“Father,” Nadika asked, “how long until the Lemurians return?” She secured the last screw and looked up from the repairbot.
Her father, Governor Prasad Weligama, cleared his throat and looked at her over his spectacles, one lens green and the other blue. “Nadika Weligama, how dare you question the wisdom of ancient Lemuria!”
“I wasn"t questioning them at all, Father. I was merely asking,” she said lightheartedly, more so than she felt.
The question had niggled at her for more than a year, since the brigand attack. The depredations of time and intermittent attack were all around her. The flowers in the garden flaked paint from their metal petals, the pop-up gnome beside the waterfall only popped halfway out of his hole, and the waterwheel at the base of the falls only creaked back and fo
