The Night Masquerade (Binti, #3)(35)
*
I was staring back.
Chapter 9
Awake
I was there.
Then I opened my eyes.
“It’s all mathematics,” I said.
I don’t know where the words came from or why I said them. Mwinyi was staring at me, his mouth agape. “Life, the universe, everything.” I turned my head to the side and caught a glimpse of the Night Masquerade I lay on. The costume.
Mwinyi reached a hand forward and pulled more of the cloth off me. I looked down too, as he gasped, jumping up and stumbling back. “Okwu!” he finally called. “Okwu! Get in here!”
I looked toward the door where Okwu hovered, just outside the room. The moment I laid eyes on it, I saw it float quickly back, leaving a great cloud of its lavender gas as it went. Then I could hear it puffing it out, sucking it back in, puffing it out, sucking it in.
“Binti,” Mwinyi whispered. “What … is this really you?” He had tears in his eyes, his lips were quivering. I’d been watching him move about the ship for hours. It had been as if I were swimming, rolling, floating in the tree. Then I was pulled into this place, this ship, and it had embraced me with delight. And I’d seen Okwu and Mwinyi moving about, both of them so sad, numb, and quiet. I’d followed them here and opened my eyes.
I sat up as he stared at me. I touched my left arm. I had a left arm. Mwinyi sank to the floor, his back against the slender trunk of a young tree with tough rubbery-looking leaves growing from a hole in the floor. A tree that looked oddly like an Undying tree. Home, I thought as I pressed my chest. I remembered most clearly when the Khoush fire bullet hit me in the chest. The punching, then stabbing pain, and once inside me, it had hungrily bitten at me with its fire. I pressed my soft breasts now, beneath the red dress I wore. I rolled to the side and touched the sticklike hand of the Night Masquerade costume. I held it with my left hand, kneading the actual sticks used for the knuckles with my fingers.
I nearly laughed now when I thought back to that moment when I’d stood at my bedroom window staring down at the Night Masquerade that first time. Deep down a tiny, tiny voice in me had wondered if something were wrong with me, if my spirit was that of a man’s, not a woman’s, because the Night Masquerade never showed itself to girls or women. Even back then I had changed things, and I didn’t even know it. When I should have reveled in this gift, instead, I’d seen myself as broken. But couldn’t you be broken and still bring change?
I powered down the transporter beside me and it lowered me to the ground. I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer to thank the Seven for Their Mysterious Mystery. Then slowly, my muscles creaking and aching, old otjize flaking to the floor, I stood up. I had legs, too. I felt the ship rumble, the leaves, flowers, stems, and branches around us shaking. I felt the ship’s voice more than heard it, in every part of me, but especially my chest, left arm, and legs. “Hello, Binti,” it said. It spoke in Khoush. Mwinyi looked around and then back at me.
“New Fish is speaking to you, isn’t she?” he asked. “I can hear her, but barely.”
I nodded.
“Hello,” I said aloud, not sure how else to speak to it. “You are New Fish? Is that—”
“Yes. Third Fish’s daughter,” she said.
“I died,” I blurted. “I remember. They had agreed to stop fighting and then something happened and they started fighting anyway. They forgot about me and I got caught in the crossfire. I don’t know if Khoush or Meduse killed me…” I paused, as more of those moments returned to me. I’d seen flashes of blue and red, felt heat and cold. I’d been shot by Meduse and Khoush alike. “How is it possible that I’m standing in your breathing room looking at Mwinyi. Breathing.” I held out my arms to him and immediately he rushed over.
He gathered me in his arms.
“Microbes,” I heard Okwu say from the door. It stood in it, filling it up completely as it floated.
“Okwu,” I said, feeling my okuoko writhe. And for the first time I knew how to do it. I sent the small spark toward it and it popped in a series of blue sparks at its tentacles. Okwu’s dome expanded, filling the doorway even more tightly, and then deflated.
“My mother said it would happen if they put you in my breathing chamber, because I am so young,” New Fish said. “That is why she sent me instead of coming herself. She would have broken through the curfew gate they set up for all launch port ships once the fighting started. My mother isn’t afraid of her bond to the Khoush. But she knew. And she saw your soul when everything happened on your journey to Oomza Uni. She calls you the ‘gentle warrior’ and believes our union would bring Miri 12s forward.”
“Union?” I asked. Again, another connection.
“What’s she saying?” Mwinyi asked. “I can’t quite—”
“Shhh,” I said to Mwinyi, still holding him.
“Come up to my Star Chamber and I will explain,” New Fish said.
*
I sat on the Star Chamber floor looking out the large window before me. This was where Mwinyi had been staying and I could see why. I stared out at the distant Saturn as I drank a second cup of water and finished a bowl of dried meat. The water tasted soily, having been drawn from one of New Fish’s wells, and the meat was spicy and tough. It was delicious. I didn’t have to ask to know that this was meat someone from my town had supplied for the journey. Goat meat, sliced thin and cured in an Osemba smokehouse.