“And your parents?”
“Staying. There won’t ever be an opportunity like this on Earth.”
I look at the moving shadows, my head rising and falling with his breath. “In the Underneath,” I say, “when two people make a partnership, they write it down in a book.”
He strokes my hair.
“They write, ‘I choose Fred or Tamsa or whoever,’ and when it’s in the book, it’s a promise.” I lift my head to look at him again. “If I gave you a pen right now, would you write me down? Because I would write you down. My book is in my pack right now.”
He takes my face in both his hands, like he’s going to keep me from falling into a memory. “Yes,” he says, “I would choose you and I would write you down. But if you’re not going to be Knowing, then I want you to not be Knowing when you do the choosing. Do you understand?”
I close my eyes. Why does he think I will change?
Then he flips me around, half pinning me down with his weight, and kisses my neck. Fiercely. “Yes,” he says against my skin. “Yes. And yes.” He’s making me giggle. “All the yeses, and just waiting … until then. All right?”
I don’t answer. I pull his hair until he brings his mouth up to mine. Then he tugs on mine until my chin comes up, so he can kiss my neck again. I laugh, and then I shiver. “And after that,” he says just below my ear, “no more sneaking off into the blacknut grove. Unless … you’re just into it … ”
I laugh again, and I close my eyes, enjoy his weight and his smell and the roughness of his chin. But I Know the other half of this problem. He doesn’t have Joanna’s approval. She thinks I’m … complicated. But I have a plan for that.
And I begin the next day, when Joanna comes over on the transport. I’m waiting to one side, for the usual flood of Earthlings to go past, off to research or build or plant, and I’m surprised to see Nathan stepping off the dock, heading immediately down a side street. How did he get permission to stay overnight on the Centauri? Then I’m afraid I Know. And then Joanna is stepping down, and since Beckett didn’t come back to the ship, she’s not terribly pleased to see me.
“I have a surprise for you,” I say. Her brows disappear into her hair, but I smile, and tilt my head, and she follows. When we get to the gates, I give the supervisor Annis’s note, which is permission to allow Dr. Joanna Cho-Rodriguez privileges for visiting Underneath.
I can see I’ve gotten her attention.
She follows me down the sloping entrance hall, down corridors and stairs. I Know she’s seen the visuals, but doing is different from Knowing, and her eyes are big. Then we go down the last, short staircase; I unlock the door and let her into the dust and rot of Uncle Towlend’s office. But I have a lamp ready.
“My family name, of course, is Archiva,” I say, lighting the flame. “We were the keepers of the Archives until … ” I’m being yanked by memories here. I take a moment to still them. “Until they were closed. Now I’m the last of that name. But the Council thinks the Archives should be reopened, and … I thought you might want to help.”
Joanna looks unsure, until I open the other door and she steps out onto the balcony. I hold up the light and her mouth drops. She says nothing for so long that I finally just hand her the lantern, so she can move and see what she wishes.
“I’m going to start cleaning up the office, so you’ll have a place to work when you’re not in here. I’ll leave you now, to get oriented.”
She still hasn’t spoken.
“Unless you don’t want to?”
“No,” she whispers. “No, I’d be happy to help.”
And we practically don’t see her again until sunsetting, when she comes out to help Sean move their belongings from the Centauri into Uncle Towlend’s empty chambers. It seemed appropriate, somehow. I chose to stay in my bedchamber. Memories are there, but I want to see if they can fade. I want to Know if I can heal. We put Ari and Luc in Adam’s old room, and I can hear it when they laugh. And that’s a new memory that isn’t bad. And it means that Beckett is home much more often, which makes Joanna happy.
Or so she thinks. My balcony is just not that hard of a climb.
We all go together, the Outsiders, the Earthlings, and the ones left from Underneath, to the upland parks to watch the Centauri launch. It’s both bitter and sweet to see it go. The ship is leaving with thirty-two of our Outsiders and a generous number of blood samples. We’re keeping fifteen of its crew, including Dr. Lanik, who’s holding Jasmina for a missing Annis, while Grandpapa shoos the children away from the cliff edge. Sean and Joanna stand together, still and solemn, while the Centauri goes up and up, and then sideways fast, becoming a burning light before it winks and is gone. Beckett puts his chin on my shoulder. We’re staring at an empty sky.
“Well, that’s done,” he whispers. He means this is home. Then he looks down at my empty hands. “Hey, where’s the moonshine?”
“What?”
“Where’s the moonshine? You were supposed to get a bottle from Cyrus for Mom and Dad, to toast New Canaan … ”
I turn around and look at him, wide-eyed. “I forgot,” I say. “Beck! I forgot!”
“Congratulations,” he says, shaking his head. I hug him hard.
We go back for the moonshine, and when I open the workshop door, Annis is red-eyed and stone-faced, alone at the table in the dimming light. “He’s gone,” she says. “Nathan’s gone!”
I knew he’d been going to see Jill again, but he wasn’t on the list of those going to Earth. Or did he hide being on the list? Annis is crying, without any hope of comfort, and Grandpapa joins her soon after. Beckett and I exchange a glance.
Not like this, his expression says. And I agree.
We prepare all through the dark days. I see patients with Dr. Lanik. I’ve retained almost all of my knowing since not drinking the amrita, but the information is not as vivid, and sometimes I have to work hard to retrieve it. Beckett helps Sean document memories from both Outside and Underneath, before they can fade, and I take my mandatory orientation classes for tech. Medical and educational, that’s the technology the Council decided to introduce to New Canaan, and so that’s the tech Earth left us.
And I begin dreaming again. For the first time since I was a child. And my dreams are still of him.