The elevator spoke as it ascended. “Peba Unin Tower features the most exciting choices in entertainment. May I interest you in a brief sojourn before you arrive at your floor? Casino, brothels, level two-ninety. Playhouse, restaurants, free combat spectating, level three twelve. Organic grocers, scholars’ library, level three fourteen. Grappling bouts begin in a half cygment on level three fifty, with tickets–”

“Shut up,” said Naecia. The lift obliged. She thought about Oush, the grappler, and his unlikely murder at the hands of Patton, who seemed to be full of surprises. They’d known Oush was taking a great risk by venturing to the Timelance alone but had never countenanced that he might die at the hands of the yellow-maned drug sponge.

“Map,” she whispered into the helmet, calling up a threedimensional model of the city in the upper left corner of the Vortu visor. She traced her eyes over the buildings, most of them connected near their top floors by walking paths or transways. The visor followed the direction of her eyes, and she sketched out a few different lines through the geography, trying to plan the most efficient route and erasing them each time. “Clear,” she said, frustrated.

How do you find something you can’t describe? If the Chime could do what they’d hypothesized, it held the energy of a million stars. Something like that couldn’t be hidden in a locker. Naecia was of the mind that it would be left in plain sight, disguised as a larger thing, like a generator, a hydration plant, or scrubber. And if it was set up as a piece of equipment, it would probably be wherever they kept the decommissioned machinery. A big, dark room somewhere – not in the fancy top floors of Aszerat’s tallest towers. They weren’t thinking strategically. Look for an amber door? The plan was stupid.

Patton’s voice blasted through the com, “Hey, did you guys know there’s a food court in here?”

Naecia sighed angrily. “Stay on your local channel, Patton!”

“I found an empanada place. I mean, they look like empanadas.”

Naecia growled through the com and the Earthling fell silent.

The lift stopped. The doors opened to an unobstructed view of space through a panoramic window that spanned half of the building’s top floor. Feeling a bit of vertigo, Naecia stabilized herself on the wall before stepping out. She walked to the glass, placing hands on a small railing that followed the curve of the building, and looked out over the strange city. Above where she stood, even farther out into the black, was the edge of one of the orb’s huge radiation shields, canted at an angle toward the dueling stars around which they orbited, a few million mylics distant.