Killeen sensed a faint, strobing contact between his Aspect and the Crafter. Good. They needed a guide and—

Hatchet said warmly, “C’mon, Killeen. The Renny can fix up things. Your arm. Toby’s legs. What other choice you got?”

Killeen stood for a long moment, not wanting to let the moment pass, trying to see a way clear. If he held on to the fractional seconds they could never add up to the awful moment when his son would have to—

“Dad?”

Killeen looked blankly down at Toby lying a short distance away. The carrysling folded around him, a tight-weave blanket above the pale, wan face.

“Dad, I might’s well do it. I’m no use this way.”

Written on Toby’s face was stubborn endurance and a thin despair his father had never seen. Killeen felt a coldness in his stomach. In the space of a heartbeat Killeen abruptly saw his son as another person, not as a principle or a legacy but as a separate intelligence, now able to plot his own path. Toby had in his own way made the sign that signified his mastery of his destiny. Now the covenants of the Family Bishop released Killeen from his persistent role. Killeen saw that he could gladly grasp at this. But he could not bring himself to do it.

Shibo said quietly, “Toby right.”

The team saw the moment for what it was, the crucial fulcrum that always must finally pivot a child’s world into something larger. The change could come in sanctified ritual or on the field of battle, but once it had come, the turning instant between father and son could never reverse.

Killeen nodded. Toby had the right to risk. The right to die, if he chose.

They pushed the boy as close as they could. The matrix of gate sensors was a woven strip of polyrich sheen that wrapped completely around the inside gate frame.

It buzzed when Toby’s hand reached across the threshold.

“Go on!” Hatchet urged.

“Don’t bother him,” Killeen spat out fiercely. “Let him feel his way.”

“Gate won’t wait long,” Hatchet said. “Hurry, boy.”

Toby reached another hand forward. His errant fingernails were long and pale. His legs trailed behind him, limp and useless. Under his green tightweave jumper the legs already looked shrunken and pulpy, as though from long years of neglect. Toby got a good grip on the gate frame. Grunting, he pulled himself forward.

“How long’s he got?” Shibo asked.

“Well…” Hatchet licked his lips. “Early days, we had a girl. Hurt pretty bad. She tried to crawl through.”

“Yeasay?” Killeen demanded.

“She… I didn’t time it but… she was most the way through….”

“Damn you! How long?”

“She… she got further than this. But it was longer.

I—”

Killeen shouted at Toby, “Pull!”

Sweat broke out on the boy’s chalky face. A quiet descended. Killeen could hear others draw in a breath and hold it.

Toby’s fingers felt ahead and found a thin crack in the warped flooring. It was a polybind tile whose edge had curled up at a small angle. It provided enough of a lip for Toby’s fingernails to pry at it. The lip curved slightly. Toby got all his fingers on the edge and pulled. He came forward minutely. This brought him into reach of another tile. He got three fingers over the lip of it and grunted.

Killeen could not see that the boy moved at all. The hard black frame of the gate seemed to swell in his vision until it filled his sight. Toby was halfway across it.

The boy slid with infinitesimal scraping slowness. Killeen leaned as near as he could without intersecting the gate fields. The background whisper of mech traffic seemed to fall away.

Toby inched forward. His legs dragged with a soft rasp.

The gate abruptly clicked. A faint whine started.

“What’s that?” Killeen blurted.

Hatchet said, “Dunno. Time before, I don’t remember—”

“Get him back!” one of the team called. Killeen did not know who it was or why they said it but the voice shook him. He took a step, hand stretched toward Toby’s feet. Maybe Killeen could yank him back in one quick movement, before the gate sensed the approach of the inset circuitry in his head.

Fast. One quick movement.

He stepped again. Reached down to grab Toby’s ankles—

Shibo struck him hard on the shoulder. Off balance, he fell sideways.

The gate whined louder.

“Damn!” Killeen scrambled back to his feet.

“Dad! Leave off!” Toby called.

“But—”

“I’ll… do… it….”

The boy dragged himself on again, clutching some fragmentary edge so thin Killeen could not see it.

Toby’s face was pressed into the slick surface so that he could reach as far ahead as possible. But that meant he could not see.

The gate clicked.

Toby’s face was filmed with sweat and dirt. Beneath that the skin was deathly pale with exertion. His hands grasped ahead and found nothing. The smooth flooring gave him no purchase.

“Lookleft,” Shibo called softly. “Bump.”

Toby ran his left hand along and found a ripple in the polished floor. He dragged himself a hand’s length.

“Ahead now,” Killeen said. “Looks like a ridge.”

Fingers caught on the lip of some buried cable cover. Toby stretched. This time he got four fingers of each hand barely over the edge. Only the tips caught. The boy gasped and then held his breath. His forearm muscles clenched.

In the silence Killeen heard small popping noises. He looked around. The team was absolutely still. It took him a moment to realize that the sounds came from Toby.

Each was distinct and clear. An instant passed before he realized what the sound was. Toby’s fingernails were snapping off.

The boy bit his lip. Blood trickled down his chin.

He expelled a breath like a cough. Somehow his fingers caught the lip right. He dragged forward.

A hand’s length. Two. Three. His fingers scrabbled out ahead.

The gate whine stopped. An absolute silence descended.

Toby got up on his elbows. Grunted. Turned. Dug his elbows against the thin edge of tile that had brought him this far. Heaved. Wrenched himself sideways and—impossibly—rolled… forward… legs flapping over each other, carried by the hips… across the gate threshold.

The gate gave three clear, sharp notes.

“That’s the okay,” Hatchet said. His voice was tight and high. “See? Damn well knew it’d work. Just you flip those switches there, Toby.”

Hatchet was still grinning, hands on hips, when Killeen clipped him hard on the point of his chin. Hatchet went down with a look of sudden, aggrieved puzzlement on his face.

It was a dank, foul-smelling place.

Crannies vented acrid clouds into a warm, moist atmosphere. Vats bubbled. Colloids flowed through transparent pipes that ascended high into a concealing murk.

Killeen could not see the ceiling. The roiling clouds up there sometimes parted to show darker layers above. Flying mechs darted into the vapor on odd, looping trajectories.

Go to left.

Crafter wants in.

The sliding gray intelligence that Killeen felt nibbling at the edge of his sensorium now quickened its rhythms. The Crafter was coming; he could feel it.

The team moved fast along a narrow hallway. Killeen and Shibo had to labor to keep up, with Toby swaying in the carrysling between them. Killeen’s shoulders ached with a pain that came almost like spreading warmth. They passed between two colossal holding vats. Amber mist wafted into the air far above them.

They reached another archway. This was triple the size of the one Toby had negotiated. Hatchet seemed to know this type. He plunged two cylinder keys into an inset lock. The iron-blue webmetal gate slid open. The Crafter was not in the open space beyond.

Shibo asked, “Crafter here?”

Killeen’s teeth worked at his lip. “Its directions said so. Somethin’ in here it wants. It don’t give a ratsrear ’bout us but it damn well better—”