I bit my lip and looked at my sandals. “Jetson—” My voice died. There was nothing to say. I took off his pallium, tossed it to him and turned my back.

* * *

I ate my meal alone at the senior table, shoveling food into my mouth mechanically. In my mind, I watched Jetson leave again, shoulder to shoulder with Hannibal. The vision turned the food in my mouth to dust.

As I chewed, my mind wandered to the fugitive who had escaped. According to the murmuring crowd, he’d been convicted of distributing illegal paraphernalia. I’d read once of a convict living for months in the Kongo desert on nothing but subterranean lizards and ants. If he could avoid bounty hunters, survival was possible. Only, this was a poor year for any fugitive to attempt it.

The drought had turned the desert into a deathtrap. Without water, the fugitive would join his coconspirators in mere days—unless. A thought tickled the back of my mind, a chapter from a supplementary reader. Slowly, the details came back to me.

The Kongo was situated on a network of underground waterways that surfaced at random, and pooled before running dry. As a water source, these pools were unreliable, which is why man-made hydroplanes nurtured the farmlands of the Kongo Houses. However, for the months they lasted, the pools sustained all sorts of plants and animals. An ecosystem—even a temporary one—could save the fugitive’s life.

There were only a few of these oases in the Kongo, and their locations weren’t marked on maps. More, they were likely overrun with outlaws. Still, if the escapee was lucky he would be free and live. Something inside me quickened at the notion.

* * *

After lunch, I hurried to the Supply Room with the pink passes Purnell had given me upon inspecting my plate. Stationed there was a colossal Guard trained to attack, on sight, anyone foolish enough to enter without a pass. We called him the Chalk-Hand Guard, on account of his dry fingers, which were dusted with a layer of ash-white skin. I held my pink passes high in the air for him to see.

Inside the Supply Room, I handed my slips to Teacher Barrett, catching a nose full of her peculiar scent—like boiled cabbage.

“What do you want?” she said, looking closely at the slips. She was a miserly woman, known to reject requests because of spelling errors.

“I need more ink and a new blouse,” I said, holding my breath. “And, if you would, some notebooks for my personal use.”

She picked up a wood-handled stamp, plopped it on an inkpad and slapped it in the middle of each slip. “Black ink only, until Sunday.”

I glowered. She had ink every color of the rainbow—for her favorite students. When they did her bidding, she doled out choice supplies, like treats.