Coming out of the tunnel, Elata blinked and wiped at her tears. Everyone was walking on a landing that pretended to be attached to a normal rich home. The palace was on the far side of the bloodwood. Middle-of-the-Middle was this tree’s name, which she never liked. What she liked for a name was Marduk, and just that name triggered an image of herself, grown up and prosperous. The war was finished, and in her daydream she was the person honored with the chance to plant a new blackwood at the top of the world, naming it whatever she wanted.

Marduk was the name floating in her wet, weak head.

“This way,” the talking soldier told them.

They weren’t taking any of the normal routes off the landing. This was better than she could hope. They were aiming for the landing’s tip. A small, heavily armored fletch was moored there, waiting. Elata was ready. She felt her legs relax, preparing to sprint, and her eyes turned to the right long enough to make certain that the closest gate wasn’t closely guarded. Ten good strides and she would be gone. She knew it. But then she made the blunder of looking ahead again, searching for the closely cut scalp of a boy who had almost stopped looking like a boy.

She didn’t see Diamond anywhere.

Surprise made her gait slow, and then a very warm hand took her from behind, grabbing her by the elbow.

“Are you all right?” Diamond asked.

She hadn’t been paying attention. Diamond was behind her all this time, probably watching her.

As much as anything, she hated living with his stares.

But now they were talking quietly. She assured him that she was fine fine fine, nervous but not too badly so.

Together, the two of them walked up the gangway into the fletch.

People noticed the two of them, and there were smiles.

Why did all this bother her so much?

FOUR

Mature bloodwoods were extraordinary in their length, reaching deeper into the Creation than any other tree, and even the youngest, most sun-starved among them were still giants. Each bloodwood was a spike of vibrant living wood. The wood was lightweight and indifferent to fire, and the brownish-red bark might be ten strides deep, while the branches resembled short burly trees growing horizontally, covered with dense tangles of blackish-green spines and needles that served as leaves. But no mere half-trees grew in the District’s middle. Only the greatest of the grand were allowed, each hanging alone with its army of stubby branches. Every morning’s light rose full and strong into the forest, feeding the overhead jungles and farms, and mouths and more mouths. This was abundance. Here the Creation had been mastered. Each mindless tree was endless and enormous, too old to count reliably, and even at a distance, too vast for eyes to hold.

From inside a quick fletch, the Middle-of-the-Middle seemed like a Creation in its own right, and Diamond almost believed that he could feel that mass of wood and brown bark and sap and people pulling at him.

And it was pulling.

The Master had explained: scientists manipulating wires and steel balls had proved that objects tugged at every other object, and these great pillars were cloaked with a power that revealed itself in the dance of every tiny sphere.

“Of course your bodies can feel none of this magic,” Nissim said. “These impulses are everywhere, but they’re minuscule. The demon floor is what we experience. The floor has its own relentless pull, and that’s what wrestles with us every moment, and every object obeys it, and there are reams of strong, hard-to-see evidence that it is the same for the coronas too.”

“They look up at the sun, not up at us,” Seldom had said, gladly guessing at the Master’s next words.

And grinning over her busy pencil, Elata had whispered to Diamond, “Which you knew all along, didn’t you?”

But the sun was under his feet, and he didn’t let himself think otherwise.

The ranking soldier had told Diamond to stand away from the window, letting him watch without being seen, and the boy thought about quite a lot while staring out at a rectangle of bark and landings and the critical government buildings that looked like toy houses pinned to the Creators’ wall. And then the fletch turned without warning, sprinting toward the adjacent tree.

This was not a long journey, but it seemed as if the roaring propellers weren’t covering space nearly quickly enough. Diamond stood between Elata and Seldom. None of them spoke. Nissim was making friends with soldiers and of the crew. Somehow the Master was able to say a few words that meant nothing, and watching faces until clues were given, it was easy for him to pick the one person onboard this airship who might answer his questions.

“They told us all about the corona,” Nissim said.

That wasn’t quite true, and it wasn’t a question. But there were slippery ways to steal what others knew.

Nissim smiled at his victim, saying, “It’s the same kind of giant that gave us the children, that boy there.”

The crewman glanced at Diamond.

“We heard the sirens,” Nissim said. “Of course we couldn’t see anything, buttoned up indoors like we were.”

“Oh, there was a battle,” the crewman volunteered.

He was younger than the various soldiers, probably in the fleet not more than a couple hundred days.

“Did you take part?” Nissim asked.

“Oh, no, sir,” he confessed. “The slayers did the hunting, the fighting. They’re the ones to be applauded.”

Seldom started forward, ready with a question.

Nissim warned him away with a glance. Then he nodded, and with a low voice, he said, “Tomorrow’s Girl.”

The crewman blinked, plainly impressed. “Oh, you heard what the Girl did?”

“Yes,” Nissim lied.

“A bunch of heroes on that good ship,” he said happily.

Soldiers knew better than expose the names of ships or their activities. But this wasn’t their ship or their problem, so they retreated to distant parts of the cabin, watching for enemies they could fight.

“Karlan,” said Seldom.

The crewman glanced at the boy, a trace of suspicion in his otherwise earnest, self-possessed face. “Who’s Karlan?”

“That boy’s brother,” said Nissim. “Our last news was that he was stationed on Tomorrow’s Girl.”

“I wouldn’t know either way, sir. But I heard half their crew is dead.” It was important to sound brave, which in his mind was the same as being caustic. “But the survivors are what helped win the corona, and they’re getting first honors cutting up that big ugly carcass.”

A second bloodwood was slowly, slowly approaching. It was as big and ancient as the Middle-of-the-Middle, and a sweeping portion of its trunk was recently cleared of homes and businesses. That was an Archon project, huge amounts of capital and labor focused on a single structure that was nearly as big as the palace. Its exterior was armored with scales and adorned with cannons, while the vast interior was built around the world’s largest room, lit with mirrors by day, and in the night, powerful lamps.

During peaceful days, coronas were butchered on the reef, the papio receiving two-fifths of the carcass. A few rough little abattoirs were scattered across the other Districts, but they were raided by the papio, and more and more targeted by bandits. Now the precious carcasses were brought to a worthy fortress, and List refused to be shy when it was time to take credit for this work.

Diamond approached the front window, fingers to the glass.

No soldier bothered to stop him.

A wide landing was perched at the bottom of the abattoir, eleven fletches moored in the air above. Some were damaged, and at least one engine was smoking. But none were Karlan’s ship. Probably the Girl towed the corona inside, but every door and window was closed. The only traces of activity were a few deflated balloons dangling on the scaffolding outside and one broad vent spouting a thick stream of fumes—the exhaust from hard-running motors.