“Stalkers!” yelped Wren. She’d never seen a Stalker, had never really quite believed in Stalkers, but something about the way those armored figures moved was enough to convince her that they were not human and that she very much wanted to be far away from them. She started to run, calling out to Theo to follow her. “Come on! We’ll cut back through the Pavilion to the boathouse!”
The stairways of the Pavilion were deserted now. Wren and Theo climbed them quickly, stumbling over abandoned party hats and trampled bodies. On the sundeck where Shkin had sold her to Pennyroyal, Wren slipped and went crashing down. The Tin Book, jammed in her waistband, grazed her spine and dug painfully into her bottom. She thought she could feel blood running down inside her trousers as Theo helped her up. She wondered if she should try to get rid of the book, or surrender it to the Storm and beg for mercy. But the Storm had no mercy, did they? She’d seen pamphlets and posters since she’d been in Brighton, headlines in the foreign-affairs pages of the Palimpsest about MORE MOSSIE ATROCITIES and FURTHER BEASTLINESS BY THE GREEN STORM. If they found that Wren had the Tin Book…
From the entrance to the ballroom, they looked back across the lawns. The battle was over, and Stalkers were moving about down there, herding crowds of captive guests ahead of them. “I wonder if Shkin’s down there,” said Wren.
“And what about Boo-Boo?” said Theo as they pressed on, crossing the ballroom, where the lights on the walls and ceiling had failed and broken glass crunched underfoot. “What about Pennyroyal?”
“Oh, he’ll be all right.” said Wren. “I bet it was him who brought them here. Shkin said he was looking for a buyer for the Tin Book. That’s just the sort of thing Pennyroyal would do, sell his own city for a profit…”
They passed the film room, where the projector was still rattling away. By its light Wren glimpsed a movement on the spiral staircase. “Cynthia!” shouted Theo.
Their fellow slave came running down the stairs, her party costume flickering softly with the reflected colors of the film loop. What she had been doing up there Wren could not imagine. Perhaps she had got flustered and run the wrong way when everybody was fleeing from the ballroom. Or maybe Mrs. Pennyroyal had sent her back to fetch something; she was carrying something shiny in one hand.
“Cynthia,” said Wren, “don’t be frightened. We’re leaving. We’ll take you with us. Won’t we, Theo?”
“Where is it, Wren?” snapped Cynthia.
“Where’s what?” asked Wren.
“The Tin Book, of course.” Cynthia’s expression was one that Wren didn’t recognize: cold and hard and intelligent, as if her face were under new management. “I’ve already checked Pennyroyal’s safe,” she said. “I know it was you who took it. I’ve known you were up to something ever since you came aboard. Who are you working for? The Traktionstadtsgesellschaft? The Africans?”
“I’m not working for anybody” said Wren.
“But you are, Cynthia Twite,” said Theo. “You’re with the Green Storm, aren’t you? You killed Plovery and the others. It was you who cut Cloud 9 adrift!”
Cynthia laughed. “Ooh, you catch on fast, African!” She made a polite curtsy. “Agent 28, of the Stalker Fang’s private intelligence group. I was rather good, wasn’t I? Poor, silly Cynthia. How you all laughed at me, you and Boo-Boo and the rest. And all along I have been working for a different mistress, for one who will Make the World Green Again.” She held her arm out stiffly toward Wren. The shiny thing in her hand was a gun.
Numbly, Wren fetched the Tin Book out from beneath her tunic and held it up for Cynthia to see. Cynthia snatched it and stepped back. “Thank you,” she said, with a trace of her old sweetness. “The Stalker Fang will be delighted.”
“She sent you here to find it?” asked Wren, confused. “But how did she know… ?”
Cynthia beamed. “Oh, no. She believed it was still in Anchorage. She sent an expedition to the place where Pennyroyal said Anchorage went down, but there was nothing there. So I was placed aboard Cloud 9 to spy on him, in case he knew what had really become of it. I could hardly believe my luck when I heard that you had brought the Tin Book itself aboard! I sent a message to the Jade Pagoda at once, and orders came back telling me to leave it safe in Pennyroyal’s office until help arrived. It is important. It may be the key to a final victory. My mistress does not want it copied, or sent by the usual channels. She is coming to fetch it in person. That is her ship out there on the lawn.” She looked down fondly at the Tin Book. “She will reward me well when I give it to her.”
The gunfire from the gardens had ceased. Wren could hear voices out on the sundeck, shouting orders in a language she didn’t recognize. She stepped toward Cynthia, wary of the gun in the other girl’s hand. “Please,” she said, “you’ve got the Tin Book. Can’t you let us go? If the Storm catch Theo…”
“They will kill him like the coward he is,” said Cynthia calmly. “I’d do it myself, but I’m sure my mistress will want to question you both first and find out how much you know about the book.”
“We don’t know anything about it!” cried Theo.
“That’s your story, African. You may decide to change it once the inquiry engines get to work on you.”
“But Cynthia…” Wren shook her head, still numb with the shock of Cynthia’s betrayal. “I don’t suppose Cynthia’s even your real name, is it?”
The other girl looked surprised. “Of course it is. Why shouldn’t it be?”
“Well, it’s not very spy-ish,” said Wren.
“Oh? What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing, nothing… just—”
A bulging suitcase, dropped from the gallery above, hit Cynthia on the head and burst open, scattering gold coins, jewelery and valuable-looking bits of Old Tech. “Oh—” said the girl, crumpling. Her gun went off and punched a hole in the ceiling somewhere above Wren’s head. Theo grabbed Wren and tugged her backward, afraid that there might be more luggage to follow, but when they looked up, they saw only the round, pale face of Nimrod Pennyroyal peering down over the banisters.
“Is she out?” he asked nervously.
Wren went to stoop over Cynthia. There was blood in the girl’s hair, and when Wren touched her neck she could feel no pulse, but she didn’t know if she was feeling in the right place. She said, “I think she might be dead.”
Pennyroyal hurried down the stairs. “Nonsense—it was only a playful little tap. Anyway, she’s an enemy agent, isn’t she? Probably would have killed the pair of you if it weren’t for my quick thinking. I was just upstairs, gathering a few valuables, and I heard you talking.” He chuckled as he prized the book from Cynthia’s fingers. “What a stroke of luck! I thought I’d lost this. Now come along, help me gather up the rest.”
Wren and Theo began to do as he asked. Pennyroyal, perhaps afraid that they would try to rob him, picked up Cynthia’s gun and held it ready while he stuffed coins and statuettes and ancient artifacts back inside the case and sat on the lid to force it shut. The shouting outside drew nearer as Green Storm soldiers, attracted by the sound of the gunshot, converged on the ballroom. “There!” said Pennyroyal. “Now, ho for the boathouse! I tell you what, if you help me carry this lot, you can both come with me. But hurry up!”
“You can’t just leave,” protested Wren, trailing after him through the listing corridors while Theo stuggled along with the suitcase. “What about your people?”
“Oh, them,” said Pennyroyal dismissively.