Novato’s pulse raced. She glanced left and right, saw that Garios and Delplas had their claws exposed, saw the nervousness in their expressions. The whole pyramid was about three hundred paces wide, and Novato was silently counting off paces as they continued into its heart. The tunnel continued right into the center: a hundred and forty paces into the vast structure. Novato tried not to contemplate the huge weight of alien material over her head.
At last they came to the central vertical shaft. The inside base of the tower was square, fourteen paces on a side. The sides of the interior shaft were the bases of the four great ladders. They rose up and up, as high as Novato could see, converging to a point some fantastic distance above her head. Novato was sure the apparent convergence occurred long before the actual top of the tower was reached.
She looked at the stretched ladders, large open rectangles running up their impossible lengths. A brave wingfinger, apparently not perturbed by the alien structure, had built a nest on the crosspiece at the bottom of one of the ladders, and the flying reptile’s white droppings streaked the gleaming blue material.
Novato tried to picture the kind of giant being that might climb such a ladder, but she knew, of course, that it had not been physical giants who were responsible for this structure. Indeed, the absolute opposite was true: incredibly tiny engineers had built this. And yet the image of giants would not leave her mind. The builders of this tower to the sky were giants in comparison to the Quintaglios. She leaned back on her tail, looking up, humbled.
And then her heart began pounding erratically; she had to force herself not to run out of the structure. Something was approaching from up above.
The thing moved silently. Only moments ago it had emerged from the vanishing point far overhead, but already it was looming larger and larger, coming down one of the corners of the shaft. It was big and metallic, and it was moving quickly although it wasn’t actually falling.
Soon it began to slow—and a good thing, too, for otherwise it would have smashed into the floor. Novato could hear a faint descending whistle as the object came closer. It was as big as a shed or large carriage, and its bottom fit perfectly into the right angle made by two adjacent inner tower walls. The rest of it was rounded, like a beetle’s body.
Novato, Garios, and Delplas quickly moved across the tower’s base so they, quite literally, would be on the safe side. The giant beetle came to a stop at ground level. There it sat for a few moments, then its whole surface seemed to turn brighter, more shiny, as if it were liquefying, and suddenly a large rectangular opening appeared in its side, revealing that its interior was almost completely hollow. Once the door had appeared, the structure’s surface became duller, more solid-looking.
And there it sat.
Novato moved over to it and cautiously peered through the doorway. There didn’t seem to be much inside, but—
Incredible.
She could see right through the walls. From the outside, the thing was opaque, built from thick metal, but in looking through the walls from the inside, she could see right through to the blue material of the tower itself. She was terrified to step inside the beetle lest its walls grow liquid again and the door disappear, trapping her within. But she did stick her head into the doorway briefly to confirm that she could indeed see out in all directions. Looking up, she could see the four ladder-like sides of the tower stretching impossibly high overhead and, craning her neck around, she could even see her own palm pressed flat against the beetle’s outer hull.
A few opaque objects were visible within the beetle’s walls, but basically from the inside it seemed to be made of glass while from the outside its appearance was that of burnished metal. Novato had spent a lot of time working with various materials in her studies of optics, but she’d never encountered anything with properties like this. She pulled her head out of the doorway and extended a fingerclaw. The beetle wasn’t made of harder-than-diamond stuff, anyway: she had little trouble scratching its metal outer hull.
Garios was leaning back on his tail, his long muzzle looking up. “You were right,” he said softly.
Novato looked at him. “What?”
“You were right. Emergency equipment, that’s what it was—emergency equipment for the ark-makers.” He pointed at the silver beetle. “There it is—a lifeboat to take them back to space.” He paused. “Only one of the three emergency kits was still… still viable after millions of kilodays. Perhaps the second would have built a flying machine to take the ark-makers back home, and the third… well, God only knows what the third would have built. But this one, the one that survived, has made some sort of lifeboat.”
Novato realized in an instant that Garios was correct. And she also realized a more wondrous, a more terrifying, thought: that soon she herself would have to take a ride aboard this lifeboat.
*12*
Back aboard the Dasheter, old Biltog tended to Toroca’s injuries. There was nothing major. Toroca was irritated by the glee his shipmates took in his story of the attack by the fish-lizard, but, after enduring his disdain for the hunt for so long, they were entitled to some fun at his expense now that he’d single-handedly killed a formidable predator.
And, of course, everyone was interested in the Others.
“Tell us, Toroca,” demanded Keenir, “what were they like?”
Toroca, still exhausted, supported himself by leaning against the foremast. “They are good people,” he said. “I hope that, despite our differences, there is some way that we can become friends.”
Keenir looked out over the water, perhaps thinking of the slaughter he’d been part of back on the Others’ island. He made no reply.
“Tell me more about the murders of your two children,” said Mokleb.
Afsan shifted uncomfortably on his rock. “Both of them were killed the same way,” he said. “Their throats were slit.”
“Slit? With a knife?”
“No, with a broken piece of mirror.”
“Broken mirror,” said Mokleb. “And they were killed by their brother, Drawtood, correct?”
Afsan clicked his teeth, but it was a forced gesture, with little humor behind it. “Yes. Even I saw the symbolism in that, Mokleb. Broken mirrors, distorted reflections of oneself.”
“Where did the killings take place?”
“In their apartments. The killings occurred several days apart. Haldan was murdered first. Drawtood snuck up on each of them, or otherwise was able to approach them closely, and then he did the deed.”
“Snuck up on them?”
“So I presume, yes.”
“Fascinating,” said Mokleb, and then: “You discovered one of the bodies.”
“Yes.” A long pause. “I found Haldan. If anything should have given me nightmares, that should have been it. In fact, I can’t think of a more terrifying scenario for a blind person than slowly coming to realize that the room he’s in isn’t empty but rather contains a horribly murdered body.”
“And you say Drawtood snuck up on his victims?”
“Well, he was doubtless let into the apartments by them. They did know him, after all. But to manage the close approach, yes, I presume he did that by stealth.”
“Fascinating,” said Mokleb once more. She wrote furiously on her notepad.
It was the end of the day. Novato was ambling back toward the camp, located a few hundred paces from the base of the blue pyramid supporting the tower. Garios had caught up with her and was now walking about ten paces to her left.
There was some small talk, then Garios asked, in a tone of forced casualness, “What will happen to your eight egglings if you mate with Afsan? Will they be spared the culling of the bloodpriest again?”