That was M’boto’s voice. Toby felt a prickling along the nape of his neck, and he suddenly had to sit down. He put an arm around the twentier’s carapace for reassurance.
“We’re just putting off the other decision,” M’boto went on. “You most of all, Ammond. I can see you’ve grown attached to him. Is this going to be an issue?”
“No no.” Ammond’s denial came out in a rush. “I’ll accept the will of the majority.”
“He’s a problem,” said M’boto. “Rustoka and Perdi can attest to how defiant and suspicious he is. If he’s like this when he only has part of the truth, what’s he going to be like when he hears all of it?”
“It’s not like we can hide it from him,” somebody else said.
“I still say he can be brought around,” objected Ammond.
“Yes, but can it be done in time? That’s the whole point here. We don’t have the time now the Chairman knows you have him. And Persea said it herself: how are we ever going to trust him?”
“If he’s your legal heir, sir—”
“But that’ll happen anyway. No, I say we put the neuroshackle on him now and be done with it.”
“I don’t think—” Ammond began, but M’boto cut him off. “We can’t have any uncertainties at this stage. We need to be absolutely sure he’ll comply. No more discussion, let’s put it to a vote.”
Toby stood up and backed away. What was a neuroshackle? He’d heard stories about Mars, where slaves’ loyalty was guaranteed by brain surgery. Was this—?
“In favor?” There was a chorus of ayes. “Against?” Ammond, and somebody else, said nay.
“Jax, get the psych bot. If we get it out of the way right now we can move on to other matters.”
Toby found that his back was against the cold glass wall. He’d been swearing, backing away. But there was nowhere left to go, and he heard footsteps now, approaching the door …
Bump.
He shouted and whirled. Something was out there, in the black water. He grabbed one of the oval table lamps next to the bed and held it close to the glass.
Two huge golden eyes reflected the light. They were looking straight at him. The eyes were set in a catlike face, and behind it a lithe, twisting body whose fur was swirling in the currents. It swam back, then darted forward again, bumping against the glass as if it were trying to break through.
He’d seen this creature before, in a courtyard in Lowdown. That time, it hadn’t been alone …
He heard the door behind him sighing open; he was out of time.
“Twentier! I need to get through this wall!”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a shout, calls for help, and feet running up behind him, but Toby had braced his feet against the armchair and pressed his hands against the glossy wall. So when the twentier smashed through the transparent plexi and ice water poured in around him and swept away the men and bots who’d been about to seize him, Toby was able to jump straight into the oncoming surge.
As the twentier tumbled into the bottomless abyss below the city, the cold exploded into Toby from all sides. He choked and it came into his lungs as well.
Four
HANDS OR PAWS OR grippies had hold of him. They hauled him over a rough wall and Toby sprawled, retching, among nets and floats and dead fish.
Blurred silhouettes surrounded him—people and some smaller shapes with tall pointed ears that were aiming those ears at him like antennae. Past this jumble of motion and noisy voices, he could see a dimly lit night sky that seemed to be paved with icebergs.
He took a couple of whooping breaths and knew he wasn’t going to drown, but he was shuddering from the cold. Then, suddenly, like a switch being thrown, the cold vanished. In its place, he felt a pleasant warmth spreading out from the core of his body.
“Aw, crap,” somebody said. “His implants have kicked in. They’re putting him into stasis.”
Speckles and lozenges of light were floating in his vision now, and he was finding it hard to chase his last thought. Despite himself, he found himself nodding, his eyes drifting closed.
A deep vibration had joined the warmth; it seemed to be coming from all around him. The sound was like the purr of a cat, only deeper and more powerful. He lay in its grip for what seemed like forever and then heard an answering vibration—a second purr. Only this one was coming from inside him.
Cold rushed back into him, and suddenly he was lying on the deck of a boat, shuddering again and coughing. “Nice work, um, we really should name you,” somebody said.
As his eyes refocused, Toby followed the sound of the voice and discovered that he was sitting across from the black-haired girl whom he’d seen once in Ammond’s courtyard and once outside his cicada bed. She was seated, feet planted wide apart, on a crate under the ship’s wheel, her face lit by the green starboard light. Even if he hadn’t recognized her face, she wore the same long-tailed coat he’d seen her in the first time. This time he noticed a distinctive locket that glimmered at her throat: a miniature tree inside an oval shape. She reached up absently to touch it with one hand as she rubbed the water off the catlike creature’s back.
“Somebody bring him a blanket,” she added, as if Toby’s chattering and shivering were an afterthought.
He was handed a coarse gray square of cloth that he wrapped around himself. Only then did he realize that there were three other people on the boat besides himself. The vessel itself was small; if you lay down you could practically stretch across its width, and a few paces would take you stem to stern. It was crowded.
A man with skin black as the Sedna sky knelt in front of Toby. “You okay?” His accent was thick but musical and pleasant. Toby couldn’t place it.
“Y-yeah. Thanks for—” Well, he wasn’t sure what for. He gestured weakly at the water. “Well, you know.”
The man laughed. “Sure.” He stuck out a beefy hand. “I’m Shylif.” He wore a long capelike hooded coat, similar to the girl’s, with more layers of black clothing half visible beneath it. “That’s Corva.” He indicated the girl, who was now working at something with her back to them. “And this is Jaysir.” Over at the other rail, a thin-faced young man with uneven stubble on his chin grunted and let go his death grip on the gunwale just long enough to wave. He was swaddled in some sort of bright yellow survival suit and seemed to be trying to fight every pitch and roll of the boat, his body rigid with the effort.
“Toby.”
Shylif laughed again. “You really are, are you? Well, it doesn’t matter right now. You’re going to go back into hibernation if we don’t get you properly warmed up.” He stood up and looked ahead but didn’t put his hand on the wheel. The boat seemed to be steering itself.
“They’ve spotted us.” It was the girl—Corva—who was also standing now, looking back the way they’d come. Toby heard faint sirens coming from the receding glitter of city lights.
“Uh, guys? Less talk, more motion,” Jaysir said through gritted teeth. “They’re gonna be on us any second now. Sheez, you just had to poke the hypermafia in the eye, didn’t you?”
The boat, at least, seemed to be paying attention, as it suddenly accelerated through the choppy waves.
Toby looked at the three of them; they made an unlikely rescue squad. “What were you doing out here anyway?”
Jaysir barked an angry laugh. “Talk to Shylif, it was his idea. ‘Outflank them’ or something, right, Shy?” He shook his head mockingly.
The creature that had tapped on his window appeared at Toby’s feet. “And then this one…” Jaysir rolled his eyes. “Dove out of the boat and we spent ten minutes looking for him. Then what happens? He surfaces with you in tow!”