A Conspiracy of Stars

by Olivia A. Cole

  “Anyway,” I say. I drop my eyes from his, suddenly self-conscious about the smile plastered on my mouth. We’re not in the labs, but I’ve heard the word decorum thrown at me so many times that it almost feels strange to just . . . smile. I pull in my lips to swallow it. “You said that they described the Faloii?”

  “Yes,” he says, nodding. “But all of it was vague. Tall with broad faces. Hands were described as being ‘like an otter’s’ but I don’t know what that means. Wide-set eyes. And something weird about their ears.”

  “Weird?”

  “I don’t know without a photograph,” he says. “But they were described as unusual.”

  “Hmm. Maybe who I saw wasn’t Faloii then. I feel like I would have noticed ears on top of his head, and I didn’t.”

  He pauses to consider this.

  “What about a tail?” he says.

  “A tail?”

  “Yes. The document said that one of them had a tail.”

  “As in, a tail? A tail tail?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just one of them though? Interesting,” I say, but something else nags at me, something I haven’t thought about in days without someone to discuss it with. “Did you happen to see anything in the files about something called Solossius?”

  “Solossius?” He pauses and looks thoughtful. “No, I don’t think so. That’s a strange word. I think I would have noticed.”

  “Hmm, okay.”

  “What’s up?”

  I sigh, wishing I actually knew.

  “Nothing, just something my father mentioned outside the Beak. Something that has to do with Dr. Albatur. I don’t know much more than that. But all this talk about how Albatur and other people are fed up with the Faloii’s rules. I wonder if this Solossius has anything to do with that.”

  He runs his tongue over his teeth, his eyes on the sky. I hide a smile. He always ends up looking at the sun for answers. Or maybe his eyes are unconsciously seeking the stars.

  “What about his spots?” I ask, switching gears back to the man I saw. “Did the files say anything about the spots?”

  “Yes,” he says, his eyes returning to my face. “Well, kind of. The Faloii were described as having markings on their body.”

  “Markings.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s not very specific.”

  “I mean, spots are markings.”

  The commune is starting to wake up. Other greencoats are coming out to roam while their parents are in the labs, enjoying their day off before internships begin. In a few days they’ll be moving into their new compounds. It’s strange to think that this time tomorrow, I’ll be walking into the most restricted dome of the Paw.

  “What are you thinking about?” says Rondo.

  A man carrying a basket walks onto the bridge, headed across the stream to open his shop. I wonder if the basket carries one of Albatur’s new scarlet banners. I don’t answer right away, standing aside to let the man pass.

  “I don’t know. Tomorrow, I guess.”

  “Nervous?”

  “Not exactly. Curious, maybe.”

  “A whitecoat through and through,” he says, turning his eyes back to the fish in the stream.

  A while ago, it would have thrilled me to hear it. Now I’m not sure. But my fondness for science and discovery is unchanged. Hardly anyone used to spend time outside their ’wams at one point: the heat drove us straight from lab to home. But then someone in the Paw made the maigno breakthrough, making our clothing more adaptable to the heat. What we don’t know, we will. I wonder if my father still wants to solve these mysteries of our home, or if his sights are set on something else entirely.

  “Are you going to tell me why you requested the Paw?” I ask, turning to Rondo. I’m hoping to catch him off guard before he has time to be evasive.

  “Am I wrong to want to be assigned with the two smartest people in class?” he says, holding his hands up as if in surrender.

  “What, you’re going to try to cheat off our exams or something?”

  “Would you let me?”

  “Um, no.”

  He chuckles. He doesn’t laugh enough. I’ve found that I like the way it sounds.

  “I brought you something,” he says, and leans down to touch something at his feet.

  It’s the smooth black case he was carrying his first day in the Paw. I didn’t even notice it until this moment, so absorbed in thoughts of the Faloii.

  “Your izinusa,” I say, and I can’t bite back the smile that bursts out of hiding.

  “Yes.”

  He opens the case and lifts the instrument from its bed, bringing it to his shoulder. From the bottom of its curving wood base he pulls what looks like a long feathered stem from where it had been hidden in a groove. He takes it gently in four fingers of his left hand.

  “No laughing,” he says, but I can tell by the crease in his forehead that he has no intention of making me laugh.

  I’m not prepared for the music. From the delicate look of the izinusa’s neck to the graceful arch of the feather-like bow, I had expected a lighter sound than what Rondo coaxes from the strings. Instead, what flows into my ears is deep and rich with many layers of rising and falling notes. They weave with one another in ways my ears can barely comprehend, and I stare at the bow in Rondo’s fingers, the music filling me up. I feel empty and full at the same time, as if all the smells and sounds of the commune have been summoned by Rondo’s izinusa and swirl around me, waiting for me to make room inside my head. I look up from Rondo’s fingers and find his eyes on me as he plays. I can’t look away. It feels like the red sun has planted itself in my chest. Flowers grow under my skin.

  When the hammers on the tower start again, Rondo stops playing, but the music has filled my ears the way the smell of ogwe fills my nose. I’m trying to think of something to say when his hand travels the short distance between us, closing around my bicep. He squeezes the softest part of my arm, a slow gentle pressure that makes my head swirl. When he lets the squeeze go, he leaves his hand there on my skinsuit, the heat traveling through the thin material. I smile.

  We stand there for a while. This is a silence I can stand. Under it is only contentment, and for a few moments my head is empty: no sadness for my grandmother, no pain for my parents and the broken pieces of their love, no concern about the egg. Just Rondo: his hand, my arm, and, above us, the sun.

  CHAPTER 9

  “Octavia.”

  I snap awake from a strange dream that disintegrates as soon as my eyes open. It was my mother’s voice I dreamed of, and I expect to find her in my room, stirring me for my first day in the labs. But the door is closed, my room is dark, empty. I shut my eyes again, the dream washing over me but fading. I rise and go to the window, and now the dream is fully gone, fragments dispersing into specks. I slide open the window shade and am blinded by sunlight.

  “Damn!”

  The sun is already up. I spin away from the window to snatch my skinsuit from where it hangs on the wall. No time to eat.

  I race through a deserted commune—everyone has already left to start their day. I try not to think about what will happen if I miss my group’s entrance to the labs. Will the guards even let me in? Once I get into the main dome, I tear through the trees, down the path toward the entrance to the Zoo. A stitch in my side punishes me: I’ve barely been awake ten minutes and now I’m sprinting, my flat white shoes pounding the packed dirt. I round the curve toward the labs, praying that I’ll see Alma and Rondo lined up, ready to go in.

  I wheel around the corner and slam into Jaquot, almost knocking him to the ground.

  “Hey!” he yells, catching his fall against a tree.

  My group is ahead of him, filing toward the guarded doors, and, like a nightmare, the three other interns and the single whitecoat turn in surprise to find me steadying myself, reaching up and smoothing my braids, clearly out of breath. The sight of Rondo, for the smallest second, makes me stop breathing altogether, the music
of his izinusa flashing across my mind like a stripe of sunlight. But any comfort it offers is gone again the instant I see that the whitecoat at the head of the small group is my father, slate in hand, his face stony. His white coat is unbuttoned, his mouth like a crack in the ground when the rains are late.

  “Glad that you could join us, Miss English,” he says.

  I don’t answer. I know that voice. He’s going to pretend that he’s Dr. English and I’m Intern English. No relation. Might as well be true, but I don’t let my embarrassment show on my face. Stone, I think, I too am made of stone.

  “As I was saying,” he says, turning away, “you are to arrive here in the main dome every morning, gathering at the entrance of the labs until one of the scientists comes to admit you. Who that scientist is will vary, depending on what you are studying in a given week. You will not have unlimited access to the facilities until you have completed at least one year of your internship. Understood?”

  We’re all outside the Zoo now, most of us probably wondering if this has all been an elaborate ruse or if we’re actually going in. I was so absorbed by showing up late, I didn’t even notice the fifth member of our internship group, and when I finally look, annoyance crackles through me like a strike of lightning. Of all people, Yaya. I’ll have to watch my step with her in the group: she’s eager to get top marks, and I wouldn’t put it past her to find a way to inform the nearest whitecoat if I’m not meeting standards. Alma catches my eye from across the group, and I expect to exchange a mutual rolled eyeball over the presence of Yaya. Instead my friend’s face is open, asking a question: What is it with you? I wish I had an answer.

  “I’m sure most of you have heard about the oath that will be required of you. You will take it at the end of your first week in the labs,” Dr. English is saying. “Not only does it signify your commitment to research in N’Terra, it holds you to secrecy about the work you will do here.”

  The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them.

  “Secret from whom?”

  All eyes are on me, including my father’s. Alma stares at me, eyes wide and disbelieving, from across the group. We’ve always asked questions in class, but this is a different kind of question, I know. This question has roots, talons. I order myself not to look at her. Rondo, on the other hand, has the smallest of smirks on his lips.

  “The who is not a question,” my father says after a pause. “The oath is a Council-implemented requisite for all who wish to enter the laboratories.”

  I expect him to go on, but he doesn’t. I also expect him to admonish me, but he doesn’t. He barely looks at me, instead just turns to the guards with the buzzguns, nodding at one. She steps aside, allowing my father to press his thumb against the entry pad, and the doors whisper open, revealing a long hallway, painted stark white. No one moves. No one even breathes. I chance a glance over at Alma and her mouth is squeezed shut, her hands clasped tightly together. Even Rondo, who “doesn’t give a damn about mammals,” seems to be frozen by awe. My father has stepped inside already and looks back at the huddle of us, taking in our faces. This is the moment we’ve been dreaming of: the Zoo has opened its doors to us. I anticipate impatience from him, annoyance, but even he can’t help but chuckle.

  “Come on now,” he says, beckoning. “We haven’t got all day.”

  When the doors slide shut behind us, I feel the way my grandmother must have felt when she stepped out onto Faloiv for the first time. My first step into the Zoo feels like setting foot on a new planet entirely. The ground is hard—too hard. It doesn’t give under my feet at all, solid and smooth.

  “What’s wrong with the ground?” Jaquot asks, scuffing it with his shoe.

  “It’s artificial,” my father says without looking back. He leads the way down the hall. “Made of synthetic material. It makes for a more sanitary environment.”

  Yaya stumbles, the strange floor catching at the bottom of her shoes. Jaquot is at her side like a flash of eager lightning, his hand on her elbow. She thanks him with a smile, and I roll my eyes, even as I trip slightly myself. It’s strange not seeing grass or soil at my feet. Even our ’wams are grass and dirt inside, with mats laid down in the bathroom and hallway. Walking normally doesn’t seem possible: having something so hard between me and Faloiv is unfamiliar. Rondo appears beside me as the interns troop down the hall. Alma is at the head of the group where I would have been, as if nothing has changed. I don’t blame her: for her, nothing has.

  The rooms we pass are all empty according to their windows, but still my classmates turn their heads eagerly as we pass each one. They’re looking for animals: any kind. For years we’ve seen projected images of them in the Greenhouse with Dr. Espada, learning their unique characteristics and their adaptive trajectory, but aside from the occasional winging oscree or scurrying kunike, that’s generally where greencoat first-person experience stops.

  “Where is everyone?” Jaquot says. He says “everyone” as if referring to the whitecoats, of which we’ve seen none, but we all know he’s talking about specimens. Still, for me the thrill of the proximity to animals is lessened as I also think about another organism: the spotted man. Is he still here? What had happened to him? Every time we pass one of the windows of the research rooms, I sneak a quick, nervous look. Nothing. Brought under cover of darkness and now invisible.

  We’re approaching the end of the hallway, a set of doors ahead, and I glance back over my shoulder at the entrance, far behind. The hallway had seemed like it might go on eternally, the whole lab one sprawling illusion. At the sight of the doors, I can sense the eagerness of the group: beyond this are the animals. We can feel it. All those empty exam and research rooms: this is where the specimens are. Dr. English approaches the doors—they don’t require a scan—and they slither open to reveal what we’ve been waiting for. . . .

  Eggs. All I see are eggs. Hundreds of them. In baskets and in piles. My blood initially freezes at the sight of them, thinking of the egg I have hidden under my mattress. I shoot a glance at Rondo and find his eyes already on my face. Do I have the egg of some monstrous creature of Faloiv in my bedroom? I imagine it hatching while I’m in the Zoo, growing exponentially in a matter of moments and wreaking havoc on N’Terra from the inside. I scan the room for a sign of an egg that resembles the one I have, but nowhere do I find the same pearly iridescence. The colors here are bright and in some cases almost jarring: fuchsias and deep greens. I admire the varying sizes and shapes before me, like a vast beach of multicolored stones. The sight of them fills me with a pleasant feeling that is welcome under the harsh, artificial lights.

  “Your first project,” Dr. English says. “These eggs are from recent collection trips. They need to be classified and sorted so they can be transported to the correct compounds. Be gentle, but don’t worry too much. Their shells are very durable.”

  “They have to be on this planet,” Jaquot jokes. My father, astoundingly, actually smiles. The corners of my mouth dip in a frown, remembering him raging at me about “scientist decorum.” Jaquot is anything but decorous, and besides, it baffles me when Jaquot talks about Faloiv as if he wasn’t born here: as if our home is a temporary habitat.

  “I didn’t know N’Terra asked finders to collect eggs,” Yaya says. Jaquot, of course, makes a sound of agreement.

  “Only if the specimens have been abandoned or have been found to be nonviable.” The smile is gone from my father’s face as quickly as it appeared.

  “They’re beautiful,” Alma says, and I wonder if she’s filled with the same warm feeling as I am when looking at them.

  “Yes,” he says. “You have six hours.”

  He leaves, and for a moment we’re all silent. Around us, the eggs are piles of rainbows, some as small as my fist and others so large that I think carrying them might require two people.

  “Well,” Yaya says. We all look at her and she shrugs. “I guess we get started?”

  I know better than to let my face betray the stab of irrita
tion that sprouts between my ribs. Instead, I study her, searching for weaknesses in her faultless scientific armor. But the penetration of my stare stops at her face, finding only perfection. Her skin is deeply black, almost blue, her eyes wide and curving upward at the outer corners. I remember hearing Jaquot tell Rondo once that she was the prettiest girl on Faloiv, which now makes perfect sense given what I’ve observed of Jaquot’s crush, and which I agreed with at the time without much jealousy. I had no need to be jealous—Yaya’s beauty is a fact, and to be envious seemed irrational. Now reason seems to mean little as I take in her prominent cheekbones, the wide curve of her nose. Before I can allow myself to explore the idea of whether Rondo also thinks she’s the prettiest girl on the planet, I snatch myself back from the precipice and hope that my momentary logical stutter hasn’t showed in my eyes.

  “And where would you suggest we start?” I ask.

  She looks me square in the eye. “I would suggest that we look in our slates for the identification charts, because I don’t have a damn clue.”

  Disarmed, I laugh—loudly—without meaning to. She gives me a half smile and shrugs in a nonchalant way, but I glimpse a flash of shy pleasure in the way she blinks her eyes away from mine. This is the part where I’m supposed to snap back with something as clever as it is barbed, but all my words seem dull now. Jaquot appears between us, his slate illuminated with one of the charts.

  “Luckily you have your resident egg expert here to lend his genius,” he says, and this time I can’t tell if he’s doing the thing where he defuses tension, or if he’s just flirting. I think the latter, the way his smile beams onto Yaya like her own private sun.

  I open my mouth to say that his project on mammalian eggs hadn’t even been in the top 10 percent of Greenhouse scores, but I don’t want to risk irritating him in case he decides to regale everyone with tales of my fainting at the Beak. I close my mouth and turn to my own slate.

  “Remember, they’re not all mammalian,” Yaya says. She could have been obnoxious to him about it—the way I wanted to be—but instead she shoots him a small smile. Interesting, I think. The sun might glow both ways.