by Robert Reed
A bright hiss of air ended that mood. The main gangway was deployed—a long reach of pounded metal and cable that unfolded from the ship’s bow, the lower end settling on the ground before them.
Nobody appeared. They stared up into a giant cavity, and for a long while it was possible to believe that the ship was empty, a derelict brought here by unfortunate winds.
Master Nissim turned to Father, saying, “It has to be a skeleton crew.”
“Flying light and fast,” Father agreed.
Then a man emerged. He seemed small at a distance and got tinier as he came close. It was his posture that shrank him. He was nervous, fearful, one hand riding the railing and the shoulders sagging while the face tilting backward, as if trying to keep his eyes from staring at the three children and two older men.
“Just as I guessed,” Father said.
The doctor stopped before reaching the ground.
“Where is she?” Father called out.
“Just behind me,” the doctor said. Then he needed a deep breath, giving him the strength to make a thin unconvincing smile. “I didn’t tell anybody about the boy,” he said. “I kept my promises to you.”
“Yet here you are,” Master Nissim said.
The doctor glanced at him and then back at Father. “The Archon came to my office yesterday. He knew everything. I don’t know how. He explained this would be a wonderful opportunity. You were going to be gone for the night, and he told me to contact your wife and threaten to tell people about the boy. He ordered me to arrange a meeting away from the house, which is what I did, and that’s all I did.”
“Show me Haddi,” Father said.
“I told you. She’s with us.”
“And what will the Archon pay you?”
“I didn’t ask about money,” the doctor said.
“Because you’re a noble, honest man.”
The doctor said nothing.
“Helping kidnap a man’s child,” Father said, dropping his hand on Diamond’s shoulder.
The little man said nothing.
“This is all wrong,” Master Nissim said. “The Archon doesn’t make law. No matter how powerful he thinks he is, he doesn’t have that right.”
The doctor sighed wearily. “You won’t believe me, I know. You can’t. But the man doesn’t want anybody hurt. Bringing your wife is proof of that. And besides, the boy isn’t yours, Merit. Not by blood or by any law. So I don’t think you gentlemen should talk too hard about legalities and a parent’s noble rights.”
“Fine,” Father said. “We’ll march to court and make our claims.”
The doctor clung to the railing.
“Or you can come here,” Father added. “Let me dance your face into the ground a few times.”
The doctor winced and looked over his shoulder. “I told you,” he shouted. “I knew he’d be difficult.”
And the Archon stepped into view.
It was the same man Diamond saw at the crossroads. He was no bigger than the doctor, but nothing about him was small. Erect and confident, he stood at the high end of the gangway, his smile secure. A sharp, unhurried laugh was offered. One hand made an important gesture, and another. Then he offered a few words to somebody out of view, and Mother appeared, her left arm held tightly by one of the men who had followed them this morning.
She called to Diamond. With a scared tight voice, she said, “You don’t want to get on this ship. Run now, go.”
The man pulled at her arm, and she winced.
Diamond was sick and he was angry. Reaching behind his back, he once again touched the butcher knife.
Two more men appeared. One was limping, his left leg covered with a long white bandage, his face twisted in pain. The other man started down the gangway, and with a loud high voice, the Archon told him, “This doesn’t need to be ugly.”
“It won’t be,” the walking man promised.
The limping man followed, glaring at Nissim with each miserable step.
With help coming, the doctor turned courageous. Shaking his head and wagging a finger, he asked, “What did you think, Merit? That you could keep this creature secret all of his life?”
A soft, sorry noise leaked out of Seldom.
Master Nissim brought out his long knife, holding it with the practiced hand.
Then Elata grabbed Diamond by the shoulder and shook him hard, as if trying to yank him to pieces.
“Don’t let them have you,” she cried out.
Then Father looked squarely at his eyes. “Run now,” he said. “Run, run, run, run!”
High quiet places were the best places to sit, watching the days pass while listening to the voices inside.
The sun never found the back of this wide, weather-battered crevasse.
Hiding was easy here.
Even better, the dark air was reliably, deliciously cool, which meant that the body was comfortable. That great bundle of life sat on a thick mat of dash-and-ash fibers that had been stretched across the powdery old coral, and there was fresh water and there was ample food in easy reach, and every piece of that gigantic shape was happy enough. Good familiar smells waited to be inhaled. The rugged beautiful reef fell away before it, while behind and above were woeful-vines and deadeyes and other odd growths that carpeted the darkest portions of the reef, rising up to the edge of existence. But best of all, nobody was keeping the body company just now. Others were supposed to be here. The body had several dozen attendants—children dedicated to seeing to its occasional needs. It was honorable work, helping this gift from the Creators. But honor was something that could be found every day. Honor was a routine, rather boring business. But today the tree-walkers were visiting the butchering ground, and a large dead corona had been dropped into the valley directly below, and one of today’s visitors happened to be a famous old slayer who had killed the corona with his harpoon and a lightning bolt: each one of those reasons was a good enough excuse for children to leave the body where it was, secure and safely out of sight.
All that happened long before the injured fletch ship arrived; and an interesting day suddenly grew into something quite a bit better.
There was no debate inside the body, no battles of doubts and desires. Huge eyes focused on the visiting machine, seeing its name and the homely monkey woman riding the ship’s bow, and inside the same moment, every voice said, “Happenstance.”
In all, there were eight voices, and in the next moment, most of the voices began to tell old stories about that particular ship.
Tree-walkers were smaller than papio which was why they preferred to ride inside enormous bags of gas. At least that was an explanation often heard in this realm. They were tiny and scared monkeys, but the blimps and fletches and big airships inflated with explosive gas made them feel a little larger and just a little less fearful.
Eight voices inhabited the body hiding inside the old crevasse. They shared the same long mouth, the same bowl-like ears, while twin black and gold eyes stared at the magnificent world.
Over more than nine hundred days of life, each voice had watched the gas ships come from the distant forest and then return again. With identical memories, unerring and apparently effortless, they learned the names of important ships and the special monkeys, just as they absorbed each of the faces and names and life histories and peculiar talents of those deemed worthy of looking into their great face. On several occasions, they saw the monkey ships destroyed. Ships had accidentally caught fire and fallen apart, corona skins and motors and dying bodies plummeting through the floor of the sky. And coronas had destroyed other ships that came too far out from the forest.
The Happenstance triggered all of those stories, and no two voices agreed on anything but the details. These eyes were equal windows, yet some of the voices were thrilled, even amused by these disasters. Others were nothing but sad. Each voice was balanced on a soul, and souls were notoriously independent. Reactions varied according to their natures, but there were deeper variations too. Each told its sto
ries in its own manner. They shared senses and experiences, and they shared a massive home of odd bones and mismatched meat; but some different part of what had happened before had to be accented. Different details were pulled out of a perfect memory. Every voice clung to its version of the same tragic incidents, marking the death of creatures that had done nothing wrong to them, and for that matter, nothing right either.
The damaged fletch arrived, and the Eight talked and talked and talked.
Except one of the voices didn’t tell any stories.
Something here seemed odd or important. But she wasn’t sure what she was thinking, which was a good reason to say nothing. She watched the tree-walkers come out of the fletch. Some to them might never have stood on real ground before. They talked to one another and talked to the man who waved flags, and then the newcomers walked from one low spot to the next, coming a little closer, and she stared at their walks, noticing more by the moment.
Every voice had its name.
The silent voice preferred to be called Divers.
Nobody else noticed what Divers noticed. Monkey children were unusual and interesting, and she studied them closely in the corners of the eyes, noticing the deep oddities holding tight to one of those tiny bodies.
And still she said nothing.
Another voice finally mentioned the children, in passing, and then another wondered what they were doing on the reef.
Still, no one else seemed to notice what was most strange.
In many ways, this shared body looked like a papio, except built on a gigantic scale. But it had always been clumsy to the brink of crippled, which was why caretakers were essential. Each voice had a small or large role in tightening muscles and relaxing muscles while keeping the entire structure in rough balance. Too many times to count, there had been mistakes. The Eight had fallen down jagged slopes, crushing fingers and gouging eyes. Entire limbs had been lost for no reason but simple clumsiness. Yet none of the wounds lasted for long, which caused some to suggest that the Creators were wise in their hearts, and despite evidence to the contrary, they were kind, fashioning a creature that couldn’t hurt itself for very long.
Perhaps, and perhaps.
But Divers’ voice had the largest role in shaping the body’s growth and then making it move. And as the others spoke endlessly about memories and odd conjectures, telling the same but different stories about events long passed, she took hold of every muscle that she could, and with one titanic urge, caused their body to rise up from the comfortable mat, one leg and then its mate driving it forward onto the crumbled, desiccated coral.
Seven voices shouted their fierce disapproval.
Divers said, “Quiet,” and then she said, “You blind fools.”
That earned more comments, insults and several reflexive attempts to stop their forward motion.
Coral grit slid down the slope, kicking clouds of dust into the weak glare of the day.
The odd boy heard something, or maybe he felt the Eight’s presence. Or it could have been chance that turned his head, making him look up at their hiding place.
In unison, the great body froze where it was, muscles rigid, clamping down on the breath trapped inside its various lungs.
The boy paused, and they felt seen.
But then he walked on.
With every step, his oddness became more obvious.
Giant eyes grew dry, and tears flowed. But each voice fought the urge to blink, for fear of missing anything.
They watched the boy leave the others, running beside the corona, which was so very dangerous.
“Whatever he is,” said one voice, “he has to be as stupid as a bellringer bird.”
Then the dead neck leaped, and the foot was chopped off.
Every voice gave its opinion—scorn or pity, and sometimes both.
Then the foot was recovered, and the boy returned it to his leg, and the famous slayer stood before this magical creature. Sensitive as the big ears were, no words were heard. But there was a sense about what was happening before them, and what the slayer and boy were to each other.
Every voice had opinions.
Not one of them spoke, watching spellbound.
The boy stood on his dead foot, which wasn’t dead. Then some of the monkeys walked with him down into the valley, and they became even tinier as they stood next to the empty air.
“He is like us,” the voices whispered.
Which begged the old question: what exactly were “us”?
Then the Ruler of the Wind appeared, bringing the Archon of Archons to the lands of the papio. But the giant airship wasn’t important, and List was just another monkey from the trees, and the arrival was like the false calm that comes to a story when it loses its way.
“Run, run, run, run,” Father said.
Diamond did just that.
Voices chased after him, shrill and close and then not so close. Suddenly there was nothing to hear but his quick breathing and the bite of sandals into the rough coral dirt. He didn’t look back. He felt as if all he had to do now was run forever. Forever might be possible. A boy who could reattach his severed foot should be able to run day and night, eating what he could grab and sleeping in those little bites of time while both of his feet were in the air, free of duties. Running forever wasn’t what Father had wanted. It was Diamond’s plan, nobody else’s, and he promised himself that he wouldn’t stop until he was halfway around the world, and only then he would pause long enough to glance over his shoulder—days and days between him and his pursuers.
The tent village was stretched out before him, and those very strange people were standing on the flat, foot-packed ground. Papio faces sported long, strong jaws and teeth bigger than human teeth, or his. They had pink hair on their scalps and some men had long red beards, and there were colorful, intricate tattoos wherever the brown skin showed. Eyes were bright and gold, staring out at Diamond from deep holes. Neat, durable clothes ended with bare broad toes on the long feet and bony hands curled up, knuckles touching the ground when the papio were doing nothing but standing. Knives and pistols rode on several of the belts. They didn’t stand any taller than humans, but they were massive with muscle and bone. Golden eyes stared at the running boy. The faces seemed very different from human faces, but the same emotions made their expressions flow in important ways. Then one of the papio, the delegate woman from the beginning, pointed her eyes and arm at something behind the running boy, and then she hollered a few sharp, senseless words.
One of Father’s men emerged from a tent, each hand holding a long toolbox. Seeing Diamond, he began to laugh. He couldn’t act happier. Then he looked past the boy, and the laughter drained away into a low mutter while he lifted the boxes in front of him, as if to use them as a shield.
Diamond slowed to look back.
Papio bodies were a little strange, but what was chasing him was far more peculiar. The body was covered with yellowish plates of armor, bright spikes on the elbows and knees and around the crest of the head, and the creature’s legs were at least as tall as Diamond’s legs, and if the gait wasn’t the same as Diamond’s running stride, it was because that armored suit covered the entire creature, including a nightmarish mask that couldn’t be the face.
Diamond slowed to a trot, measuring the threat.
The creature was taller than him, and it was broader, and maybe it wasn’t as fast but the body relentless pushed forward. “Someone like me is inside,” Diamond thought, giving himself time to invite happiness. What a great day this would be, finding another person with his shape and perhaps even the same face. But it occurred to him that the armor wasn’t worn. Those spikes and plates looked as if they grew from the body, and the eyes staring out from the mask were strangely shaped and too green to be real, and where one mouth should be enough there were two big openings, one on top of the other. The top mouth began to shout at him. A voice neither human nor papio asked, “Have you ever seen anything so beautiful as me, you cowardly monkey?”
A broad, heavily used trail attacked the slope leading out of the valley. Two white-haired papio were coming down the trail together. One was an old man who was careful in his manner, while the other papio was an even older woman and—a once-powerful creature reduced to a frail wisp, holding her companion’s offered hand while grinning at the odd fellow who was desperately climbing towards them.
Diamond jumped sideways, and his sandal clipped the gnarled dead stump of a tree, dropping him, and then the ground tore through his trousers, coral stripping the flesh from one knee.
The old woman stood over him for a moment. The wrinkled face was tattooed with faded vines and half of her teeth were missing, and she whistled when she offered a single human word. “Careful.”
The boy sat up, and then a callused knuckle touched him on the forehead, tapping him twice.
Catching Diamond’s gaze, the male papio told him, “Blessings of the Creators upon you.”
He leaped up and ran on.
The trail was slick and the steep pitch of the hill became steeper as he reached the summit. Nothing was as easy as before. Fatigue grabbed the backs of his legs, warming the muscles. The harder he ran, the heavier and duller he felt. One moment he was thinking about nothing, and then a tangle of ideas came to him in hard, confused bursts. He was running forever, except he couldn’t. There was a plan at work. But what was the plan? Then his father’s voice found him, repeating everything in one breathless rush, and the boy listened to that memory. He was going to be caught. For everyone’s sake, he couldn’t get away. But that didn’t seem fair or right, certainly not this soon, and that was why Diamond gathered himself, pushing to the top.
Behind him, the old papio man cried out.
Diamond finished the climb. Generations of feet had built the trail, cutting into the hill’s crest, and he stopped where it flattened and turned. The armored creature had just pushed the two papio aside. The old woman began to scramble across the loose rock and the man lost his grip, and with a clatter of dry gravel and soft dust, she tumbled forward, rolling limp and quick to the bottom of the hill.
