I do not know. But your mother is brave. Intelligent. She will do what she needs to do.
“I didn’t know we were breaking the rules,” I say out loud without meaning to, and I find myself sending her my memories of the day’s events: the zunile, the smell of death, my disgust.
She immediately sends me back her own revulsion, a wave of nausea, despair—and rage—that nearly doubles me over with its intensity. She isn’t gentle: she pushes it through the tunnel to me and doesn’t withdraw it until I’m physically gagging.
This is only one of the things your people have done, she tells me, finally withdrawing her disgust from my mind. Now there may be war. You must return my father.
“I’m trying,” I plead, again saying the words out loud as well as thinking them.
Tonight, she tells me, and I comprehend her desperation, her anger. If Dr. Albatur could feel these things—if my father could—I wonder if they would still do the things they do.
Do your people know we have him? I ask.
No. But I will have no choice but to tell them if I do not see my father tonight. I will wait no longer.
And then she’s gone.
CHAPTER 25
I reenter the Mammalian Compound’s main dome amid a flurry of children. Dr. Yang had discovered me outside the Greenhouse and insisted I join the kids on their Worms back home. They scurry through the trees back to the commune, oblivious to the dark cloud that hovers over N’Terra. They know nothing of war. Neither do I. But I’m starting to see how one begins.
Something is different. A smell, a sound. I can’t pinpoint it, and it nags at me as I walk slowly down the path toward the communal dome. Here and there whitecoats walk in pairs on their way to the labs or toward the entrance to leave for another compound. They whisper, which isn’t unusual, but something about the way they whisper needles at me: their heads bend toward each other, the slightest hunch in their shoulders as they exchange words. I stand aside for two of them on the path and see their eyes dart at me, momentarily silent, before they resume conversation after they’ve passed. It’s only when I’m on the path again, walking between the striped trunks of the ogwe, that it hits me.
I don’t smell anything.
The comforting, complicated smell of the trees, their interlocking scent that always fills my nose but that no one else seems to notice, is gone. I stop abruptly on the path, and inhale deeply, desperately. I pick up the vaguest scent of something in the air: I can’t decipher it. I think of what my mother had said: There’s more, baby. Does that mean . . . ? I reach into my mind and open the tunnel, just a little.
The scent slithers into my head, a hollow empty smell that makes my stomach clench. I don’t know what it is and I’ve never smelled it before, but it’s being emitted by the ogwe trees. The comforting scent that usually fills my body when I’m around them has been yanked away. The trees no longer comfort me: they warn me. It’s almost as if they’re whispering to me, their whispers in the form of smells, expressing caution.
“Miss English.”
A voice startles me, interrupting my thoughts, and I almost mistake it for the trees, murmuring to me. But it’s a whitecoat with long curly hair tied back at the nape of his neck. I recognize him vaguely from the Zoo: angular features and dark eyes.
“Your father has been looking for you,” he says.
I glance quickly up and down the whitecoat’s body, looking for a tranq gun or some other thing he might use to subdue me. But this man doesn’t seem to mean any harm. He holds his slate loosely under his arm, his eyes sharp in shape but soft in expression.
“He’s very upset,” he says.
“Upset?”
“Yes, I think something has happened with your mother. I’m not sure what.” My face must betray some hint of emotion, because he extends a hand toward me, stopping short of touching me. “She’s all right. But Dr. Albatur seems to be under the impression that she’s . . . done something. I’ve never heard of the Council making an arrest—this is all very strange. But find your father. I just saw him leave the labs headed for the commune.”
My thanks is barely strong enough to make it past my teeth.
My steps slow when I reach the stairs that lead into the compound—the dread of facing my father presses against my sternum like a heavy wind, almost pushing me backward. I wearily make my way down the packed-dirt stairs one at a time.
Movement below catches my eye and I pause by my favorite flowers, their stems and petals curling away from me, slowly turning the deep blue of their evening shade. Down where the ’wams begin, a cluster of people has gathered, and the rising sound of a commotion reaches my ears.
Six gray-clad guards are spread out before a crowd of people who live in the Paw. Most still wear their white coats from the labs, a few are shopkeepers and wear skinsuits of various colors. From this height, I can’t make out any of their identities: just the colors of their clothing. I know not who but what each of them is. I can remember a time when I would have given anything to be wearing one of those white coats, to know that even a far-off eye would see me wearing it and know what I was. Now it seems stupid: Wearing it now would mean what, exactly? To Rasimbukar’s eyes, it might mean that I’m an invader; an alien who came to this planet in supposed peace and then brutalized the people and creatures who were here first.
I descend a few more steps to get a better look at what’s happening in the commune. The commotion has increased in volume. By the time I find myself near the bottom of the steps, the outrage in the voices is like a collection of smoldering coals. Everyone is angry, but the presence of the buzzguns covers the heat in a layer of ash.
“This is ridiculous!” one woman in a white coat squawks, gesturing with small, tight movements of her hands. I’m not close enough to see the expression on her face, but her voice teeters between anger and fear. “I’ve never heard of the Council coming into people’s homes this way! What is the meaning of this?”
I can’t hear the guards’ responses, if they answer at all. Two other gray-suited guards come out of a ’wam on the edge of the commune, the inhabitant of the ’wam following them, gesturing angrily.
“Anything?” the guards outside call.
“Nothing.”
The guard raises his voice to address the small crowd of people.
“We’re all through now, everyone. Back to your business.”
He turns to go, nodding at his cohorts, but the same woman in the white coat shouts after them.
“You barge into our homes to look for something—you won’t tell us what—and when you don’t find it, you just leave? What kind of nonsense is this? I’ll be talking to Dr. English about this!”
“He already knows,” a guard says.
I move closer. Why are they searching people’s ’wams?