Pulling the door curtain back into place, Diamond touched two of the heads of the painted corona, wishing for its protection.
Then Tar`ro led the boy to the gate.
Switches had to be turned, alerting unseen people about the client’s movement. Two locks needed different keys. Sophia was stationed inside, Bits outside, and they worked together with neat, efficient motions.
The morning mists had disappeared. Following a weak rain, waters escaping from the high ponds and swollen bladders were barely able to hold together in one thin ribbon of tumbling water. Ten thousand winged creatures crisscrossed inside the bright air while endless voices screamed. The great old forest was vertical pillars of wood, none close to its neighbors, all hanging from the invisible roof of Creation. Diamond knew the names of every tree and how to recognize the various species. The canopy below was a dense dark green carpet, thousands of people and millions of animals living inside that tangle of branches and huts and farms and little factories. Diamond had often visited the canopy, and his father and Master Nissim twice took him to the highest portions of the District, showing him that odd realm never touched by daylight. And of course he once flew through the wilderness and walked on the reef country. Almost no one was able to walk with the papio. Yet despite his experiences and the flawless memory, Diamond knew almost nothing about the people that he saw every day—those scurrying figures moving up and down the various home trees.
The gate opened with a sharp whine. Beyond was a small platform ending with a strong ladder leading only downwards. Bits took the lead, grabbing the ropes with hands and the insides of his boots, dropping neatly out of view.
From overhead, a voice called out, “Diamond.”
“Your girlfriend,” Sophia teased.
Elata.
“Go,” Tar`ro told him.
That was the rule. Three guards had to stay close while he was outdoors, and Diamond knew that Bits would turn to vinegar if he were told to climb back up and wait for the neighbor girl.
Elata was standing on the walkway far above.
“Catch up,” Diamond called.
“Don’t tell her that,” Tar`ro said.
Bare ropes used to dangle between there and here. They were a security risk and cut away, but that didn’t keep a bold girl from climbing over the railing, jumping with limbs stretching out and her belly down.
Tar`ro cursed quietly, without heat, and again, he said, “Go.”
Diamond took the ladder with one hand, but he moved slowly, watching Elata dive onto the highest portion of the net. Supporting ropes creaked, absorbing the impact. Laughing, she rolled down across the fine-meshed netting, reaching him in a few moments. Her trick was well-practiced, as was the guards’ outrage. Some high boss had decided that the net would protect Diamond, and maybe it did, but not when it came to keeping one young girl away.
“Good morning, Diamond.”
“Hello.”
Elata loved falling. She was fearless and pretty and big in the shoulders, which were stronger shoulders than most people her age could muster, girl or boy. Her wide mouth suited her, as did the golden teeth, and her long straight hair always wanted to be tied into elaborate braids. Her uniforms were usually clean but sometimes thin in the elbows and knees. She had taught her friend how to climb, and she had watched him heal when he made mistakes and fell. But Elata never mentioned what both of them understood: Diamond would never be her match when it came to scampering up and down.
“I’m first,” Elata said, slipping past him on the ladder.
Tar`ro cursed again, but he was laughing too.
These were daily games.
Diamond followed. From above, his new landing seemed large yet normal enough, but from below it was far more impressive. Great timbers of bloodwood had been brought from the District of Districts, bolted to Marduk to lend unusual strength to the supporting framework. Within the timbers was a protected berth where a police blimp could be tethered safely out of the elements. Different blimps rotated through, each one black as ink. Some crew was always on duty, and as the subject of all of this interest dropped onto the lower walkway, today’s blimp kicked its engines awake and pulled out into the open air, ready to make the escort complete.
Sophia was following Diamond.
Above them, Tar`ro relocked the gate, wrapping a seal around the bars to prove to the next guards that nobody had slipped inside unseen. Then the blimp let loose an important roar of its horn, announcing that it had cleared its berth.
Tar`ro was starting down when another newcomer approached.
“You’re late,” Seldom said.
Nobody disagreed.
For Seldom, there was comfort in rules and codes and any law that was full of important knots. The boy was growing fast, but it was a gangly growth that fit the graceless stride he used as they marched along.
The group strode out from under the landing.
A scream arrived, then a body.
Even knowing what was coming, everybody was startled. The monkey thumped down hard in front of his boy, and Good laughed as he joined the others. Two of the guards complained, but not Bits. Working at the lead, the stocky man glanced over the railing and then back at them, smiling as he always smiled. He wasn’t a happy or joyful soul, but he was often grinning. Diamond noticed the shining teeth and shining eyes, and he thought about the guard for a full half-moment. Then his brain skipped to ten other subjects of infinitely greater importance, and the Creation and this child were another breath older.
No other student looked like the boy-creature. The rest of the school didn’t have funny bones and funny hair and that weird neat way of walking on those little-toed feet. Nobody else needed bodyguards carrying hidden pistols. Surely no child in history had ever been allowed to bring his orange-headed monkey to class. But just as impressive, the local Archon had never visited this school until Diamond arrived, and now she had come here fourteen times in four hundred days.
“I’ll earn my diploma soon,” she joked during the last tour.
But Diamond’s oddness was far bigger than that.
Everybody knew how the boy could be cut and bruised and even burned, but those wounds always healed in a few recitations. Lucky people had seen that miracle a few times. Hurting the newcomer was a common game among children, and during those first days at school, Diamond was knocked down plenty and poked with his own fork. Everybody wanted to see a gouge that would seep blood for a moment or two, then scab over and vanish. Even teachers were fascinated by the tame carnage. Of course the guards put an end to that chaos. The worst children were sent home; parents were publicly insulted. Two of the Archon’s early visits were for no purpose but to assure everybody that she was proud of this school, and she reminded these decent people that they were deeply decent, and without using names, that warm and very tough little woman warned that charges would be filed and fat fines would be paid if this crap didn’t end.
But accidents couldn’t be outlawed. Diamond wasn’t graceful, and the school’s big playroom was full of climbing bars and ropes—places where mistakes found ways to be made. It was loud news that day when he slipped and broke an arm. Everybody was shouting. Everyone wanted to push close and watch. Being in the front row was an honor, teachers outnumbering students two-to-one. It meant quite a lot being able to talk later about that short strange arm, how the wrist was fractured and the little hand that was riding at the wrong angle. The celebrity boy appeared uncomfortable but not in true pain, squirming as he looked at his countless new friends, and then he smiled as if embarrassed, tugging on his hand to set the bone, the entire wrist growing hot and the bone knitting, already half-done before the angry guards pushed their way through the spellbound crowd.
But one schoolboy had tried even harder to hurt the boy.
Karlan was huge and famously mean, feared by everyone, including teachers. The world knew that Karlan used a knife to gut Diamond as a toddler and later threw him off a landing. As Karlan’s little brother, Seldom would admit to those ugly incidents. But the young brother also swore that Diamond was never hurt for long, and that was long ago, and Karlan had learned some kind of lesson, because he never went near the boy anymore.