I nod. Of thirst, of starvation.

But they shake their heads. No: we will be hunted down and kil ed before we get halfway there.

Of course. Of course.

How will we get out?

I answer without looking at them. The Scientist. He will get you out.

Sissy nods with excitement. That's what he said. That he would lead us away. That we should always trust him. Even when all hope seems gone, he told us never to give up, that he'd come through for us. And then he disappeared one day. It was hard for us; we almost gave up hope. And now you. You appearing out of nowhere after all this time. You can help us, right?

Give me time, give me time. The Scientist left me mountains of papers to get through.

well , we have a lot of that. Time.

I wake with a start. It takes me a second to realize where I am. still in the heper vil age, still in a mud hut. On the fl oor, lying down, head atop a soft sack. The sun shines through the sievelike ceiling, leaving a patchwork of sunspots about me.

They are sitting in a semicircle around me. A few of them are lying down in a semidoze.

“He's awake!” Ben says.

I leap to my feet, heart hammering. I've never woken up in a crowd. In my usual life, I'd be dead by now. But they're looking up at me with amused, harmless faces. I sit back down, unnerved.

Sissy tel s Jacob to fetch some more water, David to see if bread has arrived in the Umbilical, and Ben to pick some more fruit and vegetables. The three scuttle off. Only the two oldest, Sissy and Epap, remain. Somehow, I don't think this is unintentional.

“How long have I been out?”

“Two hours. You were just talking, then next thing we know, you're knocked out cold,” Sissy says.

you're knocked out cold,” Sissy says.

“Snoring, too,” Epap sneers.

Judging from the position of the sun, it's about midday.

“This is my usual sleep time. And I've been really up and about the past couple of days. Sorry I crashed on you. But I'm that knackered.”

“I was going to kick you awake,” Epap says, “but she let you sleep.”

“Thanks,” I murmur, my voice hoarse with dryness, “and for the pil ow, too.”

“You looked like you could use some sleep. Here,” she says, handing over a jug of water. “Sounds like you could use some more water, too.”

I nod my appreciation. The water slides down my dry, sandy throat. I'm a bottomless bucket: no matter how much I drink, I can't seem to get enough.

“Thanks,” I say, handing back the jug. Hung on the wal s around me are brightly colored paintings of rainbows and the mythical sea.

On my right is a bookshelf fi l ed with worn- out books and a few pottery fi gures.

“How did you learn to read?” I ask.

Epap looks down. “From our parents,” Sissy answers.

I look at her.

“Some of us had both parents here. Most of us had only a father or a mother. None of us are siblings, in case you're wondering, except for Ben and me. We're half- siblings.”

“How many parents?”

“Eight. They taught us everything. How to read and write, how to paint, how to grow vegetables. Passed down to us ancient traditional tales. Taught us to grow physical y strong, to run long distances, swim. They didn't want us to get fat and lazy, just waiting for our food to appear every day. We had something called ‘school' every day. You know what ‘school' is?”

I nod.

“Our parents pressed us hard, made us learn quickly. As if they feared time was short. As if they believed they might one day be gone.”

“And what happened to them?”

“One day they were gone,” Epap says, an anger tingeing his words.

Sissy speaks, quieter. “About ten years ago. They were given maps describing the location of a fruit farm. We were suspicious, of course, but we hadn't been given any fruit or vegetables in weeks.

Our lips and mouths were breaking out in painful blisters.

As a precaution, our parents made us children stay behind.

The parents left at the crack of dawn. They never came back.”

“The fi ve of you can't have been much more than toddlers yourselves,” I say.

She pauses before answering. “Ben was only a few weeks old.

He barely survived. And there were more than fi ve of us.

There were nine.”

“The other four?”

She shakes her head, eyes downcast. “You have to understand.

It was just Epap and me looking after everyone. We were, like, seven years old. When the Scientist came, he real y helped us. Not only because of the extra food he'd smuggle in, the books, blankets, medicine when one of us would fal il . But he was such a morale booster, a great storytel er, really encouraging. That's why it was so crushing when he fl at- out disappeared on us.”

She looks at me. “And you're tel ing us he'l somehow lead us to the eastern mountains someday? The land of milk and honey, fruit and sunshine?”

I nod.

“You're lying,” Epap says. “About the Scientist. And about the heper civilization over the mountains. There's nothing beyond those mountains.”

“I'm not.”

“You and your damn poker face. Think you can hide behind that and fool us? Maybe the younger ones, but not us.

Certainly not me.”

“Tel us what you know, Gene,” Sissy says gently, earnestness in her brown eyes. So strange to be called by that name. Her eyes, with the sunlight refl ecting off the fl oor, are a shade lighter than I remember. “How do you know about the heper civilization past the mountains?”

“It's in some of the Scientist's journals I've been reading.

The Scientist made some entries. He had reason to believe there's a whole civilization of our kind beyond those mountains. Where hundreds, maybe thousands of us live.”

The lies slip off my tongue smooth as silk.

“How did he come by this information?”

“Look, I don't know. But he seemed to believe so.”

“Liar!” interjects Epap. “If there're so many of our kind, why haven't we seen any of them? Why haven't they ventured out here?”

“Would you?” I ask. “Knowing what you know, would you come out here and place yourself within reach of them?”

He doesn't say anything.

“It makes sense,” Sissy says. “Any heper colony beyond the mountains would be safe from people. It would take— even with their quickness— at least eigh teen hours just to reach the mountains.

They'd never get there before sunrise. No cover at all out there— the sunlight would incinerate them all . The distance is the perfect moat of protection.”

“You don't believe him, do you?” Epap asks incredulously.

“We don't know anything about this guy. He just appears out of nowhere, saunters in with this know- it- all attitude.”

“Epap,” she says softly, a hand on his shoulder. That's al she has to say. Or do. Immediately, his irritation fl utters off him in droves. “We know a lot. Gene's for real, there's no denying that.

We've seen him in the sun, eat our fruit, sleep, just act, wel , like us.

You saw him blush. You can't fake that kind of stuff. So he's one of us. And we also know— whatever you might personal y think of him— he's a survivor. He has learned how to live even in the midst of them. For years. He's valuable to us, to have someone like that on the outside.”

“But how do we know he's for us? He might be one of us, but that doesn't necessarily make him for us! I agree that he's a survivor. But it's his survival he's good at, not ours.”

Instead of disagreeing with him, Sissy looks at me. Her eyes betray wariness and suspicion. She knows. That I'm holding something back. But she has no idea just how much. Otherwise she'd never have said what she says next.

“I think we can trust him. I think he has goodness in him.”

“Excuse me while I barf in my mouth,” Epap says.

“Epap,” she says with less patience now, “Gene's brought us more information than we've been able to cul together in years. In two minutes, he's told us two lifetimes' worth of info. That says something.”

“Useless information,” Epap spat out. “Even if it's true— about the colony beyond the mountains— it's useless.

There's no way we can get to it, not even close. For us, the mountains are a two- week trek away. We'd be hunted down and kil ed within hours. Even if we leave as soon as the Dome opens at dawn and get an eight- hour jump on them, as soon as dusk hits, they'l be fl ying across the Vast and be on us within two hours. No, that kind of information is worse than useless: it's dangerous. It puts sil y notions in our heads, a fanciful pipe dream that some of us might try to bring to fruition. Think of David, Jacob. Those two were never born to be encased. They've wanted out since they were born.

Think you can restrain them if they set their minds on it?”

As Epap speaks, Sissy does something slightly odd with her lower lip. Nothing I've ever seen before, but I can't quite take my eyes off it. She's sinking her upper teeth (no fangs, so strange to see) into her ful lower lip, taking a half bite so that her lips turn whit-ish. She's quiet for a long time. Then, as the sound of footsteps approach, she says, “Do me a favor? Let's not talk about this in front of the others again, okay?”

“Sure,” I answer, and then David and Jacob walk in with more bread and fruit. I eat and drink to my fi l , the conversation now turned lighter, the younger hepers happy to have a new face with whom to chatter. They tel me of their lives, the routine, the passing seasons, their love- hate relationship with the Dome: how it stifl es air circulation and traps the musty heat on hot summer nights; but how it also traps warmth and keeps out cold rain and snow in the winter months. On those winter nights, they tel me, they like to watch snowfl akes drift downward from the night sky, melting into dewy streaks upon landing on the Dome.