“Ten thousand ships can’t protect Diamond,” said Merit. “One maniac pointing one cannon decides to shoot Bountiful, whatever the reason, and my son burns and falls through the demon floor.”
She bristled, but there was no fighting the logic.
“I intend to go where I need to go. Protecting my boy is everything.”
A revelation squeezed her heart. “I understand,” she said.
“Do you?”
She saw the context and his thinking, yes. But what was lucid and reasonable to one desperate person made her weak.
“You’re thinking of going to the papio,” she said.
“Give me a better target,” he said.
“For now, hide,” she said. “Move when you have to move, and call me on a fresh line tonight, tomorrow. I’ll work through the day and make everything safe.”
Merit said nothing.
She waited.
Then once again, he said, “Traitors.”
“We have several suspects,” she admitted.
“Who—?” he began.
But that overly long thread of copper and electricity finally failed, and nothing was left to hear but the steady whisper that inhabited every empty call-line—a voice that never breathed or used words; the voice from which a determined ear could pull free anything that it wanted to hear.
Diamond was sitting at the back of the machine shop, the monkey at his side.
The crew walked past the pair, looking at the boy in quite distinct ways. They were interested in him and they smiled at him, but they were suspicious too. They were scared of quite a lot today, perhaps including him, and maybe they weren’t angry but there was always a raw, furious quality to the faces. Each man used every one of those expressions, sometimes within the same few strides. And sensing these shifting, combustive moods, it was easy to believe that one of them was his enemy. Father had offered a thousand assurances about the loyalty and honor of these people, but those faces showed Diamond too much. Nothing but time stood between now and the moment when somebody else would try to kill him.
The idea was vivid and deep, and then the idea turned into belief. Belief was as good as fact. Belief felt like truth and became nothing else. But that grim truth wasn’t as terrible as he would have guessed. Some mechanic or harpooner would show the boy a mysterious grin, and his heart quickened. Or Bountiful’s captain would toss a little wink his way, and tiny places inside Diamond—tissues and talents without names—began to ready themselves for trouble.
“Are you all right?” Elata asked.
“I guess.”
Not believing him, she glanced at the Master.
“Are you sure?” asked Nissim.
Even Good studied him.
Diamond shook his head. He wasn’t certain about his wellbeing, no.
Tar`ro looked at the boy, chewing on his tongue as he made his appraisal.
“Yeah, what’s wrong?” Seldom asked.
Too many answers begged to be offered. Diamond refused all of them, pointing across the huge room. “Something’s happening over there.”
The winking captain had just walked past them. Two crewmen were standing before the open door. Bountiful’s top harpooner had been bolting one of the air-powered guns into its proper cradle. Five spears rested nearby, each fat with explosives and timers, and a mechanic was working on a sixth spear, rebuilding it to kill machines instead of coronas. Except he wasn’t working as much as he was glancing outside, looking down at some odd thing. The harpooner was doing the same. And Diamond could think of nothing but his father’s return.
The captain approached the two men, and the harpooner stepped close, their faces near enough to kiss.
Diamond watched the man and woman talk.
The captain didn’t look outside. She studied the eyes in front of her, and then she stepped back and pretended to examine the heavy gun, holding its handles while aiming at the open air.
Smiling, the mechanic said a few words.
Everybody laughed with their faces, their voices. But serious eyes kept giving the world hard study. Then the captain stepped away from the edge, and the three of them stood with their backs to the doorway, hands over mouths, each taking his and her turn in the conversation.
“Something is happening,” Tar`ro agreed.
“They hear your father,” the Master guessed.
Saying so made it a little bit true. But not enough.
“Father isn’t coming,” Diamond said.
“You don’t know that,” Elata said.
Just the same, the boy got to his feet. Sitting was awful. His legs were desperate to walk.
“Stay,” Tar`ro said.
But Diamond was already running on the hard black rubber floor, leaping over tied-down machines and a neat stack of deflated bladders. The captain was a short woman, stocky to the brink of fat, and she had a deeper voice than some men. The voice said his name. One arm lifted, and Diamond let himself be caught short of the doorway. Then she squeezed his shoulder, saying, “Please, stay with me.”
“Where’s my father?”
As if expecting the question, she said, “He isn’t late. But we need to leave this place at once.”
“No.”
“Quiet,” she said.
He didn’t think that he had been yelling.
“Look at me, Diamond.”
She had been a pretty woman before she got old, and she was always talented, and more than once, Father had mentioned how rare it was for any woman to give her life to killing coronas.
Diamond yanked her hand and skipped sideways.
Shaking what hurt, she told him, “We had another weak rain this morning. The canopy below was already thin, but now it’s thirsty, and someone could easily see us from below.”
“The papio might,” the mechanic said.
“Anybody might,” said the harpooner, sucking air through his golden teeth.
“So we’re preparing to cut loose and move,” the captain said. “But don’t worry. Your father knew this was possible and told us where we’ll go next. He might well beat us there, honestly.”
A broad leatherwing came from under the ship, slow lazy strokes beating at the bright air. A flock of millguts swirled high above. From inside the canopy, in those places where shadows joined ranks, a single big jasmine monkey proclaimed dominion over the best part of Creation.
“But there’s something else,” said the captain. And with that she put her bulk in front of him.
Good jumped up on Diamond’s shoulder, and the others walked up after him.
Tar`ro asked Seldom, “Do you see your brother?”
“Not now.”
But Elata nodded, saying, “There.”
Karlan was helping drag heavy machinery. Working on the far side of the shop, he was a huge figure beside the crew, and even at a distance, he looked as close to happy as any of these miserable people could be.
Diamond wasn’t worried about Karlan. The crew scared him, but not the boy who tried to kill him.
Was that foolish?
The captain touched Diamond with her sore hand, lightly.
“Listen,” she said.
He focused on her face, her open mouth.
“Stories,” she said. “Out here, all of the stories get told. People think they see things and they believe they hear things, but nothing’s ever certain. Except that four creatures were trapped inside that old corona.”
Diamond saw where the words were pointing. Harpooners had great eyes; the boy couldn’t count the times people had said so in his presence. Once again, he slipped past the captain, two leaps putting him at the floor’s end, a lip of bone and featherwood pressed against the toes of his boots.
“Where’s the ghost?” he asked.
“Nowhere,” said the harpooner, an exceptionally strong hand dropping on the boy’s shoulder.
Diamond remembered to be scared of the man.
“It’s that burr-tree that worries us,” the harpooner said. Then the hand moved, pulling Diamond back from the emptiness. “I was counting branches, which everyone should do. You know, to keep your faculties sharp. And somewhere in the last five recitations, while I was looking everywhere else, one of those very big branches decided to melt and then vanish.”