The elevator slowed and shuddered to a stop. A moment later, the doors slid open. We were on the ground floor of the capitol building now, a massive stepped pyramid made of stone and glass that rose from the caverns, stretching nearly to the top of the blue dome. This was the riskiest part of the venture—we were in the geroi’s territory. I could only hope that Antos and Melusin were upstairs in their enclosed offices. If they happened to see us here, I’d never be able to lie my way out of it.

“Put your hood up before we go outside,” I said. I had given Isaak a plivos’ cloak, made of heavy burlap, before we left the hospital. “I get enough attention when I visit the upper levels. If anyone sees you, word will surely get back to the geroi.”

“I’ll stick out like a sore thumb, huh?”

The loose strand of hair fell forward again. I tucked it back. “I suppose so.”

We passed through the arched doorway of the capitol building, and Isaak drew in his breath when I opened the outer gate. The citidome spread out before us, an enormous metropolis of red-clay buildings and cloth-draped stalls, throngs of plivoi milling between them. The air was thick with the smell of fried food and gurza dung.

“Wow,” Isaak said at last. “This is incredible. It’s like… Ancient Rome meets Krypton, or something.”

I wondered how long Isaak was going to continue using bizarre idioms like that before he realized they meant nothing to me. I pulled up the hood of my own cloak and led him into the city.

“How many people live here?” he asked as we passed through the marketplace.

“Slightly less than one million.”

“Wow,” he repeated. “That’s even bigger than Tierra Nueva. Well, if you factor in the metro area… but all of them live inside this dome?”

“Yes. The plivoi live here in the upper levels. The esotoi live between, in the uppermost caverns which open out onto the surface. And the patroi live in the deepest level, far below the surface.” Where the risk of radiation exposure was at its lowest. I omitted that part, though.

“That’s incredible. How many domes are there on Iamos?” Isaak asked.

I swallowed. “Just six.”

“Six? And they’re all this size?”

“Yes. There are also two smaller citidomes on Hamos, the third planet. But that is all that remains of our population.”

“I’m sorry,” Isaak said. He stopped short. “Wait a minute—you say Venus is the third planet?”

“Hamos,” I corrected him. I gestured skyward. The thick blue glass obscured it, but you could still see it there in the sky, shining like a second sun. “Why do you ask?”

Isaak looked up at the planet thoughtfully. “No reason,” he finally said. “Everything is just so different. I wonder how far back in time I traveled.”