A giant horn blared, urging everybody to class.

Prue didn’t want to turn away.

“Thank you,” Diamond finally said.

The little girl stood up taller, and she looked ready to cry.

Tar`ro and Bits were ushering the others towards their classes—not the noblest work, pretending to be teachers.

“It’s for your mom,” the girl repeated.

Diamond said, “Yes.”

“My mother wanted me to do this,” said Prue.

Diamond nodded.

Then she made a glad smile to show how amiable she was. “My mother wants us to get married,” she confessed. “But I’m not old enough. I will be, but not today.”

Laughter led the way into the classroom.

Master Nissim was standing behind an old bark-and-heart desk that he rescued from the school’s trash. Every drawer had its own way of sticking, and one leg had been repaired by a sloppy carpenter, leaving a distinctive tilt. But their teacher claimed to like the gouges and mysterious pale stains decorating the desk’s historic top, and in particular, he liked the slick bright face of its caramel-colored wood. Selected books stood in neat stacks, flanking a tablet of lined paper. There was also a broad coral bowl full of pens and charcoal sticks and—kept as ornaments—a corona’s broken tooth and an intact corona’s scale, plus the pickled chrysalis from a giant green thunderfly.

Nissim was tall, almost a giant, sporting a butcher’s forearms and big hands. A plain face was wrapped around bright black eyes, and inside the man was a smile that could fill the room. But the smile was hiding. A stern voice, deep and disapproving, asked, “Now what is so funny, my boy?”

Everybody was laughing, but the Master was staring at Diamond.

Dipping his head, Diamond said, “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Maybe you should be. But I want to know why you were giggling.”

Why was he?

“Because that girl wants to marry him,” Seldom offered.

“I am sorry, Seldom. I was speaking to Diamond.”

Nissim had a warm nature, and in different circumstances he would be everyone’s favorite uncle, the jokester in the middle of the fun and the storyteller who went last because nobody would willingly follow him. But he ran his classroom as if this was the Grand University in the District of Districts. Manners and tone were as important as facts and calculations. Every student existed inside a ring that defined what was proper, and if the most important pupil stepped out of the ring, he would suffer a well-deserved dressing down.

Diamond was self-conscious, wary. “I don’t know why I was laughing, sir.”

“Well, I think I do,” the Master said.

Everybody paused. Even the guards seemed curious. Only Good ignored the coming lesson, jumping off the boy’s shoulder to scramble onto the windowsill.

But just as the tensions rose, Nissim said, “Later. We’ll talk this through later.”

Six students were already sitting at their desks, books open and lessons begun. Invitations to join this class came only from the Master, and nobody was certain about his reasons. Intelligence was rewarded, and he was a champion of imagination, but there were smarter, more artistic students sitting bored and unappreciated in the ordinary classrooms. These six were bright enough, but all of them were older than Diamond, and as a rule, each of them tended to be suspicious and sometimes hostile towards him.

“Humans are social beasts,” Nissim liked to say. “You need to learn how to get along with them.”

“I feel human,” Diamond would respond.

“And you’re putting the emphasis on the wrong word, my beast.”

Three empty desks waited beside the open window. Their classroom was perched just under the highest roof. The police blimp had already locked its anchor arm with the overhead iron loop, and now it was floating close to the window but not too close. A black-clad officer was linking the blimp’s call-lines to the school’s lines and the world’s, and the growling engines began throttling down, preparing for the day’s sleep.

Seldom sat in front of Diamond, always, and Elata was directly behind him. The classroom was meant for twice as many students, but the extra floor space had been consumed by tools and distractions. Reinforced bookcases held a library as big as the school’s, drawn from Nissim’s stocks as well as donated by the local Archon. Heavy, historic tables held scientific equipment, including microscopes and dissection kits and growth chambers and fancy corpses floating inside thick-walled jars. Cages controlled what was small enough and tough enough to survive captivity. The final three desks were dedicated to the guards. Tar`ro usually claimed the desk beside the door, while today Bits took the back wall and Sophia sat facing the classroom from the window-side front corner, looking like a second teacher ready to leap in should Nissim lose his way.

Bits was in charge of both receivers—the school call-line and the secure line to the Ivory Station. Regulations required waving to the blimp, letting them know that they were in place, and then he lifted the line to the Station, informing Prima’s office that they had arrived and everything was normal.

Diamond often spent the first recitation staring out the window. The window was a long rectangle protected at night by heavy shutters that were lowered and stowed after the rain. Living higher up on Marduk and on the opposite side, he normally faced smaller trees and the distant wilderness. This vista was dominated by Rail and Hanner—enormous blackwoods, thicker and even older than their home tree. Each giant was surrounded by huge reaches of empty air. There was always blimp traffic that wanted to be watched, and there were birds and leatherwings, and certain species of insects preferred flying in the damp brilliance of morning, and even after endless practice, Diamond couldn’t keep track of which creature made what music, squawk or shrill whistle or weightless trill.

Nissim was giving the newcomers instructions.

Seldom opened the right book and found the proper page.

“Which page?” Elata asked.

Diamond knew. He wasn’t consciously listening but still knew, except that he didn’t offer any help today. He had already disappointed the Master, and silence seemed to be the best course.

With a yelling whisper, Seldom told her the page number.

Thin netting covered the otherwise open window, keeping wildlife outside. Good was leaning against the screen, in a place dented by hundreds of past naps, contentedly closing his eyes.

Beneath the sill, stacked in neat heaps, were cloth sacks painted red and needing no further explanations.

Diamond opened the textbook.

“ ‘There are colors of light that humans cannot see,’ ” the Master read aloud, “ ‘and we rely on our machines to define them. But what if there are shades and tones and even nations of color that our best devices cannot define? What if we are so blind that we don’t know how to put a measure to our blindness?’ ”

Silly questions deserved abuse, and Tar`ro laughed.

Too polite to do the same, Sophia showed a smile and nothing more.

The guards often believed that the Master’s ideas were idiotic. They kept every opinion secret in the beginning, but familiarity put an end to that sanction. And besides, the teacher welcomed their scoffing attitudes.

“They are the voice of the world,” Nissim would say with force.

Lessons wrapped in lessons: that was the ex-butcher’s way.

Once again, the Master said, “Blindness.”

Everybody was sitting up straight.

“Let’s discuss the idea,” he said.

Everybody had the opportunity, and they knew it.

Diamond kept his arm from lifting. Three of the older students had the first say, and then Seldom, and Diamond listened to every word even as his eyes watched blimps dropping toward the canopy and lifting when they made the return route. Then the school call-line came alive, its distinctive buzz ending when Bits lifted the receiver.