Chapter Two
THE SUMMER GIRL
I hold to old gods. My family is faithful to the Celestes, though their worship has fallen out of favor among the city’s elite. As a child I remember my father sneaking off to the holy dome of the Singer, or the Noble, to pay his respects before dawn, before the streets were crowded with common folk and their new, common God of the Algorithm. Now it was almost illegal to worship in the domes of the Celestes. The Church of the Algorithm had such power, such influence. Eventually, my parents hid their icons of the Celestes, stopped risking even early morning services. We took service at the Church of the Algorithm, like good Veridians. But at night, in closed rooms, in our secret hearts, we held to the old gods.
Not that I expect much of them, either in this world or the next. I get by with my own help, by my own hand. And when I die, I expect a long, empty blackness. The Celestes teach nothing of an afterlife. Not like the Algorithm, with its infinite pattern, its eternal calculations and the intricacies of their metronomic prophecies. Their lives are a soulless pattern, and their deaths are as well. The holy Wrights of the Algorithm teach of an afterlife of clockwork, the hidden engines of the world swept back to reveal the calculation at the middle, the equation that is God.
I hold to old gods. Imagine my disappointment, then, when the darkness that took me after the Glory of Day shattered against the cold water of the river Reine lingered only for a while. Light came, and noise. I opened my eyes to a world of pattern, of engine. The world of the Algorithm.
“Ah, fuck,” I muttered. My voice was husky, like I’d been yelling. The ceiling above me was a twitching tableau of clockwork precision, cogs and escapements and coiling springs that slipped and ticked and groaned loudly. Metal crashed against metal. Not my idea of heaven. I tried to sit up and found myself weak and naked. I looked down and saw that I was bound to a bed, covered only by a thin sheet of white linen. I spat, and a wad of dried leaves scattered across my chest. The taste in my mouth was of dry earth.
Embalming herbs. They meant to bury me. I looked around. There were other bodies, lined up neatly on either side. Lots of bodies. About as many as you would expect to recover from an airship crashing into a river. I struggled free from my ceremonial bonds and stood up. Behind me, someone screamed.
There was a door, and a crowd of Wrights of the Algorithm clustered inside it. They shook under their grease-lined brown robes. I wrapped the linen around my waist.
“Can I have my clothes back?”
They were quick to oblige. I walked out of the Church of the Algorithm with most of my possessions. The pistol was gone, along with my boots. My shirt had been cut off me, but they had been careful with my pants. They were nice pants. Probably some eye-wise Wright saw some quality he could sell, later on. My jacket was intact, too. And, surprisingly, I still had the Cog Marcus had pressed into my hand moments before he died, tucked into the inner pocket of my jacket, the lining still cold and damp from the river. Thank the Celestes.
“He didn’t seem like someone on his way to die,” I said. I held the thing Marcus had given me in the palm of my hand. The slightest movement of my arm set off its internal machinations, spinning gears and flexing cogs in the central complex. I turned it slowly under the light on Emily’s desk. “He just seemed like someone who was on his way somewhere. Like he knew where he was going.”
She shrugged. She wasn’t really paying attention to me yet, not at this stage of the conversation. This is how it was with us. She was bent over a ledger, marking deliveries and balancing columns. Her fingers were inky. She had her hair up in a bun, but strands had fallen out, and her face was framed in a wispy nimbus of gold, reflected light from the incandescent on her desk. She looked pretty.
“Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t want to stick around to get burned up like everyone else.” She glanced up. “Maybe he just wanted a quick end. Maybe he was just anxious to join the Fehn.”
I shuddered. The river folk, the Fehn, were little more than animated corpses, possessed by some sort of flat worm that haunted the deep currents of the Reine. They talked like the people they had been before they died, but they were something else completely.
“I heard the Fehn are helping out with the recovery,” I said. “The Council’s gathering the Glory up, going to use the parts to make some kind of memorial.”
“Fitting,” she said. “Something to remember it by, I suppose. You have to do that sort of thing, when an airship crashes and kills everyone on board.”
“Not everyone,” I said. She sighed.
“Everyone who hasn’t had half their body replaced with foetal metal, everyone with flesh and blood hearts and eyes that don’t look like dirty dishes.” She set down her pen. “Regular people.”
“You’re just jealous,” I said. “You wish you had eyes like mine. Anything’s better than those mud bogs.” I nodded toward her deep brown eyes, eyes that were wet and warm and sparkled in the light. She smiled and looked down.
“Jacob Burn, the most charming man to ever survive two zepliner crashes, one of which he caused. Why, you must have to drive the ladies away with a stick.”
I smiled. “You know I carry a gun.”
She snorted. “Jacob, Jacob. Why are you here again? Not to show me souvenirs, no.” She closed her ledger and packed away the ink kit. She did things like that very precisely, very neatly. Her whole apartment was like that. The plaster walls were clean, the dark wooden floor never hinted at dust. Once her desk was clear, she opened a different drawer and set three things on the desk. Two of them were envelopes, and the third was an inlaid wooden box, about the size of a short book.
“We need you to meet a man.”
“We?”
She nodded. “This one comes from Valentine. You’re okay with that?”
“Sure. He knows I do good work, and he pays well.” I try to balance my obligations in the underworld, but Valentine was my main employer. I owed him a lot.
“A Corpsman. Register Prescott, of the City Rampant. Give him this.” She pushed the first envelope a little closer. It was cheap butcher’s paper, hand-folded over something thick. I picked it up. Felt like river clay, dense and cold in my hand.
“It’s cassiopia, right? Pure.”
She shrugged. “It’s an envelope. You give it to Prescott.”
I nodded and put it into my coat pocket.
“The name’s familiar, but I’ll have to do a little research. Most of my contacts are Academy. Pilots and Mates, not the desk crew.”
“Won’t be necessary. There’s a formal dinner being held, to honor the Corps. One of those political things. It’s being thrown by the
Family Tomb at their estate on the Heights. Many Corpsmen will be there, including Prescott.”
“It’s not a good place to make a deal. Too many curious eyes at a party like that, too many officials. I can make contact there, but the deal will have to happen somewhere else.”
“It will have to happen there. Prescott has insisted. Doesn’t trust us, I suppose.”
I shrugged.
“I’ll need an invitation.”
She pushed the second envelope towards me. “There will be a ceremony, in remembrance of the Glory of Day. Naturally, as the sole survivor, you’re expected.”
“Naturally.” I took the envelope. “Anything else?”
She presented the wooden box, turning it so I could see the clasp that opened it and slid it in front of me. “The party is being hosted by the Councilor-in-Standing for the Family Tomb. You know her? Angela Tomb?”
“I know her.”
“Her family has been making... let’s call them overtures in force. I’d like you to deliver that. Discreetly.”
She opened the box, and a quiet song tinkled out. A music box.
“Is this going to get me in trouble with the Lady Tomb?”
Emily smiled and shrugged. “I hear you carry a gun.”
She put the box into a leather folder and handed it to me. It fit nicely in the outer pocket of my coat.
When I looked up, Emily was holding the cog-wheel. She was weighing it in her hands, shifting it slightly to watch the inner gears spin and cycle.
I hadn’t thought much about the thing when Marcus handed it to me on the Glory. Other things on my mind at the time. I assumed it was some memento, something he wanted to get back to family in Veridon. Second looks made it clear that it was no sentimental bauble.
“Marcus had this?” she asked.
“Yeah. Wanted me to get it back to the city. Gave it to me, then went on about how he had killed the captain, wrecked the ship.”
“It looks like a Church thing.”
I shrugged. The Church of the Algorithm was a strange group. That being said, they were the dominant religious organization in the city. Veridon was blessed with many mysteries, but the most profitable mysteries were the strange vessels that floated down the river at regular intervals. No one knew where they came from, or who sent them. They contained random collections of cog, half-built machines and enigmatic autonomic artwork. The Church of the Algorithm was built on the belief that these vessels were messages from a hidden God far upriver. They lived their lives trying to reassemble the machines, to reveal the nature of their deity. They worshipped a hidden pattern. We owed them a lot, sadly. Their divinations led to many of the technological discoveries that kept Veridon the dominant power on this edge of the world.
“Maybe,” I said. “I’d rather not go to them. They’ll saint me.”
“I doubt that. No one’s going to mistake you for a holy prophet.”
“Stranger things have happened. Besides, this came from downriver. Their god is upriver, right?”
“So maybe the devil sent this?”
“Then the devil can have it back. I just want to know why Marcus had it.”
“He gave it to you and told you to take it to the city?”
“He did. Hell if I know why.”
“Hm. I have to ask, Jacob. Why’d you shoot Marcus?”
I shrugged. The details weren’t important, but I felt like I’d done him a favor. I had offered finality, a clear judgment on his actions and a clean end. Lots of my fellow passengers lingered on for days before they passed. My friendship with Marcus had bought him something easier, even if he was responsible for the disaster to begin with.
“I wonder,” she said. She set the device on the table. “Why did he do that? Give it to you, for one thing, but everything before? Why he took an axe to the Captain, and killed all those people by proxy? It seems he got off a little easy, dying at your hand.”
“Maybe. He seemed to think someone was following him, someone he couldn’t kill. Something wrong with his head, maybe.” I cleared my throat. “I think wrecking the ship was his way of escaping, ensuring that no one could follow him, wherever he was going. He meant to get off. He was making for the glideboats when someone jettisoned them.”
“Well, he certainly made sure no one followed him.” She held the Cog out to me, held it between her hands like a plate. “Everyone who could follow him on that ship died, sure as fire burns and water drowns.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I remember.” I took the Cog from her, placed my palm under it and lifted. My thumb brushed the inside of her wrist, and I hesitated. Felt her pulse through my hand, the warmth of her skin on my callused knuckle. We stayed there a second longer than we should have.
“Cacher’s on the way,” she said. “He’s coming by to pick up these ledgers. Valentine wants monthly reports, now.”
“He’ll be here,” I said, “sooner or later.”
“Sooner.”
I took the Cog and held it up, blocking her face from my view. “Sure,” I said. “Soon enough.”
She shuffled papers, retrieved the ledger and started checking it again. I stood still for a moment, looking at her between the workings of the Cog.
“Look, if you’d like, I could hold on to that. Ask Cacher about it, or maybe Valentine, later on. They might know something.”
I hesitated again. She was a good job-boss, good as any in the city. Like me, she was independent. Like me, she was in this for herself. Anything she did with the Cog would be in her best interest, not mine. But she had a wider base of contacts, and a better chance of getting Valentine’s attention, through Cacher.
“Sure, thanks.” I held out the Cog again, waiting for her to take it. She didn’t look up, just nodded and motioned to the desk. I set it down and left.
* * * *
Tomb had set up a private zep shuttle from the city up to their estate on the heights. There was a road, but it left the city and traveled twenty miles up the Ebd before crossing at the port town of Toth and winding up into the Thalleon Heights that overlooked the city of Veridon. It was a half-day’s journey in most cases, and the zep was simply quicker and more glamorous. Expensive, too.
The Tomb Estate was a grand place, perched on the side of the Heights that overlooked Veridon’s gentle slopes like a crown on a stony forehead. There were many such estates on the Heights, though not all of them were as dramatically situated as the Tomb. Most of the founding Families had preferred a little more privacy, perhaps more of an escape from the city to their country homes. Elizor Tomb wanted a view of the delta he had helped found, the wide arms of the Ebd and Dunje, the flat plain of the Reine, and all the buildings in between. More buildings now than when he set the first stone in this estate.
Yes, a grand place, and probably one of the last old holdings still in the hands that had built it. The rest of us were just glad to hold onto our seats on the Council and the pared down manors of the city. Most of the old estates that dotted this ridge now belonged to factory bosses and Guild capitalists, along with a bare minority of the Councilorships. Old names weren’t worth much in Veridon anymore, not in the new city, the brave city of cogs hatched by the Church a couple generations ago. The city of my father was passing, with its traditions and lineage, and a new city was breaking through. Old names got you nostalgia and the occasional invitation to parties, and maybe a certain amount of tolerance with the Council and its agencies. And that was the product I sold, to Valentine, to Emily, to anyone who needed it. Someone else’s tolerance, and a name people would recognize, maybe respect.
The crown of the Tomb Estate glowed under us. Night had already fallen, the countryside deep in velvet blackness that hummed with wild insect life, but the estate was lit up like a torch. It was early spring, and the weather was still wildly variable in the city. It was usually cooler up here on the Heights, but tonight was firmly in the grip of a promised summer. Most of the estates were still closed up, but Tomb had brought in the Summer help early, to host tonight’s party. There were stepped balconies that crept down the rock face, and I could see people gathered, musicians playing. We passed over the estate to the landing square. A loose ladder rolled down the zep, and Ensigns clambered across to secure us. A more permanent mooring gate was hauled up, and soon we were debarking.
On my zep there was a cluster of Corpsmen, young officers, Academy-fresh and anxious to mingle with the city’s elite. They kept looking at me sidelong, trying to see my eyes without having to make eye contact. Tricky. Did they know who I was, exactly? Did the instructors still tell my story, or did they leave it out to keep the youngsters from getting too nervous?
An avenue laid in river stone led from the mooring gate to the main hall. The stone crunched under my dress boots. The lawns were green and smooth, spotted with natural rock gardens and alcoves of trees. The house seemed to emerge from the lawn, another rock formation fitted together, smoothed in place by time. Like the lane, the walls of the estate were river rock, as smooth and black as night. It looked like darkness bubbling up out of the earth, darkness riddled with laughter and light and wealth.
The guests had been arriving for a while. When I stepped inside there was already a crowd in the grand hall, though most of the voices were coming from the balcony beyond. A man slipped up to give my invitation a glance and then take my coat and travel hat. The remaining envelope fit comfortably in my jacket, along with the trim wooden box I was to give Angela. The man looked me in the eyes and smiled, nodded towards the hall, and disappeared. Apparently my best suit was good enough to appear on the grounds of the Tomb Estate, or maybe it was my eyes that were good enough. Either way, I was in.
The grand hall wasn’t packed, just a few clusters of men, sometimes women, holding drinks and nodding to one another. There was a bar and a fireplace, both lively. The walls inside were different, though still beautiful. They were steel gloved in warm butterwood, the gloss at once brilliant and soothing. The hall smelled like warm bread and linen, with a tinge of wood smoke that hinted at the countryside around us.
The broad length of the hall was all latticework windows and doors, leading out to the terraced balcony. There was a lot of light out there, and music. I got a drink and went outside.
The night sky was crystal bright, thousands of stars and the silver moon bearing down on the darkness. The city was far below, just as beautiful as it had been on the Glory of Day in the moments after we cleared the falls. Veridon glittered across the sloping delta, laced in blackness by canals and rivers, lights hunched up in avenues and buildings, a warm haze of streetlights and the illuminated domes of the Holy Houses of the Celestes. They still looked bright, no matter how dead their religion, how empty their shrines. I could even pick out their successor, the massive Church of the Algorithm, crouched near the Reine, shimmering with the flames of its deep engines of God. The whole city was like a stone broken open to reveal a heart of precious fire, washed up on the riverbank.
Out here on the balconies there were a lot more people. Frictionlamps hummed softly on sturdy tables, offering a place to lean or set your drink while encouraging mingling among the guests. A lot of the faces were younger than I expected, and unfamiliar. A lot of them were in uniform, as well, testament to the feast’s honor. I walked among the crowd, nodding and smiling as necessary. I paused at the railing, leaning against the cold stone and looking out at the Tomb grounds. Below me and to one side there was another terrace, and a third below it. There were others, I knew, smaller and more discreet, but they remained unlit tonight. It was on these terraces, visiting as a child and leaning dangerously far over the rail, that I first dreamed of flying. A child’s dream.
Laughter interrupted me. The Lady Tomb, holding court on the terrace below me. Her dress was trimmed in black and grey, the colors of the Corps. I found the stairs and went down to present myself.
The orbit of people around here was tight, mostly young folks in nice suits and dresses. I couldn’t tell if they were the sons and daughters of merchants, hoping to curry favor among the Council’s Named Seats, or if these were the very capitalists who had leveraged away most of the old Families, bought up their named rights and property. Either way, it was unusual to see their kind at a party of the Tomb. Tomb’s seat was bought out, too, but the debt hadn’t yet come due. Old man Tomb still lived, though barely. The Lady held the seat in his absence, as had generations of Tombs. When he died, the seat would go with him. Maybe to one of these young bucks.
I couldn’t force my way to the Lady directly, so I joined the slow social progression, drank and chatted, or listened to others go on about nothing. It took a while, but I was able to work my way in, slowly, circling, shaking hands and patting backs, then slipping forward a little more, a little closer. Eventually I found myself in the presence of the Lady Councilor-in-Standing Angela Tomb. I nodded at her.
“Councilor Tomb.”
She looked at me between long lashes. Her eyes were dusty, the faintest gray, and her hair was pulled back into a golden rope that trailed over her shoulder and down her back. She had a pretty chin and lips, but the smile she dressed them in didn’t make it to her eyes.
She raised a hand, almost offering it to me but not quite, as though she was prepared to receive a kiss or deflect a blow.
“Pilot Burn. The hero of Glory. Good of you to come.”
“Always a pleasure to see the old estate, Councilor. But I wouldn’t dare assume the name hero.”
“No?” She raised a nearly empty glass to her mouth and let the ice clink against her teeth. She wasn’t drinking wine, I noticed. “I understand that you’re responsible for rescuing every soul that survived.”
There was a brief, embarrassed wave of laughter around us. I clutched my glass.
“Yes, I suppose. As the only survivor.”
“Ah. I misunderstood. Still, I’m sure you did what you could. As a Pilot, I mean.”
I didn’t like that. I wasn’t sure what she knew about my reasons for being here, if she knew that I was standing as a representative of Valentine, or if she thought I was just here in my role as disgraced nobility and fallen Captain, an example to others. Whatever she knew or believed she knew, I didn’t like this.
The uniform standing next to Tomb leaned forward, a little smile on his face. He was older, wearing the plating of a Commodore. I didn’t recognize his face, but by his age and rank it was a fair bet I had reported to him at some point.
“Let’s not throw that title around, my Lady. Pilots, as you know, can fly. Can you fly, Mr. Burn?”
I was silent, awkwardly aware of my eyes and the hum of the dead machine in my heart.
“You know I can’t.”
“Ah. Then we have misnamed you twice. Hero and Pilot. It’s too bad so much blood has been wasted on you, Jacob Burn.” The man seemed satisfied to have used my full name, as though the absence of titles was insult enough. I put my hand on his shoulder and dropped my glass to the stone floor. It popped, and the crowd became quiet.
“Can you, Commodore?” I flicked my eyes to the nearby railing and the empty space beyond. “Fly?”
No one moved. No one said anything, the tight suits and uniforms all around held their glasses and their tongues and just stared. The Lady was looking at me cautiously, but made no call for help. The Commodore was white. I could feel his heart hammering under his skin. I liked this better. I laughed.
“Nevermind. It’s a good party, My Lady. We should have more like this.” I patted the Commodore on the chest. “I like your friends.”
I left, and conversation resumed. I took a drink from a passing waiter, found a smaller staircase that led to the third, and lowest, terrace and found a quiet spot. There was a garden here, a ledge that had been built up and landscaped, an unnaturally smooth bit of grass and tree dangling over the ridge’s height. There was a zepliner drifting in from Veridon, perhaps the last of the night. Upriver, far up the Reine, an accumulation of storm clouds was piling up. Lightning flashed deep in its heart, pink flickering into white. A breeze lifted from the delta valley, bringing a smell of wetness and growth and hot metal. Storms rolling in.
I thought about my little encounter. If Lady Tomb knew my purpose, knew I was there on behalf of Valentine, she might have just been trying my steel. Testing the limits of Valentine’s broken monster. Then again, if she was just being a bitch. Well. Maybe I should have thrown her friend off the balcony.
I finished my drink and went to get another. The sky was changing, clouds stealing away the stars, getting dark.
* * * *
The zepliner brought the girl, riding hard against the gathering storm. They docked at the same mooring gate we had used and hurried her down the cobble walkway while the zep jerked and bobbed. She was beautiful in the non-specific way common to engram-singers.
She was wrapped tight in a black shawl and dress, surrounded by the blue tunics of the Artificer’s Guild.
Tonight’s performance was to be The Summer Girl. It was an old song, a favorite of the Corps. The original performance had been at the christening of the first zepliner, the awkwardly-named Lady of the Summer Skies. The later exploits of this vessel, near-myth in the Corps circles, had solidified the song’s place as the unofficial anthem of the Corps. That it was also one of the oldest recorded engram-songs, performed at the earliest cusp of that still-shady technology, added to the mystique.
From the balcony I watched the zep flee the Heights. Most everyone else had already moved inside. The coming weather gave the air a heavy dampness tinged with electric fire. I went inside before the real rain started. I only had the one suit to my name, and didn’t want it ruined. Behind me the zep dropped rapidly into the valley.
There was a crowd of Corpsmen at the bar. Their conversation was boisterous, full of laughter and stern opinions. A few of them eyed me, probably because of my earlier outburst with the Commodore. I eyed them back, peaceful-like. When I sat at the bar they made room but ignored me. I got my drink and looked around. Maybe I could find this Prescott guy, or have a word with the Lady that wasn’t quite so full of confrontation. One of the young tight uniforms beside me set his glass carefully on the bar and, just as carefully, knocked it over with his elbow.
It was clumsy. A clumsy way to start a fight, like he was trying to be clever with his pals. The liquor slithered across the wood, towards me. He turned in mock surprise.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“Oh, oh. So sorry, sir.” The boy feigned shock. Just a boy, his Ensign clasp very shiny. “I hope no offense...”
“Push someone else, kid.” I stood up before the spill got to me, let it cascade onto the empty stool and picked up my glass. “You’ve messed up the Lady’s furniture. Go get a mop and put that Academy training to some use.”
I went somewhere else, across the room. Heavy walls of water were beating against the glass, the rain mixed with lightning and a hammering wind. I stood by the fireplace and warmed up. My lungs got cold in this kind of weather, I could feel the pistons creaking, the metal chill where it touched bone and skin. I flexed my hands, alternating as I switched the glass from one hand to the next, trying to burn off the anger. I had lost my temper with the Commodore, and that was stupid. I couldn’t afford stupid out here, in this territory.
“Don’t mind them,” a voice said near me. I turned to find an officer, OverMate, leaning comfortably on the hearth near me. Gray dusted his temples, and his fingers were exceptionally bony. “The young. They’re full of wine and blinded by the polish of their shoes.”
I shrugged. “You shouldn’t be talking to me.”
“Pardon?” He became even more casual, almost sleepy.
I looked him over close. The careful ease of his stance, the remarkable nonchalance of his character.
“Register Prescott, right?” I asked. He seemed a little surprised, but covered it well. “You shouldn’t be talking to me. Stupid chance.”
“Like picking a fight with the Commodore. That kind of stupid?” He hissed, keeping his face perfectly neutral. “Stupid, like arranging the meet here?” He waved a hand at the hall of Corpsmen, as though talking about the weather or the crowds. “Half the people here are Corps. The other half are Councilors or the instruments of some. Is that,” he smiled coldly, “the sort of stupid you mean?”
I looked at him squarely. “I didn’t arrange this.”
“What?”
“I didn’t arrange this. It wasn’t my idea.” I took a drink, looked out over the uniforms and evening dresses. “I assumed it was your idea. My contact said you were more comfortable on such neutral ground.”
“My idea?” He leaned forward, for a moment letting his cool mask slip. “My contact insisted it be here. Said it was the only place you could make the exchange.”
I snorted. “Fascinating. You probably don’t want to exchange contact names?” He shook his head sharply. “No, I didn’t think so. Finish your drink, Register. Get another and don’t talk to me again.” I met his eyes for a breath. “I’ll let you know when and where.”
He straightened up, finished his drink and walked away. His face looked like he’d been drinking piss. Maybe that was an act, so he could ignore me the rest of the evening. Maybe he just didn’t like the situation. I didn’t like it, that’s for sure.
Emily seemed plenty clear that this meet came from outside. Whether that meant from higher in Valentine’s organization, or from someone on Prescott’s side of the deal didn’t matter. It was a bad meet, but it was the meet we had to make. But now I knew it wasn’t the client. Prescott had been forced into this, not by his people but by Valentine’s. And they had told me it was on Prescott’s side. Meaning someone wasn’t being honest, someone didn’t trust. I was being put in a bad position, and I didn’t like it.
I drank and I waited, either for the show to start or some other part of this increasingly strange deal to fall into place. The show came first. A butler with high, thin hair and immaculate cuffs gathered us up and led us through a stone archway in the hall to the estate’s private theater.
The place wasn’t big enough. Most estates had a theater, at least the good ones, but they were made for extended families getting together for drinks and a light opera. We were crowded in, the air was hot and even the quiet whisper of such a crowd was nearly a roar in the pure acoustics of the theater. The concert hall was a tight circle, concentric rings of velvet seats terraced around a polished wooden stage. They led her to the center, the frictionlamps bright on her white dress, then several of the attendants busied themselves with the equipment that had been set up next to the stage. There was a young man seated next to me, a child really, the son of some Admiral. He leaned against me, straining to see.
“What are they doing? Is that the Summer Girl?”
I looked down at the thin white girl, alone on stage. “No, but it will be. You’ll see.”
The boy’s mother patted his arm. “His first social affair,” she whispered. “He’s very excited.”
I nodded. “He understands, right? He won’t be frightened?”
The boy looked at me with hot green eyes. He shook his head firmly. His mother smiled. “Oh,” said the boy, his attention on the stage below. It had gotten quiet around us.
“Oh.”
I turned to see. The Artificers approached the girl with a jar. I leaned forward. The jar was glass, and the dark contents seemed to squirm. The girl closed her eyes and opened her mouth. I could see the furtive coiling of her machine. She had beautiful lips, full and shiny like glass, and they were quivering. I wondered if she was afraid.
The Master Artificer was a tall man with arms that moved fluidly, like they were nothing but joints. He dipped his hands into the jar and brought out something shiny. The queen fetus. He placed it on the girl’s tongue and then stepped back, along with the rest of the Guildsmen. The girl’s hands fluttered to her throat and she opened her eyes, wide and white. A second later she made a coughing, gasping sound. The boy’s mother tutted and turned her face. The rest of the audience shifted uncomfortably.
It happened suddenly. The Artificers set down the jar and tipped it over. The swarm spilled out like glittering, jeweled honey, their tiny legs clicking against the wood as they washed across the stage. They climbed the girl and began to nest with her, become her, entering the secret machines that made up the engram. They were seeking their queen and her pattern, the song stitched into her shell and her memory, awaiting birth and creation. The girl shivered, and she became.
She straightened up, looking out across the audience. I hadn’t seen The Summer Girl performed in some time, since my Academy days, in fact. But there she was, unmistakable. She stood in front of the audience like she ruled it, like these people didn’t exist when she wasn’t on stage, and when she was on stage they existed only to appreciate her. The girl had that stance, her back and chin and shoulders laying claim to the Manor Tomb. The swarm fed on her, rebuilt her before our quiet eyes. Her skin leaked white, her cheekbones flattened and rose, the perfect lips became more, writhing as they changed. She stood taller, her hair shimmered and changed color, cascaded down her shoulders. She was older now, fuller, her hips and breasts those of a woman. The audience was silent, stunned.
The Summer Girl stood before us, more perfect than she had actually been on that long distant day. She raised an arm to us, nodded to the Lady Tomb in her seat of honor, and then she sang. Perfectly, beautifully, her voice was a warm hammer in my head. This tiny hall could not contain her, the very bones of the mountain around us thrummed with her song. I remember nothing of words or themes, as it always is with The Summer Girl. Just warm glory and peace remaking my heart, flowing through my bones, filling the cramped metal of my heart like slow lightning in my blood.
When it was over, there was silence. I imagine we would have clapped if she had left anything in us, if we hadn’t been drained by the beauty of her voice. The Girl nodded, again, content with our awe. And then she fell apart, her hair and face crumbling and tumbling down the girl, bits and pieces clattering against the wooden stage. The girl collapsed, trailing thin lines of blood from her proxy body as the shell of the Summer Girl left her. The Guildsmen scurried forward, sweeping up the scraps of miracle, the slowly squirming remnants of the Maker Beetles, helping the girl to her feet. They escorted her off the stage, her hand to her head, her legs dragging between two strong Artificers. Only when she was gone, when the last bit of the Summer Girl had been swept away, could we bring ourselves to stand and applaud the empty stage.
In standing, my eyes slid across the stage and settled on the darkness, where they had led the girl. There was a man standing there, dressed in the deep blue of the Artificers, though he was paying no attention to the other Guildsmen busy in their art all around him. He had his arms crossed, and seemed to hover in the shadow of the bright lights. His head turned slowly, looking out at the audience. As his gaze passed me I felt a deep shiver of recognition. Cold eyes, the lightest blue, like snow over water. He looked beyond me, paused, then turned his face towards me again.
He looked right at me. His face was empty, completely slack. Without a word he disappeared from the stage.
Around me the crowd was still applauding. Just a moment earlier I had been sweating in the close heat of the theater. Now that sweat froze against my skin. I looked around for an exit.
Lady Tomb was waiting at the end of my row. She was looking directly at me. She nodded and disappeared among the unending ovation. I turned and left the hall.