After quivering far too long, the great vine held. With a brief sense of relief, he scrambled around to the other side. There was no convenient dangler, this time, but another pinyon towered fairly close. Jonah flexed his legs, prepared, and launched himself across the gap, hurtling with open arms, alighting with shock and painful clumsiness. He didn’t wait though, scurrying to the other side—where there was another dangle vine, well positioned for a wide-spanning swing.
This time he couldn’t help himself while hurtling across open space, giving vent to a yell of exhilaration.
Two swings and four leaps later, he was right next to the bubble’s edge, reaching out to stroke the nearest patch of ancient, vitrified stone, in a place where no one would see him break taboo. Pushing at the transparent barrier, Jonah felt deep ocean pressure shoving back. The texture felt rough-ribbed, uneven. Sliver flakes rubbed off, dusting his hand.
“Of course, bubbles were younger then,” the old woman said. “More flexible.”
Jonah had to wrap a length of dangle vine around his left wrist and clutch the pinyon with his toes, in order to lean far out and bring his face right up against the bubble—it sucked heat into bottomless cold—using his right hand and arm to cup around his face and peer into the blackness outside. Adapting vision gradually revealed the stony walls of Cleopatra Canyon, the narrow-deep canyon where humanity had come to take shelter so very long ago. Fleeing the Coss invaders. Before the life spans of many grandmothers.
Several strings of globelike habitats lay parallel along the canyon bottom, like pearls on a necklace, each of them surrounded by a froth of smaller bubbles … though fewer of the little ones than there were in olden times, and none anymore in the most useful sizes. It was said that, way back at the time of the Founding, there used to be faint illumination overhead, filtering downward from the surface and demarking night from day: light that came from the mythological god-thing that old books called the sun, so fierce that it could penetrate both dense, poisonous clouds and the ever-growing ocean.
But that was way back in a long-ago past, when the sea had not yet burgeoned so, filling canyons, becoming a dark and mighty deep. Now the only gifts that fell from above were clots of detritus that men gathered to feed algae ponds. Debris that got stranger every year.
These days the canyon walls could only be seen by light from the bubbles themselves, by their pinyon glow within. Jonah turned slowly left to right, counting and naming those farm enclaves he could see. Amtor … Leininger … Chown … Kuttner … Okumo … each one a clan with traditions and styles all their own. Each one possibly the place where Tairee tribe might sell him in a marriage pact. A mere boy and good riddance. Good at numbers and letters. A bit skilled with his hands, but notoriously absentminded, prone to staring at nothing, and occasionally putting action to rascally thoughts.
He kept tallying: Brakutt … Lewis … Atari … Napeer … Aldrin … what?
Jonah blinked. What was happening to Aldrin? And the bubble just beyond it. Both Aldrin and Bezo were still quivering. He could make out few details at this range through the milky, pitted membrane. But one of the two was rippling and convulsing, the glimmer of its pinyon forest shaking back and forth as the giant boles swayed … then collapsed!
The other distant habitat seemed to be inflating. Or so Jonah thought at first. Rubbing his eyes and pressing even closer, as Bezo habitat grew bigger …
… or else it was rising! Jonah could not believe what he saw. Torn loose, somehow, from the ocean floor, the entire bubble was moving. Upward. And as Bezo ascended, its flattened bottom now reshaped itself as farms and homes and lagoons tumbled together into the base of the accelerating globe. With its pinyons still mostly in place, Bezo Colony continued glowing as it climbed upward.
Aghast, and yet compelled to look, Jonah watched until the glimmer that had been Bezo finally vanished in blackness, accelerating toward the poison surface of Venus.
Then, without warning or mercy, habitat Aldrin imploded.
2.
“I WAS BORN IN BEZO, YOU KNOW.”
Jonah turned to see Enoch leaning on his rake, staring south along the canyon wall, toward a gaping crater where that ill-fated settlement bubble used to squat. Distant glimmers of glow lamps flickered over there as crews prowled along the Aldrin debris field, sifting for salvage. But that was a job for mechanics and senior workers. Meanwhile, the algae ponds and pinyons must be fed, so Jonah also found himself outside, in coveralls that stank and fogged from his own breath and many generations of previous wearers, helping to gather the week’s harvest of organic detritus.
Jonah responded in the same dialect Enoch had used. Click-Talk. The only way to converse, when both of you are deep underwater.
“Come on,” he urged his older friend, a recent, marriage-price immigrant to Tairee Bubble. “All of that is behind you. A male should never look back. We do as we are told.”
Enoch shrugged—broad shoulders making his stiff coveralls scrunch around the helmet, fashioned from an old foam bubble of a size no longer found in these parts. Enoch’s phlegmatic resignation was an adaptive skill that served him well, as he was married to Jonah’s cousin, Jezzy, an especially strong-willed young woman, bent on exerting authority and not above threatening her new husband with casting-out.
I can hope for someone gentle, when I’m sent to live beside a stranger in a strange dome.
Jonah resumed raking up newly fallen organic stuff—mostly ropy bits of vegetation that lay limp and pressure-crushed after their long tumble to the bottom. In recent decades, there had also been detritus of another kind. Shells that had holes in them for legs and heads. And skeleton fragments from slinky creatures that must have—when living—stretched as long as Jonah was tall! Much more complicated than the mud worms that kept burrowing closer to the domes of late. More like the fabled snakes or fish that featured in tales from Old Earth.
Panalina’s dad—old Scholar Wu—kept a collection of skyfalls in the little museum by Tairee’s eastern arc, neatly labeled specimens dating back at least ten grandmother cycles, to the era when light and heat still came down along with debris from above—a claim that Jonah still deemed mystical. Perhaps just a legend, like Old Earth.
“These samples … do you see how they are getting more complicated, Jonah?” So explained old man Wu as he traced patterns of veins in a recently gathered seaweed. “And do you make out what’s embedded here? Bits of creatures living on or within the plant. And there! Does that resemble a bite mark? The outlines of where teeth tore into this vegetation? Could that act of devouring be what sent it tumbling down to us?”
Jonah pondered what it all might mean while raking up dross and piling it onto the sledge, still imagining the size of a jaw that could have torn such a path through tough, fibrous weed. And everything was pressure-shrunk down here!
“How can anything live up at the surface?” He recalled asking Wu, who was said to have read every book that existed in the Cleopatra Canyon colonies, most of them two or three times. “Did not the founders say the sky was thick with poison?”
“With carbon dioxide and sulfuric acid, yes. I have shown you how we use pinyon leaves to separate out those two substances, both of which have uses in the workshop. One we exhale—”
“And the other burns! Yet, in small amounts it smells sweet.”
“That is because the Founders, in their wisdom, put sym-bi-ants in our blood. Creatures that help us deal with pressure and gases that would kill folks who still live on enslaved Earth.”
Jonah didn’t like to envision tiny animals coursing through his body even if they did him good. Each year, a dozen kids throughout the bubble colonies were chosen to study such useful things—biological things. A smaller number chose the field that interested Jonah, where even fewer were allowed to specialize.
“But the blood creatures can only help us down here, where the pinyons supply us with breathable air. Not up top, where poisons are so thick.” Jonah gestured skyward. “Is
that why none of the Risers have ever returned?”
Once every year or two, the canyon colonies lost a person to the hell that awaited above. Most often because of a buoyancy accident; a broken tether or boot-ballast sent some hapless soul plummeting upward. Another common cause was suicide. And—more rarely—it happened for another reason, one the mothers commanded that no one might discuss, or even mention. A forbidden reason.
Only now, after the sudden rise of Bezo Bubble and a thousand human inhabitants, followed by the Aldrin implosion, little else was on anyone’s mind.
“Even if you survive the rapid change in pressure … one breath up there and your lungs would be scorched as if by flame,” old Scholar Wu had answered yesterday. “That is why the Founders seeded living creatures a bit higher than us, but beneath the protective therm-o-cline layer that keeps most of the poison out of our abyss …”
The old man paused, fondling a strange, multijawed skeleton. “It seems that life—some kind of life—has found a way to flourish near that barrier. So much so that I have begun to wonder—”
A sharp voice roused him.
“Jonah!”
This time it was Enoch, reminding him to concentrate on work. A good reason to work in pairs. He got busy with the rake. Mother was pregnant again, along with aunts Leor and Sosun. It always made them cranky with tension, as the fetuses took their time, deciding whether to go or stay—and if they stayed, whether to come out healthy or as warped ruins. No, it would not do to return from this salvage outing with only half a load!
So he and Enoch forged farther afield, hauling the sledge to another spot where high ocean currents often dumped interesting things after colliding with the canyon walls. The algae ponds and pinyons needed fresh supplies of organic matter. Especially in recent decades, after the old volcanic vents dried up.
The Book of Exile says we came down here to use the vents, way back when the sea was hot and new. A shallow refuge for free humans to hide from the Coss, while comets fell in regular rhythm, thumping Venus to life. Drowning her fever and stirring her veins.
Jonah had only a vague notion what “comets” were—great balls drifting through vast emptiness, till godlike beings with magical powers flung them down upon this planet. Balls of ice, like the pale blue slush that formed on the cool, downstream sides of boulders in a fast, underwater current. About as big as Cleopatra Canyon was wide, that’s what books said about a comet.
Jonah gazed at the towering cliff walls, enclosing all the world he ever knew. Comets were so vast! Yet they had been striking Venus daily, since centuries before colonists came, immense, precreation icebergs, pelting the sister world of Old Earth. Perhaps several million of them by now, herded first by human civilization and later by Coss Masters, who adopted the project as their own—one so ambitious as to be nearly inconceivable.
So much ice. So much water. Building higher and higher till it has to fill the sky, even the poison skies of Venus. So much that it fills all of creatio—
“Jonah, watch out!”
Enoch’s shouted warning made him crouch and spin about. Or Jonah tried to, in the clumsy coveralls, raising clouds of muck stirred by heavy, shuffling boots. “Wha—? What is it?”
“Above you! Heads up!”
Tilting back was strenuous, especially in a hurry. The foggy faceplate didn’t help. Only now Jonah glimpsed something overhead, shadowy and huge, looming fast out of the black.
“Run!”
He required no urging. Heart pounding in terror, Jonah pumped his legs for all they were worth, barely lifting weighted shoes to shuffle-skip with long strides toward the nearby canyon wall, sensing and then back-glimpsing a massive, sinuous shape that plummeted toward him out of the abyssal sky. By dim light from a distant habitat dome, the monstrous shape turned languidly, following his dash for safety, swooping in to close the distance fast! Over his right shoulder, Jonah glimpsed a gaping mouth and rows of huge, glistening teeth. A sinuous body from some nightmare.
I’m not gonna make it. The canyon wall was just too far.
Jonah skidded to a stop, raising plumes of bottom muck. Swiveling into a crouch and half moaning with fear, he lifted his only weapon—a rake meant for gathering organic junk from the seafloor. He brandished it crosswise, hoping to stymie the wide jaw that now careened out of dimness, framed by four glistening eyes. Like some ancient storybook dragon, stooping for prey. No protection, the rake was more a gesture of defiance.
Come on, monster.
A decent plan, on the spur of the moment.
It didn’t work.
It didn’t have to.
The rake shattered, along with several ivory teeth as the giant maw plunged around Jonah, crashing into the surrounding mud, trapping him … but never closing, nor biting or chewing. Having braced for all those things, he stood there in a tense hunker as tremors shook the canyon bottom, closer and more spread out than the daily thump. It had to be more of the sinuous monster, colliding with surrounding muck—a long, long leviathan!
A final ground quiver, then silence. Some creakings. Then more silence.
And darkness. Enveloped, surrounded by the titan’s mouth, Jonah at first saw nothing … then a few faint glimmers. Pinyon light from nearby Monsat Bubble habitat. Streaming in through holes. Holes in the gigantic head. Holes that gradually opened wider as ocean-bottom pressure wreaked havoc on flesh meant for much higher waters.
Then the smell hit Jonah.
An odor of death.
Of course. Such a creature would never dive this deep of its own accord. Instead of being pursued by a ravenous monster, Jonah must have run along the same downdraft conveying a corpse to its grave. An intersection and collision that might seem hilarious someday, when he told the story as an old grandpa, assuming his luck held. Right now, he felt sore, bruised, angry, embarrassed … and concerned about the vanishing supply in his meager air bubble.
With his belt knife, Jonah began probing and cutting a path out of the trap. He had another reason to hurry. If he had to be rescued by others, there would be no claiming this flesh for Tairee, for his clan and family. For his dowry and husband price.
Concerned clicks told him Enoch was nearby and one promising gap in the monster’s cheek suddenly gave way to the handle of a rake. Soon they both were tearing at it, sawing tough membranes, tossing aside clots of shriveling muscle and skin. His bubble helmet might keep out the salt sea, but pungent aromas were another matter. Finally, with Enoch tugging helpfully on one arm, Jonah squeezed out and stumbled several steps before falling to his knees, coughing.
“Here come others,” said his friend. And Jonah lifted his gaze, spying men in bottom suits and helmets, hurrying this way, brandishing glow bulbs and makeshift weapons. Behind them he glimpsed one of the cargo subs—a string of midsized bubbles, pushed by hand-crank propellers—catching up fast.
“Help me get up … on top,” he urged Enoch, who bore some of his weight as he stood. Together, they sought a route onto the massive head. There was danger in this moment. Without clear ownership, fighting might break out among salvage crews from different domes, as happened a generation ago, over the last hot vent on the floor of Cleopatra Canyon. Only after several dozen men were dead had the grandmothers made peace. But if Tairee held a firm claim to this corpse, then rules of gift-generosity would parcel out shares to every dome, with only a largest-best allotment to Tairee. Peace and honor now depended on his speed. But the monster’s cranium was steep, crumbly, and slick.
Frustrated and almost out of time, Jonah decided to take a chance. He slashed at the ropy cables binding his soft overalls to the weighted clogs that kept him firmly on the ocean bottom. Suddenly buoyant, he began to sense the Fell Tug … the pull toward heaven, toward doom. The same tug that had yanked Bezo Colony, a few days ago, sending that bubble habitat and all of its inhabitants plummeting skyward.
Enoch understood the gamble. Gripping Jonah’s arm, he stuffed his rake and knife and hatchet into Jonah’s belt. Anythin
g convenient. So far, so good. The net force seemed to be slightly downward. Jonah nodded at his friend, and jumped.
3.
THE MARRIAGE PARTY MADE ITS WAY TOWARD TAIREE BUBBLE’S dock, shuffling along to beating tambourines. Youngsters—gaily decked in rice flowers and pinyon garlands—danced alongside the newlyweds. Although many of the children wore masks or makeup to disguise minor birth defects, they seemed light of spirit.
They were the only ones.
Some adults tried their best, chanting and shouting at all the right places. Especially several dozen refugees—Tairee’s allocated share of threadbare escapees from the ruin of Cixin and Sadoul settlements—who cheered with the fervid eagerness of people desperately trying for acceptance in their new home rather than mere sufferance. As for other guests from unaffected domes? Most appeared to have come only for free food. These now crowded near the dock, eager to depart as soon as the nuptial sub was on its way.
Not that Jonah could blame them. Most people preferred staying close to home ever since the thumps started going all crazy, setting off a chain of tragedies, tearing at the old, placid ways.
And today’s thump is already overdue, he thought. In fact, there hadn’t been a ground-shaking comet strike in close to a month. Such a gap would have been unnerving, just a year or two ago. Now, given how awful some recent impacts had been, any respite was welcome.
A time of chaos. Few see good omens even in a new marriage.
Jonah glanced at his bride, come to collect him from Laussane Bubble, all the way at the far northern outlet of Cleopatra Canyon. Taller than average, with a clear complexion and strong carriage, she had good hips and only a slight mutant mottling on the back of her scalp, where the hair grew in a wild, discolored corkscrew. An easily overlooked defect, like Jonah’s lack of toe webbing, or the way he would sneeze or yawn uncontrollably whenever the air pressure changed too fast. No one jettisoned a child over such inconsequentials.
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