“I resent that,” he said.

“As you should,” she said, once more gazing through the binoculars. The reef was closer and less visible. Real smoke mixed with vapors that might be something else, and there were countless long trails of white smoke too. And in the midst of it all was Diamond—a child standing between two very tall men, one of them cradling what looked like a harpoon gun.

She let the binoculars drop, landing hard on the floor.

“I trust my lieutenant,” she told the general.

The general blinked and said nothing.

“Show me where I can speak to him, with a secure line. Then you can continue doing what matters.”

“Which is what, madam?”

“Building this truce,” she said. “And then maintaining the peace until everybody gives up this idiot dance.”

List appeared. Or maybe he was never far from Prima. Either way, his voice was formal and loud.

“The Corona’s Archon has the authority,” he grudgingly told the general. “Give my colleague whatever she believes she needs.”

A critical bank of controls stood in the middle of the bridge. A call-line to the front battleworks was opened, and Prima was handed the microphone and a headset so new that it was still wrapped in white paper.

“Sondaw,” she said.

“Yes, madam.”

The lieutenant’s voice was clearer than any other in the room. And because the best lies wore smiles, she smiled.

“You know your duty,” she said.

“Yes, madam.”

“And that is?”

“Acquire the target, and hold the aim,” she had told him earlier.

But wary of other ears, he lied now, quietly saying, “We’ll keep the reef-hammers sheathed and safe.”

“Very good,” she said.

A young soldier was sitting at the adjacent controls. Her duty was to control the rear battleworks, but she was also eavesdropping on the conversation. Prima pretended not to notice. Smiling warmly, sister to sister, she said, “So that I know. Which button can I never push?”

The woman glanced at her general and then List. Then with all the scorn she could muster, she said, “The big red knob. But it doesn’t matter if nothing’s armed.”

Playing the fool, Prima asked, “Is the knob a signal?”

“No, no. It’s a straight wire to the weapons. Except in emergencies, firing mechanisms remain here, with our fleet commander in charge.”

Prima began to examine the complicated panel with its one exceptionally red knob. Then she remembered that something else needed her immediate attention. What was it? She had honestly forgotten. King was still standing at the telescope. The armored boy was avoiding both Archons. She looked at List, and seeing confusion, he called out for the latest intelligence. Spectacular news was easy to find. The fighting had ebbed significantly. Truce flares were being launched by both fleets and from the reef too. Even the stubborn onboard batteries had stopped firing, and the fletches were finally in position to rescue Bountiful’s survivors.

“And where is the Eight?” she asked.

List asked King, but he didn’t react. List’s son said nothing and stood motionless as a statue, and then the officer beside him reported that nothing had come out of the narrow gully where she last saw Merit’s killer. But several whiffbirds had landed nearby, and that miserable ground was teeming with papio.

She repeated that news to the microphone, to Sondaw.

“What about the Ghost?” List asked.

Everyone had one opinion, and the opinions were either that the creature was dead or it had fled.

Prima listened to the speculations, and turning, she noticed a civilian man standing nearby, not especially eager to be noticed. She set down the headset and walked to him without hurrying, smiling out of habit, and with a careful soft voice, she asked one of his ears, “What is it?”

The most important paper was on top.

But as he began to hand over the evidence, she said, “No. Just tell me.”

Nobody seemed to be watching them. Everybody had important work or at least urgent worries, and every voice seemed busy, and she didn’t want to test her eyes or nerves by trying to parse the handwriting of some blood-spattered torturer.

“We do have one prisoner on the Night,” said the aide. “He might know something of value.”

“Who and what?”

“It’s a forester,” the aide said. “And also a smuggler with long ties to the papio. Ten days before the attack, he met with a papio officer in an abandoned wilderness camp. He says they shared drinks, and the papio let himself get drunk. That’s when our smuggler heard something about a creature called the Eight. The Eight had goals and a brilliant plan. The Eight was going to rid the Creation of that hated boy, and a lot of other bad souls would die too.”

“The Eight,” she repeated.

“Or a woman named Divers. Our prisoner’s story keeps changing.”

“Why wasn’t I told this before?”

“Because our people assumed that the prisoner was drunker than the papio, and nobody trusted the testimony.”

“The Eight did all of this,” she said. “The Eight and Divers are the enemy.”

“According to one alcoholic witness, maybe.”

Except List had told her about the Eight, and she knew what was true. Nodding, Prima straightened her shirt and her smile before returning to the control panel. Then she stared at the red knob, imagining Sondaw and the other soldiers sitting inside the battleworks, acquiring targets as best as they could with machines that they had never handled before.

Prima had asked too much of the man.

To prove her humanity, she let herself feel a moment of sorrow.

Then came the hatred, fixated and relentless and pure. The trees were falling around her again. Thousands were dying, and the guilty remained free. Prima looked at the knob and made her fingers resist. No. The boy had to be rescued, and the other survivors had to be safe onboard, and then maybe another little while should pass just to earn some distance, a chance for perspective. But the Eight were inside that smoke and she couldn’t stop believing that this was a remarkable moment:

Nothing would ever make the last days worthwhile.

But if she wished, one good woman could wring a measure of justice out of this madness . . .

The children sat with him. Some obligation was being fulfilled, or maybe they didn’t have anything else to do. Diamond was neither happy nor sad about the company. He rarely looked at them, even when they asked harmless questions or offered a hopeful phrase or two. Sometimes he reacted to what they said. Occasionally his words were appropriate. But when he did look at their faces, it was as if for the first time. Names had to be summoned, by force. He had to remind himself that she was Elata and the boy was Seldom, and there was a long shared history between the three of them where nothing much had happened. In reflection, nothing about those lives seemed unpleasant or special. Then the nightmare descended. It descended, and what was leftover was a ragged jumble. Diamond felt sick inside, in places that didn’t have names. Again and again, he looked at those faces while feeling deeply, eternally forgetful, and the confusion always ended with revelations that left him wishing that he could become lost all over again. Because whenever Diamond saw his two friends, he again remembered how both of them had just become orphans, and he was an orphan too.

The monkey sat on the coral dust, alone, eyes closed and the bruised body rocking back and forth. Master Nissim was injured, the pain inside his bones twisting his weathered face. Healing had never seemed so unfair. Diamond wished he could leave his skin cut, his ribs and fingers shattered. But he was whole and intact when everyone else was broken, and he caught himself wondering why his blood or the touch of his hands couldn’t heal everyone. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? It seemed wonderful until another memory was unleashed: Father claiming that the trick had been tried and didn’t work . . . and again, without fail, the boy found himself looking about the reef, wondering where his father had gone . . .