I wake to the sound of Jaquot’s voice and startle, nearly falling out of bed. I’m curled at the edge of it, still in my skinsuit, which I’ve been wearing for entirely too long. I look around for Jaquot but don’t see him, only a vine hanging from the ceiling, a blue cup-shaped flower at its end. I think it’s a communication device of some kind, and reach for it, but the flower comes off in my hand. I jerk my hand away as the vine retracts into the ceiling. The flower quivers in my hand, then slowly opens. Then from its center, softly, drifts the sound of Jaquot’s voice. I realize the only thing he’s saying is my name.
When I hold the flower to my ear, Jaquot’s voice continues, soft and smooth as if the sound is brought to me by the wind.
“Octavia,” he says, and I realize it’s some kind of recording when he continues. “Rasimbukar wants you to come with us on our assignment today. They’re taking your grandmother to the pink lake, so don’t worry about her. Rasim said she made sure you have clothes in one of your wall compartments. Meet us at the school when you wake up.”
Then the little flower is silent, only a vague echo stirring in my ear. I take the flower away from my face and study it, trying to understand if it’s organic or some kind of elegant technology. I place the flower on my cot, half expecting it to self-destruct, but it just rests there, blue and innocent. I turn to the wall compartments, wondering if Rasimbukar had come into my room as I slept, silent as a shadow.
But, no, I find; the clothing that rests inside the compartment is the work of the qalm. The material is membraneous like the first shell of the room as it had grown, and attached to a slender stem that connects to the inside of the compartment. I give it a gentle tug and withdraw what appears to be a suit much like the N’Terran one I already wear. I would like to bathe, but there’s no one to ask, so I remove my white skinsuit and use the material to swipe under my arms and the back of my neck. When I pull on the new clothing, I realize right away how different it is.
There are no stitches or seams: it doesn’t appear to have a beginning or end, but the neck hole seems entirely too large; my whole chest wrap will be exposed, I think, fitting my arms and legs through the appropriate holes. But as it fits to my body, I realize the opening is gradually closing, knitting itself together across my chest and back, slithering up toward my neck. My panic is involuntary. I stumble backward, halfheartedly clawing at the material and trying to get my fingers between it and my skin before it overtakes me entirely. But there is no space: it has bonded with me, more of a second skin than the N’Terran suit could ever be. And then I feel it: the sensation that soothes my panic like salve on a burn. Breath. My body breathes through the material in a way that makes me more aware than ever before of the pores of my skin, the hairs on my arms and legs and in my armpits. All of these things, these tiny human details, have a purpose, and the suit seems to understand this.
“Hello,” I say, and feel stupid for saying it, but it’s as if I’m greeting my body for the first time. And the hello is also for this wonderful, amazing suit. My skin drinks oxygen greedily like it’s never fully enjoyed breathing on Faloiv while clothed before now. I’m running my hands over my arms and legs and chest, admiring the strangely sparkling material—like the scales of a morgantan, but plantlike—when I hear a voice from nearby. It takes a moment for me to realize the voice is speaking in Arterian, an unusual smudge of conversation that I’m somehow overhearing.
It is inevitable, the voice says. And when the Isii is consulted, the humans must choose.
Wearing the new suit, I slip on my shoes by the door, and rest my fingertips on the wall as I’d seen Rasimbukar do. The minuscule vines part immediately.
In the hallway, I find Hamankush, staring intently at another Faloii person, with whom she is having a silent conversation. I only hear one harsh word before the tunnel snaps shut, a reprimand of her companion.
Careless.
“Octavia,” she says to me out loud. She moves toward me and the person she’d been addressing disappears through another vined door. “You will be joining your peers in the jungle today. You have heard?”
“Yes,” I say, trying to look like I wasn’t eavesdropping, even accidentally. “I was just on my way. If I can remember how to get there.”
She shows me the path in the tunnel. The way she speaks Arterian is different from Rasimbukar: quick and rushed.
“You see?” she says, and I nod, holding the series of images and instructions in my head. “Good. Your suit fits you well. Your hands are bare?”
My hands are indeed bare.
“Uh, yeah, I guess so. I just didn’t want my hands covered. I guess it understood.”
She studies me. “You are an unusual human,” she says.
“How?” I ask. The spots on her forehead, so still compared to Rasimbukar’s constantly shifting pattern, are like a puzzle I wish to solve.
“Unusual,” she says. “Where some see ocean, you see water.”
She turns away, moving toward the vine door her companion had gone through.
“Hurry now,” she says. “I will see you shortly.”
I find my way to the school with the help of Hamankush’s instructions, but I discover that she needn’t have guided me. The city isn’t as overwhelming as it had seemed yesterday, when the newness of it all had rained down on me like a meteor shower. And aside from the difference in appearance, the activities of the Faloii don’t seem at all different from what I might have observed in the dome of any compound of N’Terra. Except rather than animals, everyone appears to be in deep concentration examining the various plants and vegetation in the city. I recognize Adombukar, standing near the trunk of a young tree, one palm on its bark, listening intently.
It’s strange to see the Faloii all around me after mystery shrouded their existence for so many years. My N’Terran upbringing had prepared me for something akin to monsters, but their difference is only that: different. It’s stranger, in fact, to see the humans among them—walking, talking, studying, all in the qalm-grown suits but still sticking to the shade the trees provide. The Acclimates are outnumbered, but seem unbothered by this as they go about their work. Some of them study alongside the Faloii, but many more seem to be involved in taking care of the qalms: water here, bringing different species of insects and birds. A woman my mother’s age stands near one as I pass by, applying what appears to be a thick green paste to one section of the qalm’s wall.
“What are you doing?” I venture to ask, pausing.
She turns, an expression of surprise on her face. “A branch fell in a recent storm, damaging the qalm. I am using a bit of phinusa to help heal it.”
“It can’t heal itself?” I say.
“Yes,” she says. “But why should it? When we can help?”
“Is that what you study here? Healing the qalms?”
“Study?” she says, raising an eyebrow. “I do what needs to be done.”
She seems eager to return to her work, and somehow I understand from the qalm that it is eager as well. Even if I can’t fully comprehend its language, I understand that it feels . . . pleased.
When I finally wind my way through the city and arrive at the school, Jaquot and the same group of others stand waiting in the shade of the qalm. A habitual part of me looks for Dr. Espada, and the memory of his death is like the sting of an insect, so sharp I almost gasp.
“You have a suit!” Jaquot says, nodding at me from where he leans against the qalm. I can’t help but look at his missing leg. I want to ask him how it feels, if he’s lost more than just this limb, but he sees me looking and his expression closes off. This is a path I am not invited down. Not yet.
“Yes,” I say, averting my eyes to my clothing. I stand in direct sunlight but only my scalp seems to notice the heat. I make a mental note to see about getting some of those bell-shaped flowers from the jungle to smear along the rows of my braids, to protect my exposed scalp. “This material is amazing.”
“It is,” he agrees. “N’Terra spends so much time studying animals. We should have spent more time learning from the plants.”
“They would have if they had joined the Faloii,” the round-cheeked girl says, stepping into the sun to join me.
“Joi is a proud Acclimate,” Jaquot says, shooting me an apologetic smile.
“So are my grandparents,” I say, locking my eyes on Joi’s.
She smirks at this but doesn’t offer a retort. The other humans in my peer group don’t seem interested in talking to me. If N’Terran greencoats are focused on our studies, these kids are obsessed. Even out here surrounded by Faloiv, most of them have their faces shoved in books or notes. Not true of Kimbullettican, who watches me with the other Faloii youth.
“Your grandmother is improved?” one says. They introduce themselves as Revollettican, a sibling of Kimbullettican, in Arterian.
“I think so.” I nod. “She was able to sit up.”
I hesitate, then address Kimbullettican and Revollettican silently in Arterian. I don’t like how Joi eyes me like a surgeon, looking for something to cut at.
I didn’t see my grandfather when I was there, I tell them. Do you know if he has a study or something?
Your grandfather, Kimbullettican says. Their forehead spots rise in amusement. If he is not with your grandmother, then he is by the black lake.
His favorite place, Revollettican says.
“The black lake?” I say.
Jaquot appears not to notice that this was part of a conversation being had in private.
“Oh, I’ve heard about that,” he says. “Apparently your grandfather’s the only one who goes there. It’s like his thesis.”
“His Lifework,” Kimbullettican corrects.
“Meaning?” I say.
“This is what Dr. Lemieux calls it,” they reply. “The Acclimates study many things, but your grandfather has chosen one course above all others.”
“And he studies . . . a lake?” I say.
“I must believe there is something about it he loves,” Kimbullettican says. “Hamankush tells me he has been attending the black lake since the Acclimates arrived. Some scientists find comfort in their work.”
“You have to love something to study it for multiple decades,” Jaquot says. “Sounds like an obsession to me.”
The word obsession lingers like a half-remembered dream, a footprint in shifting sand. Obsession. Dr. Albatur has an obsession. So does my father. I’ve seen where it got them.
I sense a familiar presence approaching in the tunnel. It’s different away from N’Terra. I almost don’t notice that the tunnel is open all the time. Without the threat of fear leaking in from animals in containment, the impressions that wander in and out of the Artery are pleasant and operate just behind my consciousness. The familiar presence reveals itself a moment later when Hamankush emerges from the jungle.
“Anoo,” she says to us all, then greets the Faloii and myself in Arterian. “You have your materials?”
Everyone but me nods. The Faloii youth wear the belt of pouches at their waist that Rasimbukar occasionally wears, but the human students all carry slim green cases slung across their chests. The feeling of unpreparedness seizes me, and I inexplicably think of Yaya. Always battling to stay ahead of her in the Greenhouse. Do I miss even her?
“I have a few things for you,” Hamankush says, turning her eyes on me, her long arm extending a pack toward me. I accept the pack gratefully, and mutter my thanks. “Water. Wahanile paste for the parts of your skin not covered by the suit. Some dried foods that you are accustomed to. Recording materials.”
I drape the pack over my chest, taking a moment to admire the fabric. Is it fabric? Or some other kind of plant adapted for this purpose? The question answers itself when I let the pack hang by my side and notice a strange sensation at my hip. I look down, and find that my suit has melded to the bag ever so gently. The two fuse loosely, keeping the case from moving around when I walk.
“Fascinating,” I whisper.
Hamankush moves off toward the jungle and we follow her wordlessly. Jaquot ends up at the back of the group with his slower gait, and I hang back to walk alongside him.
“They’ll make me a prosthetic eventually,” he says. “Lots of Faloii have prosthetics. Well, not lots. But enough so that they know what they’re doing. It’s an organic material they use to make them, like everything else here. I wonder if it will look like a foot—a human foot—or like a Faloii paw. Their feet are kind of cool, you know.”
“Aren’t you thinking about home?” I say. “Your dad thinks you’re dead, Jaquot. That doesn’t bother you?”
“Of course it does. But we didn’t talk much when I was in N’Terra.” He averts his eyes, focusing on the path ahead. “I didn’t think he’d even notice I was gone. Maybe he needs to see what life is like without me for a while.”
“Petty,” I say, but he shrugs.
“I like it here,” he says eventually. “Things are more relaxed. Don’t you feel it?”
“I do,” I admit. Just the comfort of the suit I wear takes the pressure off. It feels like I’m friends with the sun for once, rather than adversaries. But the relaxation can’t quite sink in. “But Jaquot . . . there’s a lot going on back home. There’s a lot that’s happening.”
Rasimbukar would not like that you are speaking of this, Hamankush tells me in Arterian. I jerk my head to look at her, chatting with Joi at the head of the group. She doesn’t appear to break her conversation and I realize my understanding of the Faloii is woefully limited.
“Look, I know, okay?” Jaquot says, and in between paces he swipes irritably at a plant with one of his canes. “You’re always stressed out, Octavia. Why can’t you ever just loosen up?”
I bristle at this, opening my mouth to snap at him. But the sight of him glancing down at where his leg should be silences me. We continue on, quiet, and I turn my attention to the jungle around us, widening the Artery; inside, I get glimpses of animals I’ve never seen or heard. N’Terra knows nothing about this planet.
“We are getting close now,” Hamankush calls. Then in Arterian, Can you feel it?
I sense the Faloii youth all expanding their consciousness, and I attempt to do the same. I have an awareness that my breadth is stunted compared to theirs, but I focus, trying to muscle it wider and wider. I’m rewarded with a sort of tingling at the edge of my mind, up ahead through the trees. I sense the Faloii youths’ discomfort before it fully translates in my own mind. Something is wrong ahead, too far for my own mind to grasp, but the farther we walk, making our way through the thinning trees, the more apparent it becomes. It’s familiar . . . something trembling in the tunnel . . . strange and known simultaneously. I sense Hamankush’s sudden confusion, translating into unease. Whatever she had brought us to see is not here. Something else is in its place.
There’s a clearing ahead, and it’s just before we break through the tree line that it hits me. There’s an igua ahead. But she’s not herself. Something restless paces inside her. A parasite, she’s saying. She’s telling the air, the trees. An herbivore, she has no predators, but warns all of Faloiv. She is sick, she says. Stay away. Stay away. Stay away.
We approach. She warns us, begging. Her consciousness seems to fade in and out within the Artery, as if something is cutting her off intermittently. Joi and Jaquot and the other humans break through the trees with their minds empty and unconcerned. They don’t hear her, feel her. Hamankush and the other Faloii move forward speaking to her, a more complicated tongue than anything I can conjure. They console her in her own language, a skill I know instinctively that I will never attain. I can only send green signals of comfort, so I do.
“Is something wrong?” Joi says when she finally sees the igua, lying on her side in the middle of the clearing, alone. “Is she giving birth?”
“This is not birth,” Hamankush says.
We draw nearer, the igua begging us not to. Hamankush lays one of her long paw-like hands on the igua’s side, assessing. Revollettican does the same, unafraid, conversing with the animal. I can’t understand the conversation, but I gather from Hamankush’s secondary impressions that they are having trouble ascertaining what is wrong. The igua is confused, afraid. But there is something familiar here, something I can’t quite place. The sense of it slithers around in my head, looking for a match. It slides over a particular sensory memory. A smell, flat and white . . .
“Oh, stars,” I cry. “Hamankush, you have to get away, fast!”
I grab her and Revollettican, attempting to pull them away. They both regard me with a look of disbelief, Hamankush’s spots quickly translating into anger.
“Child,” she says harshly. “Control your Arterian. Immediately.”
I realize what she means, that my sudden red panic had flowed through the tunnel, the igua sensing it and lurching with fear. I snap the tunnel closed and appeal to Hamankush with both hands.
“Please, it’s dangerous!”
“It,” Revollettican says out loud sternly. “She.”
“That’s not what I meant,” I plead. “Please, we need to get away from her right now!”
“Make sense,” Hamankush orders. “Do not consider speaking until you do.”
She turns away, Revollettican doing the same. Everyone else stands back, looking uncertain. My helplessness flails within me like a wounded bird. I cannot fly into Arterian without causing the igua to panic, and I can’t calm down enough to explain in an audible language. Jaquot appears beside me, his face folded with worry.
“What’s the matter?”
“I—I . . . ,” I stutter. I snap my mouth shut and close my eyes, forcing myself to take deep breaths. I have to control the tunnel, and open it only to Hamankush to shield the igua. Two breaths. Three. I open my eyes and focus hard on addressing only her.
Hamankush, I say. Danger.
The flat white smell invades my nostrils again. The smell of the Zoo. I pass it to her, and without thinking show her the vasana from N’Terra’s labs. I show her the pack of them, wild with artificial madness, frothing and flaming, their brains not their own, the rage a mechanical parasite implanted by whitecoats. Here, the igua has been altered. She is not herself. The empty smell of the labs is all over her, in the very breath that snorts from her flared nostrils.
DANGER, I say again.
Hamankush stares at me hard, then takes two long strides away from the igua to stand in front of me, much too close.
Tell me this is a lie.
I’m telling you the truth.
We lock eyes, the stars of her gaze mesmerizing in their depth. I’m lost in those stars, trying to find a way to make her see, when the igua screams. A sound like a storm tearing from the clouds, rending the air with electricity. And then, as if emerging from a terrible dream, the fangs are there, flashing from that wide, bawling mouth, growing like the violent stems of strange flowers. Too white. Too long. Then those teeth are closing around the body of Revollettican, the youth’s eyes opening wide in shock at the sight of their own blood, so unexpected, so unusual.
The rest is a blur. The jungle whirls around me. Something switches when the blood meets the soil. A reversal, a planetwide sigh. In a flash, Hamankush presses one long finger against the igua’s neck, and in the tunnel there is a burst of painful white light, leaving glowing rings around the edges of my mind. Then everything is silent. Everything is still. The blood seeps into the ground, and above us the sun stares down.