by S. S. Taylor
“Let’s see what happens if we just walk inside,” Zander said. “Dad always said that half of belonging is acting like you belong, right?”
“I think he was talking about our social lives, not dealing with the government,” I hissed back.
Then a voice behind us said, “I’m trying to get through, if you don’t mind.”
We turned around to find a tall Archy boy about my age. He was wearing the BNDL-issue Explorer’s uniform, the black cowhide leggings, and a jacket polished so well that I had to look twice to make sure it wasn’t some kind of plastic. He had very black hair that was shiny from some sort of oil, and a snubby, freckled nose that made me think that he liked to hit people and tease small animals.
“Excuse us,” said Zander, smiling at the boy. “We were just—”
“Whatever it is you’re doing, don’t do it in front of the door.” The boy pushed past us, almost knocking M.K. over. Pucci flew up in the air, squawking loudly in anger. The boy swiped at the air, muttering, “Someone should get these birds away from the entrance,” before pushing through the big doors and disappearing into the building. M.K. made a rude gesture to his back.
“Do you think…?” I hesitated, but Zander just ignored me. He called Pucci down and tucked him inside his sweater.
“Now stay there and be quiet,” Zander whispered, and followed the boy through the doors. M.K. and I trailed after.
The doors shut behind us and we found ourselves inside the Expedition Society.
Dad had brought us in for lunch sometimes when we were small, but as his disillusion with the government had grown, so had his disillusion with the Expedition Society. I don’t think he’d been for a year or more before his trip to Fazia.
The back of the Expedition Society was lined with dirigible ports and SteamCycle bays, and we watched as Explorers got out of dirigibles, still dressed in mud-spattered gear from wherever they’d been, and greeted each other. A tall woman dismounted from a shining IronSteed and walked around in circles for a minute to stretch her legs before passing through the big glass doors. I’d only ever seen a couple of IronSteeds, and I was still amazed by the huge mechanical horses used for backcountry travel and military campaigns. They were made of iron and Gryluminum and powered by small, self-contained steam engines.
The Society acted as a kind of home base for Explorers while they were in the city, and the third, fourth, and fifth floors were dormitories for any Explorer of the Realm—or any Explorer from another country or territory—who needed a place to stay. There were men and women wandering around, looking as though they’d just gotten back from the bush or the jungle. A couple of Neos, in red jumpsuits like the ones Mr. Mountmorris’s secretary had been wearing, were laughing about something nearby. They reminded me of parrots with their bright, spiky hairstyles and garishly colored jumpsuits. I remembered Dad explaining that they wore the jumpsuits in honor of Pierre Neville, the first Neo inventor. We hadn’t met many Neos—most of Dad’s friends were Archys like him—and the three of us couldn’t help staring.
The tall woman I’d seen before was dressed in a snowy white Arctic snowsuit lined with namwee fur. She ran up to an older man with a long white beard. “Mr. Mills, I’m Dolly Frost, exploration correspondent for the Times. I understand you’re just back from Deloia City…”
“We’ve got to move fast,” I whispered to them. “Mountmorris is probably calling Foley right now.”
We headed for the Hall of Explorers, walking past a poster advertising ANDLC’s new IronPonies, smaller, more versatile versions of the IronSteeds. Barring our way was a reception desk and a large woman in a leather trenchcoat and top hat standing behind it. Behind her was a large portrait of President Hildreth. The woman was holding a clipboard, and for the first time we saw the sign that read Members and Guests of Members Only.
She smiled in a cold, polite way and pushed her top hat back. “Excuse me, are you members?”
“We’re just visiting,” Zander said. “We…”
“They’re with me, Annmarie,” said a voice from behind us. We turned around to find a tall Neo girl of about my age standing there with a pair of high-tech plastic and metal flight goggles pushed up into her copper-colored curls. There were little lights embedded in the goggles and in her earlobes, too, and they blinked at us like extra pairs of eyes. She was wearing a royal blue jumpsuit made of a synthetic fabric that shimmered in the overhead lights and tall blue boots that were molded to her legs. Her flight jacket was made of the same material as her jumpsuit, with many pockets and tight sleeves that ended at her elbows. She had a tattoo of some sort of airplane or glider on her right forearm.
“Fine, thank you,” said the woman in the top hat, writing something on her clipboard.
“Hail, President Hildreth,” the girl said. I noticed that the index finger of her salute hand wasn’t straight, the way it was supposed to be for the presidential salute, but bent at a ninety-degree angle.
We followed her into the great hall, too surprised to say anything. “You’re welcome,” she said, taking off for the other side of the room without another glance.
“Who was that?” I whispered to Zander.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But she saved us.” He looked after her for a moment. “Now, let’s go inside.”
The Hall of Explorers was a huge space, well lit by the gas lamps that lined the walls and filled with tables and chairs made of exotic woods. Snaking all around the perimeter of the room were portraits of every member of the society since Harrison Arnoz, nearly a hundred in all.
The Expedition Society had been built the year after a group of Explorers discovered the ruins of the Great Temple of Lundland, near the Arctic Circle, and the Hall of Explorers had been modeled on the intricately carved ice temple. There were tall pillars of etched glass everywhere, and huge windows that looked out onto the city streets. In the very center of the room was an enormous, hand-painted wooden globe that slowly rotated on its axis by way of the clockwork mechanisms inside. It glittered with little gold stars to mark the places that Expedition Society members had discovered. All along the sides of the big room were tables laid out with coffee and tea and plates of exotic-looking food from the New Lands—juicy slices of Juboodan grubfruit, giant Maloisian cherries, sandwiches made with tender Fazian beef, and pitchers of lemonade made with rare Florida lemons. Apparently, the food shortages hadn’t affected the Expedition Society. M.K. walked right over and swiped a couple of beef sandwiches. After hesitating a minute, Zander and I followed her. It had been a long time since we’d eaten anything like those sandwiches, and I felt a flash of guilt and resentment, thinking about how happy I’d been to get a pound of flour this morning at the markets.
It struck me that perhaps the mysterious man with the clockwork hand was a member of the Expedition Society, but as hard as I searched among the sunburned, weather-beaten faces in the room, I didn’t see him.
“There’s Dad’s portrait—” Zander said. “It’s right—” He stopped, and my eyes followed his to the wall above the fireplace, where I remembered seeing a portrait of Dad as a young man, painted upon his return from his successful ascent of Mount Anamata.
But the portrait was no longer there. In its place was a portrait of an elderly, gray-haired man I didn’t recognize.
“It’s not there,” I whispered. “It’s not there anymore.”
Zander was staring at the space. “But why would they take it down? He was a member of the Society. Where is it?”
I searched the wall again to make sure it hadn’t been moved.
“Let’s see if we can find the Expedition Log,” Zander said quietly, “and then we’ll go.” I looked around the room, and it seemed to me that we had been noticed. A few people were looking our way, and the boy with the very black hair was watching us closely from across the room. He was standing next to a tall man with a long, flowing black mustache oiled with what looked like the same substance as had been used on his hair. The man was wearing high black boots and
a tightly fitting Explorer’s jacket like his son’s, only his had many brass dials embedded in the sleeves. Now I knew why the boy looked familiar.
“That’s Leo Nackley,” I told Zander in a low voice. “He’s a famous Explorer. That boy must be his son.”
“Everybody’s looking at us,” M.K.said.
“Just follow me,” Zander whispered.
But before we could get across the room, the black-haired boy approached us.
“Non-Explorers aren’t allowed in here,” he said.
“Are you an Explorer?” Zander asked the boy.
“Excuse me?” Anger flashed across the surface of his light blue eyes.
“I know your father is an Explorer of the Realm, but I thought kids could be members of the society only if they had accomplished something themselves. I keep up with these things, and you haven’t done that.”
“Who do you think you are?” The boy’s voice was low and angry, full of unpleasant possibilities.
“Zander West,” Zander said, sticking out his hand, which the boy ignored. “And as far as I can tell, I’m the same as you, the son of an Explorer. If you can be here, I don’t see why I can’t.”
“West?” I could see something moving across his face, surprise and then something else—something hateful and dangerous. There was a long silence and then he said, “I know all about your father. He got himself killed in Fazia. My father says he was a coward and a traitor.”
The front of Zander’s sweater moved a little, and I could hear a low, angry chuckling sound. I hoped Pucci would stay hidden.
The three of us stared at the boy. “You can’t get away with that,” M.K. said in a choked voice. “I’ll make you pay!” And in that moment, I really believed she would.
But Nackley’s son just sneered and took off for the other side of the room, where his father was waiting.
“Zander…” I watched as the boy whispered something to Nackley, and they both turned to look at us. There was something about the older Nackley’s blue eyes—even paler than his son’s—that made me shiver as they settled on us. “You shouldn’t have done that. If they haven’t already called Francis Foley, they will now.”
“Let’s look at the Expedition Log quickly,” Zander said, taking a deep breath. “Then we’d better get going. Pucci, stay in there and be quiet. We don’t need any more problems.”
Self-consciously, we crossed the room and found the huge leather-bound logbook on a table near the globe. It was open to the middle and when I looked down at the page, I saw the name George Cruthers and a list of the famous Explorer’s trips around the globe, including his history-making crossing of the Bernal Sea. I flipped through the book, reading the well-known names out loud: “‘Jacob Omboodo, Rachel Banfield, Robert Tighley, Siddartha Meube, Harrison Arnoz…’ Zander! Here’s Leo Nackley. This is incredible; it’s everyone who’s ever done anything important in the field of exploration.”
“Where’s Dad?” M.K. asked.
“He should be right here,” Zander said, pushing me aside. “‘Walters…Womack…’ Hang on.” He flipped back and forward through the pages, and then looked up at us.
“He’s gone from here, too.”
“And look at this,” I said. We all looked down, where the torn edges showed where the page had been carefully removed. The thin ruff of white paper taunted us.
“What’s going on here?” Zander said, to no one in particular. “What is going on?”
Thirteen
“Are you okay?”
We turned around to find the copper-haired girl standing in front of us again. She had taken off the goggles, and they were dangling from her right hand. I hadn’t noticed it at first, what with the glittery jumpsuit and the flashing lights distracting me, but she was pretty. She was grinning at us in a good-humored way.
“Excuse me,” Zander said.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, we…,” Zander started to say. He stopped and focused on her. “What makes you think we’re not?”
She scratched her nose and shrugged. “Well, first of all, I had to get you in, and then you seemed surprised and dismayed about something up on the wall. Then you had a run-in with the awful Lazlo Nackley. And now you seem surprised and dismayed about something in there.” She pointed to the book. “So I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
Zander and I glanced at each other. We weren’t sure how much we should tell this strange Neo girl. But there was something about her that made me trust her.
“My name’s Kit,” I told her. “Kit West. This is my brother, Zander, and my sister, M.K.”
“West as in…?” Her eyes widened.
“Yes,” I said. “We’re his children and we came here to… to see his portrait, and his portrait’s gone, and all of his entries are gone from the Expedition Log, and we… we don’t know why.”
She had strange, amber-colored eyes, with heavy, dark lashes. “Oh,” she said in a low voice. “I’m so sorry. Didn’t you know?”
“Know what?”
“Know that he was stripped of his membership in the Expedition Society?”
“No,” Zander said. “We didn’t know.”
She seemed worried all of a sudden. “Look, everyone’s looking at us. Nackley’s raised the alarm, I think. Why don’t we go over there and talk.” She pointed to one of the little rooms off the hall. We nodded and followed her into the tiny conference room, settling into the comfortable chairs. On the wall was a painting of Mount Fuji in the mist.
“Why did they take away his membership?” I asked her, keeping my voice down and looking around for BNDL agents.
“I don’t know. It was a while ago. I’m so sorry, by the way, about what happened to him. He was kind of a hero of mine.” She looked up at us quickly with her strange eyes. I’d assumed her hair was dyed red, but close up I could see its rich color. “I remember my mother talking about it, but I never heard why. No one seemed to want to go into it.”
“Is your mother an Explorer?” Zander asked her.
“Yes. I’m sorry. I should have…” She stuck out a hand. “I’m Sukey Neville. My mother is—”
“Delilah Neville,” M.K. finished. “I have a picture of her on my wall. With her glider.” Delilah Neville was probably the best-known Neo pilot and Explorer of the New Modern Age. She’d flown her combination-engine glider all over the world and tested lots of other Neo technology besides. People called her “Brave Delilah.”
“I remember when your mother made her first flight over the New Polar Lands to map Rubutanland,” I told her. “I thought she was amazing. And are you really the granddaughter of Pierre Neville?”
“Yup.” She smiled, which made her even prettier.
“I don’t understand,” Zander said. “What could have happened for them to take his membership away?”
“I remember people saying that it had something to do with the BNDL Code for Explorers,” Sukey told us. “I wish I’d paid more attention.”
“Nackley and his son seem to hate him for some reason,” I said.
Sukey shrugged. “I can try to find out something for you.”
Zander was silent for a moment and then he said, more to himself than to the rest of us, “There’s got to be a way to figure out whether he went to Arizona.”
“Arizona?” Sukey asked. “What does Arizona have to do with anything?” Her eyes widened as she watched the lump on the front of Zander’s sweater move slowly up toward his face. Zander pushed it back down.
“I can’t tell you why,” he said. “But we’re trying to find out if our dad ever went to Arizona. We were hoping the Expedition Log would tell us, but—”
Sukey started to say something, then stopped. She stood up, walked over to the door, and closed it.
“What?” Zander asked her.
She spoke in a low voice, almost a whisper. “Well, it’s just that… he was a cartographer, wasn’t he?”
“He was the best American cartographer of the New M
odern Age,” I said indignantly.
Sukey walked around the room, her head down, mumbling to herself. Suddenly she said, “Come with me. I’m going to show you something.”
“What is it?” Zander asked.
“Just follow me.” She stood up, opened the door again, and led the way back through the Hall of Explorers to the reception area. “Wait here.”
Sukey disappeared into one of the small rooms off the main area.
“What’s going on?” I whispered to Zander.
“I have no idea,” he said. “But she seems to know something.”
A couple of minutes later, she was back.
“It’s clear. Come on.” She led us into a small office, and then, looking around to make sure no one was watching, opened what looked like a closet door. She let us through, followed us in, and shut it carefully behind us.
It wasn’t a closet. We were at the top of a long wooden staircase, carpeted in pale blue, the banister and walls painted blue to match. Following Sukey’s lead, we went down the stairs and along a dark hallway lit with gas lights and lined with ornate frosted-glass doors, each one labeled with a number written in silver ink. There were no windows, so I figured that we had descended underneath the street. At the end of the passage, I could see more hallways heading off in different directions.
“Sukey,” Zander said, sounding, for the first time since we’d left home, a little nervous. “What is it? Where are we going?”
She stopped. “Shh. We’re not supposed to be down here. It’s off-limits even to members.”
“But where’s ‘here’?” He had stopped walking, too, and I knew he wouldn’t go any farther until we had an answer.
“The Map Room, you idiot,” Sukey said, pulling him along the hallway. “I’m taking you to the Map Room.”
Fourteen
“It’s kind of a secret,” Sukey whispered as she led us along the hallway. “I don’t understand why. Expedition Society members make maps of the places they visit. Certain ones get hung up in the Hall of Explorers and then others get stored in the Map Room. They do research down there, too. Nobody’s supposed to know about it, but I discovered it when I was looking around down here once. Let’s see, it was 209, I think.” She stopped in front of a door marked 209 and tried the handle. It was locked, but she reached up, took a key from the top of the molding over the door, and used it to open the door.