Chapters 10-12 Summary

In a trance, Binti suddenly sees a button on her edan and presses it. The noises outside the door coalesce into speech she can understand. She hears a voice say, “Girl, you will die.” Binti notices that an electric current is locking her hands around the edan. Then the edan translates her words, “I will not,” frightening the Meduse outside her door. She begins conversing with a Meduse called Okwu. Okwu insists that Binti is evil and that “humans only understand violence.” Binti counters that the Meduse are murderers, but Okwu claims that “humans must be killed before they kill us.” Okwu is the Meduse whose tentacle was injured by the edan. The Meduse open the door but do not harm Binti. Okwu touches Binti with the tentacle and rubs off some of her otjize.

Ten hours later, Binti’s water supply has run out. Okwu returns and asks Binti about the otjize she wears. Binti explains that Khoush people don’t wear otjize—”only my people wear it.” After Okwu leaves, Binti realizes its injured tentacle looks partially healed. Okwu returns and demands Binti give it the otjize, but Binti refuses. He then asks what the edan is. Binti explains that it is made of “‘god stone’” but that she doesn’t know how it works or why it can translate.

Chapters 10-12 Analysis

Though Binti survives the Meduse attack, it is not a simple matter of her not being Khoush. Unconsciously, Binti can use the edan as a protection device. Her talent as a “master harmonizer” allows her to see and unlock other functions in the device as well. Because she is a “harmonizer” who specializes in communication and connection, she can use the edan’s currents to translate and communicate with the Meduse.

The Meduse hate all humans even though their feud is with the Khoush people specifically. Most of the Meduse don’t differentiate between one human and the next, as Okwu illustrates. The Meduse insist that “humans must be killed before they kill [Meduse].” This phrase suggests that the Meduse as a species are not so different from human groups that stereotype and kill out of fear. Reviewer Mahvesh Murad calls the Meduse “space terrorists,” a characterization that highlights the group’s extreme violence and fanaticism. Like other terrorists, the Meduse have an unwavering belief in the righteousness of their quest—to annihilate all inherently evil humans. Okorafor sees the conflict as a symbol of human “hatreds that have been cultivated and acted upon for so long that no one even remembers the origin.” The metaphor of hatred as something that can be both cultivated and acted upon suggests its complexity.