The Toll (Arc of a Scythe #3) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,128

a small SubSaharan city—but the second one was baffling. It was a tour ticket to a protected wilderness where there hadn’t been tours for over a hundred years. The Ogbunike Caves.”

To that, Ezra shrugged and smiled. “I’m special. Sure you don’t want a portrait?”

The fact that the tickets showed up in the system after Ezra was in scythe custody could really mean only one thing: The Thunderhead wanted the Amazonian scythedom to know where the Sibilants—and the Toll—were.

“Normally it would be a short flight,” Possuelo told Anastasia, “but we’ll have to take a roundabout route—engaging first in some bogus business elsewhere—otherwise, we might inadvertently lead the SubSaharan scythes right to the Toll.”

“That’s all right,” Anastasia told him. “I need time to dig into the backbrain again for my next broadcast. I’m close to something on the Mars disaster.”

“And the orbital colony?” Possuelo asked.

Anastasia sighed and shook her head. “One catastrophe at a time.”

“ There were 9,834 colonists on Mars. Even more than had lost their lives on the moon in the world’s first mass gleaning. And there were extensive plans to make our sister planet a home for millions, eventually billions. But something went terribly wrong.

“Have you done your homework on Mars? Have you scanned the list of names of those doomed colonists? I don’t expect you to remember or even recognize any of them—not even the ones who were famous at the time, because fame comes and goes, and mostly their fame is gone. But look again, because there’s one name I want you to see.

“Carson Lusk.

“He was there when the disaster occurred, and was lucky enough to be one of the few survivors. He was in the right place at the right time, and managed to get onboard the one escape vessel that wasn’t incinerated when the colony’s reactor blew.

“There was a big celebration when that small group of survivors finally made it back to Earth, but after that, Carson Lusk disappeared from public view.

“Or did he?

“Let’s back up a bit to three months before the reactor took out the colony. If you look at the transport records for craft coming to and from Mars, you’ll see a name that I’m sure you’ll find familiar. Xenocrates. He was a young scythe at the time—and the only one known to ever visit the Mars colony. It was controversial, because it implied that scythes would continue their business on the red planet. Why, people wondered, when there was an entire planet on which to expand? It would be maybe 100,000 years before a scythe would ever be needed on Mars.

“He wasn’t there to glean anyone, he said. He was merely ‘entertaining his curiosity.’ He wanted to know what it would be like to live on Mars—and he was true to his word. He didn’t glean a single person once he reached the planet. He merely took tours and spoke with colonists. It was all very benign.

“I have something to show you now.

“What you’re about to see is a video record of Xenocrates’s arrival. Hard to recognize him, I know—he was still thin then, and his robe didn’t have all the gold, which he added when he became a High Blade. As you can see, he’s being greeted by the governor of the colony, and a few other dignitaries, and—there! Do you see? That young man in the background. That’s Carson Lusk! While Xenocrates was on Mars, Carson was assigned to be his personal valet. Not a good view of him, I know, but he’ll turn in a moment.

“Remember, this was a few months before the disaster. Time enough for people to forget Xenocrates’s visit. Time for plans to be put into place, and for a team of accomplices to secretly carry those plans out, making sabotage look like just another tragic accident.

“As for Carson Lusk, no matter how hard you look, you won’t find any record of him after his return to Earth, because within a year, his name had been changed. There—there, you see? He’s turning toward the camera now. Is his face familiar yet? No? Just add a few years, shorten his hair, and draw in a satisfied, self-important grin.

“That young valet is none other than His Exalted Excellency, Robert Goddard, Overblade of North Merica.”

38 A Grand Reunion of the Dubiously Deceased

The Toll and his entourage took refuge in the same caves that the Sibilants had laid claim to. Those Sibilants were now beyond repentant, prostrating themselves in his presence and professing their unworthiness to even grovel at his