“My son,” the slayer said. “Before anything, you’ll show me Diamond.”

“Afterwards,” said the officer.

Merit sniffed the air again.

“The boy first, and then I’ll help you,” the mechanic said.

“Very well.”

A young soldier was blocking the hallway. He didn’t wake until the officer kicked him, and then he rose and fumbled with the door.

Merit reached past him, claiming the handle. As the door opened inwards, as he stepped inside, he knew that something was wrong.

The boy was sitting on his cot, his back straight and both feet on the floor.

Diamond never sat that way.

Merit looked around the tiny cabin.

Good came out from underneath the cot. “Good sorry,” he said.

“What did you do?” asked Merit.

“Bit best finger.”

Merit couldn’t count the times he had walked into a room to look at his boy, and he couldn’t shake the strong, chilling sense that something was amiss.

“Show me your thumbs, son.”

The boy pointed two healthy thumbs at the ceiling.

“Is there something else?” he asked.

An odd expression broke on the boy’s face. The little nose crinkled, and Diamond began to comb the curly brown hair with one hand. Tugging hard, he said, “Nothing else,” and then he started to fiercely chew his bottom lip.

Merit turned to the monkey. “Why did you bite your boy?”

“Angry.”

Behind him, the papio officer said, “We need to go.”

Instincts screamed. Everything was wrong, and Merit didn’t want to leave. But whatever had happened was finished, and he was powerless, and the papio could well have made a bullet hole while chasing whatever it was that had scared them so badly.

This puzzle had to wait.

“I’m sorry, Diamond,” said Merit. “It’s my fault we were caught.”

“No,” the boy said.

“I dropped a wrench, and they saw it,” he confessed.

“This is bad,” Diamond said. “But it’s also wonderful.”

“Why wonderful?”

White teeth shone, and the boy realized that he was smiling. Dipping his head, he said, “Never mind.”

The situation kept growing heavier. But Merit forced himself to shut the door, and the sleepy soldier once again sat in front of the cabin. Walking back to the shop to collect tools, Merit noticed as much as he could. He counted soldiers and whiffbirds. A narrow door was open. What was that room? The dead men and pieces of men had been dragged there for safekeeping. But now the papio’s mission leader was filling that tiny space, looking out the door with yellow eyes narrowed, as if she was waiting for enlightenment or the punchline of an intricate joke.

Merit fell in beside the escorting papio.

Behind them, the mechanic said, “I smell it now.”

The stink was rich and unforgettable. Pulled from blossoms of a bug-eating plant, it was the wickedest rot in the world, adored by flies and cadaver bugs. Noses said that this was a bad leak, and Merit regretted wasting time talking to his son.

The officer was ready to accompany them, but he had no anti-static clothes. The mechanic pulled down two pairs of boots and jerseys. Nothing here would fit the papio, but they needed to know the stakes.

“One spark and we burn,” Merit explained, in papio.

The officer looked at the slick rubber clothes, reconsidering his orders.

“I don’t want us to burn,” Merit said. “So yes, you can trust me to go up and patch the hole and come back again.”

“Yes,” the officer agreed. Then turning to the mechanic, he said, “Good luck, Fret.”

The mechanic sighed and walked on.

Bountiful was huge, and every surface was new. Black rubber stairs led to black rubber-draped gangways illuminated by jars of luminescent yogurts. The corona bladders had a milky whiteness that came from being stretched, holding back the hydrogen. But they were young and strong, and nothing besides a huge rifle or small cannon could rip any hole in this material. Several papio filled the gangways, nervous enough to spin around when prisoners approached. Merit told them that their bosses were below, where it was safe. He asked the last soldier what she was hunting. She touched her tattoo of a whiffbird, presumably for luck. “It was nothing, a little wild animal,” she said. “But it’s gone. Are you going above?”

“Shouldn’t we?” asked the mechanic.

“If you can save our lives, go above. Go.” Then she retreated with the rest of her troop.

Rope ladders carried them to platforms too tiny to hold even a small papio. They climbed and sniffed, walked on horizontal ropes and pushed at the rigid bladders with their slick boots. Tanks of compressed carbon dioxide gas were fitted into the gaps, waiting for any excuse to flood the air and kill combustion. But there wasn’t any fire to fight. And with every few steps, the smell continued to strengthen.

“This feels wrong,” the mechanic said. “This high, surrounded by hydrogen, we should feel light in the head.”

Merit nodded, counting more senseless details.

“You know,” the mechanic said. “If we had the proper attitude, we could split some bladder and vent a little gas out the top of Bountiful, and then by accident, light it.”

“A signal, you mean.”

“Visible at night and hot enough to burn the passing leaves, leaving Prima a nice bright trail to chase.”

“Except our hosts would notice the fire,” Merit said.

“Maybe not for a while. Wings and jets aren’t flying, they’re just ballistics. They’re way too fast.”

Another tiny platform waited in front of them.

“I want to try signals,” the old fellow said.

“Except,” Merit said. “The last time I spoke to our Archon, I might have threatened to take my son to the papio and safety.”

The mechanic used a few quiet, rich words.

Merit absorbed the abuse.

And then nobody was speaking. The platform was the last flat surface, and a body was sprawled across it, limbs dangling on three sides. They approached until they were baffled, and then they knelt on the rope, Merit in front, holding the railing with one hand while he played with two days of whiskers.

“It’s a jazzing,” said the mechanic. “A young dead jazzing.”

Merit eased forward, pulling a torch from the tool belt.

“Don’t spark,” his companion warned.

“The bladders aren’t leaking,” Merit said. “This is the stink’s source, and I don’t think it ever was a jazzing.”

The body had been shot several times. Odd flesh had been torn apart, and a sticky black fluid had leaked from the holes, not coagulating so much as simply drying out in the open air. There were eyes that were little more than the pits on a coral viper. No mouth existed because no mouth was needed. The limbs were powerful before they died, and he touched the nearest foot, discovering that the jazzing-style claws were as soft as warm rubber.

“Smell this,” Merit said, waving his fingers under the mechanic’s nose.

“That’s our stink,” the man said with a grimace.

Merit stood. “We drop this body out the nearest vent and climb down like heroes.”

The plan was accepted with a soft laugh. Then the mechanic added, “But what is this creature? Its nothing like any beauty in my school books.”

“I think the school books need updating,” said Merit.

“And the rest of us could use some youth too,” joked his companion.

Once again, Diamond stepped back from the window.

Grayness came again, and the girlish voice. “I won’t be seen. Before dawn, I’ll hide again.”

“Where?”

“In the best place, and I haven’t decided.”

Good was sleeping on the floor, on a nest made from sack pieces and scrap paper. The monkey smacked his lips at some imagined food, and then he gave a long loud fart that changed the cabin air.

Something was funny. Diamond caught himself laughing.

“Dawn’s coming,” Quest warned. “I see signs, and I only have a few eyes.”

The creature was plastered to Bountiful’s hull, a fake window on her backside. She didn’t want a passing ship, any kind of ship, to spy her. She had explained some of her tricks to her brother, including how she played with light and odors. But Diamond had the impression—a quiet, growing impression—that the girl had no real explanations for what she did.