High Flyer - Michelle Diener Page 0,22

kept her hands on her thighs, her whole body alert and ready.

She wasn't anywhere close to her full capacity with this strength of magfield, but at least she'd been forewarned. She concentrated on their rescuers.

The driver turned the lander around in a series of jerky movements, reversing and then going forward a few times until he was facing the city.

“I wish normal runners worked here.” Vannie hung on to the dash in front of her with white knuckles. “Aren't you working on that?” She flicked what Hana realized was a flirtatious look at Iver. “The sky lane, right?”

He gave a nod. “Trying to.” He gave her a polite smile. “You're Raxian?”

“Yes, what a clever guess!” Vannie smiled at Iver again.

Hana barely resisted a little snort. Vannie was clearly Raxian. From her style of clothes, to the way she spoke the common tongue.

When they'd first encountered each other, the inhabitants of what was now the Verdant String had been shocked and surprised by the fact that they shared the same origins, even the same root language. It had changed their knowledge of where they'd come from, what their history had been. But in spite of the real, undeniable common root each group had, the different planets they'd settled on had imprinted an indelible mark on them. They hadn't been separated as a species for long enough for clear genetic differences to present themselves, but the regional differences in the language and culture of each planet was unmistakable, and differences in food and minerals had made some subtle differences in physiology.

“And you, Simon?” Hana asked.

“Si is from Bodivas.” Vannie glanced at her companion. “We're quite the mixing pot here on Faldine, aren't we?”

Hana hummed in agreement.

Interesting that Simon let Vannie do the talking for him. She wondered what he was hiding.

Plenty, if she were any judge.

And she didn't think either she or Iver would like it when they finally revealed their secrets.

Chapter 9

Touka City didn't really have outskirts.

It wasn't because it hadn't been in existence long enough, although it hadn't. It was because it had been engineered in advance.

It always felt to Hana as if it had risen out of the plains fully formed--sleek and perfect and complete. It was built in concentric circles, and each time the population increased, a new ring road and accompanying buildings were added.

There were less than ten thousand people on the whole planet and most of them lived in either Touka City or Permeo, so there weren't that many rings radiating out from the skyscrapers at Touka's center, but the potential was there. Each new circle's buildings were a story lower than the ones closer to the center, so Touka looked like another mountain in the Spikes.

It never failed to delight her.

Still, the stark change from open plains to built-up city surprised her every time.

The lander bounced from uneven dirt, dust flying behind it, onto smooth road, as if leaping from one world into another.

Simon slowed the lander as soon as they hit the surfaced road, and Hana tensed.

Since they'd moved onto city ground, all her senses had improved, stretching awake. She used to feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude from whatever had invaded her when she reached a place with a weaker magnetic field, but as it had become less alien, more fundamentally part of her, she experienced the feeling as more a sense of deep satisfaction.

Nothing, however, was like the feeling she got when she flew high enough in a runner that she was completely free of the magnetic pull of Faldine. That was when she knew she was as strong, as smart, as capable as she could ever be.

And she knew she needed to understand why.

But that was a mission for another time, now.

“Where can we take you?” Vannie asked.

Even going as slow as he was, Simon had driven through a few junctions, where the concentric circles of the ring roads intersected with the spokes, the roads running from the center of the city to its outer circumference.

He didn't turn down any of them, keeping them on the outer ring road, where the population was sparse.

No one was visible, although there were a few landers parked along the street, and Hana heard music coming from a top floor window.

It felt to her like Simon was marking time, waiting for a signal of some sort.

“Just drop us off wherever you like. You've already saved us a lot of trouble.” Iver straightened in his seat.

So he'd noticed it, too.

The leap and sparkle of the afternoon