“But you got out of his cage,” said Diamond.
Quest made a clicking noise, perhaps agreeing.
“Before,” said the boy. “What were you showing me before?”
The thief’s face melted back into the gray, and the gray became trees again. The trickery was extraordinary, almost frightening. Diamond looked out at the scene, feeling small, and in ways he had never imagined, he felt foolish.
This was two days ago, he guessed.
The bird sounds melted away. The airships turned silent, and not so much as a whisper of wind could be heard. Then a distant voice, human and unfamiliar, came from deep inside the Corona District.
“Now now now,” the faraway man shouted. “We have to get out of here!”
Diamond had no weight, and he wasn’t breathing anymore.
Then the explosions came, muted to keep the papio from hearing them. The trees fell exactly as they did before, and Diamond wrapped his arms tight around his chest, waiting to feel sick and miserable. But the strongest emotion was anger, slippery and chaotic. He wasn’t certain where the rage was pointed, but the next words jabbed in an unexpected direction.
“I hate that man who stole you,” Diamond said.
The grayness came again, and silence.
“You’re hiding from the thief now,” he guessed.
The voice became more female, and it sounded young. “I cannot hide, and he cannot find me.”
“Because you’re a ghost,” Diamond guessed.
“Because he is the ghost,” she said. “The moment I escaped from the cage, I said his name. I said it nicely, and when he looked at me, I killed him.”
Diamond’s arms dropped.
“I am killing him now and always will be,” Quest said. “But I never ate any portion of his body. I would have enjoyed crunching one of his fists or a foot. But in my life, I have done nothing smarter than killing that brutal man and then flying away from the urge to eat him whole.”
A papio was hurrying down the hallway. Merit felt the floor dip under the soldier’s weight, and then the soldier stopped, calling a name through the door.
The woman soldier wore that name. She looked alert until she stood up, and then fatigue took hold. Her thin pink beard was holding crumbs from the last rations, and the tattoo on the forehead—a blood-and-bone whiffbird—needed to be washed.
The papio said a second name.
“Deserve” was a poor papio translation for Merit’s name.
“I need him. Let him out,” the man said.
The disruption was a bother. Bountiful had finally fallen quiet. The prisoners had dropped their heads on the tables, sleeping or pretending to sleep. But now the faces were lifting, secretive conversations beginning all over again. Merit rose with the first prompting. The woman put a hand on her steel-and-coral pistol, opening the galley door with the other hand. To somebody, Merit or her colleagues or maybe herself, she said, “Long long night.”
The papio waiting in the hallway didn’t know Merit, but he was under strict orders to treat the boy’s father with dignity. “I would be honored if you would help us,” he said, the half-learned words dribbling out. “A problem requires an expert.”
“What have you done to our ship?” Merit asked.
“An accident needs a repairman,” said the papio. “You may pick which one.”
Merit looked back into the room.
“Fret,” he said.
Unease and pain didn’t need translation. The dead man’s name caused the crew to look at the tabletops and their own hands, and then an older man got to his feet. Dressed in blue, he clicked his heels, saying, “Fret reporting.”
“Come with me,” said Merit.
The mechanic joined them in the hallway, and the galley door was closed again.
“A bladder is leaking,” said the papio.
In reflex, the tree-walkers took deep breaths.
“I don’t smell anything,” the mechanic said.
“It’s a small leak, far above. And maybe our noses are more sensitive to the stink you give the hydrogen.”
Two of them started to walk.
Merit didn’t move.
The papio turned. “What?” he began.
“My son,” the slayer said. “Before anything, you’ll show me Diamond.”
“Afterwards,” said the officer.
Merit sniffed the air again.
“The boy first, and then I’ll help you,” the mechanic said.
“Very well.”
A young soldier was blocking the hallway. He didn’t wake until the officer kicked him, and then he rose and fumbled with the door.
Merit reached past him, claiming the handle. As the door opened inwards, as he stepped inside, he knew that something was wrong.
The boy was sitting on his cot, his back straight and both feet on the floor.
Diamond never sat that way.
Merit looked around the tiny cabin.
Good came out from underneath the cot. “Good sorry,” he said.
“What did you do?” asked Merit.
“Bit best finger.”
Merit couldn’t count the times he had walked into a room to look at his boy, and he couldn’t shake the strong, chilling sense that something was amiss.
“Show me your thumbs, son.”
The boy pointed two healthy thumbs at the ceiling.
“Is there something else?” he asked.
An odd expression broke on the boy’s face. The little nose crinkled, and Diamond began to comb the curly brown hair with one hand. Tugging hard, he said, “Nothing else,” and then he started to fiercely chew his bottom lip.
Merit turned to the monkey. “Why did you bite your boy?”
“Angry.”
Behind him, the papio officer said, “We need to go.”
Instincts screamed. Everything was wrong, and Merit didn’t want to leave. But whatever had happened was finished, and he was powerless, and the papio could well have made a bullet hole while chasing whatever it was that had scared them so badly.
This puzzle had to wait.
“I’m sorry, Diamond,” said Merit. “It’s my fault we were caught.”
“No,” the boy said.
“I dropped a wrench, and they saw it,” he confessed.
“This is bad,” Diamond said. “But it’s also wonderful.”
“Why wonderful?”
White teeth shone, and the boy realized that he was smiling. Dipping his head, he said, “Never mind.”
The situation kept growing heavier. But Merit forced himself to shut the door, and the sleepy soldier once again sat in front of the cabin. Walking back to the shop to collect tools, Merit noticed as much as he could. He counted soldiers and whiffbirds. A narrow door was open. What was that room? The dead men and pieces of men had been dragged there for safekeeping. But now the papio’s mission leader was filling that tiny space, looking out the door with yellow eyes narrowed, as if she was waiting for enlightenment or the punchline of an intricate joke.
Merit fell in beside the escorting papio.
Behind them, the mechanic said, “I smell it now.”
The stink was rich and unforgettable. Pulled from blossoms of a bug-eating plant, it was the wickedest rot in the world, adored by flies and cadaver bugs. Noses said that this was a bad leak, and Merit regretted wasting time talking to his son.
The officer was ready to accompany them, but he had no anti-static clothes. The mechanic pulled down two pairs of boots and jerseys. Nothing here would fit the papio, but they needed to know the stakes.
“One spark and we burn,” Merit explained, in papio.
The officer looked at the slick rubber clothes, reconsidering his orders.
“I don’t want us to burn,” Merit said. “So yes, you can trust me to go up and patch the hole and come back again.”
“Yes,” the officer agreed. Then turning to the mechanic, he said, “Good luck, Fret.”
The mechanic sighed and walked on.