Part 6 (1/2)

Gavin resettled his wings. ”Does that mean Tristen won't be meeting us here after all?”

”No. Caitlin says his ETA is only a few hours now. It will be easier to connect here.”

Gavin bobbed his head at the end of his neck like the ball at the end of a flexible rod. ”We'll have to work fast, then.”

The necromancer only kicked a clod of earth, gesturing at the empty orchards. ”I could have saved these people.”

”As you did Perceval and Rien. If you had been here, the flu might not have killed so many.”

An angry nod moved curls against Gavin's wing. He cupped it wide, as if to shelter Mallory's head, angry in his own turn that all he had to offer was a useless protective gesture. ”They were Conns. Would they have accepted your help?”

”It's not the Conns. It's the servants.” A declaration Gavin met with silence, until Mallory added, ”We should examine the house before deciding everyone is dead.” That last was said desultorily, as if Mallory a.s.sumed already what they would find.

Still, they found the direction and went, coming at last through orchards and gardens-all busy with the task of healing themselves for a harvest that might never happen-to the great house of Rule. It was not an imposing edifice, being built simply into the bulkheads of the Heaven, so the effect was rather of a castle around a courtyard. Once they emerged from the pa.s.sageway that led them in, walls pocked with openings rose on every side toward a sky full of windows.

”If you were central biosystems, where would you be?” Gavin asked. A richly oleaginous scent drew his attention. In addition, he could just make out a faint, mechanical whine.

”Some expert system you turned out to be.”

”I'm a power tool. You're the one with a head full of dead Conn. You tell me.”

Mallory snorted. ”If you were the last small band of desperate survivors, where would you be?”

”In the kitchens,” Gavin answered. With one wing, he pointed to the turning exhaust fan set low in the wall before them. ”In the kitchens.”

Mallory could move fast, given the right provocation. Gavin allowed the wind of the necromancer's pa.s.sage to lift him from his perch, beating heavily in pursuit. Mallory ducked into the main entrance of the house, an arched tunnel whose curved walls echoed back the thumping of Gavin's wings. They ran through hallways, pelted down a flight of stairs, charged unwavering past a long gallery of portraits. Together they descended, Mallory choosing stairwells over corridors and left turns over right, until they leveled out in a corridor flanked by open chambers. The unsealed doors revealed coffin sleepers four to a room, racked in vertical sets of two against each wall. Servants' quarters.

Gavin-who had never been here before-remembered. Remembered the shape of the s.p.a.ce, the doors, the cubicles. The irising spiral leading to food services, beyond. He backwinged, but there was no place to land and consider. He knew this place, knew it in every shred of metal and polymer that made up his form.

On the right, there would be a pa.s.sageway, concealed by doors that might seem-to the casual eye-merely a part of the corridor wall. Beyond that, Gavin remembered, were the elevators that led to the laboratories and workstations of central biosystems.

The memory unsettled him. It itched, so he wished he could claw at it.

”The bio labs are that way,” he said, with a lash of his tail.

”I thought you didn't know the layout.”

”I don't. But that doesn't change the fact that the bio labs are that way.”

”Correct,” said Mallory, still trotting. ”We'll check that after we're done in the kitchen. Which should be right about-”

The door was unmistakable, a heavy affair sealed tight, with its air lock lights burning green for a good seal. Mallory leaned a shoulder against it and cupped a hand between one ear and the portal.

Gavin looped to pa.s.s Mallory's other ear. ”If everybody in Rule died of an engineered influenza, there could be contaminated bodies inside. Is it safe to open that?”

”Is anything?”

”I'm immune,” the basilisk said. ”I was only concerned for you.”

”I promise not to die on you.”

A child's answer-but that was Mallory. Sulking, Gavin settled to a rail against the wall and watched while the necromancer examined the door and the s.p.a.ce before it.

Gavin's beak was not made for frowning. He converted the urge to a head bob instead. ”How do you mean to get the door open?”

With a sidelong glance, Mallory said, ”Technology.”

Magic, rather. Which was to say, the layers and layers of abstract knowledge that came as the arcane cost of being a necromancer. Whatever the necromancer did to subvert the locks, in only seconds the portal irised wide.

Gavin flapped up to perch beside it. ”Charming,” he said.

A complicated rearrangement of forehead muscles indicated that perhaps Mallory could have cared less, but it would have taken an effort. ”It's what we do. Gavin, break this open.”

Behind the irising door was another panel, one that looked as if it had been set in place with great haste. Sealed from within, Gavin now saw. Wedged shut, and there were dents and scratches-signs someone had tried to break through it without success.

Mallory turned, an eyebrow raised, and said singsong, ”Oh, familiar demon?”

Whatever the construction, Gavin's eyebeams illuminated all: the secondary decompression door, the obvious air seal, the bright marks of welding where the panel met the bulkhead. If you meant to conceal your presence from an aware and seeking enemy, it was worth nothing at all. But if your goal was isolation from a spreading contagion, this was exactly the thing.

”Here,” Gavin said, settling with flipped wings on the necromancer's shoulder. He breathed deep-a lungful of air he did not need and would not use, except to speak.

”Will it open?”

Mallory, trying remembered codes, made a dismissive gesture. ”The comm is smashed, the door is welded to the bulkhead, and the old codes I have are not bypa.s.sing the lock.”

They would have been changed. Which meant anything Gavin remembered, in that fragmentary manner that Gavin sometimes seemed to be remembering things, would be of very little use. But memories were not his only skill.

”So did they smash the comm before they entered, so they would not have to hear the plaints of the dying?” he asked. ”Or was it broken by the same desperate outsider who left the dents, in frustration or revenge when they would not open the door?”

”When we get in, we can talk to any survivors and find out.” Mallory thumped a fist on the door in irritation. Its ma.s.s was such that it m.u.f.fled the sound dramatically.

”The new angel?” Gavin suggested. He hopped closer to the controls, tracing the wiring by feel. ”If whoever is in there is alive and aware-”

”The Captain says Nova cannot reach inside the door.” Another thump, this one sharper, as if Mallory hoped that pounding on the door would draw out any denizens. ”It's sealed against unincorporated colonies. There's an electrostatic boundary field.”

”I think breaking the comm was punitive,” Gavin confirmed, ”because the door has been shatterbolted as well as welded. Whoever is in there is sealed in. They can't come out. They can't change their minds. You would have to cut through.”

”Ariane.” Mallory shoved a fistful of hair out of narrowed eyes, voice dripping loathing. With one crooked thumb, the necromancer traced a bright scar on the door. ”Her hatchetwork, maybe. Then nothing works.”