“As soon as you’re done,” drawled the tailor. “You’re going to have to go.”
That actually stopped her. Teal swallowed the mouthful she had. “Go? Where?”
“The docks,” he said patiently, but Teal heard the strain under his voice. “We have to get you out of here and up the pipe quickly. We couldn’t find a permanent new chip for you, so you’ve only got an overlay in your hand, and it’s going to decay quickly. Until then your name is Collie Od, you got that? Collie Od.”
“Collie Od,” Teal repeated. You couldn’t get me a good name? Teal swallowed again. “I’m not sure I can walk,” she admitted.
The tailor gestured dismissively. “You’re going to have to. Get yourself together.”
The food and water had worked enough on Teal that she had enough strength to get angry. “What’s the hurry? You didn’t do the job right?”
The tailor frowned. “You didn’t think there might be people looking for you? You’re valuable and you vanished. That’s enough for the hothousers to get the cops to arrest you on suspicion.”
“On suspicion of what?”
“Whatever they want.” He shrugged impatiently. “Now let’s go. I do not keep contraband in my store. You either walk out of here or I drug you and you go out in one of the baskets.” He spread his hands. “Your choice.”
The thought of being knocked out again turned Teal’s stomach. “Give me a second.”
“A second is about all I can give you.”
Teal scraped the last of the porridge off the bottom of the bowl and crammed it into her mouth. Then she swallowed all the water she could hold. Gasping for breath, she set the jug down again. A glance at the tailor’s face told her she could not delay any longer. So she tightened all the muscles in her legs and stood up.
Pain shot through her entire body with an intensity that rocked the floor under her. Her hips were too wide, the ground was too far away. She could not find her balance, and the more she teetered, the more pain ran up and down the muscles in her legs and diaphragm. She couldn’t stand, but she couldn’t let herself fall either, not in front of this man and in the face of the realization that this had been what she wanted, what she had come here for. Her muscles screamed in protest, making the entire world sway and spin, but she tightened them anyway, and she remained on her feet.
The tailor didn’t even bother to nod; he just turned around and started up the stairs, assuming she would follow. Teal clenched her teeth and forced her rubbery, too-long legs to walk forward.
She made it up the stairs, slowly, and shaking all the time as if she were about to fall apart, but she did make it. Outside, the cool wind off the lake touched her skin and made her shiver, but also made her feel better somehow. She drank air in great gulps as she followed the tailor down the boardwalk toward the shore. They passed the dune houses, with their deep-set windows, and Teal stole glances at them as she passed, trying to catch her own reflection to see what she looked like now. She didn’t have much luck, but it kept her mind somewhat off the pain in her guts.
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.