“Give him what he wants?” I spit. “What we’re owed? You must be out of your—”
“There will be violence,” he says, raising his voice. “War. You don’t know what war is, but—”
“I saw a bit of it,” I say, remembering the vibration of the drone through the memory’s air. “And I know it was N’Terrans who brought war to Faloiv.”
His eyes find mine and hold them, and the expression I find there seems muddy, conflicted.
“We only have time to discuss the present just now,” he repeats. “And what you must do.”
“Which is what?” I demand. “Everyone has this idea of what I need to do. . . .”
I almost repeat the instructions my grandmother sent me into the jungle with—“find the keeper of the eyenu”—but despite the fact that my father had helped me escape the labs, I still don’t trust his eyes. They shine with desperation, and I’m not sure about what they’re desperate for.
But now he’s not looking at me, he’s casting his eyes back over his shoulder, down the tunnel.
“You must find us the kawa,” he says when he turns back. “We can still save a lot of bloodshed if we can just give him a means to leave. The rest can be negotiated. There is so much that he wants, Octavia, but above all, he wants to return to the Origin Planet. Give us the kawa, so we can go.”
“Us,” I say, glaring at him. “Us.”
“You are us too,” he snaps, reaching out for me, but under the flare of anger there’s a plea in his tone. I pull away from it and him.
“The Origin Planet is dead though,” Alma says, and maybe it’s my father’s voice still echoing in my ears, but there’s a trace of a plea in hers as well, the Origin Planet like a string tethered to her heart, pulling her always. “Why do you want to go back?”
“To rebuild!” he cries, and then flinches, glancing back into the tunnel again. “What he wanted when we first came. He never wanted to stay.”
“Because we crashed,” I say.
“It’s more complicated than that,” he says, his voice still low but grating. He glances over his shoulder again, becoming more and more agitated. “It’s time for you to go. You have come from their city: go back. Get the kawa. If you have to . . .”
He pauses, assessing me, and I get the feeling that the same way I had bitten back my grandmother’s words, there is something he holds back from me now.
“Just one will be enough. Get a kawa. Just one, Octavia. Bring it to me. You may hate me, but I am your kind. Think of your people, your flesh. This is about our survival.”
I feel as if I’m choking on everything he has told me, but he continues on past my silence.
“You’ll need this,” he says. He reaches into the deep pocket of his white coat and withdraws the strange mottled material of my qalm-grown suit. My heart leaps at the sight of it.
“My suit!” I cry, and snatch it from his hand. I clutch it to my chest. It’s only been mine for a few days, but it feels as much a part of me as my hands.
“And this,” he says. He takes a few quick steps away, moving just outside the mouth of the tunnel. He leans down and when he straightens again he’s holding a gray bundle.
“What’s that?” I say, peering at it.
“Our packs!” It’s Alma’s turn to snatch something from his hand. She immediately opens one of the packs and withdraws the items within: a skinsuit, shoes, water canteens, and other odds and ends.
“How did you find this?” she says, shooting a look at my father.
“The rest of the Council may not be wise to your loyalties,” he says, turning back toward the tunnel. “But I am. I have to go. We’re out of time.”
“Wait,” I cry, snatching at him. “You’re telling me I need to go find the kawa, as if it’s that simple! I don’t know where they come from: they don’t just have them lying around in Mbekenkanush!”
“If you have questions about the kawa,” he says over his shoulder, a hint of a sneer in his voice, “then Captain Williams can answer them.”
“Captain Williams? The captain of the Vagantur? But she died in the crash,” Alma pipes up, still clutching her pack.
“You don’t even know what’s happening,” I interject. “The Faloii are on the verge of turning the planet against humans. You know what that means, right? If they convince the planet to see us as parasites? Do you know what that means?”
“Yes,” he says, already turning away, moving back into the dark. “It means we have to leave. And it means you have to hurry.”
Chapter 14
When the sun had risen, the first thing I did was scan the sky for red smoke. The dread which has taken up residence in my body had fully expected to find it hovering somewhere on the distant horizon, a symbol of the bloodshed to come. But there are only clouds and the usual red eye of the sun. I still have time.
We’ve walked all night, the soles of our rubbery N’Terran shoes carrying us miles through the jungle. Alma still doesn’t believe that Jaquot is alive.
“How?” she says for the hundredth time, following as I lead us through the jungle. “I was there. I saw his blood. I saw a piece of his skinsuit. I think I would have noticed if the Faloii had a battle with the dirixi to save Jaquot.”
“Well, they didn’t save all of him,” I say, ducking under a low-hanging branch. “I told you it got his leg.”
“Stars,” Rondo says, behind Alma. “How did they heal it? Can he walk?”
“The Faloii seem to have effective medicine,” I say. “He has tools that help him walk. Physically I think he’s okay. But I think he’s depressed.”
They nod, both sipping from the canteens Alma had stowed in the packs. Resourceful Alma. Between the water and the dried hava strips, I feel restored, if sore and stiff.
“I’d kiss that idiot if I ever saw him again,” Alma says, her voice rising happily. The silence that had clung to us in the first hours of our journey has fallen away with the coming of the sun. The more distance between us and N’Terra, the more freely we talk. “I wish I could see Yaya’s face when she learns he is alive. She still hasn’t been the same since that day.”
“She has in some ways,” Rondo says, sounding annoyed. “More devoted to the Council than ever. Her theory that the Faloii actually killed Jaquot? She believes that for sure since Adombukar broke out. Albatur spun it so that everyone believes Adombukar broke in. Half N’Terra probably thinks a whole army of Faloii came charging through the Paw’s gates.”
“She definitely does,” I say, and tell them about how she’d kept me from attacking Janelle in the Greenhouse. “She’s under whatever spell he’s cast over the whole settlement. I can’t believe this. I really thought I’d be able to talk some sense into the greencoats at least. . . .”
My grandfather hadn’t liked the idea of me going back to N’Terra and now I see why. I’m embarrassed by my own naïveté, my insistence that showing people the truth would be enough.
“It’s not your fault,” Rondo says, and his tone makes me look at him. Everything in me that’s rigid softens whenever I meet his eyes. Is love supposed to make you weak or strong?
“It’s like Yaya and Julian were learning a whole different curriculum,” I say to take my mind off love.
“In a way they were,” he says.
“Fools,” I mutter, swiping at a shiny purple insect that seems interested in my hair.
“There’s another one on the back of your head,” Alma says.
“What?” I snap, freezing, afraid to reach behind my head. “Why didn’t you say something? Get it off!”
“It’s just a melinoovo.” She laughs, passing me on the trail. “Harmless. They’re curious.”
“How do you know?” I say, following her, hating the idea of a bug using me as a chariot.
She looks over her shoulder with an arched eyebrow. “What don’t I know?”
“You’re so annoying.”
“You’re annoyed because now you’re second in line,” she says. “Just li
ke in class.”
She laughs her long musical laugh and I smile. It had taken me several hours to fully realize that this is reality: walking through the jungle with Rondo and Alma. No Manx. No guides. No protections. After traveling from Mbekenkanush with the gwabi overnight, I’m less fearful than I might have been, but I can still sense the anxiety that clings to my friends. The sunlight helps melt it away, but I can tell by Alma’s jokes that she’s trying to force herself to relax.
“So your grandmother said find the keeper of the eyenu,” she says. I’d filled them in as we made our way through the jungle and now her brain is cranking again. “Yay for cryptic, I guess, but what does that mean?”
“You know I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe it has to do with the Isii.”
“I guess we’ll find out if we’re headed back to Mbekenkanush,” she says, slapping at a leaf. “We’ll just ask her.”
I frown to myself. The idea of going back to the city appeals to me because I want to be back with my grandparents, back with Rasimbukar. But it feels like hiding. Retreating to what feels like safety, letting everyone else handle the problems that seem bigger and more dangerous every second.
“So what’s it like?” Rondo says from behind me. “Mbekenkanush. Is it big? How many people are there? Do they eat the same stuff we eat? How long until we get there?”
Alma casts a glance back at him before I can answer.
“You’d perform better on exams if you asked this many questions in the Greenhouse,” she says.
“Well, luckily I don’t have to worry about that anymore,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t really see classes resuming as normal anytime soon.”
“I mean, maybe not now,” Alma says, sounding distressed, “but eventually!”
“You’re ridiculous,” I say, laughing. I wonder if it sounds as forced as it feels. It’s hard to imagine a resolution to all this, particularly one in which things go back to normal. I don’t think normal ever existed: one more N’Terran mirage.
“Things may be different once we figure everything out,” she says airily. “But research is always going to be part of what we do.”
“I wonder if Dr. Albatur even cares about science,” Rondo says. We pause as Alma scurries over a fallen tree in our path, and he takes the opportunity to pluck the melinoovo off the back of my head, tossing it into the bushes. I shoot him a look of gratitude. “It seems like of everything he loves, discovery is toward the bottom of the list.”
“Not all scientists are curious, and plenty are arrogant,” I say, echoing my grandmother’s words.
“For sure,” Alma agrees, finally on the other side of the hill of the fallen tree. The path we’ve been following opens up now, expanding from a thread of a trail into a path wide enough for all three of us to walk side by side. “But arrogant or not, Albatur has a plan. These past few days working in the Zoo with Dr. Jain? Those guys are focused.”
“How so?” I say, sliding down on her side of the tree.
“They’re still cautious about what they say in front of who, so I didn’t hear a whole lot. But at least twice I overheard Jain saying to Albatur that ‘if they found them,’ N’Terra wouldn’t need the Solossius at all.”
“Referring to the kawa, I’m guessing,” Rondo says.
“Based on what Dr. English said, I’d say so,” she says. “But he said they only need one.”
“Even if they only need one,” I say, bitterness creeping into my tone, “who’s to say they won’t take more than they need? I don’t really imagine Dr. Albatur as the guy who only takes the bare minimum.”
“So what are you going to do when we get back to the city?” Alma says over her shoulder. She’s leading like she knows where we’re going, when I barely do. “Say, Hey, let me get one of those kawa, please and thanks? Do we have to . . . you know . . . steal one?”
“I’m not stealing anything from the Faloii,” I snap, and surprise myself with the suddenness of my temper. “If my dad thinks I’m going to be his little spy, he can forget it.”
“So . . . plan?” Alma says, and I can tell by the look on Rondo’s face that he’s wondering the same thing.
Nearby, another voice joins our dialogue, although it seems to be engaged in a conversation of its own.
“I just want a sip,” the voice complains, loudly. “Just a sip.”
My blood runs cold, both hands shooting out to grab my friends.
“Then you shouldn’t have left your canteen at the ship,” another voice says, cutting through the trees from up ahead. “You could’ve had a sip from your own.”
“We only left five minutes ago! We can still go back!”
“Stars,” Alma whispers.
“Hide!” I hiss, and I dive into the bushes that hug the path, dragging Alma and Rondo with me. Thick green leaves like tongues slap me in my face, still wet from dawn’s dew, but I only lurch through them more quickly, determined to get off and away from the trail. Due to the jungle’s density, distance isn’t required: the greenery swallows us, and being plunged deeper into the leaves immediately makes it cooler, out of the direct stare of the sun. Even with the qalm-grown suit, being in the shade is a relief: I almost sigh within the cool, but I swallow it as the sound of several pairs of feet approach on the trail, only a few paces away.
“I might die,” the first voice protests. “How are you going to feel if I die because you wouldn’t share your water?”
“Better than I would feel if I died because I gave you too much of my water.”
“Manx! I need water!”
A third voice cuts in now, the presence of the three people almost even with us on the path. Alma catches my eye.
“Finders,” she mouths.
“How old are you two?” the voice of Manx snaps. I almost recognize her by her footsteps alone: quick and snappy. “I knew I should have brought Ivy and Alicia instead of you dolts.”
“Aw, don’t be like that, boss,” the first voice says, the whine leaking out of it. “We’re just messing around.”
“Well, save it. We only have five hours between us and N’Terra and you need to be sharp with a reason for why we haven’t found anything yet.”
“But we’ve found a bunch of stuff!” one of the other voices says. They’re passing us now, so close I can hear the water sloshing in their canteens. “He may see everything we’ve salvaged and decide to just build a smaller ship instead of repairing the Vagantur.”
Manx pauses on the path, and between the dense foliage I can make out a flash of her curly white hair. I try to sink lower in the plants without actually moving, and I realize I’m still holding Rondo’s hand. I relax my grip to let it go, but he tightens his, so I squeeze back.
“Let’s get one thing clear,” Manx says, her tone as sharp as I know her face to be. “I thought we’d been over this but I guess I need to reiterate. There will be no mention of any alternate plan. No suggestion of anything besides the repair of the Vagantur. Do you understand? If he ends up thinking something else up, then that’s on him. But we do not suggest that. Our job is to salvage parts, find the pods, and if we come across any Faloii for the machine in the meantime, great.”
“What about Dr. English?” one of them says. My heart spasms.
“What about him?”
“He might like the idea of building another ship instead.”
“You treat English and Albatur as a single entity, is that clear?” Manx snaps. “They want the same thing. Again, our job is to get them what they want. Focus on the Vagantur and the pods.”
I let go of Rondo’s fingers. My hands need to be fists.
“What’s the big deal?” the second voice says. “If we can’t find the pods, there’s no reason to fix the ship at all, right? We’d just stay here.”
Manx lets out an exasperated sigh, and between the leaves I see her turn away, back toward the direction of N’Terra.
“Yep, I should have brought Ivy and Alicia.” Sh
e groans. “Come on. Watch out for the syca seeds that have fallen right there. If you step on one, it will burst and I don’t want to have to carry you back to N’Terra because you’re temporarily blinded by your own stupidity.”
The sound of the two men grumbling makes its way to my ears through the trees, and the three finders move off down the path, back down the direction we’d come.
“Too close,” Rondo whispers.
“Should we wait until they’ve been gone awhile?” Alma whispers back.
“No,” I say, and push through the branches back toward the path. A plan is forming in my mind, parts of its blueprint drawn from the conversation we’d just overheard. A magnet in my head draws the metallic dust of my various clues together, and the urgency of it flows through me, sending me speed walking down the path in the opposite direction of the finders.
“Um, Octavia . . . ?” Alma says, drawing even with me. “Something you’d like to share?”
“Didn’t you hear them?” I toss over my shoulder. “They just came from the Vagantur. We’re close to the ship.”
“And?” Rondo says. If I am eagerness personified, he is caution.
“So don’t you want to see it?” I say, not slowing. “All these years of people talking about it crashing, and now with Albatur wanting to fix it again . . . There’s something significant about the ship. The finders are usually combing the jungle for specimens, but today they’re out here by the Vagantur looking for something?”
“For pods,” Alma says, quoting Manx.
“Yes, pods. Maybe that’s what they call the kawa. Energy pods or something. If they’re out here looking already, maybe that means they know a kawa is close? Then we could just get it and . . . and . . .”
“And what?” Alma says.
“I don’t know! Fix things! Let Albatur drag his deformed hide out into space. Get this over with!”
Surprisingly, it’s Rondo’s hand that wraps itself around my bicep and tugs me to a stop.
“This isn’t much of a plan,” he says, his brown eyes serious. “You’re making a lot of assumptions about the finders and what they’re doing. If they were even close to finding the kawa they need, your dad wouldn’t have broken you out of the labs and sent you looking for it.”
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