clinging to her back with equal determination.
I considered finding some way to signal them, maybe getting some help, but changed my mind as soon as I realized that any one of them could have been responsible for what was happening to me. Even if not, just what could they do to help anyway? They weren’t exactly the most agile creatures I’d ever known.
I had to do this myself.
Another flurry of canvas snow.
Somebody right behind me said, “Why don’t you just fall?”
It wasn’t an implanted thought but an implanted sound, unmuffled by static or distance.
It was neither male nor female, young or old, mad or sane: just a slick, measured everyvoice, flensed of everything that might have given it character. Only the words themselves betrayed its malicious nature.
“It’s not like you haven’t considered the option,” the voice continued. “The Dip Corps knows how much of your waking time you spend thinking about it. In the files they never let you see, they call you a third-tier suicidal personality, of the sort that automatically imagines self-destruction as the easiest possible solution to every serious problem, before your intelligence kicks in and you concoct another solution you like more. The analysts among your keepers like to credit that tension between your self-destructiveness and your self-preservation for your success as an investigator.”
I didn’t know who this unknown Heckler was. There was nothing in the voice to recognize. But the arrogance was familiar. This was the same cruel bitch, or bastard, who had sent me those hate mails. If it was also the perpetrator responsible for killing Warmuth and Santiago, then my current lifespan was probably measurable in minutes.
Good. Minutes were an improvement when fighting seconds. Now all I had to keep was the shithead talking. “N-nice to know.”
“They also compile yearly studies on your emotional state, as well as the immediate likelihood of your self- destructive side ever getting what it wants, in order to maximize your potential as a diplomatic asset. Would you like to know your current stats, Counselor? Would you enjoy a pie-chart measuring just how much you think your life is worth?”
I used the nearest vertical rib to guide myself to a standing position. After about ten seconds of sheer hell, I managed to get to my feet without killing myself. I didn’t straighten up all the way, as there was still loose material billowing around just over my head, and one flap in the face could have knocked me over the edge and sent me on an unwanted tour of the lower atmosphere. But I did manage an uneasy crouch, with knees bent and feet balanced.
My training had never covered tightrope walking. Even if it had, it wouldn’t have covered walking a beam that curved. When fighting vertigo, a straight line requiring a forward stride is about a hundred times easier than a curve requiring a miniature course correction with every step.
But all I had to worry about right now was the distance between me and the next vertical support. That wasn’t too far. It gave me something to aim for. I could manage both speed and accuracy that long.
I stood there, trembling, rehearsing my moves a thousand times in the space of a second.
Just as I took the first step, the Heckler spoke again.
“There’s even a contingency plan. You should know about this one, Andrea. It’s really quite clever. You see, the people who use you, who rely on your skills and reap the benefits of your accomplishments, who have sheltered you from the same fate afforded the rest of the surviving Bocaian colonists, do value you, in the way they’d value any other useful tool. They intend to hold on to you for as long as they can. But they also know that you might not always be as useful as you are now, and foresee any number of circumstances where you might, someday, become a liability. In such an event they know any number of ways to turn your third-tier personality to their advantage. They’ve considered how to arrange circumstances where you’d be likely to turn that famous anger of yours inward. And the second you surrender to the inevitable, they’ll gnash their teeth and wring their hands and wax rhapsodic about the deeds of the public servant who had overcome such a tragic beginning to accomplish so much. They might even feel bad. But they won’t mourn. Because nobody mourns a monster, Andrea.”
I was on my knees, hugging the vertical rib I’d aimed for. “Nobody…asked them to.”
The twenty steps had taken only a few seconds to travel. Recovering from the sheer terror of the journey had kept me mute and paralyzed a full minute after that. My belly had become a pit of ice, my heart a runaway engine intent on ripping free of my chest.
“I should tell you everything,” the Heckler continued.
I rose to my feet, balancing myself on that last section of rib, trying not to wobble and knowing I would anyway, working up enough nerve for the last rush to safety.
“Because that’s the way your mind works. You’ve survived this long because you refuse to die when there’s still something left to know. You can’t go without knowing the faces of your Unseen Demons.”
But my arms refused to relinquish their grip.
“But if I tell you everything, you lose that excuse for living. Should I tell you, Andrea? Would that give you an excuse to jump?”
I balanced myself as best as I could and launched myself on my journey across that final quarter-section of rib.
Five steps in and I knew I was in trouble. I was already leaning far too far to my left, and beginning to lose my balance. Momentum still propelled me forward, but I was not so much running as falling in slow motion.
My right foot caught the rib at a glancing angle instead of a secure one and it went out from under me and gravity took hold, and I pinwheeled my arms and for just one moment managed to avoid toppling—and in that second pivoted almost one hundred and eighty degrees while catching sight of a pair of familiar figures hopping off the edge of a rope bridge that I would never survive to reach.
I recognized them as the Porrinyards.
The gesture pissed me off. Why were they so eagerly killing themselves? This was
Then I was in free fall and I knew that these last several minutes had been nothing but a delaying action, because I was dead, and that stupid hateful voice had been right about me not wanting to die with so many questions unanswered.
I never fainted. Had I continued to fall, I would have remained wide-eyed and terrified, recording every millimeter of that endless, inevitable plunge to dissolution in the storms below.
But I never saw the arc of the other bodies, falling up to meet mine.
14. RETREAT
The Porrinyards half escorted, half carried me to the communal tent where I’d conducted the bulk of the day’s interviews, applied a buzzpatch sedative that didn’t alleviate the residual aftereffects of terror so much as wrap them in soft, sweet-smelling flowers, and stayed beside me for the two minutes it took to summon Gibb and Lastogne.
When Lastogne showed up, he paused at the tent flap to drive back the small mob of indentures attempting to enter with him. I heard men and women, some of whom I recognized by voice, peppering him with questions. Some had to do with whether I was okay, others had to do with what the hell had happened, and still others had to do with whether the danger was over. He told them to take it easy and give him room. They did both with minimal protest. He may have been an irritating son of a bitch, but he knew how to make his authority stick.
As he came in, sealing the flap behind him, I saw that he’d donned a pair of long-sleeved gray pullovers, covering everything but his hands and feet. Puffy, sleep-deprived eyes, and a circle of bare, pale skin at the site of
