The Knowing

by Sharon Cameron

  And now I’ve taken too long, and I get two of them. One in the neck and one in the knee. The stunsticks are “humane” because they won’t leave an injury or even a mark. What they will do is stimulate my nerves to excruciating pain. There’s no way not to yell, and when they take them away, I feel blood on my hands. I pulled so hard I’ve cut my wrists on the cuffs. I blink, panting. When they move up to three, I might start making things up.

  “All right. Again,” says the Commander. “What kind of weapons … ”

  “Jill,” I say, my voice hoarse from yelling, “what did you do with the kids?” Vesta tightens an arm around her daughter. She seems to think I’m getting what I deserve, but Jill’s face is a blank wall. “Where are they?” I shout. If she handed them over, I’m going to break out of these cuffs and kill her. As soon as I can stand upright.

  Vesta shakes her head, but Jill decides to answer. “They’re with Irene next door.”

  Juniper Faye clicks her tongue. “Oh, Rodriguez. Why couldn’t you have been more like her?” She nods her head at Jill. “She gave us a map that is going to be very useful going door to door … ”

  All those trips with Nathan to the orchard groves, high on the mountainside. A perfect aerial view. And I’ll bet she showed Nathan the cartographer. Jill won’t look at me.

  “But like father, like son, I suppose. He tried to blow up my ship. And what have you been up to?”

  She fingers my rough cloth. I’m so desperate to know about Mom and Dad it hurts, but asking won’t change anything, and I won’t give her the satisfaction. “You know exactly what I’ve been up to. Because you’ve already uploaded all of my files.”

  Faye smiles. “True. Very interesting viewing, some of that. But your data was a little thin on weaponry. Let’s stop playing. You do understand that it doesn’t matter what she did with whoever’s children? We’re taking all of them with us. And as soon as we have them all, this place will be razed to the bare ground. People assimilate so much better when there’s no home to go back to. Or haven’t you learned that in your history lessons, young professor?”

  I don’t say anything.

  “They’re outgunned no matter what, Rodriguez. Your information only saves lives at this point.”

  Lives she’s getting paid for.

  “So,” the Commander says, “we have a power source, but we can’t see. Why do you think that it is? That we couldn’t see this city?”

  “Rock,” I say, hoping to gain a few seconds before the next blow. “It interferes with communications. And I guess you noticed it explodes.”

  She’s losing her temper. “What kind of weapons are these locals holding? How much have they got of the Centauri II?” But instead of waiting for my lack of an answer, she holds up a finger, listening to her earpiece. Then she says, “Finchley, turn your soldiers.”

  The squad spins a one-eighty like they were one person. And then I see why. There’s a group of people entering the Bartering Square. Eight of them. Thorne, Craddock, Lian Archiva, the man with the long ropes of hair who kicked away the katana. Everyone I saw huddled together at the base of the platform. The NWSE, walking with the serenity and elegance that is their trademark. It makes Juniper Faye look like she’s the one who’s pretech.

  I’m kind of doubting this is a rescue mission.

  Sam’s mother stops in front of Faye, and the two women size each other up. Lian Archiva is willowy, her white hair in complicated braids, clothes glistening weirdly under the lights of the ship. Faye is set heavier, feet apart, poofed hair bobbed, and with a badge on her sleeve. She looks like she could win if this showdown came to fists. I’m not sure who would win the contest of cruel.

  “I have no objection to you doing whatever you wish with this young man,” Lian says, her accent particularly smooth against the sound of Earth. “But if you have a question, then why not ask it directly? Your source will be so much better.”

  She smiles, and Commander Faye smiles. “And who are you?”

  “I am the judge of New Canaan.”

  “Oh, really?” Faye is unimpressed. “Well, since I doubt you came out here to offer up helpful information, it seems more likely you have something you want to say.”

  Lian stands a little straighter, her face a Knowing mask. “The city of New Canaan wishes to surrender to you without further loss of life.” I watch the Commander’s eyebrows go up. I think mine are up, too. “Under certain conditions.”

  “Which are?”

  “That you remove your ship from over our city”—Faye looks skeptical at the word “city”—“and that we be allowed to formalize our agreement in the proper way. In the meeting place of old, in the city of our ancestors. At sunrise. That is the way these things should be done.”

  “And why should I agree to that?”

  “Because otherwise,” Lian replies, “my people will fight. We will not win. We will merely decrease our numbers. And this, I think, is something you might wish to avoid.”

  The rest of the Knowing are as expressionless as always, but the Commander looks like somebody just told her it was her birthday. I think again about what would happen if the minds of the Knowing came to Earth, what use they would be put to. Faye doesn’t have a clue how big this prize really is. She’s also getting taken. The Knowing don’t have any way of getting back to the old city by sunrise. Not on foot. The sun, and the twelve-year comet, must be only three, four hours away. A rosy pink is blushing over the sky. Or what I can see of it from under the ship.

  Lian goes on. “I also require that your ship be left half a kilometer away, and that the old city be entered without technology.” Faye’s eyes narrow at that. “And that seventy-five of your protectors be present. At least. That is the proper way.”

  Now the Commander is really confused. “And who will be present on your side?”

  “As you see.” She waves a hand across the group of Knowing. “And my last request is … him.”

  Everyone looks at me. I can feel my face swelling, bruises hot beneath my skin.

  “He must be present for our negotiations.”

  Commander Faye laughs at that, whether about me or the word “negotiations,” I’m not sure. What did Lian Archiva see in the Forum? That I love her daughter? That her daughter loves me? Whatever it is, I think I’m about to feel her revenge as well as the Commander’s.

  “One question,” says Faye, casually. “What happened to the Centauri II?”

  “Do you mean another ship from Earth?” Lian feigns a look of innocence, and it doesn’t really work for her. “I have heard stories about a ship that came here once. And flew away again.”

  “Flew away again,” repeats Faye.

  “I believe so. I believe they left a … base camp. If those are your words. But this would have been long before my time. Do you accept our terms of surrender?”

  “I accept the terms,” Faye says. She’s not hiding her glee. She nods at Finchley, and he surrounds Lian and her Knowing with half the squad. “Oh, I’m sorry … ” The Commander also feigns a look of innocence. It doesn’t really work for her, either. “You didn’t think we were going to meet you there, did you? You’re invited to be my guests until that time. And we’ll make sure you can instruct your people not to fight, and tell them all about what happens next. Don’t worry about a thing.”

  “The Knowing of New Canaan do not worry, Earthling,” says Lian. “And my people have their instructions. Now if you were not to move your ship, as we agreed, or if you were to return to this city without us, or not arrive with the required numbers, well … ” She tilts her head graciously, a pleasant smile on her face.

  Faye doesn’t know what to make of this. She has no idea what she’s dealing with. Five minutes on the wrong part of the Centauri and the Knowing will be flying the thing. Not that I’m going to be the one to tell the Commander that. I don’t know what Lian’s game is, either, except for one thing: She’s getting exactly what she wants.

  And that gives me a bad, wron
g feeling beneath my bruises.

  I hold up a yellow lamp in the empty storage room, looking at the shaft that leads to the Outside. I’ve got a resin pot, ready to seal the metal door, for safety from the sunrise and the air Outside. Safety from Earth is not an option. If Earth decides to come Underneath, then they will come. Here, or through the gates, or by blowing their own doorway through the mountain. The Forgetting might get some of them. But sealing this door means that no one will be able to come back through it. And both Nathan and Beckett have not come back.

  Something is wrong. I Know it.

  And then I feel a change in the rolling hum of a heartbeat beneath my feet, in the noise of the ship hanging over us. The intensity is weaker, the rhythm slightly slowed. And slowing. And there’s a bump against the other side of the metal door. I step back as it swings open, and Nathan’s sandals are followed by Nathan, sooty and grim-faced.

  “What happened to you?” I think I just shouted.

  “Jill happened, that’s what … ” Then another pair of feet comes down the shaft, a woman’s, and another set of bare and dirty soles right on top of her head, knocking a shoe out of the shaft that I realize is mine.

  “Where’s Beckett?”

  “They’ve got him.”

  I stand where I am. They have Beckett. I don’t believe it. Even though I Knew it. Deep down. “Is he on the ship?” I whisper.

  “Yes.” Nathan helps an old man out of the shaft. “It’s moving off, but there’s still a lot of Earthlings out there, rounding up everyone they can find. They’re on these … things, I don’t know what to call them. They’re like technology you can sit on and they fly the Earthlings around. You can’t outrun them. You can only hide … ”

  I listen to him talk, about Earth and the Commander, what he saw her do to Beckett. And Lian Archiva. Surrendering. With terms. And I feel the world slowing, heavy with memory, and I sink as soon as it pulls, down, where …

  My mother’s voice is saying, “Earth will soon be weak, while I have ensured that the Knowing will always be at a place of strength … ”

  And I fall again, to the day of my Judgment …

  “You have shared our most precious weapon … ”

  I rise back to the present, and Nathan is shutting the door after the last Outsider to come down the shaft. Waiting for me to come back.

  “You’re sure my mother said sunrise?” I say. “In the old city? And that she’s bringing Beckett with them?”

  “Yes. I saw them taken up to the ship. On one of those flying things, only bigger … ”

  “And the ship is gone?” There’s no hum beneath my feet now. Nothing.

  “I watched it go.”

  I breathe, and breathe again. She’s tricked them. My mother tricked them. She’s lured Earth into the Cursed City, where the Knowing have their weapon: the Forgetting. And Beckett will Forget, like everyone else from Earth. But she’s tricked herself as well. Because my mother made them immune, and now the Forgetting is going to kill every last one of them. All the NWSE.

  “Nathan, was my father there?”

  “What does he look like?”

  Never mind. I’m sure that he was. I don’t understand Sampson Archiva. Whether he’s with or against my mother. There’s not one thing in my world I truly understand right now.

  Nathan is standing there, waiting for me to do … something, the group of Outsiders standing bunched by the door. They’re wide-eyed—shaking, some of them. They don’t know where they are or where they’re going. Not any more than I do. And they are afraid. Of me.

  And the rage that has lived inside me since Nita, since Adam, flares. Blazes. Explodes. I can feel the heat in my head and in my chest. Everyone is wrong. Earth. The Knowing. Everyone has blood on their hands. And that woman—the Commander—and my mother, think they can have Beckett Rodriguez? I don’t think so.

  I take Nathan’s arms, look him in the face, and start talking fast. “Seal this door. The resin is right there. Make it so that no air can come in, then do the same with the gates. Do you understand?”

  “But—”

  “The Forgetting is coming. With the white sunrise. It’s in the air. Tell Grandpapa that everything has to be sealed before the sky turns white, and it has to stay that way for three full days.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Three days, Nathan! Do you understand?”

  Nathan sighs, and his eyes are so sad. “You can’t get him back. Not any more than I can get her.”

  Watch me.

  “Wait,” he says. “Wait … ”

  I give him one quick, hard hug, and then I throw open the metal door, and start up the tunnel. Any doubts I had are a pile of ash.

  Beckett Rodriguez came for me, and now I am coming for him.

  And I have no idea what I’m going to do when I get there.

  I sit still while Dr. Lanik cleans me up. It’s disorienting, being back on the Centauri. Another rabbit hole. Except this time it was up through the air instead of down through a hole in the ground, into a world that’s bright, clean, and completely unreal. Even the air smells fake.

  Lanik and I haven’t talked so far. We have company, armed company, keeping watch from the door, and I don’t know on which side of all this the doctor lands. He’s gotten rid of my pain, and I can feel the swelling going down around my eyes. When he leans close to clean the cut on my side, I gamble, and whisper, “Mom and Dad?”

  I see one finger go up while he gets ready to close the cut. He looks over his shoulder once, and the armed soldier whose name I don’t know gives him a brief nod.

  “He’s a friend,” whispers Lanik, “and we only have a minute, so let’s keep this to essentials. Sean and Joanna are confined to quarters. Faye’s been waiting for you before starting their punishment.”

  So they’re fine, but not for long.

  Then he asks, “What’s happening on the surface?”

  I glance at the guard, who’s looking the other way, and at the windows, where military uniforms are passing back and forth. Dr. Lanik moves his body, sealing my cut, but also blocking my face from view. I look up at the ceiling and say beneath my breath, “Faye is rounding up locals. They’ve surrendered, but on conditions that the formal surrender happen in the old city at sunrise.”

  “The advantage?”

  “Don’t know. But there is one.” Lanik straightens and starts working on the cuts on my wrists. “How many are you?” I breathe. I mean on Dad’s side, and he gets it.

  “Thirty that Faye doesn’t know about. And growing.”

  “A condition of surrender was seventy-five military present in the city. And me.”

  The doctor’s gaze flicks upward. That’s more than half the ship when you take away who’s already confined. “Good to know,” he whispers.

  A discreet cough from the guard shuts us up. But when I’m patched and back in a jumpsuit, I get another very quiet “Careful out there” from Lanik. I nod.

  “We’re headed straight to transport,” says the guard, being a little overly official. “Launching to the surface in twelve.”

  I know I’ve been away a long time when I get to the door of the med center and reach out for a latch. How stupid, I think, that we can’t even open our own doors. And the light in here is hurting my eyes. It’ll be good to go back out to the dark, even if it’s almost sunrise. I wish I could show all this to Sam, though. She’d like the med center.

  It was a hard-won, terrible half hour, but I’m glad I got to see her again. I don’t want to see her again if she’s caught, forced to Earth with a value on her head.

  I think it would be better not to survive than to come back on board this ship.

  When I hear the walking patrol coming, I slip back into the shaft in the dark supply hut. Assuming their technology is like Beckett’s, they can’t see me when I’m below the surface. I wait them out. The patrol is so quick and regular it only took me a few minutes to work out their pattern, just a little longer for the whooshin
g noises passing overhead. Air bikes, that’s what I heard Jillian call them in the rubble mound.

  I want one.

  I’ve watched them land and take off twice now, a strange kind of handled chair that you straddle. There seems to be a regular stop in front of the gates. I go through my memories. Leaning to the front to land, leaning back to take off, both accompanied by a twist of both wrists on the handles, forward for speed, back for slowing. It might be all I have time to Know. The white sunrise is coming.

  I hear the whoosh above my head that I was waiting for, and jump out of the shaft, slip out the back of the hut, and wait. Marking, calculating my time. My breath is coming hard, pushing against the beat in my chest, so I hold it in. Listen. And here it comes. The next whoosh. I mark the time again, then step around the corner of the hut, raise a heavy, broken piece of lid from one of the stacked boxes, and swing.

  The Earthling is flying now, only in the other direction. Off the air bike.

  The machine doesn’t crash or even fall down. It just slows and lands. Upright. I don’t have time to marvel. I hike up the red dress, throw a leg over the air bike, twist the handles, and lean back. And I shoot almost straight up into the air, the peaks of the roof thatch shrinking as I climb. It feels like rising out of a memory, only I’ve never been afraid to be hit and obliterated by other memories while I was doing it.

  But doing is definitely different from Knowing. I give the handles a little twitch to the right, telling the bike to fly me between the peaks, over the parks and across the plain. But the machine isn’t responding. Even when I turn the handles hard. And then I realize that I’m not in control. I’m on a prescribed course. I’m on patrol. And how long before the Earthlings realize that a girl patrolling New Canaan in a flapping red dress is not one of their own? Not long.

  I hang on as I pick up speed, plunging down in a way that leaves my stomach behind to circle the water clock. But I am remembering, sifting what is inside my brain. And I see Beckett talking to the squares of light.