The Memory of Sky

by Robert Reed

  “And to a degree, those doubters were correct.

  “The first drill went into the old blue-green stone on top. It cut deep and then wore out, and I pulled a core sample and the second drill cut even farther. Eventually I had the deepest hole in the world. But the youngest coral is far tougher than the grandfatherly stuff, and after nine drills, the stone was too young and too deep, and I was only halfway to the bottom of the ancient reef.

  “Still, I had my lines to count. I was young and proud, and that’s why I boasted too much. The papio were offended. One old papio man, dead now for thousands of days, looked at this little tree-scrambling human with his wasted learning and his stacks of cylindrical rock. ‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘Something needs to be seen by ignorant you.’

  “Few know about this place. Even the papio don’t know about it. High on the reef country, beyond where even the papio live, there is one tiny patch of existence on which nothing grows. There is no coral and no soil, and not even the woeful-vines take root there. It is a different part of the world than anything I’ve seen anywhere—a place no larger than a large man’s arms can stretch across. The surface is smooth and gray and perfect, except for the words embossed in the middle.”

  The fletch shuddered and dove again. Nothing changed outside the window. The same twisted branches raced past, little dashes of color showing a flock of scattering birds. The day was older, but the sunlight insisted on growing even brighter.

  “Were those papio words?” Seldom asked.

  “And what did they mean?” Elata pressed.

  “Oh, the language was a mystery to me and to my guide too,” Nissim confessed. “But there were similarities to parts of archaic human language, and I saw hints of papio in the lettering. So I made an exact copy. I brought the words back to the District of Districts, and I brought my core samples too. For a thousand days, I buried myself inside the University library. The oldest surviving books in the world are stored in a special room, in the driest possible air, and I studied there until my sinuses were full of dust, and I learned as much or more about old languages than anyone else in the world. And only then did I try to translate that mysterious emblem.”

  Nissim stopped talking. Suddenly he resembled an old man wrung empty of breath and stamina. He shook his head slowly and narrowed the eyes that refused to let go of what he had seen, and he dipped his head, watching the back of one hand as he began reciting the words.

  “ ‘We are boys and we are girls,’ ” he said, “ ‘and we have come to this fruit of perfection, this utopia, to live as good people must. Every temptation has been left behind. We bring nothing but pure thoughts. In this great realm, we will build a society of fairness and modesty, or we shall fail and suffer the doom that failed souls must suffer. Then we will die, and the great fire will consume us, and nothing will remain of our good dream but the eternal promise that always and forever draws creatures of courage, pulling us onward.’ ”

  His voice stopped and he lifted his hand, watching it close and then open again. “To the best of my ability, that is the full text.”

  Diamond closed his eyes, absorbing each word. But nothing made sense, and he felt foolish.

  “I don’t understand,” said Seldom.

  “What does that mean?” Elata asked.

  Again, the Master placed his hand on Diamond’s head

  The boy opened his eyes.

  Nissim was showing him a wary smile and hard unblinking gaze.

  “These words likely mean more than I realize,” the man said. “And I won’t pretend to understand the people who wrote them. But the phrase that destroyed my life, the piece of this puzzle that utterly fascinated me . . . it is where they wrote, ‘We have come to this fruit of perfection.’

  “Now ‘fruit’ is the simplest translation. On the one hand, that just means the edible seed of any plant. It might be the only fruit in one grand Creation. But the ancient word means quite a lot more: it was used to describe a great tree covered with countless branches, each branch heavy with fruit. Just one of those sweet treats is the world where we happen to live. That’s what I realized. Sitting alone inside that library, close to the perfect center of the perfect world, I began to understand that what we think of as the Creation is what those lost authors called ‘this great small realm.’

  “It presses against one’s sanity, I know. But regardless what people are taught and regardless what we’d love to believe, this world is not everything. There are other fruits suspended on many branches, and perhaps we aren’t the only people. That was my revelation. My great scholarly paper was focused on that premise, outlining a set of fantastic, inevitable conclusions and proving every point as well as I could.

  “I wasn’t an idiot. I did expect doubts. There are people who are terrified by any idea, and I accepted that. But I didn’t appreciate the pride and power of our rulers. If vast realms are set beyond the walls of the world, then our great men and women are tiny. And if the fruit tree is vast, then we are next to nothing.

  “That idea is what made them furious. That’s why I was tried and convicted of heresy—an ancient crime rarely invoked but always in the books, always waiting its day. And that’s why I lost my life’s work. And that’s why my papers were burned. And while I watched, my precious cylinders of ancient coral were taken to the bottom of the University Tree, and one after another, they were thrown off into the scorching, cleansing sun.”

  The Master turned away, wiping at tears.

  Diamond looked out the window, embarrassed and sorry, waiting for his thoughts to make sense. How could anything be larger than this enormous world? But even as he denied that impossible idea, dream-like images swirled in front of his mind’s eye. Suddenly he had too many fantasies to count and none felt real, and he believed each one of these impossibilities. In despair, he covered his face with his hands. A thin breathless cry leaked out. Then some little word was whispered. Who spoke? Diamond dropped his hands, looking at Seldom and at Elata. They were trading whispers while watching him—that sense of being spellbound never more obvious.

  Master Nissim took a deep breath, ready to speak again.

  Two quick explosions shook the Happenstance. The left engine screamed, and startled, Diamond stood up, face against the window. The propeller was still spinning, pushing dense black smoke behind them. Dirty red flames flickered inside a shell made of iron and corona scales. Elata and Seldom were beside him, laughing nervously. Then Nissim pulled them away from the window, and the engine coughed, and the rattling slowed to a hard steady pounding as the smoke kept rushing out and the propeller seized up. Long white blades were frozen in place, each one cut from a corona bone, each carved into an elegant, lovely airfoil.

  The pilot ran into the cabin cursing. “Back, back,” he warned everyone but himself, picking Diamond up by the shoulders and pushing him away. Someone in the cockpit yelled a question, and the pilot flung himself against the rubber window, muttering an answer that couldn’t be heard even by the boy standing behind him.

  “Is it off?” shouted the cockpit voice.

  The pilot backed away. “It’s done.”

  “Fire?”

  “Seen worse, but it’s burning,” was the expert assessment. “Throttle back starboard. Half power.”

  The remaining engine quieted substantially.

  With total faith in the window’s strength, the pilot pressed against the flexible material, pushing out into the air as he gazed at the ship’s body. After careful study, he said, “No punctures. No secondary fire. Good.”

  “What happened?” Elata asked.

  “The engine exploded,” Seldom answered.

  The boy’s answer brought a hard long laugh. Hands on his hips, the pilot looked at his little audience. “My good loyal trustworthy engine, and it blows. Think of the odds. But the ship is mostly right, and we’re not ridiculously far from our destination. Not close either, mind you, but let’s just count our fortunes and limp in the rest of the way. Nice and slow, a
nd hope that we don’t blow the other engine too.”

  On that grim note, he left again.

  Nobody felt like sitting. Standing was easy when the fletch was cruising at a lazy pace, and there were plenty of reasons to feel fortunate. Diamond returned to the left side of the cabin. The sun was brighter than ever. Nothing lay below except twisting limbs and enormous leaves. Some leaves were dark green, others almost transparent. Some grew from the surrounding trees, while parasites and epiphytes clung to every worthy surface. Colored birds and drab birds and enormous, machine-like insects flew everywhere. The air had grown heavy and definitely warmer. Diamond was sweating, and he wasn’t moving, breathing slower than ever, holding one good breath deep and then slowly letting it out again.

  Sitting on a wide tree branch was a human, a man calmly watching the ship pass. Feet dangling and the face curious, he stared at the gasbag and the smoky dead engine, and then he noticed the boy leaning against the window.

  Diamond waved at the man.

  The man lifted his arm and then thought better of it.

  Master Nissim said, “That’s a forester, probably. There’s a lot of good wood to be pruned from these trees.”

  “Or a bandit,” Seldom said.

  Nissim didn’t believe so. He clucked his tongue while patting Diamond on his side, feeling where the little knife still rode against his hip.

  They didn’t mention the knife or any ordinary dangers.

  “Do you think it’s true, Master?” Elata asked. “Is there another world?”

  “No,” Seldom said.

  Nissim responded with a long pause and then his own question. “And why do you believe there isn’t, Seldom?”

  “The world is all there is. What more can there be?”

  “That’s the faith for you and every other old man,” Nissim kidded. “ ‘There can’t be anything else because this is everything we need, now and forever.’ ”

  Seldom shrank down, thinking.

  Branches started closing in from every side, and the surviving engine throttled up in response, buying speed and a fresh trajectory.

  “Suppose there was another world,” said Seldom. “Suppose it was filled with people like us or people like the papio. Or somebody else, maybe. Wouldn’t they sometimes come visit us? And couldn’t we fly to their homes and see them for ourselves?”

  Elata grabbed up Diamond’s hand.

  “Wouldn’t the strangers be everywhere?” asked Seldom.

  “But,” Elata began.

  The Master looked at her. “Yes?”

  “Every house has hollow places,” she said. “There’s always little holes in the wall that nobody sees, nobody cares about.”

  “But I know what I know, and I’m right,” Seldom said.

  Elata glanced at Diamond, ready to say something more.

  But then the ship slowed abruptly, everyone stumbling toward the bow. A screeching roar came from every side, long branches shoving against the hull and engines and wings. The pilot was steering them into a tangle of snags. But the limbs were young and pliable, and fletches were woven from the flesh and tough bladders of supple young coronas. Nothing was punctured, nothing hooked. The Happenstance slowed again and then surged, emerging into a wide empty cylinder hacked from the forest—a vertical avenue made with axes and power saws—and Diamond found himself floating inside a river of light that carried the sun’s brilliance into the highest reaches of this perfect, seemingly endless world.

  ELEVEN

  Two engines were pushing the ship, each possessed by rhythms and harmonics familiar to ears that missed very little. She recognized the ship by its sounds and saw it plainly in her mind, and from the changing pitch and volume she could envision its future. The fletch would come close but not very close and then swiftly move away. On a normal day, she would remain where she was and how she was, changing nothing needing. But then the steadier engine gained an odd rattle, banging once and again, and the fire inside its belly suddenly jumped free.

  The explosion was thunderous, persistent. The entire forest was frightened. Pretty shells retrieved their insects and hollows sucked up their monkeys, while various wings picked up their bodies and fled. She watched the wings rush away. She listened to the ship slowing, its surviving engine growing soft and careful. Moments like this were rare. Fletches liked to fly as if moments were precious and distance was cheap. Yet despite being crippled, the ship stubbornly maintained its original course, giving her the luscious chance to enjoy a good close look at something different.

  Yet every action wears costs. Motion meant burning energy as well as a piece of the day. No matter the precautions, there also was the insidious risk of being seen by the wrong eyes, and she never wanted to be seen. And of course this could be a trap designed for outlaws, or as unlikely as it seemed, for her. But the worst risk was that nothing bad would happen, or worse, that this little adventure would end well. Sweet-tasting indulgences had their way of building tendencies, and she appreciated how tendencies became habit. Render the joy from one good experience and the mind was ready to accept that same risk again; survive ten thousand happy risks and the ten thousandth and first would look harmless, regardless of the looming dangers.

  How many wise creatures stepped on the wrong branch before falling to their deaths?

  Too many to count, she reminded herself.

  The forest calmed itself, and she made ready. Traps could be waiting. Studying her surroundings, she sniffed deeply and listened to the fletch and to everything else, and then once more she looked at the world, using fresher eyes. Only then did she feel secure enough to slip out from the protective shadows, changing colors to match the green glare of the day, running lightly along the nodding limbs.

  Animals noticed her passage. She wore camouflage and worked for silence, but there was no perfect way to be invisible. Indeed, she learned long ago not to try too hard to vanish. Startle a bird, and it would screech and fly away, drawing eyes in inconvenient directions. No, it was better to give birds little warnings that she was coming, convincing them that she was nothing. Monkeys were worse hazards, since they often shouted words that tree-walkers and reef-humans understood. That’s why she chose to look like a harmless creature or some peculiar gust of wind and leaf. Appearing suddenly in front of a large troop could bring a cacophony, which she never wanted. The entire forest had to accept her as mannerly and simple, and most of all, harmless. Chasing the same logic, she made herself appear smaller than she was while making comforting noises and calls of peace. But perhaps her finest trick was leaking odors that any nose would find reassuring. She could dance past jazzings and chokers and all of the nervous monkeys in the world, and every beast caught a whiff of something that was pleasant, and every mind smiled in its fashion. And only when no animal noticed—as she filled the world with happy noise and happy stink—would she risk nabbing a body or two for a meal.

  But today she ate nothing. The crippled ship continued pushing ahead, and she ran parallel to its course and then glided even nearer, finding a fine perch where she could hesitate, watching her surroundings once more. Every tree wore a name given by her, and she knew the major branches and most of the little ones. Nothing was out of place. Yet she turned nonetheless, turned and ran away from the rumbling engine, testing every hunter’s patience.

  Nobody followed; nothing cared.

  And she attacked a crooked trunk, climbing higher, making herself bigger and far stronger as she scampered through the shadows above the midday canopy. The forest lived inside the world and inside her mind. Better than its human pilot, she knew where a fletch would fly and the tangles it should avoid while heading out of the canopy. She did a fine job guessing which limb would supply her with concealment as well as an excellent vantage point. She placed herself ahead of the ship, and nobody saw her when she hid where she had never stood before. With every eye, she watched the Happenstance approaching, growing loud and huge, and then it steadily slid past again. Human bodies stood and sat beh
ind the clear rubber windows. Human faces stared at the ship’s controls and at one another, and they talked to one another and to themselves, and then finally she saw the little faces of children looking out at the dense forest.

  One boy glanced at her with intensity.

  She did nothing and his eyes saw nothing, suddenly jumping to other empty patches of green.

  Only at the end did she notice the second boy. Except this was no boy, but instead a creature wearing the strangest hair and pale wrong eyes, and she realized too late that he was deeply strange in his features, in his build, born as something peculiar and probably sick and maybe destined to die soon.

  The Happenstance was gone when she realized that in some fashion the strange boy was familiar.

  That mad idea took hold and squeezed.

  The boy himself wasn’t familiar, no. She had no memory of seeing him on any other day. But there was something about that odd face and his bearing that was utterly recognizable, and long after the fletch had vanished into the sun’s glare, she sat wondering what to think—to think about everything that had happened and everything that had not.

  “My name is Quest,” she said to herself.

  Then to the world, she asked, “What is yours?”

  Valves turned and whistling came from overhead, measured doses of hydrogen released from the twin bladders. The ship responded by falling, slowly and then faster. Ailerons on the wings swung while the surviving engine turned on its mountings, and they began a slow stately descent with the cylinder’s wall sliding past on the right. Leaves were plastered on top of leaves as the brilliant white light came from below, growing steadily brighter. There was nothing else to see. Eyes squinted and watered. Everyone but Diamond soon turned away from the sunlight. “There should be goggles,” Nissim said, and as if that was a signal, the pilot reappeared.

  “This will be a short day,” he predicted. His face was covered with a sheet of black glass, and he carried a wooden box full of battered old goggles, none small enough for children. But everybody put them on, and the men tightened the cracked rubber straps until every face ached. Then the pilot said, “We’re at midday, judging by the signs. But if the glare’s too much, pull the blinds from the ceiling.”