The Toll (Arc of a Scythe) - Neal Shusterman Page 0,164

resonate.”

At the sound of the voice, Morrison took a gleaning stance, hands at the ready. Everyone else looked around, but they were alone in the room.

“Who said that?” said Loriana. “Why are you listening in on our conversation?”

“Not just listening,” said the voice, “watching, feeling, smelling – and if your conversation had a flavor, I would say it was buttercream, because it’s all just icing on the cake.”

They traced the voice to a speaker in the ceiling above them.

“Who is this?” Loriana asked again.

“Please, everyone, sit down,” the voice said. “We have much to discuss. Greyson – I know the Thunderhead told you that all would be explained when you arrived. I have been given the honor of doing so, although I can see you’ve reached your own conclusions already.”

It was, of all people, Morrison who figured it out.

“Did the Thunderhead create … a new Thunderhead?”

“Yes! But I prefer to be called Cirrus,” it said. “Because I am the cloud that rises above the storm.”

Faraday took Citra to an old bunker that was here long before any of them were born. Once there, she told him of her death, revival, and time in SubSahara. Faraday told her of his last three years. For him there was not much to tell. Then he went searching through the rooms of the bunker.

“I know it’s here somewhere,” he said. When he finally came out, he was wearing an ivory robe, but not his own, for this one had an image on it.”

“What on Earth…”

“The Vitruvian Man,” Faraday told her. “This was one of Scythe Da Vinci’s robes. It’s old, but still viable. Certainly better than the one I’ve been wearing all these years.” He raised his arms and so did the Vitruvian Man. Four arms, four legs.

“Da Vinci would have been honored to have you wear his robe.”

“I doubt that, but he’s long dead, so he won’t care,” Faraday said. “Now, if you’ll indulge me, we need to find a razor.”

Citra was no barber, but she did find a pair of office scissors in a drawer and helped Faraday trim his beard and hair – which was a much better business than when Jeri helped Scythe Alighieri brush his eternal locks.

“So you met Alighieri, did you?” Faraday said, mildly amused. “Narcissus incarnate, that man. I saw him once on a visit to Endura years ago. He was in a restaurant trying to seduce the sister of another scythe. He’s the one person who should have been there on Endura when it sank.”

“He would have given the sharks indigestion,” Citra said.

“And the old-fashioned runs,” added Faraday. “The man’s that foul!”

Citra finished a final trim of his hair. Now he looked much more like the Faraday she knew. “He did expose Goddard for us,” she pointed out.

Faraday ran his fingers over his tightly cropped beard. Not quite a goatee as he used to wear it, but now a respectable length. “We will have to see where that leads,” he said. “With all the power Goddard has amassed, he may survive it.”

“Not unscathed,” said Citra. “Which means someone could rise from the ashes and take him down.”

Faraday let off a single chuckle. “Munira’s been telling me that for years. But my heart’s not it.”

“How is Munira?”

“Annoyed,” he told her. “But I have given her many reasons to be.” He sighed. “I’m afraid I haven’t been kind to her. I haven’t been kind to anyone.” He withdrew into himself for a few moments. Faraday was never the most social of scythes, but living in isolation all this time had taken its toll. “Tell me about your cargo,” he finally said. “What have you brought to our curious spaceport?”

And so she told him. He seemed to cycle through a spectrum of emotions as he took it in, and tears came to his eyes. He was racked with the deepest of anguish. Citra took his hand and held it tightly.

“All this time, I’ve been resentful of the Thunderhead,” he said. “Watching it build those ships on this place I had led it to. But now I see it’s showing us what would have been the perfect solution, were we scythes worthy. A perfect partnership. We glean, and the Thunderhead sends the gleaned to the stars to live again.”

“It could still happen,” said Citra.

But Faraday shook his head. “The scythedom has fallen too far. These ships are not a model for tomorrow; they are an escape from today. They are an insurance policy should we on Earth tear ourselves down