by Неизвестный
“Others?”
“Your friends, Domino and Benes—their fathers and grandfathers felt it. We’ve never talked about it, but I’ve seen them looking up at the sky. Perhaps all the men of the village—no, of all the mountains have felt it.”
“Why?” asked Kanaan.
Kanaan’s father shook his head. “I don’t know. That is a mystery, as much as why our people live in these mountains.”
The raging wind had died down. Kanaan’s father took the boy by the hand and opened the stone door. Outside, they could hear the sound of people crying in the distance. Perhaps it was the families of those that had been killed by sky sharks.
“Look up at the sky.”
Kanaan’s father covered the boy’s ears. The loss of one of his senses instantly sharpened the others.
Kanaan gasped. The sadness he’d felt upon hearing the mournful cries left him.
All the stars that had been obscured by the night sky came into definition. How brilliantly they shone!
“Look, then forget,” said Kanaan’s father. “Forget if you can. If you take after your grandfather and me, in time, you will become a hunter. And in time, you will cease to be a hunter. Then remember what you and I saw on this night.”
“Oh, is that so?” his mother had sneered. “That’s hardly a reason to throw yourself in the ocean. Without saying so much as a word of thanks to the hunters and others who supported us so we could live. Imagine my shame.”
Kanaan’s mother had died the year he turned seven, having said nothing more about his father.
Kanaan concentrated on the blue sky above him.
What could be up there?
Do you really want to find out?
Even if the answer may be nothing?
Suddenly, the sky took on a different complexion. Two faces appeared.
“I thought you’d be here,” Domino said with a chuckle, while Benes bared her white teeth in mock anger. “We were just at Old Man Lascaux’s. He said you’d been by earlier.”
“Making a delivery?” Kanaan asked, looking away.
Though many thought of Lascaux as a has-been, both Domino’s and Benes’s families had not forgotten that the old man had once been a superior hunter.
“He was crying about how lucky it was that a useless codger like him had us looking after him. It was enough to get me misty-eyed.”
“You lie!” Benes glared at Domino. “You weren’t crying. You’re just trying to make yourself look good.”
Domino shrugged.
“And another thing,” continued Benes, “Lascaux practically begged us not to tell Kanaan that he’d been crying. Or did you forget, blabbermouth?”
“Aw, shut your yap, you sky sharkette.”
“What did you just call me—”
“What do you two want?” Kanaan interrupted.
“Oh, yeah,” Domino said, remembering. “I’ve got something to show you.” He patted the inside pocket of his fur coat and shot a look at Benes. “Why don’t you get lost?”
“Don’t talk to me like that! If you must know, I have something important to tell Kanaan too, so why don’t you get lost?”
“I’ve had enough of both of you,” said Kanaan, jumping to his feet. “I don’t need to know anything you can’t tell each other. It’ll be dark soon. Go on home before the wind spiders get you.”
“Okay, okay.” After scanning the area to make sure no one was around, Domino reached into his pocket. “Take a look at this.”
The metal fragment that Domino laid on the grass was ten centimeters long, two centimeters wide, and less than a millimeter thick. It looked like a piece of silver leaf.
Kanaan brought it up to his face. “It’s heavy. What’s it made of ?”
“Beats me. Ask me where I found it,” Domino said excitedly.
“Wipe that stupid grin off your face and just tell us,” Benes demanded.
Noting Domino’s bitter expression, Kanaan asked, “All right, where?” But when Domino was slow to respond, he snapped, “Well?”
Finally, Domino pointed above his head.
“No way,” Benes said, staring agape at the sky.
“Uh-huh.” Domino looked triumphantly at Benes. “You know my uncle that works at the observatory? He was on duty ten days ago when this fell out of the sky. Nearly sliced off his shoulder before it stuck right into the stone floor.”
Benes flicked a finger against the metal surface.
“This looks man-made. So what are you saying—that there are humans up there?”
“I guess I am.”
Kanaan examined the foreign object in his hand. “Did you do anything to it?”
“Sure,” answered Domino. “I tried putting it over a flame, I tried cutting it with a knife—didn’t leave a mark on it. Ruined a perfectly good knife though.”
“There must be people with more evolved brains up there,” said Benes.
Kanaan nodded and returned the metal fragment to Domino. “I guess so.” His cheeks quivered with an excitement he could barely contain. “So what’s your news, Benes?”
The comely girl gave Domino an exasperated look, then relenting at last, said, “Come with me. Don’t worry about the wind spiders. There’s a person I want you to meet. At least, I think it’s a person.”
Benes led Kanaan and Domino to the church ruins in the eastern forest. Ever since a swarm of sky octopi had attacked and taken nearly a hundred worshippers fifty years ago, the church had sat empty. The interior, reputed to be able to withstand the passing of a thousand years, remained impregnable to the elements.
When Kanaan entered the room that had once been the priest’s study, he quickly discerned that the visitor was not human.
The mysterious figure was covered head to toe in a shiny yellow fabric. Dark glass lenses bulged out of the eye sockets, and a ridged tube stretched from the black cylinder tank on its back to the back of its head. It had no wings. Kanaan wondered how it had come here without them.
It raised what appeared to be a small pickaxe upon seeing Domino and Kanaan.
“Who are you?” it said sharply. Kanaan relaxed a bit at the sound of a human voice.
“It’s all right,” said Benes. “These are the friends I was telling you about.”
The visitor lowered the pickaxe. “You’ve already helped me, so I’ll have to trust you.”
“Good. This is Kanaan and Domino.”
“I’m Takamura. Call me Taka.”
Benes sat down on the only available chair while Kanaan and Domino leaned against the wall.
“Benes filled us in on our way over here,” began Kanaan. “She told us you came from the bottom of the ocean.”
“That’s right. I climbed the cliff face with this.” Taka nodded and slapped the handle of the pickaxe. “I came from beneath what you call the ocean—that’s where my world is.”
“Is that why you’re dressed like that? What’s the bottom of the ocean like?”
“Just a second—” Taka put a hand on top of his head.
There was a pneumatic hiss and the head split down the middle in two.
“Whoa,” Domino let out upon seeing the face of a middle-aged man around the same age as his own father.
Furrowing his brows, Taka took a moment to steady his breathing. “The temperature is about the same, as expected, but so little oxygen at nine thousand meters. It’s no wonder you’re all so barrel-chested. Excuse me—”
Taka covered his face once again with the fabric suit.
“Finally made it up here thanks to this suit,” Taka said between gulps of breath. “Nine thousand is tough.”
“Nine thousand—what does that mean?” Benes asked, tilting her head.
“The distance between your world and mine. You live almost ten thousand meters up in the air.”
The three teens looked at one another in disbelief.
Several seconds passed before Benes could ask, “In the air? You mean, up there?”
Taka looked up in the dir
ection Benes pointed. “I suppose that’s right coming from your perspective. But where I come from, everything above ground is considered up, including your world.”
Taka gave the teens a moment to absorb his remarks. “I should start by explaining how our worlds are connected. I’m glad the language has remained the same after ten thousand years.”
“Ten thousand years?” said Kanaan. When he stroked his chin, his hand came away shining with sweat.
“That’s right. There was a time when we all lived in what you call the bottom of the ocean. Then ten thousand years ago, a violent shift in the earth’s crust caused catastrophic destruction to the world. That’s when a small contingent of the population fled for the mountaintops. Those people were your ancestors.”
Taka went on to explain how when the ground sank and massive waves swept across the earth, all the homes and structures—and half of humanity—had been lost.
The three teens asked why they didn’t just fly to safety. Taka answered that wings had not yet been invented.
The fractured mountains spewed fire into the atmosphere, the heat from which turned water into vapors that blocked out the sun. The thick smoke layer wreaked havoc on the weather; deadly chemical substances that had leaked from destroyed plants were spread by raging winds and rained down on the earth.
For better or for worse, the capricious winds had spared the people that had fled to the highlands.
There were also survivors who emerged from the rubble where seemingly all had been lost. They were the people that had gone underground in shelters—built by the government who’d foreseen the apocalypse—along with the technology and machines needed for the rebuilding effort.
But restoring the earth poisoned by deadly chemicals to a habitable state took a thousand years longer than expected, and much of the technology that humanity had come to rely on was lost. Flight was one of them.
“We, thanks to our ancestors, were aware of the people that had fled to the highlands. Whether we went up or you came down, we always believed that we would reunite—although I don’t think anyone would have imagined it would take ten thousand years. But we didn’t forget. We knew of your existence, in part, because every so often, a mysterious creature or one of your people fell out of the sky. It took ten thousand years, but having had the fundamental skills needed for rebuilding, we have managed to achieve much of what we set out to accomplish. Which is when our curiosity turned to finding you and your civilization.”
Taka pressed a button on a panel on his left forearm. The teens could hear the sound of slurping from Taka’s facemask.
Letting go of the button on his arm, Taka explained, “Hot cocoa. It’s a drink that helps clear the mind and warms the body.” Staring at the three teens, he asked, “Care to see what’s down there?”
“No, not me,” answered Benes, looking down at her feet.
“Me neither,” said Domino.
Taka gave Kanaan a good look. “What about you?”
“Any sky sharks or wind spiders down there?”
“No, the only large animals you’re likely to see are the livestock we raise for eating. There are some dangerous monsters, but they rarely if ever encroach upon civilization.”
“That’s good enough for me.”
“Kanaan …” Benes’s voice was filled with anguish. It was the moment she realized her beloved friend was about to cause trouble.
“Your friend here told me about all the monsters up here,” Taka said, nodding toward Benes. “The cloud layer you call the ocean was once a radiation belt—a layer of hazardous gases that no longer poses a threat. We sent up a balloon to measure the radiation levels. It poses no risk to the human body. You’re all free to come down anytime you’d like. But—”
“But what?” This time it was Kanaan’s turn to stare at this strange visitor.
“It appears the leader of this world doesn’t want to acknowledge that reality.”
“Taka was attacked,” Benes said, “even after he introduced himself as a friend.”
“I wouldn’t put it past the village chief,” Domino said.
“Chief Tsukua hates change,” said Kanaan. “He thinks his only duty is to maintain the life they have now. He’ll probably kill you no matter what you have to say.”
Taka stared dumbly at Kanaan, then at the others. “Do you really believe that? You seem so much more mature than the kids back in my world. Is that really what you believe?”
Kanaan nodded. He could not lie to a man who’d risked his life to come here.
“I think you’ll find that everyone shares our opinion,” said Benes. “Actually, I know so.”
“I’d like to talk to someone of influence—someone who is as powerful as your chief. Will you take me to him?”
“If anyone finds out, we’ll all be severely punished,” Domino said.
Taka slammed a fist against his knee. “But surely once the chief realizes that there are others like you down below, he’ll want to at least talk, no matter how resistant to change he may be.”
“He’s already heard what you have to say. To the chief, you’re a foreign threat that could destroy this world. If he finds you, he will kill you.” Kanaan recognized the despair in his own voice.
“This is horrible …”
Suddenly, a shadow came over the room. Kanaan instinctively looked out the window and spotted a white mass just as it swooped into the room.
“Air octopus!” shouted Kanaan. “Damn, only wind spiders are supposed to come out this time of day.”
Domino pulled out the folding bow stuck in his belt. But before he could nock an arrow, the octopus slithered from the window and onto the floor and extended its three-meter-long tentacles. The dark green eyes between its massive head and tentacles reflected the images of its prey.
The bulbous heads of more octopi appeared in the windows.
“Get out of here!” shouted Kanaan, readying his own bow. “I’ll get the door!”
The octopus’s tentacles stretched out toward him. Twirling out of their grasp, Kanaan somersaulted in the air. Twang! Twang! One arrow pierced through the beast’s head and another through the eye.
The octopus writhed violently in pain. Kanaan slipped past its flailing tentacles, dashed out of the study, and kicked the door shut.
He turned to the others waiting for him. “Downstairs to the basement. No octopus or spider will get through the iron door.”
“There’s a spider now!” said Benes, looking down to the end of the hall.
An enormous reddish-black spider with legs resembling those of a crab was scuttling straight toward them.
“My bow is useless against that thing,” said Domino, unleashing an arrow nevertheless. He fired, and the arrow bounced off the hard shell of the spider’s cephalothorax.
“I think I pissed him off!”
The spider lurched toward them.
“The basement! Now!” yelled Kanaan.
“The door is rusted shut!” Benes cried. “It won’t open!”
“Help her!” Kanaan yelled in Domino and Taka’s direction as he glided toward the study door.
The spider’s long pincer legs were fast on Kanaan’s heels.
Would he make it in time?
Kanaan grabbed hold of the door handle and yanked with all his might. The door flew open and out tumbled the octopus—only for its head to be harpooned by the spider’s legs. Before the spider could claim victory, however, the octopus wrapped its tentacles around the arachnid and crushed its cephalothorax.
“It’s open!”
Turning around, Kanaan flew in the direction of Benes’s voice.
“Did they get out all right?” Taka asked.
Kanaan nodded, after having returned from seeing Domino and Benes safely out of the church. Domino and Benes both had families to go back to. If they didn’t return, their families were sure to send out a search party. Then it would only be a matter of time before their meeting with Taka came to light.
�
��Yeah. The monsters don’t come out at night.”
“Airborne organisms born out of cataclysmic meteorological changes …” Taka mused. “You’ve had to deal with them all your life and you never thought to seek refuge in the so-called ocean?”
“I grew up hearing about hundreds of people drowning in that ocean. And besides I much prefer looking over my head than down at my feet.”
“Over your head?” asked Taka, frowning.
“I know you can’t tell while cooped up here in this basement, but try looking up sometime. It’ll make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.”
“Aspire to go higher, is that it? That figures.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Would you say that your life here is easy?” Taka asked.
“Not at all. It’s nothing if not hard. The air is too thin, the sun is too intense, the sky is swarming with monsters, and sometimes the Mad Wind kicks up and sends dozens of villagers tumbling into the abyss.”
“So that explains the people falling from the sky from time to time. They must not all make it down to our world because some of them get stuck somewhere along the way.” Taka nodded, satisfied. “And you still believe in the sky’s magnificence?”
“I do.”
“And you want to fly higher?”
“Yeah.”
“And see what’s beyond the sky?”
“Yeah.”
“It is said that when the world began to crumble, your ancestors were led up the mountains by a world-class alpinist. You may well be a descendant. No, I’m convinced of it.”
“I suppose I’ll have to go on living in this world,” Kanaan said. “My duty as a hunter is to this village. But if these wings ever fail me or I’m banished from the village, I might give it a try.”
“How would you like to go down first?”
“Huh?”
“Seeing is believing. Take a look for yourself. Then you tell everyone all about how there’s a better life for them below.”
“A better life …”
“You can still go up afterward. Surely not all of the others share your aspirations.”
“Well, no.” Kanaan had to smile despite himself. Whenever he had spoken of his dream to others, they had laughed and looked at Kanaan as some sort of kook. The only ones that had not laughed were Domino and Benes.