“Noemi?” whispers a tiny voice. It’s Delphine, who’s curled on the far edge of the pallet under what looks like a fur coat. “How are you?”
“Scared and angry.” Hungry, too, but Noemi doesn’t mention it. They have nothing to eat but petits fours, and at the moment she thinks if she ever eats another of those things again, she’ll puke it back up. “Trying to figure out where we go from here.”
“We wait for the mechs to come and save us,” Delphine says. “From the Winter Castle. They must be on their way.”
“The ‘Winter Castle’?”
Delphine’s face lights up. “Our settlement. Mechs built it for us ahead of time, so it would be ready when we arrived. Beautiful suites of rooms with windows overlooking the mountains—hot springs and steam baths—fully stocked and equipped kitchens—entertainment libraries—oh, just everything. All we’d have to do is move in our clothes and our decorations, and we’d be right at home.” Her voice turns wistful on the last words.
Noemi says, “And there were other mechs there, too?”
Delphine frowns. “Of course. Bakers for the kitchens, Tares for the medcenter, Williams and Oboes for music, Foxes and Peters for—well, you know, and—”
“How many mechs?”
After a moment, Delphine shrugs. “Hundreds, I’d guess. Maybe even thousands. Enough to overpower Remedy, for sure. They’ll be along to get us soon.”
Noemi nods, keeping her doubts to herself. There’s no way to know if those mechs saw the crash. No way to be sure they’d mount a rescue mission even if they did see it. Independently assessing a situation like that, coming up with a plan, electing to follow it—that’s higher-level initiative than mechs generally manage on their own. Unless Mansfield programmed them very, very specifically, those mechs are still sitting in that Winter Castle, smiling vacantly, waiting with eternal patience for guests who will never come. They might wait there for the next three hundred years.
Yet the passengers seem content to bide their time.
“Are you feeling okay?” Delphine props up on her elbows. Her frizzy hair has been freed from its earlier topknot and has become a soft dark cloud around her face. “You’re not feverish, are you?”
“I don’t think so. It’s hard to know. We’re all so tired and sore and dirty—” Noemi makes a face. She’d just about kill for a shower.
“As long as you’re feeling all right.” Delphine’s expression is difficult to read. Her concern seems sincere, but why should she be so worried about Noemi’s health? It’s not like they don’t have other problems.
Noemi’s distracted by the sight of Gillian Shearer walking toward the center of the room, away from the small pallet that now serves as Burton Mansfield’s sickbed. The woman looks years older than she did when the voyage of the Osiris began; fear has already carved new hollows in her cheeks. Her dark-circled eyes search the room for something she isn’t finding, but Noemi notices her taking a few seconds longer to gaze at the octahedron data solid left over from Simon’s tank. That diamond-shaped thing stores information, and once held her son’s soul—maybe still holds a copy of it.
Mansfield told his daughter to write Simon off and make another one. Looks like she can’t accept that idea.
Honestly, Mansfield’s attitude is the less surprising one. Noemi can imagine Darius Akide claiming that Abel could be easily replicated, like any other machine. That’s the way people think before they’ve seen a soul inside a mech—or, in Mansfield’s case, before they understand what a soul truly is. Maybe Gillian Shearer understands.
Noemi rises from her pallet and runs a hand through her black hair, pulling herself together as much as possible. Delphine’s eyes get big—the universal sign for What are you doing?—but Noemi ignores this and crosses the room for a talk.
It takes Gillian several seconds to notice her. Those gas-flame blue eyes have never seemed more intense, more eerie. “You’re still here, I see.”
Where would I go? Noemi manages not to say. “The Columbian Corporation didn’t plan for anything going wrong, did they?”
Irritation flickers over Gillian’s face. “If they had turned things over to me—or at least to my father—we could’ve taken appropriate steps. We would’ve had proper security around Neptune. Would’ve had mech patrols ready and waiting to handle any intruders on board. We’d even have been able to program fail-safes in case of a crash. But no. The others resented my father’s power and political influence. They relished being able to outvote him just for the sake of doing so. My father’s foresight—his genius—he would’ve saved us all.”
Noemi keeps her opinion on that to herself. “When you say ‘the others’—who are you talking about, exactly?”
“Other great leaders in technology, politics, commerce,” Gillian says dreamily. “The best of the best. The finest Earth’s population has to offer.”
Crossing her arms, Noemi says, “I’m not sure the actual best humans alive would hide this planet from millions in need.”
It doesn’t faze Gillian. “You can’t imagine the future we’ll build. I wouldn’t expect you to.”
As badly as Noemi would like to tell this woman exactly what she thinks, something else is more important. “Have you found Simon?”
Gillian freezes the way people do when they step on glass—seizing tight with pain. “No.”
“Have you been able to figure out what part of the ship he’s in?”
“We think he crossed into Remedy territory a while back.” When Gillian presses her lips together so tightly they turn white, her agony is so palpable that Noemi feels an echo of it deep within her ribs. It’s not Gillian she hurts for as much as it is Simon.
“I could go after him,” Noemi says
