Someone sniggered. “Hey,” he said. “We’ve got ourselves a domestic spat.”
“Shut the fuck up,” snapped Amy, remembering to add, “sir.” Unless that was meant to be part of the insult.
Oh shit, indeed.
“I’m at work,” said Amy. “Call me later.”
“This can’t wait,” Kit told her. “I need to know about Ben Flyte. Everything you’ve got.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever’s taken Neku thinks that’s who I am.”
“Unlikely,” said Amy. “Ben Flyte’s dead.”
“He’s what?”
“Murdered,” she said. “Six months ago. We just haven’t released the news. If I call you back it will be in five minutes. Go somewhere private.”
A courtyard behind the Queen’s Head was stacked with metal barrels and mixer crates full of empty bottles. Its walls were high enough to muffle traffic from the street beyond. No one stopped Kit when he walked through the kitchens and took up position against the wall.
“Kit,” he announced, answering his phone on the first ring.
CHAPTER 45 — Nawa-no-ukiyo
“I’m sorry,” said Luc.
“For what?” Lady Neku had never met anyone like the boy for apologising. He’d been sorry about tripping on the stairs, although she got in his way, rather than the other way round. He regretted taking up her time and not wanting to practise with Nico, Petro, and Antonio in the duelling room. Now he was apologising again. Hadn’t anyone ever told him never apologise and never explain?
“What am I sorry for?” said Luc. “I’m sorry for everything.”
Lady Neku laughed. “You can’t be,” she said. “No apology would be long enough.” She watched him think that through.
“You’re not what I expected,” Luc said finally.
“Really…what did you expect?”
Oh God, thought Lady Neku. Now she’d embarrassed him. They were loitering in a corridor that led from the duelling room to the archives, which was an old name for an area now mostly given over to rubbish.
“Antiques,” her mother called them. “Heirlooms.”
Rubbish all the same.
“I don’t know,” said Luc. “Someone…”
“Weirder?”
He grinned at that. “How long do you think they’ll be busy?” Luc asked, glancing at the entrance to another corridor. One that led to the throne room, where Lord d’Alambert and Lady Neku’s mother were locked in discussion. It amused Lady Neku that Luc had such trouble orientating himself in her habitat. A lifetime of exploring corridors and levels had imprinted a mental map into her subconscious. Unless, of course, it had been imprinted earlier and she’d been born with the thing.
“Hours, I guess,” said Lady Neku. “Maybe days if my mother is feeling difficult. It depends how much negotiating they have left to do.”
Luc looked shocked. “What’s to negotiate?” he asked. “The major domos agreed everything in advance.”
Lady Neku was about to say this was the first she’d heard of it, only she’d been saying this a lot recently and it worried her to discover Luc knew things she didn’t, so she swallowed her comment.
“Come on,” she said instead. “I want to show you something.”
“What?” demanded Luc. He was still asking when Lady Neku reached the drop zone. A dozen opalescent pods sat gathering dust, while the thirteenth was already releasing its door.
“Get in,” Lady Neku said.
“You’re joking…”
“Why would I do that?”
As Lady Neku watched, the door sprang open and its inner membrane began to nictate. The pods liked to do these things for themselves, so Lady Neku made herself wait. Once door and membrane were open, Lady Neku reached for a grab bar and hauled herself inside, sitting patiently while the pod grew straps.
“Yuck,” said Luc, watching sticky tendrils tie themselves tight around Lady Neku’s upper arms and shoulders.
“It brushes off,” she promised. “Come on, climb in.”
Luc did, reluctantly, only realising too late that he should have entered from the other side; after all, that was where the pod had grown a door for him.
“It’s okay,” said Lady Neku, as Luc began to climb down. “Just clamber over me…and hold tight,” she added.
Luc was about to say something when the door membranes finished regrouping, both doors sealed, and the floor fell away, turning the pod a hundred and eighty degrees, before releasing it towards the planet below; which had suddenly become the planet above.
“Warned you,” Lady Neku said.
Slow entry speeds were essential. Even so, the friction on the falling pod was sufficient to ionize its surface and create a luminous bubble that trailed colours behind them like a broken rainbow.
“Is this safe?” said Luc, looking at dials that had begun to spin wildly.
Such a child. Did he really think pods came with dials on the original spec? Lady Neku considered admitting the dials had been her idea and she’d demanded needles that spun, but decided not to bother.
“Well,” she said. “This is my tenth drop and I’m still alive.”
Luc didn’t seem to find this comforting.
After a while, Lady Neku flicked out the wings and had the pod roll through another hundred and eighty degrees, changing her descent to a wide spiral. The forces on her body felt more natural that way.
Cracks in the earth became ruined towns and those towns expanded to reveal districts and finally roads and even houses. Only the very largest buildings could be seen from this height, but half of one town was obviously buried by sand and an earthquake had ripped another across its edge like badly torn paper.
“Welcome to Katchatka Segment,” said Lady Neku. “Glory of Planet Earth.” Leaning forwards, she brushed one finger across the window and sat back as a living town spread itself across glass.
“Shit,” said Luc. “What’s that?”
“History,” Lady Neku said, removing the town with another brush of her finger. “What used to be…how old are you really?” she asked.
“Sixteen,” said Luc, sounding offended. “You know that.”
“And me?” She was going to have to do something about his habit of changing colour. Luc couldn’t keep turning pink at every question, or her brothers would never leave him alone.
“Fifteen,” she told him. “I’m fifteen.” Lady Neku paused. “Do you believe that?”
Luc nodded. “What’s not to believe?”
“What if I’m a copy?” said Lady Neku. “Then how old am I?”
Luc looked at her.
“Okay,” said Lady Neku. “Think about it…Fifteen, plus the age of my mother when the copy was made. Right?”
The boy shrugged.
“But what if my mother was a copy, then how does it work? My age, plus her age when I was copied, plus the age of her mother when she was copied? That would make me…” Lady Neku began shuffling numbers in her head, only to abandon her sum when the pod caught the outer edge of a massive dust cloud.
“Turbulence,” she said. “You might feel sick.”
“I already do.”
As she grinned, Lady Neku watched Luc make himself release his grip on the chair; he minded her noticing his knuckles had gone white.
“Don’t worry,” said Lady Neku.
“I’m not—” Luc caught himself. “Of course I’m worried,” he said. “We’re falling out of the sky in a pod the size of a large table and we don’t seem to have an engine.” He looked at her. “We do have a Casimir coil, don’t we?”
“No,” said Lady Neku, shaking her head. She’d have shaken it whatever the answer, but for once the truth was on her side. The pods were strictly one use only and that was down.
“Oh fuck…” Luc’s voice was small.
Come on, Lady Neku wanted to say. How can you miss it? Surely Luc had spotted Schloss Omga by now. It was that enormous castle crawling up the side of a mountain.