Quest considered stepping outside, remaking herself with the sleek shape of a champion hawk and then leaping.
But one bold thought woke old fears, nailing her current feet to the floor.
And then as if proving her wisdom, new aircraft arrived at the battle site. They were swift despite being burly, odd bones riding some very powerful jets. Quest had studied every papio weapon, and these resembled nothing else—entities created just now, for this special day.
One of the new aircraft rushed the corona, jets pivoting as it slowed abruptly, parking beneath that lone fletch that had lashed itself to the creature.
The corona blew air and hovered, and the other fletches converged, making a larger circle around their round quarry. And the swift papio wings circled in the distance while the new ships hovered in a single watchful mass. All of the fuel in the world wouldn’t keep the papio aloft for long, she thought. And then the corona let out a bright flash of yellow light, and one side of the body dipped far enough to slice into the demon floor. The floor broke, splitting like the face of water in a bowl, and the creature dropped farther, necks pulling back as if to avoid this fate, and then the great body flapped its edges and blew air and swelled even more, lifting up once again, defeating its weight and its drag for another few moments.
Flares were dropped from the other fletches.
A new plan was found.
Half of hunter ships attacked the corona, piercing it with harpoons tied to lines that dragged dozens of flattened bladders into the bright furious air. Pressurized hydrogen turned the bladders into taut white balloons. The miserable corona continued to flap and blow, but now a hand was lifting it from above. Altitude was bought, and the corona quit struggling for a moment or two, and it was easy to imagine thankfulness in those next flashes of blue light, and then more flashes far beyond purple.
Then the papio attacked again, en masse.
For Quest, time wasn’t defined by how long it took one human mouth to finish one recitation. Time was the accumulation of incidents and activities, and if nothing happened, no time passed. Or like now, everything below her happened at once, and time had never been swifter. Those blunt new aircraft singled out fletches to attack from below, presumably to steal them from their crews. Other fletches were attacked by warrior pilots onboard the roaring hawkspur wings. She could hear the battle, the gunfire and explosions and the occasional blaring horn pushing through the morning air. She heard the concussive blasts of breath coming from the dying giant. What had been scattered fleets turned into a single confused maelstrom. Even her spectacular eyes and swift reflexes fought to keep track of every ship. Nothing was certain. But it seemed as if the papio had the initiative, tearing apart two and then another three fletches with no losses of their own. And every one of the new aircraft was positioned beneath a target—sometimes two underneath the same target. All the fuel in the world wouldn’t keep them aloft for much longer, but this was a one-way mission. Papio soldiers must have drilled and drilled in secret, probably for hundreds of days, learning how to steal the fletches and save themselves while giving their species the spectacular gift.
The tree-walkers were losing.
Quest started making brave little plans to find her way to the reef, to watch any new siblings being born, although there wasn’t much chance that she would actually dare it.
Then an eye that never blinked saw everything change.
The corona was doing nothing. It wasn’t blowing, and the soft old body had shriveled, each of its bladders deflating slightly. And then every neck was moving, swifter than Quest imagined possible. They stretched and reached above the body, those old jaws grabbing what they could and holding as tight as they could with the few teeth left to them. They bit down on the papio machines, nothing else, and the necks tugged until the aircraft spilled one way or another, losing their trim.
Quest counted the ships plunging through the floor.
Every ship died.
One plan was ruined, and now the hawkspurs on the periphery swept in to attack the corona, trying to puncture the balloons keeping it aloft. But more fletches drove harpoons and balloons into the body, and the high-hands were ready with crossing fire and easy, bold targets already short of ammunition. The corona was suddenly limp and most certainly dead, but the papio were defeated as well. One species survived, and what had triggered the slaughter was adorned with a hundred swollen balloons that worked as one, forcing the carcass upwards, fast and then faster.
Quest stepped back from the telescope.
One last time, she looked at the man on the floor. Except for the achingly slow rise and fall of his chest, he didn’t move. He was alive but with nothing to spare.
She knelt down, prying open one blind eye.
A taste of the antidote passed into the quiet, half-dead blood.
Then she stepped outside, looking up at the forest, each of the enormous bloodwoods wrapped with homes and stubby, bristle-leafed limbs, each one tapering down to a point like the point where she stood, as close to the sun as possible. Thousands of people were hiding. Thousands more were watching the marvels below. And meanwhile the dead corona was covered with balloons and rising faster by the instant, which was what Quest was watching when another brave plan came to mind—a plan that refused to be ignored.
Major engagements, regardless how distant, meant the immediate rooms were locked down. Public call-lines were disabled. Air vents were sealed. Toilets stopped working after the first flush. Without windows, the outside world was an invisible realm quivering with potential. One could imagine anything happening. But Diamond’s thoughts always turned the long-feared kidnapping: a squadron of top-line fletches defending the palace, well-rested soldiers marshalling inside the palace hallways and ballrooms, and the papio arriving on columns of flame and thunder.
Most lockdowns were brief and dull, ending without explanation.
The resident sentries were as uninformed as anyone else trapped inside, though they worked hard conveying that guardly sense of stoic, unimaginative resolve.
But there were long attacks that brought endless sirens and little else. The adrenalin kick was soon swallowed by life, and because no room was considered safer than any other, life inside their home continued as best as it could. Elata dressed after breakfast.
The trip to the Grand University was out of the question, so Nissim suggested that school start early.
Mother informed the sentries that everybody would be in the classroom. She sat in back. Good made a bed between her and Diamond. The Master stood up front, and with an expression more calm than concerned, he contemplated the wailings. “This does seem longer than usual,” he admitted.
“Maybe it’s a drill,” Seldom suggested.
Drills sounded the same as attacks, but they had more endurance.
Scratching his chin and the bristly whiteness, Nissim said, “I don’t think a drill . . . ”
And then every siren was turned off, the world filled with an abrupt, ear-rattling silence.
Everyone was ready for the soldiers’ call-line to blare, announcing the lockdown’s end. But what they heard was the grumbling chatter between a pair of men at the end of the adjacent hallway.
Mother excused herself and left.
Master Nissim grabbed a history book, naming a likely page.
Seldom dutifully opened his copy. Diamond had already read the book to the end, and putting his hands over the cover, he closed his eyes, flipping through the pages in his mind.
Mother and the guards were whispering. The guards’ call-line was working, but nobody wanted to share any news with them.
A pad of paper and two pencils were on Elata’s desk. Her textbooks were stowed, and nothing mattered but drawing what was inside her head.
The Master said her name.
“I heard you,” she said, drawing faster.
Nissim wanted to be careful with Elata. Watching the girl, he felt a teacher’s frustrations mixed with growing concerns. Nobody here should be happy. Tragedy had weight and power, and each face showed its effects hundreds of days later. For a long while, Elata was the bellwether, first to anger and quick to cry and quicker still to tell the Master that history was a ridiculous subject.