“You have a suit!” Jaquot says, nodding at me from where he leans against the qalm. I can’t help but look at his missing leg. I want to ask him how it feels, if he’s lost more than just this limb, but he sees me looking and his expression closes off. This is a path I am not invited down. Not yet.
“Yes,” I say, averting my eyes to my clothing. I stand in direct sunlight but only my scalp seems to notice the heat. I make a mental note to see about getting some of those bell-shaped flowers from the jungle to smear along the rows of my braids, to protect my exposed scalp. “This material is amazing.”
“It is,” he agrees. “N’Terra spends so much time studying animals. We should have spent more time learning from the plants.”
“They would have if they had joined the Faloii,” the round-cheeked girl says, stepping into the sun to join me.
“Joi is a proud Acclimate,” Jaquot says, shooting me an apologetic smile.
“So are my grandparents,” I say, locking my eyes on Joi’s.
She smirks at this but doesn’t offer a retort. The other humans in my peer group don’t seem interested in talking to me. If N’Terran greencoats are focused on our studies, these kids are obsessed. Even out here surrounded by Faloiv, most of them have their faces shoved in books or notes. Not true of Kimbullettican, who watches me with the other Faloii youth.
“Your grandmother is improved?” one says. They introduce themselves as Revollettican, a sibling of Kimbullettican, in Arterian.
“I think so.” I nod. “She was able to sit up.”
I hesitate, then address Kimbullettican and Revollettican silently in Arterian. I don’t like how Joi eyes me like a surgeon, looking for something to cut at.
I didn’t see my grandfather when I was there, I tell them. Do you know if he has a study or something?
Your grandfather, Kimbullettican says. Their forehead spots rise in amusement. If he is not with your grandmother, then he is by the black lake.
His favorite place, Revollettican says.
“The black lake?” I say.
Jaquot appears not to notice that this was part of a conversation being had in private.
“Oh, I’ve heard about that,” he says. “Apparently your grandfather’s the only one who goes there. It’s like his thesis.”
“His Lifework,” Kimbullettican corrects.
“Meaning?” I say.
“This is what Dr. Lemieux calls it,” they reply. “The Acclimates study many things, but your grandfather has chosen one course above all others.”
“And he studies . . . a lake?” I say.
“I must believe there is something about it he loves,” Kimbullettican says. “Hamankush tells me he has been attending the black lake since the Acclimates arrived. Some scientists find comfort in their work.”
“You have to love something to study it for multiple decades,” Jaquot says. “Sounds like an obsession to me.”
The word obsession lingers like a half-remembered dream, a footprint in shifting sand. Obsession. Dr. Albatur has an obsession. So does my father. I’ve seen where it got them.
I sense a familiar presence approaching in the tunnel. It’s different away from N’Terra. I almost don’t notice that the tunnel is open all the time. Without the threat of fear leaking in from animals in containment, the impressions that wander in and out of the Artery are pleasant and operate just behind my consciousness. The familiar presence reveals itself a moment later when Hamankush emerges from the jungle.
“Anoo,” she says to us all, then greets the Faloii and myself in Arterian. “You have your materials?”
Everyone but me nods. The Faloii youth wear the belt of pouches at their waist that Rasimbukar occasionally wears, but the human students all carry slim green cases slung across their chests. The feeling of unpreparedness seizes me, and I inexplicably think of Yaya. Always battling to stay ahead of her in the Greenhouse. Do I miss even her?
“I have a few things for you,” Hamankush says, turning her eyes on me, her long arm extending a pack toward me. I accept the pack gratefully, and mutter my thanks. “Water. Wahanile paste for the parts of your skin not covered by the suit. Some dried foods that you are accustomed to. Recording materials.”
I drape the pack over my chest, taking a moment to admire the fabric. Is it fabric? Or some other kind of plant adapted for this purpose? The question answers itself when I let the pack hang by my side and notice a strange sensation at my hip. I look down, and find that my suit has melded to the bag ever so gently. The two fuse loosely, keeping the case from moving around when I walk.
“Fascinating,” I whisper.
Hamankush moves off toward the jungle and we follow her wordlessly. Jaquot ends up at the back of the group with his slower gait, and I hang back to walk alongside him.
“They’ll make me a prosthetic eventually,” he says. “Lots of Faloii have prosthetics. Well, not lots. But enough so that they know what they’re doing. It’s an organic material they use to make them, like everything else here. I wonder if it will look like a foot—a human foot—or like a Faloii paw. Their feet are kind of cool, you know.”
“Aren’t you thinking about home?” I say. “Your dad thinks you’re dead, Jaquot. That doesn’t bother you?”
“Of course it does. But we didn’t talk much when I was in N’Terra.” He averts his eyes, focusing on the path ahead. “I didn’t think he’d even notice I was gone. Maybe he needs to see what life is like without me for a while.”
“Petty,” I say, but he shrugs.
“I like it here,” he says eventually. “Things are more relaxed. Don’t you feel it?”
“I do,” I admit. Just the comfort of the suit I wear takes the pressure off. It feels like I’m friends with the sun for once, rather than adversaries. But the relaxation can’t quite sink in. “But Jaquot . . . there’s a lot going on back home. There’s a lot that’s happening.”
Rasimbukar would not like that you are speaking of this, Hamankush tells me in Arterian. I jerk my head to look at her, chatting with Joi at the head of the group. She doesn’t appear to break her conversation and I realize my understanding of the Faloii is woefully limited.
“Look, I know, okay?” Jaquot says, and in between paces he swipes irritably at a plant with one of his canes. “You’re always stressed out, Octavia. Why can’t you ever just loosen up?”
I bristle at this, opening my mouth to snap at him. But the sight of him glancing down at where his leg should be silences me. We continue on, quiet, and I turn my attention to the jungle around us, widening the Artery; inside, I get glimpses of animals I’ve never seen or heard. N’Terra knows nothing about this planet.
“We are getting close now,” Hamankush calls. Then in Arterian, Can you feel it?
I sense the Faloii youth all expanding their consciousness, and I attempt to do the same. I have an awareness that my breadth is stunted compared to theirs, but I focus, trying to muscle it wider and wider. I’m rewarded with a sort of tingling at the edge of my mind, up ahead through the trees. I sense the Faloii youths’ discomfort before it fully translates in my own mind. Something is wrong ahead, too far for my own mind to grasp, but the farther we walk, making our way through the thinning trees, the more apparent it becomes. It’s familiar . . . something trembling in the tunnel . . . strange and known simultaneously. I sense Hamankush’s sudden confusion, translating into unease. Whatever she had brought us to see is not here. Something else is in its place.
There’s a clearing ahead, and it’s just before we break through the tree line that it hits me. There’s an igua ahead. But she’s not herself. Something restless paces inside her. A parasite, she’s saying. She’s telling the air, the trees. An herbivore, she has no predators, but warns all of Faloiv. She is sick, she says. Stay away. Stay away. Stay away.
We approach. She warns us, begging. Her consciousness seems to fade in and out within the Artery, as if something is cutting her off intermittently. Joi and Jaquot and the other humans break th
rough the trees with their minds empty and unconcerned. They don’t hear her, feel her. Hamankush and the other Faloii move forward speaking to her, a more complicated tongue than anything I can conjure. They console her in her own language, a skill I know instinctively that I will never attain. I can only send green signals of comfort, so I do.
“Is something wrong?” Joi says when she finally sees the igua, lying on her side in the middle of the clearing, alone. “Is she giving birth?”
“This is not birth,” Hamankush says.
We draw nearer, the igua begging us not to. Hamankush lays one of her long paw-like hands on the igua’s side, assessing. Revollettican does the same, unafraid, conversing with the animal. I can’t understand the conversation, but I gather from Hamankush’s secondary impressions that they are having trouble ascertaining what is wrong. The igua is confused, afraid. But there is something familiar here, something I can’t quite place. The sense of it slithers around in my head, looking for a match. It slides over a particular sensory memory. A smell, flat and white . . .
“Oh, stars,” I cry. “Hamankush, you have to get away, fast!”
I grab her and Revollettican, attempting to pull them away. They both regard me with a look of disbelief, Hamankush’s spots quickly translating into anger.
“Child,” she says harshly. “Control your Arterian. Immediately.”
I realize what she means, that my sudden red panic had flowed through the tunnel, the igua sensing it and lurching with fear. I snap the tunnel closed and appeal to Hamankush with both hands.
“Please, it’s dangerous!”
“It,” Revollettican says out loud sternly. “She.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I plead. “Please, we need to get away from her right now!”
“Make sense,” Hamankush orders. “Do not consider speaking until you do.”
She turns away, Revollettican doing the same. Everyone else stands back, looking uncertain. My helplessness flails within me like a wounded bird. I cannot fly into Arterian without causing the igua to panic, and I can’t calm down enough to explain in an audible language. Jaquot appears beside me, his face folded with worry.
“What’s the matter?”
“I—I . . . ,” I stutter. I snap my mouth shut and close my eyes, forcing myself to take deep breaths. I have to control the tunnel, and open it only to Hamankush to shield the igua. Two breaths. Three. I open my eyes and focus hard on addressing only her.
Hamankush, I say. Danger.
The flat white smell invades my nostrils again. The smell of the Zoo. I pass it to her, and without thinking show her the vasana from N’Terra’s labs. I show her the pack of them, wild with artificial madness, frothing and flaming, their brains not their own, the rage a mechanical parasite implanted by whitecoats. Here, the igua has been altered. She is not herself. The empty smell of the labs is all over her, in the very breath that snorts from her flared nostrils.
DANGER, I say again.
Hamankush stares at me hard, then takes two long strides away from the igua to stand in front of me, much too close.
Tell me this is a lie.
I’m telling you the truth.
We lock eyes, the stars of her gaze mesmerizing in their depth. I’m lost in those stars, trying to find a way to make her see, when the igua screams. A sound like a storm tearing from the clouds, rending the air with electricity. And then, as if emerging from a terrible dream, the fangs are there, flashing from that wide, bawling mouth, growing like the violent stems of strange flowers. Too white. Too long. Then those teeth are closing around the body of Revollettican, the youth’s eyes opening wide in shock at the sight of their own blood, so unexpected, so unusual.
The rest is a blur. The jungle whirls around me. Something switches when the blood meets the soil. A reversal, a planetwide sigh. In a flash, Hamankush presses one long finger against the igua’s neck, and in the tunnel there is a burst of painful white light, leaving glowing rings around the edges of my mind. Then everything is silent. Everything is still. The blood seeps into the ground, and above us the sun stares down.
Chapter 5
I am alone. I sit on my cot, my knees pulled to my chest, staring at the empty chamber of my room. I’ve unraveled my braids, my hands desperate for distraction, and now I sit with my back against the wall, finger-combing each zigzagging section. Every now and then I look into the Artery, but the only communication I pick up is the thrumming tongue of the qalm.
Hamankush had killed the igua, and what seemed like moments later Rasimbukar and other Faloii had appeared, all communicating soundlessly. I and the other youths were swept back to the city, and I was jostled here to my room. I had asked for my grandmother and was ignored. The Faloii man who had brought me here was as unreadable as the walls of my room, his facial spots low and solemn across his brow. All around me, the tunnels are closed, but I don’t need to be told anything in Arterian to know the scent that pulses around me. Fear. Anger.
The igua must have escaped from the labs alongside Adombukar and the rest when I left N’Terra. Why had I not sensed it? The cybertronic parasite planted in its brain by Dr. Albatur? The igua must have been partially altered and then either escaped or was let free.
I pace the small room. No one had ordered me to remain here, but venturing outside the qalm seems pointless. I don’t know where to find my grandmother, or if I’m even allowed. I’m turning back to my cot when a presence makes me spin back to face the wall. Sure enough, the minuscule vines are simultaneously parting, revealing the doorway. In it stands Rasimbukar.
You are changed, she says. At first I think she’s referring to my unbraided hair, but I sense a different meaning. We all are. Come with me.
I follow her out of my room and down the hallway. The smell of fear is stronger here. It’s not the qalm that emits it, but it does seem to come from the walls.
“Where are we going?” I say when she leads me outside.
“We have questions,” she says.
I follow her in silence through the city. All the pleasant motion of yesterday is gone, faded like a puddle shrunken by the sun. The odor the many trees—ogwe and others: syca, marandin, and duna—emit reminds me of the day my mother was arrested in N’Terra: a dire smell, a smell of warning.
Yes, says Rasimbukar, sensing my feelings.
She leads me to a small qalm, its green a deeper shade than the school—almost black. I lay my hand on it without thinking, sensing its complicated nature. It’s very old. Perhaps older than anything else in the city.
Decisions are made here, Rasimbukar says as the vines part to admit us. Her facial spots are low and still but widespread. This look always reminds me of my mother somehow and I avert my eyes. She gazes at me a moment longer and then sweeps into the qalm.
It’s one room. I’d expected a honeycomb of chambers and halls like the other buildings I’ve been inside, but instead I am greeted with a circular space lined with platforms that grow from the walls, jutting out at varying heights. An array of Faloii sit on these platforms, some upright and some slouched, all watching me and Rasimbukar intently. At the center of the room grows a small bent tree, giving off a soft orange light like a flame. Beside it sits Hamankush, cross-legged on a low platform that rises from the ground. Hers is the only pair of eyes not fastened on me. Hers are closed, her facial spots drifting slowly back and forth across her forehead in perpetual motion.
Your grandmother, Rasimbukar says, and indicates the back wall with one hand.
My heart leaps at the sight of her, half sitting, half lying on a platform by herself. She gives me an encouraging smile, sending me green shapes in the tunnel. I hadn’t fully realized until I saw her how afraid I am, the anxiety clawing at me as if my ribs are a cage it must escape.
You may go to her, Rasimbukar says, and I do, giving Hamankush and the center of the room a wide berth. I climb up on the platform and let my grandmother gather me against her the way she did when I was a child. She is warm and so is th
e room but I don’t care: the feeling of her soft hands gripping me through my new suit transports me to a safe, distant place. Rasimbukar takes a seat on an empty platform.
The silence lasts a long time. The warmth from the strange tree in the center of the room fills the space with an almost smoky heat, and I find myself nodding off as the minutes turn into an hour, more. My head is just lolling sleepily against my nana’s shoulder when Hamankush speaks.
“I come to tell the truth,” she says. “And seek repair.”
The room fills with a hum that startles me. At first I think it’s the qalm, but a quick glance around shows me that the sound comes from the throats of the Faloii. Deep and resonant, it thrums from each of them and joins with the others, filling the room like an invisible cloud. They go on humming and I realize the place at the bottom of Rasimbukar’s throat glows a soft green, shining gently through her skin like an incandescent jewel. I watch in awe, gazing around the room at the glowing spot on each Faloii present. My grandmother’s hand squeezes my shoulder. Something tells me not to speak, even to whisper a question.
As suddenly as the humming began, it stops.
A conversation begins in Anooiire. It’s the first time I’ve heard it spoken aloud at length, and its rapidity is almost shocking. It flows like water, nearly without pause, a rhythm of sounds and cadences foreign to my ear made familiar only by the polished wooden tones of the Faloii speaking it. The voices come from around the room, including Rasimbukar’s, all their words directed at Hamankush, who sits with her head bowed by the tree. She responds occasionally, her answers short.
It’s impossible to follow what is being said. I understand that Hamankush is being interrogated in some way, based on what happened in the jungle with the igua. When I look at Rasimbukar, the spots on her forehead seem unusually tight, and I wonder if she and Hamankush have some preexisting tension. Eventually the voices from around the room dwindle away, and it is only Rasimbukar and Hamankush who speak, the Anooiire getting faster and faster until I can barely make out one word from the next. Then I recognize one word.
An Anatomy of Beasts Page 5
