His accent confirms what I’d suspected from the quality of his shirt—he’s not an Eleventh Ward resident, any more than I am. I don’t know what he’s doing here. Kosura says that upper-ward men sometimes come down looking for diversions, though somehow he doesn’t look like the type to be slumming for brothel girls. Whoever he is, I decide, it’s long past time I was gone.
“Thank you,” he manages, eventually. “I didn’t know how I was going to get out of that.”
“Don’t mention it,” I tell him, feeling a little sour. It takes a moment of thought before I figure out why—if he’s from the upper wards, he didn’t really need my help. He could always pull out his papers, just like I could, and the worst he’d suffer was a family reprimand.
Oh well. At least the Ward Guard didn’t take me in.
“Be more careful next time,” I tell him. “Or get some draft papers.”
“I’ll try. I mean, I will.”
I give him a polite nod and go to the fence, knocking aside the loose slat. I’m nearly to the top when he shouts after me.
“Um. Please. What’s your name?”
I look back. I’m not sure why. Something about what I can feel from his mind, a pulse of blue-white sincerity that makes my skin tingle.
He is, I note belatedly, quite handsome.
“Tori,” I call back, before dropping over the fence.
It’s a common-enough name. He certainly won’t be able to track me back to the Second Ward. So no harm done.
Right?
4
ISOKA
Of course Meroe takes charge immediately.
She’s been organizing scavenging and defense since we got to the Garden, so when she gives orders, people listen. Pack leaders are designated and duties assigned. Establish a perimeter, light torches to push back the darkness, gather supplies and see what we have left. The younger teens are delegated to keep the rest of the children together and make sure no one strays.
In a quarter of an hour, we go from a confused crowd of several hundred frightened people, clustered on an alien shore, to something like an organized crew. Through it all, she never even raises her voice, just listens and thinks and speaks so reasonably that no one even argues.
Blessed above, I want to kiss her. Nothing is more attractive than competence.
But that would be a distraction, for both of us. Sooner or later, people are going to start asking what to do next, and they’re going to ask me. So: options.
Get back on the ship—apparently not going to happen. Not long after the last of us leaves the ramp, it starts to rise again, metal folding and groaning back up into Soliton’s titanic Bow. The angels retreat, glowing blue eyes turning away, until only one remains: a dog-shaped thing, hulking and broad shouldered, with wild feathery growths along its flanks. It stands at the top of the ramp as it rises, and I get the distinct sense that it’s watching me. Soon, though, the rising metal blocks even this straggler from sight. When the ramp stops with a clang, there’s no more movement from the great ship, which rises above us like a steel cliff. I can feel Eddica power pulsing through the air, energy flowing out of Soliton toward … something, but I can’t reach it with my own feeble strength.
Not the ship, which leaves the land. The dock extends out into the water from a rocky beach bordered by a strip of grass a dozen yards wide. Beyond that is a wall of trees that looks almost solid in the gloom, with barely a speck of starry sky visible through their interlocking canopies. The air is alive with animal sounds, hoots and chirps that could be birds, insects, or something stranger. Everything smells of salt and rust.
From the tower above Soliton, I’d seen structures rising up through the trees, but it had been too dark to get more than a glimpse. From ground level, I have no idea where they might be, even if we wanted to go there.
So—the land isn’t too welcoming, either. Which doesn’t leave much, does it?
Rot.
When the pace of Meroe’s orders slows, I nudge her and call the Council together, a little ways off from the others. Shiara, for once, is less than her perfectly composed self—she must not have had time to apply her makeup. Zarun seems to be more in his element, barking commands to his crew, then striding over to me all swagger and confidence. It fades the moment the four of us are alone.
“What,” he says through gritted teeth, “the rotting hell is going on?”
“I don’t know,” I spit back, “any more than I knew last time.”
“You can’t—” Shiara begins.
“Talk to the ship?” I give an aggravated sigh. “Apparently not.”
“So now rotting what?” Zarun says.
The others look at me. Again.
“For now we stay here,” I say. “Hunker down and wait until morning.”
“That’s not much of a plan,” Shiara says.
“It’s a rotting lot better than blundering around a forest in the dark,” I say. “When the sun comes up we’ll be able to see what we’re walking into.”
“Assuming the sun does come up,” Zarun mutters. “We’re inside some kind of dome, remember?”
“We can see the moon and the stars,” Meroe says reasonably, “so I think we can assume we’ll be able to see the sun as well.” She glances at me. “I agree with Isoka that we should stay put until dawn. We’ll have to move pretty soon after that, though, to find fresh water.”
I nod. “For now, make sure nobody wanders off. I don’t want anyone outside our cordon.”
Zarun glances over his shoulder. “You think there’s something dangerous out there?”
“I’m just going to assume everything is trying to kill us until we prove otherwise.”
Shiara actually smiles, pale and vulnerable-looking without her face paint. “I can get behind that.”
The pair of them turn away, heading back to join the others. I step closer to Meroe, who’s staring off into the jungle.
“Hey.” She blinks and looks at me, and I take her hand. “You okay?”
“I’m okay.” Meroe takes a deep breath. “Just … trying to think.”
“You’re doing great.”
She looks a little embarrassed. “Everyone knows what they need to do. I’m just reminding them.”
I squeeze her hand, and she squeezes back, returning to her study of the forest. I follow her gaze.
“So what are you thinking?”
“You saw buildings, right? When we were coming in.”
I nod. “Just shadows, really, but that’s what it looked like.”
“I’m wondering if there’s people here.” She looks back at the ship. “The Scholar said that Soliton empties itself out every twenty years or so. We figured that was because every so often it went close enough to the Rot that everybody died.”
“If anyone survived, though, it looks like the angels force them off the ship here.” I frown. “Why?”
“Why does Soliton do anything?” Meroe shrugs. “But if there’s buildings, maybe someone’s living here. They might be able to help us.”
“Or try to kill us,” I say. “Or the buildings are as old as the docks, and full of crabs.”