All The Frail Futures: A Science Fiction Box Set

by J Battle

  With a little bow he turned to the trunk and leaped upwards. His fingers and toes were equipped with sucker like extrusions that clung securely to the smooth bark, and in seconds, he was up and out of their view.

  Chapter 43

  ‘Well Jack. What do you think? Shall we follow him straight up or do you want to try the rickety old lift?’ asked Debois.

  ‘Let’s take the lift, shall we? If they didn’t see us arrive, there’s no need for them to be aware of our capabilities.’

  So they walked in single file along the narrow ledge, Jack followed by Debois, Sarah and Max. Sarah was quite relieved that there was no danger of falling due to the nets between the branches.

  After walking 50 or 60 metres, they came to the lift.

  It wasn’t quite as rickety as Debois had suggested, but its design and condition were not particularly reassuring. There was an open woven chamber, large enough to take all four of them, and in the centre was a wooden winding handle, attached to a thick rope that passed through the floor and ceiling.

  ‘Seems a bit physical to me,’ said Debois. ‘Looks like a job for you, Jack.’

  Jack stepped into the lift, his weight making it groan.

  ‘On second thoughts, you go first,‘ said Debois.

  Jack set to work on the winding handle and was soon slipping through the thick vegetation above.

  After a short pause, the lift was lowered back down to them. Max’s muscles were brought into play to bring the rest of them up to the comfort area.

  There they found Jack, Arrow and a group of tree dwellers. There were a number of skinny Climbers, dressed in the same casual manner as Arrow but, amongst them, there were also a few small, dumpy fully dressed people.

  The comfort area was a wide flat place where several branches seemed to have been fused together.

  ‘Let me introduce you to the Climbers and Old Folk gathered here to welcome you to Skytree, they are keen to help you find that this is a pleasant place to be,’ said Arrow, grandly.

  Debois was about to respond with a rhyming effort of his own, when Jack beat him to it.

  ‘Thank you Arrow, for your welcome. We have come asking a favour. We don’t have time for much in the way of pleasantries so I hope you don’t think us rude.’

  There was a murmur amongst the crowd suggesting that his hope was forlorn.

  ‘There is an object buried inside the base of your great Skytree and we have come to retrieve it, with your help. We don’t want to harm the Skytree; not at all. But we believe you can persuade the tree to give us back this object; to eject it from its flesh.’

  The crowd continued to mutter. One of the Old Folk stepped forward. He wasn’t in fact very old, although he did have a beard.

  ‘We don’t know you. We don’t know your father. We don’t know his father.’ He paused and glanced back at the crowd for support.

  ‘You are from outside. You are not tree-born. We owe nothing to you or your unfortunate companions. We will feed you and give you respite, for that is our way. But nothing else will be provided. And we will certainly not make the Skytree bend to your will.’ He took a step forward, his chest out, and nodded.

  The crowd joined him in the nod.

  Debois moved forward, before Jack had a chance to react in his unsubtle way.

  ‘Thank you so much for your warm welcome. We are hungry and tired and are please to accept your generous gift.’

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ muttered Jack.

  ‘When we have eaten and rested, perhaps you would be so kind as to show us the wonders of this great Skytree,’ suggested Debois, with a gentle tone.

  The little Old Folk smiled, pleased to be able to show generosity, without actually giving very much away.

  Despite the initial frostiness, it turned out to be quite a warm reception, as the tree dwellers were interested in their visitors and had never met anyone at all like Debois.

  ‘So, you’re going to charm them into giving us what we want?’ Jack asked Debois, quietly.

  ‘Whatever gets it done.’

  The Old Folk spokesman, named Jeremiah, was particularly enamoured of Sarah.

  ‘Your hair is so short and neat and … there must be a word, but I can’t think of it,’ he said, leaning a little closer to her chest than was generally considered acceptable in polite society.

  ‘Styled?’ suggested Sarah, not in the least concerned by the attention.

  ‘That’s the word. Styled. Yes, that’s right. Our ladies don’t style their hair in quite the same way. They tend to go for long hair, tied into ropes. Very effective considering our environment, though you do lose something, don’t you?’

  Jack was getting a little annoyed with the whole situation. This was going to take ages to get them to agree to help. Then it would probably take weeks for Number Four to be released from his prison in the bowels of the tree.

  He was tempted to just rip him from the tree and ignore the results. They’d be gone long before any action could be taken.

  But, he was trying to play nice, so he held back to give Debois a chance to work his wonders.

  Also, he wanted to leave Sarah and Max behind him, and this was probably the best place they were going to find. He couldn’t leave them to face the music if he was too vigorous in his extraction. Well, he could, but Debois would only complain.

  So he hovered on the edge of the party, his demeaner a little too forbidding for any of the tree-dwellers to attempt to make conversation.

  As was his wont when he was unoccupied, he made a sweep of the area. There was no immediate threat, though he did register the infra-red signature of a heat source at the base of the great tree.

  No-one seemed to be paying him much attention, so he walked to the edge of the comfort area, and stepped off.

  As he floated below the level of the lowest branch, his eyes focused on the foot of the tree, where he could clearly see the clouds of white steam rising from the boiling sea surrounding the tiny island that supported the unimaginable weight of the Skytree. That was how it seemed, but he knew that was not entirely accurate.

  ‘This isn’t good,’ he muttered to himself as he descended.

  It was obvious to him that the Skytree’s roots had become so huge and voracious that they had broken through the planet’s mantle into the very magma itself. The molten rock would have burnt the flesh of the roots to cinder and raced up the channels thus available to them, until they reached the surface, bringing their intense heat to bear on the water, the air and the tree.

  50 metres above ground level, Jack placed his hand on the smooth trunk of the tree. It felt warm to the touch; too warm. What damage was that heat doing to the tree? And what damage was it doing to his replicant?

  Of course his body was resistant to heat. But it was short, sharp, sudden intense heat that it was designed to prevail against. Not this slow, gradual, unforgiving heat that wasn’t going to stop. Over an extended period, the replicant’s body could fail.

  He landed on the rough rock of the island; only a couple of metres from the bubbling sea. The steam seemed to cling to him as he considered the best course of action. Whatever he did had to be done soon. He scanned the ground below him. The magma was close to the surface, liable to burst through at any moment.

  He carefully placed a containment field above the molten rock, to reduce the danger of more damage being caused to the tree.

  Then he began to tear at the ground, ripping great chunks of rock out and tossing them over his shoulder into the sea. Soon, the pale meat of the tree’s great ropy roots was revealed. He activated his shatter-shock facility and reduced the surrounding rock to powder.

  Now the magma was exposed, glowing and bubbling in its red orange menace, ebbing and flowing against the containment field.

  For a moment, he paused, hovering over the magma lake, its glow turning his body red, and considered his next action.

  His initial action may well have been a little rash; it may even have been a mistake. He sh
ould really have waited for Debois to work his magic. But the urge to do something had been too strong. And, now that he had taken action, he wasn’t going to worry too much about what he should have done; the important thing was what he did next.

  The containment field would hold for a short time, but eventually the magma would find other routes to the surface.

  Jack emitted an ultrasound wave that echoed through the fractured earth. The scan revealed that the planet’s mantle had been breached in so many places, over such a wide area that there was no possibility of a permanent solution to the problem.

  The Skytree was doomed.

  Chapter 44

  Jack was standing in a cave; the walls formed by the enormous roots of the tree and the floor, the newly cleared rock with the plasma pool at its centre, throwing its red glow up at the wood of the tree that formed the roof.

  Just above his head, Jack could sense the presence of Number Four. He was barely two metres into the tree. A carefully targeted shatter shock reduced that barrier to dust and Number Four’s ravaged body fell in to his waiting arms.

  Jack carried him out into the open and laid him on the rocky ground. With the heat from the magma pool and the steam from the sea, they could have been lounging in a sauna.

  Number Four’s limbs were twisted and distorted by long exposure to the extreme heat; only one arm seemed to have any sort of movement. But the head and torso were intact, and he was conscious.

  Jack inserted a batch of super-nanos that would start the repair process. Within a few hours, he would be as good as new.

  Jack then picked him up again and slowly carried him up to the branch levels of the tree, passing the great, field sized patches of moss-like growths that covered large areas of the lower trunk. During the time it took to reach the comfort area, they discussed the issue of the tree and came up with an extravagant solution to the problem.

  When they arrived at the comfort area they were surrounded by the tree dwellers and their companions.

  ‘Is he going to be alright?’ asked Sarah.

  ‘He’ll be fine. He just needs a few hours to recover. So I’ll prop him up against the trunk, out of everyone’s way.’ Jack was as good as his word, and Number Four was left to continue his recovery alone.

  ‘I need to speak to Arrow and the leader of the Old Folk,’ said Jack, when he re-joined the crowd. ‘It’s really urgent.’

  Within minutes, the three earth-born and two tree-born humans were gathered around Jack, with the rest of the tree dwellers watching from a short distance.

  ‘The tree is going to die if we don’t do something to save it. With the heat it is having to bear, it may even catch fire and you don’t need me to tell you what that would mean for you.’

  ‘We know about the magma; this is not new. But there was nothing we could do to protect Skytree from the harm it was doing. The only thing we could do was study our scriptures and seek the answer there,’ said Jeremiah.

  ‘And how did that work out for you? What great solution did you come up with after your studies?’ asked Debois, not bothering to hide his distain.

  ‘We found records of the last time Skytree was in peril, in danger of collapsing under its own great weight. Our people then had no answer to the cracks that began to appear, to the groaning of Skytree as it fought to survive. But a stranger appeared, from beyond Skytree. And he provided the Tether, and we were saved. And now you strangers have arrived and you will perform your appointed roles and save us.’ The Old Folk leader bowed his head and muttered something unintelligible under his breath.

  ‘How nice it must be, to have us strangers riding to your rescue whenever the need arises.’

  ‘Was that you?’ asked Sarah, quietly.

  Jack made no response.

  ‘What’s this Tether thing then?’ asked Max.

  ‘As you’re going to be staying here when we leave, I might as well show it you.’ Replied Jack. ‘Follow me.’

  The four of activated their anti-grav units and rose above the crowd of tree dwellers, disappearing into the thick foliage above.

  Below them, the Old Folk leader folded his arms and nodded at his companions wisely.

  Chapter 45

  As they rose, they passed dwellings in a wide variety of forms. There were hanging basket type affairs, swinging gently beneath the branches. There were larger domelike dwellings where the branches had been cajoled and teased into growing just so. There were great chambers, seemingly carved into the very flesh of the tree. But no tools had been used. The tree had been persuaded to create the chambers by the wonderful whispering skills of the Tree Weavers. There were balloons floating in the highest levels, their baskets home to the more adventurous tree dwellers.

  The residential neighbourhoods began to thin out as they passed the three kilometre level, with the Skytree still broad and strong. Its branches were now home to squirrels, sloths, snakes, monkeys, lizards, all modified to be comfortable at such heights. And of course it was home to birds in their incredible variety of colours and sounds.

  And still they ascended. The humans’ suits sprouted breathing gear to provide extra oxygen as the air grew thinner. Jack of course was fine.

  At the 9 kilometre level, they reached the Tether.

  It was a wide band of metaform material that encircled the trunk of the tree; more than 50 metres in width and 2 metres thick, its dull black colour contrasting with the light brown of the bark.

  Every 20 metres, along the centre of the band, were anchor points for the ½ metre diameter hawsers that stretched tautly up into the light blue sky.

  ‘So these are the Tethers? Very impressive, but what are the tied to?’ asked Debois, his eyes fixed on the hawsers as they disappeared in the distance.

  Jack was in an unusually compliant frame of mind, so he answered the question.

  ‘They are fixed to a medium sized asteroid in orbit, travelling at the appropriate speed to keep the carbon filament cables tight enough to support a considerable portion of Skytree’s weight and enable it to carry on growing and giving living space to all these people and animals.’

  ‘Bit of a coincidence that the asteroid is in just the right place and travelling at just the right speed.’

  ‘Not really, when you consider that I put it there in the first place. I also fitted a mass driver to it so that it can increase its speed to maintain tension as Skytree gains mass over time and prevent the asteroid’s orbit from degrading.’

  ‘All very humanitarian of you, I must say.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t entirely my idea. I received a distress call from Number Four and it was a real stroke of luck that I wasn’t too busy doing something else, so I was able to come and take the necessary action.’

  ‘So, if we climbed along one of the Tethers, we’d reach the asteroid?’ asked Max, looking as if he wanted to give it a try.

  ‘In theory, yes. But probably not a great idea in practice. And there’s nothing much to see up there, anyway.’

  ‘So, that’s how you solved the first crisis. Do you have an equally ingenious solution to the current one?’ Asked Debois.

  ‘Yes, I think so. But it’s going to take a lot of work to accomplish it. And the tree dwellers are going to have to accept a radical change to their circumstances.’

  Chapter 46

  Jack wasn’t entirely happy about the amount of time the rescue attempt was likely to take up. And he wasn’t entirely sure why he was doing it in the first place.

  He already had Number Four, so there was no compelling reason not to get on board the ship and fly off to the next stage of this increasingly annoying mission.

  Perhaps it was just the close proximity of other humans. It had been so long since he’d had to consider the opinions of others. And now it seemed that he wanted their good favour, or maybe he was growing soft in his old age.

  Whatever the reason, he was making the attempt.

  He’d already visited the asteroid a number of times and was quite pleased wi
th the progress of the diggers, and the mass driver was already set up for its herculean task.

  Down on Springhaven, the cutters were in place and the field generators were in position.

  The wormhole fabricators weren’t quite ready, but they would be, well before they were required.

  All that was really required now was to tell the tree dwellers. He’d left that task to Debois. With his charm and his people skills, he seemed the man for the job.

  **********

  ‘So, there you have it. That’s what we are going to.’ Debois relaxed back on the bench, his back against the smooth wall of the tree chamber.

  The room was filled to overflowing with the senior tree dwellers, both Old Folk and Climbers. Max and Sarah were also there, for support.

  ‘Is it possible? Can you really even do this? And would we be safe?’ asked Arrow, wearing his ceremonial red belt; still otherwise naked.

  ‘Good questions. I must admit that I was a little cautious at the idea of supporting this rescue attempt. But Jack has explained the mechanics and, whilst they are admittedly a little extreme, I am now convinced that this can be done.’

  ‘Skytree has always provided for us. What if we stay and wait for it to save itself? We have time surely, there’s no need to rush into this folly,’ the Old Folk leader urged those assembled in the chamber.

  ‘The simple answer to your question, good sir, is that you don’t have time. You can’t wait for some other saviour. If you don’t do this, and do it now, then you will all die. Skytree will burn and that will be the end. It is no more complicated than that.’

  ‘You are asking us to risk our lives now, but it might be years before anything bad happens. And it might not happen at all. The roots might only have broken in to a small reservoir of magma. It might be exhausted in a few weeks and Skytree could recover and everything could remain the same.’