'This ... transformation. These changes in you.'
He paused. 'I don't know. All I know is I feel better. More myself.'
'And your memories? Are they coming back?'
'Y-yes. And no. I know that I did more than just de-index myself. That's a scry thing, it doesn't affect your biological memories. Since I got here, I haven't had scry to lean on, so I've had to access that natural memory system just to function. So I'm getting better at it. But ... some things are just
'Sita?'
He shook his head. 'I remember her better every day. No. It's a period when I was in Brink. Something happened. I think I ... found out something. And it scared me, or something. So much that I wiped it from scry and my natural memory, and de-indexed and neotenized myself. It was a kind of suicide, really.'
He'd said this dispassionately, but his hands were shaking a little as he finished adjusting Leal's hair. 'There,' he said, moving his hands to her shoulders. 'Done.'
'Yes.' She was nodding. 'I like it.' The overall look was severe, but the top bared her shoulders and a plunge of skin between her breasts. Her hair was tightly drawn back, the two pins making a red X behind her head.
'Does it make you feel confident? Sharpen your eyebrows, and we're ready.' He turned to the door, but didn't make it a meter before she'd grabbed his arm and hauled him back. She kissed him strongly, and his whole act of competence fell apart.
When they disengaged, he wobbled back a bit and she arched an eyebrow. 'Yeah, it seems to work,' she said.
'Let's go.'
* * *
THE SPIN-GALE OF the city of Aurora whispered in the corners as Keir and Leal made their through the Slipstream ambassadorial mission. The building was marble, conspicuously made of stone in a city that was otherwise metal-poor. They heard adding machines and typewriters clattering in the side offices, and pageboys and -girls raced past carrying envelopes of various sizes.
An honor guard was waiting patiently by the bridge to the presidential palace. The red-and-gold-suited soldiers all saluted as they strolled up, and Keir grinned at Leal. She looked decidedly uncomfortable at the attention. 'We're not even going outside,' she whispered to him as they set out across the columned, covered bridge.
'Oh, just enjoy it.' He was determined to wipe away the memories that had assailed him this morning, and made a point of looking out at the city as they walked. There was little to see, though; the way was obscured by thick forest.
The bridge connected to Aerie's new presidential palace, which was a fantasy in wrought iron, asteroidal pallasite, and glass. Beams of sunlight wheeled with majestic stateliness through corridors with polished floors and high arched ceilings. Workers were still buffing and painting here, too.
'Atten-shun!' The honor guard stopped as one, and saluted. Another group was approaching from the left, this second knot of Slipstream soldiers surrounding Admiral Chaison Fanning and Lacerta, the Home Guard officer who'd been stranded in Aethyr with Hayden Griffin. Despite their fresh dress uniforms, both appeared grim and tired.
'Any word on Venera?' Keir murmured to Leal, who shook her head. 'Good morning, Admiral.'
Fanning nodded impassively. The two groups merged and began to make their way to the front of the palace. Officials and support staff were everywhere now, scurrying to and fro, pushing tables, consulting over clipboards. It was some sort of organized chaos, and all done without scry. Keir was impressed.
Antaea Argyre waited alone at an intersection where white sunlight flooded in from the right. She wasn't the warrior today but the author, in a brocade jacket over a white blouse, dark knee-length trousers, and flats. There were no weapons belted at her hips.
She bowed, and the honor guard accepted her inside of it. She glanced up at Fanning, but no one spoke as they traversed the short sunlit hall to stand at the top of a broad, balconied level from which a vast, wide sweep of stairs led down to gardens.
Here, the front half of the palace became a single chamber walled by glass and supported by vaulting girders of iron. This part of the building was shaped somewhat like the inverted front of a ship, and the steps before them faced the prow. Sunlight poured in through the glass as if it wasn't there, flooding the trees and flower beds below. Outside, the forested city curved up on either side, and ahead rose and rose, to arch finally overhead in turquoise glory, its sweeping shape framed by two godlike wings of cloud.
One figure stood silhouetted at the top of the steps. Hayden Griffin was looking out over the new city, in the light of the sun he had built. There were plenty of other people traversing the steps, but all gave him a wide berth. Some paused behind him, to look back at him in awe.
His return from Aethyr had caused a frenzy of adulation in Aerie. They'd practically rioted in the streets, and even now, people were perched on buildings and in trees outside the palace, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. He'd responded to all of this with acute embarrassment, and had been hiding in his room.
The honor guard had hesitated at the sight of him. Keir smiled and walked through them, coming to stand by Griffin's side. 'They say the whole city is made of trees,' he commented.
Griffin stood with his arms crossed. Now he grinned at Keir. 'Nothing like what your people could build, I'm sure,' he said.
Keir barked a laugh. 'None of my people would have the imagination for something like this.' New as it was, Aerie had few hard resources, so the single vast wheel of Aurora had been grown rather than built. Young trees and whole groves of ancient ones had been towed here from across the world, and twined and tied, lashed and spiked together around a supporting skeleton of cable and iron beam to make a single, ring-shaped forest. Speed ivy from the ruins of Spyre had been seeded all about its outsides, and then slowly, over many months, it had all been spun up. The meandering plank streets still creaked and groaned as weight and tension adjusted beneath them; but the forest was dotted now with houses and hotels and shops. Many little lakes and ponds, spheres of water ranging from house- to block-sized, turned magisterially in the empty space within the ring. They threw rainbow refractions across the marble, a constant slow sweep of light like the passage of angels' wings.
