Under a hot sun, the hunters swung machetes and removed themselves from the flesh of Armada, till they were free-floating, a foreign body. Between the Castor and the open sea a pathway was cleared between vessels. Bridges were uncoupled, tethers were broken on a route leading by the barge Badmark into Shaddler, then alongside the Darioch’s Concern with its cheap houses and raucous industry. It continued past the Dearly, a submersible long surface-bound, its interior a theater, and twisted starboard between an ancient trading cog and a big chariot ship, its rein stubs refitted to hold colored lights; then there was an open patch of water and beyond it the Shaddler Sculpture Garden on the Thaladin, the outer edge of Armada.

Beyond that was the sea.

The vessels that lined the pathway were crowded as people leaned over to shout good-bye at the Castor. Yeomanry and Shaddler guards kept the new channel free of traffic. The sea was calm and the avanc’s passage steady.

When the first of the city’s clocks began to strike noon, the Castor ’s motors started up, to a great squall of excitement from the crowd. They cheered raucously as the vessel, a little over a hundred feet long, topped by its absurdly tall bell tower, began to putter forward.

The bridges, lines and chains and girders, were reconnected in the vessel’s wake. The Castor slipped like a splinter from the city’s flesh, which reknitted behind it.

In many places the route was only a little wider than the Castor itself, and it bumped against its neighbors, its swaddling of rope and rubber absorbing the impact. It progressed sluggishly, thumping its way toward the open sea. Beside it, the crowds were shouting and waving, as triumphant as if they had freed the hunters after years of imprisonment.

The ship finally slipped past the Thaladin into the ocean, traveling in the same direction as the avanc but outpacing it in order to emerge from the city. In that wide water, the Castor kept its speed up. It skirted around the front edge of Armada, turning to the south, letting the city drift past it as the avanc continued onward. Armada moved on, till the Castor was by the outskirts of The Clockhouse Spur; and then by the open entrance to the Basilio docks, thronging with free boats; and then it was past Jhour, and the Castor ’s engine sounded again and it headed away, in among the free vessels that surrounded and followed the city. Tintinnabulum’s boat passed through them, shedding its protective buffers as it went, dropping rubber and tar-soaked cloth overboard, before disappearing toward the southern horizon.

Many people watched the Castor from the Sculpture Garden until it disappeared around Armada’s curve. Among them were Angevine and Shekel, holding hands.