“Beck,” says Samara. “Quick. Before somebody comes back.”
We go back to work. I get the blood off my hands and clean up Michael, wrapping another sanitized cloth over the wound, just in case, scooping him up and getting him warm inside the blankets. Jill must have left at some point, because the resting room door is shut again. Samara makes a bundle of all the used cloth, including the appendix and the piece she had pinned over her clothes, and throws it all into the heating fire. Whatever is in that antiseptic makes the whole thing go up in a blaze.
I move to help her and she says, “No, stay with him. Watch his breathing until he wakes up.”
So I monitor while Sam carries everything to the sink, scrubbing tools and herself until the water is gone, and before I know it the lamps are back in place, the kit is stowed away, the doors unlocked, and the room looks innocent. Like we’ve haven’t just cut somebody open.
Then Samara is on the bench beside me, with two mugs of tea. She holds one out and I take it. She’s being funny with me, keeping her gaze on the floor or lamp flame, but she can’t stop smiling, even when she blows across the hot mug. It’s a pretty thing to see.
“So why don’t you need to eat?” I ask her. “Or sleep? Much?”
She lifts a shoulder. “It’s part of being one of the Knowing. We heal fast, too.”
“But the Outsiders don’t?”
She shakes her head, getting down on the floor beside Michael like she wants to change the subject. He’s deeply asleep. “Is Jillian angry?”
“Disappointed is probably closer.”
She sips her tea and asks, “What would happen if … the others, on your ship, found out that you’ve shown me your technology?”
I try to think how to explain. “If the Commander finds out”—which I’m 100 percent sure she has—“then it’ll be bad if I go back. But … I don’t really plan on going back to the ship. Not to live. Mom, Dad, and I … we planned on staying here.”
“Would Jillian tell them what you’ve done?”
“I don’t think so. I’m just not turning out to be what she had in mind, that’s all.”
“I’ve never been what my mother had in mind,” Sam says. “My parents preferred my brother.”
She touches Michael’s forehead, on the side away from the heat, and I see the shadow of a memory tempt her. I have thoughts about her parents, now that I’ve read her book, especially the mother. But I’m not going to ruin the mood. Then I realize what she’s doing with Michael. “Can you feel his temperature? With your fingers?”
“Yes.” She smiles again. “He’s already dropped a degree. A little more.”
I didn’t think to tell her that the infuser would take care of that. I tilt my head. “What’s the temperature of this room?”
She closes her eyes and says, “Eighteen Celsius, where we are.”
I check the glasses. She’s right on. “How far is it to the ceiling?”
Her brows go up the tiniest bit, but she runs her eye up a wall and says, “Two-point-four meters.”
Again, she’s correct. To the decimal. And she just saved a little boy’s life with what was in her mind. “Sam, are you sure you want to Forget? Everything?”
The facade comes down over her face. I hate it. But we need to talk about it.
“I can’t pick and choose.” She stares at the rise and fall of Michael’s chest. “And … I can relearn. Can’t I?”
I don’t think she has any idea how long it takes for most people to learn.
She doesn’t look at me when she asks, “You said it was against your rules, but do you think Earth would ever … share, what could be used for healing? If the Outsiders had technology, they might not need my Knowing.”
“If it were up to me, we would. But even so, technology is no good unless someone knows how to apply it. The scalpel didn’t take out his appendix. It just helped.” I set down the mug, thinking. “How long do the Knowing live?”
“If they don’t … If they die naturally, then maybe about a hundred and forty?”
I have to stare at her for a full minute. “You have got to be kidding me. Is it the same for the Outside?”
“A little less, I think.”
“How old is Cyrus?”
“One hundred and eight.”
“What? Are you sure?”
Now both her brows are up. As if she could be unsure. “How long do people live on Earth?”
“Eighty-five or ninety. Maybe a hundred. Something like that.”
“Is something wrong with them?”
“No. Well, yes, a lot of things, but age isn’t one of them. That’s a normal human life span, Sam. And it proves my point.”
“What point?”
“That none of this is genetic.”
“What do you mean?”
She looks uncomfortable now. I can see her drawing in. I forge on. “I mean that all of you are descended from the first one hundred and fifty. You have their DNA. Earth DNA. And Knowing, Forgetting, none of that happens on Earth. Something is making you like this. Something here. On this planet.”
Sam puts her hand on Michael’s chest to feel his breathing. But she is listening.
“What if you didn’t have to Forget to break the power of the Council? To help the Knowing heal? You said they’d want to Forget. That they would choose losing their memories over jumping off cliffs. But what if they could get the same thing without losing themselves? What if you could show them how to not be Knowing at all?”
She gazes at me, but she doesn’t say anything.
“That would break your Council, wouldn’t it? And you could still be Samara Archiva, and go on healing Underneath and Outside alike, because there wouldn’t be any difference between the two. Not anymore.” I let her think about that. “You’re going Underneath soon, aren’t you?”
She looks at the floor.
“Are you going tonight? At resting?”
She blinks, and I lean forward.
“Take me with you. I can use the glasses. I’ll know where the people are. I can keep you from getting caught. And I can find out in less than a minute what’s inside those wellness injections.”
She lifts a hand to her upper arm, where her scars are. “But … they’re only vitamins … ”
“Vitamin injections you get every year, that leave a scar?”
She drops her hand.
“Samara, something is doing this to you. Let’s go down there together and we’ll use the technology, just like with Michael. Take me with you, and I swear I’ll help you get what you need.”
Samara’s eyes lower, and then they close, and for a moment, she’s gone. But she comes right back, and when she does, the facade is down. She jumps to her feet, and looks at me. And she only says one word.
“No.”
And where shall we, the chosen of the NWSE, find our judge? From the knowledge that is deepest and the memory that is longest, for it is from knowledge and memory that wisdom is derived. And so I, the first of memory, shall be our first judge, and continue to choose our chosen, that we may fulfill our directive, and build the Superior Earth …
FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF JANIS ATAN