That is selfish, some voice warned her. Selfish is no longer acceptable.
She had heard about the barrenness of the upcoast regions, and at first glance black rock was all she saw: sheer black cliff, then black rubble, then a foaming churn of green sea. But there was life among the rubble. Little bits of green squatted among rocks, clinging to crevices in the cliff side. Something, maybe the something that spoke inside her head, pointed her upcoast.
"There."
She took Ben's hand and pointed out a huge black boulder with a single silver wihi clinging to its top. It was about thirty meters upcoast, halfway between cliff and tideline.
"That's where we want to be."
That was when Nevi and Zentz stepped out from behind the boulder, lasguns drawn, picking their way across the rocks toward them. Crista wasn't surprised, nor frightened. She heard Ben mutter "Shit!" under his breath and saw his head twitch quickly left to right, looking for a dodge. But she knew it wasn't necessary. She knew.
The moment came together for her like a great conception. All the world silenced itself - the waves, the breeze, the cautious footsteps of two murderers clattering across wet stones.
"Hands on top of your heads, step away from the foil." Zentz delivered his orders with a shaky voice tinged with slobber.
"Yes," Crista told Ben, "that's where we want to be."
They clung to each other's hands in the stone-still afternoon and watched the huge boulder lift itself back from the ground behind Nevi and Zentz. It came up smoothly, quietly, as though on hinges. Neither man heard a thing.
"Hands on your heads!"
The boulder laid itself carefully down behind them and out of the shadow beneath it climbed a half-dozen men armed only with ropes and throwing nets.
"Tell me you see it, too," Ben whispered. "Tell me I'm not still dusted."
"It is as it should be," she whispered back, her voice a singsong. "There is a great moment at our feet, and it will not be stayed."
Something about the way Nevi's gaze met her own must have given it away. Without a backward glance he sprang sideways, beachward, and whirled. The first net was already settling over the surprised Zentz and another, poorly thrown, grazed Nevi's arms. Two flashes from his lasgun brought down both netmen, but Zentz flailed in a hopeless tangle. When Nevi whirled back, Crista Galli stared down the business end of his lasgun. Even at thirty paces it looked huge.
"I'll kill her," he announced, just loud enough for all to hear. "Trust me. I am very quick."
Everyone froze, and in the silence that went with this stillness Crista felt that they were all graceful subjects inside some great painting. She knew who the painter must be.
Nevi half-crouched in careful aim, his colorful face unreadable, his eyes fixed only on Crista Galli. She felt her head clearing, the return of wave-slaps against rock.
But there's somethin...
It was something she hadn't felt since she'd been dredged up from the sea, something familia...
"Connection," she whispered.
Ben breathed beside her and she felt it as her own breath. They were one person, pulses synchronized with rainbows, waves and the great heartbeat of the void. She knew the choices in his mind and marveled at the sacrifice he was prepared to make. She saw the play in his mind: spin her by the hand, get between her and Nevi, take the hit while the netmen brought him down. At the moment he elected to move, she touched his shoulder.
"No," she said, "it's not necessary. Can you feel it?"
"I feel those sights on my chest," he said. "He's the only thing standing between us and -"
"Destiny?" she asked. "There is nothing between us and destiny."
The image of Rico stood behind Nevi, gesturing wildly to her, still smiling.
Nevi came out of his crouch, moved carefully across the rain-wet rocks toward them. She liked the smell of the rain, a different wetness than the smell of the sea, easier on the lungs but not as rich. The scent of the sea, of the dead hylighter, lay heavily beside her like a sleeping lover.
"Do you see?" she asked Ben, and smiled.
"I think I do," he said.
Nevi barked a few orders and two of the surviving netmen slowly began to disentangle Zentz. Crista Galli had that feeling again, the feeling of being a subject in a painting.
"Be still," she whispered.
Ben didn't move.
Nevi stopped walking, a look of surprise washed over his face.
"Where are they?" he shouted, and he shaded his eyes even though the sun was to his back. "Where did they go?"
Crista suppressed a giggle, and the figure of Rico applauded silently from behind Spider Nevi.
"I don't understand," Ben said. "Are we invisible?"
"We're not invisible," she said, "we're simply not visible. He can't pick us out of this landscape. I think it's a trick that Rico has taught the kelp."
Ben squeezed her hand and started to speak, but that was when the shooting started.
***
I will this morning climb up in spirit to the high places, bearing with me the hopes and the miseries of my mother; and ther... upon all that in the world of human flesh is now about to be born or to die beneath the rising sun I will call down the Fire.
Twisp walked Kaleb to the flickering lights at the Oracle's edge. This was a small cavern, a subset of the great root that Flattery had burned out a few thousand meters downcoast. This was a hushed place, a place to breathe iodine on the salt air and feel the cool pulse of the sea.
Kaleb trod the well-worn path with his father's bearing - tall, shoulders back, large eyes alert to every nuance of light and motion. While his parents lived no one had consulted the Oracle as often as he. In the dim light by the poolside Twisp saw that Kaleb's adolescent gangliness had transmuted into the epitome of athletic grace.
"You are the man your father would most like to know," Twisp said.
"And you are the man my father most liked."
The two of them stood together at the poolside, watching the flickerings of kelp just beneath the surface. Both men kept their voices low, though the kelp chamber carried every whisper to its farthest crannies. Behind them, at a discreet distance, stood the complement of Zavatans who tended the pool. They busied themselves cleaning and reassembling one of the great borers that helped them tunnel out their habitations in the rock.
"When your parents met they were younger than you are now," Twisp said. "Is there someone in your life?"
The perceptible blush that rose from Kaleb's collar reminded Twisp even more of the young man's father. Kaleb's skin was darker, like his mother's, but his naturally kinked, reddish hair was a gift from Brett Norton. "Yes? So there is someone?"
"Victoria is a big place," he said, "I've seen a lot of women." His voice bordered on sullen, bitter.
"'A lot,'" Twisp mused, "and which one broke your heart?"
Kaleb snorted, half-turned away, then turned back to face Twisp. He was smiling.
"Elder," he said, "you are truly a force to be reckoned with. Am I that transparent?"
Twisp shrugged.
"It is a recognizable affliction," he said. "I endured it myself one day. Thirty years, and I still daydream."
He didn't go on. It was more important that Kaleb do some talking.
Kaleb sat at the poolside, dangling his feet in the water, caressing the kelp with his bare soles.
"When I travel the kelpway, and take my father's branch, I see you as he saw you himself. You were good to him - firm, kind, you let him talk too much." Kaleb laughed. "He was a good man, I know. And you, you were a good man, too." He bowed his head and shook it slowly. "I would like to be a good man, but I think I'm different. My life is different."