An explosion followed, huge and lingering.
Catching the boy, Tar`ro said, “Stay with me.”
“No.”
“Your father’s orders,” he said.
Diamond looked at his bodyguard. What was different about his face was apparent, and it was nameless.
“No, I have to find Quest,” the boy said. “She’s somewhere close.”
“Who?”
“She’s somewhere close,” he said, climbing toward the hallway.
The remaining whiffbirds were sliding, crashing into the wall and the final closed door. Every rotor was shattered. Nothing else could fly. But ten thousand generations of corona hunters had helped build a machine ready for almost any disaster, even ones nobody could imagine. Merit hit important buttons, and the doors didn’t just open, springs flung them free, and the whiffbirds tumbled away, and living papio followed, and the brilliant wash of sunshine came through the new openings, every surface and face and the soft black of the floor shining its fashion.
Good hollered a vile, immortal curse.
The boy had nearly left his monkey behind. He was showing a lot of pluck for being a miserable climber.
Tar`ro decided to give him a good chase.
The floor was no steeper than before, but it wasn’t any better either. Holes ready to hold straps gave his hands perches, and he worked closer and the monkey did the same, and both of them cursed and said, “Slow down.”
Diamond stopped just short of the hallway, breathing hard.
“What are you chasing?” Tar`ro asked.
Diamond was looking up, and he was listening. The ship’s bones were groaning as weight shifted, and the punctured bladders collapsed into a useless state while the remaining bladders expanded, filled with hydrogen reserves that caused the corona flesh to distort, pushing at the skeleton and the outer skin.
Again, Tar`ro shouted, “What are you chasing?”
“My sister,” the boy said, still looking ahead. “She’s here, she’s close.”
Sister?
The word generated too many answers, and Tar`ro had no time. No patience. The other humans were clinging to little perches, safe only by the easiest scale. Merit was holding the wall and the receiver, shouting at the invisible bridge. Then he noticed his son climbing into danger. But Diamond had a problem—a long stretch of tilted empty floor without holds of any kind—and that should have stopped him. Moving again would be stupid for anyone. But the boy had already kicked off his school boots, and with the tiny toes gripping, every finger digging at the rubber, he tried hard to do what couldn’t be done. And he slipped. And he caught himself for a moment and then dropped again, and Good stayed where he was, safe and screaming.
Tar`ro wasn’t directly below Diamond, but clinging onto the last tie-hole, he swung his legs into the air, the boy grabbing one ankle and holding on.
“Get up here,” Tar`ro ordered.
Merit had seen the fall. He was shouting and starting to climb out into the open again.
“Come on,” Tar`ro coaxed.
The boy crawled over him, and Merit had scrambled down close enough to stretch out his long frame, offering his hand to his son.
Diamond grabbed and held tight.
Father and son were climbing together, and Tar`ro started after them. He had handholds. There were no obstacles. He had no idea why he let go. Maybe Bountiful shuddered, or maybe he was tired and still weak from the carbon dioxide. Or ten lucky handholds didn’t mean that the eleventh would work, which was probably the simple ugly reason why he and the floor released one another.
Tar`ro flung his arms, blindly stabbing for holes that didn’t want to be found.
But this wouldn’t be too bad, the man reasoned. The doorways were only so long, and there were plenty of walls happy to catch him. That was a fine enduring thought that gave him hope, and then he was past the walls and spinning in the open air without a scratch on his body, tumbling three times before pointing his stomach up, arms and legs stretching out to keep his speed as slow as possible.
Bountiful filled the air above him. The corona-hunter wasn’t flying, and it wasn’t quite falling; the craft existed between those states. But it wasn’t burning either. Two fletches were burning against the thin trees of the canopy, and a third fletch—the one that had started the attack—was part way through a hard turn, bladders punctured, blue fires making the corona scales glow.
Maybe another fletch was directly below him.
Just that one unlikely possibility gave Tar`ro enough confidence to roll over. Sure enough, there were several ships below, each driving hard toward him. He saw fletches from his District and ships from the main fleet and in the distance were the giant vessels, including the Ruler of the Storm.
What a sight, and all for him . . . Tar`ro thought . . . and then he remembered that he was a realist, cold and tough, and a lifetime of practice threw him back into that familiar, reliable state.
He was dead.
The wilderness canopy was high and sparse, and Tar`ro was still far above the reef’s level. A man could fall for a very long time in this realm. He didn’t want any of this, but this was how it was. He thought about watching Bountiful’s progress, seeing if the ship could somehow make the reef, or he could study the battle that was taking shape in the air around him. But instead he ignored his surroundings, thinking about his former colleague, about Bits. Not often but a few times the two men had sat together in a tavern popular among the boy’s bodyguards, and they drank too much and talked too freely about various subjects. They were never friends but were always friendly, and Tar`ro had insisted on believing that he had a clear sense of the man.
But he hadn’t, no.
Then Sophia got into his head. One little plan of Tar`ro’s was to ask her out for drinks, just the two of them. He had some other ideas that dangled nicely from that one event. But she was dead and he was dead, and if there was something after living, he only hoped there was hardened wine involved.
Tar`ro thought about wine.
He thought about women, real and otherwise.
And he felt as if he hadn’t moved. The demon floor was remote, almost unreal. He considered putting his head down and driving hard. But this wasn’t that bad, falling slow and easy.
Then he remembered Diamond saying something about a sister.
What craziness was that?
Sitting in the classroom or standing outside that big window, the bodyguard sometimes glanced at the boy, just for a moment, and out of nowhere he’d find himself thinking about the enormous things that could hide inside even a little brain. And on those occasions, whenever Tar`ro forgot that he was a cold realist, he usually became sick with his self-induced terror.
Here he was, falling and falling, and he didn’t feel half so scared as he was thinking about a crazy kid.
Now what could be more peculiar than that?
Zakk sat on a nob of sourlip coral, using his binoculars to watch the battle.
Once he realized that Divers had run toward High Coral Merry, the young man started to chase her. Of course it was ridiculous to believe that he would catch her. His little body couldn’t cope with the rough, unforgiving ground. The same knee was skinned twice, as well as both elbows. It wasn’t long before he was too exhausted to move, and even now, after sitting for ten recitations, he was still breathing hard, sweating and tasting blood in his mouth.
This was nobody’s plan. This was never what he had imagined. But against long odds, he insisted on believing even now that there was hope, that whatever happened next would afford him the chance to talk and charm, eventually wriggling out of whatever trap was about the descend on him.
Hadn’t he done that for his entire life?
Of course coming here had to be the ultimate trap. The man in charge of the operation had made quite a lot of noise about limited risks and eventual rescue. But really, how could any rational person believe that escape was likely?