“—forget to check on the engine, a big hit like that and the fuel cells—”
“—all right? Sprained, not broken, surely…”
“Thanergenic,” someone else was saying. “I felt it immediately. Like a warm shower.”
“Since when have you had warm…？”
There was a shrill volley of barks. Noodle; Nona was weak and grateful to hear Noodle. There was a big release sound—a metal sliding door—and, “One, two—heave,” followed by a great metal clashing. Nona struggled to sit up in Pyrrha’s arms and open her eyes, and she saw the blackness out the other side of the door, and heard the sizzling, steaming sound as water boiled off the sides of the megatruck, and felt a blast of arctic air—black, cold, dust-smelling air, the blackest and coldest she had ever felt in her life.
The Prince strode down the platform. She stood on the gravel, haloed in the underlights from the wheezing megatruck, and she said—“Home, sweet home.”
Pyrrha clattered her way down the platform. Nona looked up: they were standing at the bottom of some enormous rocky shaft—there was a tiny square of light way up top, as though they were standing at the bottom of a hole. All the steam was boiling off the truck upward. There was a soup of white cloudy stuff, and then a navy expanse of night—of space. She knew she should feel cold, as her body was feeling cold, but it was more the memory of a sensation than sensation itself.
Paul trotted up alongside Pyrrha, and stared at the filigreed back of the standing, gazing Prince, and said, “Gideon, where are we?”
“Top tier—shuttle field,” said the corpse prince. “Smack bang in the middle.”
“Nona,” said Paul, “well done.”
Nona did not feel as though she had done anything warranting a well done. She had just driven the truck, and she nearly gave up on that. She said drearily: “I didn’t do it on purpose.”
Pyrrha said, “No Lyctor could have taken us here that precisely. I’m not sure John could manage it … then again, I’m not sure of John, period. Gideon and I couldn’t have—though for one thing, this field wasn’t around in my day, you used to land at the installation they made the prison out of and go down from there in the elevator … What the hell was that, in the River? That wasn’t Number Seven.”
Prince Kiriona Gaia had walked several steps away from them into the darkness, and now seemed to float in the gloom, ghostlike in her pure white clothes. She had drawn her sword, and she didn’t turn around.
“Quiet,” she said.
Noodle ignored her totally: inside the truck he was doing the regular bark—bark—bark of a dog alerted to a nearby threat. Everyone else obediently stayed silent for a few seconds.
“I don’t hear anything,” said Pyrrha neutrally.
“Nor I,” said Paul.
Kiriona made a noise that sounded almost amused, and said, “Fine. I’m going. Keep up or you’re probably dead.” Then she crunched away over the gravel and dwindled out of sight.
Pyrrha and Paul exchanged glances. Paul scrambled back up the ramp of the truck and said something to the people inside. There was a short discussion—Nona’s hearing had gone very fuzzy and she couldn’t make out any words, but no one was shouting—and then Paul dropped back down and the ramp began to scrape upward into its housing. Pyrrha adjusted her grip on Nona’s body, shifting her weight, and then set off with Paul in the direction the corpse prince had gone.
“No Pash?” asked Pyrrha.
“She has to stay with Aim,” said Paul, “and Aim got knocked around in the crash. They’ll be fine.”
“Honestly, I was hoping for another gun,” said Pyrrha. “How are the Sixth doing? Is your—is Juno—”
“We’re out of the Beast’s radius. There’s enough thanergy to go around. That truck has multiple highly capable necromancers and a dog. Worry about us instead.”
“I do,” said Pyrrha.
They walked for a long time. Nona felt like she wanted to sleep, but she was very frightened of sleeping. Somewhere in her spine was that same weird insistent urge or twinge. She noticed, vaguely, that Paul and Pyrrha weren’t talking to her anymore. They weren’t talking to each other either, just trudging steadily on through the darkness. Once upon a time Pyrrha would have jollied her along—made bad jokes or said things like “Right, kiddie, another minute and then you’re carrying me.” Now it was almost like they didn’t think Nona was awake, even though her eyes were open.