“Wait,” I say. And I am such an idiot. I don’t have anything that she needs to wait on. I don’t have anything to say. I just don’t want her to leave, because I’m afraid she’ll turn around and stop talking to me again. Her eyes run down me in a way that makes me shiver.
“I’ll find you some sandals,” she says.
And then I have the whole rest of the morning to consider what a fool I am. When did I get so far gone?
We eat a midday meal together, all of us, like the day before; and like the day before, Jill offers to watch the children. Nathan can’t take his eyes off her, and she’s not exactly discouraging him. I’m doing the washing up when she sees him to the door, off to the metal shop, laughing at the last thing he said.
She brings two more plates from the table, still smiling. If her hair wasn’t so short, she’d look very Canaan.
“What are you doing with him, Jill?”
She looks around. “I suppose you mean Nathan. But other than that, no idea what you mean.”
“You’re being very friendly.”
I wince as soon as I say it, the comparison to my own activities so obvious she doesn’t even go there. “You’re not the only boy in the galaxy anymore, Beckett. I suppose you could pull rank and order me not to be friendly, but that doesn’t seem like good policy for the later phases of contact. We’re here to establish relationship with a new culture.”
I sigh. “I don’t want to fight.”
“You sounded like you wanted to fight.”
That could be true. I lower my voice. “I’m going down into the city before the resting bell. To see what I can find out about the power source and communications. I should be back before everybody gets up.”
“And the exit plan?”
“We’ll talk about it after I’ve got more information. But I don’t think we’re getting there in the dark. Not on foot.”
I hear her muttering.
“Jill.” I lower my voice more, beneath the clink of stacking plates. “On the ship, before we landed, or at base camp, was there anything you noticed about the crew or the different teams that was … off?”
“What are you talking about?” Now she’s whispering, too.
“I mean, if you saw anything, heard anything, that didn’t make sense, you would’ve told me, right?”
“I guess so.”
“Why did you think we’d be going right back to Earth? When we first found the city?”
And she says, “I didn’t think that. I didn’t mean it that way. I knew we’d be here for a while. I think you misunderstood.”
So which is it, Jill? The whole thing just gives me a bad feeling in my gut.
The greatest gift given to the worthy is knowledge, knowledge that is derived from memory. It is memory that sets apart the chosen, and must be for the wisdom of the judge to decide. For only the most worthy, the best of the best, will create the perfect society and build the Superior Earth. Without memories, they are nothing …
FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF JANIS ATAN
It’s Nita pulling at the edges of my mind as I slip into the dark resting room to get Beckett. I spent two and a half bells caching, preparing to go back Underneath, and for the moment, I’m in control. But I Know why she’s here. Fear. I’m afraid of going home. I’m afraid of Beckett being caught. And fear can take a memory that’s whispering and turn it into a scream. I walk to the bed that used to be Nita’s.
Beckett is on his back, sleeping heavily, an arm behind his head, the undyed shirt gaping open at the collar because it’s a little too tight. His skin is like sun shining through the potter’s sand, a golden brown, a tiny nick from shaving not quite healed on his chin. I close my eyes, and feel him kiss me again.
This might be bordering on addiction.
Then I go to the cracks in the floor planks, straight to where Annis put her fingers when we were escaping the supervisors, lift the planks away and there is the hole, cold and empty. I put my book inside and fold the purple scarf Nita wrapped around my hair the day she died, carefully laying it on top. I’ll leave the scarf for Annis, to trade with, since I used so much of her scrap cloth. Some of the vendors in the Bartering Square ask fewer questions than my patients. I lower the planks back into place, go to the edge of the bed, and sit on it.
“Beck.”
His eyes snap open like I’ve yelled. “Is it time?” His voice is rough with sleep.
“Yes, it’s time.”
We don’t talk while he wakes up, getting the glasses tied to his shirt lace, where he can hang them beneath, sliding on Grandpapa’s sandals. When he’s ready, we slip out of the resting room. Jillian and Nathan are frying bread in a pan on the burner, jars of sweetened fruits warm in the lamplight, and if they see us go, they don’t say anything. We steal through the workshop, the top of Grandpapa’s head in a plume of steam and heat, and then we’re standing in the street. There’s no more red in the sky, and it’s not time for the moons. The darkness is going to help us. I pull up my hood, and Beckett does the same.
“Don’t talk if someone is close,” I whisper.
He nods, face obscured inside the hood, following me down the dimmer edges of the streets, away from the lights, hanging from crossbars at the corners. Beckett doesn’t make any noise, but I might as well have put him on a platform and told him to sing. If he isn’t staring up at the ring of mountains, shining in the dark with the strings of the glowworms, he’s slowing to watch the smiths, or the brewers, or a man pulling a cart. He can’t look fast enough, and it reminds me of me, the first time I came open air. Maybe the Outside is just as different from Earth as it is from the Underneath.
But now that my eyes are more open, and after talking to Grandpapa, I can see why I’ve been getting safely back and forth Outside. Our way is being smoothed for us. I Know where the supervisors are supposed to be, though there’s always a chance that one won’t go where they should, and for that reason, I think, the blond young man who was playing toss stones is on the lookout a little way ahead. And there’s a girl hanging behind, hardly more than a child, who’s made every turn that we have. And there is a woman, her undyed dress cinched with a braided belt, keeping step with us on the other side of the street. Has this been happening every time I come Outside? I was almost always with Nita, and never thought to look.
I see the woman with the braided belt pause, and then I realize that Beckett is not beside me. The beat inside my chest doubles, and I turn, but he’s only a few meters back, standing stock-still in front of the loom house, a few heads turning to look at him as they pass. I hurry back, threading through the people going the opposite direction, confusing our escort, and grab his hand, trying to pull him away. But he whispers, “Wait. Please.”