King and his father were sharing one of the observatory blisters, riding on the Ruler’s top spine.

“Are you looking at the faces, son?”

“I’m watching your face, sir.”

Smiles were never simple. Father’s grin was smug but cautious.

“Well, yes,” said the little man. “Take my word for it. If I’d listened to my shrewd advisors, we’d be looked upon as invaders. Even as it stands, I’m sure that a few of our supposed allies think we’re responsible for this miserable mess.”

King asked, “But why would you want to kill the boy?”

“Your brother,” said Father.

King stared at the changing smile.

“I can’t say this enough: we’re emotional beasts, quick to judge and stubborn when it comes to defending our opinions.” Father paused, eyes turned upwards. “But worse, we are an exceptionally, shamelessly lazy species. If people look at me as their enemy—if I bring rage to their bellies, their hearts—then I must have been the agent who ordered bombs exploded on the top of the world. I’m the one who killed thousands in hopes of murdering one soul. And why hold that wicked notion? Because smart opinions involve quite a lot of tedious, unthankful work, and we are too busy to bother.”

King made a rough wet noise with his eating mouth, and with his breathing mouth, he said, “Lazy and stupid too.”

He was provoking Father, but the man was clever enough to see it.

“If only we were stupid,” said List. “No, we carry big brains. Not unbreakable like yours. But I’ve never met the man whose head was filled up in one lifetime. And the smartest of us, if he wants, can feed that lard so many carefully picked, well-pickled facts. We’re lazy and instinctive, and we find it so easy to believe what’s unlikely, and we fight for what pleases us while ignoring most everything that’s hard, and what genius we have builds elaborate lies that have no good function except to put us at the center of this glorious, eternal world.”

King finally looked up. The fleet had reached the point where the overhead canopy suddenly grew thin, great old branches missing their ends and then absent entirely. The Ruler’s engines changed pitch and speed as the airship slid beneath the tree called Hanner. These were little blackwood trees, barely sticks compared to the giants of home, and ballast was being dropped—thousands of buckets of water released into the midday light—and suspended on rainbows, the flagship began its ascent into the enormous gouge that had been hacked into the forest.

King was thoroughly impressed.

What he saw and what wasn’t seen captivated him.

Verbal accounts weren’t adequate. The sheer volume of lost trees took him by surprise, and so did the blackened carcasses of buildings clinging to Hanner’s fire-ravaged trunk. Crude new gun emplacements had replaced those destroyed last evening. Hundreds of little civilian blimps had been brought from everywhere, apparently to do nothing but look tiny against the carnage. Banners hung on the surviving trees, names asking other names to come and find them. Countless survivors sat on the brinks of landings and sheered-off limbs. They were watching the Ruler of the Storm climb towards them. The Ruler bristled with cannons and armor, and the front battleworks brandished rockets bigger than any papio wing, each tipped with the Creation’s most powerful explosives. Yet King couldn’t see the promised relief or pride or even the scornful stares of hatred. Father was wrong. The greatest ship in the world, and the most that it earned was weary curiosity from fat brains already too full with too much.

King imagined the slaughter of the falling trees. The mind gave fire and misery to thousands of nameless bodies, and his hearts began to race, and the armored plates rose from his body. His rage was as pure and sharp as it had been in a very long while, and he was at least as crazed towards every enemy as any human could be.

An elegantly uniformed officer had appeared inside the blister.

“Find us a working line,” Father said, pointing at the ruins of the Ivory Station. “I want a conversation with Prima.”

“Communications are problematic,” the officer pointed out.

“I beg to differ.” The Archon of Archons walked up to his son, reaching high with both hands, starting to push. Other fathers might straighten their children’s unruly hair, but List risked slicing fingers, trying to make the plates lie flat. “The greatest military force in the world is under my colleague’s feet. I’m quite certain that she knows that I’m here.”

The plates began to drop under the little fingers.

Father winked knowingly. “But this idea is always warm in your mind, isn’t it, son? Conversation is really the least impressive way to deliver your message.”

Bountiful dropped little streams of water meant to evaporate before being noticed, and tanks of pressurized hydrogen were milked for a few moments, giving the bladders more lift. Then the tethers were released, anchors left buried in the trees. Smoothly and quietly, the smallest two engines nudged the ship ahead, pushing it through the first gap and into a crooked airborne tunnel that would carry them up to places where the big machine would never be seen.

Father hadn’t returned.

Good sat beside Diamond, both watching the open doorway. “Merit where?” asked the monkey.

“Coming,” Diamond said.

Good stood on his four hands, considering his boy.

Diamond had promised the captain that he wouldn’t approach the open air again. But he could tell his monkey, “Watch for him. Go on now.”

A slow gait carried Good across the shop floor. Everybody in the crew had a job, a task, some consuming chore that kept him distracted. The harpooner’s chore was to stand beside the long gun, an explosive round sleeping in the breech. The man was counting branches, and then he looked at the monkey, unhappy about something. And Good tried to smile—a peeling back of lips to reveal yellow canines and pink gums—and as he did on rare occasions, he rose up on his hind legs, clumsily shuffling forwards like a shriveled old human man.

The harpooner said a word.

The little man beside him said several words.

And together, the two of them watched the world steadily descend around them.

Elata and Seldom sat on the floor with Diamond. Tar`ro and Nissim filled matching chairs. Both men had made cups with their right hands, chins against their palms as bleary eyes lost the war against sleep.

“I don’t want to be here,” said Elata

The boys squirmed silently.

“I know, I know,” she said. “There’s nowhere else to be.”

The day was as short as any could be. The high parts of the world had never warmed properly and now they were growing black. The ship’s little engines rumbled, easing Bountiful inside shadows. Disturbed, a young leatherwing rose from below, wings beating hard to match the ship’s motion, four lidless eyes peering inside the shop before the creature pivoted and spun away.

Master Nissim snored softly.

“But what am I doing here?” Elata asked.

“Sitting,” said Seldom. Then he made himself laugh.

Diamond looked at the girl’s hand, and in his mind, he took hold of it. But when he tried to do that in life, she pulled her arm away. “I didn’t ask,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Did I say, ‘Let me ride along’?”

Diamond felt his stomach and his heart, but he wasn’t sure why.

“We’re here with our friend,” Seldom said.

“I know where we are. But I don’t see why.”

When he concentrated, Seldom squinted. The long squint ended with a firm voice claiming, “We’re here to help Diamond.”

Elata looked at Diamond. Her eyes and face had never worn that expression, mistrustful and sad and very nearly desperate. Then she looked out the open door, saying, “He doesn’t need us. He has the Master and his bodyguard, and everybody else.”