by Robert Reed
Just once, Diamond came into the galley to eat and speak to his father.
She watched the boy and listened carefully to whatever he said. Diamond loved his father, that old man Merit. Merit knew the papio and respected them, and she could see his love for the boy. But oddly, Diamond didn’t generate emotions inside her. He spoke words that she understood about subjects that didn’t exist, and he seemed out of place in more ways that she could count, and then he had left the galley for his cabin again and she was glad of it.
Later, after the storm broke and night was finished, Bountiful was spotted by the fletches. The mission commander sent orders that one soldier was to guard the former crew while the rest of the prisoners were brought to the machine shop and lined up in plain view. Tree-walkers liked to ride inside gas bags. Their quickest bags were approaching in a hurry, and their captains needed to be reminded who was at risk if real fighting should break out.
Crock considered leaving the big boy behind. Karlan was the only prisoner who worried her, and because of that, she liked him. She saw good qualities in his walk and manner and how he wore his little miseries, and that’s why she put Karlan beside her. To help the image of peaceful coexistence, she cut away the bindings around his wrists, and then she told him that if anything felt wrong, with him or the world, he would die first.
“Good to know,” the boy said, winking at her.
Then the Diamond boy was brought to the dock. Three fletches had already caught them, and the papio commander called down from the bridge with orders to get every whiffbird ready. Smart leaders wanted options in case of trouble, and the first option was to throw their prize into one of the birds and then flee into the tangled canopy overhead.
Karlan was standing on Crock’s left, and the big room was jammed full of engine sounds. Diamond stood to Karlan’s left, flanked by his father and his teacher while that tiny monkey perched on his shoulder. Two other papio soldiers were on her right, while past them were the disarmed bodyguard and two other children.
Every face looked tense and brutally tired.
Every face but Diamond’s, she realized. He was still smiling. Standing in that line, helpless as anyone in the world, yet that pale-eyed creature looked as if he was somewhere else entirely.
One fletch was visible, its flat top rising even with the shop floor. Crock hated the bouncy wrong feel beneath her. Hard coral, rough and honest, was what she wanted to walk across. Soon, she thought. Then she found herself looking at Karlan. Why was that? A lot of thoughts had been swirling inside her, and just then, willing herself to use fresh eyes, she finally saw what should have been apparent from the very first glance.
Over the roaring whiffbirds, she shouted, “You’re a little bit papio.”
Karlan turned. He was huge and bold and full of natural bluster, but her words left him mute. This was a revelation.
“It happens,” she said. “It doesn’t happen much, but the species cross. Our blood and bones get mixed with yours. Fifty generations pass, but the bodies remember their nature as they wander. Two tree-walkers meet and mate, and the old blood suddenly shows up in the big arms and legs and the strength that never sleeps. Which is the papio inside you.”
Hearing every word, Karlan was too stunned to react.
And others heard it too. Diamond noticed and turned to look at Crock, something in those words worthy of a near-giggle. Then the strange boy looked forwards again, and Crock saw the fletch hanging close outside and the whiffbirds looked eager to fly—although launching would be a tough trick with so many aircraft bunched together—and that was the moment when Karlan started to respond.
She heard the curse and the first shards of pain coming with his words, and she started to turn back toward the giant boy, wondering if she had made a mess of things, telling him what he didn’t want to know.
That was when an autocannon began to fire.
Every other sound in the world became soft, thin and weak.
The cannon fired three rounds and paused, and then three more. The fletch’s front gunner was aiming high, aiming at one point, trying to punch a big hole through the ship’s hull and first bladder. Crock was running before she gave her legs the order. She sprinted to the edge of the floor and shouldered her rifle, pinning her sight to a young man, and her first shot passed through the bubble and through his face.
Of course she fired. Fletches were flown by soldiers and soldiers had plans, and this had to be somebody’s plan. That’s why she swung her gun to the right, fixing the sight on the next gunner inside his little bubble. He was sitting. He was watching, his expression perplexed and a little irritated by what hadn’t been deciphered by his head, and she managed a fine piece of shooting that left that bubble shattered, its interior painted with blood and brain.
The third gunner was moving.
Crock got her sight pinned him.
But hydrogen was leaking out of Bountiful, and the ship was tipping severely as the engines began to accelerate. She missed her shot and missed again, and meanwhile the final gunner managed to sweep the dock with cannon fire, shells bursting through the walls and closed doors and the one open door, a fat round coming into Crock’s chest and out the backside before it turned into a hammer that pushed her dead body out into the bright rain-washed air.
With the first bark of the cannon, Merit put his eyes and one hand on Tar`ro, shaking him when he yelled, “Keep Diamond safe.”
As if the man needed encouragement.
Tar`ro slipped closer to the boy, hunting for weapons. Papio guns were big and hard to maneuver. He wanted a piece of steel, preferably something sharp. But who would he fight? That perfectly fine question asked itself, and the man wasted another moment trying to piece together some strategy that wouldn’t be impossible two breaths after it began.
The cannon stopped firing, and the papio woman was standing in the open door, firing at fresh targets.
Merit had run to the closest com-line, the receiver to his ear while he screamed to the bridge, “Right center bladders hit. Bleed their gas, drop ballast, open carbon dioxide tanks above.”
It was morning. There was a little less oxygen in the morning air, which helped reduced the threat of fire.
There wasn’t any sign of fire, was there?
There wasn’t, and that jolt of optimism helped Tar`ro think.
The awful monkey was screaming. Soldiers guarding the boy were very serious about their duties. Golden eyes squinted when Tar`ro approached, so the tree-walker pretended to care about the damned pet. Kneeling, he shouted, “You’re fine, I’m here. Bite my hand, you brat.”
The soldier’s interest moved across the room.
The nearest whiffbird was a busy loud machine ready to lift off the floor. Two of its crewmembers were shouting. One seemed to be waving Diamond closer, while the other, the pilot, just as surely signaled for everyone to get away.
The floor had been tilting for several moments.
The woman papio was still firing.
Tar`ro grabbed Diamond by an arm, and Good clamped down on the Tar`ro’s wrist, and then the whiffbird was punched by a cannon blast that broke its windows and set its interior ablaze.
Tar`ro remembered a fat round button painted red.
He punched Good and turned away, trying to recall where the fire-suppression switch was waiting. But Merit was already there, holding it down as alarms sounded and Bountiful listed and various fires were burning around the dock. And then, just as people and the papio began to lose their feet, heavy carbon dioxide poured out of vents built for no other purpose.
Diamond pulled loose of the bleeding hand.
The soldiers weren’t with them anymore. They were running and sliding their way down the rubber floor, stopping where the woman soldier had been. A couple other soldiers were already there, firing fast. The woman soldier was gone. The big fletch filled the long open doorway, dressed in strong scales, engines roaring as it prepared to accelerate. It looked like a beast deciding on the best
way to run. Then a new roar arrived, louder still and probably fiercely hot, shaking the air and the floor and every person. The world shuddered as a wing slashed past Bountiful, next to no space between the two machines.
The wing was gone, and the fletch decided on its direction, pulling away.
Fires were burning across the dock, but not so brightly now. Choking gases made smoke and smolder, and Merit shouted something about holding your breath, except it was too late. Tar`ro had lungs full of carbon dioxide, and while he might not burn to death, he was beginning to wobble from a lack of oxygen.
Bountiful kept bleeding through its wounds and out the emergency shunts. Every water tank was opened. Heavy blackwood timbers set onboard when the ship was built were sent tumbling. Then the unrestrained machinery began to slide and fall free. A second door in the dock was opened, soldiers tossing out tools and furniture and several dead bodies followed by pieces of the shattered whiffbird. The airship struggled to remain buoyant, but that wasn’t possible. How could it fly when the central bladders were gutted? The ship was plunging for the demon floor, and that black thought gave Tar`ro encouragement enough to cough hard and find a fresh good breath of real air before looking around the room again.
Diamond had pulled free of his grip. He and the monkey were crawling uphill. The floor had about a two-thirds pitch, and the other prisoners were clinging to anything bolted to the floor as well as each other. Nissim had Elata beside him, and she clung to him. Karlan grabbed his brother in a haphazard grip. Merit was trying to move along the wall above them, the receiver dangling on its wire. The slayer shouted orders to whoever might be on the end of the line. “Leave us crooked, don’t bleed extra. And straight. Push straight for the reef, fast!”
Tar`ro climbed after the boy.
From outside, in the distance and then very close, came the sharp roars of more wings and the hard sputter of guns.
An explosion followed, huge and lingering.
Catching the boy, Tar`ro said, “Stay with me.”
“No.”
“Your father’s orders,” he said.
Diamond looked at his bodyguard. What was different about his face was apparent, and it was nameless.
“No, I have to find Quest,” the boy said. “She’s somewhere close.”
“Who?”
“She’s somewhere close,” he said, climbing toward the hallway.
The remaining whiffbirds were sliding, crashing into the wall and the final closed door. Every rotor was shattered. Nothing else could fly. But ten thousand generations of corona hunters had helped build a machine ready for almost any disaster, even ones nobody could imagine. Merit hit important buttons, and the doors didn’t just open, springs flung them free, and the whiffbirds tumbled away, and living papio followed, and the brilliant wash of sunshine came through the new openings, every surface and face and the soft black of the floor shining its fashion.
Good hollered a vile, immortal curse.
The boy had nearly left his monkey behind. He was showing a lot of pluck for being a miserable climber.
Tar`ro decided to give him a good chase.
The floor was no steeper than before, but it wasn’t any better either. Holes ready to hold straps gave his hands perches, and he worked closer and the monkey did the same, and both of them cursed and said, “Slow down.”
Diamond stopped just short of the hallway, breathing hard.
“What are you chasing?” Tar`ro asked.
Diamond was looking up, and he was listening. The ship’s bones were groaning as weight shifted, and the punctured bladders collapsed into a useless state while the remaining bladders expanded, filled with hydrogen reserves that caused the corona flesh to distort, pushing at the skeleton and the outer skin.
Again, Tar`ro shouted, “What are you chasing?”
“My sister,” the boy said, still looking ahead. “She’s here, she’s close.”
Sister?
The word generated too many answers, and Tar`ro had no time. No patience. The other humans were clinging to little perches, safe only by the easiest scale. Merit was holding the wall and the receiver, shouting at the invisible bridge. Then he noticed his son climbing into danger. But Diamond had a problem—a long stretch of tilted empty floor without holds of any kind—and that should have stopped him. Moving again would be stupid for anyone. But the boy had already kicked off his school boots, and with the tiny toes gripping, every finger digging at the rubber, he tried hard to do what couldn’t be done. And he slipped. And he caught himself for a moment and then dropped again, and Good stayed where he was, safe and screaming.
Tar`ro wasn’t directly below Diamond, but clinging onto the last tie-hole, he swung his legs into the air, the boy grabbing one ankle and holding on.
“Get up here,” Tar`ro ordered.
Merit had seen the fall. He was shouting and starting to climb out into the open again.
“Come on,” Tar`ro coaxed.
The boy crawled over him, and Merit had scrambled down close enough to stretch out his long frame, offering his hand to his son.
Diamond grabbed and held tight.
Father and son were climbing together, and Tar`ro started after them. He had handholds. There were no obstacles. He had no idea why he let go. Maybe Bountiful shuddered, or maybe he was tired and still weak from the carbon dioxide. Or ten lucky handholds didn’t mean that the eleventh would work, which was probably the simple ugly reason why he and the floor released one another.
Tar`ro flung his arms, blindly stabbing for holes that didn’t want to be found.
But this wouldn’t be too bad, the man reasoned. The doorways were only so long, and there were plenty of walls happy to catch him. That was a fine enduring thought that gave him hope, and then he was past the walls and spinning in the open air without a scratch on his body, tumbling three times before pointing his stomach up, arms and legs stretching out to keep his speed as slow as possible.
Bountiful filled the air above him. The corona-hunter wasn’t flying, and it wasn’t quite falling; the craft existed between those states. But it wasn’t burning either. Two fletches were burning against the thin trees of the canopy, and a third fletch—the one that had started the attack—was part way through a hard turn, bladders punctured, blue fires making the corona scales glow.
Maybe another fletch was directly below him.
Just that one unlikely possibility gave Tar`ro enough confidence to roll over. Sure enough, there were several ships below, each driving hard toward him. He saw fletches from his District and ships from the main fleet and in the distance were the giant vessels, including the Ruler of the Storm.
What a sight, and all for him . . . Tar`ro thought . . . and then he remembered that he was a realist, cold and tough, and a lifetime of practice threw him back into that familiar, reliable state.
He was dead.
The wilderness canopy was high and sparse, and Tar`ro was still far above the reef’s level. A man could fall for a very long time in this realm. He didn’t want any of this, but this was how it was. He thought about watching Bountiful’s progress, seeing if the ship could somehow make the reef, or he could study the battle that was taking shape in the air around him. But instead he ignored his surroundings, thinking about his former colleague, about Bits. Not often but a few times the two men had sat together in a tavern popular among the boy’s bodyguards, and they drank too much and talked too freely about various subjects. They were never friends but were always friendly, and Tar`ro had insisted on believing that he had a clear sense of the man.
But he hadn’t, no.
Then Sophia got into his head. One little plan of Tar`ro’s was to ask her out for drinks, just the two of them. He had some other ideas that dangled nicely from that one event. But she was dead and he was dead, and if there was something after living, he only hoped there was hardened wine involved.
Tar`ro thought about wine.
He thought about women, real and otherwise.
And he felt as if he hadn’t moved. The demon floor was remote, almost unreal. He considered putting his head down and driving hard. But this wasn’t that bad, falling slow and easy.
Then he remembered Diamond saying something about a sister.
What craziness was that?
Sitting in the classroom or standing outside that big window, the bodyguard sometimes glanced at the boy, just for a moment, and out of nowhere he’d find himself thinking about the enormous things that could hide inside even a little brain. And on those occasions, whenever Tar`ro forgot that he was a cold realist, he usually became sick with his self-induced terror.
Here he was, falling and falling, and he didn’t feel half so scared as he was thinking about a crazy kid.
Now what could be more peculiar than that?
Zakk sat on a nob of sourlip coral, using his binoculars to watch the battle.
Once he realized that Divers had run toward High Coral Merry, the young man started to chase her. Of course it was ridiculous to believe that he would catch her. His little body couldn’t cope with the rough, unforgiving ground. The same knee was skinned twice, as well as both elbows. It wasn’t long before he was too exhausted to move, and even now, after sitting for ten recitations, he was still breathing hard, sweating and tasting blood in his mouth.
This was nobody’s plan. This was never what he had imagined. But against long odds, he insisted on believing even now that there was hope, that whatever happened next would afford him the chance to talk and charm, eventually wriggling out of whatever trap was about the descend on him.
Hadn’t he done that for his entire life?
Of course coming here had to be the ultimate trap. The man in charge of the operation had made quite a lot of noise about limited risks and eventual rescue. But really, how could any rational person believe that escape was likely?