Kingdom of Cages (49 page)

The dunes opened up to make way for the market and the beach. At the end of the longest jetty, a pair of dirigibles floated
on the gently lapping water, tethered with thick cables to the cage of scaffolding and ladders that let the ground crews swarm
over them, doing whatever was necessary to keep the things flying. Their aerogel bags were translucent, showing the network
of silver struts that gave them their shape. They were filigree flying machines, and, at the moment, just about the most beautiful
things Teal had ever seen. They’d take her home. Home to where she’d find Dad, to where she’d get to have a good life, where
she was in charge and didn’t have to be afraid all the time.

In front of her, the tailor slowed down. Teal tried to shorten her stride, but she misjudged and banged into his back like
a clown in a bad routine. He pushed her away impatiently. “Here’s where we find out whether we did a good enough job on you,
‘Collie.’ ” He pointed down to the jetty.

Teal looked where he pointed, her heart in her mouth. What if it was Chena? What if she tried to drag her back? She’d have
to squawk, but now she was a criminal too….

But it wasn’t Chena. Two people in neat brown tunics stood in conference with a third person, a tallish man with dark brown
skin and a wooden plug in his ear. It took Teal a second to recognize him from the back, but it was Constable Regan.

So, Chena couldn’t be bothered to come herself,
thought Teal, strangely disappointed.
She had to send the cop.

The tailor lengthened his stride again. A wary smile stretched across his face as he reached the spot where Regan and his
gang stood. “Good morning, Constable. May we get by?”

Regan turned around and gave the tailor a once-over. “Morning, Wilseck, and no.” His smile was grim. “This is what we call
a checkpoint. We’re going to have to check your chip. And yours.” He nodded at Teal. Teal’s throat closed, but his attention
was fleeting. He didn’t recognize her. She fought the urge to touch her face. How much
had
they changed her? “And we have to ask if you’ve seen her.” He unhooked the chip reader from his belt and held it up so they
could see the little 3-D of Teal shining there. His gaze flitted over Teal, and rested again on Wilseck, and then shot back
to Teal. This time his brow started to furrow.

Teal swallowed hard, while the tailor, Wilseck, squinted at the 3-D. “Nope. Nobody I know.”

Regan took a step closer and pointed the display at Teal. “How about you?”

Teal’s heart thundered in her chest. She was sure the whole world could hear it. She had to do something now, right now. Regan
was looking too closely at her. He’d know her in another second.

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s Teal Trust, isn’t it?”

Regan’s brow furrowed more deeply for a second and then smoothed out. “That’s right. Have you seen her?”

Teal nodded. “She’s been hanging out around the library, trying to buy a skyhook for the computer so she can get hold of someone
on Athena.”

“She try to buy from you?”

Again, Teal nodded. “I’m not that desperate, though. If that kid’s legal, I’m a constable.”

Regan smiled, and maybe he laughed silently. “But I don’t know you, do I?”

“I guess not.” She saluted him. “Collie Od.”

She watched his eyes flicker back and forth as he ran through some kind of mental list. “No, I don’t know you,” he said, more
to himself than to her. He looked over her shoulder at the transport guards. “Collie and Wilseck stay here until we get back
from the library.”

Regan strode up the pier. Teal swallowed past the fear in her throat and glanced back at Wilseck. He looked placid, ready
to wait all day, but she could feel the tension singing through him. The look he gave her was the same cold expression she’d
seen from Chena a million times. It said,
What do you think you’re doing?

Keeping the cop away from me,
she thought toward him, but she couldn’t tell if the idea reached him.

Instead, he nodded to the two checkpoint guards blocking the peer. “Grace. Cole.”

Grace stood on the left-hand side of the pier and carried a taser on her belt as well as a scanner. “Willie.”

“What’s the score with this Teal Trust?”

Cole smirked. “Willie, if you expect me to believe you don’t know about the Trusts, you must be way off your game.”

Wilseck gave a small nod. “All right, I know. What I don’t know is why the constable is looking for her.”

“Because she’s gone missing, hasn’t she?” Grace crossed her arms. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, now, would you,
Willie?”

Wilseck’s smile grew sly, and Teal’s heart began to pound. Wilseck was running a game here, and she didn’t know the rules.
“That all depends, doesn’t it?”

Cole stepped forward. “Oh, no, Willie. You don’t have any leverage this time. All we have to do is tell the cop you know.”

“Well, you could do that,” agreed Wilseck, appearing completely unruffled. “But it wouldn’t be very good for you if Lopera
had to tell her employers you weren’t playing along.”

At those words, Cole went dead white. Who was Lopera? Who were her employers? Teal had never seen a villager look like that
except when somebody was suggesting he might be getting on the wrong side of a Pharmakeus…

Or the hothousers.

No. He couldn’t be threatening them with the hothousers. What he was doing was so illegal they’d toss him into involuntary
before he had time to blink. No. There had to be something else going on.

But Cole’s face was still that sick, scared white. “Willie, look, it’s not just us. That Constable Regan is not going to be
pushed around. We can’t just…”

Grace, on the other hand, just licked her lips and looked away. When she looked back, Teal saw a combination of steel and
resignation in her face. “What do you want, Willie?” she asked wearily.

Wilseck’s smile grew even wider. “I always knew you were the smart one, Grace.”

“Piss off,” she replied genially. “If you’ve got something for us, let us know the price.” Her eyes flicked over his shoulder
to scan the boardwalk. “Fast.”

“When he gets back, you tell the cop that my friend here ran off.” He jerked his chin at Teal.

“When she actually went into the dirigible?” Cole raised his eyebrows inquisitively.

“Very good, Cole,” said Wilseck. “You’re catching on.”

Grace rubbed her chin. “That’s a lot. Aside from the usual threats, what are you giving us?”

“Teal Trust was in my shop,” he said. Teal hoped no one saw how every muscle in her body tensed. “She wants to stay out of
the hot-houses, for a wonder. She wanted some of her alleles changed so she’d be a little less attractive to them. I told
her I’d have to think about it before I arranged to have something so valuable cut into. She told me where she’s staying.”

Teal’s heart hammered painfully against her ribs.
Believe it. Believe it,
she urged the guards silently. It took all her strength not to look at Wilseck.

Cole glanced at Grace. She paused, considering. “Is any of that true?”

“No,” said Wilseck coolly. “But I can make it sound really good for your constable.”

Grace snorted. Then she nodded.

“Go,” said Wilseck quietly. So much of Teal’s energy was bound up in not bolting, it took her a second to realize that he
was talking to her.

When she did, though, she didn’t hesitate. She trotted down the jetty toward the waiting dirigible. One of the tenders scowled
at her and looked back at the guards. Grace waved her arm in a signal that must have meant all-okay, because the man stood
aside and allowed Teal to duck through the low doorway into the gondola.

She had expected a passenger cabin like they had on the one that brought them down here from Athena, but this dirigible was
more like a flying warehouse than anything else. Nets bolted to the walls and floor held huge piles of crates and cargo containers.
Teal stepped to one side of the doors and stood there for a second, uncertain what to do. A tall thin man in brown coveralls
stepped out from between the piles of cargo holders and looked her over.

“Passenger seats up front.” He gestured toward the gondola’s interior. “Better get going.” He continued on out the doorway.

Teal didn’t move. Nothing inside her was convinced that the guards, let alone Regan, would go for Wilseck’s threats or stories
for long. They’d come in here. They’d haul her out.

Her eyes darted left and right, trying to take in the whole of the gondola quickly. There wasn’t much to it. Other than the
netted piles of cargo, there were only the curving walls lined with cabinets and padding, and the support girders that held
the walls in place.

Cabinet’s too obvious. It’ll take too long to find which crates are empty.
Her eyes traveled up and down the girders. They had holes into which brackets or ring bolts could be fit. They’d make great
toeholds too.

Teal snatched up an empty cargo net from a rack by the door and stuffed it into the waist of her trousers, because she had
no pockets big enough. Then she found a toehold in the girder and started climbing.

Her longer arms and legs proved good for something. Even though everything still hurt, Teal managed to clamber up to the ceiling
girders more easily than she would have before the operation. She wedged herself into a corner, bracing her back against one
girder and her feet against another. She reached for the cargo net, intending to sling it in place to make herself a nice
little hammock, when she heard movement below.

Teal froze. Her heart thundered so wildly she thought its noise echoed off the walls. Below, Regan and the two guards from
the pier walked into the gondola.

“Check the passenger seats,” said Regan. “Just in case she’s doing something really obvious.” One of the guards—Cole, Teal
thought— headed forward.

Grace and Regan stayed where they were. So did Teal. The girders bit into her palms and buttocks where she braced herself.
The joints in her knees began to hurt all over again.

“So, what do we do now, Constable?” asked Grace. Her voice sounded hollow as it reached the ceiling. “Start knocking on crates
and opening cabinets? I’m telling you, she took off.”

“But you can’t tell me where she took off to,” said Regan doggedly. “So, I have to check.”

Cole’s footsteps echoed as he came back. “She’s not up there.” Both the guards looked at Regan.

Regan began walking around the cargo containers. Every now and then he would touch one or tug on the lines of the nets holding
them in place, as if he were trying to see which ones felt loose.

Teal held her breath.
Don’t look up. Don’t let him look up. He lives in trees and he knows that things can be hiding in the branches, but don’t
let him think about looking up here.
Feeling like a baby, but unable to help herself, Teal closed her eyes. Her leg muscles began to tremble and cramp. But she
still heard the footsteps and the low creaking as Regan pulled on the net lines.

Don’t look up. Don’t look up.

“They aren’t paying us enough for this, Constable. If the hothousers want her, they can come get her themselves, can’t they?”

“What do you think I’m here for?” answered Regan.

The hothousers were looking for her? Not Chena? This made no sense, no sense at all. If Wilseck was working for someone working
for the hothousers, what did they need the guards for? Who would have told them she was missing in the first place? Had Willie
sold her out? But if he had, why wasn’t she in the hothouse right now? He had her all knocked out in his basement; he could
have done anything.

What is going on?
Teal squeezed her eyes even more tightly shut.

The sound of footsteps stilled. Teal opened her eyes and risked a glance down. Grace had cocked her head. “You really don’t
care that this one might be trying to stay away from the hothousers?”

Regan rubbed his brow. “Yes, I do care, but there are laws, and we all have to live under them. She broke the law by going
to the tailor, and she forfeited her body right. We have to make every effort to bring her in.”

Grace paused, as if digesting this new information. “We don’t really know she went to the tailor.” She raised one finger and
pointed it at Regan. “I wouldn’t take Wilseck’s word if he said the sun would rise at dawn.”

It was Regan’s turn to pause. Something was passing between them, but Teal wasn’t sure what it could be. Keeping herself from
falling occupied too much of her mind.

“No,” said Regan at last. “Let’s go find the man and see if we can get some hard verification from him.”

Regan and the guards walked out. Teal stayed where she was until her knees began to shake so badly that sweat broke out on
her forehead and she thought her palms would slip off the girder. With the last of her strength, she climbed back down and
made her way to the small cluster of passenger seats. There was no one else in them. She picked a seat at random and collapsed
into it, fastening the seat belt around her waist and shoulders with trembling hands.

Behind her, she heard the sound of the cargo door being dragged shut. With a clang, the bolts shot home. The rumble of the
steering engines vibrated through the floor. Gently, the dirigible rose into the air.

Home,
thought Teal, letting her head fall back against the seat. It didn’t matter what else was going on. It didn’t matter who
was after her or who was letting her go, or what little games they were playing. She’d be with the Authority soon, and they
took care of their own.

I’m going home.

“Why would our people do this to us?” asked Peda, city-mind to the Psi Complex.

“I don’t know,” said every voice but Aleph’s. It was a useless answer. They had to know. It was their job to know. If they
didn’t know, how could they take care of their people?

They were all connected through the default convocation image of themselves sitting in a circle against a starry background
and looking down at the gently turning globe of Pandora.