“What a thing,” the young man said.
Father raised his hand.
The faces returned to him.
“I’m ordering you to do nothing,” he said. “You can’t imagine how much trouble this is going to cause, and you’ve done too much already. So leave the glands under Little Rilly and walk anywhere else. That’s my order.”
“Yeah, but what do you want done?” asked the first man.
“Seven hundred days ago,” Father said. “That trick we used to save the Bascher crew.”
Nobody acted surprised.
“You want Little Rilly rigged up,” the first man.
“I’m telling you not to,” Father said. “I’ll do that work myself.”
“No offense, sir,” said the young man. “But we’ll do it better than you can and do it a damned lot faster.”
Everybody nodded, satisfied with that response.
Father opened the telescope, ignoring the blimp to look at the tents. “The papio are back,” he said. “And this time, in strength.”
Squinting, Diamond counted a dozen big bodies standing in a ragged line, watching the ship and watching them. They were sitting back on their haunches, several pressing telescopes against their long strange faces.
“You’re off-duty,” Father told his men. “The day is yours. Do whatever you want, or do nothing.”
The men gave one another some friendly shoves, hurrying back toward the dead corona.
One last time, the ship blew its warning horn. And before the bright echoes faded, Father knelt beside his son and said, “Listen to me. This is what will happen, and this is what we are going to do.”
“That’s the Ruler of the Wind,” Seldom told Diamond. “It’s the biggest machine in Creation.”
The airship was too vast to absorb with one look. The Ruler was a separate landscape, like a silver hill that just happened to be above their heads. Countless objects were lashed to its body—smaller airships and cavernous vents and the engines falling quiet and the propellers smoothly slowing until they stopped turning altogether. Turrets clung to the belly and sides, each bristling with big guns pointing out at nothing. Tall windows revealed rooms spacious enough for hundreds of people, but nobody was visible, giving the machine an incurious temperament to everything else. The reef and the papio were nothing, and this little group of people were nobody, and the hill would continue to float where it was for reasons that were no one else’s business.
A bright hiss of air ended that mood. The main gangway was deployed—a long reach of pounded metal and cable that unfolded from the ship’s bow, the lower end settling on the ground before them.
Nobody appeared. They stared up into a giant cavity, and for a long while it was possible to believe that the ship was empty, a derelict brought here by unfortunate winds.
Master Nissim turned to Father, saying, “It has to be a skeleton crew.”
“Flying light and fast,” Father agreed.
Then a man emerged. He seemed small at a distance and got tinier as he came close. It was his posture that shrank him. He was nervous, fearful, one hand riding the railing and the shoulders sagging while the face tilting backward, as if trying to keep his eyes from staring at the three children and two older men.
“Just as I guessed,” Father said.
The doctor stopped before reaching the ground.
“Where is she?” Father called out.
“Just behind me,” the doctor said. Then he needed a deep breath, giving him the strength to make a thin unconvincing smile. “I didn’t tell anybody about the boy,” he said. “I kept my promises to you.”
“Yet here you are,” Master Nissim said.
The doctor glanced at him and then back at Father. “The Archon came to my office yesterday. He knew everything. I don’t know how. He explained this would be a wonderful opportunity. You were going to be gone for the night, and he told me to contact your wife and threaten to tell people about the boy. He ordered me to arrange a meeting away from the house, which is what I did, and that’s all I did.”
“Show me Haddi,” Father said.
“I told you. She’s with us.”
“And what will the Archon pay you?”
“I didn’t ask about money,” the doctor said.
“Because you’re a noble, honest man.”
The doctor said nothing.
“Helping kidnap a man’s child,” Father said, dropping his hand on Diamond’s shoulder.
The little man said nothing.
“This is all wrong,” Master Nissim said. “The Archon doesn’t make law. No matter how powerful he thinks he is, he doesn’t have that right.”
The doctor sighed wearily. “You won’t believe me, I know. You can’t. But the man doesn’t want anybody hurt. Bringing your wife is proof of that. And besides, the boy isn’t yours, Merit. Not by blood or by any law. So I don’t think you gentlemen should talk too hard about legalities and a parent’s noble rights.”
“Fine,” Father said. “We’ll march to court and make our claims.”
The doctor clung to the railing.
“Or you can come here,” Father added. “Let me dance your face into the ground a few times.”
The doctor winced and looked over his shoulder. “I told you,” he shouted. “I knew he’d be difficult.”
And the Archon stepped into view.
It was the same man Diamond saw at the crossroads. He was no bigger than the doctor, but nothing about him was small. Erect and confident, he stood at the high end of the gangway, his smile secure. A sharp, unhurried laugh was offered. One hand made an important gesture, and another. Then he offered a few words to somebody out of view, and Mother appeared, her left arm held tightly by one of the men who had followed them this morning.
She called to Diamond. With a scared tight voice, she said, “You don’t want to get on this ship. Run now, go.”
The man pulled at her arm, and she winced.
Diamond was sick and he was angry. Reaching behind his back, he once again touched the butcher knife.
Two more men appeared. One was limping, his left leg covered with a long white bandage, his face twisted in pain. The other man started down the gangway, and with a loud high voice, the Archon told him, “This doesn’t need to be ugly.”
“It won’t be,” the walking man promised.
The limping man followed, glaring at Nissim with each miserable step.
With help coming, the doctor turned courageous. Shaking his head and wagging a finger, he asked, “What did you think, Merit? That you could keep this creature secret all of his life?”
A soft, sorry noise leaked out of Seldom.
Master Nissim brought out his long knife, holding it with the practiced hand.
Then Elata grabbed Diamond by the shoulder and shook him hard, as if trying to yank him to pieces.
“Don’t let them have you,” she cried out.
Then Father looked squarely at his eyes. “Run now,” he said. “Run, run, run, run!”
High quiet places were the best places to sit, watching the days pass while listening to the voices inside.
The sun never found the back of this wide, weather-battered crevasse.
Hiding was easy here.
Even better, the dark air was reliably, deliciously cool, which meant that the body was comfortable. That great bundle of life sat on a thick mat of dash-and-ash fibers that had been stretched across the powdery old coral, and there was fresh water and there was ample food in easy reach, and every piece of that gigantic shape was happy enough. Good familiar smells waited to be inhaled. The rugged beautiful reef fell away before it, while behind and above were woeful-vines and deadeyes and other odd growths that carpeted the darkest portions of the reef, rising up to the edge of existence. But best of all, nobody was keeping the body company just now. Others were supposed to be here. The body had several dozen attendants—children dedicated to seeing to its occasional needs. It was honorable work, helping this gift from the Creators. But honor was something that could be found every day. Honor was a routine, rather boring business. But today the tree-walkers were visiting the butchering ground, and a large dead corona had been dropped into the valley directly below, and one of today’s visitors happened to be a famous old slayer who had killed the corona with his harpoon and a lightning bolt: each one of those reasons was a good enough excuse for children to leave the body where it was, secure and safely out of sight.