The ice was punctured here and there by giant square holes; factory machines and long pipes stuck down into water, and cables drooped into the depths.
“This way,” said Shylif as he jetted off to the right. “We could walk, of course, but there’re fewer eyes down here. Fewer eyes on things that can talk,” he added as a gape-jawed monstrosity thrashed past him.
“Does this ocean go all around the planet?” Toby asked.
Shylif jabbed a thumb at the ice overhead. “Think of that as a continent,” he said. “Like any continent, it floats on the planet’s mantle, only in this case the continent’s made of ice, not rock, and the mantle isn’t made of magma, it’s water. And that water goes—” he tilted over to look down—“so deep that it might as well be rock, it’s compressed so hard. Hot ice, harder than steel, that’s the only bottom to this ocean. Anything from up here that fell down there would be unrecognizably squished long before it got to the hot ice layer.”
Toby thought of his mining bot and felt a little jab of remorse. It had sacrificed itself for him. He clutched his denner’s carrying case more tightly.
In the depths below, gigantic black-on-black shapes moved. Toby hoped they were machines. Luckily Shylif wasn’t taking them that way; he angled his jets up at one of the big square openings and for a few minutes they wove in and out of a forest of metal pipes that extended down from it into the limitless abyss. Then the surface appeared above, as opaque as shimmering foil until Toby pierced it. He found himself on the surface among those pipes, which angled up and into the faceless façades of machines that squatted like abstract fishermen around the opening.
“This way.” Shylif was heading toward a set of iron steps that descended into the water.
“What do they do here?”
“The ice is almost pure water. So’s the ocean. They use electrolysis to slowly pull metals and other elements out of the ocean, but it takes decades to accumulate enough for a month’s worth of industrial production. These are the machines that pull it in. But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here ’cause this is where the gray market is.”
There were no bots on the metal floor at the top of the steps. Nothing moved at all, in fact, though Toby could hear a thrumming vibration as of giant pumps laboring nearby. The space was well lit and he felt exposed here; still, they paused while Shylif and Corva let their denners out of the capsules they’d traveled here in. Not a drop of water had touched Wrecks’s fur, but as he climbed out of the container he shook himself as though he’d just had a dunking and gave something that was midway between a chatter and a meow.
Toby stared at the denner. Growing up he’d always longed for a pet of his own, but he’d never had the courage to ask for one. Taking care of another living creature was an awesome responsibility, one that demanded the greatest of respect and consideration. Was he up to that? He didn’t even know how to survive by himself in this strange new world, much less take care of another being, however small.
He thought of Evayne and Peter, and all the ways he’d tried to be a good example to them—not always responsible, maybe, but always an example. He’d been very young when Evayne was born, but he remembered feeling proud and a little scared at his new role in the family. With something like this feeling in him, he followed Corva and Shylif under silver pipes as wide as houses and into a shadowy area of discarded building materials and broken tools.
“Nobody respectable comes down here,” Shylif said. “No bots, I mean. It’s an exclusion zone left over from the construction; they can no more walk in here than they can deliberately walk into a wall. That makes it a great place for certain kinds of activities.”
There were people here, Toby realized—in fact, the zone under the pipes seemed to be a kind of market complete with ramshackle stalls for some vendors and others laying out their wares on blankets. Only a few customers were about, all hooded or helmeted. Toby wondered what might be for sale here that couldn’t be bought in the city, but he had no time to browse as Shylif made a straight line through the dimness toward a kind of shack that backed onto a mountain of huge yellow pumps.
Corva rapped on the plastic sheeting that passed for a doorway curtain. “Come,” said a raspy voice from inside. They stepped through, and Toby blinked in surprise.
Vaulting tree trunks rose all about, their heights lost in mist and green. Giant ferns slapped against him as he pressed forward. He couldn’t hear the pumps anymore, just a cacophony of birdsong, insect chirps, and other animal screeches. And the sound of misty water falling.
“Hey, the ferns are real, treat ’em with respect!”
He blinked and looked around more closely. Under the ferns he spotted sound dampeners, loudspeakers, and a holographic projector. The forest was an illusion, but a good one.
“We want to make sure this denner can sustain my friend here,” Corva was saying somewhere nearby.
“Him, huh? Not very promising.”
“I also want to buy another one. It’s for my brother, he’s not with us.”
Toby pressed forward, careful not to knock over the ferns’ pots, and found Corva and Shylif standing with a very short, barrel-chested man who was dressed in layers of scrap clothing. His heavily muscled limbs were clamped into an exoskeleton frame that he appeared to strain against when he moved. It came to Toby that the exo wasn’t there to amplify his strength but to hold it in check.
He gathered the little black denner in his arms, very carefully, and the denner appeared to be enjoying the attention. Toby suppressed the jealous urge to take the creature from him.
The man stepped carefully over to Toby and glared up at him. “You know what you’re getting yourself in for?”
“I know how to take care of an … a creature, sir. I’ve done it before.”
“Oh, yeah? That would put you decidedly in the minority. What kind of ‘creature’ have you taken care of before?”
“Cats. When I was a boy.”
“You’re still a boy.” The man snorted. “Cats, huh. Well, they’re not that different from denners. You probably seen denners, too, right? Lotsa people have ’em, but not like these.” He glanced slyly over his shoulder and Toby realized that they were standing beside a large fenced pen. Inside it were a dozen or so of the animals.
He wanted to ask how these ones were different from the usual, but that would show his ignorance and he sensed this would be a bad time to show that. He thought about how to learn what he wanted to know and finally said, “They look like denners.”
The short man prodded Toby in the chest with one finger, the force of his thrust nearly knocking Toby over. “And you look like a standard human, but yer not. You got synthetic hibernation organs implanted in yer body, like all of us. And these little guys“—he swept an arm to indicate the denners—“have got the counterpart. They was engineered to hibernate outside cicada beds; we’ve just made an addition. You really prepared to take care of one? This ain’t a cat, boy.”
“I trust him,” said Corva. Toby glanced at her in surprise. She didn’t return the look, though—she was too busy staring at the denners in the cage.
“Hrmph.” The man flipped over Toby’s denner and prodded him here and there. “Yer kit looks healthy and happy enough. A’right.” He motioned for Toby to follow him. “We’ll see if you two are compatible.”
“Are these really the prices?” Corva was practically wringing her hands as she peered in at the other denners.