her eyes open. “What did you see?”

  “The memory of you … or, I mean, him … ” She glances up at Dad. “But the first few months of life are so confused. A lot of it seems like a dream anyway. But Mother couldn’t have been the one holding me in here, could she? Mother isn’t Council. Uncle Towlend was, though, so maybe it was Aunt Letitia?”

  I can’t answer any better than she can. Her amber eyes roam the room and then land on mine. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that. She says, “We’re running out of time.”

  I know. We’re here to find the Forgetting and I’ve been distracted. I haven’t been that sorry to be distracted. But the Centauri II’s tech being hidden away in this room—in a culture that thinks tech is dangerous, evil—that just doesn’t fit. If the Council has been getting communications from Earth, they could’ve Known we were coming. Both times. They could’ve seen the Centauri II land. But what did they do with the crew? And what does Commander Faye know about it, since she chose to land by stealth?

  “Sam.” She looks up. “That … Reddix. Who was in the cave. Is he Council?”

  “No. But his father is. Why?”

  Because Knowing face or not, if that guy was surprised by the tech he saw, then he’s the best actor I’ve ever seen. If his father is Council, I guess that could explain it. He knew I was from Earth, but that visual of Jill and me was marked “Unknown.” It doesn’t seem like he’s said anything about Earth being here to the Council, and that doesn’t make sense, either. Unless it was for her. Because he’s supposed to be her partner. I think I hate him.

  Sam is watching me think. Sam, who can’t stop being Knowing, who has to find out how to Forget and remove this Council. They’ll kill her first if she doesn’t. Sam, who won’t remember any of this, or me, if we do this right. But at least she will be at peace when this is over. No Adam, or Nita, or all the other hundreds of thousands of pricks and pains she can finally lay aside.

  I’ll give her that if it kills me.

  “Sam, I’m thinking you go through the books. See what you can find on the Forgetting, or anything else. For as long as we have. I need to dig out the information I can from the tech.”

  She nods, and she’s not smiling. I wonder how much she just saw on my face. “I won’t read now, so I’ll get through them fast.”

  “What do you mean, you won’t read?”

  She cocks her head. “I mean I’ll look at the pages and read them later in my mind.”

  Right.

  She cracks the book in her lap, and her face goes serene, focused. She turns the page, and the next, and another, and another. Like a human data file. Store it and look at it later. I go back to the screen from the first Centauri, my father’s face in the middle of it. For just a second, I thought it was me. And then I know what I’m going to do.

  I go quick to the glasses, connect to the surrounding systems, and scan for files that will upload. And it’s all of them. None of the stored data is protected. And why should it be, when this is supposed to be the only tech on the planet?

  I start the process. It’s going to be an enormous upload, and really dig into the charge I have left. I’ll have to be careful with the charge. We could’ve never gotten through the city without the glasses. But like Sam, I can look at them later, when we’re not risking our skins, and use this window of time for something else. I slide back to the computer that has the perimeter set.

  “Command,” I say to the screen. A blue circle jumps into being in the lower right corner. “What is the lowest transmission frequency?”

  The lowest communication frequency is twenty-eight-point-eight gigahertz.

  Not low enough. Not near low enough to be picked up by Dad’s field set and slip beneath the Centauri’s communication range.

  “Command: Reroute circuits for lower frequency.”

  That is not a valid request.

  I tap the table. Samara shuts the first book and opens the second. “Command: How many transmission channels are there?”

  There are twelve transmission channels.

  Okay. “Command: Replicate transmission channels times”—I do some quick math in the glasses—“times six hundred and fifty, and connect channe
ls in parallel.”

  All channels paralleled. There are seven thousand eight hundred transmission channels.

  “Command: What is the lowest transmission frequency?”

  The lowest transmission frequency is three thousand six hundred hertz.

  And that is what I wanted. I turn to Sam, but she’s gone, and this time she really is gone. For more books. Because she’s already put two inside her head. I run a hand through my hair, thinking. I don’t know where Dad’s set is, or who else might be listening.

  “Command: Open transmission channel at three thousand six hundred hertz.”

  Channel open.

  I look around for something, anything, and grab the keys that were hidden behind Sam’s mirror, sitting where we left them on the table. I tap hard against the table, using the code Dad uses in the field, when he doesn’t want his communications hacked. The code we played with a million times on the ship, a rhythm of long and short taps that makes the words, Who’s there?

  I wait, listening. Dad might not be alone. Or he might be asleep. Or he might not even have his transmission set on. Or the Centauri III might be listening to everything at every frequency. I tap out the code again. Check the glasses for people, even though I have the alarm set. Check for Samara in the other room. She’s putting a book back on the shelf. I tap the code again, and two taps into my question, a rhythm comes through in a spurt of static.

  Speak freely?

  “Dad?”

  “Beckett?”

  Dad’s voice is thick and full of noise, and it is so good to hear it. “Dad, what’s happening? Are you okay?”

  “Where are you? Is Jill with you?”

  “Where’s Mom?”

  “How long can you talk?”

  Someone’s going to have to start answering first. “Jill’s not with me, but she’s okay. I don’t know how long I have. Not that long. I’m in the city.”