Bishop rips vines, tosses them aside. He exposes a pair of familiar-looking holes in the small door’s frame. Spingate looks at me for permission; I nod. She inserts the golden tool and starts pressing jewels, trying to unlock it.
Several minutes pass. The heat pounds down. I’m getting bored, and so are the others.
“Spin, is that going to work or not?”
“Almost got it,” she says.
The door clicks, grinds inward. Dirt falls. Dust puffs. A stale smell billows out, carried on a wave of cold air.
Axe in one hand, flashlight in the other, Bishop enters, Coyotl and Farrar at his heels.
I stand alone with Spingate. She seems distracted, as if all of this wonder is lost on her.
“Spin, are you all right?”
She looks at me, forces a smile. “Yes. I just…I’m worried about Gaston. Something could happen to him while we’re gone.”
Not something could happen to the OTHERS, but rather, something could happen to HIM. I remember the way the two of them wrestled back on the Xolotl, laughing and playing. Different from how the others played. I feel awkward and uncomfortable talking about this. I’ve never kissed a boy—or a girl, for that matter—so I don’t know what I’m talking about, but it seems to me she really likes Gaston.
“Are you and he…um…more than just friends?”
She sniffs. “I think I love him.”
Love? I wasn’t expecting that. Love is for older people. But then, we are older. Aren’t we?
Could I fall in love?
I feel a surge of happiness. We’re starting a new world down here. We need love. We need people to…to make babies.
A rush of shame. Flashes of people in black uniforms hitting me, calling me evil and blasphemous. My skin suddenly feels hot, and it’s not from the sun. What did Matilda have to go through as a child? For the first time, I feel actual sympathy for her—and I hate myself for it.
“Em, are you okay?”
“Yes, sorry.” I wave at myself, trying to cool off my skin. “Gaston…does he love you back?”
Her eyes crinkle in a smile that owns every bit of her face.
“Well, when we were in the pilothouse, we—”
Bishop’s head pops out of the door.
“Em, you have to see this.”
—
No vines in here. Flashlight beams play off tall blue racks that stretch away from us, rise up to the slanted roof far above. White bins pack the racks, bins large enough for me to fit inside if I scrunched tight enough. The floor feels smooth, but is covered in dirt and bumpy spots.
A few blurds zip through the darkness, their presence known only by the buzzing of wings and high-pitched chirps. I try not to think that the bumps under my bare feet are probably blurd poop.
So dim in here, so many places to hide. I think back to the Xolotl’s long hallways, the shadowy places where the pigs lurked. I think back to Latu’s body, surrounded by bloody hoofprints.
I hate dark places.
Bishop creeps to the closest rack, axe at the ready. Nothing happens. He rests his axe against the rack, slowly pulls out a bin. Flashlight beams catch shimmers of movement: shiny little things scurrying off the bin, scampering away into the darkness. Some kind of insect, maybe.
Bishop places the bin on the dirty floor. On top of the bin is a profile of a jaguar, yellow and black. The jaguar’s eye is a clear jewel. Bishop stares at the bin for a moment, hands searching the sides, brushing away dust and dead bugs. He presses the jaguar’s eye. A click, then the top of the bin opens, two halves sliding to the sides just like the lids of our birth-coffins back on the Xolotl.
We join him. Inside the bin are dark-pink packages, each marked with simple letters. The letters look worn, fuzzy, but we can make out the words: PROTEIN, BREAD, VEGETABLES, VITAMINS.
“That answers that,” Spingate says. “The packages are a different color, but other than that, they look exactly like what we found in the shuttle. The Grownups built this place.”
Bishop reaches in with his left hand, pulls out a package labeled BISCUITS. He switches the package to his right hand, then looks at his left—red dust on his fingers. The package isn’t actually dark pink: there are white spots where his fingers held it.
Spingate frowns. “Bishop, put it down. Let me see if it’s still edible.”
Bishop sets the package on the floor.
Spingate waves her bracelet over it.
Farrar gives the bin a light kick as if to make sure it’s real. He looks up at the endless racks.
“So much,” he says. “We can eat forever and ever.”
Not forever, I know, but there is enough to last us years. This will give us plenty of time to learn farming and hunting. It’s hard to control my excitement. I want to dance and shout, I want to celebrate.
Coyotl walks down the long center aisle, craning his head, looking left and right, trying to take it all in.
“The gods provided for us,” he says. “Aramovsky speaks the truth.”