1269_UgliesFreeBook

196 Scott Westerfeld
weird at first, but it’s the way the pre-Rusties lived too, you
know? And we’re planting more on the other side of the
mountain, pushing into the orchids.”
“Okay,” Tally said doubtfully. She saw a team of uglies
moving a felled tree, pushing it along on a pair of hoverboards.
“There’s a grid?”
Shay nodded happily. “Just in places. We pulled up a
bunch of metal from a railroad, like the track you came up
the coast on. We’ve laid out a few hoverpaths through the
Smoke, and eventually we’ll do the whole valley. I’ve been
working on that project. We bury a piece of junk every few
paces. Like everything here, it’s tougher than you’d think.
You wouldn’t believe how much a knapsack full of steel
weighs.”
David and the others were already headed down, gliding
single file between two rows of rocks painted a glowing
orange. “That’s the hoverpath?” Tally asked.
“Yeah. Come on, I’ll take you down to the library.
You’ve got to meet the Boss.”
The Boss wasn’t really in charge here, Shay explained. He
just acted like it, especially to newbies. But he was in command
of the library, the largest of the buildings in the settlement’s
central square.
The familiar smell of dusty books overwhelmed Tally at
the library door, and as she looked around, she realized that
books were pretty much all the library had. No big air-