slave girls kept coming to ask Wren if she had really seen the body, and had there been ever so much blood? To make matters worse,
Mrs. Pennyroyal smiled knowingly at Wren every time she saw her, and kept finding excuses to send her into rooms where Theo Ngoni was, or Theo into rooms where Wren was, as if she hoped someone would write an opera about them one day and there would be a part for a soprano of a certain age as Boo-Boo Pennyroyal, the thoughtful mistress who made their love possible.
Strangely, all this kindness made Wren like Boo-Boo less: It was one thing to keep slaves, but quite another to try to arrange their love affairs. She felt that the mayoress was pairing her and Theo off like a couple of prize poodles.
So she was glad to be invisible for a while, to look and listen. And everywhere she looked, she saw someone she recognized from the society pages of the
She met Cynthia and asked her softly, “Is there any news?”
“News?” echoed Cynthia, as bright and brainless as sunshine.
“About poor Mr. Plovery? Have they found out who did it yet?”
“Oh!” Cynthia’s golden ringlets jiggled as she shook her head. “No. And Mrs. Pennyroyal says we ain’t to talk about it. But what’s all this I hear about you and Theo?”
“It’s nothing. Just Boo-Boo’s imagination.”
“You’re blushing, Wren! I knew you fancied him! I saw you talking to him that day at the pool, remember?”
Wren left Cynthia giggling and pressed on through the crowd, asking, “Would you care for a drink, sir? A canape, madame?” and gathering up empty glasses and fragments of still emptier conversations.
“Just
“You simply
“Have you read Bellman’s latest? Quite brilliant! Some of the finest literature of our age is being written for the under-fives…”
Dusk deepened. Davina Twisty was persuading some friends and admirers to venture with her into Cloud 9’s insanely complicated box-hedge maze. The band played “Golden Echoes” and “The Lunar Lullaby.” Soon the moon would rise, and everyone would watch the fireworks before retiring to the Pavilion for dancing and more food. Wren, already exhausted, paused in a quiet part of the gardens near the deck plate’s edge. It felt nice to be alone at last. She looked across the sea at the armored cities and thought how melancholy they looked, crouching there upon the dunes like the temples of a vanished race.
A hand crept onto her shoulder like a gray silk spider. Turning, she looked into the expressionless face of Nabisco Shkin.
“Enjoying the view, my dear?” he asked. “I hope none of His Worship’s other guests has noticed you loafing here. The Shkin Corporation has a reputation as a purveyor of only the most hardworking slaves.”
Wren pulled away from him and tried to return to the light and laughter of the party but Shkin barred her way. What did he want with her? He must have been stalking her through the busy gardens, waiting for a moment when he could catch her alone. She felt cold and frightened. Raising her empty tray, she held it in front of her like a shield, but Shkin only laughed. She didn’t like his laugh. She’d preferred it when he was silent and icy.
“Why would I harm you, child?” he asked. “I just want you to do a job for me, the simplest and smallest of jobs. Do you know where your new master keeps his private safe?”
Wren nodded.
“Good girl.” Shkin held up a neat square of paper with a number written on it. “This is the combination. I’d like you to fetch me the Tin Book. I sent a friend for it yesterday, but I hear he met with an accident.”
Wren lowered her tray, thinking of poor Mr. Plovery.
“Don’t look so glum!” Shkin told her. “You’ve stolen it before. Young Fishcake told me all about it.”
“I won’t do it!” Wren said. “You can’t make me!”
“Your poor father,” said Shkin. He twirled the square of paper back into an inner pocket of his graphite- colored evening robe and shrugged faintly. “What a pity, after he came all this way to rescue you!”
Wren couldn’t imagine what he meant—not until he reached into another pocket and brought out a bracelet, which he laid on the tray between them. By the light of lanterns in the nearby trees Wren recognized Dad’s wedding bracelet. She had known it all her life, that loop of red gold with the letters HS and TN entwined. But what was it doing on Cloud 9?
“It’s a trick!” she said. “Fishcake must have described this to you, and you had a replica made…”
“Don’t you think it’s more likely that your dear daddy has come to Brighton to fetch you home?” asked Shkin. “He is a guest of the Shkin Corporation. If you fail in the task I have set you, he’ll die. Rather slowly. So be a good girl and run up to Pennyroyal’s office.”
The gardens were falling quiet. Some of the guests were organizing a search party to look for Davina Twisty, who was lost in the maze. The others shushed them. Moonrise was only a few moments away. The thought of Dad so near made Wren start to cry. How had he come here? How had Shkin found him? And where was Mum? She reached for the bracelet, but Shkin’s conjuror’s hands whisked it away and set the square of paper in its place.
“Do this little thing for me,” he soothed, “and you will be reunited. I’ll send you both home to Vineland in one of my own ships.”
Wren didn’t believe that, but she believed the rest. Dad was in Shkin’s power. If she didn’t do as Shkin asked, he’d be killed. And the worst of it was, it was all her fault: If she hadn’t taken that book in the first place, he would still be safe in Anchorage. So if stealing the book again was the only way to keep him safe a little longer, that was what she would have to do.
“But why me?” she asked. “You must know all sorts of people better at breaking into safes than me…”
“You should have more faith in yourself’ said Shkin. “You are an accomplished burglar, from what I’ve heard. Besides, if you are caught, the crime cannot be connected to me. You were the one who brought the Tin Book here; Pennyroyal will believe that you were simply trying to retrieve it for yourself.”
Wren picked up the paper. The darkness was growing deeper as her fellow slaves moved between the trees, snuffing out the lanterns, but the white square seemed to shine in her hand with a light of its own.
“All right,” she said, her voice shrunk down to a whisper; then, as she put down the tray, “What is it? I ought to know. What is this Tin Book, and why does everybody want it?”
“Not your business,” said Shkin, looking past her toward the horizon. “I can make a profit from it. What more reason do I need? Now go; you have work to do.”
Wren went, running away between the trees as the sacred moon peeked over the horizon. For a few seconds, perfect silence settled over Brighton, for according to the old tradition, wishes made at moonrise on this sacred night were often granted by the Moon Goddess. Pennyroyal’s guests were far too sophisticated to believe such fairy tales, of course, but they bowed their heads regardless, some with shrugs and smiles to show that they were just being ironic but were moved in spite of themselves, remembering the magical MoonFests of their childhood. They wished for love and happiness and yet more wealth, while down in the city Brighton’s artists wished for fame, and her actors for long runs in successful plays, and on the underdecks their slaves and indentured laborers wished for their freedom. And then the silence was ended by a single firework, then another, then a great broadside of rockets and bangers and a clamoring of gongs and bells and kitchen pans loud enough that the goddess herself might hear it as she strolled among her porcelain gardens.
Even if the Green Storm fleet had not already picked up the signal of Brighton’s wireless beacon, they would have been able to home in on the fireworks leaping into the sky above the raft resort. Feathering their steering vanes, the warships swung toward their target, spreading out across the sky while their crews prepared rocket projectors and machine cannon, Tumbler bombs and flocks of raptors, and their fighter escorts, went prowling ahead.
In the belly of the
