She passes several increasingly familiar faces along the way, all of them serving as helpers like her, all of them afflicted differently by life. She’s learned the man she exchanged smiles with the first day while he polished lamp fixtures is named Mott. He used to be a soldier. He lost an arm and leg fighting the Sicclunans far away. He also suffered a vicious blow to his head that expresses its effects in his slowed speech and equally slowed thoughts.

Fortunately he’s very kind, and Dyeawan doesn’t mind waiting the excess time it takes for him to complete those thoughts.

She finds Tahei behind his workbench, examining some extremely small wheels under a special glass held by a vise.

“Slider!” he greets her enthusiastically. “Were you already up here?”

She shakes her head.

“Wow, you are really makin’ that thing fly. You do me proud.”

More than a little color comes to her cheeks.

“Thanks.”

He picks up a medium-size rectangular bundle and hands it over to her.

“Can you speed this down to the maps level?”

Dyeawan accepts the bundle readily, but looks back at him in confusion.

“The maps level? I don’t think I’ve been there yet.”

Tahei grins. “Oh, you’re going to love it. You especially. I promise. It’s level six.”

“Okay. What room?”

His grin seems to widen. “The maps level is built a little differently. You’ll see. Trust me.”

She does, and so she just nods.

“I’ll see you in the commissary later, okay?” he says.

“Oh yes. I’ll trade you my taro pudding for your greens.”

He laughs. “You’re a strange kid, you know that?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever gotten to be a kid,” she answers honestly.

“Well then… now’s a good time,” he says, more sincerely.

There are no winding corridors on the maps level, Dyeawan discovers. When she descends the ramp from the level above, she finds herself wheeling into a large antechamber that splits off from several tall, broad archways. They’re all sealed off behind closed doors, save one.

It’s the largest open space she’s thus far seen in the Cadre, ten times the size of the most spacious workroom on the builders level.

Of course, it has to be this big, Dyeawan supposes.

The room contains the entire Capitol.

The city sprawls out before her, every building, street, and feature perfectly captured to scale in an intricate model. It’s raised on a dais four feet from the floor. The Spectrum must be as tall as Dyeawan, and she can roll freely in her tender among the cooperatives of the Gen Circus. There’s even real water filling a stone pool beyond the port, tiny boats skimming its surface. There must be thousands of miniature wooden people riding the sky carriages, crewing the port, and walking the streets.

It almost looks alive.