Rift in the Sky

“My name is . . . Marcus Bowman. This . . . device contains my . . . final message for my . . . daughter. Karina Bowman . . . Norval, Stonerim III . . . Anyone who finds . . . this. Please take . . . it to the nearest . . . offworld authority . . . Make sure she . . . hears this. Please.”

The image and voice vanished.

Yao calmly passed the disk back to Aryl, who took it with numb fingers. “Can I come with you? To find Karina?”

“What?” Aryl shuddered back to reality. “No. We’re going home, to the Tower. You don’t have to go with Oran,” she added before the child could ’port away. “But I need you to promise to stay with your mother until I get back.”

“From finding Karina.” Yao sounded satisfied. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“I’m not—” Aryl closed her mouth, remembering that tormented face with green-brown eyes.

Apparently she was.

She looked up, into the darkness above Yao’s little fire. There were hundreds of millions of Humans living within the layers of Norval.

“How do I find one?” she said out loud.

Even Yao didn’t have an answer.

Interlude

“ARYL DI SARC IS NOT in the Tower.”

“I know Aryl’s not here,” Enris glared at the panel. What use was a machine that gave answers he knew? “Where did she go?”

“I am unable to answer that question. Do you wish me to initiate a missing person’s report with the constabulary?”

“No,” Naryn said firmly. She reached by him to turn off the Tower interface. “Enris. Aryl’s shielded herself from any of us. If you won’t send to her, at least let me contact one of our Humans.”

“ ‘Our Humans?’ ” he repeated acidly. “When did the mind-wipes become property?”

Naryn’s eyes flashed, but she restrained her temper. “The name Yao gave us is the one from the artifacts. If Aryl uses it among Humans who aren’t—sensitive—to Clan concerns—she could stir up trouble we can’t control or survive. Have you thought of that?”

“Aryl has.” With all the belief he had in his Chosen. “You know she would never endanger us. She wants to deliver a father’s dying message, a message entrusted to her. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“A Human’s message.” Cetto shook his big head. “From the Homeworld. It makes no sense, Enris.”

Not for the first time since Yao’s return—by herself—Enris was grateful he only had two members of Council under the same roof. “You should trust her,” he insisted.

“You want to find her, too,” observed Naryn, with a lift of one brow.

“Because I don’t trust anyone else.” Enris forced his hands to relax. Over the past hours, they’d tended to form fists. “I can’t send to her. She’s hunting.” He had no other way to describe the way his Chosen felt, how her mind had focused until all he sensed were movements, the flick of her eyes side to side, the graceful, careful steps she took, her alert patience.

But Cetto nodded as if he knew what Enris meant. “Best not to distract her, then. She’ll reach you if she needs help.”

Aryl, call for help? Enris wanted to laugh. Joined for life and deeply in love, yes, but that didn’t make his Chosen any less independent. Her first impulse would be to keep him out of trouble, not bring him into it. Which was why she’d simply ’ported back with Yao, picked up some things, and left again without anyone, including the Tower machines, any wiser.

He’d know if she were hurt or afraid. Which could be too late. Power, courage, and strength meant nothing against the kind of weapons possessed by the Humans and other aliens of this world.

She expected him to trust her and do nothing. Which meant pacing in the Tower, while others expected him to do something.

Aryl di Sarc was the most stubborn, annoying . . .

“We wait,” he told Naryn.

And hoped that wasn’t a mistake.

Chapter 7

SEEN FROM THE AIR, Norval resembled a mountain, its sides cloaked with green, its peak sparkling with what might have been snow. None of it real, Aryl thought as the aircar went around to the shadowed side and slowed on approach. The city squatted on the ruins of what had been there before, pressing the past into the soft marshy land that had once surrounded it. Not only ruins. On occasion, it had reinvented itself, burying the streets and architecture of before beneath the latest craze in materials and style. Or to hide design mistakes of the past.

Humans hadn’t started the process; three other civilizations, of other shape and mind, had built atop one another over time in this place. As usual, Humanity had added its own enthusiasm.

Producing this. A city where access to light was determined by wealth, its outer skin garden-bedecked luxury and senglass, topped by towers of privilege. Broad openings allowed light—and storm runoff—to nourish the businesses below. Narrow openings and pipes shed some light—and all refuse—down through subsequent layers to be used or dealt with by the least wealthy, until the utter dark of the machine domain.