“Listen,” he says, his eyes piercing through his spectacles, and then turns away.
Confused, I go on standing in the doorway for a moment, the buzz in my head quieting, until Alma turns back, halfway down the hall, calling for me. I slowly follow her toward the outdoors, where the sun settles low into the horizon, birds flying straight across its girth, oblivious to its heat.
CHAPTER 7
I’m dreaming of my mother. She’s standing beside a building with walls that slope gently upward on all sides, evening out on top to form a flat roof. She’s not looking at me: instead she’s bent down, picking small orange flowers from along the building’s edge. I call to her, feel the words climb up my throat, but no sound is released from my open mouth. I try again, but I have no voice. The wind sifts its fingers pleasantly through my skinsuit, cooling my body.
My mother straightens her back, holding the collection of flowers loosely in her hand, her arms hanging down at her sides. She seems unaware of me, unaware of anything. She smiles a small smile and I think I hear her humming. There’s something else too: a sound between a roar and a trumpet. It doesn’t frighten me: it sounds some distance away, too far to be any danger. Then I hear it again much closer. My mother appears not to notice. I call to her once more, but my voice still doesn’t work.
I see the source of the roar: a gwabi, across the clearing from where the strange building stands. It’s full-grown, its chest broad and covered in the beautiful markings that distinguish it from other similar predators. It sees my mother, but my mother still doesn’t seem to notice, even as the animal roars again and comes loping through the clearing toward her.
My panic rises like a quick red sun. The gwabi easily weighs five hundred pounds, more if it’s female. I’ve seen its teeth in Dr. Espada’s lectures, long curving blades. I try to run toward my mother to warn her but I’m rooted to the spot, watching in horror as the gwabi bounds through the grass, its ears flat, ready to attack.
It leaps. My mother turns to face it, dropping her flowers. But there is no attack. The gwabi skids to a stop before her, all four massive paws on the ground, its shoulders reaching past my mother’s waist. They stare at each other, neither making a sound, and then the gwabi opens its jaws wide, very wide, in what looks like a yawn. My mother reaches both hands into its mouth.
I watch, transfixed, and with each second that passes I become more afraid that I’m about to see my mother torn apart. But when she withdraws her hands, they aren’t bloody. They’re shining with the gwabi’s saliva, but she’s holding something, lifting it out of the animal’s mouth.
I can’t see what it is. Not until she turns toward me—finally acknowledging me with the smile I know so well, my grandmother’s dimples on either side of it—do I see that she’s holding the spotted man’s egg. She holds it toward me, her head tilted to one side as if to say See?
I wake to the sound of hammers.
Dragging myself from bed, I go to the window and slide the shade aside an inch. A trio of workers has resumed construction on the tower near the center of the dome. I watch them for a moment, eyeing the metallic-looking materials they create the frame of the tower with. It gives the impression of a skeleton, which adds to its hostile appearance, and I wonder if Dr. Albatur engineered its design. Its cold angles, the pointed fang of it jutting up among the smooth tops of the ’wams . . . it’s almost as if Albatur himself has taken up residence in the commune, an impression that I know would please him.
Inside my ’wam is another sound—the delicate rhythm of a knife clicking against the platform. By the time I dress, the smell of baking bread has drifted down the hall to my bedroom. Usually it’s my father who cooks, and it makes me hesitate before sliding open my door. I pause and listen—sure enough, I hear my father’s voice, low and rough as he speaks to my mother.
“Albatur has a vision, Samirah,” he says. “He understands this world as it is, not as we’d like it to be. He sees the injustice in the death of his parents, what it means to—”
“You voted for the man because you’re both orphans, Octavius? You tipped this balance because you wish you could change the past?”
“A false equivalency,” he scoffs.
“Oh? And using what occurred on one planet to shape the life on another is valid? You voted for a man who—”
“The Council exists for a reason,” he snaps. “The vote is the vote. You’re angry with me for exercising my rights? It’s finished. Be serious, Samirah.”
“Be serious? Here’s serious, Octavius: the only studies that have been approved for the last two cycles are those of councilmembers who voted for Albatur. With nothing but a vague half-page explanation for why those that are denied have been rejected.”
“You would prefer a tome?”
“Don’t you mock me. Stars, don’t you mock me. Not when Albatur is this close to violating a tome of—”
I try to crack my door without a sound, but it creaks traitorously in my attempt to hear the conversation better. Both my parents fall silent, the clicking of the knife the only noise.
“Good morning,” my mother says, smiling as I round the corner into the kitchen. The smile pricks at my memory—she looks so much like my grandmother sometimes.
“Hey,” I say, pretending to focus on the food she’s cutting so I don’t have to look at either of them. My father just takes the flat brown bread out of our stone oven, places it on the platform, and walks toward the back of the ’wam, saying nothing. I order myself not to look after him.
“Sleep okay?” my mother says, still chopping. It’s not a real question so I don’t answer. Even with the aroma of food I can smell the Zoo on her: sterile and flat.
“Did you just get home?”
She puts some of the zarum she was cutting on a plate and hands it across the platform.
“How could you tell?”
“You smell like the lab.”
“Do I?” She stretches the fabric of her skinsuit up to her nose, craning her neck down to meet it, sniffing. “I don’t smell anything.”
I shrug, biting off a piece of zarum, not speaking. At the thought of her in the labs, the events of yesterday—my placement in the Paw—flood back into my mind. “Other factors.” Why do I get the feeling that “other factors” has something to do with her? The anger that flashed through me at Dr. Espada’s desk reignites in a blaze of sparks.
“Anything the matter, Afua?”
“Nope.”
She stares at me across the platform, her eyes soft. I hate when she looks at me like this. If my mouth were sewn shut, that look could pull the stitches out one by one. I’m not ready to be opened up, so I look down at my food.
“I’ll be serving my internship here,” I say. “In case you didn’t already know.”
“No, I didn’t,” she says, but that’s all.