My hands curl into fists. “Dad!” I growl. “You can’t just let Kit be lost because she’s not one of your people. ”
“That has nothing to do with it. ” His voice is filled with emotion I don’t understand—it sounds almost like regret, but that doesn’t make any sense. He leans in closer to me. “I’ve already seen you wounded once, Amy. When Elder brought you to me, after you were knocked out by that purple flower. I’m not going to see you get hurt again. ” He hugs me tight, squeezing the air from me. “Go to the lab with your mother. Chris will stay with you two. ” Dad glances up at Mom as she approaches. “Got to protect my girls. ”
I look behind me. The search parties have already begun to disperse. With a sigh, I follow Mom back up to the building we’re sharing as she gets ready for a day at the lab. I wonder briefly if Dad’s going to the compound Elder and I discovered last night, if there’s something there that will help find Kit. I hope so. I don’t care that Dad’s kept it secret, not if it helps to find Kit and bring her safely back to us.
“Okay,” Mom says. “Let me just check with the geologists and see the results of the tests they ran last night. Amy?” she adds. “Want to come with me?”
I shake my head.
“I’ll go with you, Dr. Martin,” Chris says, standing up. I’m glad he’s here to protect Mom, but it feels weird that our guard is just a few years older than me.
Almost as soon as they’re gone, Emma steps into the building. “Alone?” she asks in her lilting accent. I nod.
Emma crosses the room in three long strides and presses something into my hands. A glass cube, about the size of my palm. “I want you to have this,” she tells me. “Hide it. ”
“Why—?” I ask, peering at it. While the cube looks as if it’s made of glass, it’s filled with bright flecks of gold. It glitters in the sunlight, creating an entrancing swirl of sparkles.
“I’ve been watching you and that Elder. ” Emma glances at the door. “I know you lot are not going to just blindly accept what someone says is truth. And I figure maybe that’s what’s needed more than anything right now. ”
“Is this about . . . ” I hesitate, not sure if I do want to know the truth. “Is this about Dad?”
“Your dad’s a good soldier,” Emma says. “He’s following the mission guidelines. ”
My fingers curl around the glass cube. What does this have to do with the mission guidelines?
“I have been to many countries,” Emma says, changing topics abruptly. “And now to a whole new world. But I have never felt dépaysement. ”
“What’s day-pah . . . um?” I can’t pronounce the word.
“Dépaysement. It’s like . . . homesick?” Emma shakes her head, her dark curls bouncing against her cheeks. “That’s not the word for it. It means . . . the way you feel when you know you’re not home. ”
“I don’t understand,” I say. I don’t mean that I don’t understand the word—I don’t understand why she’s telling me this. Any of this.
“I learned long ago that home is a word that applies to people, not places. That’s why I didn’t mind signing up for this mission. Didn’t matter to me where I was—it mattered who I was with. ”
Emma cocks her head—I hear it too. Mom and Chris are returning. “I’m giving you this,” she says, looking down at the glass cube in my hands, “because you—you and that Elder boy—you two don’t care about any military mission. You don’t care about what the FRX may want. You care about making this world home. ”
“What do you care about?” I ask, searching her eyes.
“Doesn’t matter,” Emma says sadly. “I’m military. I have to obey the orders. You don’t. ”
She glances behind her quickly. “Go,” she says. “Hide it. ”
The urgency in her voice makes me spin around and dash to the tiny corner of privacy I have in my “room” made of tents and throw the glass cube into my sleeping bag, out of sight.
“Amy?” Mom calls.
I step back out. Emma’s gone.
“Ready?” Mom asks.
I’m sweating by the time we reach Mom’s lab in the shuttle—I’d love another thunderstorm to cool everything off. But then I remember the search parties and Kit, and pray that it doesn’t rain.
Dr. Gupta’s body is no longer in Mom’s lab, and I’m somewhat grateful for that. There were too many . . . pieces. Like Juliana Robertson. I swallow drily, trying to forget the ripping, crunching sound the ptero made as it ate Dr. Gupta.
Somehow, my mind drifts to Lorin. She was found dead too, but she must not have been killed by a ptero. The horror of Dr. Gupta and Juliana’s deaths has made everyone forget that it is Lorin’s immaculate, seemingly untouched body that is by far the creepier corpse.
“The geologists need to run more tests before they can use my help,” Mom says, already turning to the worktable in the lab. She holds out a vial of some viscous liquid. It’s dark crimson, almost black.