“Yes,” said Diamond. “But I wasn’t listening.”
Father and Nissim didn’t believe him. They said so with silence, and he noticed how they shifted their bodies, as if their bones weren’t comfortable.
Diamond let his mind guess. Then he spoke quietly, though not as sadly as he expected. “They killed all those people, but not me.”
“Not you,” said Father.
“But if they wanted me gone, why didn’t Bits just shoot me when we were alone? Shoot me and tie a weight on my body and drop me through the demon floor?”
Nissim and Father rocked back and forth, saying nothing.
“Well, that’s got a simple answer,” said Tar`ro. “Our enemies, whoever they are, consider the Corona District guilty of an enormous crime. We rescued an abomination. We should have murdered you as soon as you were in our hands. That’s why we deserve to be thrown into oblivion too.”
“He’s not an abomination,” said Father, with heat.
“In their minds, this creature threatens everything they trust. And they’ll try to kill King as well, if they get the chance.”
“My brother’s more dangerous than me,” said Diamond.
“Not in their minds,” said the bodyguard. “King terrifies, but he doesn’t make these people sick to their stomachs.”
The other two men said nothing.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Diamond said.
Then the Master straightened his back, and with a careful tone, he said, “Merit. You should tell him.”
“I know.”
Diamond back leaned into his father.
Yet Father seemed to change the subject. “This machine is a marvel,” he began. “We can’t build a better hunter-ship than Bountiful. Not for any sum of money, not for all of the corona scales and skins and bones in the world. These engines couldn’t be any stronger for their size, or faster, and there’s not many military ships that enjoy the redundancies we have onboard. Even the crew is the finest you can assemble from among millions of living people.”
Diamond leaned harder against him. “I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do,” said Father.
Maybe.
Then the man wrapped a long arm around his son, asking, “Now what if somebody thought up something new? Let’s say it’s that bright friend of yours. Seldom. Seldom grows up and imagines a revolutionary kind of airship. His design looks like Bountiful, except it floats without hydrogen gas, and it flies faster than our ships or even the papio wings, and best of all, you can crash his ship or set it on fire—any disaster that the Fates and Destinies inflict—but the machine rebuilds itself out of the pieces on hand, making itself stronger in the process.”
Tar`ro laughed dourly. “Listen to him, kid.”
“Me,” said Diamond. “He’s talking about me.”
“And I’m talking about King and the ghost in the wilderness, and whatever creature that the papio might be hiding.” Father held him tight and found a louder voice. “We don’t know anything for certain. But it looks as if there’s a huge, huge difference between you and the other three. King’s nothing like human beings, and nothing like you has been seen in the wilderness or on the reef. You are unique, Diamond. You are special because in so many ways, you’re human.”
The boy fidgeted, and then he said, “But I’m not.”
The men said nothing.
“I’m different,” Diamond said. But he knew exactly what was being said.
“Your body’s more durable, and your brain can’t be broken,” Master Nissim said. “But remember your tenth day in my class. I had your blood and Seldom’s blood on two slides, and what did the other students learn?”
“They couldn’t tell which was which.”
“And doctors have had their looks,” Tar`ro said. “Believe me, the Archon gets every report plopped down on her desk.”
Prue came to mind, expecting to marry him. And just like that, Diamond felt angry toward the little orphan girl.
Father shook him gently. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing,” the boy lied.
“Everybody’s waiting for you to get old enough,” Tar`ro said.
“Old enough,” Diamond whispered.
“I know you have inklings of this,” Father said. “But you have to see it plainly now. Everybody—the Archons and the papio too—look at you as a potential father. If you can grow up and have children, and if your family inherits your powers—”
“Which might not happen,” Nissim interrupted. “Hybridization is a complex, knot-rich process.”
Tar`ro laughed again. “But what if he can? A thousand women marry him, and his kids get just a portion of his tricks mixed in with that ordinary blood . . . and the world is remade for all time . . . ”
The other men shifted their rumps, saying nothing.
Tar`ro’s voice brightened, hardened. “What’s the matter, gentlemen? You think I should sit in a classroom or stand on that landing, suffering boredom, suffering rain, and for no good reason but to keep one odd kid out of trouble? No, no. I’ve always seen the big true picture.”
“I don’t like the tone,” Father said.
“And neither of you appreciate the scope of things.”
“Perhaps you should describe what you see,” Nissim said.
Diamond stood, stepping out of his father’s reach. The shop’s floor ended with a raised lip, and reaching the edge, he gazed into blackness spoiled by swirling dots and blobs of busy light.
Scorn in his voice, Tar`ro said, “You dear gentlemen are too smart to see anything clearly. We’re not fighting a war. Wars are a string of battles that end when anybody starts to cry. No, what’s happening now is far worse than anything in history books. This is everybody fighting over one clear, spectacular prize. This is two species ready to risk everything, and this is each District doing battle with every other District, and every person tonight is trying to make sense of his thoughts. Now that the world has been stirred up, everything gets ugly, and there’s not going be any good place to go for a long time to come.
“That’s what I think,” he said.
Every man was suddenly talking at once. Angry, sloppy whispers mixed in the air. Diamond was left free to bend until he felt as if he were floating over the lights of a million insects. Something about this scene was eerily, deliciously familiar, and ready to remember, he felt happy enough to smile.
Then the bickering and the talk of violence became loud, and an ancient memory fled back inside the boy’s tiny, enormous mind.
Sleep had never been her nature. Fatigue had done its damage in the past, nipping at her flesh, playing games with her thoughts, but Quest had endured enough weariness to believe that sleep could never claim her. Except yesterday morning was relentless and sorry and wicked. Exhaustion arrived before she shucked off most of her body, letting the temporary flesh die in plain sight while the rest of her scrambled to a higher position. Abandoning organs and limbs demanded hard concentration. Climbing fast without being seen was always best done when she was rested. She wasn’t rested. The last of her legs were trembling when she found a new perch—a marginal hiding place on the edge of the District—and that was when the papio attacked.
Quest was already taking wild chances. Just lingering near the settled forest was a gnawing risk, and that was before full war broke out. She saw the papio wings flying into the forest’s wound, shooting at shadows, and the tree-walkers flung slugs and darts and swift little bombs, almost every shot missing its mark. Quest should have left immediately. She knew it. Yet there she remained, ignoring every wise impulse, eating more lost birds and using their meat to cook fresh eyes and great funnel-shaped ears, aiming the new organs everywhere but at the ongoing battle.
Was this a symptom of deep fatigue, turning blind to a thousand dangers?
She didn’t know, couldn’t guess. But the boy kept churning her thoughts. Instinct and every drop of new blood accepted his importance, yet she had no idea where he was or how awful his circumstances were. That’s why she shucked off most of those new senses and slipped out of her hiding place, abandoning the wilderness. Exhaustion brought madness. Insanity made her leap and scamper, even as those scrawny high branches shook from cannon fire, and suddenly she discovered herself clinging to a bare trunk still warm from the morning’s fire, gazing down into the raw gouge of open air and late sun and war.