“Dr. English believes that there may be something in the compound that shouldn’t be,” the guard who seems to be in charge shouts. “We’re checking ’wams for your own safety.”
This sends a ripple of uneasy chatter through the crowd. I can almost see the vagueness of the guard’s statement taking the form of many fears—I picture Dr. Albatur puffing a pipe and blowing Faloii-shaped smoke figures across the commune.
“The goal is to not cause any panic,” the guard says, turning away from her again, headed toward the elevator with the others. “Go back to your meals. Everything is fine.”
They disappear into the elevator and the door slides shut behind them. The small crowd of people stands grumbling, close together like a herd of nervous animals.
I continue past the crowd, the sound of their anger fading as I walk quickly down the path toward my ’wam. “Something in the compound that shouldn’t be.” What if it’s Rasimbukar’s father? I pass through the shadow of the tower, the sound of engineers’ hammers clattering as if against my skull. Would Adombukar hurt anyone? Any inclination toward understanding that he had before has probably disappeared now that he’s been kept prisoner in our labs for weeks. At my door, I hastily swipe my palm across the lock.
My father is sitting on one of the plain clay chairs in the small seating area outside our kitchen. There’s no slate in his hands, no box of slides nearby. He merely slumps there, staring at the brushed dirt floor, and raises his eyes to my face when I stop just inside the door. I almost speak, but his face catches my tongue. His gray eyes are red, swollen; his expression slack and empty like a ghost who has only just realized he’s a ghost. His lips part to whisper, “Octavia. You’re home.”
“What’s going on?”
I almost call him “Dad,” but my mouth won’t let me say it. I was prepared for a fight: to face down his coldness with coldness of my own. But the man in front of me is too weak to be cold. His eyes are wet, not frozen.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he says. He stands up, an action that looks like it requires all but a drop of the energy in his body.
“Are you okay?” I’ve never seen him like this.
“All I have ever wanted is to keep you safe,” he says, closing his eyes and rubbing one temple. “To build a world that you can be proud of, a world that will never disappoint you.”
“Sir . . .”
He opens his eyes and stares at me. They’re less wet, the look in them harder than before.
“Your mother and I know what it’s like to lose our home. We didn’t want you to ever know that pain—we wanted you to be free of it. We worked together with the other scientists to do what it takes to ensure our future. Your mother and I had a common goal.”
I stare at him, speechless.
“I may have been wrong about that last part,” he adds helplessly, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling. He blinks hard several times. When he sighs, it’s the sound of an old man.
“Sir . . .”
“Did you know the Faloii can speak to the animals?” he says, his voice sharpening now. It’s the sound of a stone being carved into a knife.
“Sir?” I try to imagine my voice as a stone as well. Give away nothing.
He’s blinking, but it’s as if he’s clearing something from his eyes.
“The telepathy, they can communicate with the animals. And each other, of course—all in their minds. Your mother didn’t want me to know. She pretends not to understand the significance. But she isn’t stupid, Octavia. No, she isn’t stupid.” I get the feeling that he’s talking to himself, and I don’t interrupt as he continues. “There’s more to it than speech. I don’t understand it yet, but there’s power in that connection. Do you know what we could have done if we’d known sooner? Harnessing the power of these animals, of the Faloii . . . N’Terra could have been a city by now. A kingdom. We don’t know, but we will.”
When he stops he has fixed his eyes on me, their pupils shifting slightly as they explore my features. I wonder if he’s seeing my eyes that look like his, or the cheekbones and nose that are like my mother. I want to cover my face.
“Sir, what is going on?” I say.
He takes a step toward me.
“Why did your mother take you to the Greenhouse?” he says. His voice is like a needle pushing through my skin. “Why did you go see Dr. Espada?”
“I—she . . .” I fumble for a lie. “My hands were hurting. From touching that vine in the jungle. It was keeping me from working in the labs. She said Dr. Espada had a salve.”
“Did she take anything with her?” he demands. “What did she have with her when you two left?”
“Did she take anything? No—what do you mean?”
“The guards were here a little while ago,” he says. “Do you know what they were looking for?”
“A—a specimen escaped from the labs,” I say. “That’s what people are saying.”
“A specimen?” He almost laughs. “No, they’re not looking for a specimen. They were looking for something else.”
Is he talking about Adombukar? Would he really describe him as a thing?
“The kawa, Octavia,” he says. “Have you seen it?”
“The—the what?” I know that word. I’ve heard Rasimbukar speak it.
His hand jerks out and in one forceful motion, sweeps the old photo of my grandparents off the wall. The glass that encases their faces, the old gold frame, shatters against the door to our ’wam. My hands clamp over my mouth, the pulse of my palm racing against my lips.
“The kawa, Octavia!” he shouts. “The egg! Did your mother bring it into this house? Did she take it to the Greenhouse?”
I’m trembling. The egg. The egg is the kawa?
He closes the gap between us now and it takes everything in me not to stumble backward, away from him. He stands in front of me gazing down, all the sadness leaked from his body and replaced with an immense anger.
“An egg?” I say. My voice trembles. “Dad, I don’t know about any eggs.”
He turns his back on me and walks across the room, passing the chair and reaching the kitchen. On the platform rests the lopsided bowl my grandmother had made long before I was born. He takes it in his hands, and for a moment I think perhaps the sight of it has cooled his rage. Then he lifts it high over his head and sends it crashing to the floor, a thousand pieces of Nana exploding across the ’wam.