by Robert Reed
“We were worried about an awful fight,” Father said. “Old slayers appreciate just how smart the coronas are, and it occurred to us that this could be a trap. Maybe our quarry were tired of being hunted. Maybe they were teasing us with one of their own, and their entire population was hiding below, ready to rise up through the demon floor and slay their foes.
“But it wasn’t a trap. The old-timers were wrong and glad. Of course the young slayers were hoping for a big battle from the giant—something grand and noble, worthy of epic boasts—but they were wrong too. The old lady didn’t so much as take a nip at any of us. In fact, as soon as she saw us descending, those weak yellow flashes stopped begging. No more cries for help. She just let her bladders lift her away from her world, and sometimes her mouth spat out jets to keep her cruising straight and slow. The harpoons punched deep, and she did nothing. Those old dark scales were fragile, like rotted wood. Coronas are full of organs. Many of the organs and glands are mysteries, but we know the vital few. The harpoons reached the weakest tissues, and a dozen fletches pumped electricity down into the central brain, and we had our monster. The kill took three recitations, but I think one slayer and one crew could have done the same in a single recitation. We got in each other’s way, and I never even got off a shot, and I can’t remember an easier or stranger kill. We were putting an end to something older than we could ever measure, and I’m wondering to myself if that’s what she was chasing all along—her merciful quick death.”
Father stopped talking, lifting one hand, flat beneath his eyes to cut the reflected glare. Out in the distance was a long silver aircraft. Diamond watched the ship because his father watched it, and in his mind, he watched a giant corona surrounded by dozens of little fletches.
Father continued. “I didn’t make any shot, but I helped secure the carcass. In the end, that was epic in this story. We sank barbed hooks into her round body, hitting the ribs but avoiding her bladders, and then balloons were deployed to supply lift. That dead lady behind us took seven balloons to carry. But the giant, the wonder, was more than twice as wide and ten times heavier. Seventy balloons were barely enough. We were so far from the reef that we couldn’t even see our destination, and we spent the rest of that day and all night and the full long day that followed taking her where she had to be.
“Harvesting any corona requires tools and skills, but most importantly, you need a solid surface capable of holding great weight. There is no suitable abattoir in the forest, and besides, we have treaties with the papio. Sharing is mandated, by treaty and by custom. So we towed the old girl in the best direction. Unfortunately some young slayer failed to secure several balloons, and when they popped free in the night, our prize started drifting toward the floor. Then several more balloons ripped free of the old meat, and it was big rush just to deploy and secure enough lift to pull her back up to the minimal altitude. Even then we barely dragged her over the edge of the reef. The valley where she was to be butchered isn’t far from here. A determined papio could walk there before night. And it was almost night when we finally had the giant body secured, waiting to be honored, waiting to be chopped into pieces.”
Father pointed sideways but kept looking forwards. “We were in this flat little bowl, in the gloom. I led the honor ceremony, and despite a lot of complaining, I didn’t hurry. Something greater than me was dead, and when that happens, you have to beg for forgiveness, if only so your little soul can sleep when it has the chance. But there wouldn’t be sleep soon. The best dozen crews were ready to set to work, including these boys with me today. And despite darkness and despite the remote location, we had an audience. The papio arrived in force—all of the locals and delegates from different cities, all gathered to watch the spectacle, waiting for the five piles to be finished and their chance to choose.
“There were human dignitaries too. Our local Archon came to wish us well. A fair and practical leader, I’ve always thought. But that day, she proved to me she had a heart. Her name is Prima, and she took the time to speak to my crew and to me. She was the only Archon to ask about the creature’s age. I made inadequate guesses, and not only did the lady say she was sad for the corona, but she looked sad. And that was before any of us realized how little value there was inside that enormous corpse.
“Those scales were dark as soot, but soot is sturdier. I had never seen so many necks and heads on one body, but half of the heads were damaged and several more missing. The skeleton was even weaker than the scales. Bones were fractured and healed, others fractured and unhealed. Important glands were half-dead. There were cysts and odd cancers and scars lain over scars. Even the muscle and blood were poor quality. A barrel of meat usually yields ten different metals, including enough iron to build one strong tool. But that woman was anemic—anemic to the point where a strong torch could shine through a thick steak—and with all of that illness inside one beast, it makes the mind wonder what kind of misery she was suffering at the end.
“Seven harpoons were found inside that meat. Three wore legible marks, but no one found any record of the slayers who had shot them. The other four harpoons had different designs than anything used today or even in the oldest history books. Some said that the corona was as old at the world, which is another reason to be impressed and feel sick to your stomach. At the beginning of time, that creature thrived, touched by the Creators and now killed by a troop of fancy monkeys.
“Without question, the District of Districts sent a full delegation, led by the Archon of Archons. I had never seen the man before. Never seeing him again would make me happy. I was standing in the gore, up to my knees in greasy gray livers, and that’s when the Archon and his various assistants walked up to congratulate me. His name’s List, and he didn’t wait for me to talk. With that scratchy voice, he told me that the corona was impressive and he was glad that he had seen it, but in the end it wasn’t much of a prize, and where would the investment be recovered? He struck me then as the kind of man who always sounds half-smart, particularly when the topic is unimportant. When he spoke, what mattered was to make me appreciate that huge quantities of manpower and fuel and capital and hope had been invested in this adventure, and nothing of real substance would come of it, and then he turned to one of his aides, and with a voice meant to remind me who was in charge of the world, he said, ‘We can’t afford bonuses. Tell the other Archons that nothing will be paid from the common pool.’
“And with that bomb thrown, he left us, retreating to his personal airship and comfortable bed.
“My crew spent the next dozen recitations cursing. And then our Archon returned. Prima told us not to worry. She didn’t exactly insult List. She’s too charming and too shrewd for that. But she promised to pay what she could from the smaller local fund, and she reminded us how proud she was of us, yes, and of every other slayer crew from the Corona District.
“By then the papio numbered in the hundreds. This is the end of the world to them, a place beyond every better place, but delegates and citizens, soldiers and even children had gathered. They were curious and remarkably talkative. Plus there were other human dignitaries, and slayers crews waiting to spell us when we got tired, and there were rich individuals who had hired fletches to come here for no reason other than to see something that would never be seen again.
“A different crew finally sliced open the corona’s stomach.
“It was the darkest part of the night, and my boys were exhausted. I went looking for relief, for fresh willing backs and hands, and I happened to see the stomach’s juices spilling across the coral. Those juices are highly, highly acidic. The coral was fizzing and popping as the mess spread and sank underground. Nobody was paying attention to the interior, at least not then. Even after being dead for so long, there was a lot of residual heat. I don’t know why I swung my torch at the hole. But I had a good angle to see far inside, and I had to be the first person to spot something moving. The object was large, larger than me by a long ways. I held up my torch and caught a round
shape wiggling at its edges. Then I climbed inside that hot gutted stomach, avoiding the dangerous last puddles, and I put a gloved hand on the big odd moving object, and what looked like a hand started to emerge, apparently trying to touch me.
“I ran back outside, startled.
“Another crew noticed, and they took the trouble to yell some abuse my way. What kind of slayer got scared like a little boy? I laughed off the jokes, and when they returned to their work, I began to study the stomach and intestines. Corona guts are usually a nice round ring, simple and tidy. But not inside her. There were turns I’d never seen before. There was a giant pocket full of acid and bad stinks and I don’t know how many kinds of filth. The mystery object was tucked inside that pocket, and beside it were three odd shapes, each quite a bit smaller than the one that I saw first. I don’t know why, but I picked up the tiniest specimen. It was round and warm and very hard on the outside, like callused skin, and it smelled wicked as can be. Nobody was watching me. I stripped off my shirt and wrapped the object inside it before walking outside and over the next ridge, then down into a gully where nobody was watching, where coral sands made a soft flat space.
“That’s where I put down what I had taken. What wasn’t mine. Not even slayers are allowed to claim any part of the corona without permission, but I was angry about the bonuses, and I was very, very curious. That simple chunk of meat was something that the corona had eaten but never digested, which was bizarre, and I had never seen such a thing, and I had never heard of such of thing, and I wanted one good long look before I surrendered the prize.”
Father hesitated, and he sighed. The approaching ship was too big to be a blimp. It had a framework made of corona bones, and it was big enough to seem big though it was still a long ways off. Steady strong engine sounds gave the air a slight and very pleasant hum.
“What happened?” Seldom asked.
“Yeah, what?” Elata asked.
Father used a voice that would never stop being amazed. “I knelt down in the dark and watched that little blob,” he said, staring at Diamond. “I saw its shape change. The transformation took time. There didn’t seem to be any sense to what I was watching. But there were differences in its appearance, and new shapes emerged, and I touched the object on one end and felt what could have been bone where twenty recitations earlier there was nothing. Then the little arms pulled free, and legs that were bent back and newly born straightened out suddenly and this sweet, half-formed face looked up at me. And then you coughed—a hard big cough that threw stinking liquids over my face—and as soon as your lungs cleared, you said words to me. Words I’ve never heard before, or since.”
Diamond kept watching his toes. Pieces of this story seemed familiar, or his imagination was painting pictures.
“Night ended,” his father said. “The corona forest that grew in a day turned to steam and burst through the demon floor. Warm water rose over the reef and me, and over you, and I sheltered you with my body. When the worst of the rain passed, you looked like a two-hundred-day old baby—oddly shaped but healthy enough to smile at me—and I hid you under my coat again and walked past the remains of the corona. The stomach was still exposed, but those other three mysteries were gone. I never found out who took them. I emptied my toolbox and set you inside, wrapped in a towel, and you were quiet enough to scare me on the journey home. But nobody noticed how I carried that old box, carefully and with both hands. I carried it all the way to our house, and I stepped through the curtain you saw today for the first time, and your mother looked at me and knew something was happening. The first words that I said were, ‘You aren’t going outside for a few days.’
“ ‘Why not?’ she asked.
“ ‘You’re pregnant. Not far along, and you’re going to give birth early.’
“She stared at the toolbox, and I opened it. And there you lay, smiling and patient and peculiar beyond belief. This was nine hundred and eighty-three days ago. And when your mother looked at me again, I knew. I just knew. You were ours, and we belonged to you, and we would never surrender one another. Certainly not without waging a war, I would think.”
THIRTEEN
Diamond memorized each word and the shifting sounds of his father’s steady urgent voice, and he saw the keen amazement of the other faces hearing the same story. There was deep importance in what had just been told but he understood very little. This day was already full of complications and the unexpected, and no matter how bright he might be, this was too much. Yes, his father discovered him inside a corona’s stomach. That seemed incredible to others but felt utterly reasonable to him. Seldom might have nodded smartly and said such things happen every day, and Diamond would have believed him. “I could never, ever have dreamed this,” said Master Nissim. Yet the miracle boy had no doubts, no complaints. This was just another ingredient to a world too big to comprehend. It didn’t even occur to Diamond that Father wasn’t his true father. No story could diminish the man’s importance in his life. “You were ours, and we belonged to you, and we would never surrender one another.” Mother was just as real, just as vital, and he was thinking only about her when the long silver airship let loose a shrill wail, announcing its momentous arrival.
“Come on,” Father said, leading them back up the valley.
Nobody else spoke. Faces thoughtful and looking at the ground, no one ready to look Diamond in the eyes. He stared at the spent, badly eroded coral. He couldn’t remember walking here before. And he had no memory of riding inside the closed toolbox, much less being trapped in the belly of a monster. But he saw his mother’s face hovering, and Father kneeling beside her, and it was possible to believe that he could feel the cold metal against his bare feet and baby hands. Maybe it wasn’t a genuine memory but it felt authentic, and he clung the image, convincing himself that it was his birth, or at least his beginning.
The airship passed directly overhead, the air drumming and the ground shaking as the vast engines throttled down.
The men from Father’s crew were running away from the dead corona, running straight at them.
The horn sounded once again, followed by an explosion and bright flash. A steel anchor was catapulted at the ground, slicing into the coral and biting hard, and then a thick steel rope fell after it, building a gray pile taller than any man.
The running men dropped their heads and ran faster. Father waved and shouted a warning as two more anchors were launched, one from the bow and one from close to the stern.
The ground to their right exploded—dust and gravel lifting high and falling down on them.
Then the propellers reversed, screaming with a different voice as they killed the last of the momentum.
Father cursed and looked up.
His men came close, and he told them, “They just want us scared.”
“We are scared,” one man said.
The others laughed.
Father kept looking up.
“We’re done with the chores,” said the first man. He was oldest and seemed in charge of everyone but Father. “What’s next?”
A few breaths of hydrogen were vented and the metal ropes were winched tight, killing the slack and testing the anchors before the ship was yanked low enough to deploy the gangway.
“Where do you want the glands?” the man asked.
Father looked at them, considering.
The men smiled at him and at Diamond, every one of them did, and the youngest face said, “Show us that foot again.”
Diamond lifted his leg, drawing circles with his toes.
“What a thing,” the young man said.
Father raised his hand.
The faces returned to him.
“I’m ordering you to do nothing,” he said. “You can’t imagine how much trouble this is going to cause, and you’ve done too much already. So leave the glands under Little Rilly and walk anywhere else. That’s my order.”
“Yeah, but what do you want done?” asked the first man.
“Seven hundred
days ago,” Father said. “That trick we used to save the Bascher crew.”
Nobody acted surprised.
“You want Little Rilly rigged up,” the first man.
“I’m telling you not to,” Father said. “I’ll do that work myself.”
“No offense, sir,” said the young man. “But we’ll do it better than you can and do it a damned lot faster.”
Everybody nodded, satisfied with that response.
Father opened the telescope, ignoring the blimp to look at the tents. “The papio are back,” he said. “And this time, in strength.”
Squinting, Diamond counted a dozen big bodies standing in a ragged line, watching the ship and watching them. They were sitting back on their haunches, several pressing telescopes against their long strange faces.
“You’re off-duty,” Father told his men. “The day is yours. Do whatever you want, or do nothing.”
The men gave one another some friendly shoves, hurrying back toward the dead corona.
One last time, the ship blew its warning horn. And before the bright echoes faded, Father knelt beside his son and said, “Listen to me. This is what will happen, and this is what we are going to do.”
“That’s the Ruler of the Wind,” Seldom told Diamond. “It’s the biggest machine in Creation.”
The airship was too vast to absorb with one look. The Ruler was a separate landscape, like a silver hill that just happened to be above their heads. Countless objects were lashed to its body—smaller airships and cavernous vents and the engines falling quiet and the propellers smoothly slowing until they stopped turning altogether. Turrets clung to the belly and sides, each bristling with big guns pointing out at nothing. Tall windows revealed rooms spacious enough for hundreds of people, but nobody was visible, giving the machine an incurious temperament to everything else. The reef and the papio were nothing, and this little group of people were nobody, and the hill would continue to float where it was for reasons that were no one else’s business.
