A Conspiracy of Stars

Back to the Zoo, I think, but I rise and go to my small window, sliding the shade aside. It feels strange watching him like this, but in a way it’s comforting: to see him and love him without the burn of his eyes staring back. I follow the shadow of him as he moves down the path, but instead of toward the labs, he veers deeper into the commune. Odd. I lean sideways in the narrow window to keep watching.

He stops at the base of the tower that rises against the moonlight like a fang. Something curls in my heart: a sinking feeling, like watching a bird about to be crushed in the talons of a predator. But there is no shadow other than my father’s; he places his hand against the slick trunk of the tower and leans heavily forward, as if it’s the only thing in the world keeping him up. I watch until the clouds shift over the moon and the commune is lost in black.





CHAPTER 3


The Worm pulls through the Paw’s gates a little after dawn, its geothermal energy panel gleaming blue. I’d been all but sleepwalking until Rondo emerged, but at the sight of him sleep is a memory. We stand apart, surrounded by the other Paw students, everyone yawning except Rondo. Something about him wires me, but the sluggishness brought on by sleeping poorly empties my brain of interesting things to say. The kids sit and eat slices of hava that their parents have prepared for them, and I wish I had some too, to have something to do with my hands. When the Worm comes to a stop outside the main dome and the driver signals us to climb on, Rondo herds the kids aboard as if he’s been living in the Paw all his life.

When I get on the Worm, he’s in my seat. And although he can’t possibly have known this, when I stand next to him in the aisle and stare, he gives me a quiet smile.

“I figured you’d sit up front,” he says. He’s already moved over to make room for me. In my seat. “First off the Worm, so first into the Greenhouse.”

“Yeah, well,” I say, sitting down.

The ride to the Greenhouse isn’t long: the building is situated behind the Paw, on another small rise in the land. The Greenhouse is actually in the center of the main research compounds, the others spread around it like a honeycomb. Except the Council’s building, where all the meetings about the happenings in N’Terra are held. It’s the newest of the domes, and I haven’t laid eyes on it, as neither of my parents have offered to take me when they go. Apparently it sits just beyond the arrangement of the compounds, like a satellite observing our little solar system.

Rondo is so close his arm brushes mine when he breathes deeply. He inhales and I turn to catch whatever it is he’s about to say to me when I realize his words are directed at the driver.

“Nice morning, isn’t it?” he says.

“I fail to see what’s so nice about it,” Draco replies. I should have warned Rondo not to talk to him—Draco is always irritable. He’s an old man: too old, some have said, to be driving the Worm. But trying to get the steering column out of his hands would be tempting fate.

“Well, you have us, don’t you?” I’m surprised to hear the humor in Rondo’s voice. Only a few words exchanged with Draco and already he seems to have pinpointed what makes the old man tick. Or what ticks him off, to be more specific.

Draco makes a growling sound as the Worm turns a corner. Somewhat roughly, I think, as if Draco imagined trying to send Rondo off the side. I swallow a laugh.

“You?” Draco says when he’s done growling. “The only thing my morning wouldn’t be complete without is this drive. You don’t even enter the equation, young man.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Rondo says, straight-faced. “I think you might be lonely if you drove without us. Otherwise what would be the point?”

“The point,” Draco scoffs. I can’t see his face, only his hands on the steering column: wizened and deeply tanned. “The drive itself is the point. When I was a young man on a planet you know nothing about, I’d drive for miles on my own. Miles!”

“Going where?”

“Nowhere! Can’t do that here.” His hands tighten on the steering column, some of the color fading from them as he squeezes hard. “Can’t waste the energy. Besides, our hosts wouldn’t have that, would they?”

“Who?”

“Don’t be dense, young man. The Faloii.”

Draco pronounces it differently than what I’ve learned is correct—he condenses its three syllables into two, as if the third isn’t worth enunciating. Rondo catches my eye, raises his eyebrow. I keep staring—something about Rondo’s eyes don’t let you go. Held captive by his irises, I only hear the tail end of Draco’s gripes.

“Dr. Albatur will change that though,” the old man complains. “People can’t live as tenants forever. Faloiv is ours now too. They’d do well to get used to that.”

At the mention of Dr. Albatur’s name, I finally turn my eyes away from Rondo.

“What does Dr. Albatur plan to do?” I ask.

“Take back control,” Draco grates. “You kids are too young to know: you don’t understand anything but your sad, small world. But at one point, we made the rules. We wanted to build? We built. We wanted to drive?” He slaps one palm against the steering column. “We drove!”

I have more questions, but the Worm jerks to a stop—not as gently as it usually does. Draco turns to Rondo and me with a sour expression.

“Off.”

We get off.

Our Worm is gone in a heartbeat—Draco enjoying his drive—but the Worms from the other compounds are pulling up now; I put the old man out of my head, squinting in the sun for the vessel from the Newt. Alma will be on it and I have things to tell her. Looking for her, I see Jaquot step off the Worm from the Beak and we briefly make eye contact. I look around for Alma, but as usual she sees me first.

“Octavia,” she calls, with a gesture of her hand to come meet her. Alma doesn’t say much without a hand gesture accompanying it.

She steps off the Worm from the Newt, her hair an enormous cloud around her head. It’s different almost every day: some days she braids it to her scalp like me, some days she gathers it into six or more puffs. Today nothing restrains it—an explosion of soft brown.

“Look at you,” I say, greeting her with a shoulder bump.

She smiles her wide smile.

“My hair is getting so long. My mother says her grandparents called this an Afro.”

“That’s correct,” says a voice I know to be Dr. Espada’s. Our teacher stands in the doorway of the Greenhouse, his arms folded and his smile broad. “One of the most regal hairstyles in the galaxy. The captain of the Vagantur wore one. Captain Williams.”

Dr. Espada doesn’t wear a white coat like the other scientists: he says it gets in his way when he’s teaching. Which is true. He gesticulates a lot, like Alma. She would make a great teacher as it is, so her gestures put her ahead of the curve.

“Oh?” says Alma, patting her hair gently. “I like the sound of that.”

Dr. Espada gestures for us to come into the Greenhouse, where the younger kids are already trailing off to, led by Dr. Yang, who taught us when we were younger. Dr. Espada will be my last teacher—after him, the Zoo.

“What’s on the agenda, Doc?” says Alma, the first through the door after him. I follow before the other greencoats start to push in for good places.

“Always so eager.” Dr. Espada laughs. “Take your seats, tortoises. We have lots of new material to cover.”

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