They didn’t seem disposed to talk, so Jason just looked down at his scraped, scarred hands, slave blood still lodged under his fingernails, resting on the table in front of him. The rope they’d used to tie him was biting into his wrists.
When Shapiro returned, pale and grim, she was carrying a glass half-full of water. “I’ve set a watch,” she said to his guards.
“Let us—” the brother said.
Shapiro shook her head. “It’s taken care of.”
You won’t need a watch, Jason thought. You’ve got your force field against the thieves, and the slaves aren’t going to swim out here and attack you.
But he kept his mouth shut. He would have set a watch as well.
No. That wasn’t true. If he’d been in charge, he would have given the order to sail away at once, putting a hundred miles between himself and the slave camp by morning.
And never looking back.
* * *
SITTING ACROSS THE table, Shapiro put the glass down near him.
Jason looked at it. It was a drinking glass. For some reason, this fact hit him harder than any of the surreal events of the past few hours.
These explorers had drinking glasses made of glass.
Made of glass . . . after the overthrow. Jason could tell this by its uneven surface, the bubbles trapped beneath its surface like bugs in ancient amber. There was no way this was a product from before—it would never have made it off the factory floor.
Here, though, on this world, it looked like a miracle to Jason. It meant that wherever the explorers came from, they had glassblowers.
He felt suddenly, unexpectedly dizzy, overwhelmed. Yes, this was the most surreal thing about this day: the bumpy, rippled glass, filled with drinking water, that sat at Jason’s right elbow.
That there were still glassblowers on this earth.
* * *
SHAPIRO SAID, “ARE you protected in some way from the thieves?”
Jason shook his head.
“Then why didn’t they sting you?”
He coughed, and said, “At first—at first I think they weren’t expecting it. What I did.”
His throat hurt. Reaching down, he picked up the glass between his hands and awkwardly drank some water. It was so clean that it tasted strange.
He put the glass back down. “And after that,” he went on, “I think you protected me with your force field.”
He grimaced. “I mean your vaccine.”
In midnod, Shapiro froze. Her mouth opened, then closed again, and whatever color was left in her face drained away. Behind her, Jason’s guards looked stunned as well.
“You know about our vaccine,” Shapiro said finally.
He nodded.
“How?”
But he didn’t answer her question. Instead, he said, “The man who was knocked down—not the one who died—was his name Granger?”
Shapiro didn’t seem to be breathing. Her pupils were pinpoints in her gray eyes. When she spoke, it was with another question of her own. “Was Chloe there?” she said, her voice sounding a little breathless. “Oh God, did we—”
Jason was shaking his head. “No. Chloe wasn’t in the battle,” he said. “They locked her in the cells yesterday.”
He drew in a breath. “I don’t know if she’s still alive, but I know you didn’t kill her.”
For a moment, the woman across from him seemed to waver in her chair. She raised her hands to her face and pressed her palms into her eyes. Then she dropped them back to the table. “What happened to her vines? To her vaccine?”
“She was imprisoned before she could reach them.” He looked into Shapiro’s eyes. “Enslaved.”
“Do you know if they still exist?”
For a moment, Jason was going to tell Shapiro about their plans. His and Chloe’s last-ditch race to see if the vines still existed, if the vaccine might work for them.
But he didn’t. It was all too much.
Watching him with that inexorable gaze, Shapiro again opened her mouth to speak, then shook her head. “Shit,” she said. “I have so many things to ask you.”
“Most of the answers you can probably guess at,” he said.
She nodded.
“And the rest don’t matter. Not yet.”
Not if we don’t figure out a way to get Chloe and Malcolm back.
Another nod. She understood. Then she reached into the pocket of her shirt, pulled out something small, and put it on the table beside the glass. A rough-hewn grayish pill.
“Before we go any further,” she said, “take this.”
Looking away from her, he put the pill on his tongue. It had a bitter taste, almost like quinine, that remained in his mouth after he took a gulp of the pure water.
The vaccine. The protection, the weapon, that until that day Jason hadn’t truly believed existed.
* * *
“WHAT DID YOU do with the girl?”
Shapiro grimaced. “The doctor is looking her over.”
Then she turned and glanced back at the twins. “Darby, ask Fatou to bring her here as soon as he’s done.” She paused. “And then go and get some rest.”
The woman nodded and went through the door, leaving her brother, with his pistol, still on guard.
Shapiro faced Jason again. They were both quiet for a few moments, perhaps with the same thoughts. The infection in the girl’s hand was very serious. In the slave camp, at least, it would soon have killed her.
“We do still have antibiotics,” Shapiro said, “along with a range of native medicines. But . . .”
Yes, but . . .
“Do you have the facilities onboard to amputate?” Jason asked.
And then almost laughed out loud. Laughed at the sounds he was making through a hole in his face. Words. Facilities. Amputate.
For a moment, he’d sounded like . . . the old Jason. The scientist. The free human.
Shapiro, not reading his mind now, merely nodded. “Fatou can do it, and I can, too, if I have to. Still . . .” She frowned.
Yes, still. They both knew that in this world, free or enslaved, you did what you could to keep people alive. You used whatever facilities—and skills—you had, and you poured all your knowledge and intelligence and effort into saving their lives.
And then, more often than not, they died anyway.
“At the very least, I’m sure she’ll be able to tell us about herself, and what she did during the battle.” Shapiro’s eyes widened at the memory, and again Jason could see the glint of scientific curiosity in her expression.
She focused on him again. “But while we’re waiting, why don’t you start off.”
Jason’s mind had been wandering. Now he looked at her. “Start off with what?” he asked.
“Telling us about the girl.”
He still didn’t understand. “But how would I know?”
Now she just stared at him, bereft of speech. And then he understood at last, and laughed. Actually laughed.
“Shapiro,” he said, “I don’t know a thing about her. Not a single thing. The first time I ever saw her was today, when she showed up and saved our lives.”
Shapiro said, “Then who the hell is she? And . . . what the hell is she?”
Not even noticing at once that, as she spoke, the door behind her was swinging open. The object of her astonishment walked in, eyes alive with interest and curiosity in that oddly still face, the doctor behind her.
It seemed the girl had heard Shapiro’s question, and understood that it pertained to her. Standing before them, she seemed to quail for an instant. But then her chin lifted, and she faced them with the same calm fortitude she’d shown in battle.
“My name—” she began, speaking so loudly that her eyes widened.
She took a breath and tried again. “My name is Aisha Rose
Atkinson,” she said a little more quietly. But her voice was still strange, flat, with unexpected beats and emphases, as if months or years had passed since she’d last talked to anyone. As if she’d never done much talking.
She sounded, Jason thought, much as he might have if he hadn’t had Chloe close by.
But she didn’t hesitate. “I was born nineteen years, four months, and twenty-eight days ago, six months and four days after the end of the dreamed earth,” she went on. “Today’s date is September—”
For the first time she seemed to falter in her recitation. “September—”
Then her face crumpled. She closed her eyes and, just for an instant, swayed on her feet. The doctor, standing beside her, put a gentle hand on her right arm, and she steadied.
Still with her eyes closed, she spoke, only this time her tone was quieter still, more intimate, and filled with despair.
“I’m so sorry, Mama,” she said. “But I simply don’t remember.”
THIRTY
“HEY, AISHA ROSE,” Jason said. “My name is Jason Bett.”
The girl focused on Jason, and immediately she seemed calmer.
He returned her frank gaze. The last time he’d seen her, Aisha Rose had been filthy and draped in rags. Now, transformed, she was wearing a long, flowing cotton dress, a pale blue with purple flowers on it. It must have been made before the overthrow, and Jason was astonished once again by the treasures the explorers had brought with them.
Aisha Rose’s hair, which had appeared dingy and hopelessly tangled, turned out to be thick, luxuriant, and an unusual coppery blond. She—or someone else—had tied it back into a ponytail, revealing her high cheekbones, long jaw, and those glimmering eyes.
Jason saw a blush rise to her cheeks, and wondered how long it had been since she’d had anyone’s eyes on her.
He smiled, and said, “You look great.” And was rewarded with a smile—mostly in the eyes, though he thought her lips might have twitched upward, just a fraction—in return.
At the same time, he noticed that she’d been staring at his mouth as he spoke, and that now her own mouth was moving. As if she were testing out the words. Or tasting them.
He looked away from her face, down at her bare arms. Jason knew that the doctor must have tended carefully to her injuries, draining the worst of the abscesses and cleaning out the wounds. Fresh cloth wraps, whiter than anything Jason had seen in years, stretched from between her fingers up to the crook of her arm.
The cleanup must have been immensely painful, but the girl seemed as stoical and unaffected as ever . . . if you ignored the pallor in her face and the faint tracks that drying tears had left on her cheeks.
Keeping her gaze on him, she came around the table to his left, sat, and slid down the bench toward him. She didn’t stop until their legs were touching, and he could smell the soap she’d used. And then she reached out with her right, uninjured hand and interlaced her fingers with his left.
As if she needed him, his presence, his hand in hers, for strength and support.
And the moment’s awkwardness that she’d shown upon entering did seem to have disappeared, now that she was sitting beside him. She seemed entirely calm as she looked around the room, and said, “So where is she?”
Shapiro blinked. “Where is who?”
“The one who is like Mama . . . and me.”
A silence followed this statement. Finally, Shapiro said, “Aisha Rose, believe me, there is no one on board who is the least bit like you.”
Aisha Rose showed her irritation only in the tiny furrow that appeared between her eyes. She gave a tiny shrug, and said, “No, she will be here soon.”
Then, letting her gaze swing across the room, she said, “You are all such different colors!”
Now Jason thought that a kind of joy resided behind her flat, stiff tone.
He saw Shapiro give a small nod. As if she were speaking to a little girl, she said, “Haven’t you ever seen people of different colors before?”
Aisha Rose answered at once. “In books,” she said. “When Mama and I lived in the compound, I mean. Books with pictures about life on the dreamed earth.”
“The dreamed earth,” Shapiro said.
The girl nodded. “Before the real earth awoke. Before it became real. Mama told me what it was like, and showed me, and we also had books.”
She paused, scanning their faces once again. “You are some of the same colors as the pictures we look at,” she said, “but not all.”
Jason understood the meaning behind the girl’s words. Some of it, anyway, and Shapiro seemed to as well. “You’ve never actually seen people those colors, though,” she said. “For real, I mean.”
Aisha Rose shook her head. “Of course not. It was always just me and Mama, until now.”
At her unmodulated voice, her matter-of-fact tone, Jason had a revelation about this strange young woman sitting at his side. He’d thought she’d slid next to him, sought physical contact, because she needed his support.
But now he realized that he’d gotten it wrong. She didn’t need him; she’d brought all the strength she needed along with her. If anything, she was there to share her strength with Jason. To support him. To give, not to take.
Jason felt tears come to his eyes.
If Shapiro noticed any of this, she didn’t seem to care. She had begun to stare at Aisha Rose with a strange, unsettling concentration.
“Aisha Rose,” she said, and her voice sounded a little breathless and strained. Not with fear, or revulsion, or surprise, Jason thought. No: with certainty.
With comprehension.
Aisha Rose, all calmness, said, “Yes?”
“Tell me something. Is your Mama always with you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“But you buried her.”
For just an instant, Jason felt the hand tighten in his.
“No,” Aisha Rose said after a brief hesitation.
Shapiro nodded, but she didn’t look like someone who’d been caught heading in the wrong direction. She merely said, “Why not?”
Aisha Rose said, without hesitating, “Mama didn’t want to be buried.”
Now, for the first time, the doctor, Konte, spoke up. “Where was this?”
“At the rose farm.” She saw the question on his face. “On Mount Kenya.”
Jason turned his head to look at Aisha Rose beside him. She was staring down at the table, and as he watched, a tear ran down her nose and dripped off. But when she spoke again, her voice was still composed.
“Mama told me,” she said, “that on the dreamed earth, people believed that vultures would help you . . . ascend.” She raised her head. “To someplace better than the dream.”
Shapiro nodded. “That’s true. Some people believed that.”
“And the vultures did come.” Aisha Rose’s eyes were on Shapiro, but as she spoke, she leaned against Jason. Her bare arm was cold against his.
“But I still talk with her,” she went on. She lifted her bandaged hand and placed it gently against the side of her head. “Here,” she said.
Shapiro nodded. “I know. But before that, before she ascended, was she . . . tired a lot?”
The girl nodded.
“Ill?”
Another nod. “Worse and worse. She didn’t want me to know, but I saw anyway.”
Jason noticed that, as she and Shapiro talked about Mama, Aisha Rose’s speech had grown softer, more supple . . . but also more childlike.
“I knew it was the worm. What the worm did to her, before it died.”
Shapiro was sitting very still. “And this was after Mama was carrying you, but before you were born?”
“Yes.” Aisha Rose’s eyes were hazy. “At the very end of the dream.”
At that moment, Jason knew what Shapiro had been driving at and w
hat it meant. What it meant about Aisha Rose.
His heart thudded in his chest. And, though he kept his motions calm, when he turned his eyes to look at the young woman sitting next to him, holding his hand, it was with a sense of wonder.
The same expression he saw in Shapiro’s eyes.
* * *
“HOW DID THE worm die?” Shapiro asked. “Did someone take it out?”
Jason saw Aisha Rose’s chin lift. “No. I told you. It just died.”
“And you saw that happen?”
The girl’s lips thinned in exasperation. “Mama showed me,” she said.
Then she paused, and when she spoke again her voice was lower, and filled with apology and regret. “No,” she said. “Mama didn’t show me. She didn’t want me to see, but I looked anyway.”
Shapiro was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “And what else did you see when you looked?”
“The end of the dreamed earth,” Aisha Rose said at once. Her voice was bleak.
“You looked because you weren’t there. You hadn’t been born yet.”
This time the girl just gave a single nod.
Shapiro lifted her hands and put her palms over her eyes. Then, her eyes still hidden, she said, “Aisha Rose Atkinson, tell me. Please tell me. What else do you see?”
Aisha Rose tilted her head as she looked at the older woman sitting in such a strange position opposite her. Then she turned to look up at Jason.
“I see what they see,” she said. “When I want to.”
“The thieves,” he said.
“Yes, the majizi.” She gestured with her injured hand. “And I see . . . lights. The lights made by the other ones like me.”
Suddenly, her breath was short, her cold hand tightening again in Jason’s. Maybe the support did go both ways.
“And I see . . . him,” she said. “The one who—”
But before she could finish her sentence, the door behind Konte opened, and a woman walked through. A tall, slender woman of perhaps thirty, wearing a baggy, blue-and-white shirt and black pants. She had high cheekbones, a strong jaw, and a face betraying so little expression that she could have passed for Aisha Rose’s older sister.
The doctor said, “Kait?”
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