Once they were moored, the soldiers gathered them up before the leader said, “Between us, and keep moving.”
The gangway was steep and brief, and the landing was washed in the sunshine reflected off the scale-encrusted building overhead. Everybody walked fast, the officer bearing toward a pair of closed steel doors. Engine smoke and ashes mixed with a rich stink that was like nothing but what it was: the blood of dead coronas.
The landing ended with small steel doors. The giant doors were high above. Prima was walking ahead of them, and then one guard dropped a hand on her head, much as a parent would do to a small child. The hand told her to stop, and she stopped. The second guard gave the doors a worthwhile kick. Inspired by the monkeys, he offered a few curses, and the steel pulled opened on hinges that were new and well-greased.
The criminal was led inside.
Haddi was close to her son, and she touched an arm. “Look at me,” she said.
Diamond looked to the other side.
“See me,” she said, and she reached up, grabbing his misshapen chin and pulling his eyes towards her.
The two of them weren’t walking anymore.
Quietly, fiercely, the old woman said, “You know what I want.”
“What?” Diamond muttered.
Seldom was past them, yet he couldn’t help but look back.
“I told you,” she said.
“I know,” he said.
“Don’t wait,” she said.
Diamond grasped his mother’s wrist, squeezing until she flinched and he flinched in turn. They were like one face shared by a distorting mirror, both feeling agonies far worse than any hurting bones.
Elata was beside Seldom.
Wanting to be helpful, he said, “We’ll be home again soon.”
A rough sound came out of her; she didn’t act thankful.
“What?” he asked.
“Never mind,” she said.
Everybody was a difficult friend. That was the only conclusion that Seldom could count on, or so it seemed.
New soldiers and one civilian emerged from that same door. The Archon of Archons was the only person in normal clothes, which made him look extraordinary. He was walking half a step behind the top general. General Meeker liked dull green silk uniforms and no special hat. As long as the humans were battling the papio, the Archon’s office was subordinate to Meeker. Seldom didn’t like politics, maybe because he was so bad at them, but he lived in a palace full of little else, and he had heard and heard and heard again that the two men were like married people. And everybody knew which partner was supposed to be in charge
“Not now, not under these conditions,” said Meeker.
This was a marriage with a lot of public fighting.
List said a word or two that Seldom couldn’t make out.
“Without my authority,” the general said. Then he nearly bolted from the pack, fixing his eyes on Diamond.
“Get inside,” he told the boy.
The rest of them didn’t exist.
The Supreme Commander acted as if he was the only trustworthy guard. He put himself beside Diamond, and List stood waiting. The Archon’s hair and eyebrows had turned gray since the war began, and wrinkles were thriving close to the bright smart eyes. But there was always a boy inside the man, not just in the high voice or his small body, but something in the way that most senseless, silly crap would suddenly make him happy.
List said, “I’m very glad you’re here, Diamond.”
Diamond muttered nothing sensible.
And then List was smiling, almost laughing when he said, “You should be here. You deserve this. Absolutely, this is where you have to be.”
Meeker was taller than the Archon but even thinner, and the general’s voice was ordinary, almost dull. But he knew how to be heard, telling everyone in the world, “The papio won’t let this stand. They want what we have, and before today’s done, they’re going to try and take everything from us.”
All of the soldiers seemed taller suddenly, every shoulder squared.
List kept grinning, acting as if this was his party. He welcomed Haddi by name, and he made a show of shaking the Master’s hand before calling to Elata and finally Seldom. Without warning, without preparation, he was a charming man, right down to the way that he told an adolescent boy, “Your brother is the hero, you know.”
“Karlan’s alive?”
“Absolutely.”
“Is he shot, or anything?”
“Not that I could see,” the Archon reported. “And I’ll tell you this too: without your brother, we might have lost everything.”
Meeker disapproved of something, maybe everything.
“Indoors,” he said. “There’s room for heroes indoors.”
They passed through the steel doorway, discovering stairs and sunlight. The sunlight’s color changed, brightened and blued by an army of mirrors and lenses and the polished tubes that sent the easy light into what was the largest man-made space in Creation. The room was so large that five different fletches could float overhead, and dozens of balloons gathered into a bright white mass, waiting for their hydrogen to be piped safely away. Seldom blinked, holding a hand over his eyes, once again thinking how odd it was, this much sunlight pouring from above.
The stairs finished, and a noisy crowd stood beyond in little clusters and sloppy lines. Prima, the criminal, was gazing across the butcher floor. The largest animal in the Creation was sprawled out before her, dead and black and stinking in horrible ways. The body had been pulled out long, much like the corona that Seldom had seen on the reef. The heads and necks were the closest part of it. The body easily crossed that enormous space, great straps and little straps ready to secure its necks. But while younger, healthier carcasses were dangerous long after death, this creature would never move again. Each one of the heads was limp, jaws pulled wide, exposing shattered teeth and no teeth, eyes already turned to a pale slippery gel.
And that was when Seldom saw what was always willing to be seen. This vast floor and room and the entire oversized facility were designed to serve many jobs, but particularly this one. A corona twice as massive as any other could be brought here, and here it could be defended: those ancient guts full of treasures infinitely more valuable than any iron or flesh.
Seldom watched for a second giant.
King wasn’t who he wanted, but that’s who he saw first. Strolling on top of the corpse, wearing trousers but no shirt, no shoes, spines and the razored edges of his armor throwing sunlight around the Archon’s son.
Softly, Seldom called out his brother’s name.
And like magic, he spotted Karlan on the butchering floor, standing fearlessly beside the dead necks and dead heads. The young slayer was dressed in white clothes so clean they had to be new, one hand holding a power saw that was sleeping against his hip. Karlan wanted to get busy. That’s what his body said. He was watching the various dignitaries and criminals and boys who just happened to be someone’s friend, waiting for anyone’s order to commence cutting.
Seldom waved at Karlan.
Noticing him, the warrior offered one crisp nod.
Then quietly but not softly, Haddi said, “Now Diamond. Now.”
Diamond approached Prima, and she immediately turned to him.
With a grim gray voice, he said, “Madam.”
She said, “What?”
“I’m very sorry,” he said. “For everything, madam, I’m sorry.”
The one-time Archon studied the boy. Or maybe she wasn’t seeing anything. People did that sometimes when they were thinking. Then her eyes closed and pulled in a breath so big that her body seemed to grow. Alone among these people, the woman didn’t look any older. Prison was easier than waging war, Seldom thought. But her voice had turned thick and a little slow, and the words came out sharp.
“What exactly makes you sorry?” she asked.
Diamond opened his mouth and said nothing.
“Then why say the word?” Prima asked.