“Yes,” Toby agreed grudgingly. “So how are you going to get us past whoever’s at the other end of this elevator ride?”
“Same way I got us into this elevator,” he said. “By fooling the sensors. Nobody’s down there anyway. It’ll just be us.”
Toby eyed him, thinking. “It must have been hard for you to leave your bot up top.”
“It’ll be fine.” Jaysir looked away. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
The lights in the car came on suddenly. Corva grunted in surprise. “Turn it off! Turn it off? Am I the only one who doesn’t like the idea of being the only lit-up thing for kilometers?” The sense of infinite monotony outside had disappeared; the windows were now just black mirrors.
“Hit it with my elbow,” said Jaysir as he tapped a wall plate. The lights went off. “Sorry.”
Corva gave a whoosh of relief and, gnawing at one fingernail, glanced at Toby. “And what about you? Sorry you came?”
“I’m sorry about the whole last fourteen thousand years. Why should today be any different?”
His eyes had adjusted in time to see her smile. He liked that smile. Then, “Look,” she said, “more clouds.”
Toby followed the faint indication of her pointing arm. Billows of black-on-black ascended silently outside. Suddenly a bright flicker silhouetted a bulbous thunderhead shape below them. “Lightning,” Toby murmured. “There’s another layer of storms down here?”
They watched in silent communion for a while, as the mist thickened, drawn in moments of white, and became rain.
Between lightning flashes, a faint glow became visible below them. They put their foreheads to the cold glass to try and see down. “Is that it?” asked Toby.
“Yes.” Jaysir was staring at something invisible, probably some tag within his own interface. “Time is right.”
“Why hang the passenger compartments down here?” he said after a moment. “Don’t they want to keep them deep frozen?”
“I think they are.” Corva touched the glass, snatching her fingers back as if it had burned them. “Somebody told me that when the cities are awake they stay in the only warm layer of air on the planet. Above that—and below it—it’s far, far below zero.”
Toby peered at the beads on the glass. “Then that’s not water.”
“God, no. There!”
A sliver of light had appeared below them. As they watched, it grew into a rain-dazzled arc. Toby puzzled over it for a while, until he realized he was looking at the top of a large geodesic glass structure, which must hang off the bottom of the elevator cable. The glass facets sparkled from within, breathing white and rainbow colors into the falling mist. Indistinct clouds reflected the pearly light.
Toby had time for one last glimpse of dark metal struts and glass angles dripping white or scattering spray into the swirling air before the lights came on again. He squinted at Corva, who shrugged. Behind her the window brightened, then a stanchion holding red running lights fled up and a sudden heaviness signaled their arrival. A framework of metal triangles rose around the car as it slowed to a halt. The faint vibration Toby had grown accustomed to in the past hour ended.
“Okay, Jay,” said Corva. “Time to work your magic again.”
He waved his hands in the air, for all the world like a stage magician preparing a trick, then said, “I’m freezing the heat sensors. They’ll register the first person to step out but nobody else. And as long as that person doesn’t go any farther, they’ll stay in an infinite loop … So somebody will have to stay here by the elevator.”
“You didn’t mention that earlier.” She was annoyed.
“Wasn’t sure this would be the setup.” He shrugged. “I’ll stay if you want.”
“No, we might need you. Shylif?”
The normally placid Shylif frowned. “I want to come.”
“It’s you or me,” said Corva. “I could stay, I suppose…”
He turned away. “No. This is your show.”
Jaysir pressed the key combination next to the elevator doors. Nothing happened for a moment, then the car shifted with a strange sucking sound, and the doors opened. A gasp of cold came in, followed by fresh warm air. The denners poked their heads out, Wrecks above, Orpheus below, and Corva stepped carefully over them. After the strange and wonderful skies of Wallop, and the weirdness of an elevator ride to nowhere, this vestibule lit by low lamps behind potted palms was jarringly prosaic. Shylif stepped out, and they all listened for the sound of alarms—ridiculous, really, since those might sound only in some security office kilometers above. In any case, nothing happened, and they followed him out.
“Shy, keep your comms open,” Corva said to the big man. “If anything happens, we need to know instantly.” He nodded.
After his initial surprise, Toby found the hum of the air circulation and the spotlit plants in the little antechamber reassuring. Just do this one thing, he told himself, and then you can make a run for Destrier.
Orpheus took off around a corner and, with a mild curse, Toby followed him. The denner was bounding down a long carpeted hall, at the end of which a set of shallow steps led down in a spiral. The only decoration in the hallway was a single table with a bronze buddha on it. Or was it the Emperor of Time—a Toby McGonigal? He was careful not to look too closely at it as he passed by.
“Stay in sight, damn it!” Corva and Jaysir had caught up. Toby saw how her lips were pressed together; she was scared. This was nerve-racking, but Toby didn’t know enough to know what they should be scared of down here. He was curiously numb, in fact. He’d been through too many changes lately to really register a sense of danger here.
“Where the hell are we?” Jaysir was looking around.
“Top reception area,” Corva said. The only way was down a short corridor to an arch that exited onto a broad curving balcony. Toby and Corva stepped onto this, with Jaysir and the denners following.
The gallery was suspended near the ceiling of a geodesic dome about thirty meters across. Toby looked down at a sculpted landscape of trees and pools lit by arc lights. The glass walls of the dome were an opaque black in this light.
“Oh yeah,” said Corva. “Staging area for the elevators. I remember having lunch in one of these.”
Toby looked at her. “You wouldn’t be having lunch in a passenger lounge if you were a stowaway.”
“No, of course not.”
“Wallop is where you were going to school!” For some reason he’d assumed her school was on Lowdown.
She shrugged impatiently. “You only just figured that out? Why else would my brother come here if he wanted to find me and bring me home?
“Anyway, this isn’t the same lounge as the one I came through. There’re lots of these stations, but most of them are way up in the stratosphere. The only reason this one’s down here is that it’s on ice.”
Toby could see potted orange trees down there. Looking at them, he felt achingly homesick for Earth. Wrecks and Orpheus were already on their way down a broad stairway that swept along the wall of the dome. “Come on,” said Corva as she followed them.
“Some of the rich estates are built like this,” mused Corva as she trailed her fingers along the dark glass of the outside wall. As he followed her Toby heard the faint drumming of rain and fainter murmur of distant thunder, filtering in from outside. “There are whole chandelier neighborhoods hanging down off the city spheres by the dozen. I thought it was so wonderful when I first came here.” Her voice held something in between regret and disappointment.
Jaysir was staring around nervously and now pointed at a small grove of red-leafed maples. “Look at the trees! They’re not green. They’re red! Are they fake?”