“I think it’d be better if we grabbed a fast bite first,” said Harman. He was remembering the impossible trajectories the sonie had shown him—the launch from Ardis almost vertical, leaving the atmosphere, arcing up into outer space, then reentering like a bullet dropped from heaven. Just the memory of the trajectory graphic made his heart pound.

“I’ll go get my stuff and see if Tom and Siris can help me get Odysseus ready for the trip,” said Hannah. She kissed Ada on the cheek and hurried out.

Harman took a last look at Odysseus—the strong man’s face was gray—and then took Ada by the elbow and led her down the hall to a quiet place by the rear door.

“I still think I should go,” said Ada.

Harman nodded. “I wish you could. But when the people digest Daeman’s news—when they get the sense that Ardis may be the last free node left and that someone or something is gobbling up all the other cities and settlements—there’s liable to be a real panic.”

“Do you think we’re the last ones left?” whispered Ada.

“I have no idea. But if this thing Daeman glimpsed coming through the hole is the Setebos god-thing that Caliban and Prospero talked about, I think we’re in big trouble.”

“And you think Daeman’s right… that Caliban himself is on Earth?”

Harman chewed his lip for a moment. “Yes,” he said at last. “I think Daeman’s right in thinking that the monster slaughtered everyone in the Paris Crater domi tower just to get to Marina, Daeman’s mother—to send Daeman a message.”

The clouds had covered the sun again and it grew darker outside. Ada seemed intent on watching the feverish activity on the cupola scaffolding. A team of a dozen men and women were laughing as they walked to relieve the guards on the north wall.

“If Daeman’s right,” Ada said softly, never turning to look at Harman, “what’s to keep Caliban and his creatures from coming here while you’re gone? What’s to prevent you from returning from this trip to save Odysseus only to find stacks of skulls in Ardis Hall? We wouldn’t even have the sonie to escape in.”

“Oh …” said Harman and it came out as a moan. He took a step away from her and brushed sweat from his forehead and cheeks, realizing how cold and clammy his skin was.

“My love,” said Ada, whirling, taking two fast steps, and hugging him fiercely. “I’m sorry I said that. Of course you have to go. It’s terribly important that we try to save Odysseus—not just because he’s our friend, but because he’s the only one who might know what this new threat is and how to counter it. And we need the flechette ammunition. And I wouldn’t flee Ardis in a sonie under any circumstances. It’s my home. It’s our home. We’re lucky to have four hundred others to help us defend it.” She kissed him on the mouth, then hugged him fiercely again and spoke into the leather of his tunic. “Of course you have to go, Harman. You do. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Just come back soon.”

Harman tried to speak but found no words. He hugged her to him.

When Harman flew the sonie down from the jinker platform to let it hover three feet off the ground near Ardis Hall’s main back door, it was Petyr who met him there.

“I want to go,” said the younger man. He was wearing his travel cape and weapons belt—a short sword and killing knife were slung on the belt—and his handmade bow and arrow-filled quiver were slung over his shoulder.

“I told Daeman …” began Harman, propping himself on an elbow and looking up as he lay in the forward-center open niche on the surface of the oval flying machine.

“Yes. And that made sense… to tell Daeman. He’s still in shock from his mother’s death and organizing the messengers might help him come out of it. But you need someone with you on the Bridge. Hannah’s strong enough to carry the litter with Noman on it, but you need someone to cover both your backs while you do it.”

“You’re needed here…”

Petyr interrupted again. His voice was quiet, firm, calm, but his gaze was intense. “No, I’m not, Harman Uhr,” said the bearded man. “The flechette rifle’s needed here, and I’m leaving it with the few flechette magazines left to it, but I’m not needed here. Like you, I’ve been up for more than twenty-four hours—I have a six-hour sleep period coming before I have to return to duty on the walls. I understand that you told Ada Uhr that you and Hannah will be back in a few hours.”

“We should be …” began Harman and stopped. Hannah, Ada, Siris, and Tom were carrying Odysseus-Noman’s stretcher out the door. The dying man was wrapped in thick blankets. Harman slid out of the hovering sonie and helped lift the old man into the cushioned rear-center niche. The sonie used directed forcefields as safety restraints for its passengers, but there was also a silk-webbed netting built into the periphery of each niche for gear or inanimate objects, and Harman and Hannah pulled this over the comatose Noman and secured it. Their friend might well be dead before they reached the Golden Gate and Harman didn’t want the body tumbling out.

Harman clambered forward and dropped into the piloting niche. “Petyr’s coming with us,” he told Hannah. Her gaze was on the dying Odysseus and she showed no flicker of interest at the news. “Petyr,” he continued, “left rear. And keep your bow and quiver handy. Hannah, right rear. Web in.”

Ada came around, leaned over the metal surface, and gave him a quick kiss. “Be back before dark or you’ll be in big trouble with me,” she said softly. She walked back into the manor house with Tom and Siris.

Harman checked to make sure that all were wearing their webnets, including himself, and then he thrust both palms under the sonie’s forward rim, activating the holographic control panel. He visualized three green circles set within three larger red circles. His left palm glowed blue and his vision was overlaid with impossible trajectories.

“Destination Golden Gate at Machu Picchu?” came the machine’s flat voice.

“Yes,” said Harman.

“Fastest flight path?” asked the machine.

“Yes.”

“Ready to initiate flight?”

“Ready,” said Harman. “Go.”

The restraint forcefields pressed down on all of them. The sonie accelerated over the palisade and trees, went nearly vertical, and broke the sound barrier before it reached two thousand feet of altitude.

Ada didn’t watch the sonie leave and when the sonic boom slammed the house—she’d heard hundreds of them during the meteor bombardment at the time of the Fall—her only reaction was to ask Oelleo, who was on housekeeping duty that week, to check for broken panes and mend them as needed.

She pulled a wool cape from her peg in the main hall and went out into the yard, then through the front gate of the palisade. The grass here—formerly her beautiful front lawn that ran downhill for a quarter of a mile, now Ardis’s pasture and killing ground—had been churned up by hooves and voynix peds and then refrozen. It was difficult to walk without spraining an ankle. Several oxen-pulled, long-bed droshkies rumbled along the edge of the tree line where men and women lifted voynix carcasses onto the cargo bed. The metal of their carapaces would be recycled into weapons. Their leatherish hoods would be cut and sewn into clothing and shields. Ada paused to watch Kaman, one of Odysseus’ earliest disciples last summer, use special tongs that Hannah had designed and forged to pull crossbow bolts out of voynix bodies. These went into buckets on the droshky and would be cleaned and re-sharpened. The droshky bed, Kaman’s gloved hands, and the frozen soil were blue with voynix blood.

Ada moved around the palisade, strolling in and out of the gates, chatting with other work groups, urging those who had been on the wall all morning to go in for breakfast, and finally climbing up on the furnace cupola to talk with Loes and watch the last preparations for the morning’s iron pour. She pretended not to notice Emme and three young men with crossbows casually walking thirty paces behind her all the way, watching the woods for movement, their crossbows cocked and double-loaded.