by Davina Lee
“Arabel,” she tried to cry out. But Lina only sputtered and coughed, and involuntarily, she squeezed down below. The fruit inside her was being crushed to pulp whether she wished it or not. It was being mixed with the water invading her body, the water that caused her to choke. And soon she knew, would be part of the waters filling her sex as the third winemaker pressed mercilessly inward—the force of her fingers rending the finished wine from her tender flesh and into the final winemaker’s vessel.
Through tear-shrouded eyes, Lina looked frantically for Arabel. She succeeded only in finding the queen, and try as she might, Lina could not unlock her gaze from the queen’s visage. The queen’s mouth appeared to be moving, and she was gesturing with her arms, but her message was lost in the constant hum of vibrating bodies clinging to the Great Tree, and the pulse of the music.
A cup was pressed to Lina’s lips. The heady aroma assaulting Lina’s nose let her know it was royal wine. She drank it in spite of herself. Lina’s focus began to change.
The writhing bodies surrounding her were no longer distinguishable as brightly-colored, individual diploids. They were now a mass of coordinated movement and color, with bio-luminescent designs marching from one woman’s skin to the next. Lina squeezed her eyes shut, but the procession of glowing tattoos continued as an after-image, painted over the inside of Lina’s lids. Her head began to ache. And as Lina screwed up her eyes tighter against the pain, and then the queen’s words suddenly began to make sense.
“My children…” she heard. And then a piercing ringing, followed by, “celebration.” Lina opened her eyes.
The queen and her court were bathed in an unnatural golden glow, the source of which Lina could not detect. The queen’s arms were raised. Lina could hear her quite clearly and distinctly now.
“Come to me my children and drink from this cup, our royal wine, in a celebration of my eternal reign.”
An explosion rocked the palace grounds, something that Lina would have blamed on the hallucinations of the tree flower and royal wine had it not been for the sunlight streaming in from a hole in the ceiling that did not exist moments before, and the cascade of falling rock crushing the bodies beneath it. The queen’s lips continued moving, but Lina’s time of clarity was cut off.
The driving beat of the music came crashing through, assaulting her ears along with the screams of the injured. The once beautiful dance of myriad tattooed bodies merging as one, gave way once again to the chaotic throng, clawing and crawling their way over the branches of the Great Tree—a tree that all at once looked impossibly gnarled and ancient, sickly even. As Lina looked up to the royal court, the queen’s mask began to slip, revealing a face, that much like the colony’s Great Tree, was impossibly old. Fear pheromones were in the air and quickly overtaking trance-like euphoria that existed before.
A small, tight knot of diploids was scrambling up to the upper bough of the Great Tree. From their tongues, they hurled harsh words against the queen. In their hands, they carried rocks, which Lina suspected she would soon see flying as the group rapidly closed the distance. But before that happened, several groups of diploid soldiers descended upon the mob, and with truncheons swinging, quickly turned them to a screaming, bloodied mass of broken bodies.
Lina felt a revulsion bubbling up from deep within her, the likes of which she had never felt. Her stomach knotted as the bile rose. She tore her eyes from the scene of violence erupting in front of her and began frantically searching for Arabel amid the confusion, screaming her name. Nearby, a truncheon connected with a skull in a sickening thud. Lina vomited and tumbled from the Tree. She passed out before she could determine where it was that she had landed.
Chapter 5: Island of the Missing
During the end of days, when the waters ran dry and the only clouds on the horizon were thick and choking, the Wise Queen gathered her people under the shelter of the Great Tree. There they remained, hands joined, encircling the broad trunk and looking ever skyward. And until the end, singing songs of hope to the young queens aloft, high above the gathering storm.
—Selected passages from The Book of the Origin by Bella Aurelius Nobilis, Modern Language Translation
* * * *
“Lina, you’ve got to get up. We have to go.”
Lina opened her eyes just a crack, and as a shadow in the center of the stabbing sunlight assaulting her, Lina saw the worried face of her mentor.
“Just a little longer. I can still get to school on time. Promise.” Lina closed her eyes.
“Lina! Get up!” Mentor had her by the shoulders.
Lina opened her eyes again and reality began to sink in—the dust and debris, the hole blown in the palace roof, the sound of jack boots marching on stone. Her mentor was there, pulling her arms, helping her up. Mentor wore a gray tunic, looking terribly out of place at the gala where everyone else was dressed so festively. There was blood on her sleeve and the scent of alarm in the surrounding air.
Behind her mentor, another diploid woman approached, her beautiful, glowing, inked face screwed up with worry. “Can she walk?” the woman asked.
Mentor nodded and dragged Lina to her feet despite her protests. Lina stared at the newcomer, with her painted face and gaily-colored glowing bracelets clattering together at both wrists, but it was not until she spied the beaded skirt that she put everything into perspective.
“You’re the…” Lina’s recognition coalesced into words. “From the rave.”
“Yes, Your Highness, I am,” the woman responded with quick, clipped words. “And now we’ve got to go. Right now.”
“Why do you keep calling me—?” But Lina’s words were lost as her mentor and the other diploid women sandwiched Lina between their bodies and hustled her to an exit that had not yet been cordoned off by the ever increasing number of soldiers flooding the scene.
“Where’s Arabel?” Lina asked.
“Safe,” was the only answer she got.
Lina’s head pounded, either from the mixture of intoxicants still whirling around her system, or the concussive force of the explosion that was enough to blow a hole in the palace roof, or both. She decided to take the women at their word, not having the strength to mount an argument. She dragged herself along. Limping and stumbling, she followed her mentor and this mysterious whirling woman from the area as quickly as she could.
After tripping three times in the first set of tunnels, Lina found herself wrapped in the arms of the diploid raver woman, nestled in among her dangling bracelets—the woman Lina had last seen twirling and carefree—who was now clutching Lina to her breast and rushing headlong through tunnels leading to the surface. Mentor was still there, keeping pace and shouting at people to make way for an injured child.
Lina smirked just a little. The injured child was supposed to be her. It was one of the few times that Lina was thankful for her diminutive size. She did her best to look injured, letting her head loll about just a little and making her eyes go unfocused. It worked. People stepped aside, and the trio was not impeded on their way. Not even the soldiers questioned them, though they seemed to be busy looking for someone in the crowd. The rebels who blew a gaping hole in the Queen’s Gala, no doubt.
Lina’s thoughts paused for a moment. She looked up at the diploid woman carrying her and then to the face of her own mentor, the woman she had known for years. Or thought she had. “Mentor, are you with the—?”
“Questions later,” Mentor hissed. “Right now, we need to get you to safety.”
The trio bounded through the last tunnel and into the open air of the docks before Lina was allowed to stand on her own two feet again. She spied Arabel, standing by Mentor’s cloud skimmer, furiously working the bellows. The skimmer’s air bladders were just beginning to float on their own and Arabel’s sweat-soaked face was already glowing bright red.
“Get in!” Lina’s mentor shouted. Her words were directed at Arabel.
“You, too” she said to Lina, as she threw her arms around Lina’s
shoulders, randomly scenting love, courage, sadness, defiance. “Go.” She held Lina at arm’s length and turned her to face the cloud skimmer.
“But Mentor,” Lina said. “It’s only designed for one, two at the most, but only because I’m small. With you and Arabel and…”
Lina let her voice trail off. She heard the thudding of boots and stared wide-eyed at the squad of approaching soldiers, their truncheons unsheathed. She understood. With a final shove from her mentor, and a shrill beckoning from Arabel, Lina stumbled toward the waiting cloud skimmer, tripping over the side plank and tumbling in head first. By the time she had herself righted again, kneeling on the deck, Arabel had already pushed them away from the pier and into the clouds.
Lina screamed helplessly as the events on shore began to unfold before her eyes. The advancing squad of soldiers never stopped, even though the cloud skimmer was now catching the wind and hopelessly out of range of any projectile thrown by any but the strongest arm. Lina winced at the echoing sound of boot heels as she watched her mentor and the diploid woman turn, their hands clenched into fists and raised high in the air, standing alone against the oncoming attack.
Lina screamed again as the first truncheon was swung and found its target on Mentor’s right temple. The entire scene took place in slow motion. The blood splatter appeared to Lina as individual droplets, organizing themselves in a pattern of concentric circles, flowing ever outward until they painted the face of the raver woman at Mentor’s side.
A second truncheon was swung.
Lina was on her feet now, screaming for the soldiers to stop.
The sickening sound of crunching bone traveled over the air, and with it the image of Mentor’s crumpled body collapsing on the pier, and the thud of her head against stone.
The raver woman’s body, now oozing life from a gash across her face, fell on top of Mentor’s.
Lina screamed again, this time vaguely aware of Arabel’s arms around her waist, urging her to sit down. Lina collapsed to her knees in an ungraceful maneuver that shook the old craft to its very core. She hung her head over the side, and promptly vomited into the clouds.
* * * *
“How long have I been out?” Lina asked.
“A while.”
“Mentor and the twirling woman?”
Arabel said nothing. For a long time neither did Lina.
“Since when do you know how to sail?” Lina asked.
“Since just now. Your mentor said to keep the sun at my back and go until we came to the next land mass. She showed me how to work the main sails to steer, but with the wind at our backs, it’s mostly been for minor corrections. I was hoping maybe you knew more.” Arabel sighed. She put a hand on Lina’s forearm. “I’m sorry about your mentor.”
Lina sat up and rested her head against Arabel’s shoulder for a brief moment of comfort. She then turned herself toward the side deck and promptly vomited into the clouds.
Arabel pulled a bota bag of water from the small storage compartment. “Remember which one is yours,” she said. “I don’t think I want to share with you after that.”
Lina tried to laugh, but nothing came out.
“There’s some kind of fruit in there too. Lychee. Your mentor said they were your favorite.”
Lina looked at the pinkish rind of lychee fruit and felt the first tear in the corner of her eye. All the emotions she had been holding inside, so that she could deal with the emergency at hand, came streaming out all at once. Tears streaked her face and stung her eyes. She wailed and pounded the decking with her fists.
Arabel wrapped Lina in her arms, cautiously at first, but then tighter as Lina began to regain her composure. Lina had settled to the point of the occasional sob when she suddenly sat up, hung her head over the railing, retching again.
“Oh, baby,” Arabel said, “I’m here for you. Do you want to try some fruit?”
Lina shook her head weakly and curled up on the decking with her head resting on Arabel’s lap.
Arabel looked at the position of the sun in the sky. “It shouldn’t be too much farther,” she said. “Your mentor said only a day’s journey between colonies. And we started out at sunrise. No, not far now.”
Lina wondered briefly who Arabel was trying to reassure with her comment, Lina or herself. They both knew what would happen if they got lost or somehow overshot their destination—they would sink into the clouds, never to be seen again. Lina tried to mutter some words of encouragement, but fatigue and sickness got the better of her. She concentrated on Arabel stroking her hair, and closed her eyes.
* * * *
Lina awoke to the sound of the cloud skimmer’s hull being dragged over flat rock. The sound was magnified due to the fact that Lina was still curled up inside the craft and subjected to every little echo.
“Sorry,” Arabel said. “It didn’t wake you the first time, so I figured it was okay.”
“What?” Lina sat up and shivered.
“It’s official. I’m a cloud sailor.” Arabel smiled, but it looked forced. “I got us here and landed us on this little outcropping. I just wanted to pull the skimmer up a little more before I stow the bladders.”
“You should let me help.”
Arabel rolled her eyes.
“What?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve seen things come through the reclamation facility that have more life in them than you do right now. You need to rest.”
“What’s wrong with me? I should have metabolized the tree flower by now. I’ve never had this kind of a—” Lina hoisted herself up just in time to vomit, but on the rock this time.
Arabel knitted her eyebrows together. “I guess I’ll pull us up a little farther,” she said.
“I’m sorry, maybe someone in the colony can—”
“There is no colony.”
Lina cocked her head.
“There hasn’t been a colony here for a long time.” Arabel exhaled heavily.
“You’ve been exploring? How long was I out?”
“Do you know if your mentor kept any emergency supplies on board? Blankets? The sun’s almost down and it’s going to get cold.”
“There’s only the one compartment. Though it’s got a false bottom. I suppose all rebel cloud skimmers do.” Lina tried to laugh, but it fell flat.
“I already found it, and the Book of Origin. Interesting book, but I don’t think it’s going to keep us warm tonight.” Arabel looked around the tiny craft, her eyes pausing on the main sails, safely stowed, and then the mizzen, before finally coming to rest on the two air bladders, each still a bit puffy as the remaining air leaked out.
“You can help me pull these inside, if you think you’re up for it,” Arabel said, as she began dragging the starboard bladder between the supporting posts of the skimmer’s curved top. “We’ll use them for blankets.”
Lina tried, but was too week to feel like she was offering much in the way of assistance. The rigging got tangled on the posts and the opening was so narrow that the bladder only made it part way in—definitely not enough of it to serve as a blanket, which is what Lina figured Arabel was trying for.
“Okay, plan B,” Arabel huffed and pushed the bladder back out. “Hold this please.”
Lina held the end of the deflated bladder and watched as Arabel draped it over the top and wrapped the rest of it around the supporting posts. She had created a shield from the elements on one side. With the port side bladder she managed to do the same, and the center part of the cloud skimmer was wrapped up like a small tent. But even with Lina and Arabel’s small size, it was cramped, and both women had to sit cross-legged to fit.
“What if I get sick again?” Lina said.
“Well, try to get through the flap in time.” Arabel pushed the end of the air bladder outward to demonstrate, and gave a wan smile.
Lina sighed and curled into a ball on the skimmer’s deck. Arabel wrapped herself around behind Lina and snuggled in. Fortunately, Lina’s sickness had passed f
or the moment and she didn’t need to test her ability to make it through the flap in time.
“What are we going to do?” Lina said.
“I don’t know,” Arabel replied.
Lina tried scenting love, but it came out tinged with fear, so she stopped. Instead, she took Arabel’s hand and laced her fingers in tight as the two huddled up for the night.
* * * *
Lina opened her eyes to find Arabel sitting up and munching on a lychee fruit. The first rays of sunlight were beginning to creep in through the cracks of the improvised tent and cast two golden slivers over Arabel’s naked body.
Arabel smiled. “I figured the gala costume wasn’t doing me much good, so I decided to go native.” She held up a half-eaten piece of lychee fruit. “This is good stuff.”
Lina moaned and made no attempt to sit up.
“We can leave or we can explore,” Arabel said, “but we have to decide soon. I want to have as much daylight for sailing as possible. I’ve been looking through the Book of Origin and the next colony should be a shorter distance than it was to get to this one, but—”
“You’re using that thing as a map?”
“Well, yes. I’m assuming it’s drawn to scale, and if so—”
“It’s fiction. Made up by some tree flower eating drones on a bender for all we know. Are you ready to put our lives in the hands of that—that book?”
“It got us here.”
“Mentor got us here. She said to follow the setting sun.”
“No offense to your mentor, but if I did that, we’d be dead.” Arabel opened the book and tapped the map just inside its cover. “Look at the different paths of the sun drawn here.”
Lina grumbled.
“Just look.” Arabel traced out a dotted line with her finger tip. “This is the path of the sun in the hot season, right straight to the island. We’re in the cool season now. It’s a shorter arc, and it bends this way. If I’d followed this one…” Arabel traced the longer arc.