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“The other people—The people at the palace…Most of them. Not all, but most of them…” He made a gesture with his hand. “Heads on stakes.”
    There was a suppressed emotion. I thought the words were compromise words for what he’d really like to say. For “people at the palace” he most likely meant “my friends, my subordinates, everyone I knew.” For “heads on stakes,” “they were all killed.”
    I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
    “We must go outside the seacity to find friends of the Patrician,” he said. “The people in Olympus owe him.” He stopped as though it had occurred to him such debts are often hard to collect and said, on a down note, “The Remys like him. They were children together. Or at least they were young together. Same broomers’ lair.”
    This much was probably true. The Remys, retainers to the Good Man of Olympus, seemed to include Simon in their adventures and they had indeed been part of an illegal broomers’ lair together.
    “But you said it’s turmoils against bioed people. It can’t be. There are no bioed people anymore. There haven’t been since the late twenty-first, right?”
    “From my looks no one would ever suspect me of being bioed, right?” He shrugged. “But people knew me by sight, and someone might recognize me.” He looked up at me. “And you—Well, if they see you! I mean, you did a good job, but anyone who looks at you too intently…” He shrugged. “Bioed people escaped back in the Turmoils and a lot of those who served or serve the Good Men…the hereditary families, are bioimproved in some way. At least people say it’s obvious, looking at them. And their existence is an affront to equality. No one can be equal if some people were designed not to be.”
    “But no one can be equal,” I said, and refrained from pointing out that if my readings of history were right, there had been enough variation before bioing. “How can they enforce everyone being equal? People are born different, too.”
    He shrugged again. “Yes, but it’s not so obvious, or at least it’s not deliberate. It’s an act of God or fate or providence. Allons, that’s what they say, and so, anyone who worked for the Good Men, particularly those in hereditary positions, but even the others, too, were considered…suspect. And so…We must go. You and I can’t save anyone alone. Not against a whole seacity. If we try we’ll just end up dead. And we can’t find others, if there are still others, not without going back to the palace or chancing capture ourselves. And then the Good—the Protector will die for sure. But if we get help, we’ll have a chance.”
    I hesitated. A chance. Just that. I wanted to say I could take on the whole seacity with my hands tied behind my back. But while I might be faster than any one person, stronger than any three people, I knew I was no match against five hundred thousand. “And so, what do we do? You got us in these outfits, and I agree we will pass at least cursory glance. So, we’re a not-very-well-off couple out for a night on the town, right?”
    He bit his lower lip. “I have arranged for a car. Enfin , my service has…had resources. It is my hope,” he said, “that we leave the seacity and…go to the Good Man’s friends. Olympus. Olympus would work. They would know how to help me free him. And how to protect you.”
    I understood without being told that it wasn’t even a matter of loyalty or of doing as he was told. No. Alexis was holding on to these orders as the one thing still giving structure to his life in a world gone suddenly insane. I didn’t say that having people working on protecting me made me feel like a coward.
    “Once we’re out of the hotel—can we get out of this seacity?”
    “If we look like them, if we say we’re going to Shangri-la, or…or something, to see my mother, yes, we can. I think. From what I saw and heard, at least, it won’t be easy, but it shouldn’t be