The last of the animals we freed storm past us. Two igua throw their bodies at the gate, shoving with their tusks, digging in with their back legs. It topples underneath their immense power, the sound of the metal striking the ground echoing out into the trees. I search the tunnel for Rasimbukar, but if she’s out there she’s sealed herself off from me. I turn to call for Adombukar, but he’s standing in the archway looking back into the dome, the spots on his forehead arranged into a low, flat line. I dash to his side, hoping to persuade him to come with me. But when I reach him, glancing into the dome to gauge the distance of the vasana, I see Dr. Albatur.
He’s one hundred yards away, taking slow, almost leisurely steps toward us. He has a bit of a limp: I wonder if it’s from me and Alma tranqing him, or if it’s the effect of the door outside to Faloiv being open. I have no idea what else this planet does to his body—maybe even the air hates him. I hope it does. Behind him, the vasana wander loosely, dizzily—a flock following their pale shepherd. His left hand is behind his back; in his right is the black control.
“English, stop this nonsense,” he calls. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing!” I scream. “How could you do this? The vasana? The Solossius! You’re putting the whole planet in danger!”
“This planet!” he shouts, taking his left hand from behind his back and balling it into a fist. “This tiny, sweaty planet! We’re only here because we have no choice. Our choice has been taken from us.”
“But we’re here!” I yell. “I was born here! Just because you have to wear a red hood—”
“Me? This is infinitely more vast!” he shouts. “This is about our survival: our legacy! We did not come so far to be limited to one sphere! We will return to our former greatness. Faloiv will be ours, and we will be free to make of it what we wish!”
“But we are free!” I scream. “This is our home. We’re here and you’re putting that all at risk by—”
“The risk is stagnancy,” he bellows, stopping to glare at me. “This is about rebuilding the life we used to have! I came here with one purpose. I will not die here, with that purpose unfulfilled. And his people”—Albatur aims his finger like a buzzgun at Adombukar—“have what we need to change that! Their greed keeps us from rebuilding a civilization greater than our ancestors ever imagined. . . .”
“People like you killed our ancestors, Eric.” My mother steps through the door, her arm bleeding steadily. “We came here to start over, not to make the same mistakes. Or did you forget what my parents always said? They were your peers.”
“Your parents were traitors!” he roars.
Truth seems to be all around me, but every piece is wearing a mask. I want to interrupt, to demand answers once and for all, but my mother is raging on.
“If it wasn’t for them, we would already be dead,” my mother says.
Someone is running toward us from the labs. My father. The sight of him chokes me: love and fear like two serpents rising from the abyss between us, teeth bared as they wrap each other in their coils. I want to run to him and from him at the same time.
“Samirah,” he shouts desperately at my mother as he nears us. He’s on the other side of the pack of vasana and stands there hesitantly. His creation or not, he fears them. Scientist face-to-face with the monster he created. “Why are you doing this?”
“I could ask you the same thing, Octavius,” my mother calls. She has none of his desperation: despite the pain from her wound, she’s as calm as ever.
He shakes both his hands at her, his face a mask of storms.
“Look what you’ve done! The containment room is in ruins! Work lost! Death! For them!”
“What I’ve done? Eric did this!” My mother shouts at my father. “You did this!”
“The only thing I’ve done is pursue progress,” Albatur yells, spit flying. “The Solossius will succeed and we will go on!”
“And this entire time you’ve been lying to me!” My father interrupts. He paces, looking for a way to get around the vasana, which stand swaying between him and us. He sounds the way he sounded when I last spoke to him in the ’wam: wild sorrow colors his voice. “Going behind my back. Sabotaging work that would get us closer to our goals! This is why I ordered that the vasana project be kept secret! I knew someone was causing trouble. And you! You tried to keep the telepathy discovery secret, when you knew something that significant could turn the tables for N’Terra. Why, Samirah?”
My mother lifts her chin.
“Because you’re lost, Octavius. Because I knew you and Albatur would find a way to weaponize it all. To try to control the Faloii: make them do what you want. He has made you believe that the future is what lies behind, not ahead. . . .”
My father’s voice is like thunder. The silence that has filled our family for so many years is finally broken, but the bridge across the chasm is uncrossable.
“You lied to N’Terra! You lied to me!”
“And I’d lie again,” my mother shouts, “if it meant protecting this planet from people like Albatur. People like you.”
“Albatur is a genius. He’s overcoming his condition and providing us with a future—”
“I don’t have a condition!” Albatur shouts. His eyes seem as empty and wild as the vasana. “This planet is the condition, for which I have a solution!” He pauses, his chin trembling—he looks so old. The ogwe trees pulse their warning into my nostrils. “And you will not jeopardize that.”
He raises the black control, pointing at us like an arrow, and presses the button.
“Mom, run!” I scream, grabbing her shoulder and dragging her through the doorway. Adombukar runs with us, his long legs keeping him several paces ahead. I don’t see Alma anywhere. But I hear her calling my name, and as I run, tripping in the dim light of the moon, I look for the source of her voice. I find her on the roof of the guards’ ’wam, brandishing a buzzgun.
“Octavia! Up here!”
I don’t stop to think how she got the gun or what she plans to do with it. I run toward the ’wam, gripping my mother’s hand, wet with blood, thinking that if we can just get away from the vasana, maybe we can reason with Dr. Albatur. But the hope is shallow, desperate; my prayer is a shout down a well I know to be dry.
Behind me, the vasana scream so horribly it sends tears fleeing down my cheeks. I risk a glance over my shoulder: they’re close, too close, their eyes dull with artificial rage, and behind them, by the door, the shape of Albatur, watching hungrily. I can’t see my father.
When my mother’s hand slips from my grasp, it’s as if I’m in a bad dream. I grab at the air, thinking I will find her fingers again, I will hold on and not let go, and she will be running beside me as before. Empty space. The world slows. My mind is a stone, crashing through glass, the pieces shattering and piercing my heart. Held by the inescapable weight of the air, I spin around, so fast but slow, slow, slow. My mother falling, the red dust swelling around her in a cloud. Rising to one knee to stand before the herd of vasana envelops her like a wave, the moonlight on their teeth flashing like a thousand pointed stars.
My mind widens to encircle the universe. The whole world and all its pain is in my head, infinite lights extinguishing in agony. Somewhere, Rondo bleeding onto false ground. Somewhere, Alma screaming my name. My father screaming my mother’s. And Adombukar’s finger on my forehead, sending me sailing into blissful blackness.
CHAPTER 30
The smell of trees. Leaves brushing my face: the scent of their thick, complicated greenness filling my nose before turning into waves of color in my mind. Birds, high above, appearing in my consciousness like tiny bursts of light. I slowly open my eyes, become aware that I’m moving.
Adombukar carries me in both arms, the way one carries a child. He bears me easily, moving branches with his shoulder before passing through. He feels me waking, encourages me with small, gentle bursts of yellow like the sun. I sense him there and someone else, a familiar
presence. Rasimbukar.
“You’re awake,” she says out loud. She’s speaking rather than showing because she knows my mind is weak.
“Yes.”
“Would you like to walk?”
“Yes.”
Adombukar sets me down gently, keeping one hand on my shoulder as I find my balance. I’m surprised that it’s day, and squint up at the sun filtering down through the trees. Beside us I find the gwabi, staring up at me with her luminous green eyes.
“She has not left us,” Adombukar says, the spots on his forehead shifting into what I think is a reluctant smile. “She has been worried about you.”
“We have been walking all night,” Rasimbukar says. “We have nearly arrived.”
“Where?”
“Home.”
She continues forward on a path that is barely a path, the ground hardly visible through plant and bramble. I pick my way after her and her father, ducking under vines as thick as my arm. The pistils of flowers growing on a tree trunk trail after me like long tongues, scenting me. The jungle around us seems to pulse with heat and life. It’s denser than I ever thought possible, and I know without having to be told that no finder from N’Terra has ever been this deep.
“Your home?” I ask.
“Yes. Would you like to see?” She pauses on the path ahead.
I nod, moving forward to join her where she’s stopped. She smiles, the spots on her forehead separating into a pleasant pattern. She reaches for the thickly vined branch ahead and sweeps it aside.
There was a time when I believed that the most beautiful place in existence was in N’Terra. When the sun flooded in through the transparent dome of the Mammalian Compound and shone on the tops of the ’wams we had built . . . I always believed there was nothing that could move me in the same way. But standing here on this hill between two people of Faloiv, looking down at their home, I know I was wrong.
They’ve found clay in the body of their planet that I’ve never even dreamed of: buildings made of pink and red, blue and yellow, some large enough to be mistaken for mountains. Some have rounded tops like ours, some are made of what looks like glass, and all of them are built directly into the terrain of Faloiv: boulders, trees, hills. A crescent-shaped lodge hugs the shore of a broad lake. Brilliant green vines and ivies spider up the sides of the domes. Around the perimeter of the city, the very trees bend outward to accommodate the buildings, growing at a curve instead of straight into the sky. And among it all are people, small from here, but people: the Faloii, living their lives, walking in and out of buildings, carrying baskets, enjoying the sun.
“My mother should have seen this,” I say, and my anguish surges, hatching, my animal grief shuddering from its shell. It seems impossible. Can she actually be dead?
“Your mother was brave,” Rasimbukar says, touching my cheek lightly with her paw-like hand. “She was protecting us all.”
“She shouldn’t have had to.” I sniff, looking down at the city through blurred vision. My chest feels as if it’s swelling, like my skin might tear to make room for the growing pain.
She says nothing, and I don’t even want to look into the tunnel: I don’t want to feel her agreeing with me.
“What do I do now?” I say. “My father . . . N’Terra . . .” I bite my lip hard. I’m alone now. What’s the point? Rondo far behind, injured who knows how badly. Alma . . . they know she was in the labs with me. What will they do to her?
“Come.” Rasimbukar starts down the hill, gesturing.
“What? There?” I cry, taking a step back. “I can’t. They’ll hate me! When they find out what we’ve done . . . what I’ve seen us do . . . When they find out . . .”
“Incorrect,” she says, staring at me with her endless eyes. Beside me, the gwabi makes a snuffling sound through her nose, as if impatient. “Like your mother, you are brave, and we will need your bravery for what is coming.”
I hesitate, look down at the city, its beautiful colors, the shapes of the buildings like the comforting images Adombukar passed through the tunnel to wake me. I slowly widen my mind, letting the energy of the city rise up to meet me. Everything has a color, a scent, a feeling. Gentle impressions that float, green and peaceful, into my head. It’s strange, but I almost recognize pieces of it: a fuzzy echo, like glimpsing a tree that you’ve only seen in a dream. It smells close, familiar. It smells like . . .
Rasimbukar turns back to me on the hill, extending her hand. The spots on her forehead broaden and spread, giving the impression of a bird’s wings, opening wide to welcome me.
“Come,” she says, the sun behind her hot and bright. “Your grandparents are waiting.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Perhaps one day I will write a book just thanking the people whose belief in me has carried me this far—there are as many of you as there are stars. Deepest thanks to my mother, father, and stepfather, whose endless love and confidence refused to allow me to give up. Cia White, who once said, “You are the real thing” and meant it. The Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts, where I first learned there is a future in art. My Soulie, Hope Lockett, who has been assuring me I was meant for more since we were working back line at KFC with Miss Dorothy. Kwame Alexander—Uncle! Rooster Man!—who has always been a model and has never closed a door behind him once he stepped through it. Jenn Jackson, who woke me up when what I perceived as consciousness was inception. Ari Harris, who puts the extra in extraterrestrial. Prathima Radhakrishnan, a whitecoat with a pure heart and a sharp eye. Tiffany Jackson and Dhonielle Clayton, whose cackles and brilliant, brilliant writing make this world more beautiful and more exciting. Daniel José Older, who has done so, so much just by being himself. Stuart Cipinko and his wife, Anne, who carries him on. Zoé Samudzi, who breathed hope into this book. My agent, Regina Brooks—to whom I never have to explain—thank you for choosing me. My editor, Ben Rosenthal, for his patience and true kindness. Chicago crew . . . you’ve stuck around through every rage and every happy riot. I’m always writing for you.
And finally, my deepest gratitude to Octavia Butler, who wrote: “All that you touch, You Change. All that you Change, Changes You. The only lasting truth is Change.” May her memory and her work live forever.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo by Jasmine Lopez
OLIVIA A. COLE is an author, blogger, and poet. Her other books include the adult novels Panther in the Hive and its sequel, The Rooster’s Garden. Olivia was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and wandered to Chicago and Miami before going back home. You can visit her online at www.oliviaacole.com.
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BOOKS BY OLIVIA A. COLE
A Conspiracy of Stars
CREDITS
Cover art by Jeff Huang
Cover design by David Curtis
COPYRIGHT
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
A CONSPIRACY OF STARS. Copyright © 2018 by Olivia A. Cole. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2017938885
ISBN 978-0-06-2644
21-3
EPub Edition © January 2018 ISBN 9780062644237
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FIRST EDITION
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A Conspiracy of Stars Page 30
