The Memory of Sky

by Robert Reed

  “I want to see my father,” said Diamond.

  “And I wouldn’t be surprised if Merit stepped through this door by the middle of the afternoon.”

  From the back of the office, one man shouted, “He was hunting near Bright River.”

  “Unless he’s gone somewhere else,” the woman countered. “Coronas go where they want, and our people have to follow. The only certainty is that every day brings change.”

  Diamond backed away, escaping the caring hands.

  The woman was offended. “And where’s your mother today?”

  “I don’t know.”

  She blinked and sighed. Then she said, “Well,” and looked at the other civilians.

  “You can appreciate our dilemma,” Nissim pointed out. “His mother disappeared last night or this morning. Nobody knows where she is, and that’s why we’re searching for Merit.”

  “Bright River Station,” the man repeated.

  The woman lifted a hand, demanding silence. Then from some secret reservoir came pity, more pity than anyone would have guessed she was capable of. Her old face softened and the eyes became bright and sad. After a painful sigh, she said, “I’ll tell you what, my boy. I’ll dispatch a fletch to find your father and bring him here. Would that be good enough?”

  Diamond said, “No.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My mother’s gone, and I need to see my father,” he insisted.

  “Well, we might . . . ” She concentrated, piecing together the bureaucratic excuses necessary for this indulgence. Then another thought occurred to her. Turning to Nissim, she asked, “And who are you, sir?”

  “The boy’s bodyguard,” he said.

  Eyes narrowed, her mind wrestled with the unexpected.

  “And we’re his friends,” Elata added.

  The woman looked at Diamond again. “I suppose you want them going with you?”

  Diamond said, “Yes.”

  And she shook her head in resignation. “I want you to understand. If your father were anybody else, I wouldn’t do this. I wouldn’t even wrestle with the thought of doing this. And I would probably laugh at all of you before I sent you on your way.”

  Official papers were yanked from an iron box, and the woman wrote important words on them and stamped them decisively, leaving evidence that each document carried the weight and authority of a very important office. Then she handed the stack to Nissim, giving directions to the hanger before adding, “If somebody wants to doubt you, come back here immediately.”

  “And we’ll try something else?”

  “Oh, no,” she said, disgusted by the suggestion. “I’ll burn the evidence and throw you out.”

  The four of them left the office. Diamond kept close to the Master, unsure about their destination but happy to be moving again. Distance was being covered. Surely Father was getting closer with every step.

  “I can’t believe we’re going to Bright River,” Seldom said.

  “Inside a fletch,” said Elata.

  Diamond didn’t know what a fletch was, or a river, and he wanted to ask. But then the hallway ended, and they had to climb inside a tiny room. An old man wearing a gray and white uniform stood against the back wall. He looked at them without noticing anything. “Destination?” he asked.

  “The hanger,” said Nissim.

  “Shut the door yourself,” said the man.

  Nissim dragged down a wooden grating, and the man pulled a switch and pushed one blood-colored button, something about those various motions causing the entire room to leap upwards.

  “Is this a fletch?” Diamond asked.

  Seldom laughed. “No.”

  They started to rise faster, and Diamond felt his legs working. To Elata, he said, “I’m heavier.”

  “We’re going up,” she told him.

  He knew their direction, but how this was tied to his weight was another mystery.

  They passed a big room. People were standing on the far side of the grating, but they vanished before he could have a good look at them. Then he saw different floors, some with long hallways and others with big offices full of sitting people, and there were other offices where nobody was visible. The final stretch had nothing to see but smooth dark wood, and then the elevator shook hard and stopped beside the largest room of all, endless and noisy and smelling badly. Someone screamed a harsh, unfamiliar word. Other men laughed. The old man behind them said, “Hanger,” and motioned for Nissim to raise the door.

  A young man was sitting on a tall stool. Diamond recognized the soldier’s uniform and the soldier’s bearing—a wooden stiffness to his posture beneath a hard suspicious face that would fit on any toy warrior.

  “Passes,” the man demanded.

  Nissim handed him every piece of paper.

  The soldier flipped through the stack and wrote in one corner, and pointing with his free arm, he gave the papers back.

  That arm had to be followed. Nissim walked fast, Diamond remaining close. The hanger was huge and full of busy men and curses and fumes and filthy tools and racks of clean tools that were older than any man. The ceiling was remote, and the far wall had giant doors, as many opened as closed. Full-sized blimps hung in the air outside, tethered to landings and one another. But more impressive were the little blimps that sat indoors—sleek, arrow-shaped machines with wings and elaborate tail fins and windows on the nose and propellers that seemed too large for their bodies.

  “Those are fletches,” Seldom said.

  “Fast, fast, fast,” Elata said.

  But the ships were stationary, and some couldn’t move now. Men in red uniforms were tearing apart engines and tinkering with fuel lines, and they were talking to one another with rough, familiar voices, and when the little parade walked past, they would stop working to watch. Some were curious why three children were here. The obvious answer was to supply entertainment, which was why one fellow showed them his back as they approached, and then for no obvious reason, screamed in agony.

  Diamond jumped.

  The mechanic turned towards him, holding his prosthetic arm with his surviving hand. Fake wooden fingers were clenched in a fist. His stump was short and hidden inside the floppy sleeve of his shirt. “Oh, damn. Creators, damn you! Look what you’ve done to me, bastards!”

  Other mechanics laughed. Nissim shook his head, smiling but not smiling. “Come on,” he told the children.

  Seldom laughed and jumped. “I wasn’t fooled.”

  “You were,” Elata said.

  “I wasn’t.”

  Diamond stared at the fake limb. He wasn’t smiling or upset, just curious. He stared until its owner took offense, stepping forward to tell him, “You are a funny looking critter.”

  The boy nodded.

  “What’s so interesting here?” the man asked.

  Diamond tugged on the finger that was bitten off this morning. Then because he was curious, he asked, “Will it grow back?”

  “Will what grow back?”

  Diamond touched his own bicep.

  “That’s a damn stupid question,” the man decided. Then a big grin filled his face, and he started swinging the fake arm over Diamond’s head: once, and again, hard enough to make the air whistle, and then a third time, vainly trying to make that odd little boy flinch.

  TEN

  The fletch wore the name Happenstance, and painted above its name was a young woman dressed in feathers and gauze and nothing else. Diamond stared at the woman while Nissim spoke to the pilot. Official papers would need study, but that wouldn’t be enough. The pilot insisted on knowing the real story. Crossing his arms, he waited for any excuse to refuse these unwelcome orders. Nissim put on a smile and pointed at Diamond, and with the first mention of the father’s name, the pilot uncrossed his arms, blinking quickly. Nissim continued talking. Then the pilot waved him off and ran to Diamond, kneeling low, shoving his vast nose close to the boy’s face.

  With an astonished, well-meaning voice, he said, “You should be dead. Yo
u should be yesterday’s rain. And do you know why you’re not lost forever?”

  Diamond shook his head.

  “Thank me,” the pilot said. “The day you were born, I sacrificed not one but two royal jazzings. Which nobody else did, and I did that because I think that much of your good father. Do you understand me?”

  Diamond nodded, understanding nothing.

  “And look at you now. Always the runt, but I can tell you’re a sturdy runt, which isn’t a bad way to be. That’s what I was when I was a half-done.”

  The pilot was smaller than most men, and despite thousands of days of life, he still seemed boyish. Up he jumped, and clapping his hands, he shouted to his crew, “Time to fly. File the route to Bright River.”

  His men seemed rather less enthusiastic. But they moved when prodded, and since they knew what to do, the result was inevitable. The ship’s two bladders were topped off with gaseous hydrogen, alcohol was poured into the main fuel tank, and the engines were adjusted to match the midday level of oxygen. Before long, Diamond and the others were sitting inside a little cabin tucked inside the ship’s belly. Everything about the Happenstance was lightweight and sleek. The chairs were stiff rubber frames and little else. The walls were fabric, windows taut sheets of transparent rubber. But the engines sounded massive, igniting with purposeful roars that shook everything and everyone. Seldom squealed his approval. Elata tugged at Diamond’s arm and leaned close, shouting, “I’ve never ridden in a fletch before.” The pilot walked around the outside of the ship, studying the propellers and fabric and the roaring racket. Then he came through the cabin, taking the trouble to yell a few words to the Master.

  “We’ve got a leak in the right bladder. Somewhere. We can’t find it, but there’s stink mixed in the gas, and if something smells foul, you come get me.”

  “Maybe you should make a sacrifice to fix it,” said Nissim.

  But the pilot wouldn’t play along. “Sacrifices don’t work with machinery,” he shouted. “Only with people, and then, only if you’re lucky.”

  The Happenstance’s belly dragged against the slick hanger floor before passing through the nearest open doorway, and then it began to fall, gaining speed as the engines roared even louder.

  “I feel lighter now,” said Diamond.

  Elata sat beside him. “That’s because we’re falling,” she said, explaining nothing. Seldom giggled as the world moved fast around them. Nissim sat in front of Elata, and he turned to watch Diamond. It was as if he had never looked at the boy before. He was ready to say something or ask some fresh important question. But conversation was impossible. The engines were louder than ever, the air seemingly tearing apart as the fletch finally earned enough lift above its wings, beginning its quick muscular climb over the green canopy.

  Giant trees slid past, each adorned with walkways and homes and tiny, tiny people who sometimes looked at the noisy aircraft but mostly ignored it, marching through their own magnificent day. Species changed—different bark and different trunks hanging from the sky—but it was easy to believe that this incredible forest had no end. In no time at all, the fletch had carried Diamond farther than he had wandered during his entire life. That obvious idea startled him, and he laughed, just a little bit. But more surprising was his reaction: he didn’t look for his parents now, ready to share his astonishment. They weren’t here, not even in the corner of his eyes, and for the first time today he found himself wondering what would happen if he never saw them again.

  Guilt grabbed hold. His mother and father were a little bit dead to him, and he had already adjusted to that hard fact. Bending forward, he shut his eyes, fighting that one simple idea. He could be an orphan, but accepting that possibility seemed treacherous. Wrong. Palms to his eyes, he concentrated on his breathing and his heart, and after a long while a big hand that he knew came down on his head, tousling his curly hair.

  Nissim shouted his name and pulled back the hand, saying, “We’ve crossed. We’re in the wilderness. Do you want to see?”

  Diamond sat up, wiping at the eyes once more. Sunlight was bright and close and a little less green. The dense old canopy had been replaced by smaller branches that were above as well as below, and the trees were smaller and far more numerous, and even when he searched hard he couldn’t find any trace of homes or human beings. This was a very different forest. The fletch was slowing, changing course every few moments to avoid limbs. One giant leatherwing insisted on flying beside them, flapping hard and then tucking its wings, slipping between twin trees before returning to tease the fletch with its grace and fearlessness.

  The engines ran slower and slower. Nothing was quiet, but it was easier to talk, and that was what Nissim wanted. Leaning across his seat, he waited for Diamond to meet his eyes. “Once in my life, I was a teacher,” he began. “Maybe somebody mentioned that to you. There were days when I held a high post at the Grand University in the District of Districts. But there was trouble, and I lost my post and my credentials and my home. I ended up living in the Corona District, needing work. My father was a butcher so I already knew the trade. And that’s how I earned my post at the local school.”

  His voice wanted to sound steady but wasn’t. His face was self-conscious and indignant, big eyes staring into the distance, and the Master needed a few moments to shape his next words.

  “What I just told you is what students and their parents hear about me,” he continued. “It’s a simple story. There aren’t any details, and more than most stories, it happens to be true. I was a professor. There was a kind of scandal. And now I cut up animal parts every day, without complaint. I’ve worked in that school for three thousand and eleven days. Of course people have to look at me and wonder. Rumors aren’t usually kind to a former Master. But I didn’t do anything horrible. I don’t wear manacles or prison tattoos, and the authorities don’t seem especially worried that I’m close to children. So how awful was my crime? It couldn’t have been too terrible. At least that’s what charitable parents like to say to one another when they think that they’re out of earshot.

  “But believe me, my crimes were appalling. What I did was unimaginable and wicked, and that’s why I was tried in a secret court and stripped of my degrees, my fancy titles. It has been thousands of days since I told anybody what I did. Not since I came to Corona and met with the local police. Not since long before any of you were born.”

  Squirming in his seat, Diamond glanced at the passing branches, details smeared by the rubber window and their fantastic speed.

  The Master said his name.

  The boy blinked and looked at those great black eyes.

  “We count our days,” Nissim continued. “From the beginning of time, humans have used the days to measure time. Everybody knows this. But most people don’t realize that there are a few scholars, very unusual researchers, who spend their lives doing nothing but trying to make a fair full count of the world’s days and nights. An honest number would tell us quite a lot. That’s the logic, at least. Knowing when the world was born would give us a huge number, and wouldn’t that be fine evidence of the world’s greatness?”

  “How many days are there?” Elata asked.

  Nissim smiled grimly and lifted his hand, clamping it over Seldom’s mouth.

  “You don’t know,” he said to the boy. “And don’t bother guessing.”

  Seldom shrank back and stayed quiet.

  Nissim said, “Various counts exist. Scholars are divided into important factions—warring tribes, really—and nobody agrees. Nobody can ever agree. Each answer has a different path behind it, and long gray reaches of history compromise every number. There have been wars: tree-walkers against papio; civil insurrections. Governments have fallen into the sun, and chaos has ruled for generations, and nobody knows how many times our records were burnt or left to rot.

  “Now most authorities believe the world was born at least one million days ago, and some claim it was more than ten million days ago. I’ve known smart men and sm
art women who invest all of their intelligence in one number and then convince themselves that it’s not just right, but inevitable and beautiful and theirs. But there are a few of us, always just a few, who are interested in finding a new means of counting.

  “Which brings me to me.”

  He paused. The fletch dove suddenly and then just as suddenly jumped higher, and someone from up in the cockpit screamed—a boyish wail of approval at the airborne dance.

  “The edge of the world is marked with the living coral.” Nissim was looking at a point behind Diamond’s head. “The coral grows from where existence begins, and it creates a strange terrain. This is where the other people live, the papio. They live in villages and giant towns, and except for all of their differences, they’re exactly like us. They fight each other and sometimes they pick fights with us. The papio are intense and very intelligent and they like to be silent when they’re with us, but they have their own language and their own wonderful alphabet, and like us, they have scholars who keep count of the days.”

  Nissim paused, licking his lips.

  “The coral grows,” he said. “Every day, it lays down a tiny layer of new coral along the reef’s belly. What lives is as blue as it is green, and every night that coral rests. Nights leave behind faint dark lines in the ground. When I was a young student, I read that it was possible to take a core sample from the coral and count the daily rings, measuring the passage of time. As a scholar, I decided to make that my life’s work. The deepest and presumably oldest coral happens to be there.” He pointed forward. “That’s why I passed through the District of Corona on my way to visit the papio. I needed to learn their customs and language before receiving permission to drill, which took effort and time and a good deal of luck. And even with those accomplishments, everything remained difficult.

  “I had to hire papio engineers to design the drilling apparatus. Cutting into deep old coral isn’t easy work, and I don’t know how many times wise people from both species warned me that I was attempting the impossible.