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pulling up additional coordinates. “Sector Two ninety-seven, nodule J, Patch Seven.” He had a cocky little smile as he said it, like this stuff made him feel really important or something.
    I didn’t get Rapp at all. How could anyone get excited about grid maintenance? It was like getting excited about brushing your teeth, except that brushing your teeth only takes two minutes, and that’s if you do a really good job.
    At the same time, I felt sort of bad that I was always giving him a hard time. Rapp was like me, in his own weird way. I was in the LDA’s engineering program because I’d been forced to be here, but he actually wanted to be here. Considering there were only two of us in the whole class, that sort of made him an even bigger freak than me. And he didn’t care. Most of the time, he hardly even seemed to notice when I made fun of him. I almost had to admire the guy.
    Obviously I would never tell him that, but at least, I figured, I could tell him I didn’t really think his mom looked like a chimæra’s butt, and that she was probably actually pretty hot.
    But before I could even formulate my apology, he’d entered our last coordinate and the Egg took off, shooting us out of the hangar, past the cube of the academy building, and then through the pastures and mud huts and Chimæra pens of the Alwon Kabarak.
    Alwon was the only Kabarak on Lorien within city limits, and thus would’ve been my first choice had I been assigned to one. I watched the early-rising Kabarakians, dressed in their red silks and ceremonial charms, busily tending to their land as our Egg whizzed past them and around them, unfazed by another routine intrusion of LDA speedcraft.
    It was funny to think, only weeks ago I was in a depressed panic at the idea of working on a Kabarak. After my time at the academy, it no longer looked like such a bad way to live. Then again, maybe I was just jealous of their outfits—I looked better in red than in green.
    The Egg crossed the western edge of Alwon and gained speed through the depopulated outer industrial zones of the city’s east side on its course to City Center, miles ahead. The Spires of Elkin glinted brightly from the morning suns. I realized I had never seen City Center from this particular distance and angle. Perhaps it was nostalgia, or homesickness, but it looked more beautiful than ever.
    Then, beyond the spires, I saw something strange.
    Off in the distance, sprouting between the spires on the horizon, was a massive column of violet light, stabbing upwards into the clouds. It was a bright morning, and yet the rays of the suns did nothing to diminish the hard-edged, almost tactile thickness of the light. It was astonishing.
    “Quartermoon’s in three days,” said Rapp, barely even looking at the light.
    According to our collective legend, a quartermoon hung in the sky the day the First Elders discovered the Phoenix Stones, and over the years a holiday had developed around the regular appearance of the quartermoon in the sky. In the city and out on the settlements and Kabaraks, people party into the wee hours, dancing, gathering around campfires and lighting fireworks, celebrating the miracle of our planet’s rebirth. Temporary monuments and light displays, called Heralds, were often arranged for by city government or by the Elder Council, to commemorate our history and to celebrate the quartermoon’s approach.
    This was a much bigger and more elaborate Herald than I’d ever seen before, so tall and majestic it was probably visible far outside the city—if it was even coming from the city at all. It was a little weird, but I brushed it off. If there’s one thing we Loric, not to mention our Elders, are good at, it’s thinking up new ways to celebrate how great we are.
    Personally, it seemed to me like the Elders could think of better ways to use their time and powers, but who was I to question their ancient wisdom?
    When the Egg finally whirred to a stop at a corner on the