The Memory of Sky

by Robert Reed

  “You saved us,” Seldom said weakly.

  Diamond needed to walk. His legs wanted to walk.

  Elata came up to him. She was hunting for words, but she saw Fret on his back with his pink insides sliding out, blood coming faster each time his heart pumped. Then she backed away again.

  Karlan ran from somewhere. Stepping in front of Diamond, he carried a long crowbar in both hands. The giant seemed unsure who needed to be hit, but he was angry. He was wild and furious and ready for any good battle. Maybe he considered battering the corona’s little boy, but there wouldn’t be any satisfaction there. So he settled on striking Diamond on the shoulder, just enough to make him ache, saying, “Stay behind me. I’ll protect you, you little shit.”

  A second whiffbird had appeared, hovering just beyond the shop door.

  More papio shouted in at them, demanding that every gun was tossed to their wood-loving feet.

  Master Nissim stood beside Karlan.

  Tar`ro stepped in front of both of them, his pistol held high, as if ready to shoot the ceiling. Then to Karlan, he said, “If you think you can drop that ship with a piece of iron, do it. Go on.”

  “I might,” Karlan said, almost laughing.

  “Drop the bar or I’ll shoot you here,” Tar`ro said. “Otherwise, they’ll kill everybody and let one of us heal.”

  “Yeah,” said the giant boy. “That’s what they should have done to begin with.”

  Father was kneeling, holding Fret’s pale hand.

  The crowbar hit the floor, and then with an underhand motion, Tar`ro tossed his gun toward the open air.

  Bountiful had stopped climbing. Diamond felt it hovering, and after a few moments it began to drop, another pair of whiffbirds settling on top of its frame.

  Fret said, “This.”

  Father asked, “What?”

  Diamond stepped around the blood. The man ate fruit today, chewed pieces showing inside the opened stomach. Fret looked sick but calm, weak but not quite uncomfortable. Life meant pain, but he was gone from life in too many ways, and Diamond studied his face and the open mouth, waiting for his father to tell him to not look, to back away.

  Father did nothing of the kind.

  The two of them kneeled, keeping their knees out of the gore, and then Diamond said, “I wonder if I could help. If I gave him my blood, or something.”

  Father didn’t react.

  The body beside them managed one good breath, and then death was everywhere inside a piece of something that wasn’t Fret.

  “They tried that,” Father said.

  “Tried what?” Diamond asked.

  “Your blood.” Father’s face was pale, his eyes red and sorry. “The samples from your last physicals. Remember them?”

  Teams of doctors had given Diamond a day full of tests, stealing away huge vials of blood.

  “I agreed to those experiments,” Father confessed. “We thought . . . your mother and I decided . . . that if your blood could restore life or cure illnesses, it would just be another blessing for having you . . . ”

  “Did it help?” the boy asked.

  “Not even a little, no.”

  Papio were everywhere else in the ship. They had come through the bridge’s hatch, and now they were filling the hallway, walking upright with guns cradled in their big arms, each one shouting orders. Diamond had never seen papio soldiers. As promised, they were huge men and women, each trained until the muscles bulged, but what Diamond didn’t expect were voices even bigger than those magnificent bodies.

  “We are great,” they roared. “And you must be good.”

  Father stood and offered Diamond his hand.

  The boy took hold.

  And then Father confessed something else.

  “We were greedy with your blood,” he said, smiling shyly as his voice broke. “We wanted more, as if one marvel wasn’t enough.”

  Every day began with rain and misty brilliance, and every day faded at its own pace, approaching that moment when the sun had to be strangled.

  Watching the night build was a trustworthy pleasure.

  Standing at the front of the Ruler’s bridge, King stared out through the pilot’s window. Lights came alive in the surrounding trees. Several quick vessels were passing under the fleet—fletches scouting the territory past the Hole, probably. Father was talking to his new generals. Those men were still wary of Father. But they were soldiers and natural fighters, and they didn’t let themselves stay quiet when they didn’t agree. They warned the civilian that merging their giant fleet with the Corona’s forces was a huge undertaking, cumbersome yet essential. And Father told them that he didn’t want any part of the military work, but since they were new to their posts, they had to appreciate the goals and what missteps were completely unacceptable.

  King could twist his head farther than any human could. He could watch the world outside and enjoy whatever was happening behind him.

  “We’re going to win tomorrow,” said Father.

  Faces nodded out of reflex.

  “And we are going to lose,” he said.

  Nobody else understood. Chests came forward, and someone said, “We never lose our wars.”

  “ ‘Our wars,’ ” Father repeated. “Is this ‘our war’?”

  They sensed a trap, and the generals assumed it was the only trap. One of them took it upon himself to say, “Humans have been slaughtered. Even if the papio had no role in the first crime, they came out of their sanctuary to kill hundreds more of our brothers. We must, must push ahead in force, with full resolve. We have no choice but make them bleed, or more trees will die.”

  Standing in one neat line, the military men were nodding in unison.

  “I agree,” said Father.

  His audience expected to hear as much.

  “But what happens if we’re too successful?”

  They didn’t understand.

  “Vengeance is always sloppy,” Father said. “Our enemies won’t just stand on their hands, counting their dead until the tallies are just about even. They’ll claim their turn, counterattacking us, and we will lose expensive ships and soldiers who were your friends, and then it isn’t tomorrow. It’s the day after, war is declared. Then it’s twenty days later, and you’re standing on this bridge, trying to win a struggle with half your fleet and no ammunition, and I’m a political beast working out of sight, desperately trying to bring us back to a place where some ugly peace holds.”

  The generals looked sour, ill-at-ease.

  King glanced into the gloom outside. The scout fletches had vanished, but now the little local fleet was arriving, armed airships and commercial vehicles and several corona-hunters converging beneath the Hole. They were following a timetable agreed on a hundred recitations ago. The woman Archon remained stubbornly out of reach, but Father and his generals had come to this decision: they would marshal here for the night, and in the morning, after the rain, the combined fleet would fly en masse to the nearest portion of the reef.

  “I am a politician,” Father continued. “I’ll never be a soldier, and don’t let me pretend to be. But this situation is political and it is very complex. You have no choice but believe me. Winning tomorrow is not a matter of bombs and death. Losing might be, but not winning.”

  “What are you talking about?” one officer asked.

  “I know something,” said Father. “Small events and patience have given me insights, and I won’t explain myself. Don’t ask. But we have a rare opportunity here. We can come home richer than when we left, and at least in their public eye, the papio will think that they have won a good small war of their own.”

  “Which war is that?” another asked.

  “Our fleet will provide cover for the righteous people,” said Father. “The Corona forces are free to blow up all of the bunkers and hangers they can find, and they can even land troops and try a running war on the sharp coral.”

  “They’ll get chopped down,” the ranking general warned.

  F
ather said nothing, and he said it in a certain way.

  Finally, the soldiers understood some part of this plan. They found themselves agreeing with the little man, at least enough that they could narrow their eyes, peering into the future with cold smirks and knowing clicks of the tongues.

  The meeting ended when a military session began in a distant room.

  Father joined King at the window.

  His son was counting the little ships, and then another one of the endless aides announced, “Sir, you have a visitor.”

  Father turned away, immediately saying an unfamiliar name.

  King found an old man standing on weak legs.

  “I’m very busy,” Father said.

  “So I see,” the old man replied with a sharp tone.

  “Where’s your daughter?” Father asked.

  King saw a familiar face inside the new face. This was Prima’s father—a retired trader in corona guts and skins.

  “She’s directly below you,” the man answered.

  “And the boy, our friend Diamond . . . where is he?”

  That amused the trader. “I haven’t been told. Which makes me think, sir, that you probably know more than I do.”

  The Archon of Archons nodded thoughtfully, and he looked down from the bridge. Then with a tight slow voice, he said, “We have berths here for every ship. Tell your daughter to dock beside me, and we can meet.”

  “No, sir.”

  “What’s that?”

  “There are no call-lines in mid-air. That’s why she asked me to come and deliver this message to you personally. She wants you to know her intentions.”

  “Her intentions,” Father said.

  The plates on King’s body lifted.

  “My daughter and her armada are ready, and they intend to embark now, without delay. This is a night journey. Speed matters. But she wants me to tell you that you are welcome to push free of your hiding places and follow at your convenience.”

  “My convenience?”

  “Or stay where you are. She would never presume to feed orders to any Archon.”

  Father’s eyes grew big. “And where is she going?”

  The old man laughed quietly.

  “Really, List,” he said. “Are you begging me to paint you a map?”

  NINE

  She was a burr-tree branch and then a ghost, and then she returned again as a leatherwing watching Bountiful with four superior eyes. She kept tabs on the Diamond boy and the humans, learning that the airship was about to slip away to a fresh hiding place. A sleek leatherwing could match the ship’s pace, but someone would notice her. Quest didn’t want anyone noticing her. She wanted to run the branches, biding her time. But then she heard papio wings on patrol and the whiffbirds rising, and that was why she turned into a ghost again, sloughing off her clumsiest pieces and everything that was remotely visible.

  She hadn’t been so tiny in a very long while.

  Bountiful passed near the ghost’s hiding place, but she couldn’t see Diamond. She wanted to see him again but she was above the airship and the shop was in its belly, and the whiffbirds were coming fast, and she was so tiny and so invisible that it didn’t feel like bravery when she fell like a leaf.

  Any other time, someone would have heard the odd thump or felt the tiny change in buoyancy. But Bountiful was maneuvering and the whiffbirds were arriving, leaving her free to scamper where she wished, clinging to ship’s steepest face.

  Every camouflage was in play. Quest’s overlapping shells bent light and delayed light, and what remained would look and feel identical to the ship’s skin, complete to the textures and vagaries of the green dye. Every sound that she made was either killed or transformed into harmless noise. Any odiferous molecule that might leak free was destroyed before it could betray her. Her legs were minimal and silent, and most importantly, her toes were eager to cling to any surface. The entire body served as one adequate eye, and because she was so silent and free of scent, powerful little ears and nostrils missed nothing and nothing could sneak up on her.

  One whiffbird died, but the roaring stinking machines were everywhere, landing on top to drop off the soldiers and ropes, and once those ropes were secured, the soldiers climbed down the ship’s body, aiming for hatches and doorways and the open shop.

  Quest clung to the ship’s skin and to her courage.

  The simple weight of the whiffbirds took hold of Bountiful, dragging it down. Three papio passed within reach of her, and the bridge was boarded. Then the new captain bellowed orders in papio, and a new pilot dropped ballast while turning the ship’s bow. A fresh course was attacked. Engines pushed them toward the reef, following the straightest possible line. Speed mattered. But darkness was more important, and it was coming soon. With her abrasive dense language, the papio captain spoke across the intercom, explaining what she wanted and what her superiors wanted and what her species deserved to gain from the next little while.

  The ship’s skin was slick and vertical and then it was past vertical.

  Quest was walking beneath the bladders, listening past the engine sounds and footfalls, hunting for the name.

  “Diamond,” said a papio mouth.

  Another mouth asked, “What?”

  “I’m honored to meet you, Diamond,” said the papio.

  The reef-human sounded young but grown.

  Quest had her best ears pushed against the ship’s skin, and she crept down to where she was level with the crew’s cabins. Each cabin had a little window wearing shades. All of the shades were closed. She made no sound as she moved, voices growing louder with each short careful stride.

  “We’ve already met,” Diamond said. “When I visited the reef, you were there. I remember you.”

  “You remember my face?”

  “The Archon of Archons walked past you,” said the boy. “You watched him while he was talking, telling the papio what they should do.”

  “I remember that.”

  “ ‘Murder me and steal these two treasures,’ he said. He was talking about King and me.”

  “Your memory is remarkable,” said the man.

  A new sound arrived. Metal banged against metal. Quest was near enough to hear Diamond take a deep breath, as if ready to talk again.

  But he said nothing.

  Quest wanted to listen to the boy. But it was more than just wanting. Quest longed to hear the mind tied to that voice. She wanted words and the quiet breaths that meant nothing and the face too. No moment in her life was filled with such deep wrenching hope. She was tiny and too exposed already, and she didn’t have a mouth on this body, much less any voice that her brother would comprehend. But she wanted to see him inside the cabin, talking to the man that he remembered and that she had probably seen from an enormous distance.

  Diamond made a small anguished sound.

  “Don’t worry,” the papio said.

  Quest was clinging outside Diamond’s cabin. But the shade was pulled tight and secured, and she didn’t dare cut through the window or the wall. Much as she wanted to look inside, there was nothing to do but cling to the ship and listen.

  A new voice came, loud and close.

  “No,” said a monkey.

  The papio man said, “Hold him for me. Please.”

  “Why?” Diamond asked.

  “Because he’s your friend and you don’t want him hurt.”

  Objects were hitting the cabin floor, and Diamond said, “Are you putting Good in that sack?”

  “No, Diamond. You are.”

  The monkey said, “Bad. Bad, shitty bad.”

  Noises built a picture. Quest listened to a battle that ended with one loud bite, and what might have been bone snapped. But then the monkey was inside the sack, cursing and sobbing at the same time.

  “Show me,” said the papio.

  “No.”

  The man laughed. “I’ve seen that kind of marvel before. You’ll have a fine new thumb soon enough.”

  The boy didn’t talk.
<
br />   Metal objects were moved.

  “What is that?” Diamond asked.

  “A cooler.”

  “What’s inside it?”

  “Dry ice.”

  “Why?”

  “Trousers,” said the man.

  “What?”

  “Let your trousers fall.”

  “No.”

  There was a pause, brief and tense. Then the man asked, “Do you think that I want to do this? I don’t. I don’t at all. But I have orders. We need pieces of you for study. I’ll take them and place them carefully in this cooler, and everything will grow back quickly enough, I promise.”

  “No,” Diamond said.

  The man tried to laugh. Then he tried to sound angry disapproving. “It won’t hurt any worse than your thumb hurt. And how bad was that?”

  Diamond was breathing quickly.

  “Or maybe I should settle for taking your thumb,” said the man. “Here. Let me kill the monkey and cut him open.”

  “No.”

  “What I want looks a little bit like a thumb, doesn’t it?”

  “Don’t,” said the boy.

  “Trousers,” the man said.

  Silence.

  The man said, “Now.”

  “All right,” said Diamond.

  Quickly, without a sloppy step, Quest ran. She was a quiver of light racing across the ship’s skin, hurrying toward the shop. Every big door had been closed and secured, but there were hatches for emergencies and vents to push fumes out of the close spaces. She slipped inside the first vent. Fear didn’t exist. Without hesitation and very little caution, she slipped into a big noisy room smelling of tree-walkers and the papio. Only the papio were visible. Three whiffbirds were being refueled, and that’s what she needed. Quest wanted energy and mass, and the odors of the living couldn’t hide the sweet fragrances of dead meat.

  A storage closet was closed but not locked.

  Nobody noticed the door open briefly. Inside that small dark space, dead tree-walkers had been stacked on the floor. They were in pieces. Quest looked for living faces and found none, and then she eased her way down to the carnage, ready to battle any kind of revulsion for what was to come next.

  But there was no revulsion.

  She dissolved one of her shells and made a mouth.