Freefall

by Joshua David Bellin

  “You call us Terrarists,” she said, speaking to the wind. “You have been taught to fear people such as myself. But I have learned to do the same. I have learned to fear the ones who look like you.”

  She turned back to me, and under the power of her eyes, I felt compelled to give some kind of answer.

  “That’s different,” I said. “Terrarists attack—”

  “The innocent?” she said sharply.

  “No . . .”

  “Children? The aged? Those who cannot defend themselves?” Her golden eyes blazed. “How are the atrocities committed in the name of Terra any different from this?”

  “I just meant . . .”

  But now that her words had started, I couldn’t stop them from continuing in an angry torrent.

  “You have been with us for months,” she said. “Have you learned nothing in all that time? Do you cling to the lies you were fed as a child? Is that our return for the risks we have taken, son of the Upperworld?”

  I tried to say something, but like that first day in the helicar, she never slowed down.

  “I have given you time,” she said. “More than we have to spare, and much more than I would have given others. I have watched, and waited, and prayed for a sign that you would join us not only in body but in spirit. But now I find that I have prayed in vain.”

  “I was waiting too,” I managed to sneak in. “Waiting for you to—”

  “To send you a personal invitation?” she said. “What more could I have done to awaken you, if the suffering you have seen with your own eyes failed to do so? No, I fear you are like all the Upperworld’s people: So long as you believe that outer space awaits you, the Earth and its sorrows can have no real claim on your heart.”

  Her accusation hit me like a physical blow. “That’s not true,” I said. “I’m not like that.”

  “Then show me!” she said violently. She gripped my shoulders, her face practically touching mine. “Prove to me that you are one of us. Or leave this place, as you meant to do before we met. The Earth will not mourn your loss.”

  She released me and fell to the ground, burying her face in her hands. A wail rose from her, a cry of anguish so keen it cut straight through me. Raising her head to the swollen sky, she uttered a string of words in her own language. They might have been a chant, or a curse. Her eyes were dry, but her cheeks glistened with the rain that had begun to fall.

  “This was my village,” she said. “I was born here, before my parents sold me to the Upperworld. I toiled as a slave in ExCon, and the only thing that kept me alive was the thought that I might one day return to liberate others. And now I am left to tell my people that none survive but me.”

  With that, she walked back to the fence, holding her robe tightly against her so it wouldn’t catch as her chief bodyguard held the wire aside and handed her through. I stayed on the ground, not wanting to risk the wobble I was sure would show in my legs if I tried to stand. I knew I could take all the time I needed to pull myself together. I knew she’d wait for me.

  But I also knew she wouldn’t wait forever. She’d seen through me the way she always did, seen that deep in my heart I was holding back, expecting her to prove something to me before I committed fully to her cause. Life’s like that in the Upperworld. You learn to believe there’s always an out.

  The next time she called on me, I knew I wouldn’t get another chance.

  And I promised myself that when that time came, I would prove to her that I was in.

  Otherworld

  Earth Year 3151

  Day

  I wake in time to see the pod things stirring, their shells flexing as they prepare to open for the night. I’m almost stupid enough to stand there and watch the whole process, until I remind myself they aren’t about to hatch into cute fluffy ducklings. I suit up and crawl out of the cavern in a hurry, and so far as I can tell, the things don’t follow.

  The creature from the previous night lies on its stomach, insect legs splayed as if it tried to get up before collapsing again. That gives me an idea, and I close my gloved hand around the final joint of one of its segmented legs. With the help of my ion gun, I heat the metal or living tissue or whatever the joint’s composed of until it sizzles and snaps, and I’ve got myself a new walking stick, heavier and shorter than the old one but better than nothing. It creeps me out to think where it came from, but the alternative, I tell myself, is much worse.

  Now that I’ve seen the orientation of the gulf that lies under the Freefall, I stay well to the right of it, using my macabre walking stick to make sure I don’t deviate from my course. Still, the going’s much slower than I calculated—the one thing I didn’t take into account was fear of losing my way in the ever-present mist, which blocks my view of the terrain as well as the ship. The whole time I’m walking, the rasp of my oxygen kit makes it impossible to hear if anything’s following. I take a couple of breaks to rest and watch for stalkers in the night, but to my immense relief, there’s nothing to see.

  I’m a good kilometer from my goal when the lights of the Freefall finally fight their way through the mist. I pick up the pace now that I’ve got a visible target, but even so, it’s near daybreak before I stand by the ship at last, the first dribbles of sunlight bleeding the fog into a million fuzzy halos. The tracking device has been flashing merrily away during my walk, but now it gives off a steady red glow, so I know at least some of the pods are inside.

  The only question is, how do I get at them?

  I tuck the homing device into my supply pouch and walk alongside the ship, keeping one hand on its flank for anything that might suggest a way in. Not surprisingly, the hull appears impregnable, which it would have to be to survive an interstellar voyage. If the Freefall’s configured anything like the Executor, there should be a cluster of airlocks by the forward command center. But that’s half a ship’s length from me, lost in a gleam of fog twenty football fields away, and requiring me to cross a gulch with no discernible bottom. Plus I’m not authorized to open the airlocks. I’ve got no way to communicate with the ship’s passengers, whose absence worries me—they should have woken up when they landed, and if they didn’t, that’s going to put a major kink in my plan to rescue Sofie. But before I can worry about the details, I need to get inside.

  Continued inspection of the ship reveals a series of small curved shapes protruding from the hull, which my hand confirms are the rungs of a ladder, one of many laid for construction and upkeep when the ship was preparing for departure. The ladders should lead to maintenance shafts sprinkled along the hull. The shafts will be sealed, but maybe with my gun I can unseal one the same way I melted the monster’s leg. The larger problem is that the shafts don’t start until halfway up the massive hulk’s side. But if I can shinny up a ladder and find my footing where the curve of the hull flattens three hundred meters overhead, I’ll be able to work without fear of falling. And if the shafts have twin doors like the airlocks, I’ll be able to get into the ship without compromising its pressure or atmosphere.

  It’s a risky plan, I know. But the mist is leeching away with the spread of the sunlight, and if I don’t get in soon, I’ll be the proud owner of an extra-special, bone-deep tan.

  I’ll take my chances.

  I grab the nearest rung and climb. I move as fast as caution and my weakened shoulder allow, never forgetting the bottomless crater that lies beneath the hull. The ship’s endless. I never saw it up close, only catching glimpses on the worldlink. We’d all lapsed into deepsleep before the pods were loaded. Now that I’m climbing it, I have serious doubts I’ll be able to make it to the top. I haven’t gone a hundred meters before both of my arms are shaking, my gloved hands throbbing. The day’s brightening, working its way through the mist. Bad news for me, since the side I’m on lies directly in the rising sun’s path. It could take hours to find a way in. I could end up frying before I discover there is no way in.

  Before I’ve made it halfway, I stop, my head adjacent to a maintenance t
unnel. My left shoulder is in open rebellion against my brain, and it occurs to me that even if it was physically possible, it’s too late to climb back down and seek shade. Hooking my (relatively) good arm around the ladder so that I hang there like some hapless fly stuck in a spider’s web, I pull out my pistol, press it against the exit and dial up the heat setting, only to have it sputter and die. I guess that’s what happens when you use your ion gun to liquefy space monsters’ limbs. Banging on the exit does nothing but threaten my precarious grip. And cause me to drop the gun. I wrench my eyes away from its falling form before dizziness drags me right after it.

  I am so screwed, they’re going to have to come up with new adverbs. As in, I am Newelly screwed.

  My fingers loosen on the ladder. I can’t think of anything else to try.

  The only thing I can think of is how I failed.

  “Sofie,” I say. It sounds like I’m saying good-bye.

  Something beeps.

  I nearly lose my hold. Sweat beads on my forehead, and my stomach tries out the drop my body almost did. After taking a deep breath to calm myself, I tighten my shaking grip on the ladder and turn my attention to what made the sound.

  It’s the homing device. I’m sure of it. Its red light shines through the supply pouch, except now the light’s flashing again, not steady.

  With a hiss of air, the exit pops open.

  It’s so unexpected I just about take a tumble. Or I do take a tumble: inside the circular opening, landing against the inner door of the shaft. I let out a breath of relief as my quivering arms get a much needed break. Only when I’m lying on solid metal does it occur to me that if the shaft didn’t have double doors, I’d have plummeted to the floor of the Freefall.

  I have just enough time to grab the ladder inside the shaft before the outer door closes and the inner one drops open, my legs dangling over an abyss as unfathomable as the one beneath the ship.

  Newelly screwed.

  I’m really starting to think I’m onto something.

  Earth, 2151

  Lowerworld

  That day in Sofie’s village changed everything.

  If I’d thought she was pulling out all the stops before, it turned out she had some reserve of energy she’d never shown me. She was everywhere. The public meetings resumed all around the Lowerworld, the crowds pouring in to hear her, the words she spoke burning with anger and anguish as she described what had become of her home. The massacre, it seems, was a tactical error on the Upperworld’s part, an attempt to intimidate her that had the exact opposite effect. It was possible they’d gotten their hands on misinformation spread by Sofie’s team and thought they were killing the revolution’s leader when they dropped the poisons that killed her village. Her handlers spun that possibility, beaming videos that suggested Sofie had been targeted to share the villagers’ fate—and then cutting to shots of her alive, speaking on behalf of her murdered people. When those videos aired, you could feel the movement’s momentum shift. When Sofie appeared publicly, you could feel it not only shift but explode.

  And this time, I was there to watch it happen.

  Maybe it was because I was the one who’d intercepted the transmission. Or maybe she was giving me a final chance to prove myself. All I knew was that the day after we returned from her village, Sofie came to my tent again and offered me a seat in her helicar as she traveled to her next public demonstration, the first since Sumati’s death. I didn’t think twice. I flew to the rally with her, standing with the other members of her team in a packed SubCon square while she exhorted the crowd. From that point on, she no longer had to invite me: Every morning, my tent would be opened by one of her bodyguards, and I’d make my way at a run to her waiting helicar. From the speaker’s platform—whether a former gallows, the front steps of a temple, or, once, the base of a pyramid—I’d watch the crowds stream in, watch as they grew so large the Peace Corp. gave up and stopped coming. I’d watch Sofie’s small figure whirl across the stage, commanding everyone’s attention no matter how big the crowds got, her arms raised as if she was daring the Upperworld to finish what they’d failed to do before. I’d listen to her voice boom from the speakers, sometimes in my own language but more often not, and even when I didn’t understand a word of what she said, I knew exactly what she was saying. It was the same message I’d thought I heard that first time in Adrian’s room. I couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to figure it out.

  Sumati, bringer of wisdom, speaks to the world’s people.

  We do not fear the power of CanAm.

  We call for justice.

  At the end of her speeches, while the crowd cheered like crazy, she’d turn to her team and smile, and her golden eyes would fall on me the way they had before I met her. Piercing me, challenging me. Offering to take me to a better place, if I’d let her show me the way.

  And then there was the time, a month after the massacre, when Sofie didn’t merely look at me but beckoned for me to join her. At first I thought she meant someone else, because I mouthed, Me? But she mouthed back, Yes. I felt like I was in the zero-G gym as I crossed the platform, legs shaking. When she gripped my hand and raised it in the gesture Sumati had first used, her energy was so strong it was as if she’d granted me an extra life. She held my hand all the way to the helicar, and when we boarded, she gave it one last squeeze before entering another compartment to debrief with her team. I watched her until the moment the door closed.

  That night, back in camp, she came to my tent once more.

  This time she called my name before entering, and I let her in. She looked excited. Not necessarily to see me. Just excited. Her cheeks were flushed in the electric lamplight, and her eyes shone. A full smile shaped her lips, showing off her very un-Lowerworld gleaming white teeth. I smiled back, heart beating, remembering the promise I’d made, the feel of her hand in mine.

  “Cam,” she said, unusual in itself. She always addressed me, whether in company or in private, as Cameron. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  “Never,” I said.

  “Good.” She sat on the cot beside me, which was a first too. We were so close the heat of her body leaped the tiny gap between us. “I have news, and I wanted to share it with you before anyone else.”

  “Great,” I said. “What’s up?”

  It sounded ridiculously casual, and she smiled.

  “What’s up is that the licensed corponational channel for ExCon wishes to interview us,” she said. “Tomorrow. For live broadcast.”

  “Us?” Exciting as that sounded, it didn’t make sense. “Why us?”

  She laughed, a trill that ran higher than the norm. “You mean, why us and not myself alone.”

  “I’m just saying . . .”

  “The station wishes to examine the question of a mutual colonization from a variety of viewpoints. As one of the few Upperworlders among us, you represent a unique perspective on that question.”

  A token, in other words. “So they talk to us. And then what?”

  “Cam.” For the second time in a single day, and only the third time in my entire life, the girl I longed to touch reached for my hand. “You do not appreciate the importance of this interview. It is . . . unprecedented. Bigger in its own way than the affair in New York CITI.”

  I nodded, my heart hitching at the word “affair.”

  “The losses of the past several months have become our greatest victories,” she said. “The death of Sumati and the massacre in my village have opened the eyes of the world to the justice of our cause, as they have opened your eyes too.”

  She looked at me closely, seeking an answer to her unasked question. I nodded again, and she squeezed my hand tight.

  “I knew it. You have seen that a new world is possible, and now you will see our dreams come true. All of them.”

  “All of them?”

  “All of them,” she repeated with absolute conviction. “This interview is the moment we have waited for, the moment we have struggled for. Oh, Cam!�
��

  I stared at her. The Sofie I knew didn’t say things like “Oh, Cam!”

  “So what do I need to do?” I asked.

  “They have not provided us a script,” she said. “But they will surely ask about your experience with us. When they do, all you need to do is answer honestly.”

  Her voice was breathless, her eyes probing. Something about the whole thing made me uneasy, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.

  “Maybe it’s a trick,” I said at last. “They get you alone, put you in front of the worldlink lenses, and then . . .”

  “They would not dare,” she said fiercely. “They know the entire world is watching us, and its eyes can never be closed again. If they should take my life, they know that another will rise to fill my place, and the movement for justice will grow so great it will sweep their petty starships into the sea.”

  Her eyes burned with passion. Her fingers wrapped mine as if she was physically trying to drag me to the place she envisioned. I was about to tell her I was already there when she spoke again.

  “And besides,” she said softly. “I will not be alone. I will be with you.”

  And with that, all the doubts fled from my mind, and I was barely able to respond when she flung her arms around me and squeezed.

  Otherworld

  Earth Year 3151

  Day

  Vertigo doesn’t begin to describe what I feel as I scramble to plant my legs onto something solid. My vision blurs, and the thought of my body going splat releases a trickle of what I ate last night. If the trickle goes splat, the floor of the Freefall is too far below for the sound to reach my ears.

  Clutching my right wrist with my left hand to lock myself onto the ladder, I feel for the next rung beneath my feet. When I find it, I squeeze my eyes shut until the world stops spinning. Then slowly, very slowly, I climb down.