I hear pebbles scratching in dirt, and Jill comes scooting back inside. “Gone,” she says, pausing to look at the conversation between the two of us.
One second Samara is on the ground, the next she’s on her feet, her pack and my blanket in hand. “If they are traveling across the plain, then we should stay underground,” she says. “That will be the safest way.” She rubs the material of the blanket one time between her fingers before she hands it over, then slips out the entrance of the cavern, somehow managing to do it gracefully.
Jill watches me watch her go, and then our eyes meet. I try to smile. I don’t want to argue with Jill. But I know I look guilty. She doesn’t start up our conversation again, or ask me what I was going to say when the alarm went off. I think she knows. That I probably wouldn’t go back to Earth, even if I had the choice. All she says is, “You’re not going to believe the sky.”
She’s right. When we drag our packs and the light jars out of the cavern, it’s not the same world I left when I went in. The air has cooled, a brisk breeze whistling between the narrow walls, the purple of the sky deepened into a kind of magenta-red fire. Columns of mist rise from the river, like tiny tornadoes, spiraling and breaking as they climb. I’ve seen simulations of a Canaan sunset. The real thing isn’t the same. And I don’t think the glasses will be getting any charge out here. Not until the sun rises again. Sixty-something more days.
Samara is standing in the mist beside the river, pack at her feet, that book strapped across her chest, looking into the distance while she braids her hair. She is so beautiful. Even ragged and travel-worn and a little bruised, she is beautiful. And she belongs with that sky above her.
She ties off her hair, one thick, loose braid behind her, and walks right up to me, but it’s not me she’s come for. It’s the light jar I’ve set at my feet. She bends down, dropping little pieces of sticky fruit one by one into the jars. Jill straightens from adjusting her pack straps and snaps, “What are you doing?”
Samara turns the amber gaze on her. “Feeding our lights,” she says, like Jill is exactly four years old.
Jill’s face goes from annoyed to a little disgusted in the space of two seconds, and I want to laugh, but I do have a sense of self-preservation. My lack of career focus has not put Jill in a humorous mood. We start down the narrow cleft without a word. Samara looks back, to make sure we’re coming, and I feel the weight of that glance in my chest.
I’m taking a gamble right now, offering to break protocol. A big one. No matter what I said to Jill back there, about lifework and Dad being the one in charge, I know full well who’s in charge of Dad, and Mom, and that what I’m doing out here could hurt them. But I want to understand Samara’s world. That’s the bigger goal. I need to understand it, and to do that, I’m going to have to gain her trust.
I think she’s going to make me earn it.
The canyon isn’t very long. It’s like the roof of the cave system fell in who knows how long ago, and soon we’re ducking down beneath rock again, back in the dark with that smell, the water loud and echoing beside us. I switch to night function, and we walk for three hours up, over, and around the rocks. I’m a little bit glad for it. The ankle seems strong, but I came out of that cavern feeling every bruise from my fall, and the exercise has definitely loosened up the ache. And it’s kept Jill from talking. Asking me what I said to Samara in the cavern. None of us are talking.
I squeeze between two boulders, Jill coming through without brushing the stones, and then I thrust out an arm, barring her from taking another step. The river is spilling down into a waterfall, and there’s a long drop on one side that wasn’t there before.
“Thanks,” Jill says, sucking in a breath.
“No problem.” Samara is a little way down the passage, already disappearing over the edge of a steep incline of rocks, matching the path of the water. We follow her, and I whisper to Jill, “Careful. And don’t forget the cartographer.” She winks an answer at me. Like everything is fine. No disagreements about protocol or what planet we live on. I’m relieved. More than I thought I’d be.
It’s not a hard climb down the rock slide, but the stones are wet, slick, and holding your own light in a jar doesn’t exactly speed you up. Especially a jar that any collector of the early space exploration period would have paid half the funding of the Canaan Project to own.
Samara waits for us at the bottom, holding up her light, looking at the path ahead. I do the same with the glasses. The passage goes on as far as I can see, mostly straight, no obstacles. I turn and help Jill make the last drop, so she can hang on to her jar, and when her boots hit the ground she turns before I can let go. Smiling at me.
“Hey,” she whispers, a hand snaking up the back of my neck. Like we’re on the ship, five minutes early to a tutoring session. I pull her hand down, and she runs it back up my chest. I grab it, push it away again.
“Don’t, okay?”
The frown line comes down between her eyes, but I don’t care. She did that on purpose. So Samara would see. Because … I don’t know why. But I don’t like it.
Samara doesn’t act like she’s seen anything at all. She just moves on in her circle of light, and so do I, finding a track among the broken stones. Jill comes after us, and the silence between us is different now. Tense. More than tense. Which is just fantastic. We’re going to be the first people from Earth to see what became of the lost colonists of Canaan. We’ve got one of them walking right in front of us, and it’s like Jill doesn’t care about that.
I care. And it’s not the time for Jill and me to be fighting. Or anything else.
Samara is moving fast, light, like she’s barely touching the ground. Sleep has done her good. She’s more … present. That’s the best word I can think of for it. I’ve spent a good part of my life wanting to know the story of Canaan, but right now, I almost want to know the story of Samara Archiva more. She’s been traveling rough, but below the more recent wounds her skin is soft, almost translucent brown in the light of her jar, and the embroidery on her long shirt and leggings is tiny, detailed. I don’t think she’s lived this way for long. What did she do in this city of hers? And why is she going back?
“Careful, Beckett. You’ll trip,” Jill says next to me.
I look down at her, confused, but only at first. Then I’m ticked. “I am studying her,” I say under my breath. “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?”
“Studying? Is that what they call it now?”
I stare down at Jill’s big blue eyes. Fine. We’re fighting. I pick up my pace and get ahead of her, walking just behind Samara and not looking back.