A curse was ready in Karlan’s mouth. But what he did was hold his mouth closed while nodding, and then he look up at the ceiling once before walking away, apparently obeying that command.
And that’s when Diamond understood.
There was no plan inside his mind, nothing so clean and neat as that, and if forced to explain, he couldn’t have defined his own wants. But what he felt was the sudden warm lift that always came before the conscious idea—more instinct than language, simpler and truer. He saw what was important while everything else turned to vapor, drifting away. His mother asked him one question, and he answered it immediately and honestly but couldn’t remember in another moment what she said or he said, and he couldn’t even guess why she had to tip his head over so that she could kiss his eyes. But she gave him those two kisses, and then her hands released him, and as Diamond stepped away, he realized that Master Nissim had found someone else to talk to.
There was a second prisoner here, but she had been forgotten. Nobody would stop Prima if she tried to flee now. But where would she go? Looking up at the teacher, she found enough focus to listen to his careful pleads, but then as Diamond arrived, she reached up, waving her hand like a student might.
Nissim paused.
“Why waste your time with me?” asked Prima. “My vote counts for less than nothing.”
Nissim wasn’t cowed or embarrassed or even hesitant. He instantly explained, “I’m practicing my arguments. That’s all. I want to be ready before I approach the generals with what I know and what I’m afraid of.”
Prima considered laughing. But Diamond’s arrival shifted her mood, and she fell into a keen scorching glare.
Diamond said, “Sir.”
“Yes?”
“We don’t need a telescope.”
Nissim closed his eyes and opened them, and only then did he look at the boy. “Why don’t we?” he asked.
But Diamond didn’t answer. Instead, he turned to Prima. “You need to come with me, madam.”
“Do I?” she asked skeptically.
“Both of you should please follow me, please,” he said.
Karlan had returned. Diamond expected him to be carrying guns, but he wasn’t. Corona skin had been pulled from the scrap pile—a long narrow skin salvaged from an old towing balloon, saved to make patches. He handed the skin to King, and King immediately began wrapping it around his chest, three circuits made before he bunched up the rest of the strap and walked toward the glass coffin.
Every soldier worried. Hammers didn’t seem like enough weaponry, and the hammer-man put his hammer down and motioned for help. Suddenly ten men were warily staring at the Archon’s son, every gun in hand, ready to lift.
King glanced through the glass as he walked past, aiming for Diamond and the others.
List stepped out to meet his son.
King touched his father on the shoulder with a finger, just that, and he walked past the man while calling to Diamond.
Again, that sense of deep knowing took hold.
King was breathing hard and that was all that he was doing. “This is what we are going to do,” he said.
But Diamond said it to his brother first. There was no conscious thought until the words were spoken, and King opened both mouths while the dark green eyes grew even bigger, listening the basics of what he intended to do.
Then he was finished, and after a great breath, King said, “Unless there is a better way.”
The brothers tried silence, wishing for inspirations that never came.
Karlan was speaking quietly to his brother and to Elata too. In the distance, soldiers began to fire at the invaders, killing the corona heads. Conversation became harder work, and looking about the room, a pair of officers noticed King standing with the civilians and how the other soldiers encircled the coffin, guns at the ready. But they didn’t approach by themselves. The chain of command made certain that Meeker was alerted to the new danger, and he felt confident enough to approach, ready to disarm this situation with another few careful words.
The rest of the group was standing close to each other, watching King. Watching Diamond.
“We’re going to retreat,” Meeker began. “Unessential personnel are being pulled back into the tree. There’s a bunker in that heartwood. It’s older than everybody but you two, I’ll wager. This attack can’t last much longer. The coronas are too high, too cold. We’ll outlast them.”
As if to prove him wrong, another full-grown corona drove its body into the damaged door, a long steel shard cutting two soldiers in half.
The gunfire quickened.
Soldiers guarding the coffin wondered if someone should reinforce the defenders.
But Meeker told them, “No, come here,” and then he began to wave at the nearest group of high officers.
King’s left palm drop on top of the general’s head.
Inside the abattoir, everyone stopped talking, and most of the guns quit firing.
“No,” said King. “That won’t happen.”
List started to speak.
King’s other hand covered his father’s mouth and entire face. Then as soldiers pushed close from all sides, he told everyone, “There’s a better shelter for these people. And anybody who stands in my way is going to die.”
List put both of his hands on the smothering hand.
“You’re welcome to remain with us, Father,” King said. “Or if you wish, follow some other branch to its end.”
Big rifles were set against strong shoulders, sights finding their marks on that armored face.
Meeker’s voice broke when he said, “No.”
“What?”
“You won’t do this,” Meeker said.
“What am I going to do?” King began.
Then a lone sniper took the easy shot. Rare metals burrowed into King’s forehead and skidded upwards, leaving a clean gouge carpeted with white bone. Suddenly every officer was shouting, telling everyone to hold their fire, and King reacted instantly, angrily, lifting the general by his head and turning him, fixing that narrow body against the broad armored chest. But pulling that long strip of bladder skin around his captive proved difficult, particularly when a desperate man was squirming and every rifle in the room was pointing at his head.
Diamond jumped forwards to help.
In moments, Meeker was swaddled like a baby, two chests pressed together, and King adjusted the man’s height and made a final hard knot before bending the head forward, allowing his eating mouth to engulf the entire scalp.
Razored teeth began to chew, just enough to let the man sense the kind of pain that would follow.
Meeker went limp.
“Now,” said King with his breathing mouth. “Slow, but not slow.”
Diamond followed the group, making certain that everybody was included. Elata and Seldom were holding hands. Karlan pivoted as he walked, counting the guns aimed at him. Mother said something to her son, and she said the same words into her cupped hands. Prima thought about running away and didn’t, and List shuffled his feet until he half-tripped on a saw that had been forgotten on the floor.
“Father, be careful,” King said.
Soldiers had the coffin surrounded. The hammer-man was shooting King with his imagination, practicing the motion and his aim while dreaming that he would be the hero to bring this monster to its knees at last. Right up until the end, that man was making himself ready, and then a young fellow beside him lifted his pistol, fast but not nearly fast enough, and a creature full of oxygen and nerves took two hard strides before swatting both of those soldiers in their faces, breaking every little bone.
Three snipers fired into King’s back.
And he knocked every soldier off his feet and kicked their guns back at his companions.
Karlan picked up the biggest two rifles, and again, he spun in a slow circle, taking a census of his new enemies.
The glass coffin’s top trough was jammed hard into the bottom trough. King’s first yank did nothing, and the second yank lifted both of them off the floor. But then the top one let its grip slip, and he spun and flung it across the floor.