“I see,” my father says. He’s still eyeing me. If he had his way, I think, he’d probably have me in the Zoo strapped to a table, running tests on me. My father opens his mouth, ready to continue his interrogation, when my mother enters the ’wam.
Her arms are full with slides from the lab and, balancing on top, a basket of fruit. She’s focused on keeping everything from toppling over and doesn’t notice us all standing there right away. When she does, her eyebrows pop up and her face breaks into a smile.
“Octavia,” she says. “Should you be up?”
“She’s all right, Samirah,” my father says. “What do you have?”
“Fruit,” she says. “And work. Nothing new.”
“Anything on the Hima boy?”
“Jaquot,” she says. “I’m so sorry about your friend, girls.”
“Thank you, Dr. English. I hope his parents are okay,” Alma says.
“They’re not,” my mother says, squeezing my arm as she passes me for the kitchen. “But they will be. Time makes these things easier.”
She slides the basket of fruit from her arms onto the kitchen platform, then places the slides next to them. She sighs, and I know she’s thinking of my grandmother—that time doesn’t make things easier. She turns back to me and Alma.
“Now that you’re out of bed,” she says, looking at me, “will you be ready to resume your studies? You’ve had a few days to recuperate, but I don’t want to push you.”
“I’m fine,” I say. I’m eager to get back into the Zoo, for reasons that I hope are obvious only to me. “Really. I think getting back to work will help us, you know, keep our mind off things.”
“My thoughts exactly,” she says, still looking sad. My father reaches across the platform and rests his hand on her shoulder. I avert my eyes. My father’s coldness is something I’m comfortable with; I don’t understand his warmth. By the look on my mother’s face, it’s strange to her too.
“Is the finder okay?” I ask. “The one who was bitten.”
“Oh yes,” my mother says, handling the hava in her basket to find a ripe one to slice. “It was just a little morgantan bite. Finders are used to these things. But they haven’t encountered something like a dirixi for nearly a year. Very”—she pauses, gazing at the fruit—“unfortunate timing.”
“Your daughter says she escaped the dirixi by climbing a tree,” my father says.
“Oh?” she says, glancing at me. She’s retrieved the bow knife from the wall and is slicing the hava. “I didn’t know you were much of a climber, Octavia.”
“I guess I am,” I say. I wonder what they’d say if they knew. If they knew any of it: Rasimbukar, my ability to communicate with her, with the myn. The fact that what my father has done—capturing Rasimbukar’s father—could lead our world to war. I wonder if my father would release him, if I told them the truth. I don’t think he would—I get the feeling that he’s finished obeying the laws of the Faloii. Rasimbukar had mentioned that the star people—my people—had broken agreements in the past. I wish I had thought to ask which agreements. What have we been doing that I know nothing about?
My mother’s hand floats in front of me, offering me a piece of hava. I wonder how long it’s waited there while I was lost in my thoughts. I take the fruit.
“Eat some more,” she says. “And then rest. You’ll be back in the labs tomorrow.”
Much later, after my parents have both gone to bed, Alma and I hang out in my room. We huddle on my bed so that we can whisper.
“Your dad,” she says. “I don’t think he believes you.”
“About what?” I already know, but I want to hear it.
“About what happened in the jungle. He seemed really suspicious. Like he knows something.”
“I know. I was thinking about my vitals. He said he looked at them. What if the rhohedron nectar showed up in my system?”
“You think he’d know that you met the Faloii?”
“I don’t know. But if he’s hiding Rasimbukar’s dad, he has to know that the Faloii would eventually come looking for him. Right?”
“I wish I knew more about our agreement with the Faloii,” Alma says, leaning back against the wall. “I mean, the Council has to know that holding a Faloii person hostage is breaking the rules. I don’t need to know the agreement to know that much.”
“That’s the thing,” I whisper. “Given everything I’ve been hearing about Albatur, I think he wants to break the agreement.”
We sit in silence. When I was standing on the bridge with Alma and Rondo, I felt a strange exhilaration: a feeling of looming clarity where things finally seemed to make sense. The buzzing in my head. My reaction to the philax. Somehow I have a connection with the people and animals of Faloiv. But now that I know, I’m just as confused. Why? How? The questions are bigger than ever.
“We should send Rondo a message,” I say, sitting up. “Maybe he’s found something.”
“Sure. That’s why you want to message him.”
“Shut up!”
“Whatever you’ve gotta tell yourself.”
I stretch across to the desk platform and pull my slate toward me. It’s like picking up an alien object—after being out in the jungle, everything that was once familiar feels foreign. I wake up the device and tap on the mouth icon. There’s a pause as it loads, and then my messages appear. There are already three from Rondo, waiting to be read.
“He’s already written me.”
“I didn’t even hear it,” Alma yawns, reclining backward on the bed. “What did he say?”
I open the oldest message first. It’s from yesterday.
I know you’re still sleeping, it says. I’m in your kitchen. I hope you wake up soon. I miss you.
I smile broadly. Then I open the next message.
You there? I found something.
My smile fades. I open the last message.
Your mom knows something.
“Alma,” I hiss. “He says my mom knows something.”
She sits bolt upright.
“Knows what? That you met Rasimbukar?”
“I don’t know.”
I quickly type out a message. Rondo, are you there? What does my mom know?
He types back immediately. About your brain.
“About your brain?” Alma echoes. “You mean that you can . . . ?”
What about my brain? I type.
I don’t know exactly. But remember those footprints I found in the databases? The ones with an encrypted entry point? I finally hacked a trace on it, and it’s your mom’s device.
I sit back against the wall. My mom has been poking around in the files, just like Rondo.
“Give it to me,” Alma says, and takes the slate from my hands.
Which databases did you say you found her footprints in? she types.
Everywhere I’ve been looking, Rondo replies. In the files about the Vagantur’s landing, in the personnel files for the original N’Terrans. And today I found traces of her in your brain scans.
What was she looking at? Alma’s fingers fly across the slate’s face.
She was more than looking, Rondo types. She was making changes. I can’t see what she deleted, but she deleted something and uploaded a new file.
“What does that mean?” Alma breathes, leaning against the wall with me.
I’m sending you an image, Rondo says.