by Nick Travers
Chapter 38
The issue of Leanne is still unresolved: Trent fumes over my refusal to turn Leanne in, while Izzy and Fernando want to be as far from her as possible. However, I cannot shake the feeling that her likeness to me is no coincidence—there is a connection between us. Scud is my only ally in this, so for the moment Leanne stays sealed back in her box in the map room. Meanwhile, we continue to search for the third clue in my Mother’s diary.
We take a circuitous route to the coordinates where we hope to find the Village of the Damned, to avoid Borker and the constables. We see no sign of them. When we arrive at the cross Fernando has penciled on the map we find nothing. Only empty air.
Izzy scans the horizon with a telescope. “This has got to be the wrong place.”
“Absolutely not,” Fernando snaps, “there is nothing wrong with my navigation skills. This is the precise location.” Trust Fernando to turn defensive.
Perhaps the platform has drifted, though its gravity well should hold it firmly in place. We power backwards and forwards in a grid pattern, searching for several miles in each direction. Nothing. We spiral upwards and repeat the search at a higher altitude. Still nothing. Then descend to a lower attitude and repeat the exercise. Still nothing.
This cannot be the right place. “Go check the coordinates again,” I command.
“I have checked and rechecked, and checked again,” Fernando snaps. “I tell you this is the place.”
He can be a stubborn ass sometimes. “Sure it’s the right place, which is why we’re drinking tea with the village elders rather than scouring empty skies.”
“It’s not my fault if your navigation charts are crap. Maybe if you’d purchased some decent maps we’d be in the right place. Do you know how difficult it is to find platforms using charts that don’t even show their true positions in the first place?”
I breathe deep to still my racing heart. “That is why I hired you, Fernando—you are the best.”
“And the best says we are in the right place.”
“Guys,” Scud pleads; he hates arguments and has retreated to the front of the gondola with a telescope—probably counting clouds. Izzy and Trent stare fixedly out the windows, ignoring us as if we don’t exist.
I don’t need Scud to join this argument. “Not now, Scud.”
“There’s some sort of settlement down there on the ground,” he continues without removing his eye from the telescope.
I don’t believe him. “Don’t be ridiculous, no one lives on the ground.” I’m sure he’s making it up to distract us from the argument. “All the land dwellers are extinct, you know that, Scud. Just stay out of this fight.”
“I think Fernando has brought us to the right place,” Scud continues, “there is definitely something down there. Look for yourself.” He offers me the telescope.
Frustrated with everyone, but particularly myself for losing it in front of the crew, I snatch Scud’s telescope out of his hand and I train it on the spot indicated far below. Fernando grabs the other telescope before Trent can get to it.
Below I see a regular pattern of squares and circles that doesn’t look natural. I hope it is nothing, otherwise, Fernando will be right. “This is ridiculous. There’s nothing there.”
“I’m taking us closer,” Izzy announces. Now I have another mutiny on my hands.
“Okay, take us down—just to prove everyone wrong.” We descend closer to the earth than I’ve ever taken the Shonti Bloom before. The patterns on the ground resolve themselves into fields, homesteads and clearings in the forest. This, as Scud guessed, is a settlement on the ground—I have never seen it’s like before.
Unlike the multi-story hydroponic farms on platforms, where space is always at a premium, these fields are spread out in a patchwork profusion round the settlement. They have even set aside space for animals, letting them wander in enclosed fields. Any “meat” we have is produced in vats using algae and probably tastes nothing like the real thing. I guess the large black and white animals could be cows and the small creamy ones could be sheep or goats. Such wanton disregard for space. It is amazing.
Maybe, if there are people living here, the earth is not abandoned as the history books tell us. But if that is the case, why have we never seen signs of them before?
“Looks like this could be the Village of the Damned, right where it should be,” Fernando says quietly, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
I hate it when Fernando is right. Somehow it makes me more annoyed. I just know he is going to rub it in. But now is not the time for tantrums; now is the time play the gracious Captain.
“Okay, Fernando, you win, it’s right here where you said.”
“Who is the best navigator in the world?” Here we go.
“I only hire the best. I…’
“Over there in the trees,” Scud shouts, “what is it?”
I follow the direction of Scud’s pointing finger and spot a flash of something among the trees. “A light?”
“Looks like the reflection off a solar panel,” Scud speculates, “but there are none on the buildings in the village.”
Fernando shrugs. “So they use solar panels like the rest of us. So what?”
But I know exactly what it means—I just can’t tell my crew, not yet. “Someone has done a very poor camouflage job,” I lie. “Take us higher again, Izzy. We need to scout out the whole area very carefully before we go in.”
We spend the rest of the morning surveying the area from the air until I’ve found exactly what I suspected. Then we leave, heading for the high atmosphere. We don’t return until nightfall.
Long after darkness has engulfed the Village of the Damned, we settle the Shonti into a clearing about a mile north of the village. For the first time in my life, I step onto solid ground, and promptly fall over. It’s a weird sensation, like the ground is moving, even though I know it’s solid.
I’m unsteady on my feet and feel like I’m constantly in motion. I have heard of this sensation before, it’s the opposite of what is actually happening—my body is used to constant motion in the air, but my brain cannot compensate for the sudden lack of motion on land, so it moves my body instead. It will take a while for me get my land legs.
We take our weapons, and for the next hour hiked through the open woodland towards the Village of the Damned, slowly acclimatizing to solid ground beneath our feet. At one point, we encounter a herd of stubby animals with flat noses and squiggly tails, rooting in the ground—I have no idea what they are, but steer clear in case they are dangerous.
“Bulls,” Fernando declares confidently. But I’m not convinced.
Finally, we locate the forest clearing where I first saw the reflection this morning. Keeping a good distance away, I empty an entire magazine of the Whisper into the object. Then we retreat and move on round the village, repeating the exercise another three times. Finally, as the moon rises high in the sky we make our way silently back to the Shonti Bloom, filled with exuberance. We head into the high atmosphere for the rest of the night and wait for dawn to break.