by Robert Reed
That was how he spun around, eyes pointing at what the monkey could see.
Marduk was plunging, straight and fast.
Home was on the far side of the tree. But even knowing this, Diamond couldn’t stop hunting for what the mind knew best. A relentless, machine-like agent inside him paid strict attention to the walkways and each distinctive landing and the curtains of hundreds of strange homes. No detail seemed familiar enough. For a breath or two, he was convinced that this wasn’t Marduk at all and the blimp had been flung somewhere else. But that was a crazy, desperate idea, and he was ashamed to think it. The canopy was clear of the forest. The colossal brown trunk was roaring downwards. Diamond’s father was working at the Ivory Station, which was on Hanner and Hanner hadn’t fallen, had it? What was important was to remember that Father was safe. And Mother had gone shopping, which left so many ways to be spared. But the piece of Diamond that insisted on finding hope was also relentlessly searching for the big new landing of his home, and the painted corona on the door curtain, and in particular the wide window that would let him peer into his room, at the soldiers and Mister Mister and the rest of a left-behind life.
But the window was lost. Those familiar rooms were already below him, gone. In that tangle of endless detail, he saw people jumping. Some wore drop-suits, many did not. Figures ran and flung themselves off the walkways and the ends of landings, fighting for distance as the stubborn, hard-swirling air grabbed them. But often some larger structure would rush down from above. The proud landings of the richest neighbors swatted at everyone below. The tree refused to set them free. Marduk continued to accelerate, and other strangers did nothing but stand where they happened to have their feet, a thousand people holding tight to railings and each other as they watched a small black blimp pull away.
The bravest and the most fearful had leapt with the tree’s first shudder.
Those wearing drop-suits had glided a long ways, and several of them arrived like a sudden flock. Each body was tied to screams. One fierce yell descended on Diamond, followed closely by a barefoot man who struck just above the boy and above the monkey, grabbing at the webbing and missing, sliding down to where he could cling to the boy’s free arm and waist.
Good cursed, ready to bite any hand that came close.
Diamond didn’t know the man’s face. Gripping with his left hand, he watched the stranger fight to find better handholds, any toehold. Only when the man felt as if he had stopped falling did he look at the boy beside him, and he blinked, finding something wrong about that face . . . and if there was any doubt who this was, it was dispelled when he noticed a monkey that was nearly as famous as the corona’s boy.
With a quiet exhausted tone, the man cursed, and he took a deep breath, and without trying to act too abruptly or too carelessly, he grabbed Diamond’s left arm, attempting to yank it free.
Diamond seized the webbing with his right hand too, and he kicked with his school boots, striking nothing.
Tar`ro was directly below them. Master Nissim was holding the little girl close, and Karlan was at the bottom, watching the tree fall. Only the bodyguard saw what was happening, and when he started to climb, the man kicked Tar`ro, kicked his face as hard as he could with his bare heel, and Diamond’s right hand tightened its grip.
The man had a rough strong voice.
Furious, he said, “You.” He looked at Diamond and said, “You,” once again. Then he found a better grip and grabbed the boy, jerking with most of his weight, dislocating the small shoulder.
With one swift bite, Good claimed the man’s right ear.
Tar`ro grabbed a bare foot and pulled hard, accomplishing little.
Then Diamond let his right hand relax, fingers slipping out of the webbing, and with the nails of two fingers, he pushed into the soft wet centers of the stranger’s eyes.
The man cursed the Creators and every monster as the pressure built, turning his head to shake off the miserable pain. Then Good reached into the man’s mouth and yanked the broad pink tongue, bringing it out where it was bitten off and spat out.
Blind and mute, the stranger let go of Diamond and the walkway, and then Tar`ro managed to punch him once as he spun past, vanishing inside the dazzling wash of sunlight.
Marduk was just above the demon floor. Below that floor was heat beyond all measure and the coronas swimming in air so dense that it acted like water. The lowest, most sun-bleached branches of the tree struck the floor, punching past and igniting, and within moments the entire canopy was swallowed and burning. Then the tree’s descent began to slow, which was normal. Diamond had never seen a tree fall under him, but he had read accounts left by shaking hands. The tree slowed, and tiny factors caused it to tilt slightly, and then it tilted quite a lot, the highest portions of the trunk beginning to swing towards the blimp.
Diamond made himself look up.
The highest portions of the trunk had no homes and few signs of human activity—a broad brownish-black pillar polished smooth by time and darkness. Following behind were the broad branch-like roots covered with bladders and bowls meant to catch the dawn rain. Two roots were close. The blimp’s pilot saw them dropping, and he abruptly shifted course. Diamond was yanked sideways as one engine slowed while guide wires twisted the tail fins, but the descending roots refused to follow any line as they fell, seemingly eager for the chance to smash this tiny black bug.
They were going to be hit and killed.
Diamond knew it and believed nothing else, even as the nearest root missed them by a long ways. Rainwater was spilling from the tipped bowls. Gouges had been cut in the bladders. A tiny cool rain fell over them as the blimp shuddered in the shifting air, feeling the wood race past but surviving unharmed.
Most of the high roots were missing, left behind in the topmost reaches of the Creation. But what remained was burning. Irresistible forces had wrenched apart living wood, setting fire whatever refused to break. The final roots were long and jagged, as if a great hand had yanked so hard that most of their bulk had been forsaken, and the remnants dragged black smoke after them.
The blimp jerked and twisted, finding a new trajectory, and then another, and finally, one straight quick line.
“Maybe,” Tar`ro shouted.
Diamond’s shoulder was healing. Marduk was half-swallowed by the world beneath their world, its canopy lost and a ring of flame encircling the trunk. The trunk looked like a brown finger shoved into filthy water. The coronas’ realm was dark with smoke and wild sparks of light. Diamond cried out, and then Tar`ro said something else. Tar`ro was looking up at him. A wild smile came to his face, and the man shouted, “They don’t practice this. Pilots don’t.”
The guard let out a great sorry laugh.
Roots would catch them, or a burning ember would set the blimp on fire. Or maybe the swirling air would be enough to pull the overloaded machine into oblivion, everyone but Diamond dead.
The room below the human room was Diamond’s first home.
With that odd thought, he shut his eyes, and Good gave a wild howl as scorching heat swept across their faces, and then the air twisted and the walkway gave a wild kick, like the end of a whip, and he opened his eyes to find everybody still clinging tight. Even Karlan at the bottom of the whip had kept hold. The blazing root was below, and the smoky choking air stilled, growing hot as an oven, the heat of the fire and the heat from the ripped-open floor welling up, and the blimp continued pressing backwards, climbing higher while the police officers riding in the nose found enough hope, at last, to begin helping the refugees climb on board, one crying person after another.
The black corona meat was infused with every metal, including so much iron that the blisteringly hot muscles shone black and smelled like engine parts. Corona scales and bones weighed little yet outlasted the best steel, while no knife was as sharp as a young milk-colored tooth. And each of the creature’s exceptional organs filled some essential role, whether in industry or the military, which was why so much wealth was
wrapped inside their greasy black guts.
Each District had its slayers and their famous ships, but every history of the subject agreed: the richest hunting and finest crews always worked beneath the present-day Ivory Station.
Commerce meant merchants and markets, laws and professional codes. Civilization would be impossible without that one dull person sitting before a stack of ledgers. Yet the corona traders were often regarded as selfish mercenaries and thieves, and because they also dealt with the papio, some voices regarded the traders as being conspirators against their own kind. Yet Prima’s parents had always avoided the traditional controversies. Famous for integrity and a tenacious need to make their customers happy, her mother and father were never in the top tier of their profession, but buyers knew that her family didn’t lie about wares, and they paid their bills in a timely fashion, and the only people who needed to fear them were the selfish and the foolish who had tried to cheat them or their sterling names.
Prima was raised to appreciate honesty and expect decency, and among her siblings, she was the one who took those lessons deepest into her heart.
Born in comfort, every venture was open to the young girl. Politics was never her first choice as a career, and she could imagine it being her last. But cancer had killed the previous Archon, and she agreed to fill out the final hundred days of his uneventful term. Friends as well as enemies warned Prima that she wouldn’t like the job. The Archon’s desk meant corruption of the spirit, dilution of the soul. List was everyone’s favorite example. Once a fine little fellow, bright and deeply competent, he probably would have stayed decent and basically harmless, if only for a loss or two at the polls. But he won every contest, and now he was a power, a guiding force of nature. His District held half of the world’s humans and two-thirds of its wealth—a circumstance reaching back for as long as any history could see. And if that wasn’t awful enough, the one-time bureaucrat had acquired the King creature, monstrous and allegedly brilliant—a weapon of unmeasured power walking about free and half-tamed.
But Prima had a tougher nature than anyone expected, including Prima. She didn’t corrupt, and she didn’t dilute easily. After one hundred days at the desk, her citizens demanded another thousand days, and by the end of the term she had mastered the office and its limitations. No serious candidate faced her in the following election. Prosperity followed, and every scandal was small. Understanding traders and the corona markets, she was able to deftly avoid even the odor of impropriety. The world concluded that the woman couldn’t be compromised, fouled or seriously tested. And that’s why the Corona District worshipped their small lady, most of the citizens nourishing some deep personal reason for these remarkable feelings.
Energy and focus were her strengths.
She was charming, and her memory was tenacious, and she never stopped surprising her staff as well as the public when it came to threading solutions through tangled problems and little disasters.
In reflective moments—a rare commodity for any Archon—Prima recalled her father sitting inside his tiny, paper-choked office. A good friend was near death, and she was about to take the Archon’s desk. Her logic felt sound, but emotion carried her words, and she spoke about her plans and half-born policies until the heavy warm voice interrupted her speech.
“You know, my dear,” said Father. “I always imagined you as the next trader sitting in my chair. But since that future isn’t great enough for you . . . ”
“This is a temporary job,” she insisted.
“Lie to someone else,” he said.
Hearing that, Prima’s first thought was that she needed to improve her skills weaving the truth.
“Let’s discuss the future,” Father continued. “Starting now, I want you to aim for twenty thousand days from now. That’s my only advice, daughter. Picture the historian sitting at her dusty little desk, a cup of tea at the elbow, and now watch her write her seminal account of your life. ‘Earn a hundred good acts for every bad.’ That cliché is not a bad way to judge any life, particularly your own.”
She was thinking that just then, the heavy knowing voice shamelessly tugging at her pink human heart.
And that’s when an aide behind her said, “The fletch is still waiting, madam.”
She said nothing.
“Madam Archon?”
Her aide was named Bealeen. He was young and had a duty, and he also had a hope that was nicely aligned with his duty. He was trying to coax one stubborn woman to a safer place, which would have the benefit of saving him too.
For emphasis, Bealeen repeated, “Madam.”
“Enough,” Prima said, lifting a finger, tapping the man on his lips. “If they attack again, I’ll flee. But not until then.”
They were sharing a remarkable room where only maintenance crews and new Archons were typically allowed. Tens of thousands of days had passed since important noise had occupied this space. But the command post was now full of talk and busy bodies. Every chair was claimed, and more people crowded beside the various reinforced windows. The sitting people called to one another when they weren’t focused on crackling, wire-born voices. News was being gathered and shared. Those on their feet knew to whisper when they spoke, keeping the noise to manageable rumble. For people without jobs, the windows were the main attractions, and everybody had to defend their portion of the glass, staring out at what had swiftly become emptiness: a panorama of sun-pierced air that made eyes blink and tear, the occasional blimp or fletch gliding between the smoky bits of wreckage still tumbling from the highest reaches.
Bealeen moved closer. “But madam. For all we know, Hanner’s high trunk is burning.”
A stout woman filled the nearest chair. She was wearing a drab grayish-green militia uniform, half a dozen unplugged call-lines stuck between her fingers and two headsets pressed against her ears.
The Archon touched a broad shoulder. “Any word from the scouts?”
“Anytime,” the woman said.
That same answer was offered ten recitations ago. Since the elevators rising to the Hanner’s roots were waiting for repairs, one small fletch had been dispatched to investigate the blast zone. On the Archon’s explicit orders, every other available aircraft was saving people, or at least patrolling at the ready for survivors. Of course that scout might have been destroyed by falling debris, or the damage to Hanner proved hard to measure, and even if the mission went well, the crew would need a secure line that was still intact, leading back down the trunk to her.
Once again, the Archon asked, “Which trees?”
The sitting woman was tough as anyone, her adult life spent in the District’s small army and then the reserves. But the voice cracked when she said, “Rail.”
Rail was her home. Her sister and two nephews missing. Watching that tree fall into the sun, everybody assumed Hanner and the Ivory Station were next. This was the nerve center to the District; every enemy wanted it destroyed. But the explosions and subsequent fires had fanned out in the opposite direction.
“Marduk and Yali,” she said. “Hartton and Cast and Shandlehome.”
Then the bombs had finished, but the morning’s weak rains had left the forest ceiling as dry as possible. A dozen smaller, younger trees were still burning, still collapsing, following a widening, endlessly brutal arc.
Contemplating fire, the people at the windows looked up. But roots and the remnants of the severed trunks continued to smolder, and smoke always loved to gather in the highest reaches, hiding everything.
What kind of weapon could inflict so much horror?
And which enemy would be stupid enough to use it?
The suspects were few, and everybody understood who they were—so few that spare fingers would be left on the counting hand. But nothing was certain, including who should be cursed.
Prima gave the woman a comforting pat on a shoulder.
The nagging aide had given up on Prima. Moving down the window, he offered his sage advice to the very worst person.
“She needs to be safe,” said Bealeen. “If you insist, she’ll take the fletch that’s fueled and ready.”
“No,” said the anguished man. “I’m waiting with her.”
“But the Happenstance is waiting,” the young man said. “Think about it. The two of you could fly to safe places, hunting for your son from there.”
“Kill that notion,” Merit said.
But the aide believed that he had the rank as well as the urgency to tell the old man, “You aren’t in a position to dictate.”
Too late, the Archon considered interceding.
But Merit turned to stare at this busy runt. The poor man looked ancient, that scar on his face deeper than ever, blood making his cheeks glow. It was hard to imagine how someone so plainly miserable could muster the energy to remain on his feet. Yet the big eyes were full of scorn and conviction, and a matching voice said, “One little ship can’t do anything, hunting all of this space. The survivors are everywhere, and we’re here. If Diamond and Haddi are alive, they know to come here. Here. This is where the world can reach us and we can talk to the world, and this the best awful choice that I have.”
Instinct told Prima to do nothing.
Devoid of good sense, Bealeen said, “I am sorry, sir. But you surely know that your family is most likely dead.”
Merit understood quite a lot. The awful words had no effect. How could he suffer more than he was two moments ago, before this babe came by to pester him?
“My son is not dead,” he said.
That earned silence and a stiffened back.
“Diamond falls through, and I’ll go find him again,” said the slayer. “And if I don’t cut him from the belly of some corona, then someone else will do that job, in a thousand days or ten million.”
The crowded room had fallen quiet.
The aide found himself inside a box, and he didn’t like boxes. Feeling the pressure of eyes, he saw one last gambit. Very quietly, but with rage building, he said, “Well, but of course your son is the reason . . . ”
His voice fell away.
