“We were born this way, Earthling. But if our truth is Forgotten, then maybe our Knowing can be put to better use.”
I slip on the glasses to watch him go. Even if he really thinks he was born this way, it’s just not true. And I’m cold inside. Not because of the Forgetting in my hand or because of what Reddix wants me to do. Because I’m thinking again about what Earth, someone like Commander Faye, would do if they had access to something that would give their soldiers the minds of the Knowing. Their generals, their engineers, doctors, physicists. They would want it. Badly. And after what I’ve seen here, I wouldn’t give it to us if we were a race of saints.
I look back over the dark plain, deeper shades where I know there are canyons and rivers and cracks, and into the distance, where the Centauri III is. And a yellow light blinks, bright. I zoom the lenses, and there’s another bright light, closer in the glasses, coming just as a rumble rolls through the air and beneath my feet. Another roll comes, and if I squint I can make out a plume of white smoke. Something just exploded. Big.
And all I can think is: Dad.
To be immune to the Forgetting is a privilege given to few. But like all privileges, it comes with a cost. Always to remember, yet cursed to die …
FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF JANIS ATAN
I’m hearing voices in my mind. Echoing through the different rooms. Vague. Indistinct. I don’t Know what they mean. Sometimes I chase the voices down halls. But they’re always gone when I get there. It’s strange to not Know how long I’ve been dead.
My control is so good I can choose any room I want now, or shut the door if I need to, follow the tugging strings of thought to see what they show me. But so many of these memories are faded, stale, a song heard again and again. I can’t say anything I didn’t say. Do anything I didn’t already do.
I wish I could dream.
I feel a tug in my mind, the tightening of a string. I’ve been ignoring this memory, choosing others that seem more interesting, but the pull has become insistent, and my list of new rooms is short. So I follow the pull of my memory and open the door into Uncle Towlend’s office.
And now there is yellow light, stacked books, and bits of paper, and I am curled in a soft chair that is huge compared to my small body, shoes tucked up under my dress. I have three scars, and I feel safe, secure. I am not Knowing yet. Uncle Towlend looks whole, because Aunt Letitia hasn’t gone, and he’s making meticulous stitches, sewing a book’s torn page.
And then I see that the book my uncle is repairing is the map book, the first time I ever saw it, and Uncle Towlend is telling me about the papers he found inside. Loose, from another book, tucked into a sort of niche in the cover. Uncle Towlend lifts the needle, stretching a thread that is the width of a hair, and because he had glanced at the loose pages, he recites their words for me.
“ ‘… and test subject number one hundred two, Nadia, Dyer’s daughter, is found to be naturally immune, only the second known case. Exposure was ten times average predicted dose for the Forgetting. Memories intact, severely ill … ’ ”
Nadia, I think now, with my grown mind, the sister of Genivee Archiva, who went out of bounds, like me, who made the maps. My uncle must have been lonely in his office, I think, to recite these things to a three-year-old. They were hardly appropriate subject matter. Maybe I’d been lonely, too, since I am sitting so still, listening.
“ ‘… heavier exposure is expected to be fatal. However, subject proved more tolerant than those with forced immunity, where exposure is fatal at half the predicted dose in one hundred percent of subjects tried … ’ ”
And suddenly I am yanked upward, flying through the walls and ceilings of my mind. I lose the string of memory I’ve been holding. Lose my control. And then I have fingers, legs, muscles that are stiff, aching. I have a body, and my body is a cage. I want to turn on my side. I want to see. Speak. But I can’t. I can only hear and feel, sheets below my fingers, the give of a mattress as someone sits next to me. The cloth of a sleeve brushing my arm. Breath near my ear.
“Samara,” a voice whispers.
It’s Reddix Physicianson. I can’t see him, but I Know his voice. I feel one finger trailing the length of my arm, and my mind shudders.
“Samara,” he whispers, “can you hear me yet? I’ve adjusted your medication, to ease you awake. But you must be still. Don’t let the others Know … ”
The finger strokes past my row of scars and into my hair. My medication, he said. A sleeping draught. I’m not dead. And that means Judgment is still on its way, and I’m trapped. And afraid.
“Your lover is coming,” he says. “He’s gotten thinner, and his eyes are shaded. He isn’t used to our long dark, is he? But I don’t think that’s what ails him … ”
Beckett. He’s talking about Beckett. Reddix twines his fingers through my hair, picking it up and letting it fall.
“It is fifty-four days since he’s seen you.”
Fifty-four days?
“That is what ails him. And because he is afraid you will die in Judgment Underneath. I Know his pain. And so he will come, and he will throw the Forgetting into the Forum, to save you, to help you Forget, and then he will Forget you, too. And Earth and the Knowing alike.”
No, he shouldn’t do that. I Know how to stop being Knowing. We don’t have to Forget … The back of a hand brushes across my cheek, slowly. Reddix is making a memory. Of touching me. I want to scream.
“You couldn’t help it, could you?” he whispers. “When your love came? I couldn’t help it, either, and you never saw me. Not really. I went everywhere you did. To touch the rope in the parks, where you had been swinging. To the Archives, and your uncle’s old office, to sit in the chairs where you once sat. Only I never went Outside, not like you did. I was never brave enough for that. But I kept your secrets. So much time erased from the cameras, and they never realized what I’d done. But it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t keep you from being caught. Not every time … ”
He pauses, his hand lingering on my neck. “You can hear me now, can’t you? Your pulse is faster, and your breathing … ” His fingers start their slow strokes back into my hair.
“But I still could have saved you from Judgment. A partner would have made you useful. Would have meant the line of Lian Archiva was not over. So she let me have you. I Knew you didn’t want it. I Knew you would look at me with disgust every day after, but I would’ve done it, because it would have kept you alive. And then you ran … ”