We’ve found a total of three ground-level entrances into the Observatory. We think there is at least one more, though, a secret exit from the main room that Matilda and Old Gaston must have used to escape. She helped design the city, after all—the secrets she knows will hurt us if she ever comes back.
Our main entrance is the one Barkah used to rescue us, the same entrance young Springers used for years to explore the Observatory and steal food stored there. Seems our wrapped packages were more than just a trophy for young Springers who proved their bravery by entering the city and risking spider attack—our food is something of a delicacy to them. Right now, it is a central unit of trade between races. They get CRACKERS and PROTEIN BARS and COOKIES, we get fruit and vegetables, meat, grains, and a certain kind of tree bark. Turns out, bark is absolutely delicious.
“Come on,” I say to Muller. “Let’s go see your girlfriend.”
His face flushes, but he doesn’t deny it. I should really stop teasing him so much.
At the Observatory entrance, Barkah, Lahfah, D’souza and Borjigin are waiting for me.
Barkah still has Kevin’s knife in his belt. Every time I meet the Springer leader, I can’t help but notice that.
D’souza no longer wears black coveralls. Strips of colored cloth are tied around her arms, legs, stomach, and strategically around her waist and chest. Her beautiful brown skin is even darker now, as she spends every day in the jungle. She carries a Springer bag, a hatchet tucked into her belt, and a musket slung over her shoulder.
Barkah wears a patch over his ruined middle eye, but the two remaining green eyes are bright, full of excitement for life. He loves his role as the leader of his people.
“Hem,” he says. “Feel well…today?”
I can’t help but smile. Barkah is picking up our language. I only wish I was as good at picking up theirs.
“Yawap,” I say. “Tallik…tallik cree?”
Lahfah’s frog-mouth trembles like she’s trying to hold something back, then it opens wide with grinding-glass laughter. We now know “he” is a “she.” Her leg is fully healed, thanks in no small part to young Pokano, the circle-cross who has chosen to focus specifically on Springer physiology.
I look to D’souza. “What is she laughing at? I tried to say, I feel fine.”
“Close,” she says. “You said, I feel poop on my face.”
I laugh, embarrassed. Lahfah laughs harder. Barkah growls at her. She stops, but her body continues to shake with held-back amusement. The two of them go everywhere together. Lahfah has an unstoppable sense of humor, which is good, because Barkah doesn’t seem to have one at all.
Borjigin is impatient. He looks at the thin rectangle in his hands, which he calls a “messageboard.” He and Opkick found several of them in an Observatory storeroom. They use them to get information when they are out in the city or the jungle, far away from pedestals.
“We’re late,” he says. “Can we please stop joking about feces and get inside?”
I’m the leader of the people, but Borjigin is in charge of extending the reach of power and clean water, the continuous searching of unexplored buildings, a thousand other things necessary to make this city livable. He works even harder than I do, and—like Barkah—has little time for jokes.
We’re about to enter when Okereke, Johnson and a young circle named Mehmet walk out. They are covered in mud and greasy char. They stink of dirt and some kind of mineral scent I can’t place. They are laughing and excited.
“You’re filthy,” I say to Okereke. “What have you three been up to in there?”
“Helping Spingate,” he says. “And Zubiri.”
“Helping with what?”
He shakes his head, all smiles. “She made us promise not to say anything until she talked to you first. But it’s really amazing.”
Borjigin’s fingers drum impatiently on the messageboard.
“Fine,” I say. “Borjigin, lead the way.”
The hallway we used to flee the fire is now illuminated by a glowing ceiling rather than torchlight. The floor is swept clean, the stone walls are spotless.
The long walk brings us to the room where Coyotl’s mind was erased, where Old Dr. Smith burned to death, where Springers died, where I shot Old Bishop and stabbed O’Malley. I wish we could center things elsewhere, but Spingate and Gaston both insist this room was designed to be the hub of all the Observatory’s abilities.
While I will never recover from those memories, the room looks completely different. The golden coffins have been moved elsewhere in the building, and modified by Smith and Pokano to become sources of health and healing rather than destruction. The burned ceiling was scraped away, painted white, all the lights repaired. We covered up that horrible mural. We found a storeroom with replacement pedestals; a half-dozen of them adorn a rebuilt platform, and a dozen more are set up in the space the coffins once occupied.
Despite all the cleaning and painting, this place still smells faintly of smoke and scorched flesh. Every time I come in, I look at the spot where O’Malley died.