“You no longer need us!” She raised her arms, appealing to the crowd, and again the sound swelled around her. When it died, she continued: “In the forty years of time that have passed in the lockstep, populations have moved in, but they’ve also moved out. Emigrants have taken our practices to other worlds and other locksteps, and honed and refined them over countless centuries. Our culture has touched those of other worlds again and again, like a hammer tapping a bell. Every thirty years another note, a reminder of who we are and how we live, resounding through the fast worlds. How could we have guessed that the echoes from the previous note would still be sounding when the next was rung? How could we know that its peal would grow and grow, amplified by time, until today the Guides have nothing to do—whole worlds of millions of people petition to join the lockstep, and they know more about how to live in 360 than we do!”
Again Peter laughed. “It’s true. Kenani and the others were having a bit of a problem deciding how to tell us. But for a couple of years now, they haven’t had much to do.”
“The Guides, and our family’s monopoly on the cicada beds, were necessary to stabilize our lockstep’s culture and identity through its middle years,” said Evayne. “But they’re not necessary anymore. That is why you are here today. We began the lockstep and we have lived in it from the beginning, but you have lived with it longer! It’s time you took the reins to lead us into the next era of lockstep time: the era of our full maturity as a civilization.”
There was more—much more—but Evie was just embellishing and amplifying her themes. Toby and Peter watched, and listened to the changing murmur and roar of the crowd, and eventually, to thunderous applause, Evie finished and stalked majestically from the stage.
“She’s gonna want a drink after that,” said Peter.
Toby hardly knew what to say. “She … she really came around.”
Peter shrugged. “She’s had six years to accept the idea—and to preach the new way on the fast worlds.” He tilted his head and tapped his nose mischievously. “Lockstep time, Toby. Get used to it.”
He shook his head. “I’m … not sure I can.”
Peter looked serious now. “I’ve been wondering about that. Actually, we all have. You scared Evie, dragging her so close to realtime on Thisbe. Didn’t seem to scare you, though. And my people tell me you’ve developed a fascination with the fast worlds.”
“Why wouldn’t I? There’s just so much out there!” Toby barked a laugh. “I mean, fourteen thousand years! Come on! I keep hearing about these amazing places, these incredible stories and histories. I want to see them all.”
“Why don’t you, then? Surely it’s not us that’s keeping you here?” Peter had crossed his arms again and now looked down his nose at Toby, becoming in that instant the elder friend rather than the little brother who’d shared Evie’s speech.
Toby turned away. “I would,” he admitted. “But you said it yourself: Lockstep time is tricky. If I step out of it for just a second…”
“Everyone leaves you behind?” Peter shrugged. “You’re right, you can’t step in or out of lockstep time without damage. Still, if you want to see the universe … you can return. Just be willing to pay the price.
“Hell, maybe you should go. You could come back when you’re older than me again and kick my ass!” He laughed richly and turned to go.
“I’ve got work,” he said as he crossed the marble floor, but then he seemed to remember something and looked back. “Oh, by the way. Package for you. It’s in my study.”
With that he disappeared into a cloud of bots and human advisers who had converged on him from various directions. In a babel of conversation, he left the airy chamber.
Toby stared after him, mind blank; then he shook his head and put his glasses on. He needed the online maps to find his way around here.
Peter’s study was two levels down and half a kilometer away, through a maze of corridors and chambers. There were guards and attendants everywhere, but they all smiled and waved Toby through. More than a few of them must have guessed who he was, but apparently Peter didn’t employ fanatics. (Or maybe they just stopped being fanatics after knowing a real-life McGonigal for a while.)
He was distractedly focused on the map when he came around the last corner, and he’d passed so many people that at first he took no notice of two more. They were leaning on the gold wall next to the door to Peter’s study, and it was finally their casual (and utterly out of place) stances that made Toby look up.
“Shy! Jay!”
Jaysir laughed. “You’d have walked right by us. What’re yer watchin’, Toby?”
“Just lost. But I guess this is the right place.” He didn’t know whether to shake hands or what, but Sheilif stepped into his hesitation and hugged him. Jay, as usual, just stood back grinning.
“When did you get in?”
“We hitched a ride with the Thisbe delegation,” said Jay. No, no, we didn’t stow away! They gave us a cabin. Even a bed for Shadoweye.”
Toby nodded but impatiently went on. “Did you find her? Is she here?”
Jaysir and Sheilif exchanged a glance. “We didn’t exactly … find her,” said Jay. “It’s complicated. Why don’t you take a look?” He nodded at Peter’s study. Uncertain, Toby frowned at them and opened the door.
Like the room where he’d watched Evie’s speech, the study was round, but much homier. It was lined in imported wood and paneled with bookcases. The carpet was deep green, featuring a compass rose in gold; north pointed to a single vast desk with an incongruous twentieth-century banker’s lamp and blotter on it. Toby hadn’t been here before, so it took him a moment to absorb the details—red leather armchairs, liquor cabinet—and then actually see what couldn’t be a normal fixture of the place.
A small cicada bed, the kind used for babies or pets, stood next to a large Martian globe. A small shape was curled up inside it.
Toby took a hesitant step, then another, then one of those Martian bounds that could cover three meters. He flung open the bed’s canopy and gathered Orpheus into his arms. Jay and Shy had followed him into the room, but Toby had all but forgotten them now.
“You—you’re…” The denner was asleep, or unconscious, and his fur felt very, very cold. Toby fell into one of the armchairs, wrapping himself around his friend and trying to will his own body heat into him.
Thrum, thrum … There was the familiar vibration, coming from deep inside his own body. He hadn’t felt it in a long time; he’d been using McGonigal beds to winter over since leaving Thisbe. He felt the strength of that signal building, though, like a call to Orpheus. I am here, I am here, it said.
Faintly, he felt an answering tremor through his fingers.
“He wouldn’t wake up,” someone said.
Toby closed his eyes. That hadn’t been Shylif or Jay.
“We tried, but he wouldn’t answer our call. Even after we healed his wounds, he dove deep, to places we couldn’t follow. Down a well of sleep…”
Through tears, he looked up at Corva. She stood in small doorway opposite the one he’d come in. Wrecks sat at her feet, his tail curled around his paws. “You disappeared,” she went on. “I didn’t know if your sister had killed you, or if you were on your way to Destrier like Halen said…”