I stare down at the blood pooling from my knee and onto the floor. Not Earth. The Outside. But what weapon, what rebels Outside? And my memory jumps, leaps, and Annis is opening the floor planks, Nita showing me the shaft in the deserted kitchens, Grandpapa’s voice, when you come back to us, things may be different …
They didn’t need me to Forget or stop Knowing to make them rebel. They’re rebelling anyway. Right now. I hear Reddix, in my memory, in the cave. They are coming for you. Is this what he meant? Reddix is Knowing, so I can’t read his expression. He just stands quietly beside my father, who has his back to these proceedings, his ropes of hair twisted with glinting gold. And the world wavers like I’m seeing it through flame.
“Judgment is not given lightly Underneath,” my mother is saying. “The Knowing are special, and the Noble Wardens do not lessen the numbers without consideration … ”
“We,” I say, and my voice isn’t steady, “are not special.”
“Oh, but we are. We were brought to this planet to build the perfect society, and now that Earth has come, we sit on the brink of our final destiny. The Knowing are the builders of the Superior Earth, each with more Knowing in their fields than any humans before. And we will use that Knowing to fulfill the original directive. To re-create, to transform, and to rule the Earth. What you see, Samara”—she extends a hand around the room—“is only a shadow of what the Knowing are capable of. Imagine what we could do with Earth’s technology.”
The world has taken up a slow spin, as if I am a planet and Mother is the sun.
“We are the best of the best, Samara. But we cannot fulfill our directive if the Knowing are not pure. The Knowing must be worthy to rule. And so the Noble Wardens wait, and we watch. We create situations, and evaluate the choices made. All that is required of any of the Knowing, daughter … ”
I raise my eyes again.
“… is to be worthy. You are not worthy. You have chosen differently, and therefore you are not chosen. And so, we say that you are condemned.”
“And what will … ” My words come slow, the sounds rolling aimlessly on my tongue. “What will the Council … think about that?”
“Oh, my darling. What have we to do with the Council?”
I meet my mother’s eyes, and I can feel myself sinking, down through my mind, her words chasing me slow, following me one by one through the dark.
“There … can be … no forgiveness … Underneath.”
I fall into blackness, a nothingness. And this time, there are no memories to catch me at the bottom.
I didn’t go back to the house. I decided to wait in the supply hut for Sam. All day—if “day” is the right word for the darkness—stretched out in the tight space behind the crates that Annis and Michael’s mother stacked. It was risky. And probably stupid. Twice I snuck out for water, and when I got too hungry I cracked the lid on a box marked “silvercurrants.” There were cloth bags of berries inside, and below a false bottom, knives. Lots of them. Not very well made, but sharp. I put the lid back, wondering; ate berries that were tart and a little dry; and spent the rest of the waking hours either napping or going through the Council’s tech files.
There was a lot of surveillance on Samara. Most of the saved data showed her in her bedroom with Nita. Nita telling Sam about the Outside, planning Sam’s trips aboveground, encouraging her to write in her book. They acted like sisters. For being young and a girl, Nita looked weirdly like her grandfather, the same bright blue eyes. I can see how Jillian might pass for a description of her, if you’d never seen her. Though that’s where the similarities stop.
But some of the data was just Sam alone, doing her hair. Writing. One where she’s crying, doubled over on the floor in a memory, then four or five glimpses of her changing clothes. I felt wrong watching some of that. And mad. This was private. And what sick person has been sitting on the other end of those screens, watching this?
Or maybe I’m just as sick, because when the footage came of Nita dying, I didn’t stop the visual. I didn’t really get what this poison does to you. The seizures are violent, and agonizing, and when I hear the crack of Nita’s arm, I feel it in my gut. How long did Sam say she listened to Adam’s bones breaking? Two bells? And nobody put a pillow over his face. I watch Nita go still, and Sam, with bleeding hands, cleaning up her own vomit with spare clothes, burning it all in the brazier heater in the corner. And the sick in my guts moves up to an ache in my chest.
Nita told her to go to the city and Forget. And I know that I will give Sam up, let her go, to let her Forget that.
She needs to get back aboveground. With me.
When the resting bell rings, I sit up behind the boxes, tense, listening for the first hint of Sam coming out of the shaft. I hear the gates close, the streets settling. The footsteps of supervisors. The door to the hut opens once, and I don’t move a muscle. But then it shuts again. I go through the official ship’s log of the Centauri II, which is just about as boring as a space-exploration log could possibly be. Until they land, and then there is only one more entry: Contact made. After that? Nothing.
I listen to the waking bells. Outsiders lighting fires, calling for their children to fetch water from the channels.
She doesn’t come.
I tell myself not to be an idiot. She said it could be later, and from the other way, through the parks. I tie the glasses to my shirt lace, drop them beneath the scratchy cloth. Resist a strong urge to climb down that shaft. Getting back to Annis’s house is downright dangerous without Sam’s Knowledge of the patrol routes, and I’m feeling stupid about my choices by the time I get there.
I find Jill faking some recovery time, Nathan running and fetching for her, and completely happy to do it. She gives him a big white smile, me a filthy look and zero opportunity to fill her in on what I found underground. I’m annoyed, and then I’m mad. What Mom told me about Vesta paired with Jillian’s comments here and there are making a picture I don’t like the look of. Nathan jumps up to get Jill another blanket, and I seek refuge in the other resting room, where Cyrus is tying one of Nathan’s sandals. I’m wearing his.
“Sorry,” I say, backing out, but the old man waves me in.
“Not to worry,” he says. “It’s a full house.” He cocks his head. “That bed’s free, if you need it.”
I decide I do. I stretch out and get an arm behind my head. A month ago, I wouldn’t have thought a grass-filled mattress could feel this good.
“You alone?” Cyrus asks.
My gut twists once. He means Samara. “Yes, but she’ll be back before resting.”
“Oh? I thought she was staying Underneath.”
“She changed her mind.”
“So tell me. What do you think of her?”
I lift my head to look at the old man, who is still knotting the sandal lace. “What’s the real question?”
Cyrus nods. “Fair answer. But, young man, somebody ought to tell you that you’ve got lip paint all over your face.”
I sit up, hand to my cheek, Jill’s filthy look explained. Great. A cloth comes sailing at my head, and I start scrubbing.
“You planning on being here awhile?” Cyrus asks.
That’s a hard one. “I hope so.”
“And your friend?”