Skyland One

by Aelius Blythe

  "Maybe they don't feel welcome in their own city," he said.

  "Yeah." The soldier looked over at Harper, his smile was dimmed. He dipped his head and didn't quite make eye contact. "Maybe they're scared."

  "Maybe..."

  Chapter Eighteen

  in which there is red...

  It was the same bridge.

  Harper looked at the white stone running in graceful arches along the paved road over the trickling river between the city and its outskirts and the country beyond. The stones were the same. The arches, the pavement, the gentle rise and fall of the road: it was all the same. Nothing about the spot had changed since he stood here with his father and Zara just a few days ago.

  But that was a different life.

  At the apex of the bridge, Harper paused. The outlying buildings leered at him from the far side. A shiver went through him. His heart thudded at the memory of the last time that he had stood on that spot, stood there with his father, watched the twisting of the wrathful face, the face he himself had worn so many times.

  The scavenger's face.

  He twitched and whirled around.

  But there was no one in the shadows at the edge of the bridge this time. The sun was high in the Sky now and the shady patches were small and nothing sat in the dark dirt waiting for him. It was only in his memory – his father and the scavenger, like angry sentinels on either side of the road. Harper took a breath and tried to calm the panic that had seeped back into him. The creeping fear dripped back into his mind as if from the stone of the bridge itself. The panic fought to thrust him back in time, back to the last day when he stood here – the day he recognized the angry face in the long shadows. It pinged his consciousness back and back, again and again and again to that moment of recognition, the moment of decision, as if to say, Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?

  Another breath.

  Another step.

  A new wave of fear began to encroach on the panic and the flashbacks.

  Traitor... traitor... Harper shook his head trying to get the words out. He looked around as though his old man would be standing there waiting for him to return, hissing at the traitor to the Sky. Abomination...

  "Coming?"

  Harper jumped yet again at the guard's voice. Being back on Skyland was making him twitchy. While he had paused, the young soldier had continued to the far end of the bridge where he now waited.

  Stop.

  Harper shook the old Sky Reverend's voice out of his head and hurried to catch up. A moment later, they were passing the outlying city buildings and heading into deep country.

  "Where are we going?" he asked again.

  "Our base is just past the outskirts. Out of the way. For security, you know?"

  "Hm." More secure in the country than the city?

  Just over the bridge, where the land got flat and the buildings almost disappeared, Harper looked around, still wondering where exactly they could be headed. A few black ships dotted the landscape in clusters and lone towers. But there weren't any buildings, and they weren't headed towards any village Harper knew of. After a few minutes–

  The ship.

  The only things Harper could see directly in their path were the giant and black needle-like weapons. A loose knot of these ships stood together – eight, nine, ten maybe? Harper squinted, trying to count. Maybe a dozen of them stood together in a rough circle. But they were not headed for one of these, they were headed to the thing at the center of the circle. A towering obelisk, like all the Skyland vessels put together.

  It was a ship.

  A ship exactly like the others, black needles stuck in the desert, but massive. This one was a javelin.

  "I thought you said we were going to a base," he said.

  "This is the base. Convenient, isn't it? Whole thing just picks up and flies off to the next assignment."

  "Mmhm."

  Harper couldn't find words for the thing in front of them. It wasn't a ship or a base... It was... it was a war. War-on-the-go. A moveable fortress. A winged occupation.

  Now that they were walking around it's side, Harper could see it was not exactly like the other ships. Far, far up, poking at the Sky even from the ground, far, far above them, a giant red band curved halfway around the black surface of the ship's sharp nose.

  It was a flag.

  A flag stabbed into the ground of Skyland.

  It was the solid flag of the Union, the flag had that washed out all others long, long ago in a show of unity: no symbols, no patterns, no other shades. Just red. The color all people had inside.

  Somewhere beside Harper the young guard was still talking.

  "... you'll be staying here while we're securing the area and investigating and whatnot..."

  "Mmhm."

  "...putting down some roots and stuff. I don't really know when you'll be needed..."

  "Mmhm."

  "...you don't need to worry about anything for the moment, it'll all just be standard arrival procedure for a while..."

  "Mmhm." Arrival procedure? You mean invasion?

  "...nothing too fancy, but it's temperature controlled and out of the sun. You'll be able to relax for a while."

  Harper laughed. The word – the second time from the lips of a soldier going to war, relax – shocked the reaction out of him, his neck swiveled back around, down from the sharp red flag, to the young soldier next to him. He stared at him, still laughing.

  Relax. Right. It'll be a real vacatio–

  "Identification and destination?"

  Harper stopped short, almost running into one of the civilians ahead of them.

  "What?"

  They were at a fence. Fifty feet ahead was the base of the giant ship. They had caught up to the handful of civilians and soldiers they'd been following. A break in the fence had bottlenecked the newcomers.

  "Identification and destination?"

  The guard at the fence addressed the group in front of Harper. They rattled off unit numbers and names and other information Harper didn't understand.

  "Identification and destination?"

  Harper faced the guard now.

  "Um,"

  "Unit 721, west residence, and I have..." he shuffled around in his pockets for a minute before pulling out a miniature tablet, which he poked a couple times "ID for me and the local." He turned the glowing screen towards the guard who nodded.

  Then they were past the fence.

  At the door to the base, which had snapped shut behind the group they'd been following, the young soldier hit some numbers on a keypad. It opened and then they were inside, in another black hallway.

  The sun disappeared behind them, and the scorching heat vanished as the door slammed shut.

  The group of soldiers and civilians were still just ahead. A few steps into the ship, they turned left when the hall came to a T. Harper turned to follow them, but his guard put out a hand to stop him.

  "This way."

  They turned right and Harper looked back over his shoulder at the others with a sinking feeling in his stomach he couldn't quite explain. He wondered if those civilians were soldiers-to-be, like the Union worker Ben, recruited for service at the last minute. None wore the uniforms of the Union Transport workers but they did not look like Skylanders. He wondered if they were like him, threatened to help. Grinning and chatting, they didn't look threatened. What Harper could hear of their voices sounded light and curious, almost excited. He wondered why he was headed in a completely different direction down an empty and silent hall while their voices disappeared in the opposite direction.

  "Why were there so many civilians on the ship?" he asked to take his mind off his nerves.

  "Volunteers. Experts. Non-military contractors."

  "Where did they come from?"

  "Some we picked up from the periphery bases before you joined up. One or two came from the Skyland ship. Just folks like you that want to help."

  ...want to help? Ha. "Oh."

  The soldier
stopped. "Well..." he started. They were standing at the door to the smallest room Harper had ever seen. "It's not exactly a luxury suite, but at least..." He seemed unable to finish the sentence with anything that would make the accommodations sound any better.

  Harper smiled. Then he laughed – only for a second before stifling it. Seemed inappropriate, somehow, to be laughing at anything in this fortress.

  "It's fine," he said.

  The room was barely longer than he was tall. It would be just long enough for him to lay down on the bed – an actual bed, not a hammock – that was shoved in it. There were two pillows piled on each other on the narrow bed frame and a blanket, or perhaps several blankets, it was hard to tell how many pieces made up the puffy mass of fabric on the bed. Again, Harper wondered where on Skyland a person would have need of a blanket. Even inside the ship-base, cooler than in the naked sunlight, the heat thickened the air. The coverings on the bed were thick and puffy and white and looked like kind of clouds that Skyland didn't have and he'd only seen in pictures. They also seemed entirely useless.

  Well, at least they will be soft, he thought, remembering the plastic chain links digging into his back on the last ship.

  "Well, the facilities here are better than on the small ships," the soldier beside him continued. "Bathroom's down the hall this way. On your left." He gestured with one hand. "Meals in the mess, same direction take a right then two lefts. You hungry now?"

  "Not really."

  It was some hours into the afternoon, and he'd last eaten some bits of dried food at breakfast – what, on a military vessel, constituted breakfast – before leaving the smaller ship. But he wasn't hungry then, and was less so now. His stomach crawled with nerves.

  "I can show you that for dinner later, if you'd like. If you're up for it. Other than that... you're free to wander around, but take me with you. I'll be your guide here. I'll be here days, mostly, but if you need something after nightfall and I'm off, let one of the night watchers know. They can either help you out themselves or they can come find me. And... that's about it."

  "'Guide?'"

  "What?"

  "You said you're my... guide." This time Harper laughed openly, but it was a bitter laugh. "You meant guard of course."

  "Well, I'm more of a guide than a guard. I'm here for your protection, but mostly to show you around."

  "My protection?"

  "Well, you can't be popular for arriving with us."

  "Right."

  "But really, you have nothing to worry about. The base is crawling with soldiers and surveillance, you're about as safe as anybody here."

  Safe as anybody. "Hmmm.."

  "So I'm really just here to help you get acquainted with your new accommodations and see you're taken care of when you're not needed by the investigators."

  And when will that be? "I'm... 'taken care of?'"

  "Yeah, make sure you can make the best of it here. I know it's not much, but at least you've got you're own room. Maybe the bed's a bit more comfortable.... Sorry, though."

  "It's fine," Harper said.

  He meant it, too. On Skyland, Harper had never slept in a room alone. That was a luxury which few of the dilapidated cabins in the country afforded, and few of the country folk wanted. Solitude was not a comfort. But the young soldier said it like it was, and his smile said Hey, make the best of it, right? So Harper smiled back.

  "It's fine," he said again.

  "Well I'll leave you alone, then. I'll be in this sector, so if you need anything, just shout. Otherwise... rest up."

  Doubtful. "Hmm."

  The soldier turned to leave. Then–

  "Wait," Harper called after him. "What's your name?"

  "Wills."

  "Wills... thanks." Harper waved awkwardly and stepped towards the room.

  "See you." Wills smiled, and then he was gone.

  Harper went into the room and sat down on the bed. He adjusted the pillows and lay back on them. His eyebrows scrunched together and he squinted at the ceiling.

  What is wrong here?

  Something was different from how it should be.

  Harper hadn't expected a cell. Not exactly. The lax security of the needle ship had shown him that he wasn't much of a concern to the Union. But these were not the accommodations he'd thought he'd get when he agreed to come back to Skyland. Shivering in the cold obsidian room, with the angry man shouting in his face and threatening him with charges, Harper had not pictured pillows and private rooms.

  This room was small, but there was effort in it.

  That bothered Harper.

  He pressed his head back into the pillows, sinking deeper into the white cloud. The material cupped the back of his head, his neck, the side of his cheeks. He'd never felt anything like it. He lay his palms flat against the puffy blanket underneath him. It was fine, smooth, slippery like silk, but stuffed with thick softness just like the pillow. The mattress underneath that was flat but just so slightly bouncy, and it gave when he shifted, rolling over to one side to stare at the still-open door.

  But it wasn't just the room.

  The bed full of fluffy pillows coupled with the complete and utter lack of antagonism made the dread in the pit of Harper's stomach squirm and swell and reach up as if it were trying to claw it's way up into his brain.

  Something is going on...

  Not that Harper wanted to be back in a cold room with his breath making clouds. Not that he wanted to be face-to-face with the pouchy red-faced man shouting questions at him. Not that he wanted to be sat in a hard metal chair waiting to be manipulated by the Union army.

  But the fact that he wasn't, worried him.

  What am I here for?

  As he lay in bed, the room gradually darkened around him, and eventually he slept.

  Chapter Nineteen

  in which there is food... or something like that...

  Harper opened his eyes.

  He squinted in confusion. A bland glow seemed to be coming from all around him.

  Sunset?

  He blinked a few times.

  Oh.

  The room resolved as he came to full consciousness. Close walls. A metal bed frame. A blurred and glowing red square in a grey panel. Light strips where wall and ceiling met. He blinked again, and the red square on the wall at the end of the bed resolved in to numbers.

  6:30AM

  Harper sat up straight. His head spun a little, and he leaned his elbows on his knees. It was just after dawn.

  Huh.

  He remembered the room darkening around him, remembered dozing off, tired out by anxiety. He didn't remember closing the door, though it was closed now, and he didn't remember turning on the lights at any point in the night. He looked up at the glowing strips around the top of the wall and wondered if they adjusted the lights for every planet the base landed on.

  Slowly, he shifted his feet onto the floor and stood up. He was groggy from sleeping... nine, ten hours? He had no idea when he'd fallen asleep. As he stretched, his stomach grumbled. Then the shakiness of hunger hit him. Steadying himself against the wall, he pushed the door open and peered around the corner. The young soldier whose name was Wills was there already, sitting in a chair, his head propped up on one hand, the elbow resting on his knee.

  "Hey," said Harper.

  Wills jerked his head up. "He-hey there," he stuttered, getting hastily to his feet. He brushed futilely at the creases in his uniform, his now-familiar grin hitching itself back into place as he tried to stifle a yawn. "Sorry – I came by yesterday to get you for dinner, but you were asleep..."

  "It's okay." Harper waved off his apology.

  "Bet you needed the rest, huh?"

  "I guess so." Twelve hours of it? If he came by at dinner time... Harper was shocked that he could have slept at all – let alone for so long – with so much anxiety. The discomfort of sleeping in space must have finally caught up with him.

  "You can't have slept well on the other ship," Wills voice continued over
Harper's thoughts. "I hate trying to sleep in transit – I think those ships are designed to keep you up."

  "Right," Harper answered absently, not really listening.

  "Want breakfast?"

  "Yes!" Harper's attention snapped back to the conversation. "Um, sorry. I mean, yeah that would be nice. I-I am pretty hungry."

  Will laughed. "Well, I hope you are, because otherwise the food is unbearable."

  He turned and headed down the black corridor and Harper followed.

  "Where is the... angry man?" Harper had never gotten the name of the first Union solder he'd met.

  "Who?"

  "Big face, pouchy, red, always a little mad looking. Black cord around the neck. The one who found me on the Skyland ship. Brought me here. Where's he been?"

  "Oh. Hah. He is pretty angry, isn't he? He went to worship."

  "Worship?"

  "It's the Tenth Day."

  "Oh."

  They were sitting in the mess hall over trays of something that resembled breakfast: hard pieces of what might have been fruit sometime in the past, a bowl of something that could have been porridge with a bit more water, and crumbly of slices of... bread? Harper didn't really know. At least it wasn't kale. He missed the green leaves only a little bit. On a planet where almost nothing grew, green was one of few signs of life – if it was green, it'd probably keep you alive. Now, everything on his plate was a different shade of brown. Dry and brown and in various stages of dehydration.

  He tried to make conversation with Wills. It wasn't hard – the young soldier's mood was curiously upbeat and interested – but it felt awkward. This was a Union soldier. He carried a weapon, at least one that Harper could see, maybe more. And he was here to fight, not to befriend the Skylanders.

  But it was more than that.

  This was a Union soldier, and that meant...

  Wills flew through the Sky and traveled in the unholy void of space. On a regular basis. An almost instinctive discomfort plagued Harper in his presence. Flying was the one sin he'd been taught since childhood to hate above all else, and the young man sitting across from him chewing noisily on a cracker was a product of the foreign places that embraced the sin.