Benedick pinched his lower lip, considering. The broad lobby before him was designed neither for defense nor stealth, but rather for ceremony. Once-stately palms, shattered now, strained at their root-cables. The soil they'd helped stabilize lay in clods and heaps, torn vegetation raising the scent of rot. But though the fronds of the palms curled and crisped at the tips, a haze of green so pale it was almost silver already covered the harrowed mounds, hair-fine blades of grass seeking the light.
There had been waterfalls here once, pools beneath the palms, a branch of the River that ran clean and fresh to welcome visitors to Engine. Benedick suspected the outflow was pooling now, undercutting the soil, unless the hull had been ruptured somewhere beneath the dirt and precious water was sublimating into space. Or unless the angel had already managed to allocate resources to begin repairs. Sealing the hull would be its first priority.
He scanned the space, checking for heartbeat and machinery noises as well as body heat. There were insects, birds--such as a flock of gray-cheeked parrotlets, their green wings flurrying as they darted from broken tree to broken tree. Strident cries evoked a memory of ancient speech; some of the tiny birds were long-Exalted, and so old their mimicked language was the language of the Builders.
For a moment, Benedick paused and listened, glad they had survived. With gentle hands he unwound the toolkit from its roosting place about his throat, stroked its pointed face, then crouched to set it down. It left the cage of his hands tentatively, exactly as if it felt trepidation. He supposed it was possible that it did.
It paused at the threshold, ears pricked and tail jerking, and sniffed in several directions before it chanced the open space beyond.
Benedick covered its progress, but no threat materialized. Instead, the toolkit minced out into the devastated lobby, whiskers twitching on either side of its creamy freckled muzzle. About twenty meters in, it paused in the shelter of a destroyed tree and whuffled around the base of the stump, casting for the scent it had trailed this far.
Still crouched by the threshold, Benedick was not surprised that it found nothing. No footprints bruised tender shoots or depressed moist earth. It was possible that Arianrhod had passed this way with a flier or in machinery. Whichever, it was irrelevant. Benedick had lost the trail.
One hand extended, he clucked to the toolkit, but something else had attracted its attention. It sat up, counterbalanced by the fluffy tail, while Benedick clucked again. He snapped his fingers, a sharp bright sound in the armor, and said, urgently, "Toolkit."
It hopped forward, shielding itself in broken palm fronds, where its irregular stripes and spots camouflaged it. The toolkit, despite having melded with the pattern of light and shadows to the point of vanishing, gave an urgent squeak. A flicker of motion showed as it glanced over its shoulder, oil-shiny eyes gleaming. When it looked back, Benedick followed the line of its gaze and deduced that whatever held its attention so intently must be advancing along the corridor that would lead perspective-up. The one that, if followed, would lead eventually--and through many adventures--to Rule.
With his left hand, Benedick sealed his helm.
He had not long to wait. An armored female figure hove into view down the curve of the tunnel--feet and legs and hips, waist and arms, chest and face. Benedick knew her from her stride before she stood half revealed, and lowered the weapon he'd trained on her shadow. He unsealed his helm again to reveal his face--a sign that he did not mean to provoke combat--but he did not depower.
Instead, he strode forward across the lobby to meet his sister, calling her name.
Chelsea Conn paused at the bottom of the serpentine curve of the passageway, one hand resting on the hilt of a blade at her hip. Not an unblade--there had never been many of those, and as far as Benedick knew they had all been unfashioned when the angel was made--but an impressive weapon nonetheless, potent and storied enough to bear the virtue-name Humility. She studied him a moment, as was her wont, her narrow face unreadable.
He had always fancied that, at such moments, she was deciding what she would feel. When, after slightly longer than a second, a broad smile broke across her face, it did nothing to disabuse him of the conceit.
"Brother!" she cried boldly, tossing her braids back out of her armor, and strode forward with a springing step.
They embraced with a great clatter of reinforced ceramic, armor rattling on armor, fists pounding backplates, making a show of their glad warrior cries. At least from Benedick's perspective, it was not dissembling.
Chelsea wore a gray and violet color-shift, so bands of lavender and plum shimmered across the surface of her armor like light reflecting off opals. She made him wonder a great deal, did Chelsea Conn. She was closed up like a bud, giving no hint of the leaves or petals within. Among all the things he wondered--what she wanted, what she feared--the one currently most on his mind was if she'd chosen those colors with intention, to tweak their father's sensibilities.
Although it was entirely possible she'd never known that Caithness had worn them as well. Alasdair Conn had gone to great lengths to expunge his eldest daughters from the family record, so Benedick would not be surprised if Chelsea had never heard the name.
He could ask her. Perhaps now that their father was dead, he would find the time.
He set her back at arm's length--he was considerably taller--and said, "You came from Rule."
She nodded. This time, he did not think the thumbprint shadow that darkened the space between her brows was calculated, but it was too fleeting to be sure of what it meant. She drew a breath and said, "It's gone."
He considered his answers and settled upon, "I know. What did you see?" He held up a hand before she could answer, and amended the question. "Would you know the Engineer Arianrhod Kallikos on sight?"
"Unless she's changed her face." Chelsea lifted a shoulder and let it drop.
"Did you see her between Rule and here?"
"Brother mine, I saw a great deal between Rule and here. I saw devastation and feasting rats. I saw Go-backs run wild with fear, hunting in packs like animals." She touched a rippled scorch mark on the shoulder of her armor. "I saw ruptured acceleration pods and holdes torn open to space, the frozen bodies of the dead, machinery weeping for its masters. But I did not see Arianrhod Kallikos." She paused, considering. "In her own face and colors, anyway."
He let her see him frown. "And Rule?"
"Empty." She shook her head. "It's all empty. Father's domaine is there. The house, untouched. Intact. But everyone is ..." She gulped air and pushed a braid angrily aside again. "Well, I looked. And there were chambers I couldn't enter. Someone might have survived, but if they did, I did not find them. I couldn't think of anything to do other than come to Engine and present myself."
"Ariane and Arianrhod," he said with brutal flatness, "killed everyone in Rule. And Ariane consumed them."
She moved against his hand to break his grip, sidestepping left. He allowed her to go. She walked away, the precision of her step leaving perfect bootprints behind. In profile, a tilted, incongruous nose almost vanished into her face. She said, "So you are looking for Arianrhod. And where is Ariane?"
"My daughters have avenged the family."
He'd meant to say it with pride, as if to convince himself of what he felt. What came out was toneless, shriveled--a flat declaration of uncompromising truth.
It turned Chelsea's head to look back at him. Her mouth worked. "Your daughters."