“Do you think so?” Do-ane asked hopefully.
“Oh, yes,” he said. And because it felt good, he again said that word. “Yes.” Then he added with his most reasonable tone, “If the gas was that terrible, the streets would be jammed with suffocating bodies.”
She looked at him, desperate to believe those sordid words.
Suddenly Jopale couldn’t remember why the young woman had bothered him. He smiled and she did the same, and with that, they leaned against the living wall, watching the city fall away and the countryside reemerge. Tall epiphytes spread their leaves to the waning light. Rain showers were soaking the land to the south. Maybe those clouds would drift north; that would lessen the chances of a fire, at least for a little while. Right? Meanwhile, Do-ane’s sensor continued to record the fluctuating levels of sulfides, plus the usual methane and ethane that were pulled inside whenever the worm belched and swallowed more air. But none of the toxins reached a suffocating level, and except for a foul taste in the back of the mouth, they remained unnoticed by the other passengers.
Finally the sun merged with the horizon and the numbers began to fall again, working their way back toward levels that were normal enough, at least over the last few years.
Jopale sat on his blanket, enjoying his good fortune.
Then for no clear reason, he thought about the hybrid woman back at the station—the black-haired creature with the big lovely voice—and it occurred to him that unlike the human soldiers, she’d had no air mask riding upon her hip.
Had she survived?
And why, in the face of everything, did he seem to care?
* * * *
PLANS OF ESCAPE
At the school where Jopale taught, the conclusion of each term meant a party thrown for the faculty and staff. Liquor was involved, and school politics, and during that final gathering, some extraordinarily raw emotions. Radiophone broadcasts had just reported a cluster of villages in the distant north destroyed by an eruption of poisons. Sober voices were repeating rumors—false rumors, as it happened—that the local engineers and mockmen crews couldn’t stop the enormous jets of methane. The party soon divided itself into two camps: Some wanted to embrace their doom, while others clung to any excuse for hope. Jopale found himself on the fringes of the argument, unsure which stance to take. Then a colleague wandered past, his cup drained and his mind intoxicated. Listening to a few declarations of terror, the normally timid fellow found a buoyant courage. “The situation is not that dangerous,” he declared. “Believe me, we can seal up holes ten times worse than what I’ve heard described in these stories!”
The optimists happily embraced those defiant words.
But the teacher shrugged off their praise. “You’re as silly as the rest of them,” he declared. “And at least as ignorant, too.”
“What do you know?” someone asked.
“More than anybody else here, I can tell you that.” Then the drunken man scanned the room. Searching for an escape route? No, he wanted the big bowl set on the central table—a leather bowl where sweet punch and fermented gig-berries created a small pond. “Look here,” he called out. “I’ll show you exactly what I mean.”
His audience gathered at the table, maintaining a skeptical silence.
Using the thick decorative leaves of a hush-woad, the teacher began covering the pond’s surface. And while he worked, he lectured about the wooden Continent and the bottomless Ocean and how things like rot and methane were the inevitable end products in a very ancient cycle.
Jopale understood it all, or he thought he did.
Then a third teacher—the most accomplished science instructor on their staff—cleared his throat before mentioning, “This isn’t your professional area, you know.”
“My area?” The lecturer with the leaves asked, “What is my area? Remind me now.”
“Maps,” the scientist said, that single word wrapped inside a smug and blatantly dismissive tone.
Anger showed on the colleague’s face. But he didn’t lose his temper. He just shook his head for a moment and set another layer of leaves on the pond. Then with a quiet, brittle voice, he said, “Jopale.”
“Yes?”
“What do you know about the Man-and-Sky texts?”
Jopale had read excerpts in college. But even in these modest academic circles, it was best to appear well trained. “I studied them for a semester,” he replied with a careful tone. “What about them?”
“How old are they?”
“No one knows.”
“But judging by the different dead languages, we can assume they’re probably several different ages… a mishmash of writings from a series of unnamed authors. Yes?”
Jopale offered a nod.
His colleague took a deep breath. “Scholars believe the Man-and-Sky offers at least three descriptions of the world, possibly four. Or five. Or even six. What’s certain is that each description is not that much different from our world. There is a large continent and a motionless sun. Only the names of every location have been changed, and the peoples use different languages, and sometimes the animals and vegetation are not quite recognizable.”
Like bored students, the teachers began to mutter among themselves.
The lecturer placed a hand upon the floating leaves. “My area… my intellectual passion… is too complicated for ordinary minds. I’ll grant you that. Thousands upon thousands of islands coalesce into a single body, each island fighting with its stubborn neighbors to remain on the Ocean’s surface, basking in the brightest possible sunshine. It makes for i grand, glorious puzzle that would baffle most of you…”
Feeling the insult, his audience fell silent.
“The Man-and-Sky texts give us the best maps of those earlier continents. And they offer some of the most compelling accounts of how the old continents fell to pieces.” The geographer picked a pale yellow straw off the table, his mouth pressed into a wide, painful smile. “You probably don’t know this. Those lost continents were barely half the size of ours. There is no evidence—none—that the islands in the past have ever managed to cover the entire day-face of our world. Which makes what is happening now into a singular event. An elaborate collision of random events, and perhaps selective forces too.”
“What about selective forces?” the scientist grumbled.
“Which islands prosper?” their colleague asked. “The strong ones, of course. And those that remain on the surface for the longest time. Those that can resist the poisons in the bad times, and those that will endure the longest, darkest famines.” Then he shrugged, adding, “In earlier cycles, the wood beneath us would have been dead long ago. The collapses would have come sooner; the tragedies would have been smaller. But this time—in our time—the islands have descended from a few durable lineages. And what’s more, every other force at play in the world has pushed us to the worst stage imaginable.”
Even in his blackest moods, Jopale didn’t want to believe that.
“We don’t know how much methane is under our toes,” the lecturer admitted. “But even the median guesses are awful.”
A small, sorry voice said, “The entire world could suffocate.”
Jopale had offered those words.
“Oh, but it’s far worse than that!” His colleague stuck the long straw into his mouth, then slipped the other end into a small wooden flask hidden in his coat pocket. He sucked up the liquid and covered the straw’s upper end with his thumb, lifting the leaves until he could see the open punch, then he set the bottom of the straw against the sweet drink. “Of course I mean this as an illustration,” he mentioned. Then he winked at the scientist, saying, “I know, I know. There’s no genuine consensus among the experts. Or should I say specialists? Since there is, if you think about it, an important difference between those two words…”
“Don’t,” Jopale cautioned.
But the man struck a long match, making a yellow flame. Then winking at his audience, he said, “Of course, the Continent might colla
pse slowly, over many generations. A little gas here, a lot of gas there. People die, but not too many of us. And maybe we will marshal the necessary resources. Cut holes to the Ocean below and let out the bubbles in manageable little breaths. Or pump pure oxygen down under our feet, freshening the cold dead water.” He waved the flame in front of his eyes. “Perhaps humans can do whatever it takes, and our atmosphere isn’t destroyed when the hydrocarbons eat up our precious free oxygen.”
“You’re drunk,” the scientist complained.
“Wonderfully drunk, yes.” Then the teacher of city names and island positions laughed, and he lowered the flame.
Everyone stared at the leaf-covered punch.
Jopale assumed that the liquid from the vial was pure alcohol. But his colleague had decided to make a more effective demonstration of his argument, which was why he used a collection of long-chain hydrocarbons purchased from an industrial source—a highly flammable concoction that made a soft but impressive wooshing sound as it set the leaves on fire, and then the drunken man’s hand, and a moment later, his astonished, pain-wracked face.
* * * *
THE EVENING AIR
Left-of-Left was the next official stop—a safe station where the hard-pressed worm could catch its breath and empty its swollen bowels. Most of the passengers had fallen asleep by then. The only light inside the crowded stomach came from a bioluminescent culture hung on an acid-etched brass hook. Do-ane hadn’t bothered with a sleeping hood, curled up on her blanket, hands sweetly tucked between her pillow and face. Rit didn’t seem able to relax, sitting up occasionally to adjust his hood or lake another white melatonin pill. Only Jopale didn’t feel tired—an illusion brought on by too much nervous energy—and that was why he stepped outdoors, using this brief pause to check on his mockman’s health, breathe the open air, and absorb the depressing sights.
The station was empty and dark. Information displays had been turned off, while the offices and cafeteria had their doors locked. Master Brace was standing alone on the platform, watching his colleagues use electric wands to stimulate the worm’s anus. Jopale approached, then hesitated. Was the old caretaker crying? But Brace sensed his audience. Suddenly wiping his eyes with a sleeve, he turned to the lone passenger, habit or perhaps some unflagging sense of duty helping him create a magnificent, heartening smile.
“A gloomy darkness, but a very pleasant climate,” he remarked. “Don’t you think so, sir?”
Jopale nodded.
“I’ve stood here at least a hundred times, sir.”
“With our worm?”
“Oh, yes.” Men like Brace often spent their professional lives caring for the same worm, learning its talents and peculiarities; and since worms were creatures of relentless habit, they were rarely asked to change routes or schedules.
“Pleasant,” the old man said again.
Tall clouds stood on the eastern horizon, obscuring the last hints of sunlight. From a distance, the clouds resembled a thick purplish-red lower that was either extraordinarily lovely or extraordinarily terrible.
Jopale asked if the clouds were made from smoke or water.
Master Brace shrugged his shoulders. “We won’t be staying long, sir,” was all he said.
Left-of-Left was a small city, and judging by the spacious warehouses standing beside the various worm trails, it had been exceptionally prosperous. Great slabs of freshly cut wood waited beside the widest worm trails, mounted on sleds ready to be towed east by giant freight worms. But there was only one other worm in the station besides theirs, and it had dragged itself between two buildings and died, its pale carcass beginning to swell as it rotted from within.
“This wood—?” Jopale began.
“The finest in the world,” the caretaker offered. “This ground is dense and durable—a sweet grain, and almost perfectly free of knots. It has been in demand, for centuries now. And when the Continent shifted east, the local miners adapted quickly.” Brace gestured toward the south. “They poisoned the best of their wood with arsenic salts. Even if their land starved, they weren’t going to allow any worm infestations. Beautiful planks were still coming out of this place… but you certainly don’t want to breathe the sawdust, I can tell you.”
Sprawling homes stood north of the station, yards sprinkled with tall poles. Gas-jet lights were strung high overhead—a cheat to bring light to a place without sunshine. But not one of the torches was burning now, and none of the windows on any house showed the barest hint of life.
Even the lowliest mockmen were missing.
“Because everybody left,” the caretaker explained. “They went off… I don’t quite know… maybe forty cycles ago? They were still here on my last trip through. Nobody warned me. But they were quiet while I was here, which was unusual for them. Very chatty folk, most of the time. Which makes me believe that they’d come to their decision already.”
Their worm began to shake now. Intestines contracted and the long body grew longer, the creature beginning to clear its bowels. The stink of the process was horrific, yet it bothered no one but the lone passenger.
Jopale turned his face away. “What decision was that?” he asked, one hand thrown across his mouth and nose.
“These people had their escape prepared,” the caretaker replied. “Probably years ago. A lot of these little communities… out here in the dark… they have schemes. Sanctuaries, special ground.”
“Is that so?”
“Oh, yes,” Brace replied, as if this was common knowledge. “People living in the night know what disaster means. They have experience and common sense. Like Left-of-Left here. One lady told me, with a confidential voice, that her family had built themselves a fireproof shelter and surrounded it with a deep moat. When the air soured, they would breathe bottled oxygen. And if the fires came, they’d flood the moat with water and spray it over their heads.”
Jopale almost responded.
But the caretaker saw doubt in his face. “Oh, I know, sir. I realize. That doesn’t sound workable. This would be no ordinary fire, and this dense ground is sure to burn hot and long. If that miserable time should come.” He laughed amiably for a moment, then added, “She was definitely lying to me. I know that now, and maybe I knew it then. You see… I would normally remain here for a cycle or two. We like to give this worm a long sleep and a chance to fatten up, and that local woman would let me share her bed. A wonderful lady, and a good friend, and she wanted me to know that she had arrangements made. But she didn’t tell me enough so that I could find her. Which is reasonable, and I shouldn’t be hurt. Wherever these people have gone, they don’t have extra room for their occasional lovers.”
Jopale didn’t know what to say, so he remained silent.
Then the caretaker turned back to his colleagues, and with a sharp, accusing tone, he called out, “Leave those turds on the trail. You hear me?”
A young woman was standing in the worm-greased trail. Spiked boots kept her from falling, and she held a special stick used to shove the foul wastes to the side. “But the regulations—“ she began.
“Regulations?” the old man interrupted. Forgetting about Jopale, he stepped to the edge of the platform, throwing out a few curses before reminding his crew, “Our first concern is our own worm. Our second concern is our passengers. And we are not wasting any time rolling crap out of the way of worms and people who are not going to be coming. “Do you hear what I’m saying to you?”
* * * *
A LAST MOMENT PLEA
Friends and colleagues were remarkably supportive of Jopale’s decision to leave home. Most offered polite words, while a few posed the most obvious questions. “Where did you learn about the New Isles?” they asked. He had come across an article in a small journal that catered to the wealthy. For a fee, he was able to purchase an introductory book filled with photographs and useful descriptions. “And they had space available?” people wondered. “At this late date?” But a New Isle was being built every few years—the process guara
nteed to continue until the disaster came or the danger passed. So yes, there was space enough for him. “But how does a teacher afford it?” they pressed. “How could you afford it?” Jopale offered a shrug and shy smile, mentioning his substantial inheritance. He always made that confession warily, expecting others to be openly jealous or envious or even noticeably bitter. But people absorbed the news with surprise and resignation. Which was a little disappointing, curiously enough. It would have made Jopale feel more secure about his solution—more optimistic by a long measure—if what he was doing caused pointed hatred in the people that he was prepared to leave behind.
Acquaintances and fellow teachers always seemed to have their own escape routes planned—hopeful schemes wrapped around the local civil protection service or private bunkers. And there was some good reason for hope: Throughout the district, old worm holes were being sealed and stocked with provisions. If the fires came, locals would hunker in the dark, sipping bottled air, while the ground above was saturated with pure water and complex foams guaranteed to shoulder all but the most catastrophic heat.
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection Page 62