The Night Masquerade

The third and final installment of the Binti trilogy follows Binti, a seventeen-year-old Himba girl and master harmonizer—a practitioner who channels mathematics to foster peace between peoples—as she races home to save her family, brokers peace between warring peoples, and discovers the full scope of what she has become. The Himba are an Earth-based people known for building astrolabes, devices carrying their owners' life records, and for covering their skin and hair with otjize, a traditional red clay paste. Binti is also part Meduse, a jellyfish-like alien species whose earlier attack on a spaceship left her with okuoko, soft blue tentacles in place of hair. She is additionally part Enyi Zinariya, a secretive desert people descended from humans who bonded centuries ago with the Zinariya, tall gold-skinned aliens. The alien technology encoded in Binti's DNA, called the zinariya, was recently activated by an Enyi Zinariya elder.

As the story opens, Binti and Mwinyi, a young Enyi Zinariya man and fellow harmonizer who communicates with living things, are crossing the desert on camelback toward Binti's hometown of Osemba. The zinariya delivers a message in her sleep: Her father and many family members are trapped in the cellar of the Root, their ancestral home, amid smoke and fire. Since the activation, Binti has been overwhelmed as numbers and equations swarm her vision. Mwinyi reveals that Binti's grandmother learned through the zinariya that the family took shelter when fighting began, but their status is unknown. Binti also discovers her astrolabe is dead, meaning she may have lost her entire documented identity.

As they approach Osemba, they pass the circle of stones where Binti found her edan, a mysterious alien artifact, as a child. They find the Root reduced to a blackened, smoking mound. The Khoush, the dominant human group on Earth who have long treated the Himba as subordinates, used powerful weapons to collapse the building. Binti experiences a severe flashback to a massacre she survived aboard Third Fish, a living ship that carried her to Oomza Uni, a prestigious intergalactic university.

At the lake, Binti calls for Okwu, her Meduse companion who had been staying with her family. Okwu rises alive, with more Meduse behind it. Okwu explains that Binti's father was in the desert meeting Himba elders when the Khoush arrived. When Binti's father refused General Kuw's demand to reveal Okwu's location, Kuw ordered the Root firebombed, and Binti's father ran inside rather than flee. Okwu killed many soldiers, escaped into the lake, and sent a distress call; Meduse ships now wait submerged. Binti requests an Okuruwo, an emergency meeting called only when the Himba people's survival is at stake. Council Elder Kapika reluctantly agrees.

The Night Masquerade, a spiritual figure whose appearance signals great change and which traditionally only men may see, appears to Binti in broad daylight. At the Okuruwo, the Council accuses Binti of bringing destruction. She argues the Himba must broker peace using deep culture, a collective spiritual power rooted in the mathematics within all things, normally requiring all Himba Councils acting together to invoke. The Council refuses. Binti's former best friend Dele, now apprentice to the chief, pulls her aside, torn between tradition and his recognition of who she has become.

Before the Council decides, Khoush sky whales—large aircraft—land outside. A shot is fired, and Okwu wraps itself around Binti, absorbing the blast and the otjize from her skin. Okwu is severely injured. Mwinyi slathers Binti's remaining otjize on Okwu's wounds, saving its life. Binti, now bare-skinned, confronts the Khoush delegation, declares her full identity, calls up crackling currents, and demands they meet at sunrise to make peace. That night, she and Mwinyi share their first kiss. Binti experiences a recurring vision of Saturn's ring, where a voice insists her name is incomplete.

At dawn, the Himba Council does not appear. The Khoush arrive in force, led by King Goldie, and the Meduse ships rise from the lake. King Goldie dismisses Binti as foolish. The insult triggers something deep: Binti grabs lightning, surrounded by spiraling blue current, and speaks simultaneously through her voice, her okuoko to the Meduse, and the zinariya into the desert. She argues neither side remembers the war's cause, that the Meduse fight over water when most of Earth is ocean, and that the Khoush provoke both sides. Invoking deep culture alone, she channels power through earth and sky. Both leaders agree to a truce. The Night Masquerade appears a third time, dancing in a style Binti recognizes as Dele's.

Then shots ring out. Both sides abandon the truce. Caught in the crossfire, Binti is struck in the chest, legs, and arm. When Okwu lifts off after shielding her, Binti is dying, her body torn apart. She closes her eyes.

The narrative shifts to third person. Dele arrives in the stolen Night Masquerade costume. In flashback, it emerges the Council held a secret meeting and agreed to sacrifice Binti rather than support the truce. Dele, overruled as a mere apprentice, defied them. He tears the costume apart in grief. Mwinyi walks barefoot to the Root's foundation and discovers deep grounding, communicating through his feet with the living Undying tree beneath. He asks the tree to release those inside. The ground cracks open, and every member of Binti's family emerges alive. Binti's mother explains she woke the tree's defenses using her innate mathematical sight, an untrained ability that is the source of Binti's gift.

Binti's mother grants permission to take Binti's body to Saturn's ring. Mwinyi had called Third Fish, who sent her recently born child, New Fish, a smaller living vessel. Binti's family says goodbye, and New Fish departs Earth. Three days later, when Mwinyi lifts the cloth from Binti's face, her okuoko are writhing. Binti stares back. New Fish explains: As a newborn Miri 12, a type of living ship, New Fish's chambers are dense with active microbes. Through a process called deep Miri, the microbes blended with Binti's genes, repaired her body, and regrew her limbs. The resurrection creates a permanent bond; Binti and New Fish can never be too far from each other.

Mwinyi tells Binti her family survived, and she leaps up dancing with joy. He explains Dele was the Night Masquerade and the Council betrayed her, but Dele did not. Binti insists they fly through Saturn's ring first. Connected to New Fish, she enters the ring and hears entities speaking her family's dialect. They explain they called her through the edan because they want a recommendation of Oomza Uni from someone they trust. Binti endorses it and collects two stones from the ring for a new astrolabe.

At Oomza Uni, President Haras, the spiderlike university president, welcomes them and reveals Binti is not the first student bonded with a ship. Medically, Binti can travel five miles from New Fish. Her DNA is now Himba, Enyi Zinariya, Meduse, and part New Fish. Any future children would carry okuoko, since Meduse DNA dominates offspring. Overwhelmed by the accumulation of changes, Binti asks whether she is still human. Dr. Tuka, a Khoush doctor, reframes her situation: Binti's bonds with New Fish and Okwu make her family bigger than any Himba girl's has ever been.

In the final scene, Binti applies fresh otjize and feels like herself for the first time since leaving Earth. The golden ball and slivers of her old edan reassemble into a shiny silver pyramid. She confirms the Saturn stones will make an astrolabe unlike any a Himba has ever built. She leaves to meet Mwinyi, Okwu, her friend Haifa, and a dormmate called the Bear, and they fly in New Fish to the Falls. The sight is "like witnessing a beautiful dream" (203).