The Continent (The Continent #1)(78)

A steward passing through the Hall clears his throat, and the sound seems to fill the wide, mostly empty chamber. A moment later, the entrance clock chimes nine and the Chancellor emerges from his offices at the west side of the room.

I have met him before—several times, in fact, as he worked closely with my father—and have always found him to be a warm and congenial sort of person. Today is no exception. Grief is stamped upon his face, his expression of sympathy unguarded. This renews my hope.

“How very, very sorry I am for your loss, dear Vaela,” he says, approaching the table and clasping my hands in his. “You know how fond I was of your mother and father, and of the Shaws as well.” He shakes his head. “What a terrible tragedy. I hope we may find some way to offer recompense, inadequate as any gesture will certainly be.”

“I ask nothing for myself, Chancellor.”

“How terribly you must have suffered,” he says, regarding me as though I were a piteous thing. He shakes his head again. “Well. Let us begin, for while this sad exchange of testimony is all too necessary, I am sure the day holds brighter things in store.”

“I’m sure it does.”

He moves around the table, nodding to Mr. Lowe, and takes a seat at the center, directly opposite me.

“Now, Vaela,” the Chancellor begins, “let me tell you what we know, and then you may tell your story—from the very beginning of course, for we must hear all that has happened.” I nod, and he continues. “On the fourth morning of your tour, Ivanel received a distress call from the pilot of your heli-plane. He gave his position, stated that a failure of multiple engines had occurred, and said that he intended to make an emergency landing. That was the last communication which was received.”

He leans forward. “Now, let me assure you beyond any doubt that we were extremely distressed by this information, and moved at once into action. Ivanel had no secondary aircraft, so we could not attempt an immediate rescue—but two additional heli-planes were sent to the island post-haste. Due to the late hour of departure, the planes did not arrive until after night had fallen, when it was far too dark to attempt any sort of rescue—the drastic changes in the Continent’s elevation would have made any such endeavor quite unsafe—and so we were forced to wait until the following day to begin our search. We deployed the planes at the break of dawn, and from morning to night, we searched without success.”

“There was a beacon inside the pod,” I say. “It was activated almost immediately. How could the search have been so difficult?”

He gives me a sad smile. “Those beacons were designed to be detected within a radius of twenty or so miles. We collected the pod more than three hundred miles from the plane’s last known position, and far to the south of where we thought it might be. We were searching largely in the northeast, along the Kinsho mountains. Either the pilot’s bearing was incorrect—entirely possible, as forensic analysis of the debris seems to indicate more than one very serious mechanical failure—or he sent his transmission long before the plane actually crashed. Or, potentially, both things occurred.”

Forensic analysis. I dare not ask. I swallow and press the issue further. “The pod was collected, though. And on the third day, I saw a heli-plane—”

“And the plane saw you, my dear. Pursued by a pair of Topi into the woods.” He opens his hands in supplication. “There was nothing to be done.”

“Nothing to be done?” I echo, stupefied. “You…you knew I was in mortal danger, yet you did nothing to save me?”

“Even if the plane and search party had been equipped with the tools required to rescue you—”

“Weapons, you mean.”

“Yes. Even if such equipment had been available, you know the principal law of the Spire—we do not take up arms. That law is binding, inviolable, and without exception.”

“But you have tranquilizing guns—and sleeping gases! I have heard of their use against criminals and the like.”

He shifts uncomfortably and exchanges a glance with Mrs. Pendergrast. “As I say, we were not properly equipped.”

“I see.” A silence passes. “And so, the pod and the…wreckage were collected.”

“That is correct.”

“And I was left to die.”

“Vaela, I assure you that—”

“With all due respect, Chancellor, I think I have heard quite enough of your story. Perhaps it is time that you heard mine.”

To the immeasurable discomfort of the five people before me, I tell it all. I recount every terrifying moment of the heli-plane’s failure. I illustrate the horror of being captured by the Topi, and explain in bloody detail how Noro came to rescue me. I describe the agony of my grief and loneliness in the wake of my parents’ death, as well as the slow process of my eventual healing. And finally, I tell of the attack on the village of Hayato—and of the utter peril in which the Aven’ei now find themselves.

“I wonder,” says Mrs. Pendergrast, the first to speak, her brow knit in tight concern, “that in light of all this terrible trauma, if you might tell us something of the accident itself.”

“What do you mean?”

“The malfunction,” she says, “of the heli-plane. Any details you might provide could surely prove useful in the prevention of future disaster.”