I did not reply. In my short life as a rasa I had noticed that, without sleep, the weight of constant visual and aural stimulation sometimes made it difficult to recall where I was. Memories would flood me: I could not remember if I was still a student at the Academy, or on board a fouga in the Archipelago, or back in the Engulfed Cathedral with my madness. Then there were the jagged impressions of my death, mostly images of lights—sudden gashes of green or yellow brilliance, like sickly lightning—and noise, muted roarings or poppings that I imagined now had been the sound of my brain disengaging from my body’s functions. But I could not always control the flow of remembered impressions. Now I could not recall what it had been like to be aboard an elÿon. I ignored Nefertity’s question and hurried across the deck.
Valeska met us at the transport center. She looked flushed from running, and no longer carried Agent Shi Pei’s elegant logbook.
“It should be ready,” she said a little breathlessly. “Your Gryphon has been sent ahead. Here—we can take this up—”
She motioned at one of the elevators, a cylinder like an immense candle that stretched into the air, until its tip was swallowed by the glow of the elÿon fleet. From here I could not make out individual craft. Their sheer bulk and the hazy gleam that emanated from them made it impossible to tell for certain where one ended and the next began, like trying to untangle a shimmering mass of sea nettles. As our elevator began to rise, Nefertity turned, peering through the dirty window at the behemoths floating overhead.
“They are not what I expected,” she said at last. Valeska stared at her curiously, and the nemosyne continued. “I thought they would be like ships. They are ships, of some kind?”
Valeska turned to me with eyebrows raised. I looked past her, taking in what Nefertity saw: huge vessels that seemed to be as much animal as machine. The comparison to the medusæ was apt—the elÿon had been modeled on sea nettles and jellyfish and other cnidarians. They were amorphous leviathans, their central bodies umbrella-shaped and with a faint translucence like the swollen bladders of the Portuguese man-of-war. They floated like untethered balloons high above the decks of Cisneros, emitting that bizarre rubeous glow, with long gassy blue streamers occasionally billowing behind them as one or another shifted slightly in the wind. Their polymer walls shifted in size and shape to accommodate changes in air pressure, temperature, light or darkness, so that to watch one taking flight was to see a vast opalescent bubble churning through the marine haze, like an immense Portuguese man-of-war drifting above the calm Gulf. Their interior climate was equally dreamlike, controlled by the thoughts of human adjutants imprisoned in navigation cells deep within the elÿon’s labyrinth of fuel canals and living quarters.
As we grew nearer to the fleet, we began to hear them. A sort of low, droning sound, a bass counterpoint to the slap of waves against the platform now far below us. Nefertity stared at the elÿon, the growing radiance of her torso and face attesting to her absorption. Valeska looked uncomfortable, as though wanting to speak. After several more minutes of silence I asked her if she had any questions for me. She dipped her head, tugged at the peaked collar of her leather uniform, and finally nodded.
“Yes. Will you—am I to accompany you? To HORUS?”
I gazed down upon the floating city. Set with beveled squares of green and violet, its landing grids like yellowing embers: from here it was a delicious toy, a glittering lozenge one might hide in a pocket as a bribe for a beloved child. Nefertity stared at it, her eyes impossibly wide and bright. Valeska kept her own gaze hooded, only glancing at me covertly to see what my reply would be.
For the first time since I had awakened to that second horrible birth in Araboth’s regeneration vats, I felt a twinge of an emotion besides hatred or vengeance. I tried to imagine what Valeska would like to do. It would be an honor of sorts for her to accompany the Aviator Imperator to Quirinus, even if it was a futile mission. It seemed probable that we would find nothing in HORUS save rebel geneslaves and the bones of their victims; and travel aboard the elÿon was always a dreadful prospect. Under the best of circumstances, embarkations from the HORUS colonies were often little better than forays into madness and exile. At last I spoke, keeping my eyes fixed on the window.
“What would you like to do, Captain?”
A minute passed before she answered. “I would like to go with you, Imperator.”
In her tone I heard that note that often colors Aviators’ voices, something between the voice of a child accepting a dare and the bitter resignation of a prisoner to her fate. She went on, “I have never been to HORUS. My tour here began only six months ago; but as Agent Shi Pei said, we have lost all contact with the Governors. And since most of the other Aviators have left to join the fighting, she has been reluctant to part with me. I had lost hope of ever receiving another detail. I think—I think I would like to accompany you.”
I nodded. “Very well. There will be gear on board you can use.”
“Thank you, Imperator. I’m not familiar with the Izanagi. I assume there’s some crew?”
Meaning human crew, besides the adjutants.
“I doubt it,” I said.
As the glass elevator crept closer to the elÿon, the air grew warmer and blindingly bright, the glowing fleet blotting out the soothing darkness of the night sky. Even when I closed my eyes, I could still see vast unfolding petals of crimson and salmon-pink. The droning sound grew louder, swelled into a single profound boom, boom. A throbbing gargantuan voice: Izanagi’s voice. For an instant it seemed that our elevator and all it contained were engulfed in flames. Then the booming was abruptly silenced, the radiance disappeared as though a huge hand had covered the sky. With a wrenching sound the elevator opened.
Before us a soiled ribbon of gray carpeting led into the gaping mouth of the elÿon. Nefertity hung back from the door, and I heard Valeska sigh, a noise that was almost a shudder. Without a word we boarded the Izanagi.
6
The End of Winter
WE SPENT THAT WINTER and spring at Seven Chimneys. There was no further mention of geneslave rebellions, no soft threats of what would happen if I did not support Trevor in whatever mad scheme he had. I might have dreamed the whole thing; indeed, when a few days later I crept back down to the basement, I couldn’t find the skull with Dr. Harrow’s name on it, although the cadavers were still where they had been, glowing on their steel beds.
I did not tell my friends what I had learned. I thought the news would only terrify Miss Scarlet, and perhaps goad Jane into doing something foolish. To me Trevor Mallory turned an innocent face, as welcoming as he had been when I first saw him. The rebels he had spoken of, those “others” who might convince me of their just cause—they never appeared, though there were many nights when I woke soaked with sweat, imagining I heard the silken voices of energumens plotting in the house below.
Jane didn’t seem to notice any change in me. She was as happy as I’d ever seen her. Her days passed among the animals that lived at Seven Chimneys, small black-and-white shepherd dogs and black-faced sheep and several furtive, half-feral cats the size of newborn lambs. She and Giles made a good team. She spent her mornings with him, caring for the sheep and the evil-eyed swine who rooted furiously in their pen behind the barn. Each night she’d help him bring in wood for the recalcitrant heating system, listening patiently to his daily complaints about how poorly it heated that vast and drafty house.
“We need a whole new fireplace, there—” He’d kick at the bricks with one worn leather boot, scowling at the rain of loose mortar. “This was designed back when the winters were warmer—”