The image is like a map now, but a map that is a picture, a picture that can be turned, manipulated, made big or small.
“Look, Sam,” Beckett says. I slide the chair closer. He’s moving his fingers, stretching and changing the image. “Here’s Old Canaan, and the mountain ring, and if you go just a few kilometers this way”—he makes the picture of land zoom by, like someone running at an impossible speed—“there’s a valley, just here, and that’s where the Centauri III landed.” He stops. “Base camp got set up right there … ”
I stare at the map. “I don’t see anything.”
“I know. That’s the point. This scan was taken on the same day as that documentation of Jill and me. The ship was there, and believe me, you can’t miss it.”
“But … ”
“It means that the Centauri III is hiding, mirroring the topography for the scans when they’re actually sitting just below it. And see, here’s the thing, when we first got here and scanned the planet, the Centauri couldn’t see either one of your cities. I think they still can’t. Because your Council is hiding your cities, too, and they’re using the exact same trick … ”
He goes on, showing me something about perimeter scans, but my attention has been caught by the frame of light that Beckett left. The image has reverted back to the symbols I saw before, one of them a small yellow square with the letters “NWSE” entwined in the center. The same “NWSE” that are all over my mother’s bedchamber walls. On her necklace. I lift a finger, like Beckett did, and touch the square. An image leaps into being before my eyes, and I stare at it, mesmerized.
And now I understand why I dreamed Beckett Rodriguez.
I slide the chair down the table to Samara and stare at the screen.
“Dad,” I whisper. He’s so young, a little younger than I am now. But he does look like me. A lot.
“It wasn’t a dream,” Sam says. “It was a memory … ”
The idea of my dad being in Samara Archiva’s memory for the past eighteen years is hard to wrap my head around. I touch the screen and start the visual.
“Greetings from the newly re-formed organization of NWSE, New World Space Exploration! If you are the lost colonists of the Canaan Project, then this message is for you … ”
Oh. You have got to be kidding me.
“The new NWSE wants you to know that you are not forgotten.”
Someone’s giggling in the background. Please let it not be my mother.
“Funding is currently being sought to send a rescue mission to your planet … ”
And I’m pretty sure that’s Granny’s cellar Dad is standing in. He leans into the camera, face serious.
“You are not alone in the galaxy. Your former home of Earth still exists. You still have friends … ”
Dad’s eyes are moving. Is he reading this speech off a prompter? Or has he actually written it out on a card?
“We of NWSE look forward to extending the hand of friendship on your own intergalactic soil.”
The screen freezes at the end, and I sit back, a little stunned. “Intergalactic soil”? I’m not sure that even makes sense. I knew Dad did stuff like this, sending out those messages with his friends, but who knew he used to be a way bigger idiot than me? The Knowing must think Earth has de-evolved or something. Thanks for that, Dad.
And then I really miss him.
When I look to see what Samara thought of Dad, she’s not there. She’s gone away. Into her mind. She doesn’t look like she’s going to scream this time, so I wait until her eyes open. “What did you see?”
“The memory of you … or, I mean, him … ” She glances up at Dad. “But the first few months of life are so confused. A lot of it seems like a dream anyway. But Mother couldn’t have been the one holding me in here, could she? Mother isn’t Council. Uncle Towlend was, though, so maybe it was Aunt Letitia?”
I can’t answer any better than she can. Her amber eyes roam the room and then land on mine. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that. She says, “We’re running out of time.”
I know. We’re here to find the Forgetting and I’ve been distracted. I haven’t been that sorry to be distracted. But the Centauri II’s tech being hidden away in this room—in a culture that thinks tech is dangerous, evil—that just doesn’t fit. If the Council has been getting communications from Earth, they could’ve Known we were coming. Both times. They could’ve seen the Centauri II land. But what did they do with the crew? And what does Commander Faye know about it, since she chose to land by stealth?
“Sam.” She looks up. “That … Reddix. Who was in the cave. Is he Council?”
“No. But his father is. Why?”
Because Knowing face or not, if that guy was surprised by the tech he saw, then he’s the best actor I’ve ever seen. If his father is Council, I guess that could explain it. He knew I was from Earth, but that visual of Jill and me was marked “Unknown.” It doesn’t seem like he’s said anything about Earth being here to the Council, and that doesn’t make sense, either. Unless it was for her. Because he’s supposed to be her partner. I think I hate him.
Sam is watching me think. Sam, who can’t stop being Knowing, who has to find out how to Forget and remove this Council. They’ll kill her first if she doesn’t. Sam, who won’t remember any of this, or me, if we do this right. But at least she will be at peace when this is over. No Adam, or Nita, or all the other hundreds of thousands of pricks and pains she can finally lay aside.
I’ll give her that if it kills me.
“Sam, I’m thinking you go through the books. See what you can find on the Forgetting, or anything else. For as long as we have. I need to dig out the information I can from the tech.”
She nods, and she’s not smiling. I wonder how much she just saw on my face. “I won’t read now, so I’ll get through them fast.”
“What do you mean, you won’t read?”
She cocks her head. “I mean I’ll look at the pages and read them later in my mind.”
Right.
She cracks the book in her lap, and her face goes serene, focused. She turns the page, and the next, and another, and another. Like a human data file. Store it and look at it later. I go back to the screen from the first Centauri, my father’s face in the middle of it. For just a second, I thought it was me. And then I know what I’m going to do.
I go quick to the glasses, connect to the surrounding systems, and scan for files that will upload. And it’s all of them. None of the stored data is protected. And why should it be, when this is supposed to be the only tech on the planet?
I start the process. It’s going to be an enormous upload, and really dig into the charge I have left. I’ll have to be careful with the charge. We could’ve never gotten through the city without the glasses. But like Sam, I can look at them later, when we’re not risking our skins, and use this window of time for something else. I slide back to the computer that has the perimeter set.
“Command,” I say to the screen. A blue circle jumps into being in the lower right corner. “What is the lowest transmission frequency?”