"I understand," said Loll. "It's the best we can do under the circumstances. Thank you very much for indulging me in this, Keir Chen. If there were any way we could pay you back..."
He shook his head. "Just keep this secret."
Loll laughed. "Since you've told me nothing about your destination, that should be easy."
After the Virgan walked away Keir stood for a long time staring at the ornithopter. It seemed uncomfortable under his gaze, finally shuffling around to face the other way as it stretched out its wings and landing gear. Keir barely noticed.
He was thinking about the black air beyond the city, and about what it would really mean to launch himself into it. It should have helped that he knew now of two destinations up there: the exit to the arena, at the far end of Aethyr, and, much closer by, the corresponding door to Virga. Before he'd known about that second door, the arena had been his only hope. Now he could picture himself flying to Virga instead, and yet, from what Loll had said, that door was guarded, too. When he landed there, they would ask where he came from. They would investigate, and probably send him back here.
He clenched his fists and glared at the pavement. "But you're getting shorter," he whispered.
The ornithopter angled its sensors as though pondering how to reply, and Keir turned and began walking away--only realizing, midstep, that he was doing it because of subtle hints from his scry.
No--not his scry. One of Maerta's annoying overrides had just kicked in, shoving his own emoticons and hints into the background, making him think he should head to his room.
Why would they want him there? He raised his hands and his dragonflies fountained up and away in every direction. And now he saw it--
--Human figures running up to Leal Maspeth and her people; lumbering mechs shouldering their way out of stone niches where they'd slept ever since the Renaissance arrived here; Maerta herself, pacing down the stairs along with her double, both equally grim-faced.
The usual scry map of Complication Hall and its environs had been edited down to a small set of corridors and rooms--the kids' spaces. A cold prickling feeling washed over Keir as he realized that Gallard had called everyone together and he was using scry to herd them somewhere safe--somewhere high up.
The searchlight of Maerta's attention landed on Keir for an instant, and he gulped and started walking again. He couldn't defy her, or any of the adults. He was going to his room. That didn't mean he couldn't find out what was going on, though.
On the way to the stairs he passed one of the blocky Edisonians. The kids learned early how to make queries to these devices--to ask for things. Along with your earliest lessons in dealing with an Edisonian, the Renaissance grown-ups taught you ancient stories about mythical beings who could grant wishes. Beware what you asked for, these stories cautioned. If your request was not worded exactly right, calamity might emerge from triumph. In one such story, King Midas wished that everything he touched turn to gold, and so his food, his dog, and finally his own wife and children all became statues and sculptures.
On more than one occasion, Keir had asked an Edisonian to extend the communications range of his dragonflies, but Maerta or Gallard or someone had anticipated this, and the Edisonians invariably replied that it was forbidden.
Keir had lately discovered that he had a bit of a talent for thinking around such problems. Actually, it was kind of a big talent for asking the right question. Everybody in the Renaissance had it to one degree or another, but for Keir it seemed to come easily. So, a few weeks ago he'd done something most of his people wouldn't think to do: he'd designed a solution to the range problem.
"Form a chain," he told his dragonflies as he took the steps two at a time. "One end by me, the other end by ... by Maerta."
The dragonflies formed a whirling cloud, which suddenly unreeled in the direction the grown-ups had gone.
Now he issued a second command he'd designed. "Lip-read," he told the lead dragonfly just before it disappeared through a distant archway. Then he had to turn his attention back to his main body, because as he went up one flight of stairs, Maerta and Leal Maspeth were going down another. The confusion of directions caused him to nearly fall flat on his face when he reached the top of his own flight.
He rubbed his shin; but the pain didn't dampen his enjoyment of the moment. He'd never really had cause to use the signal-chain idea before, but it worked perfectly. It was amazing the things you could do if you chose not to use the Edisonians to solve all your problems.
Maerta and Leal Maspeth were talking, and Keir's dragonflies relayed their words back along the chain, along with full visuals.
"--showed up about ten minutes ago," said Maerta.
Maspeth was shaking her head, twisting her hands together as she half-ran down the steps. "But how did he survive? I saw him get washed away by, by a thousand tons of ice!"
"That body probably didn't survive," said Maerta. They burst into one of the chambers just below Complication Hall. This place was normally dark, being just beyond the last storage rooms the Renaissance used. Keir had only ever seen it through the night vision of his dragonflies, which was probably just as welclass="underline" the place was one of the city's follies, a chamber whose walls and ceiling looked like they were in the process of toppling in on you. Its menacing stone stalactites and leaning walls were lit bright as day by hovering light globes.
The globes, and the smoldering, lightly vibrating mechs, and a few of the older members of the Renaissance, formed a half-circle around a single figure who stood in the center of the room.
Keir didn't know this lean, bald man's face, but he guessed that he'd seen his silhouette before, in the mouth of the tunnel under Brink. He'd reached out one hand and asked them to let him in, and Piero Harper had shot him, driving him into the teeth of the avalanche. Now, once again, he had one hand out in an appeal.
"Leal." A smile of pure joy lit up his face as he saw her. He took a step forward, and one of the mechs moved to block him. The smile faltered.
Maspeth had stopped at the room's entrance, seemingly unsure of what to pay attention to--the looming catastrophe of the ceiling, the hulking metal warriors on either side of her, or the man standing alone on the flat stone floor. Her right hand had gone up to her throat, and she steadied herself momentarily against the doorjamb. Then her expression hardened, and with no more hesitation, she stepped into the room.
"Why have you come here?" she snapped.
The man bowed, a sad half-smile on his face. "Leal, it's me, John."
"John Tarvey drowned. I saw it happen."
He nodded. "And, if this were Virga, that would have been the end of it. Surely the emissary explained it to you?"
The doll riding on Maspeth's shoulder must have said something, because she tilted her head toward it and there was a pause; but Keir's dragonflies couldn't read its lips, because it had none. He was sitting on his bed by now and smacked the mattress in frustration.
"Your enemies, yes, yes," she said to it. "I still don't understand." To Tarvey she said, "They raised you from the dead, or so you say. But this one says no." She curled one hand up to touch the junk-doll's tiny shoulder.
John Tarvey scowled at the little morphont. "It should know better than anybody how expendable bodies are! It wears them like gloves, you've seen that. Leal, I don't understand you. I might almost say you were being, well, hypocritical." He wouldn't meet her eye as he said this. "You keep that thing as your companion knowing full well that it's not what it looks like, that it has no body of its own. It doesn't bother you when it loses one, like it did in the river or in the landslides. It just builds another one or consolidates itself into what's left. But when I do it, you treat me like a monster."