it?"
"But - that's impossible, I never even heard of him before. And why would he let them put Jazz through the probe, drive him insane like that - "
She shrugged. "Get rid of a possible future competitor, maybe. I don't know. I just ran."
"Why'd you come to me?"
"Farl was dead. I didn't trust anybody else in the group. I could have come here alone, I guess."
"I'm glad you didn't," Hop said. And then he got up - as far as he could, since the floor of the room above kept him from standing straight. He took Arran's hand. "Hang on. Let's not get separated in the dark. But if I suddenly fall down a hole, let go."
"Where are we going?"
"I told you, I don't know this area. I was born and raised - if you can call it raising - in the bottom levels of the stinkingest borough of Orem district, and we'd go into the crawlspace all the time. The only way we could stay out of the reach of the constables and Mother's Little Boys."
"Then there might be criminals here?"
"In this district?" Hop chuckled as they walked gingerly along the catwalk. "In this district all we'll meet is dust. Every district is absolutely sealed off from every other. Including the crawlspace."
"Oh," she said. They came to a ladder. Hop leaned on it, looked up. He could see light above - dim, but light.
"Up," he said. "You first."
She started to climb. When they got to the next level up, she stopped.
"What're you stopping for?" he asked.
"Don't we get off here?"
"No, of course not. Do you think we'd ditch them by just changing floors? If they're serious about rounding up everybody from your little group, they'll seal off this whole district. Check anybody coming and going, and spot you the first time you use your credit card. We've got to get out of this district."
"But you said they were all sealed off - "
"Just keep climbing. There's a way out, and it's up. This ladder's part of the exhaust system, and the exhaust system leads to the surface."
"And what then?"
"Maybe we'll think of something on the way."
And so they climbed. Following the exhaust vents meant hours of squeezing through narrow spaces, climbing ladders to dizzying heights before the great vents leveled off again, bellying through inches of dust in foot - high crawlspace. They were filthy and exhausted a few minutes after they started. They stopped three times to rest. Once they stayed long enough to sleep. And then they came to a place where huge steel girders stretched above them, and the vents plunged suddenly upward to a heavily girdered metal ceiling. For the first time, except on the ladders, they could stand up straight.
Arran looked around. The light was still dim, but it was obvious the space around them was huge - much larger than any hall they had ever been in, and interrupted only by the rising vents and the huge steel shafts that apparently supported the roof.
"It looks very strong," Arran said.
"You should see it where the ships cradle. Makes this look like foil."
"What's outside?"
"We'll soon see," Hop said. "Better lie down and rest again. The next part's going to be hard."
"As if it had been easy up to now," Arran said, lying down willingly enough. They lay on a large vent, and the rush of air pouring through it made the surface vibrate. "I heard," Arran said, after a while, "that you can't breathe the air out there."
"A myth," said Hop. "You can breathe it. You just can't breathe it for very long."
"What'll we do?"
"We'll go along here until we find the end of the district. The sealed - off wall. Then we'll go up the nearest vent and try to get across to a vent on the other side of the barrier. The air isn't really dangerous. The real danger is the sun."
Of course Arran knew what the sun was. It was the nearest star, and the source of all of Capitol's energy. She had never seen it. "Why is the sun dangerous?" she asked.
"You'll see," he said. "I can't describe it - just don't look at it! And whatever you do, don't let go of my hand. If the sun isn't up we're coming right back. At night we'd probably freeze to death in the winds and get lost to boot. So we'll wait for sunlight"
Silence for