Finally, as the solar trees peter out into scraggly tundra and then bare rock, it actually becomes possible to see the semaphore towers, which roll by every few kilometers. It must be cold duty manning these stations, Bruno thinks, though not nearly as cold or wearying as the long ride between them.
Finally, Bordi calls another halt. “It would be nice to sleep in Highrock,” he says to Radmer. “But we’re cold and tired already. Let’s get some rest and then regroup for the final push across the summit.”
Radmer carries a pocket watch—a sort of mechanical contraption for ticking off the hours and minutes of the day. Or the night; its hands and numerals glow with the phosphorescent green of radium. He makes a show of checking it now, and as he pops the cover open it casts his face in a sickly light. “Five hours, Captain. No more than that.”
And Bordi answers, “The general is most kind.”
So they make camp, and Natan shows Bruno how to unroll his bivvy, which is a thing that owes its ancestry to sleeping bags and canopy beds and one-man tents but is different from all of these. On the bottom, stiff tendrils of closed-cell foam provide both padding and insulation against the rocky ground. On the top, stiff arches of cloth keep a vented air space above his head, keeping out the wind—or the rain and snow, if there were any. And in the middle are layers of padding which, for a substance not composed of quantum dots, are surprisingly warm and light.
Bruno is asleep before he can draw twenty breaths, and mercifully, the Quantum Horse declines to visit him this time. Still, when Zuq rouses him he resists at first, unable to believe that five hours have really elapsed. “Find your amusement elsewhere, lad!”
But Zuq is both understanding and persistent. “It’s time to go, Ako’i. Come on, I’m responsible for you. Come out of there and pack up.”
There is a hasty meal of nuts and raisins and little flavored bits of dried chicken, washed down with water that has begun to freeze in its bottles.
“How much farther is the summit?” Bruno asks Radmer as the two of them stow their gear aboard the treaders.
“A couple of hours, if we hurry. The people of Highrock need to be warned; if the enemy is here in Black Forest already, Tillspar will be a major target for them, both strategically and materially.”
“A lot of metal, is it?”
“Wellstone, actually. And a lot of it, yes. More importantly, as the only bridge across the Divide, it’s a critical link between East Imbria and the coastal cities. Without it, Manilus and Duran and Crossroad will be cut off. That’s a third of the republic, geographically speaking, and nearly a fifth of its people.”
The night has grown colder still, and there’s a stiff breeze blowing, but at least here there are no solar trees drinking in what little heat remains. The men—and the sole woman left among them—saddle up and go, beneath the river of the Milky Way and the watchful eyes of Orion. The stars, barely twinkling, are as clear here as they would be on the surface of an ordinary planette. You’d need a space suit to get a better view. Murdered Earth is hidden by the mountains; only the glow of headlights interferes.
Still, it’s slow going up here in the cold and thin, and they crest several false summits which prove, to Bruno’s sinking spirits, to have even higher, steeper mountains behind them. Indeed, when they’ve truly reached the top of the pass, Bruno doesn’t realize it until he sees the lights of a small town, kilometers in the distance and slightly below their current position.
“Is that Highrock?” he calls out to Radmer, now several treaders away in the pack.
“Aye,” Radmer confirms. “If you look, you can even make out the bridge.”
And it’s true; past a sharp turn and a fork in the road, Bruno can see the town nestling on either side of some dark expanse, and between them the inverted, caternary arches of a suspension bridge, its cables strung up with electric lights. It’s a scene straight out of his childhood, and it brings another pang of nostalgia. Oh, for those simpler days! But it’s a false longing and he knows it, for the simple life is never simple, nor safe. The Queendom, for all its faults and programmed failures, was a place more worthy of his pining.
“That’s a river, then?” he asks Radmer.
And Radmer laughs. “There is a river, yes, carrying meltwater westward to the Imbrian Sea. On the other side it flows east to Tranquility, where the site of Luna’s first human visit lies submerged under eighty meters of briny ocean. But there’s more to the Divide than that.”
“How so?”
“You missed the Shattering, Ako’i. It’ll be easier to explain when we’re actually on Tillspar, looking down.”
They ride onward, and at the outskirts of the village they encounter a lighted guard shack, with a sort of vestigial gate blocking the road, consisting of little more than a horizontal boom which can be pivoted up out of the way.
“Bestnight. What bin’z, then?” asks one of the two guards in the shack. But the other one, recognizing Radmer in the pack, steps forward in surprise, then finally moves to the doorway and walks out. “Radmer! My God! I never thought we’d lay eyes on you again!”
Radmer chuckles at that. “Oh, ye of little faith. You think a vanishing dot in the sky is the last you’ll see of me? I’m harder to get rid of than that.”
“But we saw it hit the ground! That capsule of yours, a gleam of light in the setting sun!”
“You saw it cross the horizon,” Radmer corrects, “at an altitude of ten thousand kilometers and climbing. Really, Elmer, if the course was plotted by the astronomer Rigby, and the capsule and catapult were overseen by no less than Mika’s Armory and the watchmaker Orange Mayhew, then it’s Highrock’s reputation at stake more than my own sorry skin. Is this or is this not the Artisans’ Pinnacle?”
“Aye,” the guard agrees, “yours was a finely crafted delusion. Wheels and chains, bombs and hatches! A fitting tomb for such as you, big brass balls and all. No offense to the men what built it, sir, but I’m surprised to see you just the same.”
“Well,” Radmer says, pulling out a set of travel orders to show off as a formality, “perhaps you could send word to the mayor, let her know I’m here.”
“I’ve rung the bell already,” the guard assures him.
Soon, the other riders are shouldered aside and Radmer is surrounded by a milling throng of villagers, talking over one another in a rapidly rising din. “How did that air filter work? Radmer? Radmer! Did the wheel springs seize at all? Did the dinite charges hurt when they went off? Where did these Dolceti come from?”
It’s the mayor herself who rescues him, striding along the cobblestone avenue in a green robe, with some sort of golden ceremonial pendant dangling from her neck.
“So. How many lives does a scoundrel have?”
Radmer looks up, suddenly pleased and sheepish, vaguely off balance. “More than he can count, Your Honor. I’m pleased to see you again.”
“I should say the same to you.” She clucks, looking him up and down. “In one piece, no less. That’s good. Did you find what you were looking for up there?”
“I did,” Radmer answers, presenting Bruno with a flourish.
“Hmm.” The mayor then turns her appraising eyes upon this even older Older, who is immediately reminded of his wife. Tamra used to look at Bruno exactly like that—interested, curious, vaguely exasperated—whenever things were just starting to go askew. A couple of years ago, it seemed. A couple of hundred at the very most. “And is he worth your worldly fortune, General? We’re living quite well on the wages you paid us.”