Jerico took a moment, considering how best to answer.
“I’m not the age that I tell my crew,” Jerico finally admitted. Because a half-truth was better than no truth at all.
The enduring heart – the one for which the great floating city was named – was the oldest living heart in the world, kept alive by electrical stimulation and rejuvenating nanites so that it was forever young. It had beat over nine billion times, and was a symbol of humanity’s conquest of death. However, it died when the island sank and power was cut to its electrodes.
As Scythe Possuelo had said, it was, indeed, protected within an impact-resistant tempered-glass case … but the case could not stand the pressure so far down, and it imploded long before reaching bottom. As for the heart itself – or what was left of it after the implosion – it would not turn up among the debris the salvage team eventually found. No doubt it had been devoured – if not by the carnivorous sea life that had been lathered into an artificial feeding frenzy, then by some lucky scavenger who just happened to be passing by.
While all the other salvage teams were satisfied to go after easier salvage, Jeri Soberanis’s crew labored tirelessly with little to show for its efforts for weeks. While other crews were bringing up treasure troves, Captain Soberanis brought up virtually nothing.
With the towers of the drowned city leaning at steep angles, ripping free and tumbling with the slightest provocation into the depths, it was too dangerous to actually send crewmembers down. While amphibious Tasmanians were fine for shallow salvages, they couldn’t dive past sixty meters without a pressure suit. They had already lost one robotic sub, crushed by a plunging refrigerator that came crashing through the window of a shifting tower. True, anyone who was killed could be sent off for revival, but that required being able to retrieve their bodies from the trench. It was simply not worth the risk.
Possuelo, usually a man of measured demeanor and not easily riled, was now prone to fits of frustration.
“I realize that this is a delicate process,” Possuelo said after the fifth week of remote deep dives, “but sea slugs move faster than you and your crew!”
What made his frustration worse was the arrival of more and more scythe yachts. Representatives from nearly every scythedom in the world had shown up – because everyone knew that he was after the Vault of Relics and Futures. It was fine when it remained in a place too cold and too deep for even sunlight to reach – but out of sight did not mean out of mind.
“Your Honor, forgive my impertinence,” Jeri told Sydney – because now they were most certainly on a first-name basis, “but it’s a steel vault sealed within another steel vault, buried beneath a thousand tons of wreckage on the side of a dangerous slope. Even if it wasn’t at the bottom of the sea, it would be hard to reach. It requires meticulous engineering, effort, and above all, patience!”
“If we don’t wrap this up in short order,” railed Possuelo, “Goddard will swoop in and take everything we bring up!”
Yet Goddard’s presence at the site was, thus far, conspicuously absent. He had sent no salvage teams or representatives to ensure he got his share of the diamonds. Instead he raved publicly about defiling hallowed waters and dishonoring the dead, claiming he wanted no part of anything that was found down there. But it was all posturing. He wanted those diamonds as much as anyone, if not more.
Which meant that he had a plan to get them.
There was no denying that Goddard had a knack for getting whatever he wanted, and that kept every scythedom in the world on edge.
“Scythedom.”
That word used to mean the global organization as a whole – but now regional thinking had taken over. There was no sense of a world scythedom anymore – only provincial politics and petty grievances.
Possuelo had nightmares of a world where Goddard had all the diamonds and could handpick every single new scythe. Were that to happen, the world would tilt so heavily toward his so-called new order, it would tip off its axis. And the voices of those who resisted him would be lost in the pained wails of those he so gleefully gleaned.
“Will you ever tell me what’s in the vault that’s put such a bee in everyone’s bonnet?” Jeri asked after a dive that was deemed “successful” because no equipment was lost.
“A bee? More like a hornet’s nest,” Possuelo answered. “The vault, as does any vault, contains objects of great value. But in this case those objects are not your concern, because they are only of value to scythes.”
At that, Jeri smirked. “Ah! I always wondered where the scythe rings were kept!”
Possuelo cursed himself for having said anything at all. “You’re too clever for your own good.”
“That,” Jeri said, “has always been my problem.”
Possuelo sighed. Was it so bad that the captain knew? The affable Madagascan was not a greedy sort, treated the crew well, and had shown nothing but respect for Possuelo. The scythe needed someone to trust in all this, and Captain Soberanis had certainly proven herself trustworthy. Or himself, as the sky was currently under heavy cover of clouds.
“It’s not the rings but the gems themselves – many thousands of them,” Possuelo admitted. “Whoever controls those diamonds controls the future of the scythedom.”
While we in the LoneStar region would like to remain neutral in this matter, it’s become clear to us in Texas that High Blade Goddard intends to impose his will upon all of North Merica, and perhaps the world entire. Without Grandslayers to check his ambition, we fear his influence will grow like a mortal-age cancer.
As a Charter Region, we are free to do whatever we wish within our borders. We are, therefore, breaking off all contact with the MidMerican scythedom. Effective immediately, any and all MidMerican scythes found within our region shall be escorted to the nearest border and ejected.
We go as far as to question Mr. Goddard’s right to be High Blade, since an edict from Endura was never publicly made before the Grandslayers perished.
As a matter of policy, we do not wish to involve other regions in our decision. Others can do as they see fit. We just want to be left alone.
—Official proclamation from
Her Excellency, High Blade Barbara Jordan of Texas
5
Your Service Is No Longer Required
from: Thunderhead Primary Communication Exchange
to: Loriana Barchok <[email protected]>
date: April 1st, Year of the Raptor, 17:15 GMT
subject: Re: Authority Interface dissolution
mailed by: TPCE.th
signed by: FCAI.net
security: Standard encryption
My Dearest Loriana,
I am sorry to inform you that your services as a Nimbus agent are no longer required. I know you have performed to the best of your ability, and this permanent release from service is by no means a reflection on you or your work for the Authority Interface. However, I have decided to dissolve the Authority Interface in its entirety. Effective immediately, it shall cease to exist as a managerial entity, and therefore you are released from service. I wish you luck in all of your future endeavors.
Respectfully,
The Thunderhead
If someone had told Loriana Barchok that her job would cease to exist less than one year out of Nimbus Academy, she would not have believed it possible. She would not have believed a great many things possible. But those things had all happened. Which meant that anything could happen now. Anything. For all she knew a hand could reach out of the sky with tweezers and pluck her eyebrows with impunity. Not that they needed plucking; her eyebrows were fine. But it could happen. She wouldn’t put anything past this peculiar world anymore.