had long since stopped appearing to escort me off the grounds every evening. We all knew the rules, and they were satisfied I was going to obey them. So nobody forbade me as I went back into the flight school building, where I walked past our room—it was empty—and then stopped by Cobb’s office. Also empty.
Those were basically the only places I’d visited. I took a deep breath, then caught a passing aide and asked if she knew where I could find the admiral at this hour.
“Ironsides?” she said, looking me up and down. “She doesn’t often have time for cadets. Who is your flight instructor?”
“Cobb.”
Her expression softened. “Oh, him. That’s right, he’s got a group of students this semester, doesn’t he? It’s been a few years. Is this a complaint about him?”
“I . . . Something like that.”
“Building C,” she said, pointing with her chin. “You’ll find the admiral’s personal staff in the antechamber of office D. They can move you to another flight. Honestly, I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often. I know he’s a First Citizen and all, but . . . Anyway, good luck.”
I walked out of the building. My resolve grew more firm with each step, and I quickened my pace. I would explain what I’d done and demand punishment. I controlled my own destiny—even if that destiny was expulsion.
Building C was a daunting brick structure on the far side of the base. Built like a bunker, with only slits for windows, it seemed the exact sort of place I’d find Ironsides. How was I going to talk my way past her staff? I didn’t want some minor functionary to be the one who expelled me.
I peeked in a few windows on the outside of the building, and Ironsides wasn’t difficult to find, though her office was shockingly small. A little corner of a room, stuffed with books and nautical memorabilia. Through the window, I saw her glance at the old-fashioned clock on the wall, then close her notebook and stand.
I’ll catch her on the way out. I decided. I moved to the front of the building to wait, preparing my speech. No excuses. Just an outlining of facts.
As I waited, I heard another buzzing from my pack. Was that it, then? The call for me to report for discipline? I dug the radio out and hit the button.
Something odd came through the line. Music.
It was incredible. Otherworldly—unlike anything I’d ever heard before. A large group of instruments playing alongside one another in sweeping, moving, beautiful coordination. Not just a person with a flute or a drum. A hundred gorgeous winds, a thrumming pulse of drums—high brass, like the call to arms, but used not as a battle cry. More . . . more as a soul for the stately, powerful melody.
I stood frozen in place, listening, stunned as it played over the radio. Like light somehow. The beauty of the stars, but . . . but as a sound. A triumphant, amazing, incredible sound.
It cut off suddenly.
“No,” I said, shaking the radio. “No, give me more.”
“My recording is corrupted beyond that point,” M-Bot said. “I’m sorry.”
“What was it?”
“The New World Symphony. Dvořák. You asked me what human society was like, from before. I found this fragment.”
Despite myself, I felt my knees buckle. I sat down on a planter beside the doors into the building, holding the precious radio.
We’d created things like that? Sounds so beautiful? How many people had to get together to play that? We had musicians, of course, but before Alta, the gathering of too many people in one place had led to destruction. So by tradition, our performers were limited to trios. This had sounded like hundreds.
How much practice, how much time, had been devoted to something so frivolous—and so wonderful—as making music?
Set your sights on something higher.
I heard voices approaching inside the building. I stuffed the radio away and, feeling foolish, wiped the corners of my eyes. Right. Turning myself in. Time to do this.
The door swung open, and Ironsides—wearing a crisp white uniform—stepped out. “I can’t understand why your father would think that, cadet,” she was saying. “Obviously I’d have chosen a different instructor for you, if not for your family’s own demands—”
She stopped in place, noting me on the pathway. I bit my lip. An aide was holding the door open for her—and I realized that I recognized that aide. A brown-skinned young man in a cadet’s jumpsuit and a uniform coat.
Jerkface. So he had beaten me here.
“Admiral,”