An Anatomy of Beasts

by Olivia A. Cole

  “Is this Mbekenkanush?” Alma says, pointing. Her finger hovers over a cluster of rounded buildings almost like N’Terra, but smaller and north.

  “No,” I say, holding the map closer to my face. I’ve found the black lake on the map, a shaded irregular shape, somewhat elliptical. There is a range of mountains to the west. One massive, lonely mountain to the east. Disks indicating lakes and lagoons, one stretch of shadow so large it must be a sea. But the cluster of shapes Alma indicates is north of where the Vagantur rests, farther east from the Faloii city. “I don’t know what that is. Kimbullettican?”

  “You are indicating the archives,” they say. “It is where the Faloii keep much of the physical history of our people and this planet.”

  “The archives,” I repeat. “Is that where Hamankush usually is? She’s an archivist, right?”

  “That is correct,” Kimbullettican says, and I note the sinking of their forehead spots, their expression hardening into seriousness. “That is where she will remain until the Elders solve the business of her culpability in the death of the igua.”

  “I thought that was decided?” I protest, lowering the map. “It wasn’t her fault.”

  “Responsibility is a more complicated matter than fault,” Kimbullettican says.

  “Wait, what happened?” Rondo says.

  “The igua I told you guys about,” I say. “The one that the N’Terrans tampered with. When Hamankush left the qalm that night, I thought the Elders had decided she wasn’t to blame. But now Kimbullettican is saying she’s banished to the archives.”

  “Banished is not an accurate word,” Kimbullettican says. “She is being asked to stay there and continue her work until the Elders decide what is next. It is good work. It is her work.”

  “What does she do there?” Alma says, lifting the map again to stare at the place where the archives are drawn.

  “She minds the past,” Kimbullettican says.

  Alma points at a long winding line, which she has traced from near the site of the Vagantur.

  “Is this the river we’re next to right now?” she asks.

  “Yes,” Kimbullettican says.

  “That means if we go this way,” Alma says, still tracing, “then we will end up back at Mbekenkanush.”

  “Yes.”

  Alma lifts her eyes to mine. “Well, there we have it then. No need to wander around now. We can get back easily by following this. And with your friend’s help,” she says, nodding at Kimbullettican.

  “No, we’re going to the archives,” I say, lowering my eyes to the map.

  “Come again?”

  I’m gazing at the map, the bones of my plan growing flesh. From where we stand by the winding river, the archives lie north.

  “Everyone has this idea of what I should do,” I say, mostly to myself. “But we’re not going to know what to do for the future if we don’t know what happened in the past.”

  “The past?” Alma says. “Remember what your dad said, Octavia. We only have time for the present right now.”

  A flash of anger stabs through my tongue. Alma used to love learning about the past. But now the N’Terrans’ agenda has infected even her: the only part of the past she cares about is getting the Vagantur up and running. To give Albatur what he wants, regardless of context. I shake my head, telling myself that if I find what I need to find, I can interrupt the Faloii’s journey to the Isii.

  “No,” I said. “The only way we are going to figure this out is if we figure out the truth. The truth about the Vagantur’s power cell. The truth about Captain Williams. All of that.”

  “The archives hold Faloiv’s history,” Rondo says carefully. “Not ours.”

  I bristle. “Ever since the ship landed here, our history and their history have been running parallel. If Hamankush minds the past in the archives, then some of our past will be there too.”

  I don’t tell them that it was Hamankush who had shown me the memory of war. That she had shown me a mysterious cloaked figure. This is what they do not want you to see. I don’t even know who “they” is at this point, but I’m ready to know.

  I stare down at the map, at what must be miles upon miles of Faloiv jungle between where I estimate we stand and where the archives are noted in the thick black ink.

  “Are you coming or what?” I say, not daring to meet their eyes. I’m so afraid they’ll say no—and just as afraid that they’ll say yes. Somehow a distance has sprung up between us: like a long stretch of dry ground, absent of trees and grass. Neither of them says a word, which I know to mean agreement. I sigh.

  “This is going to take a long time,” I whisper, eyeing the miles and miles of illustrated jungle between us and the archives.

  “Not necessarily,” Kimbullettican says, reaching one of their large hands toward the map and indicating another elliptical shape surrounded by trees. It is larger than the one I know to be the black lake and surrounded by jagged shapes that I can’t identify. “If you wish to go to the archives, there is a more efficient way. But it will require you to trust me.”

  Chapter 19

  I had hoped the gwabi would accompany us on our new route, but Kimbullettican had other ideas. Noting that Alma’s and Rondo’s discarded N’Terran skinsuits were not biodegradable, Kimbullettican had opted to put them in one of the sacks they had brought with them from Mbekenkanush and asked the gwabi to return to the city with the items.

  “We could carry them in our packs,” Alma had said. “We might need them.”

  Kimbullettican shook their head. “They will only get in the way. You will need to be agile for what we plan to do.”

  And so the gwabi had disappeared into the trees, the sack strapped to her sturdy shoulders, flashing me a green splash of farewell in the Artery.

  “You are fond of her,” Kimbullettican says as they lead us on the route they have planned. “The gwabi.”

  We walk side by side on a path—a grazing trail, Kimbullettican said, of ground-dwelling herbivores.

  “Yes. I’m not sure why, but we have . . . an understanding? Maybe because she knew my mother.”

  Kimbullettican nods, continuing on through the greenery. I’d been half hoping they would offer some wisdom that would explain the bond the gwabi and I seem to share—merely chalking it up to happenstance seems unscientific. Is there always a reason for the way things are, or can some things just be?

  “This suit is incredible,” Alma says from behind me. “Every time I start to sweat it’s like the suit drinks it.”

  “The suit benefits from your biological necessities,” Kimbullettican says. “Your sweat provides it with nutrients.”

  “More mutualism,” Alma says. “Amazing.”

  “Do you ever wear a skinsuit?” Rondo says, appearing next to me and aiming the question at Kimbullettican.

  “No. There is no need.”

  I glance at Rondo, who looks like he wants to ask more questions but isn’t sure how. I think about how different his life would be if he had grown up as an Acclimate and not a greencoat of N’Terra. It’s all just chance. I hadn’t gotten the opportunity to ask my grandmother about the events that led her to Mbekenkanush and back to my grandfather. I wonder if the archives will have answers to that.

  “What’s the deal with that tree?” Alma says. She’d continued past Kimbullettican and me, confident in our route, but now she’s paused on the path, examining a tree that is unlike any of its neighbors. I don’t recognize it at first, its bark slick and shiny, but as we draw nearer I realize it’s a syca.

  “Strange,” I say, joining her.

  Kimbullettican stands behind me, the rigidity of their forehead spots a nearly solid line across their brow.

  “This tree has sensed a shift in the material of Faloiv,” they say. “It is not the first. It will not be the last. This is one of the events I have been tasked with monitoring with the other Faloii youth in Mbekenkanush.”

  “Faloii youth? How old are you?” Rondo says.

 
“Irrelevant,” I interject. “They age differently than us. But we’re similar in terms of maturation.”

  Kimbullettican’s forehead spots spike in amusement before returning to their rigid pattern.

  “This is accurate. Look.” They point. “Do you see the secretions emerging from the knot?”

  We all crane our necks to look, and the light filtering through the canopy above makes the syca’s bark dance and sparkle. It’s a fluid, oozing from a tree knot so gradually that the movement is almost undetectable. As it surfaces from the inner tree, it moves slowly down the trunk. But the secretions don’t wholly obey gravity: I can make out upward movement too as whatever the tree excretes travels along its body to coat the bark.

  “What exactly have you been monitoring?” Alma says.

  She reaches out to touch the bark of the tree but Kimbullettican’s hand-paw flashes out in an instant, halting her.

  “Do not,” they say. “You would find it very uncomfortable.”

  Alma quickly backs up from the tree and Kimbullettican reaches down to the ground to retrieve a stray stick. It has a few small leaves sprouting from its end, which Kimbullettican extends toward the shiny coating of the syca. Upon contact, the secretion seems to swallow the leaves, sticky-looking fingers oozing out from the coating to draw the stick into and under the layer.

  “Would I have gotten stuck?” Alma says nervously.

  “Yes. I would have been able to remove you, but it would be painful.”

  “Stars, Alma, don’t touch anything,” I mutter, my heart hammering. Something about the slow creep of the secretions feels like stumbling upon bones in open ground.

  “So what is causing this? What are you monitoring?” Alma says again.

  “Changes in several species’ defensive strategies. The behavior of the vusabo plant toward you is another example. It usually preys solely on birds. It feels . . . confused to me.”

  I don’t look at them, instead staring at the secretions oozing from the knot of the syca, the fluid coating the once pale-barked tree, sealing it off from the rest of the planet. Is this what awaits Faloiv if Albatur continues down the path he has chosen? A sealed world? A frightened world? All that is wonderful about this planet seems suddenly to be trembling. I widen the Artery, seeking more of the changes that Kimbullettican speaks of, but while I sense the presence of many consciousnesses around me, the rest of the planet doesn’t seem drastically different. I tell myself that this means the Faloii have not yet reached the Isii. That there’s still time.

  You know about the Isii, Kimbullettican says.

  Yes, is all I say. I don’t think I’m skilled enough in my Arterian to lie.

  This is another reason Rasimbukar sent me to you, they say.

  What reason?

  If the planet should shift, you will need one of the Faloii with you.

  Will it matter?

  We are not sure.

  “We should keep moving,” Alma says, ahead again on the path. Her fear has returned. She has realized what I realized in Mbekenkanush: that wearing the suit does not change the fact that we are human. Before, I had imagined war with the Faloii as the endpoint for humans on Faloiv. . . . Perhaps it will be the planet itself that evicts us.

  Kimbullettican moves down the path toward Alma, leaving me and Rondo to follow them. It feels strange to be alone with him now. So much has happened between the moon that watched Rondo kiss me and this sun that watches us now . . . I wonder if I would even recognize his lips against mine. Every part of me feels new and old at the same time. I think of the way the syca has sealed itself off and wonder if humans do the same thing.

  We walk in silence for a moment, our hands swinging near one another’s but not touching.

  “Back in N’Terra,” he says after a moment, “I was afraid you were dead. After I saw you leave the Zoo, my dad showed up. The guards had reported me earlier in the night and he finally came: he was freaking out. Then we saw Dr. Albatur’s vasana go toward the entrance to the dome. When I heard your mother was dead . . . I thought you were too.”

  I don’t know if it’s the mention of my mother’s death or the sadness in Rondo’s voice at the thought of mine, but a hole in my chest I’ve been trying to ignore widens, its edges falling in. And like the syca, I feel myself sealing off. N’Terra. Death. My family: my parents’ decisions a swirling black hole that my entire life disappears into, Rondo somewhere on the outside. I clasp my hands so my fingers don’t brush his.

  “Is that what they told people?” I say.

  “No. They pretended Adombukar killed your mom. They said you were missing—made it sound like you were taken. I knew that wasn’t true, but I didn’t know if you were alive either. . . .”

  “Who actually reported you? That ended with you under house arrest?”

  “The guard I hit,” he says, and when I glance at him I see that his lips are curled sideways. “What a snitch.”

  “A snitch? What is that?”

  He laughs in his low, quiet way. “I don’t know, really. My dad said it.”

  “Don’t let Alma hear you. She’ll want the etymology of it and a list of related terms.”

  We let this rest between us, the silence less thorny than it had been before. Still, I keep my distance. When I sneak looks at him, I get the feeling he has just done the same.

  “Do you think your parents are worried about you?” I say eventually, just to fill the air.

  “Yes,” he says. “But I’m pretty sure they’re not really buying all of Albatur’s propaganda. They heard you were found outside the compound. When they hear that the three of us disappeared, they’ll know what’s up.”

  “What about everyone else?” I say. “Do they buy the propaganda?”

  “Yes.”

  “Everybody?”

  “A lot of people. It all seems so ridiculous. Who would believe that the Faloii invaded our compound out of nowhere, after all this time?”

  “Fear makes people stupid,” I say, echoing Dr. Espada’s words, which feel so long ago they look fuzzy in my mind.

  “Alma is always investigating what we brought from the Origin Planet,” he says. “And what we left behind. It seems like the only thing we brought with us is . . . I don’t know.”

  “A penchant for destruction?” I mutter.

  He laughs, but I can’t make myself look at him, even to enjoy his smile. A few bits of pollen catch on the coils of his hair. His hair is longer since the last time I saw him—he looks taller. Older. Is this how time passes? Years blended into the span of days? A brief absence stretched into a lifetime? Without thinking, I pause, catching him by the elbow, and reach to pluck the pollen from his hair.

  He catches my fingers before I can reach him, holding me by the wrist. He looks down to inspect my hand, as if there is something there he might need to remove. Instead, he plants a kiss there in my palm, where the lines of my life meet. And I can’t make myself smile.

  “I wish there was space in this world for you to be funny,” he says. “Maybe one day there will be.”

  I stare back at him. In the Greenhouse I learned so many words. I know so many facts. My head is filled with knowledge and lately none of it has mattered. How can I tell him I wish there was space in this world for me to feel what he wants me to feel? What I had once felt? When I look in his eyes I see starlight, but how can I tell him that starlight—that otherworldly glow—is beginning to feel like a threat? That the only light I want to feel is the warmth from Faloiv’s sun?

  “Octavia,” he says, that starlight emanating out of him.

  He wants me to feel something. He wants me to say it. I look in his eyes, my lips opening, words shimmering there.

  “I can’t,” I say. A meteor. It crashes down between us.

  “You . . . can’t,” he repeats, his lips trying to make sense of it. The shadow that crosses behind his eyes grips my heart in a vise.

  “I can’t, Rondo,” I say, and I’m transported back to my ’wam in the Mammalia
n Compound, when my mother had said these same words, staring at the portrait of her parents I thought dead. Had she felt like this? The tearing of her skin between two worlds? The anguish when she realized one side was winning?

  “It would help if you could tell me exactly what it is you can’t do,” he says softly. His hands twitch and I remember how they had played the izinusa in the sunshine. I squeeze my eyes shut, against this memory, against the feeling of his lips on my palm.

  “There’s too much going on,” I say. “I feel . . .”

  But there’s no way to explain. Why do I suddenly feel that, between the language of Faloiv and the language of my people, I speak neither one fluently?

  “What is it? You can tell me.”

  The softness of his words almost bends me. But when I raise my eyes from the ground and let them settle on his face, all I can see is N’Terra.

  Alma hails us from farther up the path. She stands looking back with Kimbullettican, the pair of them far ahead. They hadn’t been walking that quickly, I think: more evidence that when it comes to Rondo, time shapes itself in unusual ways.

  “Guys,” Alma calls. Her voice has a note of something I can’t identify. Not quite panic. The sound of something shrinking.

  “What is it?” I say, quickening my step. After a moment, Rondo follows.

  She turns away, gazing ahead at something I can’t see. My heartbeat starts to rush.

  “You need to see this.”