Everyone is holding their breath. I feel Rondo’s eyes drilling into the back of my head. Dr. Adibuah’s rumor is already at the front of my mind when the councilwoman continues.
“As you can imagine, this new discovery is significant and could change the way we gather information about survival on this planet. There will be shifting priorities in N’Terra. So as of next week, students sixteen and older will have the opportunity to take part in an internship in one of our research compounds. We’ll also be introducing children to hands-on procedures at age ten, and shortening their time in the Greenhouse. . . .”
It’s like being in a bubble at the center of an explosion—around me, scholarly decorum is shattered with the roar of exhilaration, the room dissolving into chatter. The councilwoman has more to say about children getting less formal Greenhouse instruction, but her voice is lost. Alma is standing, gripping my arm and shaking it as Jaquot fake-brags about how he’d already known about internships. Somehow the excitement doesn’t sink into my skin—I’m watching the councilwoman slip out of the room, Dr. Espada’s eyes on her back as if observing a dangerous species in the wild. I don’t hear the notification from my slate over the din of the classroom, but I see it light up and tap the mouth icon that appears. It’s a message from Rondo.
Interspecies telepathy. So even if I was a bird, I could still tell you you’re pretty, it says.
I stare at the black text for a moment, allowing the feeling of pleasure to overtake the gloom the councilwoman left behind—even if I’m the only one who feels its shadow. The text is like a wave of sunshine that sweeps down from my head to my chest.
That’s assuming a bird would even find me attractive, I type back.
I would say your beauty is pretty much universal.
I don’t know what to say to this. My fingers tingle as if they have their own message they’d like to send. Alma, sitting again now that Dr. Espada is attempting get the class under control, leans over. I minimize my messages with one swift stroke.
“I wonder if everybody gets an internship,” she says under her breath. “You know good and well some of these fools aren’t ready to be around specimens.”
Dr. Espada has begun to lecture, and again I’m grateful for the interruption, because if I’d had to answer right then, I might have choked. Alma’s words stir a fear that hunkered low in my belly and send it fleeing into the sky. What if I can’t go into the labs?
Another message from Rondo pops up on my slate.
What’s the matter?
I swallow. Is he psychic like the damn myn?
What makes you think something is?
I pay attention.
For some reason reading these three words makes my eyes prickle. So simple, the idea of being seen. Rondo might be one of the only people on this planet who actually sees me. The thought is so sharp, like a bite, that I’m responding before I can even stop myself:
Maybe you should pay attention to Espada’s lecture instead.
I regret it instantly. I want to look back at him, to feel the comfort of his brown eyes like a salve on whatever wound I’ve exposed in my own skin. But I force myself to keep my eyes on the screen.
He sends back one word—Okay—and that hurts even more.
Later, when we break for our midday meal, Alma and I are the first outside. Even the heat can’t crush her excitement.
“Internships. Incredible,” she gushes. We had two hours of lecture after the councilwoman dropped the news of internships on us, but it’s still the first thing out of everyone’s mouths when we’re released for break. “Can you believe it? Incredible. Absolutely incredible.”
“You just said incredible three times,” I say.
“Because it is! Octavia, we have to be in the same compound. We have to. It’s going to be incredible.”
“Four.”
“Okay, okay. But seriously! We could discover something amazing together! Like your mom.” She sighs. “Oh, stars, your mom is brilliant. Did she tell you anything about how she discovered the telepathic thing?”
I slowly chew the bite of food I’ve just taken, wondering how to tell her that I hadn’t a clue, that my mother cares more about protecting her secrets than sharing the truth with her daughter. Alma presses on without waiting for my answer.
“I have to be in the Paw. I want to learn everything there is to know from her. Your dad too, of course. But you know . . . your mom. She’s a legend now.”
“You’d really want to be in the Paw?” I ask. She’s finally settling down and eating. “Not the Newt?”
Alma nods, one of her cheeks huge from the bite she finally took.
“Of course,” she says. “Mammals have always been my favorite—you know that. Besides, if I end up working in the Newt, I’m going to have to live around my parents forever. And nothing against them but, um . . . no thanks.”
We both laugh. At one point I would have welcomed working alongside my mother and father. But lately . . .
“Weird that they’re letting us in now,” I say.
“And ten-year-olds doing hands-on work?” she says. “Did you catch that bit? The old Council Head spent so much time building the pathway to working with actual specimens. Now Albatur wants to let kids do it.”
“They trust kids a lot more than I do,” I say. “Can you imagine Jaquot when he was ten? I wouldn’t want that terror in the labs.”
“The Council likes to switch things up. Like this,” she says, gesturing around us. “They never used to let us come outside. And now look: we’re out here for mid-meal every day.”
“Yeah, with the company of a bunch of buzzguns,” I say, glancing around at the gray-suited guards that roam the Greenhouse perimeter.
“Hey, I don’t mind the company, as long as I’m out here.” She squints at the sky, hoping to catch sight of something, anything. “The buzzguns are weird though.”
“So many since Albatur got elected. They’re everywhere now.”
“Surprised Dr. Espada doesn’t carry one while he teaches.”
I laugh at that.
“Oh shut up. I guess they have them out here in case something dangerous happens to come by. A dirixi or something.”
“Don’t even say that—”
“Or to protect us from the bloodthirsty Faloii!” yells Jaquot, leaping out of the long grass behind us. We jump and he laughs.
“Don’t be a fearmonger. The Faloii aren’t bloodthirsty,” Alma says, bopping him with her water canteen.
“Can you prove that?” He laughs, doing his best whitecoat impression. I chuckle in spite of myself. He does sound like my father.
“No,” says Alma, “but if they wanted to kill us, they wouldn’t have let us onto Faloiv in the first place.”
“Still. The Faloii think we’re their prisoners. We can’t do anything without their permission.”