I hold a hand over my eyes like I’m shielding them from the sun. I pantomime peering out, first this way, then that, my eyes squinting.
Barkah grunts, taps his chest, taps the bottom of the Observatory, points to me, then points to Spingate. He starts drawing madly.
“I don’t believe it,” Spingate says. “Is he saying he was there?”
We watch, amazed, as Barkah sketches. Bodies take form, as do faces. With just a few curves and shapes, he captures the essence of people I know: Bishop, Visca, Aramovsky, O’Malley, Spingate and me, all in the elevator, facing out.
“Godsdamn,” Spingate says, breathless. “Barkah was down there with us. He watched us leave.”
Lahfah thumps the end of his tail on the drawing, making charcoal dust jump. Barkah yells something at him. Lahfah yells back.
Barkah returns to the drawing with what I can only interpret as exasperation. Lines, curves, charcoal dust scattering. He stops, holds the drawing up for all of us to see.
He added Lahfah to the drawing.
“Gromba, gromba, gromba,” Lahfah says, clearly pleased.
Spingate laughs. “Looks like she was down there, too.”
“She? I thought it was a he.”
Spingate shrugs.
Lahfah points at her. “Singat.” He points at me. “Hem.”
Barkah pulls out more blank fabric. He draws quickly, efficiently, showing us the life of the Springers. Secret entrances in ruined buildings that lead to tunnels. Springers in those tunnels, families, entire underground villages.
He makes a few drawings of the surface: the jungle, quick sketches of plants, berries and animals that I hope are edible. He finishes every surface drawing with lurking, five-legged figures—spiders. The message is clear: the Springers have to live underground. If they stay on the surface too long, the spiders could get them.
“Like the boogeyman,” I say.
Spingate nods. “Except their boogeyman is real.”
Their entire culture, forced to live below the surface. Because our kind chased them there.
Barkah sketches a Springer. He spends a little more time on this drawing. He pulls three little tied-off pouches from his bag. They contain colored powders: red, blue, yellow. These he applies to his sketch with a master’s touch. When he finishes, I am looking at a blue Springer, more wrinkled than any I have yet seen. This one looks very old.
I notice something hanging from the old Springer’s thick neck. It looks like a metal rectangle, very detailed, as if the level of detail is itself important. I tap it, point to Barkah’s necklace.
Barkah taps the necklace. I get the impression he’s saying, Yes, same as mine.
I tap the drawing of the old Springer.
“Who is this?” I say to Barkah.
He—or she—can’t understand my words, but I’m betting he can understand my meaning.
He makes a new drawing, a simpler one. A few strokes shows the old blue Springer, then two smaller, purple Springers next to him. He adds necklaces to these as well. He taps the second purple Springer, points to himself.
Then he makes a simple stick figure that clearly represents a Springer. The stick figure is on its knees, head low. Barkah quickly makes many more of these, filling the fabric. In seconds, there are hundreds of them.
“He’s drawing them like they are kneeling,” Spingate says. “Kneeling to the old blue one. That must be their leader.”
More than a leader, I think—royalty.
“Maybe their king,” I say. “Or queen.”
Spingate looks at Barkah in a new light. “Then maybe we are very, very lucky—what if our new friend is a prince or a princess?”
A surge of hope courses through me. If Spingate is right, we could be talking to someone who can make decisions, or can at least speak directly to the Springer leader.
We could make peace.
Barkah reaches into his bag, pulls out a small wooden carving: a spider. He uses the toy’s pointy foot to scratch out one of the two purple Springers with necklaces, dragging the tip back and forth until that young Springer is nothing but smears and torn fabric.
He sets the wooden spider right on top of that spot.
“A spider killed the royal child,” Spingate says. “Barkah’s sibling, maybe.”
I’m shocked at how fast a story can be told with nothing but pictures. If spiders killed the king’s child, and if the king thinks we’re connected to the spiders, he would hate us.
Barkah pulls another small toy from his bag. It looks like a flat, wheeled cart with an angled framework on top, almost like thick tent poles without a tent. A long stick points out the back, as if the cart has a tail. He uses the toy to knock the spider on its side. He sets the cart down, looks at us.
“I don’t get it,” I say. “What does he mean?”
Spingate thinks for a moment. “Maybe he wants our help destroying the spiders?”
Barkah knows I was with Visca, knows the spiders saved me at the fountain, so he has to know the spiders are on my side. Is destroying the machines the price of peace between our two cultures? This could be the bargaining chip I need.