“That might be up to her.”
“She seems to be having a fine time with my grandson.”
“She’s amusing herself.”
The old man’s face wrinkles. “And why, young man, do you think your friend is amusing herself with Nathan?”
The answer is so easy I’m sorry he had to point it out. So I’ll notice, that’s why. “Jill is clear on how things are,” I say. “But okay. I’ll talk to her.”
Cyrus nods again. He’s taking longer to tie a shoelace than any man in history. “See, the thing is,” he says, “that little girl is special. And I don’t mean because she’s Knowing. I mean, in spite of being Knowing.”
I know.
“It’s not easy to be brought up the way she has, and see things the way she does … ”
“She had Nita,” I say.
“That’s so.” He fiddles with the lace. “And that little girl has suffered—maybe no more than the rest of them, I don’t know—but she’s suffered all the same, and is likely to suffer a good deal more. The way things are, it’s not good for any of us, Outside or Underneath.”
Cyrus stops talking, and it’s like he left off a sentence. Then he says, “It would be good to know where you stand.”
I don’t know what he means. I’m standing wherever Sam is. “Cyrus,” I lower my voice. “What is it like to Forget?”
He gives up on pretending to tie the sandal. “She told you that, did she?” He shakes his head. “When you Forget, there’s a big part of you that’s … just not you anymore. And you can’t get it back.”
I tent my fingers over my nose. I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t even know what I want to happen. Except that I want her back. Right now. Out of the dark with its poisons and lies and peeping eyes. And Cyrus will be on a slave ship to Earth over my dead body.
I grab my pack from under the bed. “I have to go.”
“Suit yourself,” says Cyrus. “You said you like glass?”
I look back from the doorway, letting the hood fall back down on my shoulders.
“When things settle, young man, maybe you’d like to learn.”
I feel myself smile. “That’d be good.”
I use the workshop door, to avoid drawing Jill’s attention, and then I’m in the streets. The blond man leaves off playing his game, and walks to one side of me. Like he did when Sam and I went Underneath. In less than a minute I’ve walked into the path of a supervisor. It’s the big one, the one who was outside the ruined building in Canaan, right before I blew up the door. And the blond man calls out, gets his attention, pointing back down the street while I change course. I pass the last of the houses, the land rising up to meet the mountain slopes, slip on the glasses, and hurry up one of the gated paths that divide the terraced fields.
I know I’m being reckless, and that I would’ve never gotten away with this in the sun. I’m not sure I’ll get away with it in the dark. I’ve got an alarm set, but my charge is just under 50 percent. It’s a long hike up to the cliffs, around dark, barren groves and up again through thick brush, glowing with luminescent threads. But I make it a lot faster not carrying Jill on my back.
Getting down the cliff is easy with the gear, and when I look back the way I came I realize I’m going to have to climb that rope again, by hand, so I can send the gear down to pull Samara up. Worth it. And then I run my eyes over the upland parks.
It’s dark, hardly any glowworms and just a smattering of stars, a halo behind the mountain range that must mean the rising of the moons. I switch the glasses to heat and scan the clipped, open spaces, the tamed trees. And I find it, a figure standing still on the far side of the park, at the cliff edge, where I saw the skimmer.
I’m relieved that she’s there, more than relieved, and a little irritated that she’s not running toward my rope at full speed. I start across the parks at a jog. But the closer I get to the figure on the cliff, the more I slow down, and it’s not from all the exercise. I change the glasses to night vision with a glance.
That is not Samara. But it is one of the Knowing. A man, in a sleeveless tunic of silver-gray, with ten scars on his left arm, probably close to the same number on his right. I step sideways in the shade of a well-spaced grove, making a wide, silent circle until I can see his profile. And it’s him, from the cave. The one who called me Earth. Reddix.
Leaves move above me, fluttering in the breeze, and suddenly he says, “Is that you, Earthling?”
I go still. I don’t even twitch. He turns his head.
“I Know you’re there. A wind of this speed makes a certain sound in that grove, and you are a new object that has altered its pitch.” He looks back out over the cliffs. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Why?”
“To discuss our options.”
I don’t like this. Not at all.
Then he says, “She is not coming.”
The piece of my gut that twisted earlier tightens. “Explain.”
“She has been condemned. She was taken before the Changing of the Seasons, and will be kept asleep, where she can do no harm, until Judgment. Then she will stand before the Knowing, and they will kill her.”
I stand so tense I can feel the pain of it in my head. “Is that so?” I say it through my teeth. I’ve already thought of ten different ways to blow up his mountain.
“You can’t get to her. She is deep, and drugged, and would have to be carried. They are on watch, and are not without weapons. It would take an army to bring her open air. Do you have one of those at your disposal, Earthling?”
I’m so mad right now I’m shaking. Or maybe that’s fear.
“Or perhaps you are a renegade, out on your own?”
I don’t say anything, and he’s still staring at the dark. I don’t think he wants to look at me.
“Samara is being condemned for stealing Knowing, writing Knowing, and her dealings with the rebels Outside,” he says calmly. “Can you imagine if they had been aware her betrayal extended all the way to Earth?” He does glance once at me now. “Maybe you are not aware that one of Samara’s fondest wishes is to remove the Knowing from power.”
I’d like to know why he thinks he Knows anything about Sam’s fondest wishes.
“I wonder if you might be willing to help make that happen.”
I glance at the corner of the lenses and set a new perimeter alarm without really taking my eyes off him. “You want to take down your Council?”
“Not just the Council. All of them. If it can be done.”
“And why would you want that?”
“Because we are a useless, selfish, and poisonous race, or haven’t you noticed? And because doing so may save her.” He turns his head to me again. “What would you risk to save her?”
Anything. Everything. “Are you trying to bargain with me?”
“No. I’m suggesting a partnership of … mutual interest.” He pauses. “I suppose you love her.”
I take three long breaths. “Why do you say that?”