She wanted to say, Camilla, I’m really sorry I listened to your secret private tape, but Cam was sitting in front of her and mechanically scooping the contents of two pottles at once into her mouth. That did not seem like the action of someone who hated Nona forever, even if there was something strangely awkward in the set of her shoulders and her hands.
“Cam,” she said, plucking up what was left of her courage, “are we going to wait at home for Pyrrha?”
“No,” said Camilla. “She’s been gone for nearly twenty-four hours. I’ve been stuck here the whole time. I need to see the broadcast. I need to know where Pyrrha is. We’re going looking.”
“Oh! To her work, at the building site?” Nona cheered up a little. “Do you think she got caught up in everything and slept on someone’s couch?”
But Camilla squashed this. “No. The Warden says the timeline’s wrong. Pyrrha went walkabout before one o’clock, when she was due to pick you up. Either she met with an accident or she went somewhere deliberately. If she went somewhere deliberately, she had to make the choice then and there.”
“How do you know?”
“Her guns are still here.”
Even Nona could tell that meant Pyrrha had not intended to go anywhere very far. Pyrrha loved her guns. Then Cam dropped the bomb.
“We’re going to the spaceport.”
Nona was staggered.
“Cam, the spaceport is a mess, everyone says so, you say never go near there, we’re going to get shot maybe twenty times.”
Camilla emptied the last pottle into her mouth. “Yes,” she said. And: “You’re coming too.”
“Really? Really? But I never get to go! Thank you! I won’t get shot anywhere strange.” Then she said: “Oh, but Cam, can’t we please please go by my school first, I said I’d go. Hot Sauce and the others are really the only ones left.” When she saw Camilla’s expression, she pleaded, “I haven’t made sure the Angel—my teacher—is safe, you know, after driving me home last night. She saved my life. I can’t go anywhere without checking in. Really truly.”
She did not expect Camilla to hesitate. She expected, “No.” But Camilla said, “Fine. The Warden wanted to thank her. But, Nona…”
Nona waited.
“After this,” Camilla said, “probably no more school. Probably no seeing your friends. You know that, right?”
She was glum, but she had been expecting it. “I do, I do know that.” She couldn’t help but say: “I’ve loved them though.”
“We know,” said Camilla.
After that Camilla went to dress and clean up in the next room. Nona, having discharged quite a lot of goodness, was drawn to do something that she never would have been allowed to do normally; she went to the window, peeled up the sniper blazing as quietly as possible, and stared directly up at the big blue sphere hanging in the sky.
She so rarely got to look at it from here. It hung on the morning horizon, and as she watched the sphere made a low, voiceless moan—a wanting sound—but quiet, on the edge of hearing. A whispered vocalisation and nothing more.
“Can you help me?” Nona whispered. “Can you do anything? Do you know where Pyrrha is?”
But it only lowed sadly, like a cow.
“That’s all right,” whispered Nona. “Sorry for asking.” Then: “Don’t do anything weird, okay? I’m having enough trouble right now.”
The sniper blazing was pressed back down just in time for Camilla to come back, to help as Nona wriggled into her sand jacket and sleeves, and her hat and her mask, and did up her shoes; Camilla put on the dark glasses, and then they went out into the Building as though it was a normal morning.
The Building was a hive of activity, as though it hadn’t slept. There were voices behind doors—sounds of people moving heavy boxes—no baby crying, only talking, low and urgent. For some reason Camilla even took the elevator this time. When Nona asked why, Camilla said, “Conserve your energy. You’re tired.” The elevator behaved all the way down to the ground floor, as if it was cowed too. On the ground floor there were lots of people there, forming a human chain at some storage cupboard or something, passing sealed security boxes from person to person to make a big stack of them outside the door. There was another person carefully securing them in the back of an idling truck. Nobody paid Camilla or Nona the slightest bit of attention.
It was a long and lonely walk to school without Pyrrha, despite the press of all the people. There was something electric in the air, as though the city were tensed and waiting for a loud noise, like watching a dog play with a rubber balloon and dreading the pop.