She was so low, in fact, that the men on the armament platform, toward the bow, couldn’t depress their guns far enough to hit her without endangering the liftship. Doc actually felt the rotorkite’s landing gear hit the liftship’s skin; the kite bounced a little higher and continued forward, just above the curve of the ship’s skin, until they were halfway or more to the bow.

“Best do it now,” Noriko said. “Hear the engine? We will not get another pass; I have to land.”

Doc didn’t dare open the gullwing door. He’d be fighting rotor wash and affecting the rotorkite’s flight characteristics. He kicked the window out instead. He leaned out.

Five paces below was the skin of the liftship; the rotorkite’s window, still in its frame, hit it and began bouncing down its curving slope. “A little closer, Noriko.”

The rotorkite’s talk-box popped. Gaby’s voice: “Is anyone there?”

While Noriko slowly brought the rotorkite down, Doc leaned out further, drew out his clasp-knife, and pulled it open. He’d need to use it to anchor himself against falling, then cut his way through the skin. He pulled on a pair of gloves; liftship skeletons were made of steel, uncoated for reasons of weight, their crews wearing heavy uniforms and gloves as protection.

Noriko finally felt steady enough to thumb the button on the talk-box. “I’m here, Gaby. With Doc.”

“Don’t let him get anywhere near Duncan. Duncan’s his son—”

Doc grimaced and leaped free. He hit the rubber-cloth surface of the liftship and bounced, rolling down the slope. On his second impact, he managed to drive the knife into the ship’s skin. He slid further downslope, cutting a rent three paces long in the skin; then he got his free hand into the tear and stopped sliding.

Wash from the rotors pushed at him as the rotorkite banked away. Noriko must have begun the maneuver as soon as she understood Gaby’s statement. But it was too late. He was within striking distance of Duncan at long last.

As Harris got his hands on the lip of the bomb bay, his strength failed him. He hung there, legs wrapped around the trailing rope, and waited for his energy to come back.

It didn’t.

He cursed. He’d just have to do the job without it.

Then Darig MacDuncan, the Changeling, stepped into view above and kicked him full in the head.

Sudden, shocking pain in his temple—Harris’ right hand slipped and he rotated a half-turn, gripping the lip of the bomb bay floor with only his left. He frantically grabbed the rope with his right.

Just in time. Darig, smiling, stepped on the fingers of his left hand. The pain cost him his grip.

The sudden adrenaline was what he needed. He hauled on the rope for all he was worth, popped up over the lip of the floor, and grabbed Darig’s ankle. He yanked. The Changeling fell, scrambling frantically as his legs stretched out over more than a thousand feet of air.

Harris grabbed the Changeling’s belt and hauled. The Changeling, teeth bared, grabbed the sturdy base of a winch and didn’t budge, so Harris used him for purchase. He pulled himself up atop the blond man and onto the metal floor beyond.

He put his back to the wall of this small metal cabin, next to a doorway hatch. “Give up, Darig.” His words came out in gasps as he struggled to gain control of his breath. “Or I’ll kick the hell out of you and you’ll end up a big red smear on a Neckerdam street.”

The Changeling glared. “I am not afraid of death, bug. But I will make it worth something.” He grabbed Harris’ leg and pushed off, rolling out through the hole.

Harris frantically gripped the lip of the hatch beside him. The Changeling’s weight yanked at him, threatened to tear him free; the impact stretched him taut. Another second and he’d slide out the hole, paired with Darig in a skydive to death.

With his free leg, he kicked Darig. He felt the kick land . . . and suddenly there was no more weight on his leg. Harris lay exhausted, gasping, and pulled himself back into the relative safety of the bomb bay.

Duncan flipped his talk-box from empty room to empty room. The only scene that told him anything was that of the hangar, where members of the Novimagos Guard collected his men. He knew his radio transmissions were compromised; he’d heard someone call a testing pattern over his radio on the laboratory squad’s frequency.

The grimworlder signal on his tracer was much ­reduced. Joseph had to have killed most of the grimworlders. Still, two signals remained, one back at the Monarch Building and one . . .

Here. He scowled at the little screen. One of the grimworlders had to be keeping up with the liftship, ­either on the ground or in the rotorkite he’d heard.

The view on his talk-box flickered and was suddenly gone, replaced by the face of Gaby Donohue. She was dressed in archaic fashion and her hair was much longer than the last time he’d seen her.

“Goodlady Donohue. What an unexpected surprise. I see Joseph hasn’t gotten to you yet.”

“Joseph’s my friend, Duncan.”

“Not anymore. He’s already killed Harris Greene. He’ll be coming for you and Doc soon.”

He saw her turn pale. He enjoyed giving people bad news. Their reactions were usually memorable.

Her voice was faint. “You’re lying.”

“I have no reason to lie.”

Her breathing became shallow. He thought he could see hatred struggling with despair within her.

One of them won, but he wasn’t sure which. She leaned forward. Her voice was a whisper: “Duncan, there’s something I’ve got to know.”

He leaned forward to catch her words. “What’s that?”

“Are you Doc’s son? Duncan MaqqRee?”

He smiled. “I’m afraid so. A word of advice that will do you no good: Some fathers think they can dictate their children’s lives forever. Why do you ask?”

“Just curious,” she said; her voice was even quieter; he leaned still closer.

Then she opened her mouth and screamed.

Gaby Donohue’s image exploded out at Duncan. He felt something sharp tear at his face. Then pain, worse than any he’d known in twice ten years. He reeled away from it and went off balance. His toppling chair carried him to the floor. “Gods!”

He couldn’t open his eyes. Things tore when he tried to do that. He raised his hands to them, encountered flesh and blood and sharp edges. “Captain!”

No answer. There were distant cries, a faraway roaring that began to grow louder.

Captain Walbert stood alone at the wheel; with all his men assigned to other tasks or left behind in the Monarch Building, he had to fly his ship practically single-handed. But that wasn’t why his back and shoulders were locked with tension. No, that was the fault of Duncan Blackletter, with his unreasonable orders and anger spewing across the talk-box every few beats. It could only be moments before some new offense would issue from the screen—

He was right, after a fashion. He heard a scream from the talk-box behind him and it burst, raining sparks and debris all over his back.

The crewman at the bow gun fired again, trying to put his stream of tracers onto the rotorkite sinking away from the liftship. The rotorkite was a difficult target, in spite of the plume of smoke that was already billowing from its engine compartment.

He heard a shriek beside him, an odd noise to come from the talk-box the old sodder had had installed so the liftship would be “modern.” Then the talk-box ­exploded. He saw glass and fire rain down through the hatch into the liftship interior.

Fire—

The talk-box in the rotorkite’s cockpit panel burst, raining hot bits of glass and wire all over Noriko. She jerked in surprise. The rotorkite veered, but she kept control, getting far enough away that the liftship’s guns would no longer pose a threat to her.

She looked back at Storm Cloud and saw it. A glow, golden-yellow, shone through the liftship’s skin toward the bow, illuminating the ship’s metal skeleton from within. The skin there began to char black.