He leans back on the bench and says, “Tell me about money.”
I sigh. This is all part of Cyrus’s plan, started after Sam was gone, when Annis switched our rooms, putting me in with Cyrus and herself with Jill. To keep an eye on us, probably. It wasn’t a bad change. But I’m at my worst during resting, stewing and steaming, so Cyrus started telling me everything he knew about the history of Canaan, Old and New. Stories, songs, anything he could think of, stretched out on his bed, talking to the ceiling. I documented a lot of it, and I looked forward to showing it to Mom and Dad. If I knew they were alive.
Now Cyrus has moved on to making me explain the ways of Earth, and so he says, “Come on. Tell me about money.”
I rub my temples. “It’s something we give a value to … metals, and later a paper representation, but you use it to trade for what you want or a service that you need. It’s like deciding that a pane of glass is worth ten. So if you make a pane of glass, the person who wants it gives you ten, and then you can trade that for food that’s worth ten. Or whatever else you want. If you need more than ten, you make more glass that other people will give you more money for, and then you can trade for more.”
Cyrus cocks his head, thinking. “So what you’re saying is that everyone on Earth is just good at pretending.”
I laugh, which is some kind of miracle, and he elbows me once to shush me. I’m not even going to try to explain that we don’t even use the metal and paper anymore. I guess it is a little like pretending. Not using money was one of the creeds of the Canaan Project, which I didn’t think would work, and Sean Rodriguez did. So Dad scores on that one. And now I’m back to stewing.
“Are you ready?” I ask Cyrus.
He nods. “We know what to do.”
I spent a week training Cyrus and Annis on how to take out the cameras without being spotted. “The timing has to be right on,” I say for the millionth time. “On the middle bell. Cameras first, block the ventilation shafts, and open the gates.”
“And if it goes wrong, have you decided what to do?”
“I’ll do what I have to.” And that sounds like my dad. But one way or another, Samara Archiva is going to breathe the open air before the next resting.
The door to the house opens and Jill steps out, looking us over. “Is this a party?”
She looks really pretty in the dark. The yellow hair and blue eyes stand out. And she’s smiling like there’s nothing wrong in the world.
“What are you doing up?” I snap.
She raises a brow. “Latrine. Problem?”
“No.” I look away first.
“The bluedads come to the honeyfruit,” Cyrus whispers.
I cut him a glance. I think he just said You catch more flies with honey, but I don’t know if that was supposed to be advice to me or a warning about Jill. Jill has been on her very best behavior. No dousing herself with spray. Not even a wrinkled nose. She’s been nice to the kids, made herself helpful to Annis, and Nathan is her extra limb.
I ought to be happy that she’s acclimated. That her eyes are on Nathan and off me. I want her to be happy. I want to be happy for her. And if we’d been dropped off the ship straight into this house I would’ve been, and would’ve thought she was. But we weren’t, and I just don’t trust Jill anymore. Which makes me sad. And then mad.
Jill whispers, “Which way does the sunrise come, Cyrus?”
“Straight ahead,” he says, pointing at a peak, the far barrier of the Outside.
Jillian smiles. “That will be beautiful, won’t it?”
She moves off toward the back of the workshop and the latrines, and Cyrus shakes his head, his reply coming too late for her to hear.
“Not on a twelfth year.” He turns his head to me. “You should eat. And then go.”
I nod, though I’m not sure I can eat. My stomach is churning with nerves. But it feels better as soon as I get up and do something. I slip back into the staler warmth of the house, and when I’m grabbing my sandals in the light of the lantern, I notice the edge of the glasses sticking out just a little from beneath the bed pillow. There aren’t any secrets in this house anymore, even with the technology, but I never leave the glasses in sight. Especially with the children around.
I put them on. Everything is the way I left it, except my charge is less than 25 percent. I don’t know what I’m worried about. They won’t work for anyone else. But I tie the glasses to my shirt lace anyway, and keep them next to my skin.
For the faithful of the NWSE, when the time comes we must act without hesitation and seize what is our birthright: the technology of Earth. For who could stand against the people of memory and Earth’s technology? And when we, the best of the best, the worthy of Canaan, take what is ours, we will dare to fly back through the stars and take back our home. We will dare to build our new civilization. We will bring beauty, peace, prosperity, and, most of all, justice, and rule the Superior Earth.
FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF JANIS ATAN
I feel a sharp prick, a sting, and I open my eyes. Not the memory of my eyes, but my actual lids, fluttering at a new stab of pain that comes from the brightness of one dim light. When my vision adjusts I see my mother standing at the foot of a bed, Marcus Physicianson with her. Lian Archiva is straight-backed and elegant, her face as perfect as a well-polished stone, and Marcus sweeps a look over her that is pure reverence. A showing of emotion that would have surely brought a correction from my mother had she seen it. Or maybe it wouldn’t have. Mother likes to be admired, and Marcus admires, I think, that she is standing there so calm, about to condemn her own daughter to death. Or worse than death.
Marcus must think she’s strong. Principled. I feel nothing for either of them.
“It is time, Samara,” she says, like I need to hurry and go to the learning room. I try my arms and my legs, and find that I can sit up. The blood rushes from my head and I close my eyes again, dizzy.
“She will still be somewhat medicated,” Marcus whispers, “to keep her docile.”
I don’t think so, Marcus Physicianson. I think Reddix has been seeing to my medication, or lack of it, and there is not one docile thing about me at this moment.
I’ve had a long time to think about Reddix’s words in my ear. A long time to plan what I will do. And there’s a white sunrise coming.
I wonder what Lian and Marcus would do if they Knew Reddix means to have a boy from Earth come into the Forum and kill us all with Forgetting.
Mother comes around to the side of the bed and hands me a plate of bread and a glass of water. I drink the water in one go, and she pours me more. When I’ve eaten the bread, she helps me stand, taking me to the corner of my small, plain room, where there is a latrine with a composting box behind a curtain. She leaves me there, and I decide I do not want to consider how this has been handled while I’ve been sleeping.