I get a foot up on the root tangle and climb dripping from the pool, my hair heavy, hanging well past my waist now that it’s wet, blood thrilling in my veins. Like the first time I went Outside. I’ve always wanted to do this. I see the root I have in mind, pale gray in the dark, about five meters up, and much bigger than the one Beckett fell from.
It’s harder to get to than I thought. The wood bends and slips beneath my wet feet, but I finally get a knee up, and then I’m standing on top of it, hanging on to the surrounding tangle. I can just make out Beckett’s head in the shadowy water, Jillian’s bright yellow one much easier to spot. I’m going to have to let go, bounce on the end of this root while keeping my balance, like Nita’s little brothers do Outside, and allow the upward momentum to fling me into the air.
“Samara, are you sure this is a good idea?” Beckett calls.
I’m not sure this is a good idea at all. It’s higher, and darker, and more exposed up here than I thought, and it occurs to me that if Earth can make clothes that cling to a body, then so can the people of Canaan. We just have to get them wet. But this is not as high as the cliffs I jumped to escape my city, and danger has always driven my memories away. It’s as close as I’ve ever come to Forgetting.
I edge out onto the root, shuffling sideways, one hand still clinging to the tangle. I feel the wood beneath my feet bend, wanting to spring. I curl my toes, my fingers let go, and I scoot out a little more. Then the root stills and I am balanced, arms out, like I’m ready to let Adam make me fly. I feel the beat in my chest, speeding, the air heavy, the sound of distant water in the caves. One wrong move, one centimeter too far this way or that, and I will fall. It feels like my life.
I watch Nita’s little brothers bending their knees in my memory. The way they rode the movement of the branch. I bounce once, twice, and the root sends me high into the air, both fast and slow, the world turning from the blue-and-black ceiling of the cavern to the shine of the water in the glow of Beckett’s jar.
And there is nothing pulling at my mind. I feel air, and lightness, and freedom. Like Forgetting should be. Until I hit the water with a smack.
And that feels like it stings.
We had a little time back in Austin after training finished on the fake Centauri III, and after a day or so I went down to the school compound, to the quad after classes were over, thinking to surprise Jason and Kiran, Nasta, Amanda. Whoever might be there from the friends I knew before. I was grades ahead of them, but once classes were over, it didn’t seem to matter. We went places, did things. Talked every day. Amanda cried when I left. I wondered a few times if she’d missed me.
The chatter in the quad used to drown out the music and the visuals, but it wasn’t as full that day. So it was easy to scan through the crowd. I don’t know what I was expecting from them. Excitement? Curiosity? I mean, I was incredibly cool, right? My family was chosen for the Canaan Project. I’d been living in isolation on a pretend cruiser for a year. In four weeks, I’d be hurtling through space.
And then I saw them, Jason, Kiran, and Nasta, sitting together at a table, talking like we always did. But they didn’t see me. They didn’t even recognize me. I looked up Amanda later, in the military files, and found her marked “Lethe’s.” A third of that compound was marked “Lethe’s” when I researched. But that day I sat back, just a meter away, and observed. Like we’d been trained. Like they were from another culture.
They were another culture. To me. Talking about places and names I didn’t know. And it felt strange to be so far outside. Like I was less. It hurt. And I thought right then that I will remember this. If I ever meet a lost colonist of Canaan, I will never, ever make them feel less.
FROM THE LOG BOOK OF BECKETT RODRIGUEZ
Day 11, Year 2
The Lost Canaan Project
She looks small up there, the pale cloth of her clothes clinging tight to her body, almost glowing in the shadows, framed by more hair on one head than I’ve ever seen. I think she’s going to fall, but she doesn’t. Or not exactly. She rides the bounce of the branch and goes flying, and is pretty graceful about it, until her back hits the water with a smack. I wince, and I’m ready to laugh, until Jill snickers. Which is nothing like my laugh was going to be. I turn in the water.
“What is your problem?”
I see her eyes narrow, but I’m not over being mad at her. Not even close. What was she trying to do back there, asking all those questions about Samara’s training? Like she was trying to prove something. I’ve never seen her act like this. Jill is serious, driven, goal-oriented, but she’s always been … nice. Hasn’t she? Then again, how many people have we been around? The crew, my parents, Vesta, who’s pretty sure her daughter lit the moon. What I’ve never seen, I realize, is Jill not getting what Jill wants. It may be a new experience for her.
She may have to get used to it.
Samara breaks the surface, and I ask, “How was that?”
“Exactly like you’d think,” she replies. And she’s smiling. A real one. Almost laughing.
That’s it. I’m going up. I swim for the root tangle, get onto the slick wood and climb, aiming for the root Samara used. It feels flimsy when I get there, insubstantial, with a long, dark fall that has stretched even longer somehow now that I’m looking down. I’m not sure how Samara even stood up here.
“You have to push down and ride the bounce,” Samara calls out. “And don’t go in on your back!”
I grin down at her. “Understood.”
This is way scarier than I thought it would be. Especially in the shadows and the dark. But I want it. I want everything this planet has to offer. I take a breath, push down on the root, and the thing flings me like I wouldn’t have believed. I soar like a bird, for maybe three seconds, and I don’t go in on my back. I go in flat on my chest.
I come up, skin on fire, and Samara says, “How was that?”
“Exactly like you’d think,” I say, and she really is laughing now. So am I.
We do it three more times, and by the last one, Samara manages an actual dive. I do not. Not even close. But every time I came up from the clear water, some new part of me stinging, I got to look at what lives beneath that smooth facade on Samara’s face. I’d have done it another eighty times if my body could take it.
I asked Jill if she wanted to try, but she only shook her head, that line between her eyes, mouth shut tight. Except for the last time Samara was making her climb, when Jill swam close to me and said, almost sweet, “Beckett, you don’t think you could be having an issue with objectivity, do you?”
I didn’t answer her. I didn’t even look at her. Because Jill knows how to aim where it hurts. She knows I care about this, and that I want to do it right. She knows that objective observation is a basic of the job.
Be that way, then, Jill.