The Memory of Sky

by Robert Reed

  Call-lines were expensive to build, particularly in the wilderness. Long wires had to carry voices and codes all the way back to the Districts. The primary generators were always underpowered. And worse, there weren’t any secondary generators on the wire waiting to boost the signals. Both men wore broad tool belts, and both carried alcohol in tall red cans. Fret pulled out his biggest wrench, and without the slightest concern, he straddled the hole in the floor.

  Foresters liked their long views. The forest below had been cut and hacked until it there was only half of a normal healthy canopy. Brilliant sunlight was everywhere. Standing at the brink, Merit spent a few moments watching for coronas; the lifetime habit couldn’t be set aside, even today. Then he took a breath and stepped back again, thinking of ways in which this one simple job could go wrong.

  Fret’s wrench was shiny and almost new—too expensive to be purchased by a youngster, perhaps given as a gift by parents ecstatic that their careless boy was entering a profitable trade. Corona meat had been cooked and refined to pull out the valuable iron, and the carbon came from the blackest old timbers, while methods older than human memory had built a simple, changeless device that could accomplish a multitude of tasks.

  That very expensive wrench became a hammer.

  Fret smacked the line below the floor, where it was suspended in plain view. With precision, he dented the insulation, and then he set the wrench on the floor beside one foot, nothing beneath him but bright air, and with a professor’s voice, he explained, “You can tell a lot by the spring in the rubber.”

  “Be careful,” said Merit.

  “Oh, I didn’t hit it hard,” the youngster said, misunderstanding the warning. “But the insulation looks good. No sense wasting fuel if there’s zero chance of our shouts getting through.”

  The generator’s tank had been drained. Merit opened its cap and began to pour in the contents of the first can.

  “I know these machines,” Fret said. “I know everything about circuits and currents, all of that. But you know what? Nobody’s ever explained to me what really happens inside the copper.”

  Merit was too tired to pour neatly. The fuel slipped free, building streaks on the tank’s dirty red body.

  Words flowed out of the youngster. “Sure, I studied negative charges, and the positives, and how they fly along the wire. And magnetism builds invisible clouds, fields or whatever you call them. But I had one teacher try to convince me that the world is full of lights that we can’t see, colors that our eyes can’t find, and invisible clouds that we’re never going to feel. He said that those colors are here all of the time. Even in the darkest night, those nothings are busy. That’s why we bury our wires inside these big sleeves. Because raw wire is full of noise, all of it senseless, and there’s no room left for even one of our voices.”

  Fret was full of noise.

  Drained, the first can felt weightless. There was no reason to use the second can. Their business would be finished soon, provided the generator worked and the line was intact, and provided they could contact Prima without delays or too many risks.

  “Have you heard about these invisible lights?” Fret asked.

  Setting down the empty can, Merit said, “Yes.”

  A moment ago he was exceptionally tired, but the stink of fuel or simple nerves had done something to his head, clear thoughts on the move again.

  “Maybe people should wear rubber around their heads,” the slayer thought, half-seriously. “Maybe our currents would flow better then.”

  Fret left the hole, walking to the line’s endpoint—a wooden box wearing sawdust and one durable black receiver. Brandishing a small wrench and a heavy old screwdriver, he gave one mighty shrug. “Let’s give the generator its chance.”

  The pull cord was on the other side of the chamber, and the quickest route was an easy jump over the hole in the floor. Merit felt light, almost relaxed, except he was neither. He was tired and so very sad at the same time, but those sensations had vanished. In the company of this young man, he felt renewed, and the illusion lasted until he was jumping over the opening in the floor—suspended above the oblivion, suddenly wondering if the exhausted legs had given him enough of a push.

  They had.

  But something was wrong, something that a piece of him understood before his conscious shriveled mind saw what was obvious.

  “Sir,” said a tight, angry voice.

  Merit blinked, staring at Fret’s furious expression.

  “Stupid sir,” said the boy. “You just kicked my wrench out the damned hole.”

  Zakk was watching the world with tiny eyes, with the tiny binoculars. He could see very little, but the view seemed to impress him nonetheless.

  Meanwhile Divers and the other Seven saw enormous swaths of wilderness and busy air, and they felt nearly blind. Flocks of powerful wings flew fast under the canopy, avoiding enemy fire, and the airship fleet from the District of Districts was still in the remote distance—giant gasbags looking like a swarm of flies only now reaching the edge of the Corona District. But there had been no battles today. Each side seemed to be trying to avoid enraging the other. The great prize was still missing. Diamond was lost. The important souls were cursing beside the hanger, demanding answers that nobody could give, and a moment later, a lowly colonel came running on hands and feet.

  He was a local man. Divers knew him.

  “They’re sending us our new wing,” said the officer. “Everybody needs to be out of its way.”

  Zakk appeared eager to run into the trees above the tarmac.

  Divers knew better. The aircraft in question was a slip of darkness on the edge of what he could see, and there was ample time. She dropped both of her telescopes and then showed the officer her canines, each as long as the man’s tired arms.

  The colonel summoned the courage not to back away.

  Nothing happened. Nothing changed. Then without a word, Divers looked back into the hanger, into the gloom, noting that heavy wagons were rolling clear of the deepest bunkers, new weapons filling the cradles.

  Yesterday meant little bombs and simple guns.

  Somebody was getting ready for bigger battles today.

  “Can we watch from above?” Zakk asked the colonel. “If we find a safe hole, I mean.”

  The colonel usually ruled this facility, but not with so many generals underfoot. Lacking the authority to answer, he instantly told the child, “No.”

  The Seven discussed the matter and took a vote.

  There was no point in making trouble now, Divers agreed. Waving a telescope, she said, “We’ll go inside with our new friend.”

  Zakk summoned a huge smile.

  Inside the hanger, the soldiers were wrapping heavy ropes around one of the bombs, the streamlined iron body wearing a papio skull and poisonous spiders. Divers counted the bombs and then forced the eyes upwards one last time. As if holding binoculars, she set both of the giant telescopes against the vast eyes, making one final sweep before vanishing underground.

  A sharp piece of sunlight was moving against the wilderness.

  She saw the object, saw that it was spinning as it fell, and all of the Eight realized that this was a wrench. An enormous, rapid, and nearly useless discussion began, the voices trying to decide how someone’s prized tool might have been dropped.

  The other Seven talked while Divers thought.

  She never spoke.

  And then Tritian said, “Look higher.”

  What?

  “In that pocket, that clearing,” said that shriveled twist of burning orange flesh. “Do you see what I see?”

  EIGHT

  Panoply Night wasn’t the largest airship in the Corona fleet. Its guns were minimal, the main engines underpowered, and wide-open throttles meant draining the tiny fuel tanks. Yet Panoply Night deserved to be the fleet’s flagship. Secondary engines gave it the grace of a thunderfly. There were enough quarters onboard to house an Archon’s staff, and there were call-lines waiting to be
plugged into the world, plus several protected chambers where secrets could be discovered or discussed. But what made the ship most impressive, even unique, was the huge quantity of corona parts that went into its construction: bladders were stuffed inside bladders, layers keeping the hydrogen gas safe. Scales were fixed upon scales upon more scales, and the machine’s skeleton was corona bone secured with silk rope and black-ivy glues. And in the event of a midair battle, uniquely trained pilots would watch the world through the world’s most elaborate periscopes, making their ship bounce through the air like a crazed ball.

  “All right, madam.”

  Prima was standing beside a tiny window. Armored shutters were open, and she had no idea where she was. Mooring lines held Panoply in its hiding place, while a cluster of call-lines ran off into the canopy. A never-used receiver was held tight in one hand. Behind her waited the small desk that she claimed last evening, and the office that came with the desk, along with the young lieutenant who had already proved himself as being endearingly, gorgeously competent.

  “He’s waiting, madam.”

  Sondaw had been a commissioned officer for just nine days.

  Pressing the receiver to her ear, Prima said, “Yes.”

  A man asked, “Is this the Archon?”

  She intended to say, “Yes,” again. But the static exploded, pops and whistles generated somewhere along the copper.

  Then the static was gone, and from the sudden calm, the man asked, “Are you Prima?”

  “I’m Prima. Merit?”

  “Yes.”

  Another surge of noise attacked the line. The call was coming from the District of Mists, but that wasn’t why the sound was so lousy. Sondaw had explained that the voice could be coming from anywhere, but the caller had an ally in the Mists, and at least two long lines had been stitched together.

  When the static dissolved, she shouted, “Are you safe?”

  “Safer than you,” he said.

  Even from a distance, Merit looked to be in agony—a man who had lost his wife and whose only child was in peril.

  “Don’t tell me where you are,” she said.

  He laughed at that, or the interference sounded like laughter.

  “We’re trying to find the traitor,” she said.

  “You’ve got multiple leaks,” he said.

  “We don’t know that,” she began, but the static surged again.

  Then the line quieted, and Merit was already talking. “ . . . but the papio wouldn’t want the trees dropped. They want Diamond. They’d love having my son for themselves . . . ”

  A bright surge of electricity left her ear aching.

  Merit’s voice chased the surge. “You can’t protect my son.”

  “We can protect him and you,” she said, unsure whether she believed those words.

  There was no response.

  Had the connection broken?

  No. By pure chance, the interfering racket subsided. Merit could have been standing inside the room beside her. Very clearly, he shouted, “Explain the situation. What’s going on at your end?”

  Prima flinched.

  “Do you hear me?” he shouted.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  Lt. Sondaw stood before the closed office door, hands behind his back, maintaining the image of the faithful soldier. Yesterday’s young face was lost. The handsome mouth was tense, eyes swollen and red.

  “There was a full assault on the Ivory Station,” said Prima. “Wings and shock troops. We were lucky to pull the government before everything burned.”

  A little quieter, Merit asked, “Did they hawk you?” Chased, he meant.

  “The wings followed us for a time, yes.”

  “And then they let you get away.”

  She nodded, speaking to herself as much as to the slayer. “They knew, I think. That we didn’t have what they wanted.”

  “What about the Happenstance?”

  “It escaped the Station, yes.”

  “And the papio went looking for it,” he guessed.

  “The Happenstance was captured, yes. Then destroyed.”

  Merit cursed. “What about its crew?”

  “Lost.”

  Cut by the news, he said nothing.

  Prima looked at the little desk. Nothing was on top but a broad stack of folders rescued from the Ivory Station, the top packet marked: CONFIDENTIAL, THE KING SYNOPSIS.

  “You were smart, Merit,” she said. “Making your own plans.”

  “Where’s List’s fleet?” he asked.

  “I’d rather not say.”

  He rephrased, asking, “Are the big ships protecting the bloodwoods, or are they pushing your way?”

  The fleet’s motions couldn’t be concealed. Merit’s hiding place didn’t offer a view, or maybe he was pretending to be blind, intentionally misleading anybody who might be eavesdropping on the line.

  Or the spies haunting her shadow.

  Prima offered the nebulous truth. “Our allies are giving us helping hands.”

  The slayer breathed once, deeply. “My wife?”

  “Haddi’s still missing.”

  Merit began to talk again, asking something else . . . but the static returned with his first syllable, frustrating both of them.

  She put a hand on top of the King files, waiting.

  Then the sputtering teased her, pretending to fade, and she said, “By nightrise, this will be the most secure District in the world. I’ll send out heavily armed patrols, and they can bring you in . . . ”

  But Merit was speaking into the same electronic storm. “ . . . is most important to me,” he said. “And you appreciate that, I’m sure.”

  She stopped talking.

  He paused as well, and then with a careful tone said, “Madam. Did you hear me?”

  “Your son is the most important part of this. Yes, of course he is.”

  Through the curtain of white noise, the man shouted, “But do you understand why I would even consider this? Can you see my point of view?”

  “What are we talking about?”

  The noise worsened.

  Then the line quieted at long last, and she said, “I couldn’t hear you. Please, tell me everything again.”

  “Ten thousand ships can’t protect Diamond,” said Merit. “One maniac pointing one cannon decides to shoot Bountiful, whatever the reason, and my son burns and falls through the demon floor.”

  She bristled, but there was no fighting the logic.

  “I intend to go where I need to go. Protecting my boy is everything.”

  A revelation squeezed her heart. “I understand,” she said.

  “Do you?”

  She saw the context and his thinking, yes. But what was lucid and reasonable to one desperate person made her weak.

  “You’re thinking of going to the papio,” she said.

  “Give me a better target,” he said.

  “For now, hide,” she said. “Move when you have to move, and call me on a fresh line tonight, tomorrow. I’ll work through the day and make everything safe.”

  Merit said nothing.

  She waited.

  Then once again, he said, “Traitors.”

  “We have several suspects,” she admitted.

  “Who—?” he began.

  But that overly long thread of copper and electricity finally failed, and nothing was left to hear but the steady whisper that inhabited every empty call-line—a voice that never breathed or used words; the voice from which a determined ear could pull free anything that it wanted to hear.

  Diamond was sitting at the back of the machine shop, the monkey at his side.

  The crew walked past the pair, looking at the boy in quite distinct ways. They were interested in him and they smiled at him, but they were suspicious too. They were scared of quite a lot today, perhaps including him, and maybe they weren’t angry but there was always a raw, furious quality to the faces. Each man used every one of those expressions, sometimes within the same few strides. A
nd sensing these shifting, combustive moods, it was easy to believe that one of them was his enemy. Father had offered a thousand assurances about the loyalty and honor of these people, but those faces showed Diamond too much. Nothing but time stood between now and the moment when somebody else would try to kill him.

  The idea was vivid and deep, and then the idea turned into belief. Belief was as good as fact. Belief felt like truth and became nothing else. But that grim truth wasn’t as terrible as he would have guessed. Some mechanic or harpooner would show the boy a mysterious grin, and his heart quickened. Or Bountiful’s captain would toss a little wink his way, and tiny places inside Diamond—tissues and talents without names—began to ready themselves for trouble.

  “Are you all right?” Elata asked.

  “I guess.”

  Not believing him, she glanced at the Master.

  “Are you sure?” asked Nissim.

  Even Good studied him.

  Diamond shook his head. He wasn’t certain about his wellbeing, no.

  Tar`ro looked at the boy, chewing on his tongue as he made his appraisal.

  “Yeah, what’s wrong?” Seldom asked.

  Too many answers begged to be offered. Diamond refused all of them, pointing across the huge room. “Something’s happening over there.”

  The winking captain had just walked past them. Two crewmen were standing before the open door. Bountiful’s top harpooner had been bolting one of the air-powered guns into its proper cradle. Five spears rested nearby, each fat with explosives and timers, and a mechanic was working on a sixth spear, rebuilding it to kill machines instead of coronas. Except he wasn’t working as much as he was glancing outside, looking down at some odd thing. The harpooner was doing the same. And Diamond could think of nothing but his father’s return.

  The captain approached the two men, and the harpooner stepped close, their faces near enough to kiss.

  Diamond watched the man and woman talk.

  The captain didn’t look outside. She studied the eyes in front of her, and then she stepped back and pretended to examine the heavy gun, holding its handles while aiming at the open air.