Three days later, Alma and I are sharing my bedroom, her and the other interns’ things finally packed and moved. I can only imagine Draco and the other irritable drivers complaining about having to transport interns back and forth between compounds while the whitecoats settled who would stay with whom. But now she’s here. Having Alma present to fill the silence of my always empty ’wam is like a stitch across an open wound.
It’s morning, and an engineer is in my room building Alma’s bed. We have nothing else to do—no assigned research from sorting duty—so we stand in the doorway watching. He doesn’t say much as he builds, working from a huge case of white clay he wheeled in, using a handheld flat spade to shape her sleeping platform. It’s above my own, built into the wall like a shelf. The clay dries almost instantly, and watching him work, I realize it must take years of practice to get the process just right. He does it deftly, scooping the clay out of the case and turning swiftly back to my wall to create thick layers that gradually begin to take the shape of my own sleeping platform. I keep expecting to get bored, but we stand there watching until he finishes.
“What about when she moves out?” I ask. “Do I just have two beds now?”
He’s cleaning up, wiping his spade on his apron. He smiles.
“No, don’t worry. When she goes back to her own compound we’ll come back and remove the bed. Concentrated pavi extract will turn it into dust,” he says. “Then we can just sweep it up.”
“Really?” It seems impossible: the bed looks as immovable as a boulder, like everything else in the compound. It occurs to me how little I know about anything that’s not related to zoology—I’ve seen the clay used to build structures dozens of times: How had I not known about its properties? Rondo would probably have a theory about this. “I didn’t know pavi was so acidic.”
“Oh, it’s not the acidity. Just the way the two react. It’s a fairly recent discovery: before, we would break structures apart like stone.” The engineer thrusts the spade into a loop in his apron and motions for us to clear the doorway. “You know Dr. Yang? It was her discovery, actually. She accidentally dissolved some lab equipment! Would still be a lot easier to build up the compounds if they let us break down the Vagantur, but I suppose some folks still aren’t satisfied.”
“What do you mean? Aren’t satisfied?” I ask as he trundles the case of clay toward the front door. “Why wouldn’t they be?”
He pauses to wipe his hands on his apron.
“Not sure exactly—I don’t remember any world other than this. Seems just fine to me. But the way I hear it, there are some on the Council who grew up bitter about our hosts. Some folks don’t like not being the boss. No boss here but the sun.”
I exchange a look with Alma.
“How would that change though?” I ask as he wheels the case the last few feet to the entrance.
“The Council, girl. The decision is theirs. They decide they want to start making their own rules, and that’s all it takes.”
The door opens and he starts through it, but I fire one more question at his back.
“But wouldn’t that break the landing agreement?”
He looks over his shoulder with a frown and doesn’t stop moving to answer.
“When someone gets it in their head that their way is the right way, no type of agreement will stop that.”
The door slides shut behind him, leaving me standing there staring at its smooth surface, more questions on my tongue.
“You don’t think you’re pushing it a little?” Alma’s voice comes from over my shoulder. Something in her tone makes me turn right away.
“What do you mean?”
She leans against the entrance to my bedroom, her eyebrows furrowed.
“I mean, come on, O,” she says. Her hands, usually like two birds with their gestures, are tucked around her body like she’s in a cocoon. “You’ve told me everything, and I understand. But what is asking all these questions going to accomplish?”
“Maybe nothing,” I say. We stand across the room, looking at each other. “But you don’t think it’s important? You think I shouldn’t ask?”
“I don’t know,” she says. Her hands come loose from around her body and flop at her sides. “It just doesn’t seem like the best way to become a whitecoat. Your parents are already worried about that, right? If you’re focused on this stuff and not your research, it’s only going to be worse if . . .”
“If what? If I ask questions? You’ve always asked questions at the Greenhouse, same as me. Why is this different?”
She purses her lips and looks at me.
“I just—I don’t know. It just is. I want to be a whitecoat, O. The questions I ask further that goal.”
“Maybe being a whitecoat isn’t my ultimate goal, Alma,” I say.
She stares hard at me. She doesn’t squint, but something about her expression narrows.
“What else is there, Octavia?”
We look at each other a moment longer and I can’t find an answer. I’ve told her everything, but some things can’t be explained. Not even to myself. She turns away to disappear back into my room. I take a deep breath before following her.
When I enter, she’s perched up on her new bed, staring at her slate. It’s not illuminated, however. She merely gazes at her blank screen. She’s been like my distant sister since we were children: going to the Greenhouse to take classes with Dr. Yang, chanting songs about the difference between reptiles and amphibians. We were immediate friends, rarely a moment of silence between us. This particular silence seems wide and deep: I’m not sure how to bridge it. As it turns out, she does it first.
“Was that engineer Aiyana’s dad?” she says.
I direct my eyes up at her where she sits. Aiyana is a couple of years older than us and had opted to work in archiving rather than begin a path to the labs. I don’t know her well, but just her name seems to have planted a sparkle in Alma’s eyes.
“No,” I answer, grateful that she’s not mad. “Aiyana’s dad isn’t an engineer.”
“Oh. They have the same smile.”
“What do you know about Aiyana’s smile?” I prod.
She laughs, raising her eyebrows.
“Oh, this and that,” she says.
“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” I can’t just move forward like nothing happened without at least saying this. “I know you want to be a whitecoat. I promise I’ll try not mess things up for you.”
She waves her hands.
“I’m going to be a whitecoat either way, O.”
I stare at her a moment longer: my friend, my confidant. More than that, Alma is smart. I try to hold it back, but I need her input.
“Did you hear what he said, though?” I burst, and she laughs, shaking her head.
“Which part? People being bitter?”
I nod. “Yeah, and about the Vagantur not being dismantled because they’re unsatisfied. About them wanting to change things.”
“Unsatisfied or not, they better get used to it. N’Terra gave up on fixing the Vagantur decades ago. I don’t know where else they think they’d go! This is home.”
“Yeah . . .” I frown. The cloud over my father’s heart has been a vague shadow for so long. Now that I’ve met Dr. Albatur, somehow the cloud has been given a shape. It looms over me and makes me feel cold.
Alma hops down from her perch, going to fetch her mattress from where it’s rolled up in the hall.
“Are your parents coming home later?” she says once she’s unrolled the mattress and is up on her ledge again.
“Yeah probably,” I say, looking down.
She gives me a look, a cross between comfort and reproach.
“It’s okay, O,” she says. “It’s me.”
I sigh. I’ve told her about what happened at the Beak, about my father’s anger, my mother’s secrets, the spotted man, the egg—but I haven’t gotten used to the feeling of needing to hide. Adaptations take time to change, I think: once an animal needs a method of camouflage or a defense mechanism, it’s part of them until it’s phased out over time or replaced.
“They probably won’t come home,” I admit after a pause. “I’ve seen them more in the Zoo in the past few days than I have in weeks. Whatever, I honestly prefer it like this.”
“You’re still mad about the zunile, huh?”
“I mean, yeah!”
She laughs, shaking her head.
“Well, everybody hides something. Like you, with this egg!” She pauses, biting her lip. “Can I see it?”
“The egg? Yeah, of course.”
I shift my weight on the bed platform, pulling up the edge of my mattress. I scoop the egg out of the hole, gazing at it for a moment, its shell lineless and unmarred, before standing to present it to Alma.
She sits on the edge of her bed and stares at it curiously, her face apprehensive.
“It’s beautiful,” she says finally.
“Here,” I say, extending it out to her.
She crosses her arms quickly, shaking her head.
“Nah, I don’t want to touch it,” she says. “I just wanted to see it.”
“It won’t hurt you,” I laugh, rubbing it against my cheek. I do this sometimes when I can’t sleep. The warmth of it comforts me. In a strange way it reminds me of Rondo.
“It might,” she says. “Remember what happened in the sorting room? I still don’t understand why that egg burned Jaquot and Yaya but not you.”
I rub my thumbs over the egg.
“I don’t know either. But what my mother said to me about different eggs having different purposes . . . it has to be related to that somehow.”
I return the egg to its hiding place under my mattress.
“Is that where you keep it?” she says, poking her head down again. “Eventually we’re going to need to ask someone about it. Dr. Espada or even your mom. You could actually get some answers. Scientia potentia est!”
“Alma, what?”
“It means ‘Knowledge is power!’”
I can’t help but chuckle.
“Why do you know all these stupid dead words?”
“They’re not stupid! They’re beautiful.” She shrugs. “See: Scientia potentia est,” she says with a flourish. We both laugh, but I still want to know.
“Seriously. The last few years you’re always asking Dr. Espada about the Origin Planet. All his crusty old artifacts. Why?”
“You don’t want to know where we come from?” she says, her voice elongated with yearning. “This dead language is just one, the one they decided should survive. Think about how many other languages we probably left behind! We focus so much on Faloiv and the future, we never stop to think about the past.”
“So? The past is the past. Gone. We have to focus on what will help us survive now: in the future.” I realize I sound a bit like my father and frown.
She casts her eyes to the ground, fidgeting with her skinsuit. It’s not often that Alma seems unsure or lacks a solid argument.
“I know, and we should. But sometimes . . . I don’t know. You never feel like the future would make more sense if you knew about the past?”
“Like the names of old hairstyles?” I tease, but she doesn’t smile.
“Yes,” she says, nodding. “All these old words, they still carry meaning. Some more than others. We just have to figure out what it is.”
She holds my gaze a moment longer, and I get the feeling there’s more she wants to say. But then she shakes her head, smiling.
“Anyway. So what do you think the oath is going to be like?” She pulls her legs up again. “Your dad said we’d have to take it at the end of our first week, and that’s tomorrow.”
I’ve been wondering the same thing. My father had said the oath was a vow of secrecy to protect the work we do in the labs. I’ve been carrying so many secrets, the oath feels like another brick added to the stack already on my shoulders.
“Hopefully it’s not some big ceremony,” I say. “It’s going to be really awkward if all the whitecoats are there. They all hate us for getting into the Zoo at sixteen.”
“Ha! Yeah, they do. Just jealous. I do hope we get to see the kind of specimens they must be working with though.”
“Maybe after the oath,” I say. “I mean, so far we haven’t seen anything worth keeping secret. Maybe after we’ll see the real stuff.”
My slate makes its faint wooden sound, and I rise to retrieve it. I slide my finger across the surface to unlock it and see a message from Rondo.
I found something. Bridge.
“What’s that?” Alma says, craning her neck to see. “Rondo?” She grins.
“Yes,” I say, half smiling, but impatient too. For the moment this isn’t about how Rondo makes me feel: it could be important. I hesitate. I’m not used to having anyone with me in the ’wam.
“Do you want to wait here, or . . . ?” I ask.
She hops down off her bed, grinning.
“And miss this epically awkward flirtation? Not a chance.” “So many people out!” Alma says as we make our way through the commune, glancing around. We stop to let two kids race by, one carrying a hand drum. I think again of Rondo’s izinusa, and guiltily wish for a split second that Alma hadn’t come so he and I could be alone. “It’s so different.”
“What do you mean? What’s the Newt commune like?”
“Quieter. You know nobody really cares about amphibians. We’re born bored over there.”
“Ha. It’s just loud in here because they’re building that damn tower.” The structure continues to grow, and I haven’t been able to shake the association of it with Dr. Albatur, its harsh lines in such stark contrast to the rounded warmth of everything else in the commune.
“Yeah, that thing is ugly. I hope it’s worth it. Dr. Espada has wanted to introduce more astronomy into the curriculum for a while now. They must have fixed the telescope from the Vagantur.”
“I hope so.”
“I bet you do. You want to get up in that tower and use the telescope to look in Rondo’s window. Damn the stars.”
“Oh, shut up.” I laugh.
“You guys have your own bridge?” She presses on, teasing me.
“Alma.”
“He just says bridge and you already know which one, huh?”
“Oh, stars, he’s just a friend!”
“Oh right,” she says. “Sure, sure. A friend that you wander around at night with, spying on whitecoats.”
“Now that you’re here, I’ll wander around with you instead,” I say, only half meaning it. I secretly hope that whatever Rondo found means another after-dark trip to the dome.
All my thoughts of being alone with Rondo disappear when I see him on the bridge ahead. He’s pacing, and I know something is up. My pulse jumps. Except for his drumming fingers, Rondo is generally very still. Everything my father would say a scientist should be . . . aside from his lack of interest in science. But right now he’s in constant motion. He looks up and doesn’t wait for me to reach him. He walks toward me, eager to close the distance between us. It’s not until he’s a few steps away that he seems to realize I haven’t come alone. He peers at Alma and then back at me with a squint.
“Octavia?” he says. He doesn’t need to say the rest: What’s she doing here?
“She’s rooming with me now for the course of the internships.”
He nods, as if remembering.
“Jaquot moved in with me too.” He’s making small talk until he decides about Alma.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I told her everything.”
He hesitates a moment longer, and then it’s as if the pressure is too great and he spills a stream of words in a rush.
“We’re missing a hundred passengers,” he says. He’s raised his hands with the declaration and then lets them fall, flopping to his sides. His eyes are wide with excitement and agitation—I’ve never seen him so animated.
“Wait, what? Missing how? When?”
“Remember we were talking about how five hundred passengers arrived on Faloiv when the Vagantur crash-landed? That’s correct: five hundred people—astronauts, scientists, engineers, anthropologists—were on the ship when they set the emergency course to land here. There was a meeting of agreement with representatives of the Faloii. But when the agreement was made and we started building a camp, they took count of the settlers in a beginning census. And that number was under four hundred.”
“Four hundred?”
“Yes.”
Alma starts to speak. “How do you know all—”
“Sometimes he hacks N’Terra’s files,” I say. “Rondo, what does this mean?”
“I don’t know! I have no idea! But it’s important, you know? All those people! They just disappear from N’Terra’s records. I tried different files and databases to hunt down some reference to them. Nothing.”
It wouldn’t be as significant if it changed from five hundred to four hundred and ninety-five. But one hundred people . . .
“They must have died in the landing,” I insist. “Right?”
“No,” he says. “The landing was rough because of the meteor, but it mainly damaged the ship. I found records of injuries and two deaths, but both of those names were accounted for.”
“Maybe it’s just a clerical error?” Alma suggests.
“I thought the same thing,” he says, shaking his head. “But there are names missing. Specific names. I accessed the entire passenger list of the people who were aboard the Vagantur. I cross-referenced those names against the list of injuries and the list of settlers in the initial N’Terra settlement. None of those names was on the list. It’s not a numerical error. One hundred actual people are missing.”
“Disease,” I counter. “Is there any record of major illness? I mean, they were new on Faloiv. Maybe part of the population didn’t survive the transition.”
“Nope. I checked. No record of any catastrophic loss to the Vagantur’s population. No disease, no violence. There were a number of minor illnesses based on bad reactions to food, but very few. These were mostly people of science and their families,” he says. “They weren’t going to make any stupid mistakes.”
“Whoa,” Alma says, but nothing more. A woman passes us, walking toward the bridge, and we all avert our eyes. When I look back up, Rondo looks uncomfortable.
“There’s one more thing,” he says.
“What?”
He pauses, looks at Alma, and then back at me.
“Your grandmother’s last name was Lemieux, right?”
I stare at him.
“Yes.”
“Was your grandfather Jamyle Lemieux?”
“Rondo, why?” I say.
“You said your grandfather died on the Origin Planet,” he says.
“He did.”
He shakes his head slowly.
“I don’t think so.”
“What?”
He bites his lip.
“Rondo, what?” I demand.
“According to the passenger list, he was onboard when the Vagantur crashed. But then he disappeared.”