“Only what I have to, Beck.”
And that sounds exactly like me, which is one of the scariest things I’ve ever heard Dad say.
“But you’ve got to be careful,” he goes on. “We’re not sure what these people are capable of, and I’m worried about what happened to the II … ”
I think of those words I saw in Samara’s book. “The cultural history here is that Earth is the enemy,” I tell him. “That we’re violent, destructive liars who come to ruin and enslave.”
“Well, they’re not wrong on that one, are they?” Dad replies.
“The new city was built as a refuge from Earth. That’s why they left the original colony. And it’s beautiful, Dad. But”—Samara glides inside the door just then, moving like water over a fall—“not exactly what you’d expect. They—”
Mom’s voice jumps out from the background. “They’re coming.”
“When will I see you … ”
I hear scratchy bumping as Mom takes the headset. “Get out of there, Beck,” she says, “and be smart. Yuàn dé yī rén xīn, bái shǒu bù xiāng lí.”
“ài, Mom.”
“We’ll make it right.” This is Dad talking. “I swear it. And … you’re … you’re the best. I … ”
And I hear a muffled shout, cut off by a spike of static. The channel goes silent.
I feel sick. I don’t know what just happened. If Mom and Dad are okay or not, or what I should do about it. Dad said Faye would get the city’s location out of me if I came back to the ship, so what if she just found out I’ve been talking to Dad? To Mom? What if she thought they had the information? I’m sicker. And what about New Canaan? If we’ve really come here to take them away, destroy their culture, breed them, and use their DNA like lab rats, then they ought to be warned, no matter how messed up they are. But the Commander—and maybe even Dad, just a little bit—thinks they’re dealing with people less advanced and therefore less smart than themselves. But where, then, is the Centauri II? If I told the people of Canaan that their enemy had landed, what would they do?
This whole thing is going to turn into a war.
“Command,” I whisper. “Close communication channels and revert to settings as of two hours ago.”
Channel closed and settings reverted.
I feel Samara’s hand on my shoulder and then in my hair. “Was that your parents you were talking to?”
I nod, still staring at the lit screen.
“Were they on your ship?”
I nod again. She sits down in the chair beside me. “And you were talking to each other … through the air?”
“Yes.”
“And was your mother speaking another language? Like when you said, yīkuài bù?”
This gets a smile from me. Sometimes I forget that nothing ever leaves this girl’s head. “That’s right.”
“What did she say?”
“Something like, ‘catch one’s heart, never apart.’ It’s a proverb. The person you love carries your love around inside them, so you’re never really apart. She used to say it to me every day, before I went to school … ”
“And what did you say back to her?”
“ài means ‘love.’ Just … ‘love.’ ” I look at the floor again. I wish I could cache like Samara. Take the sound of that cut-off shout and send it to a place where I don’t have to think about it anymore. I wish I didn’t have to leave her down here. I’m not sure I can. I wish I hadn’t come here on a ship meant to wreck her whole world. Samara reaches up and smooths back my hair again, one long stroke. It makes me sigh.
Then she says, “It’s time.”
I know it. “What did you find in the books?”
“I was going fast, so I still have to read them.”
“You did them all?”
“I skipped laws and edicts.”
I would have, too. “I don’t want you to stay here.” There. I said it.
“Beck, my parents think I’m dead. We agreed—”
“I know what we agreed.”
“It will take some time to read the books. I don’t Know what I’ve found, or how long it may take to work. I have to be at the Changing of the Seasons … in case it … ”
In case we haven’t found anything at all, like with the injections.
“Come back Outside.”
She waits until I lift my head, looks me right in the face with her painted eyes and says, “What would you do to save your parents?”
And that is such an unfair question. Because the answer is anything, of course. It’s what I want to be doing right now. I sit forward and take her hands. The palms still have a wide, shiny scar.
“So be at your Changing of the Seasons. Make your parents look good in front of the Council. But why do you have to stay until Judgment? Tell them you’re going back into seclusion. Like you did before. Come Outside so we can figure out the Forgetting together.” Come and be with me, before you Forget me, I think. I watch her hesitate.
“I could do that … ” she says slowly. I squeeze her hands. “But if we don’t find anything, I’d have to go back for Judgment, and for—”
“I know.” Only not. I’m not sending her back Underneath to be killed. I’ll tie her up and put her under Annis’s resting room floor before I do. Or maybe there will be a war before then and I won’t have to. “I’m uploading the data files from all this into the glasses right now,” I tell her. “Between that and the books, we’re bound to find something.”
She smiles, and I realize it’s been a long while since I’ve seen Samara with her mask on. Not with me. I imagine watching that cool, smooth surface snap back into place as soon as she hears about Earth. The idea hurts.
We leave the room exactly the way we found it, except for a huge chunk of information inside Samara’s head and a gargantuan amount inside the glasses. I keep watch while she locks the doors, and touch one or two spines as we make our way up the winding balcony past the books. If things had gone like they were supposed to, if we’d made contact like we should have, if our mission hadn’t been a fraud, then I might’ve spent my life in here, in this city, discovering the history of Canaan. But maybe then I wouldn’t have met Samara. Or not like this.
We make the kitchen-level stairs without trouble, then up into the storage room with the shaft, where Samara will rewind the suture that’s still strung across the door. When I’m gone. The room is cold and dark. Like space.
“I’ll come at resting,” she says, “as soon as I can after the Changing of the Seasons. But if I can’t get out this way, then it will be the next waking, through the upland parks, like we came before. It may take me some time.”
I can see Samara standing in front of me with the night vision, beautiful in shades of gray and green.
“Sam … ” I say it fast, before I decide not to. “Dad told me some things about Earth and the ship, things I didn’t know. We’re not here to study. I mean, I was, and Mom and Dad were, but … Dad is trying to fix it. Before New Canaan has to find out, before it comes to a fight and people get killed. I don’t know what to do.”