Horizon

by Scott Westerfeld

  She forced herself to freeze—flailing would only make it harder for the others to hang on. Kira and Yoshi were scrambling to take hold of whatever they could.

  The bungee cords slowly stretched, went taut, and then pulled her gently back toward the rocks. Anna reached out for a pair of handholds, her heart pounding in her throat.

  “Sorry,” she said, clinging gratefully to the rock. “I grabbed the wrong plant.”

  Yoshi’s face looked pale, but he said calmly, “When rock climbing, never trust vegetation.”

  “Especially here, where it can eat you.” Anna tried to laugh at her own joke, but it came out more like a whimper.

  “Yoshi!” called Kira, then added more in Japanese.

  Anna looked up. The night wind had cleared the mist a little, and a dark shape was forming in the rocks above Kira.

  The mouth of a cave.

  “Maybe we should rest,” Yoshi said.

  Anna stared at him. “Maybe?”

  A minute later they were all inside the cave. The yokaze roiled around its mouth, still threatening to pull them back out into the misty air.

  “Ready for heavy?” Anna said.

  The other two nodded, and she switched the device off.

  Normal gravity tumbled down like a sack of doorknobs. Anna dropped to her knees on the stone. After hours of climbing in low G, the muscles in her hands were burning, but the rest of her felt rubbery and weak. And hungry.

  “Ow,” Kira said, rubbing her hands.

  “No kidding.” Anna’s cold, sore fingers struggled to unzip her backpack. She could smell the food bars through their wrapping and was already appalled that they’d only rationed two for each meal.

  She pulled one out and tore it open, wolfed it down, then took a long and welcome drink of water. Kira was ripping open packets as well, and somehow the scent of stale airplane pretzels made Anna’s mouth water.

  Then she noticed how warm it was in the cave and placed her palm flat against the ground.

  The stone was warm to the touch.

  Kira crunched a pretzel, and the sound echoed back at them from the depths of the cave.

  “There’s some kind of passage back there,” Anna said softly.

  Yoshi nodded, but he was listening to his radio. Instead of the usual hiss of static, a soft sound was coming from it.

  Beep, beep, beep …

  A warm rush of relief went through her. It was definitely some kind of transmission, the ordered pulse of civilization. The sound of medicine and food and nothing trying to eat you.

  Maybe Molly was going to be okay. Maybe they were all going to get home.

  Yoshi listened for a while, then placed it beside him and sat cross-legged, staring out at the mist.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” Anna asked. “Or do you want to explore the cave first?”

  “Let’s wait for that. The night wind is clearing the air, and this is higher than we’ve ever been.” He sipped from his water bottle. “Soon, we’ll finally be able to see where we are.”

  Anna looked at Kira, who handed her some pretzels and shrugged.

  But Yoshi was right—as the sunset turned the mists to shades of rust and rose, shapes began to form on the dark horizon. The yokaze was clearing away the clouds, and the landscape below was coming into focus.

  The three of them settled in the cave mouth, staring out, hoping for some sliver of the truth to be revealed.

  Don’t feel left out, Molly.” Javi wiped his lips with a linen napkin from first class. “Those suckers out in the jungle are eating peanuts and stale pretzels, while we feast on roasted slide-whistle bird!”

  “Which we also had for lunch,” Oliver pointed out. “And breakfast.”

  Javi stared at him. “Are you dissing the bird?”

  “No.” Oliver turned to Molly. “But maybe we should try something new. Like those purple berries growing under the left wing.”

  “You get to eat the first one,” Javi muttered.

  Slide-whistle bird and omoshiroi-berries were like chicken and mashed potatoes—Javi could eat them every day and not get bored.

  Or maybe it was just how hungry he was. The four of them had spent all afternoon turning the aircraft into an anti-giant-bird fort, and by the time dinner was ready he was hungry enough that everything tasted good.

  It had been worth the effort, though. Up here in first class, the seats were like little rooms built into the cabin floor. They hadn’t been torn out from their roots like the flimsy ones back in economy. Once Javi and the others had mopped up last night’s rain, hauled out some wreckage, and replaced the missing cushions, the cabin was luxurious again! The ripped-open roof let in the cool night air—just the right amount of nature for Javi. And once Oliver had found the first-class plates and glasses, things had gotten downright civilized.

  Maybe it was a little creepy, eating dinner where the missing passengers had sat. But it felt a lot safer than sleeping outside. Javi would take uneasy ghosts over carnivorous vines and giant birds any day.

  As a bonus, the first-class galley’s storage drawers had contained little bottles of Tabasco, which spiced up the omoshiroi sauce perfectly.

  As the others finished, Akiko wiped her hands and picked up her flute. Javi wondered what it was like for her, having no one to talk to now that Yoshi and Kira were gone. But Akiko didn’t seem to mind. She’d worked happily on the airplane all day and now seemed content to listen to the birds outside and learn their songs.

  As Molly cleaned off her fork and knife, she said, “Maybe we should do something useful tonight.”

  Javi frowned at her. Her face was pale, and though the wound from the bird was covered with a bandage now, it had glowed that strange green the last time Molly had cleaned it.

  “We already built a luxury jungle fortress,” he said. “Maybe you should rest.”

  Molly shook her head. “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not,” Oliver said. “You can’t just pretend that bird didn’t do something weird to you!”

  “You mean ‘the dreadful duck of doom’?” Molly said with a smile.

  Oliver just glared at her, and then at Javi, whose first attempt at a name for the creature had maybe been a little inappropriate.

  “Oliver, I’m not going to lie to you,” Molly said gently. “I feel weird, but we can’t just sit here while the others take all the risks. We should do something to help us find a way home.”

  When Oliver didn’t answer, Javi spoke up. “Like what?”

  “We could try some new symbols on the device.”

  Javi found himself wishing he hadn’t asked. Anna, Kira, and Yoshi had taken the new gravity device—the one they’d found at the center of the heavy-gravity zone—on their expedition. But the old one was still here.

  “How does that help us get rescued?” Oliver asked.

  Molly shrugged. “We don’t know yet. But if this machine can mess with the laws of physics, who knows what else it can do?”

  Javi wondered if Molly just wanted to distract Oliver, or if she really thought they could find a way home. Or—and this made it really hard to argue—maybe she just wanted to go out swinging.

  “Let’s review,” Molly said.

  They were all a hundred yards from the plane—close enough to flee to safety if the dreadful duck of doom showed up. Though, frankly, closer would have made Javi happier.

  “We know these two symbols turn the gravity to low,” she said. “And if you switch to this one, it turns the gravity up high instead.”

  Javi turned on his flashlight for a better look. All the symbols looked like squiggles to him. No handy up or down arrows to help it all make sense.

  Which was either bad design … or alien design.

  “So the symbol they have in common means gravity,” Oliver said.

  “Let’s not mess with that one,” Javi said. “I mean, we don’t want to get squished, right? Or reverse gravity and fly up into space!”

  “Agreed,” Molly said. “B
ut if we use the low and high symbols, it’s sort of like a controlled experiment.”

  Javi frowned. “So what’s safer, low or high?”

  “I guess that depends on what the other symbol does,” Molly said.

  “About which we have no idea,” Oliver pointed out. “We could pick a symbol that means high intensity pain. Or low could be, Hey, device, turn the oxygen down low!”

  Javi stared at Molly. “And you’re sure this is a good idea?”

  “Just one new setting,” she said. “It could change everything, like flying did.”

  It sure changed everything for Caleb, Javi thought. The mournful sound of Akiko’s flute wafted on the night breeze, like the song of a ghost. She didn’t seem to know any happy tunes.

  “Low was safer for gravity,” Javi finally said. “Let’s start there.”

  Molly looked at Oliver, who gave her a shrug.

  “Low it is,” she said, and pressed one of the first two symbols Anna had discovered. Then she turned the inner ring, counting off the others with, “Eeny, meeny, miny …”

  Javi swallowed, keeping his flashlight trained on the mysterious symbols. It was like drawing straws again, and somehow he knew they were going to wind up with pukeberries. Akiko stopped playing her flute, watching intently.

  “Get ready for … whatever,” Molly said, and pressed the chosen button.

  Javi waited for some epic change in the laws of nature, but nothing happened for a moment. Then his flashlight flickered.

  “Huh,” Molly said. “Out of batteries?”

  Javi shook the flashlight. “We’ve hardly used this one since …”

  He looked closer. The little bulb was glowing in there, barely.

  “Um,” he said. “I think you just set my flashlight to low.”

  “Okay,” Oliver said. “That’s not quite as cool as messing with gravity. Are you sure it’s not just broken?”

  “One way to check.” Molly switched the device off.

  The flashlight flickered back to life, the beam steady and normal again.

  “Omoshiroi,” Oliver said. “What about the other way? Set it to high.”

  Molly shrugged. “How bad could it be?”

  “Now that you mention it”—Javi set the flashlight down on a rock and stepped away—“it can always be bad.”

  “Okay,” Molly said. “Ready for turned-up flashlight?”

  “Ready,” Oliver said, and Javi just shrugged.

  When she activated the device again, the flashlight’s bulb flared to life, throwing a blindingly bright beam out into the jungle.

  “Omoshiroi des ne,” Akiko said.

  “Whoa!” Javi touched the flashlight gingerly. It was a little hot, and when he tried to turn it off, the switch did nothing. The buzz of the night was growing louder around them, a swarm of insects roiling into the dazzle of the beam.

  “Turn it off, Molly!” Oliver yelped. “We might be signaling that giant bird!”

  “Okay.” She pressed buttons, and a moment later the light faded.

  Javi found himself blinded, blinking away spots and tracers. Akiko muttered to herself in Japanese, rubbing her eyes.

  Molly lifted the flashlight from Javi’s grip, turned it back on.

  “It still works.”

  A little vibrating noise came from somewhere.

  “Was that a phone?” Javi asked, still blinking away spots.

  Oliver pulled a phone from his pocket. It was glowing, and a charging symbol filled its screen. “Wow. I took photos with this until the battery was completely dead!”

  “So we can recharge human tech,” Molly said. “Which means we’ll always have light. We don’t need those stupid glowflies anymore!”

  “Don’t dis the glowflies,” Javi muttered. For one thing, the amped-up flashlight was way too strong. His vision still swam with flares.

  “Maybe we can use equipment from the plane,” Oliver said. “The computers, the air conditioner. And the radios, to talk to each other!”

  Javi stared at the device, then at Molly.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asked.

  He nodded. “That the transmitters on the plane have way more range than those handheld radios? And that maybe we can signal whoever’s out there from the comfort of our luxury anti-bird fortress?”

  “Yep,” Molly said.

  Javi smiled. Maybe this was better than altering gravity.

  He turned and headed for the plane.

  Even after all the strange technology and alien wildlife, the jetliner cockpit was still one of the coolest things Javi had ever seen.

  The front windows had been torn out by the weird electricity during the crash, but the controls remained—about a thousand gauges and buttons. They took up every square inch of the walls and ceiling. Sweeping his flashlight across them, Javi remembered Molly’s trivia question about three hundred miles of wire. He could believe it.

  Akiko sat down in the pilot’s seat and took the rudder in her hands.

  “Do we even know where the radio is?” Oliver asked.

  Molly pointed. “There’s a headphone jack. The radio could be those switches next to it.”

  “But there’s a lot of other stuff in here,” Oliver said. “Maybe start on the low setting.”

  “Right.” Molly held up the device. “Get ready for low tech.”

  Akiko placed her hands in her lap and nodded.

  When Molly pressed the buttons, Javi’s flashlight wavered again, and the cockpit went dark except for the tepid glow of its bulb. Nothing glimmered on the blank screens, and none of the dials twitched.

  Akiko reached up and took the rudder controls again. She turned them left and right. Javi stuck his head out the empty right window, peering back at the dark wing. It looked just as broken as it had been since the crash.

  He pulled his head back in. “Nothing happening.”

  Oliver thumped a motionless dial. “Maybe the low setting only affects machines that already work.”

  “Well, then,” Molly said. “Get ready for high tech.”

  Javi turned off his flashlight and took a deep breath.

  Suddenly, the cockpit came to life. The dials glowed a cheery orange, their needles fluttering. The screens lit up with aircraft outlines and scrolling numbers, and red lights flickered everywhere.

  Akiko cried out happily and clapped her hands.

  “Whoa,” Javi said. “This is an airplane again!”

  “It almost feels like it could fly,” Molly breathed. “Except for the broken wings.”

  A small, insistent beep began to play, and they all looked at each other.

  “Can anyone find that?” Molly asked. “It might be a signal!”

  Akiko pointed at a row of lights between the pilots’ chairs. They were blinking red—exactly in time with the beeping.

  Then Javi saw the levers just below them—they were pushed halfway up.

  “Uh-oh,” he said. “I think the pilots left the engines on.”

  Another bank of lights went red, and more shrieking noises sounded.

  The beeps weren’t signals, Javi realized. They were alarms.

  Suddenly, the plane lurched beneath them, all two hundred forty feet of it rocking from side to side.

  “Switch it off!” Javi yelled, but Molly had already stabbed at the device’s buttons.

  The cockpit flickered back into darkness around them. The alarms went mercifully silent.

  “Phew,” Javi said. His ears rang with the cacophony of a moment before, but he could still hear something—a metal whine coming from outside.

  He stuck his head out the window again and switched on the flashlight.

  The inner right engine was in motion, the huge jet turbine spinning fast. Its blades were shattered and warped, and they scraped with a chorus of shrieks against the engine housing. Sparks and pieces of loose metal flew in all directions.

  As Javi watched, an outline of blue flame went shooting down the wing.

 
When Javi pulled his head back inside, his face was pale.

  “What?” Molly asked, then sniffed the air. “Is that …”

  “Fire,” he croaked, just as the whuff of an explosion came through the air, along with a blast of heat.

  The airplane rocked beneath Molly’s feet, sending her staggering across the cockpit. She grabbed for the copilot’s chair to keep her footing, and the device slipped from her hand.

  “Everyone out!” she cried. “Head for the slide!”

  In a mad scramble, Oliver, Akiko, and Javi pushed their way out of the cockpit door. Molly knelt to retrieve the device, but it was wedged beneath the navigator’s seat. She clawed at it, finally managing to yank it free and stumble from the cockpit. Pain bloomed in her bird-bitten right shoulder, and dizziness swept through her as she stood.

  The first-class cabin was a jumble of pillows and blankets, askew from the moments the plane had been set rocking. The remains of dinner were strewn on the floor—dishes, plates, salt and pepper packets, tiny bottles of Tabasco.

  The scent of a fire filled the air, as oily and sharp as kerosene.

  Jet fuel.

  “Abunai!” came Akiko’s voice, as clear as a bell through the roar.

  Molly ran into the next cabin and found the other three at the emergency door. Akiko had her arms spread across the door to keep the others from jumping.

  Oliver turned to Molly. “The slide, it’s deflating!”

  “The engine was throwing off fragments,” Javi said. “Must have put a hole in it!”

  Molly waited for a moment as her dizziness passed, then said, “We can fly down. Everybody huddle up!”

  The four of them crowded together at the door, arms around one another. The whole wing glowed, and a column of smoke was rising in the darkness. The heat pummeled Molly’s face like an oven with an open door.

  She realized that Javi had a pillowcase under one arm, which bulged with the shapes of silverware and tiny bottles.

  “Seriously?” she cried.

  “If this plane burns, we might never taste Tabasco again!”

  “Whatever. Jump on a count of three—away from the wing!” Molly switched the device on, and weightlessness hit. “One, two …”