The papio attacked before darkness. They came exactly as they were supposed to come: a rapid bruising strike with those winged machines that both amused and terrified every fletch captain. Big wings flew beneath the trees, burning fabulous volumes of alcohol even before they climbed toward Danner and the Station. Local airships and tree-mounted gun turrets fired at the blurring targets, and the papio pilots spun and evaded the worst of the gunfire, targeting the worthiest, easiest targets. Fortunes of metal and polished coral were sent flying. Holes were punched through even the toughest corona scales. Late day battles were always the worst. The atmosphere’s high oxygen content meant that fuel tanks ignited with the first spark, while bladders filled with hydrogen gas were bombs waiting for any excuse. Wings shattered and dropped. Airships turned to clouds of flame, their bones littering the open air beneath. But the Happenstance’s captain had his youngest, sharpest-eared crewman listening to the winds, and he launched with the first rumbling of jets, diving into the thickest portion of Danner’s surviving canopy.

Ship and captain roared between branches, shredding leaves and a lot of birds as they fought for distance and invisibility and one last dose of luck.

Then the first mate tore open the sealed flight plan.

“Dirth-home,” she read aloud.

That was a small surprise. They were being ordered toward a keenwood growing on the edge of the District of Districts. It wasn’t an obscure place, but on a table of useful destinations, Dirth-home dangled near the trash can.

“Do we have any followers?” the captain asked.

No papio were visible, thankfully.

The superstitious man had little faith in their prospects. He gave orders about direction and speed, yet he refused to sacrifice the resident baddilick—a golden rat kept for desperate occasions.

“Leave him alone,” the captain said, forcing his crew to shove the angry animal back into its cage.

“But blood could help,” said the first mate. “And it certainly wouldn’t hurt.”

The captain meant to respond. Another moment or two, and he would have explained how their good luck would be someone else’s curse. But a papio flex-wing spied them, diving low and turning its jets to hover long enough to afford two clean shots, and their unarmored engines were instantly turned to scrap.

Twin fires were quenched with smothering gases and foam, but meanwhile the Happenstance drifted into a great old branch, and one of its bladders was punctured, bleeding a fountain of hydrogen.

Of course Diamond could be burned alive and live regardless. Isn’t that what the rumors claimed? The boy was the target, the prize, and that’s why the first wing fell back and fired off flares, signaling its companions. Suddenly three more roaring machines found stretches of bark and walkways where they could set down. Turning to his crew, the captain gave one order, and he meant it, and when nobody reacted, he cursed them and grabbed up the baddilick, throwing the live animal out an open window.

Again, he screamed at his people, “Get out of here.”

But the papio had already reached them. Males and females were the same size, each as heavy as two normal men. They wore the same coral-colored blue-black uniforms. Forcing open both hatches as well as the service entrance, they boarded with the precision that comes only after considerable practice, conquering the crippled ship before another recitation passed.

The top papio was a powerful male with a long rifle and brass pins buried in his ugly face. He looked like a man ready for a fight, the papio mouth proving adept at the human language.

“You will walk me to the cabin,” he told the captain. “You will lead.”

In his life, the captain had never been braver. He was a prisoner, and his ship was crippled, the stink that rode with the hydrogen souring every breath. The carbon dioxide tanks were drained. Any little spark or ill-aimed bullet would ignite that deflating bladder. The little man had every right to feel doomed, and he was pleased to make it halfway to the cabin without collapsing. But his courage felt spent after that, and legs that he had trusted all of his life turned to noodles. He stumbled twice before the soldier picked him up with one hand, shaking him like a monkey, saying, “We want nothing but the boy.”

The captain managed to stand, discovering his voice again. “Why do you want him?”

The rifle barrel jabbed him between the shoulders

He recovered his stride. Navigating the stairs, he asked, “Why do you want Diamond?”

“Because you don’t deserve him,” said the papio.

The cabin door was locked, and the captain spent moments patting his pockets, hunting for a key left behind on the bridge.

Sensing duplicity, the papio reached past him, punched the lock and forced the door inwards.

Brutish faces stared out at the two of them. Royal jazzings were the miniature, half-domesticated versions of the murderous wild jazzings. They had short jaws wrapped inside muscle, their green eyes furious and terrified, each trying to yank loose from the ropes that kept them helpless.

“Where’s the boy?” asked the soldier.

“Where Happenstance wants him to be,” the captain said.

The papio thought of shooting everything, but he wasn’t a fool. So he carefully set down his rifle and used his hands, breaking the monkey’s neck, making no sparks at all as he reached down for the gun again.

What caused the fire would never be known.

The boarding party burned, and the crew burned, and five more jazzings were sacrificed, each with a charm reading “Diamond” fixed to its blazing chest.

SEVEN

Father spoke about finding sleep. He led them to the cabins and one at a time put them inside, closing doors while instructing them to rest. Every cabin had its rubber floor and one tiny window set high, black shades drawn. The spaces were narrow with single narrow cots claiming one of the long walls. Diamond’s cabin was last. The linen was stiff and white, crackling as Diamond sat on the edge of the cot. Father looked at him from the hallway. Then Father looked at the floor, attempting to smile. “Rest,” he said. “You need to,” he said. Perhaps he was talking to himself when he pushed the door closed.

Diamond promised himself dreams. Mother was dead or she was alive. Either way, the boy was certain that she would find his sleeping mind and tell him important somethings with her own voice. That would be a tiny, much wanted happiness. But Diamond couldn’t sleep. He could barely close his eyes, lying on his back in the darkness, his right hand open on his stomach while his left hand made a fist that wasn’t happy anywhere. The fist dug into the sheets and into his hip and sometimes it reached down, banging against the cool rubber floor.

The big ship was trying to be quiet. No engine was running. The crew spoke rarely, never louder than a whisper. But there was a tiny metronome living inside the cabin, flywheels and gears counting the recitations. Diamond listened to that busy machine and to the outside air blowing through the cooling darkness. Tied to heavy branches, the ship continued to move, its frame creaking in a few reliable places. Sometimes rumblings and roaring engines came from distant places, but most of the world was resting. Good was asleep in the safest part of the cabin, under the built-in desk and chair. Seldom was inside the adjacent cabin and Elata was down the hall. His friends cried in their sleep, and they cried while awake, and the crew did some quiet work in the shop and up on the bridge, and Diamond listened to everything before shutting his eyes as an experiment.

A hundred recitations were misplaced.

Some tiny sound woke him. His body and hands hadn’t moved. Diamond slowly opened his eyes, but the perfect darkness left him blind. Where were the dreams? None offered themselves. Maybe he forgot them. Real people usually misplaced their dreams, and that might be the same for Diamond. His relentless brain might be living another fifty lives while asleep, but if he forgot those dreams, there was no way to know about them, and that odd notion made him more hopeful than sorry.