“And if I don’t come home,” he said to the man. “What about my mother?”
“Your payment becomes her payment. And if the mission is successful, she gets your full bonus too.”
Mother was a big plain lady with a secret bit of papio in her family history. As soon as her son was old enough to understand, she confessed that his father had been a diplomat stationed in the District of Districts—a smallish papio living far from home, living with a significant drinking problem and a habit of abusing local women. Her only child looked papio at birth and every day since. That’s why he was raised in a special school for the handful like him. He was taught his father’s language and the coral-bound customs, and then he was fully grown, as big as he would ever be but still wearing a child’s voice and proportions. That’s why he was selected ahead of everyone else. Alone among his peers, he could pretend to be a special boy, inserted into another child’s life for a few critical days.
Someone special was living near Bright River. The man in charge told him that secret, and suddenly he was Zakk. That was his new name, the same as a papio boy who was going to be sent to that remote place, ready to serve as a caretaker for that exceptionally odd creature.
One day the Archon of Archons came to visit the school. That was a great honor; nobody needed to tell him so. The Archon called him a hero and examined his body, and then he explained how the papio kept their secrets. Zakk would learn nothing of substance until he arrived at the secret site. Caretakers were allowed to call home, but since every call-line was monitored at both ends, he had to speak to the real Zakk’s parents. A vocabulary of code words had been built from ordinary words. One relay station along the reef had friendly ears, and every important meaning would be transmitted straight home. But the Archon promised that the mission wouldn’t be a success until Zakk was home, and then the two of them could sit inside the palace, calmly discussing everything that he had seen and every impression that he had earned.
The boy who wasn’t a boy nodded. “I’ll be talking to the real Zakk’s mother and father,” he said.
“You sound more than a little like him,” the Archon promised. “With the distance and interference in the lines, they won’t know the difference.”
“And nobody else will see the trick?”
The little man puckered his lips before saying, “Not immediately. We have a sturdy network in place, something that I inherited with my office. Records and your credentials will make everyone happy, for a few days at least.”
The papio-shaped man was happy enough to smile.
“This is an enormous opportunity,” the Archon said. “For you and for the world.”
The new Zakk kept nodding and smiling.
“This is a very special creature that they’re holding,” the Archon began.
“Like your son?”
A smile blossomed. “A gift from the corona, yes.”
“And like Diamond.”
“One of a kind.” Then the Archon reached out, squeezing the young man’s shoulder. “But the papio are different than we are. We are good to our children, but they’re torturing theirs. We have evidence, strong evidence, that they have savaged him once and probably will again.”
He knew about the papio. They were drunks and rapists, and often worse, yes.
“What happens to the real Zakk?” the spy asked. “Where will that boy be?”
The Archon’s smile changed, but it stayed a smile. “Oh, he’s going to be sidelined for a little while. But don’t worry. No harm comes to him, or anybody else.”
“I’m not worried,” the new Zakk said.
Then their conversation paused. The Archon surveyed the classroom, eyes focusing on the cages filled with animals and corals from the papio realm. The man was struggling to find some comforting words to add to the pile.
The new Zakk said, “Diamond.”
“What about him?”
“I’d like to meet him, once I get home again.”
“And you will,” the Archon said immediately, with too much energy. “That I promise. In fact, I see a lot of strong reasons why you two should be good friends.”
And then it was many days later, and sitting on the sourlip coral, Zakk repeated those delicious words.
“You two should be good friends,” he muttered.
Jet engines growled and the cannons barked. Armored fletches were pressing forward, and the papio wings were crisscrossing while firing and taking fire. But at this distance, the battle remained muted, every contestant small. The noise was so minimal that Zakk could make out the distinct crunches of boots grinding into the coral dust behind him, and then the boots stopped and he heard the voice of the soldier.
“Your hands,” the soldier said. “Drop the binoculars and lift both hands where I can see them.”
Zakk did what he was told. When did he ever struggle against authority?
The soldier stepped and stepped, and then he stopped again. He had been running, but his breathing was already as slow as Zakk’s. Soldiers were marvelously fit. When he got home, Zakk would start to train like a papio soldier. Diamond was supposed to be fast on his feet. Maybe they could train with each other, and when they weren’t training, they would share stories about being alone and odd in the world.
“What are doing here?” asked the soldier.
“I was looking for Divers. Do you know where she is?”
“No.”
“She was going to meet Bountiful when it lands,” he said.
“Who told you about Bountiful?” the soldier asked.
Zakk told the truth, naming another soldier.
The feet behind him shifted, growing comfortable with their stance.
“Which ship is Bountiful?” asked Zakk.
The soldier didn’t answer.
Nobody else had joined them, but it was easy to imagine other soldiers spotting the two of them sharing this high ground, quickly converging on tiny, dangerous him.
What else could he do?
“It’s the green blimp,” the soldier said abruptly.
“I don’t see it.”
“Lower. Look lower.” The voice was tight, just short of angry.
“What’s wrong with that ship?” asked Zakk.
“It’s been damaged. Severely, by the looks.”
Bountiful was a green bag that was falling as quickly as it pushed ahead. Instead of being long and trim, it was sagging, particularly in the middle. And in those next moments, even with bare eyes, Zakk noticed a flicker of piercing blue flame near the stern—the first traces of a fire that would only grow worse.
Concerned, the soldier said, “I don’t know if she’ll feel the reef.”
“I think she will,” Zakk said.
The soldier waited for a moment, and then he asked, “Who are you?”
Zakk started to answer.
“No, really,” said the papio. “Tell me something true.”
An unexpected thought came to Zakk. That happened quite a lot, and maybe it was because he was a mixture of bloods. Hybrid animals often had greater powers than their parents. Whatever the reason, the idea arrived fully formed, and he liked it enough that he had to smile. The entire world was descending into war, and an armed man was standing behind him, certainly holding a gun at his skull . . . yet he felt relaxed enough to turn his head to one side, showing his expression to the soldier.
“Why are you grinning?” the papio asked.
“I’m just wondering if we’re like Divers. Like Diamond. Maybe all of us are the same as them.”
“What do you mean?”
Zakk said nothing.
The hammer on a big pistol was cocked.
Not caring if this was a mistake, Zakk set the binoculars against his wet eyes. Fletches were burning. Bountiful looked ill and sorry. And at the last, with a quiet voice, he said, “Maybe we’re also children of the corona. Have you ever wondered about that?”
What was amazing was the absolute lack of amazement. The boy was talking wildly about the sister that he had just met and the other sister, or whatever she was, lurking in the high shadows of the reef. Nothing else seemed to matter to Diamond. Bountiful was wounded, plunging out the sky. Its human crew had been let out of confinement, the surviving soldiers giving tree-walkers permission and helping hands to buy the ship more speed and more lift. Yet inside all of that chaos and purpose, what mattered was the quick crazed voice telling Merit about the creature that had clung outside the cabin window, and the other creature that Quest had seen just a few times, at extreme distance—an entity that the papio now and again mentioned inside their whispered conversations.