The Shattered Sky

by Paul Lucas

  "I can see it," I whispered. The image on the parchment was me, as I had seen my face innumerable times in still pools of water and against the walls of the Tower. But the image was not just my head and shoulders, but all of me, standing on the small hillock and looking up at the youngsters slowly wheeling against the sky and the Shards beyond.

  My mind reeled in wonder. The person in that small image seemed so strange, yet I had known her all my life. It was like looking through the Lerner-human’s eyes. I studied it intently, trying to see myself as the human did.

  Compared to most humans, I was small and slight. My head would barely reach the Lerner-human’s chin. My face was much more angular than a human's flat features, with large, blue-black eyes. Light gray fur covered my entire body. My head hair was long and dark, pulled into a tight braid. The humans seemed to possess a wide variety of bright garments; the only clothing I wore, my leggings, were made of dullish tan Dhaki skins. I wore a forlorn look of longing in the image, profoundly sad and strangely beautiful at the same time.

  I blinked hard at it, realizing that this was the first time I had ever thought that I could be...beautiful.

  "It is incredible," I breathed as I tremblingly handed the picture back to him.

  He held up his hand. "Keep it. Please. Consider it a gift."

  "I could not possibly--"

  "Go ahead. The camera has the image in digital memory, so I’m not losing anything. Besides, how could I keep you from something that just made you smile like that?"

  I blushed wildly, hoping he would not see the redness beneath the thin fur of my face. I carefully hugged the wondrous image to me and thanked him profusely.

  We exchanged a few more pleasant words and he ambled away, pointing and clicking his camera-box at the Tower. I studied the picture again, my heart hammering with naked wonder.

  I knew somehow in that moment that my life would never be the same again, after the coming of these humans. And as strange and terrifying as today had been, I was glad for it.

  FOUR

  I’m getting the hang of Myotan word structure now. It’s not too dissimilar from our own, but that should not be surprising as it derives from the same distant Builder root language as most dialects we’ve encountered. Still, they have quite a unique cadence to the way they speak. If I ever learn enough Myotan to abandon my translator, I imagine I’m going to have a very strange accent to them.

  Their language is very vowel-intensive with many soft consonant sounds. Because of their superior hearing, they can put much more complex emphasis on words with inflections that are often much too subtle for baseline humans to hear. Thus, while their language has a smaller total vocabulary than ours, with proper inflection they can convey ideas and concepts that are just as complex.

  Their names are descriptive and often poetic. The literal translation of the name of the shaman’s apprentice, for example, is ‘The Soft-Smooth Substance of a Butterfly’s Wing,’ or more simply, ‘Gossamyr’ (or is that spelled ‘Gossamer?’ I’ll have to look that up.) In the Myotan tongue it is one curt, highly inflected syllable.

  Because we cannot accurately translate all the subtleties of Myotan inflection on the written page, on most official reports the crew has taken to using such abbreviated approximations of the Myotans’ true names. For example, the shaman herself goes by the name of ‘She Who is Blessed to Ride the Eternal Winds of the Sky Spirit.’ But for simplicity’s sake, the crew calls her just ‘Windrider’ in our own language.

  I would feel guiltier about this practice (it is a bit human-centric, I suppose) if the Myotans themselves did not constantly mangle our own names. Mine usually comes out something like ‘Armool Hern-her.’ Their language has few harsh consonant sounds, and they have a hard time pronouncing the ‘nd’ in Armand. I’ve let them start calling me just ‘Lerner’ to avoid headaches.

  --from the journals of Armand Lerner, 4 June 542

  * * *

  "What did you say my people were made from?" I asked Lerner as I wrapped my arms about myself against the chill. The loose, furry Dhaki-skin hassock I wore was not helping against the cold as much as I had hoped. I was far less tolerant of colder temperatures as an adult than I was as a youngster. Another side effect of no longer spending a large portion of my days drifting on the winds.

  "Bats," Lerner said, checking his instruments. He and another human called Louis were exploring the upper levels of the Tower, investigating the eternally-sealed doors Flier and Windrider had told their leaders about. The humans’ leaders had reported detecting strange readings from their magical instruments emanating from the upper levels. Their explanation left my head spinning with strange phrases like “gravity wave fluctuations” and “anomalous electromagnetic emissions.” But it seemed urgent to them that they investigate, so Flier granted them permission to visit the rarely-used upper portions of the Tower, a place where we almost never allowed any non-Myotan. However, Flier would only send trustworthy humans, and since I had spent the most time with our guests, he asked me for recommendations. Lerner, my closest friend among the humans, was the most logical choice, and he convinced me to let his friend Louis to come along as well.

  Louis was a dozen or so paces ahead of Lerner and I. He was a bit tall for a human, with slick black head hair and a pair of blue eyes that seemed perpetually sleepy. He was grumbling to himself and determined to make this uncomfortable chore as short as possible. Or so he told us every hundred paces or so.

  Our community inhabited a small portion of the Tower on the bottommost levels. The structure was otherwise barricaded and empty, though occasionally a nomad band would trade food or tools for temporary shelter within.

  But Lerner and Louis' people called it by a different name: “Artifact Site X12.” According to them, the Tower had been built thousands of years ago by the Builders, a people as far above the humans’ “Known Nations”--their tribal territory, from what I gathered--as the sun and its Shards were above the grass. The Builders created the world and all its wonders, but died off mysteriously after a Great Cataclysm of some kind five thousand years before.

  Or so the humans said.

  Cloud hated the amount of time I was spending with our visitors, and especially resented the idea of my going alone with two human males into the upper Tower, where I would be alone with them for the better part of a day. Cloud practically demanded that he go along as my “protection.” He even went so far as to harass the human captain with his complaints. Flier took great exception to this, fearing Cloud’s words would insult the humans. They were our honored guests, after all, and had more than proven their restraint and generosity. Why would I need protection from them?

  Cloud reluctantly backed down after being confronted by Flier. Still, he very sullenly watched me walk up the broad spiraling ramps with Lerner and Louis, a deep furrow creasing his brow.

  I had grown very comfortable in Lerner’s presence in the past ten days. We talked by an outside hearth fire every night sipping afghuri tea, sometimes joined by others, sometimes not. I was even becoming somewhat accustomed to his flat features and could now easily distinguish him from others of his people. Though of average height for a human, he was as tall as the largest Myotan, with a lithe build, sallow cheeks, and an easy smile.

  Some of the others among their crew, however, still made me uncomfortable, especially one truly gigantic male with the name of Stonereaver. According to Lerner, his kind was an off-shoot of humans called Orcs, also created long ago by the Builders, as everything apparently was in their legends.

  Lerner and Louis wore bright orange jackets that seemed to keep them much warmer and comfortable than my Dhaki skin hassock. Except for shawls and hassocks when it became chilly, I generally avoided upper-body clothing, as did most of my people. Arm-hugging wing membranes made such garments awkward at best. The humans, however, seemed to have developed their clothing designs into an intricate artform, much like the detailed and elaborate wing tattoos among the Mated couples of my p
eople.

  That set me wondering. Did Lerner or Louis have mates? Did their females weave their clothing for them? Was such a thing as intimate for humans as wing-tattoos were for Myotans?

  “I really don’t understand why you couldn’t have asked Dumas to do this,” Louis grumped. “He’s the xenotech. I’m a Mage! You want some nanites marched around, come see me. You want someone to spend hours on end in dark, cold, tunnels staring at an LCD, you get the spiders.”

  “You know Dumas wouldn’t be able to deal with this cold,” Lerner said. “He can’t just throw on a coat like us. The temperature would probably put his element-bodies into a state of torpor. Then we’d have to warm them up with our own body heat. Wouldn’t that be pleasant?”

  Louis shot Lerner a very dour look.

  I had no idea what to make of this exchange and thought it best if I just ignored it. "Bats?" I persisted. "You think my people were made from those small flying mice? I find that hard to believe."

  "Why? Can't you see the similarities?"

  "Yes, of course, with the wings and fur and maybe the ears. But we have many more similarities with humans and Felinoids and Vulpines and other, much more intelligent creatures."

  We stopped in front of a rectangular impression in the wall of one of the gently-curving corridors we were in. The only light was from Louis carrying a magic, flameless torch with a bright blue light. "Those similarities are more obvious because the races you mentioned were all uplifted based on the human model. The Builders made you as human-like as possible while still preserving distinguishing aspects of your original natural heritage. No sense messing too much with a proven design, I guess."

  "That is ridiculous!" I snapped. "Why would humans be so special, to be used as the mold for making things? Did your Builders not make you too?"

  Lerner turned around so Louis could fish a large metal box out of his backpack. Louis unspooled metallic threads from in the box and adhered them to the doorway, then began turning knobs on the box. "We were the Builders,” Lerner said. “I mean, the Builders were human. Humans came about, evolved, naturally on a world long-forgotten by most called Earth. They struggled hard for many thousands of years, spreading out into a small family of planets called the Solar System, until eventually they created the Eden Sphere and the Nanotech Matrix and everything we now take for granted."

  After he explained what a planet was, I asked, “If that is so, then what happened to this ‘Earth?’"

  “It was disassembled along with every other body in the Solar System for raw materials to create the Eden Sphere."

  “Eden Sphere?" I rolled the odd words around on my tongue.

  "It's also called a Dyson Sphere. An enormous shell which once completely englobed the sun. But one day, about five thousand years ago, it shattered, kind of like a big, hollow eggshell.”

  “A really, really big eggshell,” Louis interjected, never looking up from his box. “Are you sure we should be telling her all this? The captain said she wanted to avoid giving these people too much culture shock all at once.”

  Lerner barked out a laugh. “So she lands a 10,000-ton helistat right in their front yard? Look, if we want their trust we should answer all their questions as honestly as we can. Besides, I’m the sophonotologist here so it’s really my call. I’m sure Gossamyr can handle it.”

  He turned back to me. “Anyway, that’s what the Shards are in the sky. The debris from the shattered Sphere. No one knows why or how the Great Cataclysm happened, only that it did. A great many people died during the disaster, more than anyone could count. Those that managed to survive--well, the Builders knew quite a lot, far more than both our peoples combined, but the vast majority of that knowledge was lost as people struggled simply to survive. They fell back into much more primitive ways."

  I nodded absently but said nothing, not wanting to appear ignorant, even though much of what he said was greatly confusing. The concepts alone were frightening enough.

  A shell that could encompass the sun? The Shards, those ghostly irregular shadows against the sky during the day, sparkling like a million far-off campfires at night, those were pieces of that shell?

  "Are we on a Shard?"

  They both stopped, turned, and looked at me. I thought I had offended them in some way, but Lerner’s face broke into a broad smile. "That’s right! How did you figure that out?"

  "It just seemed obvious from what you said."

  "Do you know there are some peoples we contacted decades ago who still can’t comprehend that? You're smarter that our bosses give you credit for."

  I blushed at his compliment, but thankfully he was oblivious to my discomfort. The discoloration would show only around my eyes, where my facial fur was thinnest.

  He went on. "But, yes, we’re on a Shard. The largest surviving one. We call it the MegaShard. It’s kind of flat and circular and millions of kilometers across. I guess that measurement is pretty meaningless to you, but it would take over a thousand years just for us to walk from here to the nearest edge. Even with our airship, the journey would take over a decade."

  "If what you say is true, then the world is far larger than I ever thought! Are there other peoples exploring the Shards?"

  He shrugged. “We haven’t found any other explorers. At least not any who can cover distances like we can. Look, Gossamyr, I’ll explain more later when we talk by the fire, okay? But frankly I’m cold and tired and we don't seem to be making any progress with any of these sealed doors. We should head back.”

  Louis nodded, retracting the box’s metal threads. “I’ve been waiting to hear that for the past two hours.”

  "Please," I told Lerner. "I want to know so many things! Your people are leaving the day after tomorrow, and I may never get a chance to ask you all the questions I have!"

  "Oh, don’t worry about that.” Lerner smirked. “Or didn't anyone tell you? With Flier's permission I’ve volunteered to stay behind with your people for a few months. I’m going to answer your questions for quite some time yet.”

  FIVE

  The decision to let Armand Lerner stay at Artifact Site X-12 was not an easy one. Leaving any crewmember behind in the Outlands, volunteer or not, is not considered a good policy for any captain to establish.

  But these were special circumstances. One, we needed more information about the Myotans’ Tower, especially if our long-range plans for it were ever going to be realized. Mr. Lerner would be able to complete a detailed survey and map the Tower interior in the months he would be living there, greatly hastening the timetable for the project.

  Two, because of many new discoveries further into the Outlands in that direction, increased helistat traffic through the area was pretty much guaranteed. Artifact Site X12 would see an estimated three more helistat visits in the year after we made first contact, and would probably only increase after that. If Mr. Lerner wore out his welcome, he could catch a ride home with any one of those expeditions.

  Third, even though I was a frumpy fifty-something at the time, I have to admit that I was not immune to the handsome Mr. Lerner’s enthusiasm. When he burst into my office with this wild plan for living among the Myotans, he spoke with such passion and energy that I found it hard not to get caught up in those oh-so-velvety brown eyes. It was not something I would have admitted to at the time--captains are not supposed to be swayed by youthful good looks—-but I’m as human as anyone else.

  Finally, the biggest factor in letting him stay were the Myotans themselves. They certainly seemed friendly and open to further contact, and Mr. Lerner, a sophontologist, was excited at the prospect of immersing himself in their culture, perhaps even doing his doctoral thesis on them. Flier struck me as a genuinely fair leader, and during our conversations prior to departing I knew that I was leaving Mr. Lerner in good hands.

  As for what eventually happened to Armand Lerner--let me state that, looking back, I am well aware of both the good and bad that he experienced at X12, and I do not think he would have exchanged
the time he spent there for anything. By the time the Sword of Thorena departed, he had already met his destiny, though they were both blissfully unaware of it at the time.

  --excerpted from There and Back Again and Again: The Autobiography of Lady Lawrencia Rhiannon, 549, Haggerty Press, Borelea.

  * * *

  "Flier, this is insane! This human will destroy our whole way of life!"

  Our chieftain puffed out a long, impatient breath. "He is only one human, Cloud."

  The decision to let Lerner stay in our community raised quite a bit of commotion in the last few days, especially since Flier had not mentioned this new development until an hour before the humans’ airship lifted off. Obviously he had done so to head off any objections like those being aired at this meeting. Windrider and I were the only ones not caught by surprise, and Flier had sworn us to secrecy until he could make the official announcement.

  After the helistat faded into the sky, heading back to its home an unimaginable distance away, I escorted Lerner to his new residence in one of the empty double-occupancy rooms the community usually reserved for newly-Mated couples. So much equipment had been left with him that he needed the extra space. He had originally asked to be put in quarters a good distance away from the community, so as not to cause too much disruption. Flier would hear none of it. The Tower was so immense that it was easy for a newcomer to get lost. Besides, Flier had stressed repeatedly, our people's welcome would never be half-hearted. That was not the Myotan way. He had invited Lerner into our community, and to our chieftain that meant inviting him in to the community.

  Everything the human did in those first few days drew a crowd, especially a gaggle of exuberant and curious youngsters, who dared each other to rush up and touch his things. Lerner tolerated it bemusedly, even when Wingstroke got hold of a container of something called "spray paint" and used it to give his younger sister a full-fur change of color. Everyone expected Lerner to fly into a rage at such a frivolous waste of such a wondrous device, but he only burst out laughing when he saw the small youngster grinning up at him, dripping bright orange from ear to toe. Many in the gathered crowd joined in with snickers of their own, more out of relief than amusement, as he handed the colorful youngster to her mother for a thorough scrubbing.