Rollback

Don couldn’t blame them for dawdling. This spot, at the foot of Hurontario Street, was the only place they’d been where they could get a good view of the entire fairgrounds, sprawling across two artificial islands out in Lake Ontario. The American pavilion was a gigantic diamond — quite literally — and the Chinese pavilion honored both its nation’s culture and Earth’s most famous nonhuman citizens by being built in the shape of a rampant dragon whose body curved and twisted to match the one depicted by the constellation of Draco. Rising between them was the glistening carbon-nanotube Spire of Hope, which had brought back to Toronto the title of being home to the world’s tallest building.

Don was used to his sons’ three-legged walk, but the tourists who had been discreetly watching them now gawked openly at the surprisingly graceful spectacle of them in motion. His daughter, though, was standing still. Fifteen-year-old Gillian, who had her mother’s freckles but her father’s sandy brown hair, was one place from the head of the line for a cotton-candy vendor. She looked at her dad with an anxious expression, wondering if she’d have to bail before securing her treat.

"It’s okay," Don called out. "But hurry!"

He and Lenore had done their best raising Gillian, and Don had been pleased to find how relaxing it had been to be a parent the second time around; with the quiet confidence of experience, he’d had a much better handle on what were genuine crises and which things would pass of their own accord.

The boys, who, at two and a half meters tall and two hundred kilos apiece, had no trouble making their way through the crowd, had also turned out all right. They’d been raised alongside Gillian in a house Cody McGavin had paid for — in Winnipeg, as it happened, since prudence suggested that it be somewhere near a level-four biohazard containment lab, and the one there was the only one in North America designed to handle livestock and other large lifeforms. Hundreds of experts watched the goings-on in the house through webcams, and provided what advice they could.

But Don and Lenore were the boys’ parents, and ultimately, as all parents did, they went with their best instincts.

Don touched the control that opened the rear passenger compartment. The van — the Dracmobile, as the press had dubbed it — had a high enough roof to accommodate the boys, neither of whom could sit; their two front legs and thick hind leg weren’t built for that. Once they were in, Don sealed the compartment, and let the carbon-dioxide scrubbers get to work. By the time Gillian had arrived, gingerly carrying her giant ball of pink cotton candy, the green light on the dashboard had gone on, and the boys had removed their filter masks.

Don had never thought he’d own such a big van, but, then again, the days of worrying about gas mileage were long since gone. It had taken a while, but he’d finally gotten tired of intoning, as Robin had in the 1960s Batman series, "Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed!" whenever he climbed in. Lenore got into the front passenger seat, and Gillian and Gunter — the Gees, as they were collectively referred to in the Halifax-Darby household — piled into the second row of seats.

"When does the ceremony start tonight?" Don asked.

"Nine o’clock," Gunter supplied.

"Perfect," he said, pulling away from the curb. "Plenty of time." He could have let the Mozo do the driving, but, gosh darn it, driving your whole family around in the big old family vehicle was one of the joys of fatherhood.

"So," said Lenore, looking back over her shoulder, "everybody having a good time so far?"

"Oh, yeah!" said Amphion, and his crests rippled enthusiastically. "Terrific!" The boys had no trouble making the sounds for English; they had a much wider vocal range than humans did. But despite the best possible language instruction, they seemed constitutionally incapable of using the passive voice. Some opined that this was the seat of Dracon morality: the inability to conceive of an action having occurred without a responsible party. "I thought the utility-fog demo was amazing," added Zethus. A contest had been held to name the Draclings when they were born; the winning entry had been Amphion and Zethus, after the twin sons of Zeus who had been raised on Earth by foster parents.

Don nodded. The nanotech fog had been incredible to watch, but for him the most exciting thing had been the flying cars — a technology he’d finally lived long enough to see.